Howdy y’all!
It’s been an interesting week around Ye Olde Blogge. Ma Belle Femme has returned to Cambodia and now resides in one of the many quarantine hotels around town. She’ll be free in two weeks! It seems like she’s been gone forever. She was able to leave a bag for me at the front desk which I was able to retrieve but not before it was sprayed down with disinfectant. I also left one for her. The desk clerk looked mortified and sprayed it down with disinfectant, too. Really, you’da thought I’da pooped right there in the lobby or something.
New teacher orientation begins this week. I don’t need much orienting since I’ve lived here for a year and subbed when school was meeting in person. We’ll begin with distance learning, but the gov’t says we may go back to school as early as September, so fingers crossed.
Given that the government has authorized immunizations for children as young as 12, I’ve set into motion the necessary machinations of getting La Petite Fille vaccinated. Given her needle phobia, it will necessitate some form or fashion of anesthetization, which means getting special dispensation from the insurance company. We’ll see if they come through for us. Since hearing several US infectious and communicable disease doctors say that the Delta variant will reach you if you remain unvaccinated, I live in terror of it reaching her.
And, Trump has dropped this little gift on our plate. He’s created official Trump cards that I guess require a membership fee and two boxtops from your favorite brand of covfefe or something to receive. What? Is MAGA Nation really made up of 13 year olds? Do you get a secret decoder ring, too?
Anywho, the point is people think they’ve discovered a type and my Twitter feed has been filled with gotchagasms of people who think they’re smarter than Trump is. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is obviously a portmanteau of “official” and “fecal” so that we can efficiently describe any and everything Trump has ever done or ever will do. As in, “It’s Trump’s offical policy that everything he touches turns to shit.” See how easy that is? Now shut everybody and don’t be looking this gift horse in the mouth, you might not like what its breath.
What I’ve Read
From the Blogosphere
From Miss Cellania we get this posting of a video of things close and far away… ooh, I can see there is no snarky, sarcasticky, profaney way of explaining this. The video is a montage of things that start out in super close up and then slowly zoom out until you see what they are. It’s amazing how your ideas about what you’re looking at change as it zooms out. Watch with a friend and discuss in the comments!
Living in a fairy tale in Norway comes to you from Beauty of Planet Earth! There are some truly amazing buildings and settings in Norway. If you’ve not seen these pictures before, do yourself a favor and have a visit.
Some folks over at the University of Exeter had the bright idea of adapting Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which was developed to help people with Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder manage their emotional reactions and tolerate their environments better, to helping people with Bipolar Spectrum Disorder manage their small mood swings since the larger ones, one assumes, were managed by medication. The upshot: it worked pretty good. Of course that was brought to you by Neuroscience News.
The vaccine resisters actually altruistic perverts volunteering to be part of the great thinning of the vast human herd so that the rest us might could survive? Maybe! At least that’s the idea volunteered by Ten Bears over on Homeless on the High Desert. If nothing else, it’s an awful generous read on the useful idiot take.
And, what is a Monday without some erotica to spice it up? In what is quickly becoming a regular thing with me — don’t tell Ma Belle Femme! — Sophie Saint Thomas over at Romantic Lesbian Erotica give some very practical advice for having and a voyeuristic view of a threesome. Maybe you’ll end up realizing, “Oh! I get to touch some boobs,” but you might also find yourself wondering, “Wait, why is no one’s face in my delicious genitals?” Now, you know why I read.
From the Twittersphere
These have to be seen to be believed!
From the NEWSPHERE
I think I’ve cried more this year than I have in total during my entire adult life. We’ve lost so much between the Trump years, the GQP’s authoritarian grab, and #COVID19 that my grief is just so close to the surface. Today’s culprit was listening — I have to listen as a podcast — to Nicole Wallace’s Deadline White House broadcast of and subsequent discussion of Joe Biden’s signing of the act giving the Capitol and DC Metropolitan police the Congressional Medal of Honor. Their mics picked up Biden’s comments and dialogue as he signed the act surrounded by the children of the officers, members of Congress, VP Harris, and the chiefs of the police forces receiving the award. Biden was so good with the children especially explaining what he was doing, validating their observations, and giving one of the little girls the job of distributing the pens to people observing. He was just so emotionally kind, available, and understanding. He was so genuine and human. It was a peek into his soul. It was something that I needed after watching film of the terror of that day and listening to the testimony from those officers.
The liberal think-tank, NDN — I never heard of them, either, but that’s what Twitter is for — has analyzed some of the jobs data and come out with a not-too-surprising conclusion: Biden has created more jobs in his little pinky than Trump and Dubya did in their whole lives. Okay, that’s the snarky sarcasticky hyperboley (notice how popular that word has gotten?) take on it. Still. Biden is a jobs making stud. The Repubes were put out to pasture.
The Pingbacksphere
These are the folks who so frequently link to Ye Olde Blogge for one reason or another.
Of Cabbages and Kings offers this link to this piquant observation of the anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
One of our favorite weekly posts is over at Fair and Unbalanced where friend o’ the blog, Burr Deming, reviews his favorites from last week’s readings on the Interwebs.
A daily inspiration and dose of snark and sarcasm can be found at Mock, Paper, Scissors where Tengrain sends up the news and then some.
Mike’s Blog Round Up isa daily feature on Crooks and Liars. where they offer links to quality smaller blogs like Ye Olde Blogge at least sometimes.
The Sunday list is INFIDEL 753 ‘s weekly posting of interesting stuff from around the Internet up and we can link to it sometimes, but only sometimes, due to the irregularities of the International Dateline.
#COVID19 News
In Cambodia, the news continues to be good and bad:
Good News
New cases continue to fall. As of Friday 6 August, we’d seen five days of falling numbers. We are now under 600 new cases a day and our seven day running average is down 22%. Are we vaccinating our way out of the outbreak here in Cambodia? Could such a strategy work in the States, too?
Nearly 8 million people have been vaccinated with at least one dose of either the AstraZeneca or Sinopharm vaccines. Their initial target was 10 million people, so they are 80% of the way there.
Fully 50% of the Cambodian total population have been vaccinated. Of the ASEAN countries, Cambodia is second only to Singapore with its vaccination rate.
Bad News
Egad! I hadn’t realized that the 9:00 PM to 3:00 AM curfew had included a ban on alcohol sales, too, until I went by the grocery store and found the sign!
The city government has closed several areas due to the presence of the Delta variant for two weeks ending 18 August. I mean literally closed them with barricades across the streets and alleyways blocking entrances and exits.
While new cases have declined, the number of deaths has grown. We had one of our worst days with 25 deaths yesterday during one of our worst weeks for deaths. If the vaccines do control the outbreak and limit the number of new infections, deaths are bound to get worse until we reach herd immunity and minimum number of new infections.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Image Attribution
I stole this one off of social media. It’s been making the rounds so much surely no one in their right mind would sue Ye Olde Blogge over its use and not one of the bigger blogging platforms that have been using it, too. Surely.
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Categories: Thoughts
The Psy of Life 
I don’t know Ben Eastaugh or Chris Sternal-Johnson, but thanks for the link 🐻
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Written at the bottom of the page. Maybe they designed the theme you’re using? I was looking for a “person” behind the site. I usually like to refer to the author as well. I woulda used Ten Bears had those names not been there. Sorry.I’ll change it.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Ah-ha! Yes, at the bottom of the page, the designers, you’re the first, I commend your attentiveness. And in another first, you have managed to get past my comment block. I’m not gonna’ explain it, but it is an interesting workaround. I wonder if WordPress knows?
Yeah, and the lack of identifiers is by design. I had a troll problem in the early days. I actually started blogging twenty (one) years ago under my “given” name. Learned enough that when I set up shop in my own space I found it prudent to fall back on the call-sign assigned to me when a part of a helo-unit many years ago (), that followed me through a number of years of commercial helo work before college, university and the internet.
Product of mid-fifties promiscuous pregnancy and sixties serial Southern California divorce, the bastard nobody wanted, my parents didn’t do me any favors …
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Howdy Ten!
What a long strange trip you’ve had. I’m glad to be a long for at least part of it.
My apologies for the name error. I’ve corrected the post now. I usually scour a blog pretty thoroughly looking for information about the author. I respect wishes for anonymity. I’m somewhat anonymous here on this blog, also. I had noticed that you didn’t have comments accessible at the end of each blog post, but that some of them at least had a link under the title for comments. Templates vary so much with this stuff that it gets confusing. Anywho. I used the link cuz it was there and I had something to say.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
Calico Jack’s weekly collection of interesting, and even important stuff.
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I heard an interview with a GOP Senator still not sure whether she will ultimately vote for the infrastructure bill. The hesitancy was about it not being “fully paid for” and part of the solution was (as I’ve heard proposed several times) using “unspent COVID money” (I’m sure more detail must be available as to which funds and programs). My reaction was: Does she really think we are done spending money on COVID? Can the GOP have their heads so far up their collective ass that they can see the back of their teeth? [WE do know the answer to that one]. She might want to think we are done with COVID, but COVID is clearly not done with us and won’t be for a long time. So, is trying to raid the funding set to deal with the virus and its consequences just stupid, or sabotage?
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Howdy Bob!
Probably a bit of both. It’s really just akin to illusory explanation. It sounds good. It satisfies as a response. But, it means nothing. Luckily, it passed two of it’s three votes today. I think the last one was 68 to 29. It seems to be on its way. My understanding is Sanders will introduce the reconciliation package later this week.
They probably would get a bit more Republican support if they included an unnecessary, unwanted, and unpaid for tax break for the rich.
Of course, the package is “paid” for in DC-speak. Revenue raised over twenty years will pay for the expenditures made over the next five or whatever the ratio is that they’re using. But, the jobs reports from Biden’s time in office look good and suggest that the stimulus spending is working.
Huzzah!
Jack
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They have voted for Cloture, so with a bit of luck none of the amendments will have added enough poison pills to stop it from passing.
The key words about deficit spending for the past decade have been “Zero Interest”. How could even Republicans turn down free money?
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Howdy Bob!
It’s a complicated messy process, “School House Rock” notwithstanding, in which a bill becomes a law. Schumer seems to think they will pass the bipartisan bill Tuesday. We’ll see. Then it is the budget reconciliation bill and the national budget. Biden just might pull this off. If he does, it will be the biggest legislative accomplishment since LBJ passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. It will be the biggest reshaping of the US economy since FDR’s New Deal.
Now, we have to address voting and the health of our democracy. As pessimistic as I’ve been feeling lately, these bills give me hope.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I was reading the new IPCC report yesterday, and it occurred to me that although in the long run climate is the only issue that really matters, others, like voting rights and social/economic justice are part of it. If the GOP in its current condition gets control of even one house of congress, we will not make the changes and spend the money needed to make the climate benchmarks. I’m also struck by how the madness over vaccines and masks is a mirror image of the climate crisis and policy debates – cognitive dysfunction on parade.
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Howdy Bob!
One of the things that I hope to bring out in the next conspiracy theory post is how personality traits cluster and correlate with behaviors and attitudes meaning that people with similar personality traits end up doing and liking similar things. It’s what makes Snoopology possible. Research shows that it extends to conspiracy theories. People with similar anxieties, fears, and worries are drawn to similar conspiracy theories. Once you’re into one conspiracy theory, you then get to mingle with people who believe in others and end up becoming interested in those kinda like sci fi fans might become cyberpunk and action movie fans.
Similarly, the people who are promoting the disinformation that is spawning and maintaining the conspiracy theories are targeting the same people. If the FB algorithm identifies you as an anti-vaxxer and begins showing you anti-vaxxer websites, you’ll start seeing climate denier stuff, too.
As we’ve discussed before, though, the game changer is the ability of social media to provide the social support necessary to maintain these beliefs through vigorous challenges.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Once someone buys into the core position of “Those people (the government, experts, scientists, etc.) are lying to you about _______.” it becomes easier and easier to also buy that they lying about almost anything else, or everything else.
Another cognitive and/or personality feature I’ve noticed is that people with a fundamentalist upbringing (whatever flavor) can show an inability to distinguish fact and fiction. I had one such friend who, in addition to being vulnerable to conspiracy theories, was quite sure that Arthur Conan Doyle was the pen name of Dr. Watson and all the Sherlock Holmes stories were completely true, and that The X Files show was also factual.
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Howdy Bob!
It never helped that the government really did lie to us and that science is always evolving and what is a supported conclusion today is tomorrow’s discarded conclusion or at least refined.
Your friend was very suggestible. I worked with a senile client in a nursing home who thought he was looking out of the window when he was watching TV. He was frequently very alarmed and worried. He was an interesting old man. I enjoyed him a lot, but the nursing staff had no idea of how to deal with him or any of the other senile folks in their care. I miss working with those folks. That was rewarding work. A truly needy, misunderstood, and deserving population.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Having lived with my father’s dementia, I know exactly what you mean.
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Howdy Bob!
I have that pang of regret every time I encounter dementia. I’ve been happy to give advice and coach people I’ve known personally to help them connect better with their loved one. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live through it caring for a parent or spouse.
Huzzah!
Jack
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It is hard. There is little that Nancy Reagan ever said that I would agree with, but calling it “The Long Goodby” is the one she got right.
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Howdy Bob!
Reagan’s dementia is one of the factors that helped stave off a more aggressive Congressional investigation into Iran-Contra.
As much as I dislike Reagan, I can feel for anyone who has watched a loved one slowly disappear into a tangle of plaque and lost neural connections.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I strongly suspect that those close to him saw the signs long before the public and did help him hide it, and used it among the insiders to tone down the investigation. And, another investigation that could lead to impeachment within ten years of Nixon was probably not a welcome prospect even to the Democrat leadership, especially if the president could credibly plead diminished capacity and having been misled by his advisors.
It is both terribly sad and frightening.
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Howdy Bob!
One of the worst things that Trump did was politicize the DOJ. That makes it much harder for any DOJ investigation to be looked upon and accepted as being non-partisan and independent. The other problem is that no investigation of a previous president by an administration or Congress of the opposite party can be seen as non-partisan, independent, and credible… or at least it is much more difficult to reach those standards. The current version of the GQP shows us why since they will accept any behavior from their politicians and brook no accountability from the Dems.
Huzzah!
Jack
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That is why it was so important that the impeachment of Nixon became bipartisan while he was still in office, and that the impeachment of Clinton was too obviously grasping at straws (or, stains, as it were) in a purely partisan (revenge for Nixon) way for enough Republicans in the Senate to not be able to stomach it. Since then, the GOP has gotten to the position that, “Ours can do no wrong, and theirs can do no right.”.
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I’ve long said that the Republicans learned from Nixon. They learned to stonewall and his absence left them with a leadership vacuum that the far right was able to fill with Reagan allowing them to capture the party.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Seems accurate.
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In fact, there’s been a dearth of real leadership in the GQP since Nixon. Since then, they’ve had the radicals, Reagan and Gingrich, the know nothings Dubya and Paul Ryan, the myopic, McConnell and McCarthy, and the self-serving Trump and friends. The only people who had anything close to a “vision” were the neocons, and we’re seeing where that led. Now, it is all just immediacy and smash and grab while you still can.
Jack
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That “smash and grab” part reminds me of how people often behave in a riot, or when a the police make a demonstration turn violent – looting the stores they depend upon and vandalizing whatever can’t be carried away, not thinking beyond the immediate opportunity. The simple, verifiable fact is that most of what post-Goldwater “conservatives” believe in doesn’t work (like trickle down economics and belt tightening in a recession). They have nothing but BS and identity to sell.
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Howdy Bob!
There’s mob mentality and then there’s normative behavior. Riots start using mob mentality where people get caught up in the moment and do what everyone else is doing. So, if that is looting, people who wouldn’t normally loot, often end up participating. Or, they react to their environment. If the police are attacking and roughing people up, protesters will fight back just reactively.
The Trump Republicans have moved the norm from government service to corruption. Louis DeJoy is perhaps the most egregious or visible example of corruption in action at the moment.
As our politics and political parties moved further into ideology and away from community, the Republicans have turned more towards grievance and divisive social issues and less about policy. Democrats, on the other hand, are still trying to meet the demands of their factions through policy advocacy and laws.
Huzzah!
Jack
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The Dems are also trying to address real needs of the GOP base that the GOP are busy distracting them from. It just might change some votes.
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