DRW50

This is a few years old, but very timely. It's about pandemic prevention. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/when-the-next-plague-hits/561734/

Sad. I know he'd been sick for a while...John was one of my favorite Dark Shadows actors. Charismatic, gorgeous, and insanely talented. He really tore into his material. Yes he could be ridiculously over the top but he also managed to give layers and sold everything he was given. And I just loved watching him with Nancy Barrett. I wish clips of Will and Carolyn Loomis were available. I just ate up that storyline.

A lot of people have made money off the Clintons for nearly 30 years. Many on the left have now joined in, just as they are happy to entertain the ludicrous conspiracies of the Clintons being traffickers and murderers. They can blame the Clintons for their failures. They are now doing the same for Bernie as he was supposed to be doing much better than he is - this was supposed to be his time, and the "movement" was supposed to be just beginning. The irony is that many of the grifters who are propped up by Bernie bros, like Tulsi, are sapping enough of his support to possibly cost him in New Hampshire. The responses I'm seeing to people pointing out Democrats should care about making this known are, "Biden is no better." We're already in "both sides" territory. So many on the left are happy to have 4 more years of Trump and are barely even bothering to hide it at this point.

The Republicans are probably thrilled if she's involved. Democrats not so much, but I don't blame her for just not caring anymore.

I had no idea who the first guy was or who the musical guest was, which tells you where I am with pop culture. Athlete hosts are generally just there, but a few have worked. Ru might have been better off hosting 10-15 years ago but could still be fun. Ru actually had a cameo in a 1993 episode, leading to this classic shot:

I know it's petty to enjoy this outright trolling of shitburgers, but I do:

Manufacturing is heading for a bad fall too. It's been slowly getting there. It's just we won't see the results until after November.

That's true, but Trump is too stupid to be able to consolidate power. If he wasn't then he would have a 100% lock to reelection - the Democrats are just a disaster, and the economy hasn't crashed yet. The main problem is the puppetmasters (Putin, Saudi Arabia, etc.). Many on the left now openly lash out at the idea that Putin is to blame for everything, and I can see where it does become too much of an excuse, but there's a lot of truth to the fears.

I don't think the main power brokers in the GOP, like McConnell, would want to give him or his children that level of power. He's mostly being used.

Based on the polling of late I thought they had a good chance, but I do wonder if internal polling is telling another story, as they seem very desperate.

Whenever I hear Queen of the Night I just end up thinking JER was listening to a lot of Whitney Houston. (why we didn't get a montage of the Marlena clones blending in around the world, I don't know)

AOC, who, as she loves to remind us, had NO value or reason to breathe air before she joined Bernie's cult, decided to use MLK Day to tell everyone that Democrats and Republicans are just alike. So that's a pretty big tell what will happen - she and her fellow "revolutionaries" at the top will passive-aggressively "support" the nominee while really hoping Trump wins. Meanwhile, their sycophants will actively support either Trump, or whatever version of Jill will be bankrolled by Russia this year. Then, after Democrats lose the House, she will remind us that she was never really a Democrat anyway, and she will either go back behind the bar, or, like her dear leader, find the right people to grift off of.

You may be right. I was trying to remember if their endorsers have ties to, say, Maggie Haberman, who is in the tank for Trump. I saw that Sanders had his cult members go out and attack Biden today for corruption, in op-eds and on MSNBC, and then he swooped in to say - oops, never mind, let's be above the fray. Very Trumpian.

I think NYT would be happy enough to have Warren as the nominee - they can just reuse their Hillary headlines. I think they are genuinely repulsed by Bernie, and are worried about Biden's fragility. When the votes came out, Warren had 8, Klobcuhar had 7, and Booker had 6. So they threw the two women together and wrote it as a not-so-subtle "please vote for one of them at least and not those other guys" endorsement. If Booker hadn't dropped out I think they would have done a three-way endorsement.

I thought this was during the story as Clint didn't seem to be around, but you may be right...

Imagining Della keeping Paul Rauch in his place is a good Monday motivator.

Thanks for finding the episode. Doug Wert looked so gorgeous in that bedroom scene. The show really wasted his talents. The Mari Lyn story is compelling for a film noir but probably not suited to these actors or this period of the show. And it's a story Viki could have been in, given her ties to Tom and history of mental illness. Those Tangerine Dream-esque musical cues in the Mari Lyn scenes were tripping me out. This is the most I've seen of Anthony Ponzini in his short-lived return. He's very good here - I wish he'd stayed around longer as the idea of Viki and Wanda seeing a man they both loved (Viki as a friend, Niki as a soulmate) only it's a new man, and a much darker-hearted one, could have had a ton of potential. I wonder why he left so quickly. Why were they not using Viki in these stories and instead just had her around the house until time for her Old West jaunt?? Roma Downey is jarringly bad. God bless Lois Kibbee for adding so much to such a thin role and even treating us to that delicious Disney villain laugh.

I'm hoping Joe will have enough strength to get through, and then also picks the right VP. I'm not sure a VP has ever been as important as they will be this election. I liked Tim Kaine, and I think if he had been properly utilized by Hillary's campaign he would have been an asset, but they just can't pick a white man again. Unfortunately that means a ridiculously heavy burden is placed on the shoulders of a candidate who will already be facing so much scrutiny. I really hope he will pick a black female VP, not for the sake of balance or diversity, although that's always a factor, but because in many cases they have been leading the fight and have had the most clarity in addressing what's going on in the country today.

That paper's endorsement makes me even more wary. I really wanted to support Warren, but there's just too many bad strategic mistakes from her. There have been at least 4 really dumb mistakes, bear traps she strolled right into, over the last year. Trump's people will steamroll her. And not because she's a woman, which has become the main line of her campaign, but because she's just not good at this. Klobuchar I have issues with but I can see why she has support...but she's so far back now I don't see much changing, although she could give a shock in Iowa. The main problem she has is she's in the same boat at Buttigieg - what happens once she gets out of New Hampshire?

60 year old Douglass Watson could get it too...