Idle Thoughts: Russian Doll

Tweets from March, 2019:

• Mar 4 2019: Russian Doll (TV 2019): Brash New Yorker is caught in looping, connected timelines as she keeps dying and rebooting at her birthday party. Quirky, original, absolutely captivating, with a satisfying ending as well. Can't wait for Season 2, but where can Natasha Lyonne take it? A+
• Mar 6 2019: Do you want to be scared out of your mind? Read this:
  "Far-Right Climate Denial Is Scary. Far-Right Climate Acceptance Might Be Scarier".
• Mar 7 2019: "I alone can fix this." -- candidate Donald Trump, 2016.
  Now in 2019...
  Government shutdown.
  Historic budget deficits.
  Growing trade deficits.
  Spiking numbers of family refugees.
  North Korea rearming.
  Tired of the winning yet?

After the jump, more idle thoughts.

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• Mar 7 2019: The miles roll by.
  Home of the throwed rolls.
  Ozarks Fishing Museum.
  Mr. Crappie.
  Hey, you can't make this stuff up.
• Mar 10 2019: The best of Nextdoor: find the stray dog in this wide angle panoramic photo of my neighborhood.
• Mar 14 2019: For many reasons (lots of candidates, no frontrunner, and especially proportional awarding of delegates), the Dems could have a brokered convention in 2020. Imagine if the delegate leader doesn't end up with the nomination. The party would split and Trump would win. Could happen.
• Mar 14 2019: RT Nancy Pelosi: "Texas is ground zero for us in the next election."
  Dems ought to focus their ground game in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. A world in which Texas is at a tipping point is a world in which Trump loses in a landslide.
• Mar 14 2019: I can't decide if I should take the elite college admissions scandal as minor good news: that actual bribery is required to get rich kids into elite schools, as opposed to just putting a good word in on the golf course or in the board room.
• Mar 15 2019: The most white thing ever on Nextdoor: "Need a recommendation for someone who can fix our wine fridge."
• Mar 15 2019: But the national emergency is on our Southern border?
  Tree Of Life Synagogue: White supremacist.
  Christchurch Mosque: White supremacist.
  Tree Of Life Synagogue: White supremacist.
  Mother Emanuel AME Church: White supremacist.
  Oak Creek Sikh Temple: White supremacist.
  Overland Park Jewish Center: White supremacist.
  Islamic Center of Quebec City: White supremacist.
• Mar 15 2019: Senate votes 59-41 to repeal Trump's declaration of an emergency. 12 Republicans join rebellion. For whip-counters out there, the vote for impeachment inches closer to the 67 votes needed to convict.
• Mar 15 2019: Beto had kind of a free ride in the 2018 Senate election. He didn't have to do anything to win the anti-Cruz voters. That Beto turned out to be competent and likable was a plus. But he'll need much more as Dems have other choices in 2020. He'll need a winning platform.
• Mar 17 2019: While the President gins up his base with charges of invasion at the border, the Midwest is faced with a real invasion...of water. The ironic thing is a century of building walls (aka levees) hasn't prevented annual invasions (aka flooding). Such is the folly of Presidents.
• Mar 17 2019: Trump takes his own weaknesses and projects them onto others to deflect attention from himself. Today, instead of letting the college admissions scandal lead the press to look at Trump's own college history, he leads the press to talk about John McCain instead.
• Mar 18 2019: Captain Marvel (2019): Satisfying origin story. Plot twist halfway added interest and created real world parallels to this fictional universe. Too many fist fights for aliens with super powers and advanced technology. Go to defy Internet trolls who hate there's a female lead. B-
• Mar 18 2019: Richardson City Council mtg: Steve Mitchell asks if developers are moving away from photinias for living screens? Answer is that photinias are less popular and Nellie Stevens holly more popular. Hurray. I call the old plant a "house-eating" photinia.
• Mar 18 2019: Richardson City Council mtg: Scott Dunn asks if a business engaging in "heavy" manufacturing has to conduct soil tests as some friends who are chemists say they do at their businesses. City staff is no aware of what EPA or TCEQ requirement Dunn might be referring to.
• Mar 18 2019: Richardson City Council mtg: Mabel Simpson asks how property owners in the Arapaho business district are being informed of proposed ordinance 4290 that will terminate dormant special use permits. City staff says mailings to all owners are being made.
• Mar 18 2019: Richardson City Council mtg: Property owner wants to replat two lots into three to accomodate building a new house. New lot line will be 3 feet from the corner of an existing house on one of the lots. Craziest lot lines I ever saw but everyone seemed fine with it.
• Mar 18 2019: Richardson City Council mtg: Toyota of Richardson requests permission to build a bigger and taller sign. Reminds me of something Don Draper of Mad Men said about winning an auto client: "Every time we get a car, this place turns into a whorehouse."
• Mar 20 2019: President Trump on John McCain: "I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don't care about this. I didn’t get thank you. That's ok. We sent him on the way, but I wasn't a fan"
  Is there any chance New York City would consider renaming the 100 yards of 5th Avenue in front of Trump Tower "John McCain Blvd"?
• Mar 21 2019: The ABC Murders (TV 2019): Think Agatha Christie with gratuitous grossness. Better to watch John Malkovich's psychological study of Hercule Poirot. But Poirot's back story is more red herring than integral to the murder mystery, leaving me disappointed. Three episodes. C+
• Mar 21 2019: "With everything we have learned about education, you could still say that the best teacher ever had lived 100 years ago, You could not say that about doctors."
  Bill Gates thinks AI might change that.
• Mar 22 2019: Remember when Trump's tax cut for the rich was sold on it sparking sustained economic growth? Today: "US Budget Deficit Largest Ever Posted in February."
• Mar 23 2019: "The White House claims that a single parent of 2 with $10,000 in income isn't poor."
  Let that sink in.
• Mar 23 2019: The Alex Jones origin story in Rockwall, Texas, is probably not as he tells it. The probable truth is more believable...and creepy. Why don't conspiracy theorists ever question what conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones tell them?
• Mar 23 2019: "Former Texas Mayor, Builder Ask Court To Toss Convictions."
• Mar 24 2019: WSJ is like the guy on the street corner with the sign, "The End is Near."
• Mar 24 2019: Headline: "A Russian passenger was arrested in Bali trying to leave the country with a drugged orangutan in his luggage."
  So it turns out that Florida doesn't have a monopoly on crazy.
• Mar 24 2019: "Wisconsin shuts out Minnesota for fifth NCAA women's hockey title."
  Go Badgers!
• Mar 25 2019: At RISD trustee meeting, Katie Patterson repeated that she will not be running for re-election in 2019. Kristin Kuhne announced that she will not run for re-election in 2020. Jean Bono announced with less certainty that she probably will not run for re-election in 2021.
• Mar 26 2019: Us (2019): I don't usually watch horror movies, but when I do, they are by Jordan Peele. Part zombie movie, part surreal psychological commentary on the alter ego. More than a few plot holes. Lots of blood and gore, but it leaves lots to talk about too. A little too long. B-
• Mar 27 2019: Colin Allred has drawn a GOP opponent for 2020:
  "In closing, I want...
  Obamacare demolished. The Affordable Care Act is a national disaster and there's nothing about the ACA that's affordable.
  With Love,
  Tania Burgess"
• Mar 28 2019: It seems like city council candidates are always being asked how they intend to relieve traffic congestion. I like to throw them a curve ball and ask how they are going to make our roads smaller.
• Mar 28 2019: Patriot Texas ("CONSERVATIVE ACTIVISTS FOR REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES") is out with their Richardson City Council candidate endorsements: Dubey, Byrd, Kepner, Hutchenrider. Partisanship rules.
• Mar 29 2019: "Out of over 3,000 counties in the nation, there are only 22 where a full-time worker earning minimum wage can afford a modest one-bedroom rental."
  This statistic should be something for Richardson to avoid, not see as a goal to imitate.
• Mar 29 2019: Laundry instructions in my wife's blouse: "Tell the quality of your garment to the workman of wash."
  I guess that means me?
• Mar 30 2019: Email from FBI: "We just got an information from Heritage Bank and they have loaded your US$10,500,000.000 into an ATM CARD and will be submitted to the delivery courier company service for immediate delivery to your doorstep as soon as you send their required fee."
  Looks legit.
• Mar 30 2019: "Trump cuts off foreign aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras."
  Trump wants to provoke a crisis so he can say, see, there's a crisis like I said.
• Mar 31 2019: "Why Courtrooms Are Kryptonite for Alex Jones".
  Alex Jones and Donald Trump. Same M.O. Read this and you'll understand why Trump's lawyers were so desperate to keep him from being interviewed by Robert Mueller.