Just One Thing: Wow, THAT's in bad taste!
Yesterday, producers A-Rod and Dragon took to heart that it was Groundhog Day and played Sonny and Cher's "I've Got You, Babe" coming out of every break, just as Bill Murray's clock radio did every time he awoke to relive Groundhog Day in the movie of the same name. They stuck with their claims of innocence/ignorance so well and for so long that by the end of the show I believed them that it wasn't them. Ugh. Well, we got some fun social media out of it!
Anyway, in a moment of very poor taste and even less discretion, I set as today's blogcast "thumbnail" picture (the picture associated with the blog on my main blog page) a photo of Cher putting a flower on Sonny's casket after he died of head injuries after a skiing accident at Heavenly Ski Resort in 2009.
Sonny Bono killed in skiing accident - HISTORY
Yes, that's some very bad taste on my part.
Just One Thing: I wonder exactly what they wanted, and if they got it
UPDATE: Chinese Confirm Suspected Spy Balloon Is Theirs, Claim It’s a Civilian Airship Blown Off Course
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/pentagon-discloses-chinese-spy-balloon-over-u-s-reports
Pentagon tracking suspected Chinese spy balloon over the US | CNN Politics
Other Stuff
This is a remarkable ruling. As much as the current Supreme Court is pro-2nd Amendment, I bet that IF they take this case they will overturn this ruling: People under domestic violence orders can own guns -U.S. appeals court rules | Reuters
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Big test for Ticketmaster next week: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/ticketmaster-beyonce-tour-1235315741
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I owe you this from yesterday...Get Your Grubby Complexes Off My Art - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Coincidentally, there's a new piece on the same topic over at TheFP.com (site also linked just below) How Ideologues Infiltrated the Arts (thefp.com)
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Speaking of art (sort of), will you ever again be able to trust that someone actually wrote something? ChatGPT integrated into Microsoft Word with 'Ghostwriter' add-in (geekwire.com)
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Love this bit by Bari Weiss over at http://thefp.com:
The left and the mainstream media are clutching their pearls, shocked—just shocked!—by this politicization of education. But: 1) What’s taught in publicly funded schools is always political, and 2) in the last decade, progressives overplayed their hand, hoping no one would notice the quiet revolution and odd new philosophies, the turn away from skills and reading, the turn toward curricula that are more fun for teachers than productive for students. (There’s a brilliant new American Public Media series on how trendy reading philosophies have left kids illiterate.) Anyway, conservatives noticed all of this.
There’s a backlash now. I’m hoping it stops just before we get to the Mike Pence Kindergarten Curriculum, featuring classics like "God hid those dinosaur bones to test our faith."
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Looks like they got the monkey thief: Suspect in disappearance of Dallas Zoo tamarin monkeys is arrested at an aquarium (nbcnews.com)
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Nerdy stuff about telephone area codes:
The Unexpected Logic Behind Area Codes - Atlas Obscura
Dial that area code: FCC requires these places to use on local calls (usatoday.com)
https://www.area-codes.com/area-code-history.asp
From AT&T: Unlike the former telephone numbering plan which limited the second digit of area codes to a "1" or "0" (e.g. "703" or "414"), the new numbering plan says anything goes! Under the old plan, we had 144 area codes. But the last of the original area codes ‐‐ 610 ‐‐ took effect in eastern Pennsylvania in 1994. The first of the new generation area codes took effect in Alabama in January 1995, when area code 205 was split to create area code 334. Area Code Information (att.com)
Today's Videos
This is a fascinating take on the future impact of artificial intelligence on various classes of American workers by the always fascinating Peter Zeihan. Amusingly, he records the video as he's apparently driving to a store to buy a snow shovel.