33 thoughts on “Winners Wednesday”

1. Stephen’s namesake Alaskan fat bear was the victim of election fraud, and Vladimir Putin’s hackers temporarily took down several U.S. airport websites in retaliation for America’s support for Ukraine.

2. from that wapo story linked above:

   After a drama-filled week of bulging bellies, triumph and attempted voter fraud , the internet has crowned 747 the colossal king of Fat Bear Week 2022, beating rookie 901 by more than 11,000 votes.
   This year’s final came down to a battle between David and Goliath — figuratively speaking, considering both bears are behemoths. ’s undisputed biggest bear, 747, a.k.a. “Bear Force One,” was pitted against a first-time competitor with such an impressive set of before and after photos, she was nicknamed the “747 of female bears.”
   In fact, 901 got so fat she had us asking “economy, who?” The master of inflation ballooned so spectacularly one fan tweeted: “901 is so fat her legs look like they were put on backwards.” But in this case, Goliath won.
   For the uninitiated, Fat Bear Week is a single-elimination tournament that pits 12 brown bears in Alaska’s Katmai against each other in an online bracket for the sake of conservation awareness. As the bears finish beefing up for winter hibernation, fans vote on Explore.org for their favorite contender until one is chosen as the fattest on Fat Bear Tuesday.
   The competition isn’t about which bear is literally the fattest. Just because male brown bears can be double the size of females, that doesn’t mean they’ll always win. Lian Law, a visual information specialist at Katmai, says when you see them in person, 747 does indeed look to be double the size of 901.
   Many fans can and do vote for what appears to be the largest bear, but many others vote based on a bear’s relative fatness, its personality (as observed on Katmai’s live Bear Cams) or the obstacles it overcame to get so fat that season.
   However, there is no denying the enormity of 747 , who won Fat Bear Week in 2020 and weighs an estimated 1,400 pounds.
   [continues]

3. THIS 747 IS CLEARED FOR LANDING. Introducing your 2022 👑 Fat Bear Week champion. pic.twitter.com/gVCzhYeX5n

   — explore.org (@exploreorg) October 12, 2022

4. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-countdown-with-keith-olbe-99705496/

5. Go Dart! But 6,000 miles of debris? Sounds messy

6. Herschel Walker Bizarrely Shares Anecdote About Bull Ditching 3 Pregnant Cows

   https://www.yahoo.com/news/herschel-walker-bizarrely-shares-anecdote-233029616.html

   Here’s the anecdote in all its glory:

   “And they’ve been saying, ‘Something is better somewhere else.’ And I’m here to tell you it’s not. So, I been telling this little story about this bull out in the field with six cows, and three of them are pregnant. So, you know he got something goin’ on. But all he cared about is keep his nose against the fence, looking at three other cows that didn’t belong to him. Now all he had to do is eat grass. But no, no, no. He thought something was better somewhere else.

   So, he decided, ‘I want to get over there.’ So one day, he measured that fence up, and he said, ‘I think I can jump this.’ So that day came where he got back. And as he got back and as he took off runnin’, he dove over that fence, and his belly got cut up under the bottom. But as he made it onto the other side, he shook it off and got so excited about it. And he ran to the top of that hill, but when he got up there, he realized they were bulls too.”

7. I guess he couldn’t get all those calf mommies to have abortions.  

8. So the DART project achieved its goal to divert an asteroid from its orbital path.  Great.  Newton’s first law of motion is still the law.  Now the results can be applied to the models and with a few details worked out and technology developed to deal with larger asteroids if its ever needed (might want to consider Newton’s third law as well) and Voila – Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck don’t have to go to space to try and drill a hole in an asteroid to save the earth.  

9. Is Herschel saying he didn’t start chasing guys after leaving his 4 kids and their moms?  Or was it that he did and found out that the girls he was chasing were guys in drag, or what?  I think I’m missing his point.

10. aroundabout way to say “the grass is not as greener as it looks on the other side” ?

    or

11. time to restock the popcorn – 25 1/2 hours to lift off

    Trump, briefed on violence Jan 6, sought to stoke it – The Washington Post

    The Jan. 6 select committee’s hearing on Thursday at 1 p.m. is expected to corroborate parts of the more-startling accounts of that day

    The probably final public hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected to highlight newly obtained Secret Service records showing how President Donald Trump was repeatedly alerted to brewing violence that day, and he still sought to stoke the conflict, according to three people briefed on the records.
    The committee plans to share in Thursday’s hearing new video footage and internal Secret Service emails that appear to corroborate parts of the most startling inside accounts of that day, said the people briefed, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal records…. [continues]

12. 

13. https://www.businessinsider.com/corporate-greed-inflation-government-price-controls-robert-reich-2022-9
    “Profit-price inflation” — caused by companies “raising their prices above their increasing costs” — is the key factor fueling inflation…”
    “The inflation we are now experiencing is not due to wage gains from excessive worker power,” he said. “It is due to profit gains from excessive corporate power. It’s profits, not wages, that need to be controlled.”
    “Some experts say government antitrust enforcement and even price controls deserve consideration. This includes Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor…”

14. Wouldn’t it be ironic if one of those many pieces of debris eventually made its way to Earth and triggered a mass extinction.  

15. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/10/11/beto-orourke-texas-fundraising/
    “O’Rourke raises over $25 million from July through late September, outraising Abbott again”
    And, BETO has literally been to every county in Texas, multiple times, registering voters over the last, two years.

16. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/10/12/dan-patrick-bus-tour-texas/

    Lt. Turd, Dan Patrick:

    “…ramping up his reelection effort with a statewide bus tour, with plans to make 131 stops.”

    “It is perhaps the biggest example in this election of a timeworn tradition by Texas Republican leaders: campaigning strictly on their terms and sometimes keeping much of the media in the dark.”

    Because sunlight destroys vampires.

17. 

    couldn’t resist this one at this time of year….  and yes… I qualify…
     
     

18. another bull that jumped the fence about to be tied up in more than barbed wire

    Judge: Trump must sit for deposition in defamation lawsuit (msn.com)

    NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump will have to answer questions under oath next week in a defamation lawsuit lodged by a writer who says he raped her in the mid-1990s, a judge ruled Wednesday.
    U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan rejected a request by Trump’s lawyers that the planned testimony be delayed. The deposition is now scheduled for Oct. 19.
    The decision came in a lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, a longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine, who says Trump raped her in an upscale Manhattan department store’s dressing room. Trump has denied it. Carroll is scheduled to be deposed Friday.
    […]
    “The defendant should not be permitted to run the clock out on plaintiff’s attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong,” he wrote.
    [..]
    Kaplan, the judge, said Trump has repeatedly tried to delay the collection of evidence in the lawsuit.

    “Given his conduct so far in this case, Mr. Trump’s position regarding the burdens of discovery is inexcusable,” he wrote. “As this Court previously has observed, Mr. Trump has litigated this case since it began in 2019 with the effect and probably the purpose of delaying it.”

    The judge noted that the collection of evidence for the lawsuit to go to trial was virtually concluded, except for the depositions of Trump and Carroll.
    “Mr. Trump has conducted extensive discovery of the plaintiff, yet produced virtually none himself,” Kaplan said. “Completing these depositions — which already have been delayed for years — would impose no undue burden on Mr. Trump, let alone any irreparable injury.”
    The judge also said the deposition could be useful when Carroll’s lawyer next month files a new lawsuit under New York’s revival law, the Adult Survivors Act, allowing her to sue for damages for the alleged rape without the statute of limitations blocking it.
    Whether the rape occurred is central to the defamation claims, as well as the anticipated new lawsuit, the judge said.

19. I’m sure the interlocutory appeal to the 2nd circuit is already drafted and ready to file.

20. i must concede, the DART deflected the asteroidlette more than i would have expected, although i still don’t know why it couldn’t be modeled, whatever.
     
    It would be interesting if the infuence of its altered orbit affected the orbit of its parent asteroid towards Earth in the distant future, but i’m not too worried about that, much more concerned with gun proliferation and Republican control of state-legislatures

    (…much more likely, although not very, that one of Elon’s thousands of starlink satellites hits you in the head, service from which he disabled in Crimea with the justification of not escalating toward a potential nuclear war? Like that would be the final straw, internet access 🙄)

21. Alex Jones jury awards nearly $1 billion total in compensatory damages collectively for all plaintiffs. Connecticut law only allows attorney fees as punitive damages. 

22. Final tally $965 million plus attorney fees and costs 

23. A billion bucks – now that’s a nice round figure. I guess they didn’t like his petulance.

24. I can’t opine about the likelihood of Musk’s satellites dropping to earth, but the likelihood of A satellite coming home and doing damage has to be higher than an asteroid increasing the earth’s mass.

25. Tomorrow’s J6 hearing looks promising, 1pm ET

    [The Washington Post] New evidence to show Trump was warned of violence on Jan. 6

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/12/new-evidence-show-trump-was-warned-violence-jan-6/

26. Ever notice the 10 Commandments don’t have a self-defense clause?

27. Pogo, a bit in the weeds here but if plaintiffs lawyers had a typical 40% or so contingency fee arrangement wouldn’t that mean judge could hit Jones for 40% of $965 million Plus costs? Jury also decided today plaintiffs get whatever judge determines are their legal fees and costs (all you get in punitive damages under Connecticut law, which sucks btw)

28. Poobah, I don’t think I understand CT law regarding punitive damages and attorney’s fees.  Sounds straightforward enough but I have to believe I’m missing something.  In this case if I understand the rule, if the case was tried under a contingent fee contract at 40%, punitive damages would be limited to 40% of $965 Million plus litigation costs.  Not sure how CT defines litigation costs in this context but I’m sure it’s less than the attorney’s fees in that scenario.  I did a quick scan of the Chapter 901 rules and there is no statutory basis for the rule that’s being bandied about but it seems that is the common law rule.  Certainly seems like a very different concept of punitive damages than most states in tort actions.  Be interesting to see what the judge does with the attorney’s fee award.

29. Alex Jones is already pitching for donations from his audience and saying he won’t have to pay a dime because he is bankrupt.

     

30. I really enjoyed the first two episodes of Rachel Maddow’s ULTRA podcast and looking forward to the next six parts of the story.  I knew about America First, Charles Lindburg, and Father Coughlin but the details on the Senator, guns, and plans for an insurrection are fascinating.  

    You can either listen to the podcast or read the transcript.

     

31. That was really interesting; 24 members of Congress.  It’s amazing that so much information exists, but it’s just covered in dust.  I’m happy there was a transcript; I’m all podcasted out.

    I would love for the ties between Rusher and Flynn, Nunes, etc., to be exposed.   And, Yertle’s bruised, swollen and bandaged hands still make me wonder who got to him.  Was the next step an open window for him or a loved one?

32. his master’s voice

    🤓

33. NEW THREAD

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