December 26, 2022

The oligarch Space-niks didn't expect SHATNER's take

What used to be quaintly called "jet-setters" are now known to be Oligarchs with battleship-sized (or should it be "carrier-sized", as in Doctor Evil's "millions - no, billions"?) yachts. And the Oligarchs have left the Greek isles behind in favor of Space, Mars, and such. Plus, they collect human knickknacks to adorn their vessels - a SHATNER here, a STRAHAN there. No run-of-the-mill Nobody to be worthy of their expeditions - *luster* of celebrity is needed for Page Six.

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https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/william-shatner-space-boldly-go-excerpt-1235395113/

.... I continued my self-guided tour and turned my head to face the other direction, to stare into space. I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. Stars exploding years ago, their light traveling to us years later; black holes absorbing energy; satellites showing us entire galaxies in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely… all of that has thrilled me for years… but when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold . . . all I saw was death.

I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her. ....

It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.

I learned later that I was not alone in this feeling. It is called the “Overview Effect” and is not uncommon among astronauts, including Yuri Gagarin, Michael Collins, Sally Ride, and many others. Essentially, when someone travels to space and views Earth from orbit, a sense of the planet’s fragility takes hold in an ineffable, instinctive manner. Author Frank White first coined the term in 1987: “There are no borders or boundaries on our planet except those that we create in our minds or through human behaviors. All the ideas and concepts that divide us when we are on the surface begin to fade from orbit and the moon. The result is a shift in worldview, and in identity.” ....

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December 19, 2022

Chris LICHT: "slams 'stunning' left-wing 'vitriol' aimed at him"

When he went from being COLBERT's (Executive?) producer to CNN, some of us/uninformed imagined CNN would be sort of safe, perhaps via having osmosis-swallowed the facile stereotype that it had a Lib slant instead of being down-the-middle, not to mention our assuming that COLBERT is a Lib spokesperson. Then it transpired that the oligarchic new owners (Repuke donors) installed him to make it into Faux-Lite, and indeed he set upon "changes" of firing hosts and reporters who seemed Lib and issued dicta against language and framing that could be construed as Lib.

But the big reveal was that, COLBERT was not his incubator, but rather his being the early producer for SCARBOROUGH in Scabs' vociferous wingnut days, with OLBERMANN informing that LICHT was Scabs' hatchet man, bullying the MSNBC timid boss into getting Lib guests blackballed from Lib hosts' shows, under the threat that Scabs would not show up for work if the purges didn't happen.

And a month or so ago COLBERT told Charlemagne tha God that LICHT is misunderstood, has "only the best of intentions."

By the bye, COLBERT is the best and around here MAHER is dirt, but there are YouTubes of MAHER saying he *hates* COLBERT ("gives the corporate machine what it wants" ) and MAHER guesting on COLBERT with the mutual hostility thick enough to cut, with MAHER telling him, "You probably voted for NIXON", which COLBERT sat through without replying.

*** But in today's LICHT item (original from NYT/paywall), confusion (for me) - so besides making CNN more "hard news," he was hired "to tamp down anti-Trump/left-leaning" but he sees it to be Centrist as "normal" but not "vanilla" and with an "edge." And, reminiscent of MUSK, he wants us to take with us to have conversations but criticizing HIM is "vitriol". He sounds arrogant, like how dare anybody question him who is On High.

That's how some media types sound, like, it's THEIR place to talk down about the news and opinions, how dare us Keyboard Jockeys dare to have access to news that doesn't come from their mouths and dare to consider ourselves equal and most of all to TALK BACK to them? They don't get that Al GORE's internet means INTERACTION, not Moses on the mountain.

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https://nypost.com/2022/12/18/cnn-boss-chris-licht-slams-left-wing-vitriol-aimed-at-him/

.... Licht was tasked with bringing CNN back to its hard-news roots, to tamp down on anti-Trump, left-leaning punditry, and to cut costs.

He told the Times he thinks of people in the political center as “normal” — but insists appealing to “normal” people doesn’t mean the content should be boring.

“The uninformed vitriol, especially from the left, has been stunning,” Licht, who took over the cable network in May, told The New York Times. “Which proves my point: So much of what passes for news is name-calling, half-truths and desperation.” ....

He told the Times he wants the network to be a place for “rational conversation about polarizing issues.” ....

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December 7, 2022

GOP needs to change its moniker, proposed: Party of Stunts. - Oh, look, it fits: POS.

But as Napoleon said, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." We don't want to give them tips on what/how to improve their chances, not that they ever listen to obvious things like the-nose-on-your-face, lying-eyes and such.

The really prescient points Christian WALKER makes: 1- Repukes claim they don't play identity politics but run/nominate based on skin color, and, 2- "A boring old (Repuke) could have won."

Actually, Poppy BUSH got the STUNT/gimmick/trap ball rolling when he nominated Uncle Clarence to the court: Finding a willing Minority tool, somebody from a normally Democratic constituent group, on the surface putting the Dems over the barrel of having to oppose ("attack" ) somebody from a supposed constituent group. And the Repukes have caught the pass ever since, Shrub picking stooge Beto GONZALES for Attorney General and others/later countless other candidate tools. Human nature (NIETZSCHE, "All too human" ) collaborators are found in every group everywhere.

Dems felt trapped by this stunt for decades - all sheepish, acting "guilty", embarrassed, put-upon. The answer to it: Ignore the racial/ethnic "identity" and focus on the self-proclaimed *ideology* - i.e., We take you at your word that you are an unqualifiedly declared Wingnut, and THAT is why we oppose you.

But the Repukes also unwittingly exposed their own game, Orrin HATCH with his Shirley Temple pout, saying, "How can the Dems oppose a MINORITY, Mee-gwell ESTRADA when they claim to stand for minorities?!" - iow, Mee-gwell was SELECTED by them *because* he was a minority member. It was overtly a racial argument.

And as Hershel's son says, the Hershel thing happened *because* of the skin color. The irony being (wingnuts are oblivious to irony) that if they were true to themselves and picked an Old White Male, they would have won.

*** But while Drumpf is above all a master of Marketing, branding, attention-grabbing STUNT-er, he doesn't do things out of knowledge of history or student of tactics but only from his own Con/Mob mentality. He just happened to fit the pattern. Or a cynical thought might be that Poppy and the wingnuts just adapted their own dirty tricks from the Con/Mob mentality with a patina of respectability.

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https://news.yahoo.com/herschel-walkers-son-says-trump-111606386.html

His son, Christian Walker, tweeted on Tuesday that his father had rejected calls not to run after Trump repeatedly told him to enter the race.

"The Truth: Trump called my dad for months DEMANDING that he run," Christian Walker said. "Everyone with a brain begged him: 'PLEASE DON'T DO THIS. This is too dirty, you have an insane past… PLEASE DONT DO THIS.' We got the middle finger. He ran."

He also accused the Republican Party of running his father in the election because of his skin color.

"Republicans, we say we don't play 'identity politics' and then you ran this man mainly because he was the same skin color as his opponent with no background other than football," he tweeted. "A boring old Republican could have won." ….

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