143 Comments

Maybe we could keep these three:

"Three of the biggest bases in the United States are named after Confederate leaders, including some who were famously inept.

Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the headquarters of the Special Forces, bears the name of Gen. Braxton Bragg, a commander often assailed as one of the most bumbling commanders in the war. Bragg was relieved of command after losing the battle for Chattanooga in 1863, then served as a military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Fort Benning in Georgia, the home of Army infantry and airborne training, is named after Brig. Gen. Henry Benning, who led troops at Antietam and Gettysburg. In remarks in 1861 laying out slavery as the reason for secession, Benning warned that abolition would lead to “black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything. Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand for that?”

Fort Hood in Texas is named after John Bell Hood, who resigned his commission in the U.S. Army to fight against it. His “reckless” command hastened the fall of Atlanta, one historian wrote, and his losses at the Battle of Franklin were so disastrous that they have been called the “Pickett’s Charge of the West,” in reference to a bloody and failed assault named for Maj. Gen. George Pickett, one of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s top commanders at Gettysburg."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/06/10/trump-confederate-bases/

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That was cute.

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Maybe don't play this in a public place, but also, who is in a public place right now?

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I called a friend today because I had a few minutes between meetings and was seriously put out when she wasn't available to chat. Like what the F else might you be doing at 3:37PM on a Thursday?!? I kind of miss the early days of lockdown when everyone was always home.

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Seriously!

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Oh God, I thought of the song before I clicked the link and figured it couldn't have anything to do with it.

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The skies above the Bay Area are amazingly beautiful this morning.

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This is heartbreaking and infuriating: https://rothfelslab.berkeley.edu/2020/06/04/the-rothfels-lab-stands-against-racism-everywhere/

If we pretend that racism isn't a problem at Berkeley, then we will never address the problem.

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WTF

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Thanks for posting this.

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That's sad to read. As there have been a lot of discussions within academia about Black Lives Matter, it's imperative to make sure that black colleagues do not have to fear for their lives at national labs, conferences, etc. but quite another task to make sure that black careers survive systematic racism in the long run.

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That was especially frustrating to read because I didn't realize it was Prof. Hayes until the end of the letter. I didn't know him personally, but I recall reading some articles about him and his lab when I was an undergrad and I thought he seemed like such an interesting, passionate, and cool guy.

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Winner: Chicago Stuffed Loser: Mac and Cheese or the deep fried pizza with chips

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I found myself pondering for a moment what a Chicago Stuffed Loser might taste like.

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Seems like it would be worth trying to find out.

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Weather

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Oakland has been beautiful

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Inland LA summer has arrived. Hot days are mid-90's, cool days are low 80's. I've acclimated pretty well though and can now jog outside as long as its <85

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summers w/o june gloom suck in la...fires start earlier and seemingly last longer...

(there was already one near my house a couple days ago.)

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We are getting into the summer weather pattern around here. mid 90's to 105 for several days, then mid 80s to mid 90s for a couple days, then back up, and so on. humidity rarely over 30%, even spraying water on the measuring device.

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Was mid 60s last weekend, hit high 80s to 90 last couple of days. 80 today and 68 and cloudy tomorrow. Looks like it'll stay in the mid 70s next week.

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Ugly humidity the last couple days. Supposed to be a front go through today and make it more comfortable.

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Plenty of showers in the meantime

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I'm feeling the humidity. Upstairs aircon also conked out, so I'm stewing in my own sweat while I work. It's 82 degrees inside. Hatha DBD.

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A week or two ago we had some guys come out for a service call for our a/c because we realized it had been years - cost a little more than I might have liked but the house is suddenly and noticeably cooler. I also think that one upside of the ladies being home for the summer is that my wife might be forced to concede that we should do something about the total lack of insulation over the kitchen and living room, because of how unpleasant it becomes from catching the heat for most of the day.

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Give the DBD some advice using only four words

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Jobu needs a refill.

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Licking doorknobs is illegal.

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Buy low, sell high

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It's not worth it.

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Value diet and sleep.

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Don't be a dick.

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Boston

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Not a bad place to live except for the winters and summers. And traffic and parking.

...Brand, Deadman.

Ralph ..., world class long jumper.

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[Searchlight with D$ insignia projected into the sky]

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I recently acquired their first album.

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It's a good one

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Enjoyed myself the one time I visited. It was early September, which as I understand it is the absolute best time for weather. Lots of cool stuff to see.

Fenway Park was definitely worth seeing in person. Their aquarium is also really cool.

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A pleasant city ruined by its terrible populace. Bostonians are without question the rudest people I have ever met.

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I enjoy it, but I basically love all cities that have different things going on. The central area is pretty walkable and there is always a large young population given the schools.

I have been there several times, including once for almost a week during a conference. Only once was in the middle of winter and I didn't really do much that time outside of playing board games at a friend's place.

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Not a fan, but also not very familiar. The “not a fan” part is an inherited chip on the shoulder from living in Providence.

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Outside Providence was an underrated film.

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A city I very much enjoy. I've run the marathon a few times and always spend a few days visiting museums and other sites while I'm there. It's been awhile so maybe have to go up when things settle back in.

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Fun place to visit. I've been twice. I'd visit again but now that my sister isn't there anymore that's pretty unlikely.

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Boston drivers have a bad reputation, but it seems pretty hard to be a good driver in a city whose road system is based on a plate of spaghetti noodles.

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Along with Lisbon, one of the two most difficult places to drive that I've experienced.

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They’re wildly impatient and aggressive though. Rhode Island drivers are not very good but for the most part people understand the “I’m stupid but friendly” wave when you fuck up. The hardest part was adapting to the local custom that on narrow streets with no left turn lane, you go immediately on green if you’re first in line to clear a path for everyone else

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I enjoyed living in Boston, but the drivers are trash and I totally agree with your description. I'm not sure if I ever got to a four-way stop that was executed entirely correctly by all drivers at the intersection.

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Cal is suddenly forced to adopt a different mascot than the Golden Bear. What's your choice?

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The Condors, just like on 90210.

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Biscuits?

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The California Berkeliums, just to really get everyone confused about the branding.

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Yep, if other schools use colors as mascots, Cal can use elements.

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Well we know Stanfurd is unable to use an element as theirs

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Radioactive Bears!

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I always thought Orcas/Killer Whales would be a cool mascot. They are smart, social, an apex predator, can easily be made into a cute and cuddly cartoon, and you can make a pretty good color scheme using black and white as the base with something else as the accent. Unfortunately, this means Cal would have to change its colors, which I'm not down with. The other problem is that neither Orca nor Killer Whale really rolls off the tongue when in the stands shouting.

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"Lets Go Orcas" *clap clap clapclapclap*

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Roll on you Whales!

First and ten do it again! Go! Whales!

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Yea, the other probably is inviting the comparison between whales and the student body.

I do like the ring of 'First and Ten, Swim again!

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Grizzley Bear, Brown Bear, Bear Bear, Smokey the Bear.

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Blue Bear

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What is the most horrific thing that someone has told you super casually?

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I was at a party in Mexico City a few months ago, and the conversation turned to violent car jackings, and how they had all been carjacked in the last five years. But one girl said in a laughing matter that the last one wasn't so bad because when the car jackers hit her and her mom, she only got a concussion instead of broken bone or a cut.

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😬

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"I mean, how can you resist all those young hookers when you're in Vietnam? You gotta do it, amirite?" - dude, standing next to his wife

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😬

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I'm building a n***** -proof fence.

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😬

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I've had a couple of internet friends discuss being sexually assaulted in a shockingly casual manner.

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Today in the 'rona

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Got an update from my two friends in hospital with 'rona. Both will be released from their LT care facilities so that they can receive care from their own home. The bittersweet part is their older daughter has dropped out of grad school to take care of them full time.

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This is such welcome news.

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This is great to hear. I also assume your Sister In Law's family also are all fine now.

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The eldest daughter, who has asthma, is still feeling it. Like - sleeps half the day, can barely get out of bed - for like I don't know how many weeks. Seems like... 6-8 weeks? When she tested negative for the 'rona, my SIL let her out of the isolated side of the house. I warned her to not do that due to the unusually high rate of false negatives on the 'rona tests, but it was too late as she was already with the rest of the family. Doctor said that he was 99.99% sure she had it and it was a false negative but they weren't going to spend another test on her. My SIL was like "oh, yeah, I guess we all did have a minor cold a few months back. I guess we did have it."

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But I missed the real point which hurrah that your friends have made it this far

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Grad school will still be there

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Single datapoint observation: went to the grocery store - same store, but at 6pm. Normally is about 10% unmasked. But was surprised that about half of the shopper were not wearing masks. 100% non-wearers were white. Our local high school is 50% non-white, so that tells you a bit about demographics. Was also surprised that there a bunch of them were elderly. Not sure if Fox News viewers shop later or if it's CV19 fatigue. Meanwhile, deaths & hospitalizations continue to grow on a linear basis.

https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/dashboard

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Ouch. I'm in South Bay, and all the grocery stores and such around me have a hard requirement for masks.

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was at costco in yorba linda over the weekend...there was this middle aged white guy wearing an NRA/2nd amendment/blue lives matter tshirt...and he was screaming at the door guy about how he can't breathe with a mask on...

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The irony of him saying “I can’t breathe” ...

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ugh. people have gotten over that here mostly. or decided they don't need to go to the dump that bad.

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they're rare around here too...

but i was certainly assumed by the whole "i can't breathe" while wearing a 2nd amendment/NRA/thin blue line shirt...'cause you know that's a dude that doesn't give a shit about police brutality

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Locally, the 6 AM crowd is almost all Sr citizens, almost all masked. There are no mask requirements for patrons, and during the day, mask usage varies pretty widely. So far, can't tell from case reports that it matters or not. But then from the beginning, and still, locally the case load has come heavily from concentration points, assisted/sr living and food processing plants account for most of the cases, especially when those with traced exposures to someone who was in one of those places are included.

Air travel isn't a big component of life for most people around here, especially now, so the airport problem has been mostly someone else's problem. That said, the only case of significant symptoms (full recovery, fortunately) I know personally was via air travel to get home when this started.

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We also have a BIG problem with correctional facilities, but those people are effectively quarantined anyway, so they aren't spreading it outside the facility except via the guards when they go off duty. Having several large corrections facilities in the area has skewed the numbers.

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The stores here are expected to refuse entry to people with no mask. There might be some half hearted compliance but at least in the Bougie areas I traverse there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of resistance to masks. Physical distancing is another story.

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Interesting. Around here, 80-90% of the unmasked are latino

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Two hairstylists had CV19 with symptoms. None of the 140 exposed came down with symptoms. It's... it's almost like masks work or something.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/11/us/missouri-hairstylists-coronavirus-clients-trnd/index.html

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This is from former FDA head Scott Gottlieb:

https://twitter.com/scottgottliebmd/status/1270791094666747905?s=21

Same general point in the linked story. I’ve been following him because he is really effective at translating public health recommendations into language that should in theory resonate with the political right... or would if people were of a mind to listen. One of the first replies to this tweet was some person saying that masks are almost as dehumanizing as kneeling. 🙄

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There's BLM. There's ALM/Blue Lives Matter. And then there's straight up racists.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/10/us/all-lives-matter-reenact-george-floyd-black-lives-matter-trnd/index.html

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"FedEx holds its team members to a high standards of personal conduct, and we do not tolerate the kind of appalling and offensive behavior depicted in this video. The individual involved is no longer employed by FedEx. We stand with those who support justice and equality,"

Hey corrections officers union, this is how you handle it.

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The jailers aren’t going to fire him for that tho

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Those degenerates are lucky the protesters were accompanied by a police escort, otherwise they likely would have been justifiably beaten into submission.

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Pizza score out of 40

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i stopped counting but i highly recommend the white clam pie at Frank Pepe's in New Haven.

there is usually a long line (1+ hr) during normal times, but well worth it. there is a little pizza shack right next door where the line goes faster because it is not the "restaurant"

there are some local competitors that i have never tried. also, Frank Pepe's now has multiple locations in NY suburbs and SW Conn.

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29 .. since i was curious after reading the other posts

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17, and I would very much like to add that Quad City to the total.

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13. most of these do not seem especially appetizing to me.

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22...which includes a "sushi pizza" that's almost as described but on a scallion pancake, a doner pizza in Germany that's the same ingredients as the "kebab pizza from Sweden".

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I am very much ready for a doner pizza

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I found that to be quite common in Germany since all the Turkish döner places that bake their own bread also bake pizzas.

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There’s a Turkish-owned pizza place in the area but I stopped reading the menu and just ordered when I saw they sold pastirma pide, I should check to see if they’ll make a doner pizza

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6, I ain't eating all that weird shit.

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This surprises me. I can see getting to 10 just by accident.

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Counted again, more carefully, 10 total

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7, vaguely remember bagel pizza

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14 or 15. I'm not sure I want to visit some of the places that sell some of these pizzas.

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17. Some of these sound made up. Pizza cone? Baked ziti?

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15 - and that doesn’t include the Scottish deep fried one. I remember as a kid seeing a small frozen pizza being put directly in the fryer at a chippy on the outskirts of Edinburgh

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15. Looks like I've lived a sheltered pizza life.

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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Someone's gonna get replaced...

Top general apologizes for appearing in photo-op with Trump after forceful removal of

protesters

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/11/politics/milley-trump-appearance-mistake/index.html

America's top general is apologizing for appearing in a photo-op with President Donald Trump after the forceful dispersal of protesters outside the White House last week, saying the move was a "mistake."

Gen. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also said that he was "outraged" by the killing of George Floyd and added that the protests it sparked spoke to "centuries of injustice toward African Americans."

"As senior leaders, everything you do will be closely watched. And I am not immune. As many of you saw, the result of the photograph of me at Lafayette Square last week. That sparked a national debate about the role of the military in civil society," Milley, said in a pre-recorded speech to a group of graduates from the National Defense University released on Thursday.

"I should not have been there. My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics. As a commissioned uniformed officer, it was a mistake that I have learned from, and I sincerely hope we all can learn from it," he added.

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I think in general (ha!) that the military is recoiling from being used as a prop by the trump administration - they see that it's not a good look for them.

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Fence blocking off Lafayette Park next to WH is coming down, apparently

https://twitter.com/falcicchio/status/1271087168841285633

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That's it. I was down on Tuesday taking a few pictures of the signs that had been attached to the fence. There haven't been any demonstration for a few days so it will be interesting to see if people come back now that they can get closer to the WH again.

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Even by the low standards of this administration, scheduling el presidente to deliver a speech on Juneteenth in Tulsa is egregious.

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Even if he tries to say the right thing I see this going off the rails. Based on his history he will come off as disingenuous and the chances are high he will do or say something inappropriate. He is having a meeting today in Dallas regarding race and policing. The police chief, sheriff, and district attorney all of who are black were not invited. They can't get out of their own way.

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Stephen Miller is truly the shittiest of human beings. This has his fingerprints all over it.

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It really does. He’s as low as it gets.

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I can see the smarmy smirk on his face as he thought of this

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PRO

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I remember back in the 90s Barry Bonds said he'd never want to play for Boston because "it's too racist out there" and the national media tore him a new one for it.

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and in other breaking news, the sun came up today.

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shocking no one. (Boston racists not Torii Hunter calling anyone out)

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NASCAR bans the Confederate battle flag. This may be a challenge.

https://twitter.com/NASCAR/status/1270819350644211719

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The announcement did not surprise me because NASCAR has had the ambition to appeal to a wider audience. Whether they will actually enforce this is a different matter completely.

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Mitchell Swartz's pad is pretty hot

https://twitter.com/MitchSchwartz71/status/1270867292868546560

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Not gonna lie. Mitchell Swartz's wife is pretty hot, too.

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CAL

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So UC Berkeley posted something about the strike/protest day yesterday on Twitter two days ago and, of course, the only replies are negative.

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Go Bears!

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Trevon Clark is now engaged to be married. They already have a gorgeous baby.

https://twitter.com/trevon2221/status/1270939565499379713

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Not to distract from Trevon Clark, but at that link is also a video showing Robert Paylor walking in a pool using only one hand to support himself. Great to see.

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I'm usually the one giving the Go Bears. Walking home from the grocery store last night a younger guy gave me a Go Bears. I was a little slow on the uptake but he pointed to my hat and I gave a smile, Go Bears, and thumbs up.

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Agreed...sadly, I’ve become almost surprised when I come across a Go Bears, as I so rarely have one reciprocated! Where’s all my peeps from the Grove in Oxford who know exactly what we’re talking about. #helluvatailgateintheGrove

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Same, it is a lot less common for me to see Cal hats and shirts in the wild in LA. Lots of license plate frames and bumper stickers, but that would just be too much honking

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if you're in my area, you see it quite a bit 'cause, well, asians...

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Where I am it's all $C with some UC Los Angeles sprinkled in

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o/

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