Imminent Baby Cakes Syndrome

Trump knows that his AI-generated Harris crowd comment is total nonsense, but it's for a purpose. He ended by saying this, "She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!”

We should be able to just ignore this stuff, but to do so would be to overlook the lessons of the past. He's laying the groundwork to contest the election, based on complete nonsense. If you're the type of person who follows the news, you might remember this happened a few years ago. 

And think back further than 2020. It also happened at the Iowa Caucus in 2016, when Trump accused Ted Cruz of fraud. Trump will always be a winner in Trump's mind, despite any verifiable facts. Fraud at a caucus, how is that even possible? All of his lies can be explained away as the brand preservation of a malignant narcissist.

Voltaire- "Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

Is his end goal to get us to "commit atrocities"? He does want to destroy the concept of truth. He wants us to ask ourselves, "Well who really KNOWS anything?" Once we resign our ability to question, rulers can do anything. January 6th was the logical conclusion of taking that kind of nonsensical thinking to the extreme. 

Every reputable source showed that Biden won, including all key sources within Trump's own administration. Yet Trump's mouth said that he won, so it became truth to his True Believers, and some went on to attack on the Capitol, leaving police dead and wounded. 

So where does this go from here? I don't know, but the limit of his power should be his own remote control. Someone who makes up verifiable nonsense as a demand that their opponent drops out, calling it "election interference," is nothing short of a menace to democracy.

There's a lot of talk of media bias in favor of Harris. If Harris claimed that a Trump rally attended by 10,000 people was actually attended by nobody, and that Trump should drop out because of his election interference, there would be around-the-clock coverage of how she just lost their mind. And the media would be right!

August 14, 2024

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Worth considering this bit from the article:

A recent example will suffice: Imagine if Harris published a statement alleging that a recent Trump rally attended by thousands of people was actually empty, that the crowd at the rally was faked through artificial intelligence, and that the news media helped perpetuate this gigantic fraud. Suppose she proceeded to argue that this alleged fakery was a form of “election interference” that disqualified Trump from the ballot.

This would be an existential crisis for Harris. Cable news would break into its programming to cover this and wouldn’t stop until she was driven from the race. Newspapers would print multiple Watergate-level front-page stories about Harris going stark raving mad and threatening democracy.

New York Magazine- The Media’s Double Standard Favors Donald Trump, Not Kamala Harris:

 https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/medias-bias-kamala-harris-donald-trump-double-standard.html

August 15, 2024

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50 Of The Creepiest Things Kids Have Ever Said To Their Parents

My sister described her “imaginary” friend, saying: “He sits on my bed and waits for his mom. He’s not allowed to go home by himself because of his arm.” I asked what happened to his arm, and she said: “His mom ran him over when he was drawing with chalk. That’s why he’s always crying, because he doesn’t like being dead.”

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I've been seeing some conservative sites trying to stoke this fire that Kamala Harris's family owned slaves. The Magna Carta guaranteed that we can't be punished for the sins of our ancestors. And be careful conservatives, because it also squashed the nonsensical idea of the divine right of kings. All rulers are beholden by the law.

August 14, 2020

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Eric Idle- I think all the Pythons are nuts in some way and together we make one completely insane person.

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The Hill- BREAKING: President Trump’s Justice Department has demanded that a web hosting provider turn over identifying information on over a million visitors to a website used to organize protests against President Trump.

Even the president's staunchest supporters can see that this is how a dictator rules.

August 17, 2017

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Emma has one of the worst cases of Imminent Baby Syndrome that I've ever seen. Better get your name suggestions in quickly, before she's cured.

August 14, 2015

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I'll never see a cat yawn and not try to stick my finger in its mouth.

August 14, 2011

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It's good to remember that a man and a woman who each had sex change operations can get married in all 50 states.

August 14, 2011

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Completion of the first cattle drive into Abilene via the Chisolm Trail, as depicted in Red River, took place on this day in 1865. 

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On this day in 1933, in Bluffton, Ohio, with Copeland and Goldstein, John Dillinger robbed the Citizens National Bank of $2,100.

"Before you rob your first bank, knock off a couple of gas stations.”

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Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law on this day in 1935. Everybody complains about it but I don't think even one person complains about it existing. 

We don't have a more socialist law on our books and everyone agrees with it in principle. People think they're putting money in and then they're getting it back later but that's not correct. The money you put in pays for someone else. Then later the money you get is also paid by somebody else. 

We are in a continual state of the younger generations helping the older generations, now for almost 100 years.

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A Place In the Sun premiered on this day in 1951.

https://youtu.be/onT_fiMHTtI

Wow, indeed.

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Wim Wenders was born on this day in 1945.

"The more opinions you have, the less you see."

That could be true, but it's also true that the fewer opinions we have, the less we understood.

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Screwball Mark Fidrych was born on this day in 1954. 

"That ball has a hit in it. I want that ball to get back in the ball bag and goof around with the other balls. I want him to talk to the other balls. I want the other balls to beat him up. Maybe that'll smarten him up so when he comes out the next time, he'll pop up."

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Anthony Michael Hall joined us on this day in 1968. Would you believe me if I told you that Stanley Kubrick claimed that the collaboration between Anthony Michael Hall and John Hughes was "the most promising since James Stewart and Frank Capra." Somehow he was in negotiations to star as Private Joker in Full Metal Jacket! After eight months of negotiations they couldn't come to an agreement. Perhaps one of the stupidest mistakes in the history of cinema!

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William Randolph Hearst died on this day in 1951.

"News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising."

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Dorothy Stratten was murdered on this day in 1980 by her deranged ex-husband. Peter Bogdanovich was her boyfriend at the time and wrote a book on it- Killing of the Unicorn.

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Pee Wee Reese left us on this day in 1999.

"Thinking about the things that happened, I don't know any other ball player would could have done what he (Jackie Robinson) did. To be able to hit with everybody yelling at him. He had to block all that out, block out everything but this ball that is coming in at a hundred miles an hour and he's got a split second to make up his mind if it's in or out or down or coming at his head, a split second to swing. To do what he did has got to be the most tremendous thing I've ever seen in sports." 

Jackie Robinson- "What a decent human being. How much he helped me. But he refuses to take the credit." 

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Other notable birthdays- Charles Comiskey (1859), Edna Ferber (1885), Óscar Romero (1917), Mila Kunis (1983)

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On this day in 1945, Emperor Hirohito broadcast his declaration of surrender following the effective surrender of Japan in World War II. Korea gained independence from the Empire of Japan.

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Huffington Post- Atheism Rises, Religiosity Declines in America

Hmmm, Saudi Arabia has the same percentage of self-identified atheists as the U.S.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/14/atheism-rise-religiosity-decline-in-america_n_1777031.html

August 14, 2012

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Great TED talk! Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are, by Amy Cuddy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc

August 14, 2013

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PBS- Why are so many lullabies also murder ballads?

In case you wondered.

http://to.pbs.org/Y8oACk

August 14, 2014

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I just fell in love with Inspirobot. Gonna be a long night...

"Before the trial by fire, comes the joke.

http://inspirobot.me/share?iuid=009%2FaXm4433xjU.jpg

Later...

http://inspirobot.me/share?iuid=008%2FaXm3988xjU.jpg

"All you need to raise the dead is an open eye, and a mother."

Later...

http://inspirobot.me/share?iuid=011%2FaXm2958xjU.jpg

"Ghosts are just broken dreams playing with themselves."

Later...

http://inspirobot.me/share?iuid=007%2FaXm3841xjU.jpg

"All you need to destroy democracy is a bomb and an idea."

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I can't believe this video has subtitles! I've watched it at least 100 time over the years and always wondered what she was saying. But still I felt like I knew, and you know what, I kind of did somehow!

Is Duniya Mein Jeena Ho To- Helen, Gumnaam

https://youtu.be/tKodgq-1TgY

August 14, 2015

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That's the best thing about top 10 movie lists...you once in a while find one with 9 films you love and one you never heard of. Slasher???

http://www.ifc.com/shows/documentary-now/blog/2015/08/hilarious-documentaries

August 14, 2015

Postscript: Broken Link, what were the others???

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NPR- Psychiatrists Reminded To Refrain From Armchair Analysis of Public Figures

I don't get it... who would be better equipped to discuss a candidates mental health? It's certainly a concern of maximum importance. They don't have to diagnose him, but their opinions are relevant and necessary. (Or he could willfully test and share how well his amygdala is functioning...or maybe it's currently being audited.)

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/08/13/489807468/psychiatrists-reminded-to-refrain-from-armchair-analysis-of-public-figures

August 14, 2016

Postscript: Everything everyone ever thought about Trump's phycology was correct. It's not like his supporters defend his psychology! They just like the results.

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The Hard Times- Man Without a Racist Bone is His Body Diagnosed With Severe Brain Racism

Haha, perfect.

https://thehardtimes.net/culture/man-without-racist-bone-in-body-diagnosed-with-severe-brain-racism/

August 14, 2019

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Baby Cakes Diary- Neely Comics

"My country is wonderful. I don't have to think about anything."

https://youtu.be/9taJVvD0ivM

August 14, 2019

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Connie Smith was born on this day in 1941. I could listen to Once a Day at least once a day. Such a powerful voice.

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Steve Martin was born on this day in 1945.

"I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks."

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Gary Larson, creator of The Far Side, was born on this day in 1953. I want time left for a whole day over this comic:

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Genius opinion piece by George Conway- I Still Believe the President, and In the President

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/10/i-still-believe-president-president/

August 14, 2020

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Roger Ebert's blog Traveler To the Undiscovere'd Country, reflecting on Christopher Hitchens' terminal cancer diagnosis. Chocked full of great quotes.

https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/traveler-to-the-undiscovered-country

August 14, 2010

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My favorite film is My Darling Clementine, which I first heard about through Ebert's Great Movies series of critical essays. In it, an actor who came to perform for Tombstone recites Hamlet to the Clantons under threat of violence.

Thorndyke:

"Must give us pause

There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

...the law's delay

The insolence of office

And the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy take

When he himself

Might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin?

Who would fardels bear

To grunt and sweat under a weary life

...life..."

(He can't go on.)

"Please help me sir!"

Doc Holliday finished as Wyatt Earp looks on:

"But that the dread of something after death...

The undiscovered country

From whose bourn no traveller returns,

Puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all..."

The real-life Doc Holliday was killed by the Clantons not long afterward, on this day in 1887, at the infamous shootout at the OK Corral.

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I am reading Paul Bloom's "Just Babies, the Origins of Good and Evil." Here's something you should know:

"In one of the coolest studies in developmental psychology, Rozin and his colleagues did an experiment in which they offered children under 2 something they described as dog feces ("realistically crafted from peanut butter and odorous cheese.") Most of them ate it."

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What's this, a picnic? Mind if we check what you got between that bread?

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Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood- "Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place... Nothing outside you can give you any place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got."

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Ending with a world class footnote, from David Foster Wallace's essay, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again:

This is related to the phenomenon of the Professional Smile, a national pandemic in the service industry; and noplace in my experience have I been on the receiving end of as many Professional Smiles as I am on the Nadir, maître d’s, Chief Stewards, Hotel Managers’ minions, Cruise Director—their P.S.’s all come on like switches at my approach. But also back on land at banks, restaurants, airline ticket counters, on and on. You know this smile—the strenuous contraction of circumoral fascia w/ incomplete zygomatic involvement—the smile that doesn’t quite reach the smiler’s eyes and that signifies nothing more than a calculated attempt to advance the smiler’s own interests by pretending to like the smilee. Why do employers and supervisors force professional service people to broadcast the Professional Smile? Am I the only consumer in whom high doses of such a smile produce despair? Am I the only person who’s sure that the growing number of cases in which totally average-looking people suddenly open up with automatic weapons in shopping malls and insurance offices and medical complexes and McDonald’ses is somehow causally related to the fact that these venues are well-known dissemination-loci of the Professional Smile? Who do they think is fooled by the Professional Smile? And yet the Professional Smile’s absence now also causes despair. Anybody who’s ever bought a pack of gum in a Manhattan cigar store or asked for something to be stamped FRAGILE at a Chicago post office or tried to obtain a glass of water from a South Boston waitress knows well the soul-crushing effect of a service worker’s scowl, i.e. the humiliation and resentment of being denied the Professional Smile. And the Professional Smile has by now skewed even my resentment at the dreaded Professional Scowl: I walk away from the Manhattan tobacconist resenting not the counterman’s character or absence of goodwill but his lack of professionalism in denying me the Smile. What a fucking mess.