Bag of Randomness for Thursday, August 27, 2020


I’m very proud of the solidarity I’ve seen amongst the Milwaukee Bucks, the Brewers, and other professional athletes. I thought Kenny Smith showed courage and class.

What a stark contrast America was yesterday. The Vice-President speaking at the place in which the Star-Spangled Banner was inspired, and the protest of professional athletes and the Black Lives Matter movement which in part was launched because a knee was taken by a professional athlete as the Star-Spangled Banner was played. It was a damn shame to hear Pence dedicate just a single sentence, in passing, about Kenosha, with a blanket statement that the violence must stop.

Many thoughts run through my head about Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old kid, who thought he needed to go across state lines to be part of some vigilante group with an assault-style rifle.  I’m curious if his single-mother knew he was going to do such a thing with a deadly weapon, much less on a school night. In January 2017, his mother sought an order of protection, accusing one of Rittenhouse’s classmates of bullying her son with taunts of being “dumb” and “stupid,” as well as threatening to hurt him.

It’s shocking to see police officers in an armored vehicle toss bottles of water to Rittenhouse and other armed civilians (people who are clearly violating the city’s 8 p.m. curfew and Rittenhouse being too young to openly carry a firearm in Wisconsin) expressing their gratitude by saying, “We appreciate you guys. We really do.”

It was shocking to see Rittenhouse walk past the police with his assault-style rifle over his shoulder as members of the crowd were yelling for him to be arrested because he had shot people. That lack of response allowed Rittenhouse to return 20-miles to Antioch more than 20 miles from Kenosha.


Armchair Political Consultant: The RNC should have launched some fireworks after Trace Adkins sang the Star-Spangled Banner. They were at Fort McHenry, where Francis Scott Key literally described bombs bursting in air like fireworks.



Here’s a website to help people find bilingual names, it was created by a man trying to find a suitable name for his and his wife’s Japanese-Finnish baby.

MixedName.com

I gave it a try to see if DaughterGeeding’s bilingual middle name appeared, which it did. My mother’s name appeared smack dab in the middle.


Ian McCaw was the Baylor University athletic director and their esteemed university president left because of a scandal. Ian McCaw is now the Liberty University athletic director and their esteemed university president left in a scandal.


I’m not sure how this will look on a mobile device, but this meteorological map of Hurrican Laura was pretty cool to play with. Be sure to hover your mouse and select the different options on the left.


DogGeedingII keeping BoyGeeding company during class. That dog might learn the hard way that’s not the safest of places to take a nap.


Jalopnik – Rolls-Royce Reworks Its Logo And Branding So People Will Stop Assuming They’re A Budget Car Brand


The Obscure Constitutional Loophole That 2020 Is Blowing Wide OpenThe United States has a law for disputed elections—but it’s not ready for this year’s presidential vote.

The law, then, is clear about how to handle the failure to decide an election on time. But applying the law is another matter—and there’s reason to fear the United States could find itself with precisely what the existing law was intended to prevent: an acting president of disputed legitimacy. Unless Congress quickly rethinks its existing succession laws, the current system could take an already bad situation of a delayed, disputed presidential election and make it even worse.

The problem centers on the reliance on Congress for the line of succession. Having the speaker first in line fails to account for the fact that the terms for all 435 House members expire on Jan. 3. If a presidential election is delayed and unresolved because of disputes over the validity and timing of mail-in ballots, many individual House elections—decided by those same ballots—would probably be delayed and unresolved too. The result would be fierce fighting over huge swaths of the House’s membership. Majority control could change chaotically from day to day as a partially filled House wrestled over each new batch of individual election results, amid a fog of state recounts and litigation. Without at least 218 seats filled, there would not even be a quorum, meaning there would be no speaker at all.

The backup is the Senate side, where the terms of only about one-third of the senators will expire on Jan. 3. The other two-thirds of the Senate will be able to form a quorum and choose a president pro tempore. But just like in the House, delayed election results could lead to intense political combat over the 30-odd seats up for grabs, with majorities shifting daily. Complicating matters, governors in some states might try to appoint people to fill vacant seats temporarily—assuming it’s clear after the election who the governors even are. As such, the president pro tempore could be chosen by a majority of questionable legitimacy, formed through a combination of confusion, litigation, and partisan shenanigans.


Woman Transforms Into A Siren By Singing In An Echoey Stairwell

Her singing made me think of the Titanic soundtrack. It just so happens she also sang “Hymn to the Sea” from the movie in the stairwell as well. She also did her best Ariel impression.



Fact Checking Is the Core of Nonfiction Writing. Why Do So Many Publishers Refuse to Do It?Emma Copley Eisenberg discusses the dangers of authors being forced to hire their own fact-checker out of pocket. If they do so at all.

From reading up on the subject and talking to friends who had published books of nonfiction, I knew that I would be responsible for hiring and paying a freelance fact checker myself. This is the norm, not the exception; in almost all book contracts, it is the writer’s legal responsibility, not the publisher’s, to deliver a factually accurate text.

As a result, most nonfiction books are not fact checked; if they are, it is at the author’s expense. Publishers have said for years that it would be cost-prohibitive for them to provide fact checking for every nonfiction book; they tend to speak publicly about a book’s facts only if a book includes errors that lead to a public scandal and threaten their bottom line.

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Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, August 26, 2020


Theodore Roosevelt doesn’t have a presidential library, but he soon will, in Medora North Dakota of all places. If you want to check out the recently revealed architectural design concepts, check out this PDF. I think they all look great and fit in with the area fantastically.


I have Jennifer Garner fatigue. It seems like she’s everywhere. I have nothing against her, just that she’s overexposed at the moment.



For you fellow P1’s of The TICKET, Mike Rhyner, the Old Gray Wolf, is now hosting a podcast on The Athletic.

Speaking of podcasts, I’ve been listening to Literally! With Rob Lowe. He’s pretty light-hearted and it’s been fun listening talk to Mike Myers, David Spade, and Demi Moore. She revealed that she auditioned for the Kelly McGillis role in Top Gun, going as far as reading with Tom Cruise.

And speaking of Rob Lowe – ‘West Wing’ Reunion Special Set at HBO Max to Promote Voting in 2020 Election

“A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote” will debut on the streamer this fall. It will feature a theatrical staging of the “Hartsfield’s Landing” episode from the show’s third season and will be shot at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles in early October.

Rob Lowe, Dulé Hill, Allison Janney, Janel Moloney, Richard Schiff, Bradley Whitford, and Martin Sheen will reprise their roles from the episode, which will be shot under COVID Safe Way Forward Protocols.. Series creator Aaron Sorkin will write original material for the event.

And speaking of Aaron Sorkin, this may be the best material he’s ever written.


With all this distance learning going on, it may be a while before Barry at LiberallyLean has another “And Another.”


French minister defends ‘precious’ right to sunbathe topless

France’s interior minister has defended the “precious” right to sunbathe topless on beaches, after police asked a group of women to cover up on the southern coast.

French gendarmes patrolling a beach in Mediterranean seaside town Sainte-Marie-la-Mer last week asked a group of topless sunbathers to cover up in response to a complaint from a family, the local gendarmerie said in a statement on Facebook.

It acknowledged their actions had been “clumsy” but said the officers only wanted to calm the situation, insisting there had been no official order to ban topless sunbathing in the town.

But their actions prompted an avalanche of criticism on social media, where users wondered if the practice was now out of bounds.


Russian Army Unveils Camo Robes for Military Priests


Any fear Republicans had of Obama abusing power, Trump has done.



Bird deaths down 70 percent after painting wind turbine bladesThe study ran for nine years at Norway’s Smøla wind farm.


That’s an impressive way to preserve a no-hitter.

https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1298449110706552834



Let’s not forget about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis moment back in May.

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Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, August 25, 2020


I should have guessed that Jerry Falwell Jr. would have been the one to bring cuckolding into the mainstream. Trump made golden showers popular. I can’t wait to see what Robert Jeffress beings to the table. I’m guessing docking or pegging.


What’s over-under on the number of times Lee Greenwood’s only hit will be played at the RNC? Surely much higher than the RNC revealing a healthcare plan to replace the ACA.


Don’t cry for me when I get subpoenaed.


I’m reminded of the time Bart Simpson requested an all syrup Squishee.

A Group Of Krispy Kreme Employees Glazed A Donut 25 Times Just To See What Would Happen


Almost 50 North Texans Drank Bleach This Month, Poison Center Warns ‘Stop, It Won’t Cure COVID’


AI Slays Top F-16 Pilot In DARPA Dogfight Simulation

 In a 5 to 0 sweep, an AI ‘pilot’ developed by Heron Systems beat one of the Air Force’s top F-16 fighter pilots in DARPA’s simulated aerial dogfight contest today. “It’s a giant leap,” said DARPA’s Justin (call sign “Glock”) Mock, who served as a commentator on the trials.

Heron Systems’ AI was extremely aggressive in the games, with its AI pilot consistently able to turn and score killing hits on the simulated F-16 piloted by an unnamed Air Force pilot, with the call sign “Banger,” a graduate of the Air Force’s highly selective Weapons School at Nellis AFB. The AI exhibited “superhuman aiming ability” during the simulation, Mock said.


Invalid baptism of Dearborn priest results in invalid sacraments

A priest in the Archdiocese of Detroit earlier this month learned his baptism, performed 30 years ago, was invalid and that sacraments he has performed for others such as marriage and confession are invalid. It was a seemingly small mistake: The deacon said “we baptize” instead of “I baptize” when conferring the sacrament. But that mixup means that the Rev. Matthew Hood of Dearborn should never have been ordained as a priest—and was not entitled to confer sacraments on anyone else. Now church officials are scrambling to notify Catholics who were baptized or made other sacraments with Hood that they may need to come in for a do-over. And it appears Hood is not the only victim of imprecise language: The deacon used the wrong words from 1986 to 1999.

Not for serious discussion, but if sex before marriage is a sin, and your wedding 20 years ago was performed by this man which invalidates your marriage (from a church’s perspective), have you been committing sinful acts when you made love to whom you believed was your spouse?


How Police Are Using ‘Super Recognizers’ Like Me to Track Criminals
Kelly Hearsey’s job is to identify people from CCTV footage. She’s freakishly good at it.

The term “super recognizer” first appeared in 2009 and describes people who can remember more than 80 percent of the faces of people they meet (the average is 20 percent).

Kelly Hearsey is one such super recognizer. She works for Super Recognizers International Ltd, which is contracted by a range of police departments across the country. She took a test in 2018 and got the highest score they’d ever seen from over six million candidates. She’s since worked full-time as a super recognizer on everything from murder investigations to keeping notoriously disruptive fans out of sporting events.


A little while after I tweeted this, his Wikipedia page was updated.


New Federal Student Loan Volume Plunges 42 Percent Due To The Pandemic

New federal student loan volume in the fourth quarter of the 2019-2020 academic year dropped by a record 42 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2018-2019. The fourth quarter runs from April 2020 to June 2020, coinciding with the start of the economic downturn due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Bag of Randomness for Monday, August 24, 2020


I guarantee you this week will include Tweets from President Trump bragging how much better the RNC convention ratings are than the DNC’s. I’m sure that will be the case as he’s decided to speak in prime-time each of the four nights of the convention. Normally, the nominee keeps a low profile until the last night, but if there’s one thing America has learned under his “leadership”, there’s no such thing as normal.

In the past, conventions always ran long, but the virtual convention last week made things more manageable when it came to a time schedule. Since Trump is speaking all four nights, I expect this week’s convention to run long. However, this convention is scheduled to start a half-hour earlier. Perhaps that was done in anticipation of Trump being long-winded, he is full of hot air after all.

In looking at the schedule of speakers, it’s very Trump family-friendly. I don’t think we’ll see a lot of GOP leadership in prime time speaking spots, like the Senate Majority Leader. Perhaps, this is really more a Trump convention than the RNC conventi0n. Former President Bill Clinton once famously said, “Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.” That’s certainly true as you look at Trump’s former opponents.  Senators Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, and Canadian Zodiac Ted Cruz, once primary campaign rivals, are now vocal defenders of Trump. But as I said once before, Trump supporters don’t care if he’s a Republican, what they care about, as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich put it, “I’m not sure he’s a conservative, but he’s the most effective anti-liberal in my lifetime.” And consider this, the list of confirmed speakers at the RNC has no former Republican Presidents, nominees, or even prior candidates for President. It’s not the RNC Convention, it’s the Trump Convention.

2020 has already proven to be an unpredictable year. This more than likely won’t happen, but wouldn’t it be crazy if somehow Trump’s nomination was contested and someone else was nominated? I bet there has been talk amongst some “party first” or “country first” Republicans thinking about what’s best for the country. Just don’t rule out a contested convention.

As for Trump accepting the nomination at the White House, it doesn’t bother me because we are living in a unique time because of the pandemic, despite the Hatch Act. Now, if he was accepting the nomination at the White House and social distancing wasn’t encouraged, I would feel uncomfortable with that. I’m actually surprised he didn’t choose his DC hotel, making it an instant historical spot, like this hotel did with Ronald Reagan and where he heard he won the election.


I think it’s great Lynda Carter is promoting the wearing of masks, but if you are familiar with her old Wonder Woman, it looks like she cut up an old pair of pants to wear on her face.


Again, cue Hamilton’s It’s Quiet Uptown‘, the song about parents suffering the unimaginable. Former Cowboys QB and their current radio color man tweeted the following on the eve of the anniversary of his son’s death.


Kentucky coach John Calipari teaches his men more than just basketball.


Star and StripesWhy is Fort Hood the Army’s most crime-ridden post?


BoyGeeding uses an iPad for distance-learning and DaughterGeeding uses my Chromebook. All of a sudden, the touchpad stopped working. I tried a wireless house and that didn’t work. I changed all the settings I could find and searched every message board and nothing worked. I ever performed a “powerwash” resetting the device as if it was brand new. I was at the point that I was going to buy a new Chromebook, but found out there’s a shortage of them everywhere. I searched online and couldn’t find one at our local Best Buy, Staples, OfficeMax, Wal-Mart, Target, or MicroCenter. I guess parents are snatching them up for their kids. But, I was able to fix my Chromebook. I found an old wired-mouse and oddly not only did it work but it somehow triggered the touchpad to become responsive again.


Luka showed up to play yesterday, 43 points, 17 rebounds, 13 assists, and he recorded his second straight triple-double of the playoffs. Oh, and hit the game-winning shot. I love how the play to set it up. Carlise set up a great pick so the man originally guarding Luka had to switch which led to a more favorable one-on-one matchup.

Here’ a cool angle of the game-winning shot.

https://twitter.com/TaylorRooks/status/1297664727288614912


Deservedly so, this skit on college football conferences was all over the place on social media.


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