Friday Open Thread ~ the week in review edition

Journalist and anti-war activist David Harris spoke to Robert Scheer about his resistance to America’s genocide in Vietnam and his education in federal prison



Whatever Happened to Americans’ Moral Compass

[video:https://youtu.be/lrWFmm29HzA]

A pared-down pandemic contingent of Hollywood elites conducted the annual Academy Award rituals of self-glorification not, as they have done since 2002, in the modern glitz of the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood itself, but in the Art Deco splendor of downtown Los Angeles’s Union Station. It seemed oddly fitting, more than a year into Covid Time, that the stars and moguls, a couple hundred in number, would take over a utilitarian cathedral of public transport for their three-hour advertisement: the message conveyed by the begowned and tuxedoed perched at tables and banquettes was that they were all dressed up but had nowhere to go.
All Dressed Up for the Oscars and Nowhere to Go
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nxFfQeop88]
[video:https://youtu.be/qO-pKYzcY_8]

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Ha! A compass does not misinform. Magnetic north is pretty much the same the world over, although it is changing very slightly, not enough to confuse navigators. There are corrections which are available to seekers truth seekers.

The attempts of the ptb and their disinformation machine to have us believe a *reset* is in process sounds a bit like another confusing disabuse of reality. If we can no longer trust simple basic tools of moral direction, they have once again succeeded. Believe your instincts.

ENJOY YOUR DAY!

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8 users have voted.
earthling1's picture

@QMS
now has a formal name. "The Trusted News Initiative."
"This corrupt collusion falls under the Trusted News Initiative, a global collaboration signed onto by Big Tech social-media giants and many of its corrupt corporate media “partners.”
From LeoHohmann.com.

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6 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

@earthling1

Rhymes with tin.
A flexible, weak metal.
Our new go-to source for
acceptable information.

WTF, over.

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2 users have voted.

I used to like Frances Mc, but now I don't. shrug It's different when you can't leave after all the filming is done, I guess.

"I have no words," she said. "My voice is in my sword. We know the sword is our work and I like work. Thank you for knowing that and thanks for this."

Bzzzt! How many affordable homes have ya built with that there sword, I don't even have to wonder. Forget about it. Now where's my wood chipper?

Wouldn't it be funny if IBM got the new kontract to kount in Kalifornia? Ha ha! Then Getty Newsom can reopen all the tattoo parlors with a flourish of contracts same time. Efficiency in government so important now because yeah! total recall

New California homeless database aims to help policymakers

By Associated Press ...UPDATED: April 7, 2021 at 6:01 p.m.

A new California data warehouse system unveiled Wednesday should help policymakers better understand and address the issue of homelessness in a state that has the most unhoused people in the country, officials said.

This is the first time the information has been collected at a state level, according to the state’s homeless coordinating and financing council. The announcement comes two months after a state audit that criticized California for an approach so fragmented and incomplete as to possibly hinder efforts to get people into stable housing.

More than 160,000 people experiencing homelessness live in California, according to a 2020 point in time count. That includes about half the country’s estimated 211,000 residents living unsheltered on the streets or in vehicles. Affordable housing is so scarce that even when a person exits homelessness, several more people lose housing and authorities say they can’t keep up.

Huh, that's the first time I ever heard of the "homeless coordinating and financing council". Huh.

The Homeless Data Integration System, which went live Wednesday afternoon, is rudimentary but it is expected to grow, providing the ability for deeper analysis, officials said. The accounting, tax and wealth management firm Plante Moran developed the system for $1.2 million, officials said.

The data, which includes four years’ worth of information, shows that nearly 250,000 people sought services last year; of that, 117,000 people are still awaiting help while nearly 92,000 people found housing.

It also shows that the number of people being served more than doubled, from 14,000 in 2017 to 32,000 in 2020. The database will include demographic information.

Wait, it already contains four years of data? wat Don't worry, the solution is designed by a wealth management firm called Moran, yeah! Thanks Gavin. LOL

You guys I am losing my shit here because Caitlin Jenner, another murderous conservative ASS HOLE could get appointed the new governator because why not recall Newsom? I am up to my neck in assholes around here, not one politician will lower the cost of housing, because it has made them all wealthy too. Keep voting D! duh
...
They swept away homeless from downtown just before his highness dropped in for a photo shoot, and they are still going. I mean "they" are the cops and the politicians, they disgust me.

Santa Rosa police clear Yolanda Avenue homeless camp

Recently, the city cleared three homeless camps in other parts of Santa Rosa over a two-week stretch in late February and early March. One of those sites included a significant 50-person encampment on Industrial Drive.

Then April 13, police moved people out of Highway 101 underpasses — once more rousting about 50 homeless people. Two weeks ago, police cleared another 35 people from an encampment on Roberts Avenue. That one was the site of a popular member of the homeless community’s death following a March 23 vehicle assault.

Someone got stabbed right down the street from where I live. Come Visit Wine Country!

1 Jailed, 1 Hospitalized In Cloverdale Stabbing: Sheriff's Office

Woods was found in possession of a methamphetamine pipe and a file with a pointed tip; it was not immediately clear if Woods used the file or a knife to stab the victim, according to the sheriff's office.

The victim was taken to a local hospital.

As for Woods, he was booked into Sonoma County jail on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon, misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia, and violation of Post-Release Community Supervision. He was being held in lieu of $30,000 bail Monday.

...
The river looks like ass it is so low, the flow it is pathetic. And the bridge stinks like human detritus from the encampment beneath. I am pretty pretty darn sure not one single person camping down there is enthusiastic about being entered in to The Homeless Data Integration System.

Myself could be sewing black triangles if she dared, so all can know me by sight, the disabled homosexual rejected by society. This is not utopia, not at all so why keep trying. I don't know.

"... anyhow, I's getting to be one more old timer, and the years don't make wisdom, they just make old age."
--Jack Beauregard

Only a few famous actors get to actually sail off in to the sunset of life in Kalifornia, and elsewhere. All others must fuck off and die, preferably penniless and without shelter, 'cause that's what makes the box office sing. FUCK

Here's a favorite Blondie song again, now the masks make sense. Finally!

Blondie - Die Young Stay Pretty (Eat to the Beat 1979)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO5VV5PISHU width:500]

"I didn't come here and I ain't leavin, so don't sit around and cry, just roll me up and smoke me when I die" -- Willy Nelson

Peace and Love

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6 users have voted.

https://money.yahoo.com/south-carolina-cancels-federal-unemployment-bene...
Will the unemployed of these "red" states remember this at the polls next year?
An interesting viewpoint from a stock broker on the "labor shortage" https://ritholtz.com/2021/05/finding-it-hard-to-hire-try-raising-your-wa...
While the stock market hits new all time highs this morning amidst the "labor shortage".

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7 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Raggedy Ann's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness
lazy people back into slavery. Not rocket science, but potentially politically fatal - hopefully, anyway. Unknw

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6 users have voted.

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

@The Voice In the Wilderness hi, so red Montana and red South Carolina both chopped gig workers at the knees, took away the federal subsidy but left the state unemployment assistance. I didn't seek more detail but haven't believed a reported "unemployment rate" since forever. Even if it is 22% in 2022, what good will voting do? Raise money to promote more duopoly failures, that's what I think. Money printer go brrrrr!

Do nomads remember Occupy? Remember Obama? Clinton, Biden, etc., who militarized da local police? Giddyup. To paraphrase one other Dick: "Don't pull out in the middle of a screw, vote Blue in '22!" BOHICA

"While the stock market hits new all time highs this morning amidst the "labor shortage"."

Money printer go brrr!? Wouldn't you also buy another house and collect rents if you had the cheap money means to do so? Most workers still can not resist it obviously, despite all the homeless and the garbage and the petty crimes. "That's the system", a.k.a "The American Dream". WFH ownership society. Have you seen the price of lumber lately? omg wow

Peace and Love

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7 users have voted.

@eyo @eyo @eyo @eyo and despair about homelessness.

The NYC current shortage became the Acute Catastrophe it is pretty recently. Before the Devil from NY, Michael R. Bloomberg, previous mayors had addressed homeless people with suitable action ---building housing and safe shelters, mental health services, etc---with decency and effectiveness.

While he was Mayor one of his early actions was giving homeless people one way bus tickets out of town.

Another initiative, a good one, was offering Housing Assistance Vouchers to 1,500 people with children----which housed 4-7,000 thousand people

In the last days on his third term, in a rage that de Blasio had won, Bloomberg canceled those vouchers, throwing all those adults with kids out into the streets. Other cuts he made to salt the field and stymie de Blasio resulted in more massive numbers of homeless people. Mayor de Blasio, in his 8 years, has been unable to or unwilling to stem the tide.

Now we have Andrew Yang and one of his priorities is the rezoning of luxury housing neighborhoods, namely Soho, by legislating for and then building low income housing in SOHO. This action alone, in Soho and elsewhere will singlehandedly change the face of homelessness of NYC.

This may be the #1 reason the MSM and DNC are massing against Yang. I am holding my breath.

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NYCVG

@NYCVG hi, and thank you for posting your local news here so often too. It must be fun to root for a candidate you like, I forget it's been so long. Too bad Andrew Yang is a Democrat, good luck to him and you both. I hope he wins and does what he says could be done, and sets a good example for other billionaires to follow. Not Cuomo, not Bloomberg, you know.

Peace and Love

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studentofearth's picture

our local news sites way to often. Yesterday in Portland, Oregon.
Armed standoff at Portland protest turns into scuffle after motorist and ‘volunteer security’ aim GUNS at each other

Nothing on local newspaper related websites has shown up yet. Expect article to appear within a few days depending upon international re-reporting.
The Bulletin - major newspaper for eastern side of the state
The Oregonian - the only statewide newspaper

Noticed this pattern over the past three years, originally related to delayed reporting of Hanford leak events and the time Oregon Guard lost a missile off the Oregon coast. The type of news events not being easily available to the general public keeps increasing in scope.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

studentofearth's picture

@studentofearth If you are interested Police investigating armed confrontation on North Portland street

Police are investigating an armed confrontation between a motorist who pulled a handgun and at least two pedestrians dressed in black and armed with what appear to be assault rifles that erupted Thursday in the middle of a residential street in North Portland.

It’s unclear what started the standoff, but videos circulating on social media show the resulting confrontation between people in a crowd and the motorist, Joseph Hall, who remains hospitalized.

Hall, 53, said he’s a handyman who was headed home from his repair work at a nearby apartment complex when he swerved on Alberta Street to avoid a moped that cut him off.

He said he then noticed the moped following his truck and a man screaming on a handheld radio to stop his truck.

When he reached Michigan Avenue, Hall said another vehicle blocked his path “and all of a sudden I have three or four people around me” with what to him looked like AR-15s and AK-47s.
...
An ambulance was sent and he was taken to Legacy Emanuel Hospital, where he’s being treated for a dislocated shoulder, broken left clavicle and five broken ribs, he said.

My two vehicles are a Toyota Prius and an older full sized pick-up which occasionally needs to be driven on public roads to haul loads or fill up with gas. Done this for years with no discernible difference of treatment from various drivers. Since October, after the fires, there has been a noticeable difference in the type of vehicles and drivers driving aggressively based on which vehicle I am driving. Behaviors such as driving too close behind, swerving in front of drive path, passing in non-passing zones and abrupt stops without an apparent reason. Poor driving often happens during summer when a high percentage of tourists are on the road. What is happening now is different.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

@studentofearth @studentofearth @studentofearth @studentofearth So actual video shows this:

Hall is seen on video standing outside the driver’s seat of his red pickup, his door open, holding the firearm, while a man standing in the street points a rifle at him at North Alberta Street and Michigan Avenue.

But he says this:

Hall said he stepped out of his pickup and someone snatched the keys from the truck. When he went around to the back of the truck, he said several people in the crowd remained hostile and pointed handguns and rifles at him.

He said he then pulled his .38-caliber pistol from his pants and headed into the fray.

“I’m trained in the military to walk towards the threat and fight your way through the threat,” said Hall.

So his testimony doesn't match the video. And his own testimony contradicts what he later says:

“All I wanted to do is leave,” said Hall,

Really? Or are you just a Nazi who tried and failed to use your vehicle as a weapon? Because buried in the article is this little nugget:

Hall said his truck had been surrounded last year during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day march in Portland and he had “laid on his horn” as he tried to drive through a green light. He said he suspects the group knows his truck. In the 2020 incident, he put on a Make America Great Again cap, according to KATU.

I'm leaning towards fascist Nazi fuck.
Meanwhile, the protestors have a different story:

A tweet by a group called “We Out Here Magazine” described the scene: “A little after 1pm, a man decided to run his truck through the weekly Justice For Patrick Kimmons March, then got out of his truck with a gun before he was disarmed by volunteer security.”

Who you going to believe, the lying MAGA hat wearing Nazi or your own eyes watching the video?
But honest officer, I'm just your joe average hard working Murican, coming home from work who didn't realize the WEEKLY protest march, was happening and the horror of finding myself, an innocent hard working Murican, SURROUNDED (paranoia) by evil, degenerate protestors. I was so scurred. Just like I wuz SURROUNDED last year when, once again, I UNKNOWINGLY and innocently, I assure you officer, drove up to another protest with my MAGA hat on and "laid on the horn."
Why those random protestors from a year ago must have surely singled ME out.

Yeah, that's the ticket.
Fascist Nazi Fuck.

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Turnout is Way UP!

Looking very good for Scottish Independence. Gained 3 seats from Conservatives so far. Including one from the all important seat from Tory stronghold Edinburgh.

Detailed report later when the counting for today is over. We won't get full results until Saturday.

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7 users have voted.

NYCVG