One of the most interesting subreddits is r/blackmagicfuckery. Here are the best clips of all time. Here is the regular flow of posts.

H/T: MetaFilter

Kolten Wong: “It’s postseason baseball. If you need any fucking build-up or anything, then you don’t belong here. Obviously we got punched in the mouth, but we did the same thing to them at their place.” https://t.co/kyZ3qKgM57

— Mark Saxon (@markasaxon) October 7, 2019

Kolton… shut up and play the game. Take that fire and apply it to your at bats and on the field defense.

One run in 18 innings doesn’t get you anywhere.

Also, never slide into first base. I hope Shildt tore you a new one for that.

And, by the way, Mike… tell Carlos Martínez to grow up and shut up.

James Whitbrook, writing for Gizmodo, takes a deep dive in “Breaking Down the Old Friends and New Secrets of Star Trek: Picard’s Latest Trailer.”

Nice gifs. Stay for the analysis.

David Graham, writing in The Atlantic, outlines what we know so far in the Ukraine scandal and how it has ballooned into something that involves nearly all levels of the Trump administration from the vice president to his personal lawyer/fixer to the top U.S. diplomat in the Ukraine to the European Union ambassador to the secretary of state Mike Pompeo to President Xi Jinping of China to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and to who know’s who else we’ll learn about tomorrow.

To my mind the most damaging thing that happened so far was this bit of craziness.

Thursday morning on the White House’s South Lawn, Trump told reporters that China should mount a probe: “They should investigate the Bidens, because how does a company that’s newly formed—and all these companies—and by the way, likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.” There is no evidence to back up his charges. The moment was breathtaking, because Trump, under threat of impeachment for asking a foreign country to interfere in the 2020 election, opted to ask a foreign country to interfere in the 2020 election, with cameras rolling.

That afternoon Chuck Todd began his Meet The Press Daily show with this declaration:

I don’t say this lightly, but let’s be frank, a national nightmare is upon us. The basic rules of our democracy are under attack from the president. We begin tonight with a series of admissions by the president that all but assures his impeachment in the House of Representatives. It’s a moment of truth for Republicans and they’ve been largely silent on what we’ve seen from the president. Today, he publicly called on two foreign governments to interfere in the election by investigating his chief 2020 political rival…

He then played the video of Trump calling on China and the Ukrain to investigate Joe Biden.

What you just heard is a public admission of the allegations of the heart of the House’s impeachment inquiry and at the heart of the whistleblower’s complaint. That the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump is using the power of his office to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election while doing it relying on a debunked conspiracy theory or two.

By the way, this is not hearsay, this is not a leak, this is not a whistleblower complaint. It’s not a memorandum of a phone conversation. You heard the president did it on the White House lawn. This moment should arguably be a national emergency. The Founding Fathers would have considered it a national emergency if the president publicly lobbied multiple foreign governments to interfere in the next election.

And yet there has been virtually no condemnation for the president’s party at all for this remark which was remarkable considering the precedent it would set and the lasting damage it would do to our democracy. It is tough to say lightly, but this is the moment that we’re at.

And here we are.

What a totally cool version, however the end mash-up was genius.

KISS fan website KISS Asylum pointed me to an old Onion article that made me laugh.

AKRON, OH—Citing growing tensions between bandmates, Harvey Shapiro—aka “VeeVee,” the guitarist for KISS cover band Destroyer—left the group Monday to create VeeVee’s Occupying Force, a Vinnie Vincent Invasion tribute band. “I felt I had hit a creative ceiling with the cover-band experience and was ready for the challenges of a tribute band,” Shapiro said. “VeeVee’s Occupying Force will debut Dec. 3 at Rubber City Lanes. We’re opening for Second Sighting, my brother’s Frehley’s Comet cover band.” As a part of his new band’s act, Shapiro said he is contemplating suing Destroyer for $6 million over damage to his reputation following some badmouthing at the Rock ‘N’ Bowl.

It’s the Frehley’s Comet cover band that made me almost snort.

Patrick Rhone has put together a pretty cool list of a bunch of posts of his. I need to do something similar.

Love this concept.

Amanda Hess, writing for The New York Times, has an incredible profile of Rachel Maddow.

Maddow has hosted “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC at 9 p.m. five nights a week for 11 years. But over the past three, her figure has ascended, in the liberal imagination, from beloved cable-news host to a kind of oracle for the age of Trump. If her show started out as a smart, quirky, kind-of-meandering news program focusing on Republican misdeeds in the Obama years, it has become, since the 2016 election, the gathering place for a congregation of liberals hungering for an antidote to President Trump’s nihilism and disregard for civic norms.

Maddow does not administer beat-downs or deliver epic rants. She is not a master of the sound bite. Instead, she carries her viewers along on a wave of verbiage, delivering baroque soliloquies about the Russian state, Trump-administration corruption and American political history. Her show’s mantra is “increasing the amount of useful information in the world,” though the people who watch it do not exactly turn to it out of a need for more information. They already read the papers and scroll through Twitter all day. What Maddow provides is the exciting rush of chasing a set of facts until a sane vision of the world finally comes into focus.

That last sentence is a brilliant distillation of The Rachel Maddow Show. It’s what smart people want in a “talking head, news as entertainment” show.

Evan Ratliff, writing for Insider, has an incredible long-read on the disappearance and murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It’s a good reminder that the Saudi government isn’t really our friend and the indifference by the White House is indicative of how they would like to treat journalists who tell the truth.

David Edelstein, writing for Vulture, tells me everything I need to know about the movie Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix, in one simple sentence.

The downside to the performance is the downside to the movie: It’s one note played louder and louder. 

I don’t need that in my life. In fact, I have zero desire to watch this film. As Edelstein points out, it’s obvious what director Todd Phillips is going for here: a pastiche of a better director’s (Martin Scorsese) movies (obviously King of Comedy and Taxi Driver). Of course, he stunt casts Robert De Niro.

Although Phillips and the screenwriters sought to make Joker more realistic than its DC Comics predecessors, it exalts its protagonist and gives him the origin story of his dreams, in which killing is a just — and artful — response to a malevolently indifferent society. Arthur/Joker might be repulsive, but in a topsy-turvy universe, repulsive is attractive. I’m not arguing that Joker will inspire killings (it might, but so might a lot of other things), only that it panders to selfish, small-minded feelings of resentment. Also it’s profoundly boring — a one-joke movie.

How boring. But then, I’m not a selfish incel with “small minded feelings of resentment.” If I want to watch a “killing is just” movie, I’ll watch Keanu Reeves gun-fu through the John Wick movies. I’m sure I’ll be way more entertained.

Just who is this movie for anyway? I mean fans of the DC Comics version of the Joker aren’t going to care about this approach. If you loved Heath Ledger’s Oscar winning performance, this isn’t going to make you love the character more. If you hated Jared Leto’s take on the character, I’m sure Phoenix’s version will be even more wrong.

My fear is the controversy surrounding this movie will push audiences to go see the film and make those in charge of DC movies to incorrectly believe that creating individual, non-universe connecting movies is the way to go. It isn’t.

Don’t go see this movie.

I just updated my phone to iOS 13.1 and experimented with dark mode. Overall, it’s kind of meh for me.

M.G. Siegler, in his 5ish newsletter, pointed me to a story back in May about dark mode that I hadn’t seen. Adam Engst talks about Apple’s introduction to Dark Mode and then proceeds to rip it apart.

Unfortunately, Apple’s marketing claims about Dark Mode’s benefits fly in the face of the science of human visual perception. Except in extraordinary situations, Dark Mode is not easy on the eyes, in any way. The human eyes and brain prefer dark-on-light, and reversing that forces them to work harder to read text, parse controls, and comprehend what you’re seeing.

It may be hip and trendy, but put bluntly, Dark Mode likely makes those who turn it on slower and less productive. Here’s why, if you adopted Dark Mode purely because Apple promoted it as the new hotness, you should think hard about switching back to the Light Mode that your eyes and brain prefer in System Preferences > General.

Interestingly enough, I like it in places and not so much in others. For example, I use the Dark Mode in Feedly and Tweetdeck, but not in Notion. I would hate it in Instapaper and would never turn it on for Google Docs. Of course, Spotify is always in dark mode.

I appreciate white space, but sometimes having a dark mode is nice. Still, I don’t anticipate turning it on my phone for any significant amount of time.

Nicholas Bate with some zero basics.

1. Zero In-box

2. Zero, Coke Zero

3. Zero Netflix Monday to Thursday.  Read.

4. Zero taking the lift/elevator down.

5. Zero time to waste.

6. Zero poor coffee.

7. Zero excuses.

Kevin Drum wants us all to remember what this whole Ukraine business is all about.

Ukrainegate is about Donald Trump holding military assistance hostage unless a foreign leader helped him win an election. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, this has never happened before. It is an obvious and flagrant abuse of power.

Nothing that was said—or yelled or tweeted—over the weekend has changed this.

Mike Shildt: "We don't have any team meetings, but we do have three more left: When we pop champagne after the Division Series, When we pop champagne after the Championship Series and when we When we pop champagne after the World Series." #TimeToFly pic.twitter.com/ofyjAxbH7g

— Bally Sports Midwest (@BallySportsMW) September 29, 2019

Hey, that’s fun.

Jordan Bastian, writing for MLB, says Joe Maddon is meeting with Theo Epstein.

Entering Saturday’s game, Maddon had guided the Cubs to 470 wins, the fifth-most for a manager in team history. His run of four consecutive postseason berths (2015-18) is unprecedented for a Cubs manager, the 2016 World Series win snapped a 108-year championship drought and his winning percentage (.582) is the second-highest mark among all Cubs managers with more than two years at the helm.

Even with all of those accomplishments on Maddon’s resume with the Cubs, the franchise is weighing whether a new voice is needed for the next era for the team. Maddon’s contract expires at the end of the season, so he also has the ability to elect to become a “free agent” ahead of the 2020 campaign.

“We all have a huge amount of respect for Joe and what he’s done here,” Cubs outfielder Kyle Schwarber said. “Whatever happens, happens. If he comes back, that’s great. If he decides to move on, we wish him the best. But he’s done a lot of dang good here, and you can’t take that away.

“For me, for him being my first big league manager, I think that’s a pretty good Major League manager to have as your first one. I have a huge amount of respect for him.”

That’s some interesting spin.

I’m sure the Angels will be looking really hard at hiring Joe Maddon in this off season.

You misspelled "Fraud."#GoForceYourself https://t.co/ORY6eeyGgj

— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) September 29, 2019

"Force"? Doubtful. Your son is dressed as a Stormtrooper, who serve as the Palpatine Empire's shock forces and were originally introduced in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Originally cloned from bounty hunter Jango Fett... (1/17,313) https://t.co/w4sjsANDfW

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) September 29, 2019

Seriously, this was a dumb move by Ivanka.

Easily the best sketch from Saturday Night Live last night. Really funny.

“For just $45 you call bring home $10 worth of apples…”

This might be my favorite bit ever by a stand-up comedian.

The director of the Writing Center at Harvard University, Jane Rosenzweig, writing for The New York Times, says the whistle-blower’s writing is amazingly clear.

Her piece showcases several points from the letter that illustrate clear, concise writing. All writers should read the story.