Sunday’s Forum
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103 responses to “Sunday’s Forum”
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Gavin Newsom on Friday announced the pardons for Bounchan Keola, 39, and Kao Saelee, 41, who were both sent to US immigration authorities last year after spending decades in prison for teenage convictions and had battled wildfires as incarcerated firefighters.
Both men told their stories to the Guardian from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) jails last fall, prompting national outrage about their potential deportation to Laos, a country their families had fled as refugees decades ago.
“I could never have imagined this would happen,” Saelee told the Guardian by phone after learning the news. Saelee, who was two years old when his family left Laos, spent 22 years in prison for a robbery when he was a teen, and after completing his sentence was transferred to Ice for deportation. He was released from an Ice jail last week and came home to his family in the Fresno, California, area, reuniting for the first time in decades.
Keola spent more than two decades in prison after he was prosecuted as an adult at age 16 and accepted a plea deal in a second-degree attempted murder case. At the end of his sentence last year, he served on the frontlines of massive wildfires as part of an inmate firefighting program. He was hit by a fallen tree and suffered a near-fatal injury.
This country just loves to crush any hopes or dreams our youthful miscreants might have on their way to the trash heap. Glad these 2 get another chance.
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Lewis was a passenger in a car driven by her friend and former Berkeley High School classmate, Ross Schultz, 20, who also died in accident on Tuesday afternoon, according to her family and authorities.
“We loved her so much and are in a kind of pain none of us has experienced,” Michael Lewis said in a statement to Berkeleyside, a community news site that first reported the deaths.
“She loved Ross, with whom she died. She loved to live and our hearts are so broken they can’t find the words to describe the feeling.”
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@CSK: We need some bogeymen to justify our bloated defense budgets. Iran and Venezuela fit the bill. Kind of. Sort of. Well, not exactly. Neither is a real threat to the US but they do give the GOP opportunities for fear mongering.
I find it funny that Russia actually is capable of being a real threat to the US but today’s GOP seems to be pretty chummy with them.
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That’s the story of Jason Yu, a 30-year-old father of two who had the audacity to attempt to open up an ice cream shop in San Francisco’s Mission District. Unfortunately, the city got in his way.
As reported by San Francisco Chronicle, Yu started his project – a shop that sold green-tea-flavored ice cream – in late 2018, and ultimately found a location in mid-2019 where he got to work. After committing to a lease ($7,300 a month – this is San Francisco, remember?) he hired an architect to draw up plans for the space, which proposed no structural changes or modifications.
Then the city stepped in.
After submitting plans to the department of building and inspection in November 2019, which required him to notify his neighbors, one of said neighbors – a competing ice cream shop no less – contested the idea and Yu was forced to wait until the following June before he could plead his case in front the city’s planning commission (more legal fees), who ultimately gave him the go-ahead.
So we’re ready to open, right? Wrong.
As the Chronicle explains: “Yu won approval, but then got stuck in the city’s never-ending web of securing permits. The Department of Building Inspection’s online permit tracker shows Yu faced 15 hurdles to secure his permits including getting the sign-off from a host of departments. The last to weigh in was the Department of Public Health, which said in December its review was complete, but that Yu owed more money in permit fees before the department could give the OK.”
Yu had spent a boatload – about $200,000 – by this point and still had nothing to show for it. It was then that he decided to cut his losses and abandon the idea. “This [the ice cream shop] became a nightmare project,” Yu said.
The problem facing small business owners like Yu is that, in San Francisco, existing businesses and residents are allowed to contest the establishment of new businesses or construction projects in their neighborhoods. Many – not surprisingly – have pushed these rights to their extreme because there’s little downside to filing even frivolous claims. So, as Mike Chen reports in The Frisc, an existing falafel shop can tie up a would-be competitor for months or neighbors can reject each other’s remodeling plans for the smallest of reasons.
“While community and neighborhood input is often positive, what we have here is overkill,” Chen writes. “The labyrinthine permitting and ‘Discretionary Review’ process (where appeals courts can decide what cases to hear) contribute to commercial storefront vacancies and to our housing crisis.” Chen says he had observed regulatory processes like discretionary reviews and environmental appeals “for years”.
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I find it funny that Russia actually is capable of being a real threat to the US but today’s GOP seems to be pretty chummy with them.
I remember exactly when the shift from adversarial to chummy began–it was when Putin started persecuting gays.
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California faces another drought as lake beds turn to dust – a photo essay
Verdant hillsides losing their hue, receding reservoirs with bathtub rings of newly exposed earth, crops withering in the fields.
These are the visions of California’s parched landscape as the state braces for another potentially devastating drought. Water shortages and exceptionally dry conditions are already beginning to hit home.
The state is facing yet another hot, dry summer ahead, and the governor has declared a drought emergency in 41 of the state’s 58 counties. More than 37 million Californians reside in these drought areas, according to the US drought monitor.
“This is without precedent,” Newsom said at a news conference announcing the first two declarations in April, speaking from the bed of Lake Mendocino that had been reduced to arid, cracked clay. Not long ago, he would have been standing under 40ft of water. “Oftentimes we overstate the word historic, but this is indeed an historic moment.”
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Damn Loud Mouth Women
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In truly upsetting news, William Shakespeare is dead:
“As we all know, he’s one of the most important writers in the English language – for me the master. Here he is. He was the first man to get the coronavirus vaccine. He’s died in England at the age of 81.”
Sad sad news.
Oh. You mean this is a different William Shakespeare?
“Over the past few hours, as I’m sure you will have seen, a report has gone viral. I actually knew what I was saying to people, just like I always do,” she said on Friday. “I expressed myself badly; I missed out a full stop, a comma, some brackets. I wanted to clear up something that was very unclear and of course people misinterpreted it.”
Sure thing, honey. You betcha. People “misinterpreted it.” Riiiiight.
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@Teve: I love the inclusion of atheists and agnostics in that list. By definition, atheists don’t believe there is a devil so how can they love him/her? And agnostics just plain don’t care.
I do agree with this person about the “High Fallutent”. Who doesn’t hate high fallutents? Sober fallutents are much more tolerable.
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@Teve: Quite the list they have there! But… P.K’s? Preachers’ Kids?
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@OzarkHillbilly: If your family name is Shakespeare and you’re having a boy, what else are you going to name him? Betcha he’s William VI or something.
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Terrible CEOs who become fantastically rich while losing billions.
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@JohnMcC: your guess is as good as mine.
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@Kylopod: And then there’s this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GisCRxREDkY.
Pretty damn unfair that those Englishmen got first crack at all the good names!
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@OzarkHillbilly:
I don’t know what this is about.@Mikey:
And Putin is a Christian strongman. Don’t forget that very important detail. -
@OzarkHillbilly:
I thought this was going to be about Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor Greene. -
@Teve:
Every single plural on that list is a possessive.Individual’s who can’t punctuate should be shot.
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Evangelicals, Trump, and How Politics Shapes Religion—Not the Other Way Around
An acclaimed religion writer finds a complex picture of Evangelical voters and even more cause for worry about political polarization.
by Kenneth L. Woodward May 28, 2021
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@Teve: I wa’s mos’t impres’s’ed by the abs’olutely cons’is’tent u’se of the apos’trophe’s in s’everal cons’picuous’ly incorrect way’s on the s’ign
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@Sleeping Dog: Stopped clocks and all that.
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@CSK: Every single plural on that list is a possessive.
Not all of them. Effeminate men, Loud mouthed women, and Sophisticated Swine aren’t. 😉
ETA and the High Fallutent
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@OzarkHillbilly:
I know. I was so dazzled by this festival of illiteracy that I got carried away by my own hyperbole. -
@CSK: I just had to pull a pedant on your pedantry.
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@CSK: Not that I blame you for getting carried away, it’s a target rich environment.
My kingdom for an edit function!
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@OzarkHillbilly:
First you call me a pointy-headed elitist, then a pedant. It’s a good thing I like you. -
@Kylopod:
If your family name is Shakespeare and you’re having a boy, what else are you going to name him?
Francis Bacon Shakespeare, of course.
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@Teve:
“High fallutent sophisticatet swine”
Well, I don’t recall meeting those fellows, but obviously they know me.
P.K.s?
Some options:
Player killers; granted they can annoy, LOL.
Pakistan International Airlines? A possible; I know some people who’ve flown with them 🙂
Polyteknikkojen Kuoro, a Finnish academic male choir (“in tune, dammit!”)
Publicistklubbe: an associationof Swedish journalists.
Or (my bet): Promise Keepers. A bit of red-on-red player killing going on here, perchance? -
@OzarkHillbilly:..pk…
Here in Sleepytown pk is one of the few remaining swill holes on the main drag that I lived in back in my drinking daze. AKA Pizza King. -
@Chip Daniels:
Ben Jonson Shakespeare -
@Mikey:
The Crisis of the Day is that VP Harris wished everyone a good long weekend. -
@Teve:
Based on the sign, he probably thinks “repent” means to use an apostrophe whenever your pluralize a word.
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@Daryl and his brother Darryl: that’s pretty conclusive evidence that she hates the troops.
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There are far too many cases where our libertarian friends have a point.
“The landuse process is too complicated, therefore I should be allowed to build a toxic waste dump in the middle of a residential neighborhood” isn’t really a point though.
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And agnostics just plain don’t care.
Agnostics may care, they just don’t know; apatheists don’t care.
I’m an ignostic (the concept of god isn’t sufficiently well defined for “is there a god?” to be a meaningful question) apatheist (whether or not a god exists doesn’t matter because it doesn’t make any practical difference in how someone should live their life). =)
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@Stormy Dragon: yeah, San Francisco may have too many regulations, and/or some poorly-written regulations, but overall that place is doing a hell of a lot better than the libertarian paradise of Grafton, New Hampshire.
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@Mikey: “…and I’m wondering what exactly those crises are. Can someone fill me in?”
Work with Dr. Fauci and Bill Gates to unleash Covid[1] upon the USA[2].
Crashing the US economy in 2008 and 2020[3].
Presidenting whileblacka Democrat[4].
Not sucking off Putin[5].[1] Which is no worse than the flu, which only kills ‘worthless eaters’, but is still a Deadly Foreign Plague.
[2] They don’t mind unleashing COVID upon the world.
[3] Just because the GOP was holding the White House means nothing; the evils of the DemonokRAT party transcend space and time.
[4] It’s just a coincidence that the ‘we love small government’ Tea Party sprang up *after* Dubya left office, and is licks the boots of tyrants everywhere.
[5] Not that Manly Man Trump did such a thing, but Biden should continue the nonexistent tradition. -
@JohnSF:..Promise Keepers.
I always called them Penis Keepers.
As I told my then wife when they first emerged: “I’ve spent too much time side by side with men in telephone manholes the size of grave pits on hot summer days to think that these gatherings of thousands of men are all that they are cracked up to be.” -
@Stormy Dragon: I consider myself a possibilist. Anything is pretty much possible- it’s a matter of probability. The Judy Tenuda catchphrase “It Could Happen!” are words I live by.
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@Chip Daniels: If your name is Shakespeare… ‘Holdashield Shakespeare? Or is that excessively Celtic?
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I sent the “priest and a rabbit…” joke to a friend yesterday, and he returned a joke I’ll share with you. [TRIGGER WARNING: THIS JOKE CONTAINS REFERENCES TO A HERETICAL RELIGION BASED ON MINDLESS AND SLAVISH DEFERENCE TO A FICTITIOUS SKY DADDY]
(…now, on with the show…)So the Pope is having a conversation with Aliens from Mars.
Religion
Pope: “Do you know Jesus?”
Alien: “Oh, Jesus. Great guy. He comes to our planet twice every year.”
Pope: “Every year?! It’s about two millennia and we’re still waiting for his second coming.”
Alien: “Maybe he didn’t like your chocolate.”
Pope: “Chocolate?”
Alien: “Every time he visits, we gather the best chocolate from each manufacturing plant and give them to him before he leaves. Why, what did you do the first time he came here?” -
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, they get half of another chance to share between them. The convictions–even though they’ve been pardoned–will follow them as they try to find apartments, seek employment, try to enroll for schooling, apply for professional licenses, and so on.
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Hat makers distance from Nashville store amid uproar over ‘not vaccinated’ badges
Another group of MORONS learn the hard way that you can say whatever you like, but you also bear the consequences.
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@Sleeping Dog:
I never cease to be amazed at the crap people think they can say and not suffer the consequences. -
@OzarkHillbilly: Front Range Colorado is one of the few bright spots in the deepening western drought. I woke up this morning to thunder and thought, “WTF? Raining again?” Snow pack in the South Platte River basin is 135% of normal for the date, much of that late-arriving April-May precipitation. The NWS says accumulating snow above 10,000 ft tonight and tomorrow.
As soon as you get over the Continental Divide to the west, or the Palmer Divide between Denver and Colorado Springs, it’s a disaster.
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@Michael Cain: It’s pretty bad up here, too. The grass is just not growing, even with the sporadic rain we have gotten.
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@Sleeping Dog: as a former wearer of Stetsons, losing your contract to carry Stetsons in Nashville is probably a deathblow.
Too bad so sad.
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@CSK:
That type of product can be sold without consequences at some types of businesses, those that pretty much only cater to particular political viewpoints, perhaps a gun store that has a few odd ball items. The customer base won’t likely complain. But a main line biz that counts on a broad segment of society as customers and who represent national brands, that’s asking for trouble. But idiots are everywhere.
Of course the owners are likely whining to their friends that they’ve been cancelled.
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@CSK: I was born among rural people and grew up in a trailer park, I’ve spent most of my life around rural Southerners, and I currently work in a business that’s 90% rural Southerners.
It can be hard to comprehend the levels of ignorance and misinformation and confirmation bias they exist in.
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@Teve: Repent and believe in Jesu’s.
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I’m an ignostic (the concept of god isn’t sufficiently well defined for “is there a god?” to be a meaningful question) apatheist (whether or not a god exists doesn’t matter because it doesn’t make any practical difference in how someone should live their life). =)
Wouldn’t you also be agnostic on a technicality? having no answer to the question you cannot meaningfully ask.
Also, what is a squirrel? I’m guessing the same — unable to define the concept of god well enough to ask, and having the answer have no meaning in their little squirrel lives anyway.
(Other than predators and cars, I’m thinking squirrels have pretty nice lives, actually)
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Hat makers distance from Nashville store amid uproar over ‘not vaccinated’ badges
hatwrksnashville? More like hatewrksnashvile…
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Front Range Colorado is one of the few bright spots in the deepening western drought.
Not as much as you might think…
Quick trivia: where does the water in Mary’s Lake, Lake Estes, Carter Lake, Flatiron Reservoir, Horsetooth Reservoir, and Boulder Reservoir come from? Answer: Grand Lake
Now you’re probably thinking, “Grand Lake? That’s on the other side of the Rocky Mountains from all of those” Which is true, but there’s a giant tunnel under the entirety of Rocky Mountain National Park from Grand Lake and that’s where the cities on the east side of the Rockies all get the majority of their water from.
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@Sleeping Dog: @Teve:
These schmucks probably expected to be universally lauded for their wit. -
Help Wanted!
Once again the inside dining room of the local Panera is closed. Their normal hours are open til 9pm-8pm Sundays. For two months now they have closed the inside dining at 3pm everyday and today is the fourth or fifth time in at least two weeks that they have not been open at all for inside dining. Drive through is running normal hours. All this because they need new employees. I am sitting on the outside patio which is ok by me as the internet connection is working and I can pick up my Coffee Club coffee at the drive up and since there is no one else here it’s easy to find a place to park.
Yesterday when the Panera was shut down it was raining so I went over to the recently reopened IHOP. If I sit there I can get away with ordering just coffee but that and a tip adds up to $4. Their internet connection works ok but for some reason they block Facebook.
I have yet to return to the new ‘bucks to see if their inside seating is available.
Along with the new Starbucks, there is a new building being constructed on the west side of town for
Scooter’s Coffee. From the looks of the site it will be drive through and walk up. It doesn’t look like there would be room for more than a table or two.
On the east side of town another new building is being built for Smoothie King.
Just to round it out I recently learned a bakery will open in an existing store front that was just vacated by a local sandwich shop on the south side of town.
All this new retail food service activity in a town that has seen at least a dozen retail businesses close before and during the disease. Not to mention that the on campus enrollment at the University has dropped from a peak of 23,000 to 9000…before the pandemic hit.These are the numbers for the Scooter’s franchise that I found on the internet. I don’t know if the total investment cited includes the cost of a new building but somehow I doubt it.
I hope these folks know what they are doing.
Franchise Fee: $40,000
Minimum Cash Required: $100,000
Net Worth Required: $500,000
Total Investment: $331,000 – $638,000 -
@davidoatkins
An underrated aspect of both white supremacist and patriarchal thinking is that it gives lazy people an excuse never to educate themselves, improve themselves or change their behavior because they think they start off inherently smarter, wiser, and fitter than everyone else.
This was made incredibly obvious by Trump. He never had to actually learn about anything or do any work because he just had “good genes.” And Trump’s followers got to simply offload their consciences and turn off their brains by just going along with whatever he said.
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@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Best Pope joke EVAH!!!!!!!! -
@Teve:
That’s interesting, because the boobs over at Luciannec.om (my one-stop shopping place for all things Trumpish) are always enjoining their fellows to “do the research.” By that I think they mean “listen to Rush Limbaugh” and “read The Conservative Tree House and The Gateway Pundit”. -
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So it’s coming out that the biggest donor to UNC’s Journalism school, an elderly white guy named Walter Hussman jr, warned the top muckity mucks against Nikole Hannah-Jones’s appointment, because she’s ‘pushing an agenda’ and doesn’t give white people enough credit for ending slavery and promoting civil rights.
Cue Claude Raines gif.
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Dogs have grown used not being alone during the pandemic. That’s about to change and some dogs will experience separation anxiety
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/05/pandemic-puppies-will-be-alone-first-time/619024/
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@Teve:
Yikes, where did you find this? I can’t.The UNC journalism school is named after this guy.
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@CSK: I’m pretty sure that almost no one is listening to Rush Limbaugh anymore.
I point this out less to be pedantic, and more so everyone can take a moment to reflect upon the man’s legacy, and a long, painful fight against lung cancer, and then smile if they choose to. It’s a thought that brings happiness to so many people.
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@Gustopher:
Actually, they still listen to his retrospectives, marveling amongst themselves about how relevant those are. -
@Teve: I suspect Mr. Hussman would be nonplussed to read about the racist views held by Abraham Lincoln. The only thing that prevented him from advocating shipping the Blacks back to Africa was logistics. His branch of abolitionism was pretty close to “no one should be held in slavery, not even the lowly black”.
He was genuinely surprised when he met black soldiers and found that they weren’t that different from white soldiers.
It’s something that I wish was taught more in American schools, or really taught at all in American schools. Not to tear Lincoln down, but to build him up — he was a flawed man who accomplished great things, which is what we hope of America in general.
It would also be a good lesson for the purity pony posse on the left, who are always searching for the faintest whiff of racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, islamophobia or arachnophobia — if you hold people to a standard of perfection, and cancel them when they fail, they will never have an opportunity to outdo themselves.
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Front Range Colorado is one of the few bright spots in the deepening western drought.
I hear ya. Over here by the bison @ the Genesee Park Exit @ 7720 ft, I am in the clouds all day today and it has been raining the whole time. Rumbles of thunder as well.
On a completely different topic, I bought my first new lawn mower yesterday. First new one, ever (at age 61).
I have always chosen the cheapest methods for acquiring lawnmowers, short of theft of course, never paying more than $50 on craigslist.
But yesterday, a new Ryobi 21″ electric with two battery packs. What a different experience!
No yanking on a rope, no need for earplugs or exhaust fumes, 3 yr battery warranty, 5 year on pieces and parts, lifetime on the “deck” (which is a good thing because the body of the mower is a reinforced plastic). We have always used a push mower, but this has RW drive (which I used sparingly, as mowing 1 1/2 acres is a good workout).
I have had an electric car for three years, and I can’t believe that I waited so long to get an electric mower.
We had a Ryobi Trimmer, and had two batteries for it, and these smaller amperage batteries fit in the mower as well. So, if need be, I can swap them out while mowing to get a “full tank” should I run low before I finish the job.
And our immediate culture strikes again: I bought it on Home Depot’s web page, and they had a delivery option: same day for $8.99 … what??? Hell yeah! No drive, no load, no carry, $9.00 🙂
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@Gustopher: No edit, but I would like to add the following:
When you tear down the myths of great men, you put their great accomplishments in reach of not-so-great men.
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Lake Dillon does the same, as it used to be the town of Dillon before the town was relocated and the dam built. That too has a tunnel that goes under the continental divide to flow east.
Of course, all that is back when people expected government to function and politicians to work in their best interest.
Our home is surrounded by open space that was founded in 1912 and expanded in 1937. The people knew Denver would expand and wanted to ensure that there would be greenspace nearby.
And us? Our generation melted the arctic and drilled Alaska. Not progress at all.
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@CSK: I read it on Twitter this morning from some North Carolina journalist but now that I’m searching the history I’m not seeing it. I’ll let you know if I see it again.
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It’s certainly complicated. I keep meaning to do the research to track down the water rights. I believe — but could certainly be wrong — that the Colorado-Big Thompson project has the senior rights for up to 330,000 acre-feet per year for inter-basin transfers. In most years they take 220,000 to 260,000 acre feet (by comparison, Denver Water, who always gets singled out as a bad guy, is limited to 100,000 acre-feet per year). CBT is really complicated, since shares can be sold, leased, or rented in all sorts of strange combinations.
Still, the big story this year is going to be what Dept of Reclamation does with Lake Mead.
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@Teve:
Thanks! -
@Teve: The interesting part about this is people like Mike Flynn only imagine it will be the other side’s heads on pikes. It “does not compute” that it might be their own, if they really want a revolution.
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@Teve:
And Sidney Powell is saying that Trump could simply be reinstalled as president. -
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How do you like the Ryobi mower? I was contemplating getting the Dewalt version. It’s a little more expensive, but I have a bunch of Dewalt batteries. I have a postage stamp backyard and parkway, but I can’t get the push mower to work anymore. I’ve also noticed how much better the cut was when I borrowed my neighbor’s gas mower.
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@Teve:
and doesn’t give white people enough credit for ending slavery
There’s a “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” joke in there somewhere.
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On overseas news, Boris Johnson attempts to return Britain to the XIX Century.
Really, a national flagship in the 21st century? I thought “ship of state” was a metaphor, and an outdated one at that.
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@Teve: That’s how we know we are “winning”. 😉 They snag on to a “long weekend” quote and run with it all weekend, for added outrage.
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@Mikey: Well there’s the Great Recession and Benghazi and Obamacare and Benghazi and BLM and Benghazi and the pullout of Afghanistan and Benghazi and the deficit and the war in Syria and did I mention Benghazi? Lot’s of stuff.
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@CSK: Silly Sidney, they can’t just “reinstall” him, there’s a whole gubmint grift with the inauguration that they can’t monetize yet!!
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@CSK: Wait… there are research sources other than Limbaugh, Lucianne, and Gateway? Where? Who?
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@Just nutha ignint cracker: Oops, Lucianne IS the other research source. (I forgot Tree House. Mi bad. 🙁 )
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@Stormy Dragon: And all this time I thought an apatheist was a person who worshiped gorillas. (actually I’d forgotten about them/conflated them with agnostics who I think of as not caring enough to make a decision one way or the other)
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