Up, through the at-mos-phere, up, where the air is clear...

Gawd, you would have felt sick to the stomach if you saw this live, but it all has a happy ending:

Tweets noted

Actually, I am less pessimistic than the last tweeter, but I could be proved wrong....

A useful summary

My only quibble - 5 decades seems a tad longer than I thought:

Particularly apt illustration for how the Bird brain, such that it is, works

Poor reviews

My impression from Twitter is that not only did all liberals think that the Trump speech was flat and way too long, but so did the frequent Trump apologist Brit Hume on Fox.   I assume that it really was flat, then.  (I saw bits and pieces, and it is no surprise to me that it is getting this sort of comment.)

Yet look at the headline on the Washington Post on line headline:

which gives the impression that it was an energetic speech.

I am very much on side with those media critics who are getting ropeable again that the mainstream press is not doing more caning of Trump for his abuse of his position, but are "two sides-ing" the parties again.

What have they got to lose by calling out a wannabe dictator as a wannabe dictator?  He already tells his followers they are the "enemy of the people" - itself an extraordinary undemocratic and dangerous attitude that should never have been normalised by resigned acceptance of its repetition.

To be clear:  the Washington Post routinely carries pages of strong Trump criticism, including of this speech.   But it shouldn't be giving a false impression in its main headline choice.  

Unsubtle symbolism

So, not only did a President use the White House and the Presidential seal for a party political convention, he also got to use a huge amount of (I assume) public land to launch a 4th July worthy fireworks display around the most obviously phallic monument in America.   

(Look, I don't normally think of the Washington Monument as phallic, but in the context of a narcissistic, trash talking, thinks-he's-real-masculine-but-probably-needs-Viagra President, I don't think this is an unwarranted take on the symbolism.)  

Update:  Heh -

Encouraging violence for political purposes

Good article at WAPO about how it is 100% clear that Republicans have no incentive to hope that community violence calms down rapidly, as it suits them politically:

At the Republican convention, one speaker after another claimed America’s cities have descended into chaos, which is not the fault of the current president but shows how much worse things will get under Biden, who is a supposed captive of radical forces unleashed inside the Democratic Party.

Some on the right are so convinced this will be effective that they haven’t shied away from cozying up to vigilante violence. Speaking about 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, a Trump supporter who traveled to Kenosha with his AR-15 and has been charged with killing two protesters, Fox News host Tucker Carlson said: “How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”

That’s extraordinary, not only for its seemingly understanding tone toward the alleged vigilante murder of protesters but also in its depiction of a country in total civil collapse.  And while the Trump campaign distanced itself from the killings, this points to an extraordinary level of confidence (or feigned confidence) on the right in the power of all this imagery to help Trump.

Apparently, Biden has been making the point about the cynicism of this, but not enough are hearing it:

For instance, on MSNBC Thursday, Biden responded directly to Vice President Pence’s claim at the convention that “the hard truth is, you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.” Biden said: “The problem we have right now is, we’re in Donald Trump’s America.” Biden added that Trump is “rooting for more violence, not less.”

The “Donald Trump’s America” formulation makes the simple point that Trump is the problem. Trump promises only more violence and searing divisions because he thinks those things are good for him and he doesn’t care about anyone but himself.

But he has to push harder as being the one capable of bringing calmer times:

Biden has repeatedly condemned the violence, of course, despite all the lies to the contrary. And the Biden bet is that he’s intuitively understood as a creature of the center, giving him more leeway to speak frankly to the country about how systemic racism and police brutality unleash rage and grief that is understandable and calls for serious reform — and that voters are sophisticated enough to hear this.

Central to that bet, though, is the idea that Trump is widely seen as a uniformly destructive, instigating, malevolent force. This provides an opening for Biden and Harris to argue that their offer of balance — taking the protesters’ grievances seriously while condemning violence — holds out the promise of peace, where Trump only offers more chaos and devastation. And Conway just helped Democrats build that case.

 

Presenting live from the White Palace, King Trump, watched on by Prince Don, Prince Eric and Princess Ivanka

Update:

Come on, Biden

I've been saying this for a while, but with the latest escalation in violence related to a police shooting, why isn't Biden doing a speech for national TV calling for calm and addressing specifically how the situation should be addressed.

A federal government cannot solve all of the problems, but he can make sensible proposals and call for national unity to de-escalate the situation.     All Trump and his supporters are doing is telling people there is no significant problem with policing and race, and encouraging more rednecks to join in.   Biden ought to be able to make political gain as being the one who can help calm the nation.

Military event noted

I've read some tweets about Melania Trump's robotic, look at the audience as little as possible, speech in the newly de-flowered and de-tree'd Rose Garden, and still haven't seen anyone saying how her dress looked a lot to me like a version of a khaki military coat.  Surely someone else has noticed:

I would say it suited the whole Our Glorious Leader is Endorsed by the Military vibe of the proceedings, which many are noting is inappropriate if not actually illegal.

Steve Kates would be drolling in his porridge in excitement, though, I bet.

A broken blog

Huh.  If I am not mistaken, Sinclair Davidson's Ship for Old (and occasionally middle aged) Fools (Catallaxy) is broken.  It hasn't worked completely right for many weeks, actually.  

In any event, it's become pretty much unreadable since COVID struck - full of rage against Dan Andrews, continual denial of the seriousness of the disease, the most grovelling Trump admiration, and even internal fighting over whether some of the most hysterical commenters have really gone too hysterical this time.   Not to mention one younger nut who posts about his personal involvement in the "resistance" to the Victorian lockdown, but sounds half the time like he's on cocaine.   Didn't some anti lockdown protesters get arrested yesterday?  With any luck, he will be among them.

Sinclair doesn't make many appearances anymore so I don't get much fun from attacking his dubious takes.   The site now looks more like it's "CL and Friends", and the circle of commenters is narrower and more boring than ever.  I don't even read the posts by the other cranky, anonymous posters - they all sound like grey haired male retirees with too much time on their hands.  

So, the entertainment value is way down.

Donald will be annoyed

Viewing numbers for the American political conventions shouldn't matter much either way, except when you can take pleasure in knowing that the Narcissist in Chief will be telling his minions he doesn't want to see headlines like this again:

Democrats beat Republicans in first-night convention TV audience

Travel wishes

I have decided that Portugal seems well worth visiting.  I saw some ponderous young Vlogger on Youtube call it the most underrated country he has been to, but also Richard Ayoade's visit to Porto on Travel Man sparked my interest.

I also want to go to Norway, but that's a more long standing wish.  I should look up travel vloggers' trips through there on Youtube, too.

On calories

You know, it seems to me that Twisties (cheese flavour) have a lot more calories in them than the weight would suggest.  

Maybe it's in the cheese powder? 

Which has made me realise - how do they make cheese powder?   Here's an article in the New Yorker (of all places) about that.   It includes this bit of history:

While Marco Polo reportedly encountered a type of powdered milk in thirteenth-century Mongolia, and the first patent for commercial spray-drying was awarded to Samuel Percy in 1872, the first industrial spray-dried dairy products weren’t manufactured until shortly after Kraft’s development of processed cheese in the nineteen-twenties, according to “Food Powders: Physical Properties, Processing, and Functionality.”

Huh.

 

Uncle Roger power move

The most recent "Uncle Roger" bits on Youtube aren't really going anywhere much, but I'm still watching.  This amused me on Twitter, though, from some random person talking Chinese uncles: