Rudy Giuliani has demonstrated why the deep state is a thing

I can't watch Fox News for more than a few minutes because to me it sounds like "them them they the left them the deep state they they the radical left deep state they they they". Who the "F" are they?? Well, this is more than just sloppy journalism. Calling out somebody by name for participating in a conspiracy without evidence can be bad business. That somebody can then sue your ass and have you in the awkward position of having to reveal your "evidence" under oath. Then tort laws may apply keeping any judgement over your head forever.

No, much better to keep things vague and manufacture a bogeyman as a plot device. All of the entertainment value, none of the risk. Fox News stepped in it by slandering a real corporation (Dominion) and had to pay up. They probably won't make that mistake again anytime soon. Giuliani made the critical mistake, and on top of that didn't even stand to benefit much from his tirade. Amateur hour.

Google Most Searched Playground Interactive Doodle

This is a pretty fun doodle that showed up today for hidden object game fans. I found all 25.

https://searchplayground.google/

Presidential primary debates are freaking hard work!

I think this is the real reason Trump isn't inclined to participate in any of them. Reading up on current events and developing an updated platform is too much work! Too long, didn't read indeed. If you don't do your homework, you'll risk getting overshadowed, stumped, or embarrassed in front of a live audience. Who needs that bullshit when you're the entrenched frontrunner?? You may even feel pressure to lose a few pounds for the cameras.

Nothing really important has happened in the world in the last three years, so why would Republican voters need a refresh of your "policies", right? You can just copy/paste the previous policies. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Those chumps on stage are just making this all more complicated than it needs to be.

If you address the questions on your own social media platform on our own terms, you can even use ChatGPT to generate the talking points. Super easy!

MAGA = Mostly Artificially Generated Answers

Santos is immortalized in Wikipedia forever and always

Or at least until the Sun goes red giant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_from_the_United_States_Congress

It's alarming at first glance that all of the other expulsions were of Democrats. However, the 1861/1862 examples were Southern Democrat secessionists, and that was a very different time and a very different Democratic Party.

In the modern era, there haven't been enough expulsions to be statistically significant.

I buy a lot on Amazon, but bought nothing today

Zip.

I keep a list of items I am interested in and checked for Cyber Monday discounts today. I wasn't really tempted by anything. One issue I see is when I search the "Cyber Monday" department for various brand names, all the hits are off-brand Chinese alternatives. Like ALL of them. Obviously, the long-term trend has been Chinese brands taking over many industries. But I don't recall Cyber Monday being a total shitshow of dumped garbage with few if any sales to be found on the "good stuff".

Am I wrong?

At what level of net worth do the banks just take your word for it?

In my limited dealings, I've had to back up any claims on loan applications with pay stubs and account statements. At what point do they just say "yep, seems legit". You'd think that with millions of dollars at stake, they could have lackey bankers verify everything.

I guess I need the TL;DR summary.

A comfortable Biden lead in the polls wouldn't be much of a story

It is sort of expected. He has the incumbent advantage, didn't mismanage a national emergency, has the right temperament for the job, actually does the job, wasn't impeached once let alone twice, and isn't facing 91 felony charges.

A Trump upset in 2024 would be, however, a BIG story. The mere prospect of that terrifies most of CNN's audience. It seems to suggest the country has gone mad. So that's the only reason CNN seems to be playing up the possibility. It isn't bias per-se, just run-of-the-mill alarmist media coverage with cherry-picked "news".

The more sober news coverage of the election out there is, well, kind of boring (and doesn't scare seniors). You can't sell prescription drugs that way.

DU4 bad links bug report

Repro steps:

1) Sign in to DU
2) Pick a thread from DU Lounge
3) Reply to the thread

The reply window has two links at the top:

Related: Latest Breaking News, The DU Lounge

Both links point to the following bogus URL which generates a 404 not found error:

https://democraticunderground.com/forum-signedin.shtml

Who is the scariest clown?

Doctor Sleep (spoilers)

I'm continuing my October series of movie reviews of non-recent horror movies which everybody has either already seen or has no interest in seeing.

Doctor Sleep threads the needle of being a sequel to both the book and the movie which have little in common with one another. In that regard, it does quite well. Stephen King movies often feature B-list actors and suffer for it. Ewan McGregor, however, is an A-lister and excellent as Danny Torrance (this is set decades after the events in the Overlook Hotel).

Danny and his mother appear in flashbacks set during the Overlook Hotel timeframe that are really well done.

The pen-pal scenes and the buildup are very Stephen King-like. This aspect was lacking in the original film, although it was a phenomenal example of Kubrick's imagination. The "shine vampires" feature some differences from the novel. They aren't quite as inhuman and don't live as long. They also don't really seem to have much in the way of superpowers, so it is questionable why anybody would want to join the Knot. That said, Rose the Hat is excellent.

The film ends at the Overlook Hotel, now run down. There is a dramatic scene between Danny and his father's spirit in the Gold Room. His father now identifies as Delbert Grady the bartender, mixing up three identities in a nod to the original. I was full of anticipation waiting for him to break character back to Jack, similarly to how Delbert Grady did. There was so much suspense. Would Jack take an interest in his wife and son's lives? Would he be remorseful? Would he try to help him in his situation? Would he be in need of help himself being trapped in the Overlook? Would there be redemption? Would he remain insane?

Unfortunately, all we got was him being kind of a dick trying to sabotage Danny's sobriety as the scene quickly ends. What a wasted opportunity. Oh well.

There are flashbacks from the original movie using the original footage. Why not reshoot all those scenes?

So, the ghouls from the original film made a big cameo and saved the day. There was some retconning going on as they exhibited some shine vampire steam-sucking behavior, which doesn't really make sense. But that's ok because everything gets wrapped up in a big bow.