Straight Dutch Men Have Perfect Response To A Homophobic Attack; Gay Putin Banned

Many straight men in the
Netherlands are holding hands
lately to protest a recent
homophobic attack on a gay couple

A week ago, a married gay couple were brutally attacked in Arnhem, a city in the eastern part of the Netherlands.

Apparently, the five horrible homophobic teenagers that attacked the couple couldn't stand the fact that the two men had been holding hands as they walked down a sidewalk, something that many, many married couples do routinely.

The teens are in a heap of trouble, of course, and most people in the Netherlands were horrified by the attack.

According to the Guardian, a journalist named Barbara Barend had a great idea to show solidarity to the couple who had been attacked. She tweeted a all for "all men (straight and gay) please to just walk hand in hand."

So, lots of men in the Netherlands are doing just that.  For instance, Button-down Alexander Pechtold, of the Democrats D66 party, showed up at a government meeting the other holding hands with his finance spokesman Wouter Koolmees the other day.

Very straight and macho looking Dutch military personnel posted photos of themselves on social media holding hands with other men. Male workers at Dutch embassies around the world also posted photos of themselves holding hands in solidarity.

Holding hands is just symbolic, of course, and, won't in itself get rid of homophobic violence. But it does put the world on notice, that we're not going to tolerate it. Anything helps.

Meanwhile, in much more homophobic Russia, authorities have banned the meme of Vladimir Putin as a "gay clown" whatever that is.

Vladimir Putin hates this meme of him, so don't share
it with anybody! Wouldn't want to offend him! 

It probably refers to a popular meme that shows Putin with lots of makeup, long eyelashes and bright red lipstick.

The Russian government has tried to depict Putin as super macho, like that famous image of Putin, shirtless, riding a horse, which to me is the gayest depiction of Putin I've ever seen.

Of course, the rest of the world is laughing at Putin being so insecure there can't be gayish images of him.

True, the Russian government is hostile and violent toward gay people, but one tool to fight that is mockery.

Sorry, with all of Putin's evilness, a good response is to laugh at that jerk.

And we might as well let Stephen Colbert pile on:

Donald Trump Doth Protest Too Much As Russia Tries To Seize America

I hope this isn't reality, but it feels like it lately.

This is beginning to feel like a bad James Bond movie.

It's becoming more and more apparent that Russia, Wikileaks and maybe Trump or his minions are trying to turn the United States into a wholly owned subsidiary of Putin, Inc. 

Unless we get a James Bond-like figure to save the day, I worry that this effort might succeed.

Friday, the nation got more details on the intelligence gathering that shows Russia was trying - and succeeded, apparently - at tilting our elections toward Donald Trump last November. Vladimir Putin was personally involved in some of this, apparently.

We have Trump get his top secret intelligence briefing on the issue, and still insisting that there wasn't much to the intelligence gathering that Russia did this...

Maybe most ominously, we got more evidence that WikiLeaks, far from being a way to prompt government and corporate transparancy world wide, is more like Putin's goon squad.

The news from WikiLeaks kept getting weirder and more ominous Friday.

First, WikiLeaks objected to Thursday leaks detailing parts of the intelligence report on Russia to NBC News. 

WikiLeaks tweeted: "The Obama admin/CIA is illegally funneling TOP SECRET/COMINT information to NBC for political reasons before PEOTUS even gets to read it."

(POETUS refers to President-elect Trump.)

But get this: WikiLeaks was critcizing.......leaks. A little hypocritical maybe? Or was WikiLeaks just ,mad because the NBC leak had the potential to make Trump look bad.

Besides, it appears what got leaked to NBC News Thursday was the declassified version of the intelligence report that was widely released to the public Friday.

Much more ominously, WikiLeaks seemed to issue a warning of a witch hunt against journalists and others who discuss, investigate or report on Russian meddling.

Which is interesting, since Trump himself called reports of Russian influence on the U.S. election as  political witch hunt, prompted by sour grapes among those who lost the election.

The worrisome potential WikiLeaks, went like this, as Ars Technica reports:

"A Friday Twitter post from WikiLeaks' official task force declared intent to build a publicly seachable database revolving around a particular group of people: Verified Twitter accounts.

'We are thinking of making an online database with all verified Twitter accounts & their family/job/financial/housing relationships,' the Friday tweet reads.  A follow-up post sought suggestions fro the public and said the group is 'looking for discrete (father/shareholding/party membership variables that can be put into our AI software."

In short it appears that WikiLeaks might want to intimidate journalists into silence by "doxing" them. That means making their personal information such as home, family etc. public so goons who support  Trump can harass, threaten or even assault journalists or others who criticize Trump.

A very Russian thing to do, don't you think?  Suppress dissent, intimidate critics, stamp out free speech.

And WikiLeaks says they're for the truth? Ha!

I'm not sure what's in store once Trump takes office. Trump's constant dismissiveness of Russian hacking indicates either he wants to partner with Puting to squelched democracy, or more likely, Russia thinks Trump is a chump and has the goods on him.

Either way, this won't end well.

Let's hope people - and the media - fight efforts to stop the spread of information about who is influencing what in America, and holding on to the basics of democracy.

It's interesting that an outfit like WikiLeaks which says they want information freely available now so obviously shilling for such an anti-freedom outfit like Russia.

Once press freedom and freedom of speech is suppressed, which seems to be the effort underway, we all sink under the thumb of oppressive dictators.

I hope the resistance is stronger

Trump keeps calling the news about Russian hacking "a political witch hunt."

Trump appears to have gotten a number of important details wrong about the NBC story. No one “gave” NBC the top-secret report, as Trump claimed. As the NBC story notes, the official quoted by the network never even saw a copy of the intelligence report; he or she just repeated to NBC what someone had said about its findings.

On Friday morning, Trump told The New York Times that the ongoing public interest in possible Russian interference in the presidential election was “a political witch hunt.” He also complained the election-hacking story was getting more attention than other instances where government computers were compromised. These previous hacks, however, did not include releasing the stolen information to the public.

Russian Hackers Hit Vermont Utility: Putin's Revenge Against Bernie?

A computer at the Burlington Electric Department
in Vermont was apparently hacked by the Russians.
The electric grid wasn't touched, but this
still caused a stir.

OK, the headline on this post is ridiculous, I admit it. There probably isn't that grand a conspiracy.

Still, Vermont, and much of the nation, is talking today about the Russian hack on the little 'ole Burlington (Vermont) Electric Department.

Though the laptop computer that was hacked wasn't connected to the power grid, and the electricity is still flowing in Burlington and beyond  the news does make people nervous.

(The Washington Post last night incorrectly suggested that the hack did get into the power grid, but that's not true.)

I'm not even sure this qualifies as a full-blown hack. BED found the malware on the laptop, which is of course bad, but it didn't infect a bunch of other computers there. Just that one laptop.

Still, if hackers get into the electrical grids, they can stop pretty much everything. Imagine a nationwide blackout that can't be cured in a day or two. (Shudder.)

Even though the electricity still seems to be safe in this instance, a lot of people in the know are sounding the alarm.

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy said in a statement:

"State-sponsored Russian hacking is a serious threat, and the attempts to penetrate the electric grid through a Vermont utility are the latest example.......

"This is beyond hackers having electronic joy rides - this is now about trying to access utilities to potentially manipulate the grid and shut it down in the middle of winter. That is a direct threat to Vermont and we do not take it lightly."

This hack all begs the question: Why Vermont? We're not exactly the biggest threat to Russia, though Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump aren't exactly popular in the liberal Green Mountain State.

My wingnut conspiracy theory, which I'm sure isn't true, is Burlington is the home of U.S,. Rep. Bernie Sanders, the former presidential candidate who has not at all been shy about eviscerating Donald Trump. Repeatedly.

Maybe Donald's buddy Vladimir had enough of Bernie's insults. No better revenge that shutting off the electricity (and in most cases heat) in the dead of a Vermont winter, right?

Of course, reality intrudes on this conspiracy theory. Putin and his minions probably have never even heard of Vermont. Hell, for all we know maybe this wasn't Russian hackers, I guess we'll see.

BED assures us the laptop that was infected has been isolated, and they're cooperating with state and federal authorities, so it turned out to be pretty easy to dodge the bullet.

According to The Guardian: this kind of thing may have happened before, and it does not appear that it was in direct retaliation for President Obama's sanctions against Russia for prior hacking during the election: .

It seems people in Burlington are taking this hack in fairly good humor. probably mostly because the electricity is still on during a morning that dipped to near 10 degrees.

"First they came for our elections, then they came for our electrons," quipped my good buddy Shay Totten of Burlington, on Twitter.

Totten also remarked on Twitter: "I wondered why latest @BurlingtonElec bill gave me the option to pay in rubles."

If, for some reason it turns out Trump had any part in the Burlington Electric Department hacking, which I doubt, maybe Burlington should retaliate against him.

After all, the Trump team never did pay Burlington for the extra overtime and costs with his rally in town last January, in which the future president just let the city pay for everything. Maybe BED can convince New York City to shut off the electricity to Trump Tower.

It's just a thought. 

Maybe Trump Isn't My President

I admit I was a little annoyed by some people who kept at the mantra "Trump is not my president" just after the election.   

This was coming from people I normally agree with on politics. But Trump won, despite the obvious flaws with the Electoral College, and the flaws in the media, the candidates, some voters and a multitude of other factors.

So, we had to come together as a nation, and those of us who can't stand Trump would be the loyal opposition, holding his feet to the fire through his administration.

After the revelations over the past few days, and Trumps reaction to them, maybe the "Trump is not my president" crowd was right.

Of course I'm referring to the additional news that's been coming out about Russian meddling in our election.

As the Washington Post told us late last week, people with connections to the Russian government and Wikileaks used thousands of hacked Democratic National Committee emails to boost Trump's chances.

"'It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia's goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,' a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. Senators told the Washington Post on Friday. 'That's the consensus view.'"

That report is a bombshell, even if we don't have firm evidence the Trump campaign directly coordinated with Russia during the election campaign.

The more disturbing part of the news was Trump's reaction to it.

According to the Washington Post:

 "'I think it's ridiculous,' Trump said in an interview with 'Fox News Sunday,' his first Sunday show appearance since the election last month. 'I think it's just another excuse. I don't believe it.....No I don't believe it all.'"

Trump also said that the CIA was wrong about Iraq weapons of mass destruction during the Bush adminstration. In his mind, if the intelligence officials were wrong once, they're always wrong.

Think about this: He's siding with Russia over us. Yes, assess and judge CIA reports as president-elect, but to just dismiss it out of hand and cozy up to his pal Vladimir Putin in the process?

Ugh.

Trump is apparently too full of himself to get legit intelligence briefings anyway. He said: "I get it whe I need it....I'm like, a smart person. I don't have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years."

Ookey Dokey!

Then you add in all the other factors that seem to delegitimize Trump. He won the electoral college, but lost the popular vote by more than 2.5 million people. Not exactly a mandate.

His fascination with Russia seems to keep going on and on like the Energizer Bunny, too. I'm not sure if he's actually going to pick ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, like news reports suggest.

If he does, though, Tillerson has lots of close ties to Russia, which isn't such a great thing for a Secretary of State, is it?

The Trump and Russia conundrum is making strange bedfellows, that's for sure. South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, a Republican, usually drives me crazy with what he says. But he's right when he called for a Congressional investigation into the matter.

A real pleasant surprise was Joe Walsh, the former Congressman from Illinois, a reactionary right winger whose ever word he ever uttered I disagreed with.

Until now.

Walsh went on an epic tweetstorm over the weekend, outraged that most fellow Republicans are not itching for an investigation.

Sample Walsh tweets:

"I'm a Trump supporter. But if Russia messed with our election to help Hilary lose, I'd be pissed and I'd demand something be done about it."

And:

"Republican silence will be tantamount to treason. Call 4 an investigation. Foreign governments can't pick our President #RussianHackers."

The fact that Trump continues to attack any hint of anybody calling for an investigation is suspicious to me, big time.

I don't know if there's anything there, but he's acting like a five year old trying to lie his way out his parents learning he had his hands in the cookie jar.

Except the five year old's lies are more nuanced and clever than Trump's.

God help us all. I really don't think Trump's our president. Maybe he's Russia's, and he is turning the United States into a wholly owned subsidiary of Russia.

Ugh.

Oops: Putin Was NOT Target of Poopy Sanction By Angry Bird

See that bit of bird poop on Vladimir Putin's shoulder?
Totally fake. Somebody photoshopped into a video. 

Remember that video the other day I posted of Vladimir Putin giving a speech and bird pooped on  his suit?

Turns out it was totally fake. I and a lot of news organizations and bloggers got taken.

Britain's Independent was able to prove that somebody who is pretty damn skillful at altering videos inserted the bird poop from the sky.  

So it turns out Putin was not the victim of targeted sanctioning from a bird.

So oh, well.

I still think Putin is creepy, and wouldn't mind if a bird really did poop on him.

One can only dream.

Bad Monday: Putin Is Pooped And A Plane Potty Mouth

For those of you who Don't Like Mondays, here's a post with three videos that will make you feel like you have company. Or more likely, that you're having a better day than some other folks.

The first video brings us to Russia, where the country's president, Vladimir Putin, was giving a speech commemorating World War I.  As he spoke, a bird apparently decided to give its opinion of our dear old friend Vladimir.

I guess with the whole Ukraine thing, targeted sanctions against Putin are coming from all directions:



Next, we have a video shot by Mike Irving aboard a plane set for takeoff, although he documents a bit of a delay.

It seems a woman is having a very, very, very bad day, to the point where her trip is not going to go as far as the one for everybody else on the plane.

When watching this video, careful it's NSFW. Or kids. The woman puts new meaning into the term "potty mouth"

Extra props to Irving to catching the priceless looks on the faces of a mother and her young daughter toward the end of the video:



Finally, if you just don't like Mondays, and need more, here's the Boomtown Rats doing their thing from 1979: