What split-second choreography!
" ... as he promised during last year's campaign ... disappointing many Israel supporters."
" ... Netanyahu ... offered only modest regret for the decision publicly. 'Though Israel is disappointed that the embassy will not move at this time, we appreciate today's expression of President Trump's friendship to Israel and his commitment to moving the embassy in the future'."
Checklist time:
" ... as he promised during last year's campaign ... disappointing many Israel supporters."
" ... Netanyahu ... offered only modest regret for the decision publicly. 'Though Israel is disappointed that the embassy will not move at this time, we appreciate today's expression of President Trump's friendship to Israel and his commitment to moving the embassy in the future'."
Checklist time:
- China a currency manipulator -- reversed and check;
- Lift Russian sanctions -- reversed and (whew, almost got caught there!) check;
- NATO is obsolete -- reversed (just in time) and check;
- Rip up the Iran agreement -- nah better not -- check; and
- Bomb Syria (even though I had said not to earlier); check
The actual directions for all this fancy dancing came about years ago:
"In 1995, Congress passed a law requiring the embassy to be moved to Jerusalem by 1999 or else the State Department's building budget would be cut in half. But lawmakers [check out this freaky dance!] allowed the president to waive the law for six months, so every six months since 1999, Mr. Clinton, Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama and now Mr. Trump have signed such waivers."
"You know I'm not a person who breaks promises."
" ... Mr. Plummer, at this stage in his career, takes evident delight in the flourishes and extravagances that seniority affords."
IOW, wow is he overacting!
"He might also have deserved a tougher, riskier, more robust movie, but on the evidence here he seems to have made the most of disappointment."
IOW, pass.
A25 TRUMP'S ACT OF GRATUITOUS DESTRUCTION
"This has nothing to do with serving America's national interest. The U.S. economy, in particular, would do just fine under the Paris accord. This isn't about nationalism; mainly, it's about sheer spite."
"Much of today's right seems driven above all by animus toward liberals rather than specific issues. If liberals are for it, they're against it. If liberals hate it, it's good. Add to this the anti-intellectualism of the G.O.P. base, for whom scientific consensus on an issue is a minus, not a plus, with extra bonus points for undermining anything associated with President Barack Obama.
And if all this sounds too petty and vindictive to be the basis for momentous policy decisions, consider the character of the man in the White House. Need I say more?"
we sure got 'em good this time, dint we boss?
B6 HIGH TIMES IS SOLD FOR $70 MILLION TO A GROUP THAT INCLUDES A SON OF BOB MARLEY
"Whereas Playboy centerfolds displayed buxom women, High Times centerfolds displayed beautiful buds."
A thing of beauty:
"More than 20 percent of Americans now live in states where marijuana use is legal."
A22 NOISE'S USE AS A POLICE WEAPON COMES UNDER SCRUTINY
"That night, the police used a model called the 100X to emit a series of sharp, piercing beeps directed at people who in some cases were less than 10 feet away. Soon afterward, six of those who were nearby at the time and said they had developed migraine headaches, sinus pain, dizziness, facial pressure and ringing in their ears filed a lawsuit challenging the police's use of the device."
"Judge Sweet's finding that the plaintiffs had a 'cognizable claim' that their 14th Amendment rights had been violated, by an excessive use of force, means that their suit against the city and two members of the Police Department's Disorder Control Unit can proceed."
Yeah, make someone deaf -- I think that qualifies as a major violation of the 14th.
A1 WIN FOR ISOLATIONISTS; CONDEMNATION IS WIDESPREAD
Seriously, where to start?
"'I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,' the president said."
Leave my hometown out of this! You won Pennsylvania in those red, racist areas -- not the bright blue Burgh! You represent very few of us!
"'At what point do they start laughing at us as a country?' Mr. Trump said. 'We don't want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won't be'."
Ah, Mr. President -- except for one country in Central America and one in the Middle East, every country on earth has milk coming out of their noses, that's how hard they're laughing!
At two separate points in Michael Shear's excellent article, we encounter a single, shattering economic conclusion -- one which has nothing to do with Trump's "America First" argument:
" ... the decision would ultimately harm the economy by ceding the jobs of the future in clean energy and technology to overseas competitors."
And later, we get a quote from President Obama:
"'The nations that remain in the Paris agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created'."
"Scores of staff members lined the sides of the Rose Garden as a military band played soft jazz."
Yikes.
Al Gore: "It undermines America's standing in the world and threatens to damage humanity's ability to solve the climate crisis in time."
"The mayor of Pittsburgh, Bill Peduto, responded on Twitter, 'I can assure you that we will follow the guidelines of the Paris Agreement for our people, our economy & future'."
The answer is: Nicaragua and Syria.
B2 A PROVEN WAY TO WIN IN BUSINESS; HAVE A DAUGHTER, HIRE WOMEN
"[M]ale lawmakers, judges and corporate executives with daughters are more likely to support gender equity and policies that benefit women."
"[It was] found in a previous study that judges, particularly Republican ones, were more likely to vote in favor of women on issues like sex discrimination if they had daughters."
"Ivanka Trump ... has encouraged her father to include a paid parental leave policy in his new White House budget."
Yeah, that'll fly.
A19 FROM CHEAP SEATS ON EARTH, SENSING A TINY ECHO OF A TUMULTUOUS SPECTACLE
"The void is rocking and rolling with invisible cataclysms."
I've read this article four times this morning. I cannot claim to understand all the science -- but it does fire up one's imagination!
"Astronomers said Thursday that they had felt space-time vibrations known as gravitational waves from the merger of a pair of mammoth black holes resulting in a pit of infinitely deep darkness weighing as much as 49 suns, some 3 billion light-years from here."
"It validated Einstein's longstanding prediction that space-time can shake like a bowlful of jelly when massive object swings their weight around ..."
Here's the part that strains my brain ... but I'll quote it in full and hopefully my brother, or some other smart person, will explain it to me!
"A black hole 19 times the mass of the sun and another black hole 31 times the sun's mass, married to make a single hole of 49 solar masses. During the last frantic moments of the merger, they were shedding more energy in the form of gravitational waves than all the stars in the observable universe.
After a journey lasting 3 billion years, that is to say, a quarter of the age of the universe, those waves started jiggling LIGO's mirrors back and forth by a fraction of an atomic diameter 20 times a second. the pitch rose to 180 cycles per second in about a tenth of a second before cutting off.
Upon further analysis the signal proved to be a perfect chirp, as predicted by Einstein's equations."
Does this mean that Einstein invented Twitter?
C1 A HERO FOR OUR TIMES
"Must we endure another dose of the grandiose self-pity and authoritarian belligerence that have characterized the DC-Warner Bros. synergy in the 'Dark Knight' era? (This is the cue for unhinged fans to come @ me on Twitter and accuse me of being a shill for Marvel and Disney. The rest of you are invited to keep reading.)"
At first, I couldn't decide which to do. So I kept on reading.
"It feels less like yet another installment in an endless sequence of apocalyptic merchandising opportunities than like ... what's the word I'm looking for? A movie. A pretty good one, too."
"Unlike most of her male counterparts, its heroine is not trying to exorcise inner demons or work out messiah issues. She wants to function freely in the world, to help out when needed and to be respected for her abilities. No wonder she encounters so much resistance."
Running time: 2:21. Directed by Patty Jenkins.
C11 AMERICAN RESISTER
"Far from being a recluse, Thoreau spent much of his time with people, often seeking them out. He had problems with some: with cocksure authorities; with self-promoters (a brief stint in Manhattan trying to break into publishing was a disaster); and with uptight members of the Concord bourgeoisie."
IOW, with most people.
He spent a night in jail in 1846 for "refusing to pay taxes to a slavery-supporting government."
The lock and key from his jail cell are one of the show's exhibits.
TIME MACHINE
June 2, 1970
47 years ago
"The chances for peace in the Middle East appear more remote than ever three years after the six-day Arab-Israeli war."
And 47 years later ...
"Secretary of Labor George P. Shultz ordered into effect today a "Washington Plan" that would require all contractors with Federal jobs in the nation's capital to make "good faith" attempts to increase minority hiring on all their projects."
This from a conservative Republican administration ...
"'Extremism bent upon polarization of our people is increasingly forcing upon the American people the narrow choice between anarchy and repression,' the Senator warned. 'And make no mistake about it, if that narrow choice has to be made, the American people, even if with reluctance and misgiving, will choose repression'."
Right on, Maggie ...
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