Before we begin Grania’s last Hili post for my latest trip, I’d like to present her with a certificate. Let’s hear if for her diligence, without which the site would have been sad and empty on some days.
Now, back to her Hili:
Good morning! Jerry is back in Chicago and dealing with jet-lag. [JAC: Indeed I am; it’s 3:45 a.m. and I am wide awake after about 4 hours of sleep.]
Have a wonderful weekend.
Today is the birthday of rapper / singer Snoop Dogg (1971), Tom Petty singer / writer (1950-2017) and actor / producer Viggo Mortensen (1958), and Jelly Roll Morton (1885-1941), American pianist, composer, and bandleader.
I love that Wikipedia had to put this disambiguation notice up:
Indeed, Wikipedia. Indeed.
This gives us plenty of music from very diverse sources to listen to this morning.
Tom Petty with the song that served as his breakthrough number.
And finally this is one of the earlier hits that put Mr Dogg on the map.
Today in history:
1968 – Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.
1973 – “Saturday Night Massacre“: United States President Richard Nixon fired U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refused to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was finally fired by Robert Bork.
1973 – The Sydney Opera House was opened by Elizabeth II after 14 years of construction.
In Poland today, Hili is sleeping the sleep of the just.
A: Hili, breakfast.
Hili: Wake me up once everything is on the table.
In Polish:
Ja: Hili, śniadanie.
Hili: Obudź mnie jak wszystko będzie już na stole.
Weird and wonderful Twitter:
Getting to Mercury is hard: 7 yrs, 1 Earth flyby, 2 Venus flybys, 6 Mercury flybys, 9 bill km total. Watch today's launch here: https://t.co/ulSpADIalx @esa @JAXA_en pic.twitter.com/5eHrbY0hta
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) October 19, 2018
https://twitter.com/AnnaGHughes/status/1053378893275525120
One hopes the mongoose had the good sense to quit while it was ahead.
https://twitter.com/Peacharu_/status/1053039011307155456
Try this one cool trick to get people to remember your wedding forever (see whole thread)
There's lots of ugliness in the world right now, so I think it's important to share these photos of what happened when my friend Marvin called me & said: "I'm getting married & we can only invite 100 people. You didn't make the cut. But you can come if you come as a drunk clown." pic.twitter.com/IaEXvxBEgc
— Erik Patterson (@erikpatterson) October 17, 2018
https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1052673854361890816
More here.
https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1053286026150440960
https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1053305509556609025
Silly, cute and adorable Twitter
Apparently this is a completely safe activity as long as you never stop. pic.twitter.com/TnjdXl6QQE
— Dick King-Smith HQ (@DickKingSmith) October 17, 2018
https://twitter.com/xxlfunny1/status/1053010394292412416
More sepidiine cuteness! Here are some toktokkies (Psammodes sp.) I found near Mkambati (South Africa: Eastern Cape) earlier this year. Need to find a proper way to record these cuties before my next trip! #AmazingBeetles #TOKTOK #TwerkIt #LookingForLove pic.twitter.com/oPvfvBP1K6
— Kojun Kanda (@kogent_musings) October 18, 2018
https://twitter.com/CUTEFUNNYANIMAL/status/1053360310374092806
JAC: I’m adding this so you can see, in the second tweet, the chick of a kakapo, the world’s only flightless parrot and a great favorite of mine. (It’s the world’s cutest parrot.) This came from a thread that Grania highlighted yesterday:
This a thread for the aficionados – I know most of you hate graphs! Here's what it's all about though: these counts are the best we've ever had, and mean that there should lots of chicks next Mar-Apr! #kakapo #conservation #kakapo2019 pic.twitter.com/tnYWVSO6rO
— Dr Andrew Digby (@takapodigs) October 17, 2018
Demotivational message of the day
This is the first thing to make me audibly laugh out loud today.
THIS IS REAL SHIT RIGHT HERE pic.twitter.com/x2qoMhME8L
— Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell) October 19, 2018
Current events Twitter
Careful now
Retweet to show your support. pic.twitter.com/VIGUHLcTJA
— Michael Clarke (@Mr_Mike_Clarke) October 19, 2018
Dear god
Catholic Exorcist Holding Special Mass to Counter Witches’ Hex on Kavanaugh https://t.co/TDI1tvIZeq https://t.co/TDI1tvIZeq
— Atheist Ireland (@atheistie) October 19, 2018
Is there a single person in the entire universe that believes this one? (OK, maybe Trump)
Saudi Arabia Says Jamal Khashoggi Was Killed in Consulate Fight https://t.co/a2dVDmbU3a
— Carl Zimmer (@carlzimmer) October 19, 2018
Oh
Hat-tip: Heather, Matthew
He Grania
[ left thumb up ] [ right thumb up ]
Can’t do that on that OTHER website
…
Technically, I think Richardson and Ruckelshaus both resigned rather than get fired by Nixon on that Saturday night 45 years ago.
Thanks for the yeoman’s work, Grania.
After the Watergate affair some wondered how low could politics go. Today of course we know this exactly. There is no bottom.
Jet lag. The traveler’s curse.
Trump doesn’t believe the Saudis’ risible story any more than anyone else does. (Hell, Trump and Jared Kushner sent MbS the clear signal that whatever human-rights abuses he wished to visit upon his fellow Saudis would be of no concern to the Trump administration.)
Trump is simply dissembling right along with the Saudis, as he can always be expected to do when the interests of one of his strong-men financial benefactors diverge from the interests of the United States.
Exactly this.
Yes. Putin and the Saudis are his friends. I’m surprised the Chinese didn’t get involved in funding him as well.
The Chinese ponied up half a billion dollars for a theme park in Indonesia that Trump has a stake in (and approved Ivanka’s Chinese trademarks) the same week the Trump administration agreed to lift sanctions on the Chinese tech giant ZTE, notorious for ripping off US intellectual property.
As a Brit, I’m beginning to think you’re just fucked. If the midterms go against the Democrats the empowerment Trump receives will be total. And look at how he behaves when he’s not even got that empowerment…
The latest significant step along the road towards the dictatorship was when he went out and praised that Republican mouthbreather for beating up a Guardian journalist, and not an eyelid was batted by the right wing media. Barely a response from the liberal media either given how utterly exhausted and demoralised they are by his scorched earth, shotgun approach to being president.
I wasn’t sure that he would end up as America’s Mugabe – that was worst case scenario – but I am now. He is the most dangerous leader America has ever had, and everyone over there with any regard for liberal democracy needs to make it an existential priority to get him out. I can’t tell you how much I hope you manage it, because where you lead others follow.
Let’s hope he doesn’t run in 2020. He’s got everything he ever wanted in terms of a steady income stream for Putin and the Saudis for the rest of his life. Why should he want to go through another 4 years of stress at his age?
The GOP has not only mouthbreathers but true white nationalists. Iowa Republican Representative Steve King was interviewed in Austria by “far right propaganda website”:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6298189/Iowa-Rep-Steve-King-reveals-white-nationalist-views-Austria-interview.html
If the Democrats do not win at least one house of Congress in the elections next month, this country is well-and-truly fucked. Trump will take it as a validation of his very worst instincts. He will take whatever steps he thinks are necessary to neuter the special counsel investigation. And there’s no telling what authoritarian measures he will push through, since we can expect no oversight, let alone separation-of-powers resistance, from a Republican congress.
These are the most crucial midterm elections this nation has had in my lifetime, hands down.
All lawyers on deck:
I have a question. If Trump has firm knowledge from US intelligence that Khashoggi was murdered under orders of the Saudi government, i.e. MbS, and accepting that Khashoggi was a US resident and the murder took place in a Saudi consulate, could Trump’s misleading statements that he believes the death was accidental or perpetrated by rogue elements (i.e. not the Saudi government) be construed as Trump being an accessory to murder of a US person.
Note: I have no funds to pay lawyers fees!
Y E S ! such a G R E A T G O O D job, Ms Spingies !
so ” sad and empty ” AllWeAAll ‘ld be
without you / without your conscientious effort !
And thank YOU, too, for my heartiest of guffaws the first of this morning !
= the witches’ hex – exorcism !
What a friggin’ hoot !
Blue
Thank you, Grania! 👍
+2
+3
Congratulations, Grania! You deserve it. Love your work!
+1
Grania is awesome!
“OK, Mon Goose, we have you surrounded! Come out with your hands up!”
“SCREW YOU YA BASTARDS YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME”
***hail of gunfire***
ZeFrank needs to voice-over this one.
That would be a greater honor than anything I’ve ever received.
Elephant #1: “I wish we had a bidet.”
Elephant #2: “Hold my beer.”
I found the story of that drunk clown at the wedding to be rather tragic. Man thinks he’s good friends with other man. Other man tells him, “sorry, there are at least 100 other people in my life I care about more than you. Well, I guess you could come to my wedding, but only if you make a fool of yourself for my amusement.”
The orangutan caring for those tigers extracted a prolonged and purely instinctual “awwwwwwwww” from me.
Grania is a treasure. She deserves many awards.
And pie. She deserves lots and lots of pie. There is no higher honor than that.
“A priest is appointed to the office of the exorcist by a diocesan bishop, according to the Catholic Herald. An exorcism is a specific form of prayer the church uses to fight against the devil’s power.” – this from the Newsweek article on the “exorcist” priest.
Well, since the catholic church still believes in evil demons and exorcism (according to Frankie, the devil is real, after all) then it’s fair play for Witches to put a hex on Kavanaugh. Now, *that’s* a ceremony I could get behind. Would be fun to attend!
And, thanks Grania! Great job while PCC was away.
Great job, Grania!
Since I first discovered jazz in highschool, Jelly Roll Morton has been one of my favorites. This is one of the first recordings I ever heard of his, a piano solo of King Porter Stomp. I was introduced to it by a great collection called “Leonard Feather’s Encyclopedia of Jazz on Records,” which seems never to have been released on CD. Of course he also had a great band (the Red Hot Peppers) and did occassional small groups, which are also fantastic.
Terry Waldo does a nice description of Morton’s contribution to music. The explaining starts at about 4:00.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwIHiAL4nuY
Thanks for that link, Rick.
About a heron in a perfume shop, with video:
https://nos.nl/artikel/2255625-reiger-neemt-op-zijn-gemak-een-kijkje-in-parfumerie-gouda.html
The comet link didn’t seem to work so I found an article about it. Amazing!:
https://www.geekwire.com/2018/animated-gif-shows-snow-falling-rosettas-comet-sends-chills-around-world/
Thanks, Paul, very cool!
They buried Lindsey Graham’s spine with John McCain. What a sniveler he’s turned into!
Yes, thank you, Grania! I especially loved the animal tweets this morning.
But…but…but…lest one forget: today is the birthday of Bela Lugosi, the best Dracula ever.
video heron in perfume shop:
Oh, I was so relieved when it flew out! Poor thing!
Trump – who indeed prefer to believe the Saudis not knowing for two weeks, sending a 7 min autopsy expert et cetera because weapons sales – and Graham has restored my adolescent belief that politicians are the lice of the people.*
*Not really, but those two feel like an itch I can’t scratch.
Grania does a terrific job. Kudos galore!!! She has great taste in music as well. Plus she even fixes bad html code. What a host!
Here is a link to what was apparently Jamal Khashoggi’s last interview (with Newsweek), published yesterday for the first time:
https://www.newsweek.com/jamal-khashoggi-secret-interview-saudi-murder-prince-mbs-islam-america-1178489
Thanks for that. When the article quotes this exchange between herself and Khashoggi–
–the irony (can we call this irony?) is chilling.
Yeah for and thanks to Miss Grania (please don’t rap my knuckles with your ruler)!
On the hose and elephants: I think this illustrates well the “relativity of broken”.
That gecko looks quite like a frog to me!