Fish Fear Me

Clock Stopped...Yada, Yada, Yada

When she's right, she's right:

 

“I’m going to go to the House floor and actually debate why we shouldn’t be voting for the first time in American history to sue the President of the United States for doing his job, and doing his job actually less often and at a rate that is lower than any other president since Grover Cleveland."

She probably was talking about executive orders, but her literal words about President "Tee-time, Fundraiser, McPetulant Pants" are ten times more accurate.

Bad Time In West Africa

I've been watching the Ebola outbreak in West Africa with increasing dismay as it has failed to burn out like previous epidemics of the deadly disease. It is also taking its toll on the incredibly brave health workers who are treating the afflicted. At least 100 have been infected with half of those dying, including one of the top doctors in Liberia who passed away Saturday. Now two Americans working there have also been sickened. 

Geography usually works against Ebola. Most human contact with the virus occurs in more isolated villages where contact with infected fruit bats or other animals is more likely. This outbreak has been persistent enough that Ebola has made its way larger cities such as Monrovia and Freetown. In one very alarming incident, a Liberian man flew to Lagos while ill with the disease and later died. 59 people who came in contact with the man, Patrick Sawyer, are being monitored, but there's also this disconcerting note to the story:

However, the airline on which he arrived in Lagos had not yet released the names of passengers.

Hopefully that has been rectified and the other passengers are being tracked down so they can be monitored. Hopefully.

Another bit of information that got my attention is that Sawyer's wife and children live in the Twin Cities area and he was due to fly back here once his business in Lagos was concluded. Ebola has an incubation period of 2 to 21 days before an infected person begins to show symptoms and becomes infectious. I don't know where Sawyer was in that range, but it appears we've gotten to the point, or quite close to it, where it's possible that there are people leaving West Africa or other way stations in Africa who are infected but asymptomatic. 

The World Health Organization is still saying that there is no need to restrict travel or trade to and from Liberia, Guinea, or Sierra Leone. I'm not so sure about that, but they are the experts. I'm concerned about it getting to the US, but my greatest fear is that it will get loose in a densely packed city such as Lagos, home to 21 million people.

This is the worst Ebola outbreak in history now, and it shows no sign of slowing down yet. I don't think we need to be worried in the US at this point, but millions of people in Africa could become at risk in the next few weeks. 

Dumbass Of The Day: Karoli

The competition is stiff, but a blogger at Crooks and Liars put in a strong bid this morning for the title of Dumbest Woman on the Internet, 2014:

Crazy Eyes Bachmann Wants Central American Children Put In Indoctrination Camps

Leave it to Michele Bachmann to come up with loony tunes ideas for how best to handle the influx of children fleeing conditions in Central America.

Minnesota's KCTV7 reports on an interview Bachmann did last week:

Bachmann’s plan? Send those children to labor camps, which she warmly refers to as “Americanization Facilities,” with the goal of having them pay off their past, present, and future care expenses, while assimilating them into American culture. And in exchange for that labor, the children would be fast-tracked on a path to citizenship.

The article is a hoax and even a cursory google search should have raised the alarm. But I doubt Karoli did even that. If I had to guess it probably fell into the category of too good to check for her. After all, opportunities to hate on Michelle Bachmann have dwindled the last few years.

Blind hate and stupidity can lead to some embarrassing situations. Which was at work here? Most likely both in my opinion, but I of course can't say for sure. What I can say for sure is you should never take what Karoli writes at face value. That's true generally, but in some cases it pays to emphasize never.

Never, never, never.

More: Oh, and I forgot to mention the description of Karoli under her post:

"Card-carrying member of we, the people."

As I noted in a comment there that promptly got whacked: "We the People would appreciate it if she cut up her card."

In Today's Episode Of...Smart Power!

This week features a free trip to Tunisia!

US evacuates embassy in Libya amid clashes in Tripoli

The United States suspended operations at its embassy in Libya Saturday and evacuated its diplomats to neighboring Tunisia under U.S. military escort amid a significant deterioration in security in Tripoli as fighting intensified between rival militias, the State Department said. 

"Due to the ongoing violence resulting from clashes between Libyan militias in the immediate vicinity of the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, we have temporarily relocated all of our personnel out of Libya," spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

Have no fear, the star of the show is working diligently on the matter:

On Saturday, hours after the U.S. embassy in Libya was being evacuated and a day after meeting with Central American presidents to address the border crisis, President Barack Obama golfed with ESPN "Pardon the Interruption" hosts Mike Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser at Congressional Golf Club in Bethesda, Maryland.

Actually, when it comes to the Obungler and a crisis, it's quite obvious now that we're all better off seeing him on a golf course instead of the situation room where he could do some real harm.

What gets me is his complete and shameless indifference to what his massive screwup in Libya has wrought. And let's not forget Hillary. Her role in helping to set Libya to burn is by itself a reason why she should never gain the White House.

From The Department Of "Thank You, Sir, May We Have Another?"

NY Times reporter Josh Barro emulates fellow lefty Matthew Yglesias:

 

Anti-LGBT attitudes are terrible for people in all sorts of communities. They linger and oppress, and we need to stamp them out, ruthlessly.

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) July 24, 2014

 

One can argue that Barro is talking about attitudes and not people, but there's that troublesome word he ends with, "ruthlessly." Because when the people with the wrong attitudes stubbornly persist in their beliefs, what acts do you suppose the ruthless will feel entitled to commit in the name of their righteousness?

It's still an article of faith among much of the political left that such nasty righteousness was purely a right-wing thing, especially among religious conservatives. The truth is it has always been deeply ingrained in so-called "progressive" thinking, and it remains so today even as it fades from most mainstream religions in the United States and Europe. 

Things That Make Me Go "Hmmm"(continued)

A Twin Cities woman is pushing back against men who verbally harass her on downtown Minneapolis streets(and presumably anywhere else):

A woman has turned a hidden camera on her Minneapolis street harassers, filming men who make sexually suggestive comments about her appearance as she walks downtown. The clips, published on her website, include the confrontations that ensue when she asks the men to explain themselves. One man’s response: “I’m surprised that you’re offended by it.”

Not only offended, she built the website and has begun passing out cards to wolf-whistling men that bluntly tell them to stop.

Most women I know usually ignore cat calls unless they reach a certain level of rudeness or vulgarity, which seems to vary, as does the response. The woman in this story, Lindsey, seems to be taking a zero tolerance stance or close to it, which is her right. I'll leave it to the reader to watch the videos at her site and decide on your own if her perspective is right or wrong or a mix of both.  

My perspective on women in public is that it's okay for men to look, but rude for them to stare. It's loutish to catcall a woman passing by, but there are times when it's okay to offer a strange woman a hello or other pleasantry. I mean, it's one thing to call out to a woman on the street and another to talk as we're waiting for the bus or an elevator. I wouldn't start a conversation with "That's a lovely dress," but I can see where it may come up depending on the signals I'm getting. Am I wrong there?

Based on her "About" page, it appears Lindsey has a reasonable understanding of what she can accomplish with her project and website. It's not some quixotic attempt to stamp out verbal harassment of women in public. Which is good, because some woman like the catcalls, at least to some extent, and the truth is it works for guys sometimes. That's why some men continue to do it, and will continue to do it despite getting confronted about it. On the other hand, perhaps a few louts will learn some manners. I just hope Lindsay, or any other women for that matter, doesn't end up getting punched in the process. Some of those kinds of guys don't take constructive criticism very well.

For what it's worth, I don't personally witness the verbal harassment of women very often. Part of it may be that I don't get downtown very much and it's more common there than my suburban life, and that in turn could be due to people walking to and from places there while in the 'burbs we tend to drive. Not that it can't, or doesn't, happen pretty much anywhere. It just tends to be more prevalent in some locations than others.

I'm not sure what else to say except I would not raise a son to be the sort to verbally harass a woman. I would try very hard to instill better manners than that. But I'm not going to own or apologize for what other men do, anymore than I would expect offended women to apologize for the other women who encourage catcalling. Heck, I think the guys most likely to do this stuff tend to be the bad boy types most women go for anyway. Go figure.

Comments?

Politico's Roger Simon: National Guard Will "Shoot Small Children"

Here's what Politico's Roger Simon thinks is Gov. Rick Perry's reason for mobilizing 1,000 members of the Texas National Guard:

Rick Perry sending 1,000 National Guard troops to border to shoot small children. Could make good headlines -- in Russia.

— Roger Simon (@politicoroger) July 22, 2014

What a vile thing to write.

Meet the face of award-winning journalism in America circa 2014. 

Falls

A couple of pics I've been meaning to post from when my niece was in town and we drove over to check out Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis and the nearby Mississippi. Both were moving fast because of recent rains and the creek of the same name that feeds the falls was out of its banks through most of its course through south Minneapolis.

First, a couple of the falls:

We tried to walk downstream to the river, but the river was so high that the last quarter mile or so was filled with at least three or four feet pretty stinky water outside of the main creek flow. No thanks.

Instead we took the river road a short ways to Lock and Dam No. 1, located at what we refer to as the Ford Dam.

The lock has a great system of walkways that take you over the dual locks and let you get right up close to the dam:

In the background is the hydroelectric plant that for many years powered the Ford assembly factory located over the bluff behind it. My dad's 1929 Model A pickup and my Ford Ranger were both built in that factory. I believe the nearly 18MW elecric plant is still in operation and now supplying power to the local grid.

One more, this time from above the dam. The building in the background was the steam plant for the Ford factory. I don't believe it is still operating, but I don't know for sure.

Bad Craziness

I'm late as usual here, but I finally got up to speed on the sad and strange death of Eric Garner in Staten Island last week. The medical examiner has not released the cause of death yet, but one minute the man was standing on a sidewalk arguing with police and the next he was on the ground repeatedly saying he couldn't breath as cops restrained and cuffed him. Then he was dead. While most of the attention is focused on how Garner died, I think it's also worth a moment to reflect on why he died, and how it relates to the war on smoking.

Garner had a long history of arrests that don't exactly make him the most sympathetic figure:

Garner had had plenty of experience with police: He'd been arrested 31 times since 1988 on charges including drug possession, assault and selling untaxed cigarettes, according to police. He was facing two open untaxed-cigarette cases, plus a third case in which prosecutors dropped that charge but were still pursuing unlicensed driving and marijuana possession charges stemming from an August 2013 car stop, court records show.

However, nothing I've read so far suggests he was a violent man. So why the physical takedown and attempted arrest instead of just issuing him another misdemeanor summons? Why bring more than half a dozen cops in to try to jail a man for selling a few freakin' cigarettes on the street?

Because it wasn't the cigarettes, it was the cigarette taxes that Garner was taking from the city and state of New York. And those taxes add up to big money. According to RJ Reynolds, taxes and settlement payments to various governments in the US amounted to $43.9 billion in FY2013, and New York City has the highest cigarette taxes in the nation. So high in fact, that the incentives for smuggling and tax avoidance have become overwhelming to some people, especially the poor. 

One need not be a genius in economics to see how ever greater and more punitive cigarette tax policies will lead to ever more grotesque results as they practically beg criminals to be involved, not to mention turning otherwise good people into criminals. 

There's no doubt that Eric Garner was a scofflaw when it came to cigarettes and there's little doubt in my mind that he was targeted for arrest, and not just ticketed again last Thursday, because of it. The autopsy and the investigation into police conduct will likely tell us the how of his death, but we should not ignore the fact that the punitive taxes on cigarettes in New York have reached the point where they guarantee similar citizen/police interactions of this type, though hopefully not the same result.

In a sane world, the tax on cigarettes might be enough to discourage people from smoking and/or make them grumble about it a bit, but they would pay the tax. In such a world Eric Garner would buy a legal pack and make a little money on the upcharge for selling loosies. Nobody would, or should really care. Especially the police, who I would think have higher priorities to see to.

Obviously, that's not our world. 

Breaking News: New York City Surrenders

It appears that New York City surrendered sometime last night or early this morning:

City officials are trying to figure out why two white flags are flying at the top of the Brooklyn Bridge where American Flags are usually placed. 

The NYPD is investigating. 

At this time it is unclear who they surrendered to and why. Could just be on general principle. 

Update: On a more serious note, a live feed shows cops appearing to photograph or gather evidence from the scene, which may mean someone has sent a message. Given the way things are going in the world, I doubt that it would be a good one.