This past Sunday on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the main story they covered was on opioids.  It's the second time they've reported on the subject, though this time it was from the perspective of distribution companies but mostly the Sackler family that's behind the drug's growth.  

The story is pointed, angry and very funny -- but it reaches it's peak with one of those twists that the Oliver team does so well, especially when they want to be scathingly snarky.  And as clever and funny as that is, they ratchet it up a notch with a further twist that is laugh out-loud funny.  Much as I want to explain why, I just don't want to give it away.

In fact, they then even make an additional bonus twiist, and all I'll say is that after you watch the video you can more about it here.  It will be clear.

“Don’t ask him regulations questions, please,”
-- Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to the press before Trump appeared at the podium.

Oh, yes, the people around Trump *really* respect him...

And no, I'm not making this up.

​

This is another of those "I meant to write about this when the story broke a few weeks back but other news got in the way" things.  It was a news story about an undercover investigation by Al Jazeera TV, which caught officials in the gun corporation-owned NRA terrorist organization down in Australia trying to pass along a gun strategy for taking advantage of a gun massacre and using it to your advantage.  To make matters worse (and yes, that's possible), the people they're talking to are members of the far-right white supremacist group in Australia, One Nation.  And to make matters even worse still -- yes, possible - the story and undercover video broke only a week after the New Zealand gun massacre.

The foundation of the strategy is to try and shame the person who is advocating for reasonable gun laws.  As the NRA official Lars Dalseide, an NRA communication officer, tells them, they should argue, “If your policy, isn’t good enough to stand on itself, how dare you use their deaths to push that forward? How dare you stand on the graves of those children to put forward your political agenda?"

Of course there are several responses one can give in return. 

Like, "I know you say that 'Now isn't the time to talk about gun control.' and that's true -- the time to talk about gun control was before this gun massacre occurred."

Or -- "Oh, I'm sorry, did you think I was talking about gun control because of this gun massacre the other day?  Oh, no, no.  Not that at all.  I was referring to the gun massacre a year ago and wanted to wait for enough time to pass before it was okay to address it."

Or -- "The only reason I'm standing on the graves of those children is because they were shot dead and can't speak for themselves."

Or -- "I couldn't care less if my policy can stand by itself or if the only way to make people like you see that gun laws are necessary is by showing you the bodies of all the victims shot to death, as long as it will help keep other people from getting shot to death by guns, because that's the goal we should all be going for -- right??"

When this story was brought up on social media, there were two common responses from gun advocates.  The first was a sort of "Consider the source" thing that this was from Al Jazeera.  The easy reply was, "Okay, and tell me how the video they have isn't showing what it is actually showing."  And the other was how the NRA official had been tricked.  That was easily countered by, "So, was he tricked the second time, too?  And did he not mean what he was saying each time?"

You probably won't want to watch the whole video -- it's 48 minutes.  Or perhaps any of it, given how pathetic and repugnant it is.  But then this is the gun corporation-owned NRA terrorist organization, so...consider the source.
​

This is from a few days ago, but I've had a bit of a backup.  It's from Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI).  It's this is a rarity for "Tweet of the Day," since it's two tweets from the senator.

​​He was on an angry roll.  Here was another he posted the same day.

Often Rachel Maddow has thoughtful, insightful interview that go deep into substance, among the most thoughtful and in-depth on TV, although occasionally they're cheery puffery. I found her conversation last night with Pete Buttigieg to be personable but empty, bordering on just giddy generality, coming close to cheerleading. And perhaps most surprising is that it took over most of the show when there was not only actual news, but news that was serious and important.

Someone wrote me on social media that they found it engaging and thought the personal connection between the two was palpable. He say "there will be time for policy chats in future discussions. For now I am glad they met and let us share the experience of that first meeting."

It was very engaging.  And absolutely charming.  No question.  It was also (to me) empty generalities and took up almost the whole show. Personally, I don't care one whit when journalists meet subjects for the first time (something Ms. Maddow made a Big Deal about). And I do care to hear specifics not just the first time, but every time, most particularly when they're running for President of the United States.  It was a very charming interview -- but Trump won by charming his base.  Speaking just personally, I want details. We could have had a couple minutes of charm and the rest finding out about why Pete Buttigieg thinks he should be president.  I am absolutely fine with people enjoying the interview -- it was very pleasant.  My quibble is that Ms. Maddow is a better interviewer than that. 

President Emmanuel Macron of France has announced that there will be an international fundraising effort to help rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  At the same time, French billionaire François-Henri Pinault has said that he, his father and family are pledging 100 million Euros for the restoration (which is $113 million).  While a massive amount, that won't cover the cost since the current restoration that had previously begun to repair damage that had built up over the centuries was expected to cost $150-180 million.  

(As a side note, Pinault is married to actress Salma Hayek, not that being a billionaire and CEO of an international luxury group whose holdings includes Gucci and Saint Laurent isn't noteworthy enough.  (As a bonus, he's also president of the French holding company which owns the fine arts auction house Christie's.)

The French government's fundraising site hasn't hasn't been set up yet, but at the moment there are two other venues for donating.  And while I suspect they will meet their goals with donations pouring in from around the world, and other major donations from wealthy French individuals and those across the globe, if you're interested in donating, these are the two leading charities which news sources have pointed to --

Friends of Notre-Dame has offices in both France and the U.S., It previously established itself as a 501c3 charity when the restoration had earlier begun that was in operation when the fire broke out, and had been the primary organization raising money for the restoration already under way.  You can reach their website here, although the site seemed to be down much of last evening, perhaps from overload, though I did finally get through.

Fondation du Patrimoine is a French nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of historic, cultural sites throughout France. It has established a special Note Dame rebuilding fund.  You can get to their website here -- just know that the site is in French.  However, most browsers should pop-up a window asking if you want the page translated.  If you don't get that, the boxes asking for information should be pretty clear.  Also, it asks for donations in Euros, so know that one Euro equals $1.13,

By the way, in addition to the foundation structure being saved, along with much artwork, relics and icons inside, it was wonderful to find out that it appears the famous North Rose Window was not lost.

Just a few cherished memories of and inside Notre Dame Cathedral looking out over Paris from photos I took on a family trip around 1966, .Even as a little kid it was enthralling to approach and wander through, and the sense of history could be felt in every nook.  I wish I had more pictures and better ones, but I'm glad for the ones I do have and even more grateful for having been there.  And, having been a kid, I'm just glad they're framed well and in focus.

The other day, Disney announced its news streaming service Disney Plus which will launch November 12.  Pricing will be $7 a month or $70 for an annual subscription, which most news reports commented how it compares favorably to $13 a month for Netflix's most popular tier.  The company said that they may eventually bundle Disney Plus with other of their services like Hulu and ESPN Plus.  During the first year, they expect to release 25 new series and 10 movies, documentaries and specials.  Overall, the Disney Plus library will have over 7,500 TV episodes and 500 movies.

It seems like a fascinating venture, with some plus and minuses.  On the plus side, Disney has a huge vault they can draw from, and recently bought the film division of 20th Century Fox, and now have that library, too -- which include the Star Wars franchise, the Avenger franchise and all 30 years of The Simpsons.  And among the new productions for the service are a Star Wars spinoff series, The Mandalorian and prequel to Rogue One (for which Diego Luna will reprise his role of Cassian Andor).  There will be a series Marvel Studios series Loki, that stars Tom Hiddleston reprising his role,; and a Pixar series Monsters at Work, that takes off after the events of the  original Monsters Inc. movie.

On the negative side -- or at least left out of most news stories is that the $7 a month is an "initial" price, most likely to get interest and subscriptions, and it seems probably that that will rise, and the cost-difference with Netflix will narrow.  In addition, Netflix has $9 stream plan, as well, which is much closer to Disney's "initial" offering.  And a significantly larger catalog -- 1,569 TV shows and 4,010 movies. (Keep in mind that the "7,500" figure for Disney is episodes, not shows.  If each Netflix TV series only has two years of 22 episodes each -- and keep in mind that old shows often had around 35 episodes a years and most not only ran for more than just two years, with some like Gunsmoke and Bonanza running for decades -- that works out to 70,000 episodes.

But further, it only compares with Netflix and leaves out Amazon.  An Amazon Prime subscription averages out to $10 a month.  And that not only includes a very large catalog, including international TV shows -- but most importantly includes free 2-day shipping on Amazon (and free next-day delivery on orders over $35), along with music streaming, cloud photo storage, Prime Now with free grocery and restaurant delivery within range, and more.

And no one should expect immediately competition with Netflix.  Disney predicts between 60-90 million subscribers in five years -- while Netflix currently has 140 million subscribers. Disney also says it expect so spend $2 billion a year over most of the next five years, while Netflix spends around $12 billion on content a year.

This is not to say that the Disney Plus service isn't intriguing and won't be a success.  In fact, it's very fascinating and seems poised to do well.  But as a complimentary service to Netflix and Amazon Prime, rather than one that can knock them out of the box.  Mainly, it's to say that most coverage of Disney Plus was pretty sketchy in its description of the landscape.

Besides which, who know how that landscape may be drastically changed in five years.

This is actually a twofer.  The first tweet comes from Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel --

The follow-up is a response to Weigel's comment above from George Conway, husband of Kellyanne --