(48-0 kansas state)
Saturday, October 29, 2022
Cowpokes Gettin' Poked in the Asshole
It's 41-0 K-State (22) and they have the ball in the OK State red zone agayne.
DeSantis Not Going Down Without a Fight!
End 3: Sen.Walker 35 Gov. DeSantis 20.
Been a characteristic of Billy's Army that they fight back. Laudable.
Cocks
HT Cocks (25) 7 Mizzou 17.
10:56 3Q Nebraska 9 Illinoise (17) 20.
HT Sen. Herschel Walker 28 Gov. Ron DeSantis 3.
FT "Golden Gophers" 31 "Scarlet Knights" 0. Minimal noticeable effect in the change of offensive coordinators.
*
FT in 4 OT. Virginny 12 Miami Gardens 14. I assume that one team finally scored a TD and then went for two and the other team scored a TD and went for two and that UMG made the two and UVA didn’t. However, it could be that it was 4 FGs in OT with a safety thrown in for extra comic effect. However it was 14-12 in 4 OTs is embarrassing.
*Just saw this and have never in my life seen the like: the first TEN combined possessions of these teams ended in punts. TEN.
Officials: 146 dead after Halloween crowd surge in Seoul
Shocking. Stunning. God keep them. Grief. Oh my God.
Syracuse got embarrassed. FT "Orangemen" (16) 24 Notre Dame 41. Irishmen didn't pile on on their last possession. That 17-point loss by the 1-point underdog is legitimate and 'Cuse will be rightly punished for it in the rankings.
Can you believe it? UConn won another tackle football game and against a boys team playing 11 men. 13-3 "Huskies" the final over Boston College who should be firing their coach by now. Connecticut now 4 and 5.
FSU (5-3) squished the "Yellow Jackets" 41-16. FSU is comin'.
Oh my God, "Broncos"-"Colts" deja vu in C-ville. They're going into OVERTIME tied 6-6.UMG had 1st and goal at the Virginia 3 and couldn't score the TD. The apocalypse is upon us.
Both ND and OSU have the ball # and goal. No reason for ND to pile on here. OSU, if they can score, it was only a one-TD game to start with, so they can be excused but I hope it is not lost on AP voters that PSU hung with OSU the whole fucking game and that the final score, if OSU scores, is going to be misleading.
Orange
Syracuse (16) made it a game! It's 38-24 now, "Fighting Irish" still, ND will win but they got within 7 late in 3rd Q.
Tremendous showing by PSU in this game no matter how it turns out. It's now 30-24 OSU and they have the ball but that isn't Michigan, an embarrassment. And PSU actually led in the 4th Q 23-21! Such a good showing that OSU might drop from their lofty #2 ranking. Congratulations to the "Nittany Lions" even if they lose.
Scores
'Cuse (16) 7 Lakers 24, 7:41 3rd.
FT Brighton (and Hove Albion) 4 Swine Chelsea 1 :o
FT Rooks 4 Villains 0. Fucking Rooks are impenetrable!
10:42 3rd Cadavers 3 Gardeners 3. Al Michaels 'casting?
8:20 3rd Semiholes 31 "Yellow Jackets" 10. Man.
FT Brighton (and Hove Albion) 4 Swine Chelsea 1 :o
FT Rooks 4 Villains 0. Fucking Rooks are impenetrable!
10:42 3rd Cadavers 3 Gardeners 3. Al Michaels 'casting?
8:20 3rd Semiholes 31 "Yellow Jackets" 10. Man.
Fourth and Franklin
First possession of 2nd half PSU 4th and two at OSU 19. Franklin goes for it. Franklin doesn't get it. Agayne.
Scholarly Tackle Football
HT: PSU (13) OSU (2) 14. Weirdest half. Bucks got two INTs and 10 points off them. PSU appeared dead and about to be really, most sincerely dead. Then they score two TDs. Then, with only 1' left OSU moved from its 31 to the PSU 8 with 6" left. They reached too far: Rather than take the peep and the lead into the locker room, they tried one more pass and the QB was sacked, fumbled and that was that. PSU's two TD drives were of 79 and 73 yards so the "Nittany Lions" have been able to move the ball on OSU. The Michigan game was close at the half and into the 3rd Q too only for the "Wolverines" to pull away in a rout. Ohio State players and coaches are seething in the locker room right now.
HT: Syracuse (16) 7 Notre Dame 21. The Dome is being painted by the golden domers.
HT: UConn 10 BC 3. Good for Poodles; embarrassing for Pigeons.
HT FSU 24 GT 3. "Seminoles" on warpath agin' "Rambling Wreck".
HT Virginia 0 Miami Gardens 3. Last-second FG before half gives Gardeners the lead.
Anti-Democracy
-Russia
-Great Britain
-America
-Israel
-Sweden
-Italy
-Brazil
-Hungary
That's not all the countries in the world, nor all the democracies but it represents the biggest democracies excluding India and Germany of India, particularly if you add France as maybe a wanna be associate member of the club of nascent or worse autocracies in varying states of being. It does not include the rest of the European Union, Canada, or Australia.
Those are eight completely different countries with different cultures, different political histories and different experiences with democracy which, by any objective measure have been extremely successful. None has ever been stronger, more secure, or more prosperous. It is in these countries that one sees most clearly the rise of right-wing anti-democracy.
There is ideological cross-fertilization. The American right has a love affair with Vladimir Putin; UKIP leader Nigel
Farage campaigned with Trump in 2016; Viktor Orban is a rock star to the
American right, having appeared at CPAC gatherings. Steve Bannon campaigned with Italian right-wing strongwoman Giorgia Meloni. Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Lauren Boebert cheered her election on the floor of the House of Representatives.
"Ideological cross-fertilization": What is the ideology that is being cross-fertilized? It is a thin soup of strongmen and anti-democratic, religious nationalism. That's it. They rail against vagueries: "globalists," "elites." They see something in one another that no one else sees; they hear dog whistles none else hear.
But thin and vague as it is it is real and it is global and there is no counter-movement of countries. How many authoritarian/dictatorial countries want to go truly democratic? Ukraine is the only one that comes to mind.
Zillions of key strokes have been spent, including here, trying to grasp the kernel of Donald Trump's appeal. Many, including the undersigned, can see, in retrospect the "authoritarian personality" identified in the 1950's in the U.S.; we can trace the germ if we are inclined to the long view back to Kevin Phillips' Southern Strategy in the late 1960's; or to Charles Lindbergh and America First in 1941, or to Andrew Jackson's presidency in the 1830's. But history can be bunk. Trumpism started in 2015. It took the U.S. completely by surprise. But it was not the first. Britain, with Brexit, that was the first. Very close in time to Trump's election and recognized, and predicted, by him as a kindred spirit that would succeed. But even adding the English-speaking cousins together has not made that kernel easier to grasp. It is still like trying to hold that thin soup of commonality with your hands. Expanding the sample to the above-listed countries only deepens the confusion and turns the soup into mercury: there, difficult to identify, impossible to pin down, but no doubt it is there.
The consolidation of power continues in countries across the world. In four days Israel will hold its fifth election in four years. A religious nationalist, extreme right-wing man and party--Jewish Power--is set to be the linchpin of a new government headed once again by a recycled, used up, right-wing strongman, Benjamin Netanyahu. A week from then, on November 8, the U.S. will hold its biennial elections for the national legislature. In the color scheme of America it will be a red wave that will deliver both chambers to the anti-democrats in thrall to Trump. The American red wave will be channeled by threats, intimidation and violence and will harden into a cement that will permanently hem Democrats further away from political power. The red cement will also be the walk way for Trump or a Trump follower to reclaim the presidency in 2024. Orban will no doubt celebrate, as will Ben-Givir in Israel; Bannon too, as he prepares to serve his jail sentence; Putin is looking on with stars in his eyes; Jair Bolsonaro will see soul-mates in the new Republican majority.
I confess that I do not know why this has happened, why it has happened now, and why it has happened in so many prominent democratic countries.
No Joy
This is from the Toronto Star:
Hanging around the Miami Heat for a few days and it’s clear no one is quite sure what’s up with Kyle Lowry.
He’s had more blah games than good ones to start the season, the Heat don’t look offensively sharp, they don’t guard particularly well, and Dr. Lowry just doesn’t look himself.
Yes, there are off-court issues that are still weighing on his mind but the weird part is that he doesn’t seem to be getting much joy out of playing the game. One fellow who knows the Heat inside and out says he thinks the last time he saw Lowry smile on a basketball court was in Toronto last season. He didn’t look like himself in either of the Raptors’ games in Miami.
It can’t be easy being on the Heat and all the talk about “culture” has to wear thin. It’s not a fun-loving bunch and stern head coach Erik Spoelstra does not embody much fun or create a relaxed atmosphere.
I remember talking to Lowry and people close to him when he finally moved on from the Raptors and got to pick where he would go. He envisioned a lot of golf (he plays a ton now), a good team atmosphere (I can’t say that was evident last weekend) and a fine end to what could be a Hall of Fame career. He’s not getting that and I’m sure it’s eating at him a little bit.
…Maybe Lowry is just destined to play out his dotage in a city he chose under circumstances he couldn’t have seen coming.
And if that’s the case, that’s too bad. He’s earned better.
Hanging around the Miami Heat for a few days and it’s clear no one is quite sure what’s up with Kyle Lowry.
He’s had more blah games than good ones to start the season, the Heat don’t look offensively sharp, they don’t guard particularly well, and Dr. Lowry just doesn’t look himself.
Yes, there are off-court issues that are still weighing on his mind but the weird part is that he doesn’t seem to be getting much joy out of playing the game. One fellow who knows the Heat inside and out says he thinks the last time he saw Lowry smile on a basketball court was in Toronto last season. He didn’t look like himself in either of the Raptors’ games in Miami.
It can’t be easy being on the Heat and all the talk about “culture” has to wear thin. It’s not a fun-loving bunch and stern head coach Erik Spoelstra does not embody much fun or create a relaxed atmosphere.
I remember talking to Lowry and people close to him when he finally moved on from the Raptors and got to pick where he would go. He envisioned a lot of golf (he plays a ton now), a good team atmosphere (I can’t say that was evident last weekend) and a fine end to what could be a Hall of Fame career. He’s not getting that and I’m sure it’s eating at him a little bit.
…Maybe Lowry is just destined to play out his dotage in a city he chose under circumstances he couldn’t have seen coming.
And if that’s the case, that’s too bad. He’s earned better.
"Disintegration"
Pelosi attack shocks country on edge about democracy threats
WASHINGTON (AP) — An America that can already feel like it’s hurtling toward political disintegration…
[AP doesn't used wordage like political disintegration lightly.]
...extremism that has coursed through
American politics in recent years, adding to a sense of foreboding with
the Nov. 8 election nearly at hand.
Armed watchers are staking out ballot drop boxes in Arizona to guard against false conspiracies about voter fraud. Threats against members of Congress have risen to historic levels. Public opinion surveys show fears for a fragile democracy and even of a civil war. Former President Donald Trump continues to deny that he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, and his acolytes are attempting to consolidate their power over future elections.
Power in democracies is diffused. Consolidation of power after democratic or quasi-democratic elections is what wanna-be one party states do.
All Over the World
Israel's far right advance in polls as election looms
Israel is having another election Tuesday--Man, our Founding Fathers got some stuff wrong, but Israel's founding fathers, holy hell--its fifth in four years and Itamar Ben-Gvir, is poised to be kingmaker if not Prime Minister. Look at how Ben-Gvir and his party are described:
- pulled out his pistol and called for Palestinians who threw stones to be shot by police. "I'll mow you down," he shouted later. "We're the landlords here, remember that, I am your landlord."
-Jewish Power party (get it? White power?)
-Ben-Gvir is captivating an army of young voters who are putting their faith in Israel's extreme right wing. He offers them a tantalising hit of national-religious identity politics plus a possible part in power, while his many detractors fear the rise of a demagogue...
- a new generation of voters who see him as the "anti-system" politician, according to the polling expert Prof Tamar Hermann from the Israel Democracy Institute.
-"He gives them a voice… he doesn't blink, he's not trying to wrap his ideas in sweet words or to appeal to more sophisticated or moderate audiences. To some people this is the preferred perfume," she told the BBC.
- Ben-Gvir is the ideological heir of a racist, fringe movement whose founder was banned by the Israeli authorities from running in elections in the 1980s.
-wants to expel "disloyal" Arabs and would establish a ministry for encouraged emigration of "enemy" Palestinian citizens of Israel.
-At a campaign rally of his supporters this week, security guards pushed back a crowd of religious young men trying to mob their hero as chants of "Ben-Gvir, Ben-Gvir" broke out.
-The politician danced in circles holding...the crowd's devoted attention.
-"A few months ago we started to save the state of Israel," he shouted from the rally podium. "You deserve a different reality!"
-Ben-Gvir's benefactor will be Benjamin Netanyahu...[who] needs the [far right] parties onboard as they are proposing laws which would weaken judges' independence and water down corruption rules if they get into the coalition. Members of the current government believe this would help Mr Netanyahu swerve his ongoing trial for alleged bribery and other charges.
-One veteran observer of Israeli politics believes Tuesday's election brings the country to a "fateful" point.
"[Ben-Gvir and Smotrich] want to change the type of democracy we have in Israel, they want to take us into a potential dark moment," says Yaakov Katz, editor of the Jerusalem Post in an interview with the BBC.
- "[Netanyahu] is flanked by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir with racist and fascist attitudes," he said.
-The polls currently suggest a tie between the two main parliamentary blocs - with Mr Netanyahu edging ahead.
Friday, October 28, 2022
Yep
"It was like just a scene out of a movie. I'll never forget that night. I have pictures on my phone from that night that I'll probably frame up in my house at some point in time and tell my kids, 'This is one of the biggest moments in sports and in the history of the country.'"
--Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell, on the night the NBA shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic
A trainer in Oklahoma City runs out of the tunnel onto the floor of the arena and tells the referees that one of the players has just tested positive. The refs confer for a few minutes, I think they called New York, and then after about 15 mins, it was a long time, the public address announcer announces that the game has been postponed, he gives a very anodyne reason, may even have added that the crowd was not in danger. And that was fucking that for like three months. It took a long time, still that night but still, for the word to get out that it was because of COVID. The entire country was perplexed. Yep, the night the NBA shut down.
Sex
Great corrupter, huh? That and money, right? S-1 E-16 is all about that most powerful combination $-E-X. Overtly about sex and money, implicitly about sex and money, and in the case of Olya, Vasya's ex-and the current central bank head, symbolically about $-E-X.
First, Sergei (foreign minister), who has already demonstrated himself to be a mark bedding the India ambassador's wife, is found by Vasya in bed and hung over with another woman, "blondie." Vasya goes looking for him because he's already late for a meeting.
Then Olya. Olya goes to a Ukrainian Fort Knox for the unconvincing reason of getting a tour of the vault and the bars of gold. (?) (I said it was an unconvincing reason.) Her guide is a man who evidently meets certain unclear Ukrainian standards of male hotness I suppose, who with the supreme confidence bestowed by his status, hits on Olya before they even enter the vault. There are double entendres in this episode and those may be double entendres: "gold standard"-hotness standard, entry to a closed, secure "vault." However that may be it's a subordinate hitting on his boss. Which is contraindicated no matter the hotness standard achieved. Once alone "inside" (the gold vault) Dimitriy increases his attentions and Olya flirts right along with him, viz:
Flirting going down
Dmitriy: "Do you want to hold it?"
Olya: "I don't know..."
Dmitriy: "Go ahead..."
Olya: "May I?"...
Dmitriy: "Sure"...
Olya: "Is it heavy"?
Olya: "Wow."
Well-played, no? If you were blind and just heard...The Ukrainian audience must have cracked up at that.
Ooh, I didn't notice this the first time!
A hand touch as he's putting the gold bar back! Can you feel the ⚡️? Oh Olya, you tease!
Dimitriy knows he's making progress and playfully juggles one of the gold bars. But Olya
has turned her back and doesn't see. Dimitriy drops the on the floor causing it to break in half
to reveal a suspicious white color inside. Cement? "Fools gold?" Olya
abruptly turns around to see what happened and Dimitriy steps over the broken bar in a panic, kicking a piece under one of the racks, and plants a kiss on Olya's cheek as distraction. Olya finally says I'm outta here and tries to leave.
But the vault door has locked behind them,
And Dimitriy implausibly does not have a key,
And cell phones don't work because of the 50 cm thickness of the walls,
And neither does yelling for help or pounding on the thick metal doors as Olya attempts.
Whereupon an icky moment occurs. Preliminary to icky, I have no reason to doubt the translator's captioning. (S)he has gotten everything correct in the English version so far as I can tell and with none of the syntactical awkwardness that can make captions unbearable. So although the word is shocking, I assume it is rightly translated. Dimitriy tells Olya to stop screaming, that nobody could possibly hear her:
"Even if I rape you here."
Definite ick.
The vault flirting scene ends with Dimitriy and Olya having to spend the night together sleeping in the vault--on different racks!--of bars of gold.
Dimitriy: "I could spread dollars underneath and cover you with Euros."
Olya takes that well, responding with a smile.
The
conclusion of the vault scene is interrupted by a luncheon that Vasya
and Sergei have with the IMF head, a woman, who brings along a friend,
woman also, because "You said you wouldn't be alone." Before the women arrive Vasya instructs Sergei to flirt with the IMF
woman "to buy us time, a year, two would be better,” to pay back loans. "Are you using me?" "Yes." So, Vasya has had some ethical gold flake off him. Sergei, the "collector of women", just smiles at Vasya's honest admission and gets down to brass tacks. Which is an uncomfortable moment for me. I don't like when actresses are meant to play role requiring their acknowledgement that they are unattractive. I don't like that at all.
"Is she attractive?" Sergei asks Vasya. The audience has seen the IMF chief and knows the answer to the question. Vasya doesn't respond.
E-16 ends with a role reversal, a smart technique treating with ethical dilemmas that we have come to expect from these marvelous screenwriters. Though I appreciate the technique I don't get this one. In the last scene Vasya is shown sleeping--solo--the next morning, but with one shoe and sock off, when Sergei calls to see where he is. Vasya is late for a meeting, hung over. He sits up after the call to get ready to go to work and next to his bed is a giant bouquet of red roses. Puzzled, Vasya notices a card, with the Ukrainian state seal on the outside. Inside the writing,
"CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR RETIREMENT"
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