G+: Milky Way over Chilean Volcanoes Useful: Sometimes, you have to contemplate the infinite. APOD: 2017 August 21 – Milky Way over Chilean Volcanoes A different astronomy and space science related image is featured each day, along with a brief explanation. Read at Google+
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Here’s a pocketful of links, stacked up for easy viewing. GOP senator unsure if Trump will be 2020 nominee: Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told MSNBC that she was unsure whether President Donald Trump would be the party’s presidential nominee in 2020. – Tags: politics – http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/08/21/susan-collins-unsure-trump-2020-msnbc-sot-erin.cnn Jeh Johnson: Confederate Statues Are ‘Neo-Nazi Rallying Points’: Martha Raddatz filled in on ABC’s “This Week” charged with the arduous task of eliciting some semblance of logic from Jerry Falwell Junior’s rationalizing of Trump’s deplorable defense of White Nationalists, KKK members and Neo-Nazis. – by Leftofcenter – Tags: politics – http://crooksandliars.com/2017/08/jeh-johnson-confederate-statues-are-neo Angry Trump Grilled…
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 Word is that the bridge construction may start next year, complete the year after. This will make Tour de Cure routing interesting! LSource: Pedestrian bridge over Fox River in Aurora in spotlight – Aurora Beacon-News
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Here’s a pocketful of links, stacked up for easy viewing. The most pernicious racism is the stuff we don’t even think about : ***Dave Does the Blog: Literally don’t think about, as in the stuff that passes below our consciousness, that we don’t detect, let alone ponder. The stuff where we don’t even think about it as racism because it’s just How Things Are in our minds, axiomatic assumptions about people based on their race. – by Dave Hill – Tags: Racism, Blogs – http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2017/08/18/pernicious-racism-stuff-dont-even-think.html From airline cancellations to that ropey hotel, what to do about botched holidays: The Guardian…
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These look a little more epic than I’m capable of handling, but they still look like a dream. But there must be a typo in the England to Rome one – 2 days to go a thousand miles is pretty ambitious in a CAR, let alone on a bike. June 2017 marked 200 years since German inventor Karl Von Drais first rode his two-wheeled Laufmaschine, or “running machine.†These trips celebrate the bike. Source: 6 epic bike treks around the globe – Chicago Tribune
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This photo requires some context: Bannon is out, this is the currently constituted Cabinet as it was during the weekend meeting on Afghanistan, and Trump has just signed some bill that’s more of a symbolic resolution. Let’s break down the looks — and messages sent via those looks — for each white man of the 13 white men and 1 woman in the photo. Side note: I have to believe the attendees were told not to smile due to the seriousness of the topic discussed. Otherwise, the sheer spontaneous seriousness is truly beyond belief. (Huge thanks to CNN’s Jim Acosta…
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 Seventh in a series of editorials from the LA Times. READ. These are not normal times.The man in the White House is reckless and unmanageable, a danger to the Constitution, a threat to our democratic institutions. Source: Enough is Enough – Los Angeles Times
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People support Trump because they project their own fears and hopes on him. Note that I use the cliché in reverse order – they are first motivated by fear, and hope is secondary. NYT: No Deal Breaker For Trump Voters Larry Laughlin, a retired businessman from a Minneapolis suburb, compares Mr. Trump to a high school senior who could “walk up to the table with the jocks and the cheerleaders and put them in their place.†That is something that the “nerds and the losers, whose dads are unemployed and moms are working in the cafeteria,†could never do. Mr.…
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This experience passed along by Crooks and Liars from a Facebook post (with author’s permission) gives the lie to the “both sides do it” argument… including the one used by the current resident of the White House. I’ve spent the week since Charlottesville grieving, angry, and spending far too much time sifting through Twitter and news feeds, trying to make sense of it all. The only conclusion I can reach is that Nazis and fascists must be opposed, without violence if possible. They may make it impossible to avoid confrontations, though, in future actions. They crave conflict because without opposition,…
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Twitter has hacked my brain. Years ago I was capable of blogging long essays. Now I think in 140 character bursts. This must stop. I have New Age music playing, I’m not looking at Twitter, I’m not reading item after item in Feedly, I’m not curating links endlessly in Pocket or del.icio.us (or whatever linkhoarding tool is current now). It is late evening, it is calm, and I had a pleasant day of errands, eating out with family, playing board games, and laughing. I ate out twice, in fact. Lunch and dinner, spent with family. An older couple, a middle-aged…