Day: March 5, 2019

“There can be crimes that are impeachable offenses and impeachable offenses that are not crimes.”

UncleScoopy

UPDATE:

Whatever that means.

Can anyone give me an example of an impeachable offense that is a perfectly legal action?

Mind you, I know that an impeachable offense is whatever Congress says it is. A Senate vote to convict is not subject to judicial review or any kind of appeal. If they choose to, the Senate can remove Trump for his ridiculous hairstyle.

But setting that aside and assuming that our lawmakers respect the Constitution, what is an example of an impeachable offense that is non-criminal? Should a president be impeached for, let’s say, breaching a contract (which would be civil rather than criminal)? Parking in a handicapped spot? Dereliction of duty? Being drunk on the job? Failing to supervise a subordinate? Conduct unbecoming (let’s say throwing around the “n” word as an example)? General incompetence?

To me, the full wording “treason, bribery, or OTHER high crimes and misdemeanors,” implies that the “other” things would be roughly as important as treason and bribery, or in other words, a President should only be impeached for “really serious shit,” and that other matters are to be decided by the voters, not the Congress. What say ye?

————-

For further discussion, click on “continue reading.”

(Sorry. It’s a rather abstruse discussion, I’m afraid, and completely joke-free. I probably approached this too seriously for my little “fun” blog.)

Continue reading ““There can be crimes that are impeachable offenses and impeachable offenses that are not crimes.”” →

Technical note.

UncleScoopy

UPDATE 2: “If you’re using iOS, grab the app ‘Infuse’ — it handles the files without issue.”

OR

“I have the VLC mobile app installed and use that to watch them when using phone/tablet. It’s slightly inconvenient because VLC opens to play the file and then you have to exit it to get back to the browser but it works (i.e. it doesn’t just play in the browser like with desktop).”

OR

“I always just choose to ‘show desktop version’ in the android Chrome app, and they work.”

(Thanks for the tips, everyone!)

UPDATE: Other Solution. I’ll just use both the direct link and the container file when I can find it.

==================

Original post:

I wasn’t aware that gfycat was using a format incompatible with mobile. Thanks for telling me. I won’t link to any more of those .webm files unless I also offer an alternate.

(Too bad, because they look great on a computer, and – because it is a direct link to a media file – they contain no bullshit links or pop-ups.)

To anyone who gets them downloaded, can’t play them, and knows how to rename files: they are just simple .mpg files. There is no trick to them. You can rename them .mpg or .mp4 and they should play fine.

On my desktop computer: (1) they play automatically on the internet in Chrome with no special plug-ins; (2) when I play them from a file on my hard drive, I just set Media Player Classic or VLC as the default “open with” and they will play without being renamed; (3) when I load one to the Fun House, which is extremely rare because there is usually a better version available with sound, I rename them .mpg so that they should work universally.

As far as mobile goes: Weird!

I normally use an emulator to simulate Android phones as well as two common iPhones, and these links play fine on all three. Just now I switched to a different emulator, and again everything worked fine.

They are just .mpg files with a proprietary extension, so you’d think they would be playable by anything that can play .mp4s. You can probably set your mobile device to interpret them properly. One viewer offered: If you’re using iOS, grab the app “Infuse” — it handles the files without issue.

Hot Danish lesbian alert … (.gif)

UncleScoopy

Tessa Hoder & Loui Buhl in an episode of Ondt i Røven (direct link, alternate link)

According to IMDb, this is a brand-new Danish comedy series. Those are some wacky lesbian hijinks, alright! Yeah, I can see that this must be the Danish equivalent of Blackadder or Seinfeld. Think how much funnier those two shows could have been with extended scenes of nearly-explicit lesbian sex.

Those Danes are funny, funny guys! They’re always kidding around with the herring and the high taxes and the carpet munching. Good stuff.

Americans overwhelmingly believe Trump is a criminal

UncleScoopy

By an overwhelming margin (64-24), Americans believe Trump committed crimes before his election.

Americans also believe Michael Cohen’s word over Trump’s by a substantial margin of 50-35. You know your credibility is taking a hit when significantly more people prefer to take the word of a guy who is headed to the calaboose specifically for lying!

Voters:

* say 65 to 30 percent that Trump is not honest, his worst grade ever on that
character trait.

* and say 71 to 22 percent that he is a poor role model for children

That’s overwhelmingly negative, but I can’t believe it’s even that positive. Quick extrapolation: it must be true that one of every five Americans thinks that Trump is an honest guy and a good role model for children! What must their lives be like?

“God Purges Millions Of Souls From Heaven Now That Sexual Assault Being Taken More Seriously”

UncleScoopy

According to The Onion, the omniscient Creator of all things declared:

“I’ll admit it has taken Me a very, very long time to realize how serious an issue this is. But now that I’ve been made to see the truth and the light, there’s no going back. Even if the alleged incident took place years and years ago, we must do everything we can to strongly condemn such behavior.”

Income Inequality Is At Its Highest Point Since Before The Great Depression

UncleScoopy

“The Great Recession increased income gaps. The top earners’ income dropped by 4%, but the bottom household’s income dropped by 20%.”

(The Great Depression of the 1930s actually reduced the income gap, and the gap continued to close until the late 70s.)

———-

The rebuttal argument is as follows:

The rich are not really that rich. Their wealth is artificially inflated by stock prices currently at or near the top of an unsustainable “bubble.” Perhaps that is true, but it sounds like the ol’ “I’m not really rich. Don’t tax my yacht” argument.

Michelle Trachtenberg – slimming down again?

UncleScoopy

Here she is January 5th

That’s a lot bigger than her fightin’ weight, but not as big as she was two years ago (December, 2016)

The only thing that’s really a turn-off in that new pic is her hands (close-up).

Michelle is still young, but on the subject of hands …

It seems to me that the hands are always the giveaway in those pics of older celebs who still look youthful. The surgeon who invents hand rejuvenation is going to get very, very rich.

Turns out there IS a link between the MMR vaccine and autism

UncleScoopy

That’s right, “kids who got no childhood vaccines were MORE likely to be diagnosed with autism than kids who did get recommended vaccinations.”

The kids most likely to be diagnosed with autism: those with no vaccinations.
The next most likely: kids with some vaccinations, but no MMR.
The least likely: kids with the recommended vaccinations.

Details:

“In the current study, researchers examined data on 657,461 children. Kids who got the MMR vaccine were seven percent less likely to develop autism than children who didn’t get vaccinated, researchers report in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Children who had NO childhood vaccinations were 17 percent more likely to be diagnosed with autism than kids who did get recommended vaccinations.”

NOTE: No causation is proved or claimed, and the researchers did not perform statistical tests to weed out the possibility of a spurious relationship. Both the likelihood to get shots and the likelihood of autism my be impacted by an unknown third variable not yet studied. To give a simple layman’s example, suppose eating too many saturated fats could cause autism, and suppose the people who don’t inoculate their children are more likely to eat too many saturated fats. That’s not true (I think), but in such a case, one could not blame the lack of shots for autism even though they appeared to be highly correlated.

Continue reading “Turns out there IS a link between the MMR vaccine and autism” →