Wyoming Tales: T. Rex at Fifty

April 11, 1964 was windy at the University. Of course, in Laramie, Wyoming it’s generally ALWAYS windy.

I was bundled into my dress jacket, and was wind chilled by it all. Just like the dedication of the Lincoln Monument up top of what was then US 30, “The Lincoln Highway” and is now Interstate 80 at its highest point, the “tarp” for the “unveiling” had managed to form a sort of surrealist windbreaker/inner tube installation effect:

T. Rex in Poncho (Not sure whether real or Sears poncho)
Click to enlARGE

This was about the year that Dick Cheney decided to scream and yell at my brother and I. (“Once a Dick, Always a Dick,” 22 December 2008.) But that day was the culmination of Wyoming’s “Citizen of the Century”s career.

A Low News Day Slow Days Later

NOTE: This is the follow-up and payoff  to ‘A Low News Day‘ — if you didn’t hear the joke, you’re not going to ‘get’ the punch line. 

And here we are. They’re brawling in the gutter over the Pulitzer Prize. As they say in the law: Res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself

Maximilian I’s Monogram

And “Russian Separatists” are on the verge of a civil war in Ukraine. Blood  has been spilled, which takes everything up one immeasurable notch. “Up” as in closer to armageddon.

And the Teabilly Teatards and their Second Amendment Solutions almost decided to play “Alamo” over the absurd notion of management of shared  resources. In southern Nevada, fer chrissakes.

Beware the Ides of April

If there were ever a day and a moment for domestic terrorism, it is today. 2014 You know: Ted Nugent’s “Fedzilla” is outta kontrol n must be attacked, a gazillion Gomers and Jethros are tellin’ their trusty firearms, lovingly named.

Bundy Ranch ‘Militia’ Considered Using Women As Human Shield
Dylan Scott / Talking Points Memo

 It appears that the anti-government activists protesting the Bureau of Land Management’s actions against a Nevada cattle rancher were considering using women as a human shield if a gun battle had erupted during the standoff [sic] ….

If you are a government worker, be particularly wary today.

Short and Sweet for the Quisling

Ragging for Rupert; Mealy-mouthed for
Murdoch; Asinine for Ailes

Sour Grapes from the Conservatard Princess:

Sharyl Attkisson Slams CBS News, Obama Admin’s ‘Chilling Effect’ on Reporting
Evan McMurry / Mediaite

Sharyl Attkisson, an investigative reporter who recently resigned from her post at CBS News, took shots at both her former employer and the Obama administration on Media Buzz Sunday morning  …

Two thoughts: 

What’s the Matter with Kansas?

UPDATED BELOW

According to BuzzFeed and PornHub, Kansas watches the most porn in the land.

They want to make various idiotic points about this that hold no journalistic water, and, as a result, are TOTALLY within BuzzFeed’s usual reporting penumbra — emphasis on ‘numb.’

Who Watches More Porn: Republicans Or Democrats?
Let’s take a look at the body politic, shall we? Turns out that porn is a highly accurate predictor of presidential politics.
posted on April 11, 2014 at 11:23am EDT
by Ryan Broderick
BuzzFeed Staff

Pornhub’s data team split the country into red and blue states—based on the 2012 election—and then took the total number of pages viewed per state and divided that by the population….

It is NOT “highly accurate.” In fact, it’s a journalistic abomination. Over one third of voters are now “independents” (a term meaning “I’m so stupid that I ace myself out of voting in primaries, where candidates are actually chosen, and I can have the most effect”) and, as a result, the whole conceit is intellectually bankrupt.  But …

A Low News Day

Ho hum. Nothing to talk about in today’s news. A whole bunch of stuff is just to the boiling point, but nothing has yet boiled over. Crimea, GOPs, the new “standoff” in Nevada that the Right wants to turn into Ruby Ridge II.

Kathleen Sibelius resigned (but that had been announced long ago; even before the election, IIRC) as director of Health and Human Services:

Health Secretary Resigns After Woes of HealthCare.gov
 Michael D. Shear / New York Times

WASHINGTON — Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, is resigning, ending a stormy five-year tenure marred by the disastrous rollout of President Obama’s signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act.

And I salute her, both as a great governor of Kansas and as HHS Secretary during one of the most critical and difficult periods in the history of that Department. “Botched rollout” will fade and she ought to be remembered well, and not, as now, scapegoated.

The GOP Gets the IRS Vapors. Again. Part 684

They are idiots, of course. And, of course, they are lying. But this nonsense will exercise its Skinnerian Conditioning on all of Pavlov’s little foxes, and it will be “fair and balanced news” to them. Again.

Rinse. Lather. Repeat. Return brain to cranium. Reseal.

Seriously. Give us SOMETHING that can be exaggerated.

Benghazi. IRS. And there was another pillar on the stool of GOP pretensions.  Oops.