Slava Ukraini

You don't foam in the wet sand. I do.

[Slava Ukraini @AlmostFamous412]

#VOTE

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

On election eve, on the @MehdiHasanShow tonight, I tried to summarize the awfulness, and low points, of Trump's four years in office in just... TWO MINUTES flat.

120 seconds exactly.

(I had to speak very fast.)

Start the clock:

[Alan Watts @AlanWattsDaily]

If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living; that is, to go on living doing things you don’t like doing—which is stupid! Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.

[Jay Nordlinger @jaynordlinger]

Texas Republicans have long been among my favorite people. (I knew a lot of Bushies, back when.) (And Phil Gramm was just about my favorite politician.)

Today, in their Senate primary, Texas Republicans have chosen a picture of degeneracy over a Trump-supporting incumbent who is, at bottom, responsible and decent.

It’s like Republicans looked at Cornyn and said, “Nope. Not corrupt, crazy, or immoral enough.”

In a democracy, we say who we are, with our votes. We show what we value. To some of us, recent years have been both illuminating and heartbreaking. I have had frequent occasion to use an old expression: “sadder but wiser.”

I have not spoken like a populist. I’m not running for office. I don’t believe in “Vox populi, vox Dei.” In fact, I think that’s one of the most erroneous and disgusting notions ever conceived. I’m a writer, for better or worse. I have said what I think, even as I hope for a brighter morrow.

[Rolling Stone @RollingStone]

COMMENTARY: Let’s say it plainly: There has never been a president as corrupt as Donald Trump.

There is no close second in our history.
https://t.co/RRV6gbiZi1

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Michael Mann couldn't shoot Collateral on film. The cameras couldn't see Los Angeles at night the way he wanted. So he picked a digital camera no other major Hollywood movie had used. The crew was still building parts for it during the shoot.

Mann was chasing a specific look. Around 10 or 11pm in LA winters, a low cloud bank drifts in off the ocean and settles about 1,200 feet up. The orange sodium streetlamps below light up the bottom of those clouds and turn the whole sky into a soft, hazy glow. Mann said it looked like winter in England.

Movie film couldn't see that. To shoot a single downtown block clearly, the crew would have had to bring in massive lights and brighten up entire streets just to make the buildings visible. Even with the lens open as wide as it goes to pull in any available light, almost nothing outside the foreground would stay in focus.

The camera Mann picked was the Thomson Viper, brand new and not really ready for production. There was no memory card or storage inside the body. It had to be plugged into a separate hard drive with a cable.

About 80% of Collateral was shot digital. The other 20% on regular film was mostly the Korean nightclub shootout, where the bright club lighting gave the crew plenty to work with.

The coyote scene only exists because of the digital camera. Mann didn't plan it. A small pack of coyotes wandered across an empty street between takes, and because the camera could see in near-darkness, the crew just rolled. On film, that shot would have required lighting up the whole intersection first.

The helicopter shots over the city work the same way. Palm trees against the night sky, the downtown skyline lit only by the city's own light. On 35mm film, none of that would have shown up.

The movie cost $65 million to make and earned $220 million worldwide. It won Best Cinematography at the BAFTAs, the British version of the Oscars, and helped push Hollywood toward digital cameras for night shoots.

One catch. That orange light Mann chased is mostly gone now. Starting in 2009, LA began replacing its sodium vapor streetlamps with white LEDs. By 2013 the city had swapped out 141,000 of them. Today the lighting system is 98% LED. The Los Angeles you see in Collateral doesn't exist anymore.

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

The instant he lost his seat, Cassidy began standing up for things he’s known all along were right. Profiles in cowardice, through all the ranks of the GOP.

[NFL Nerd @NerdingonNFL]

17 Sundays until Week 1

[Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1]

NYT confirms — with new details:

Last year, Navy SEALs used two boats to escort Kash Patel and nine others on what a Pentagon email called a 'VIP Snorkel' next to one of the military's most sacred sites, the underwater tomb of the U.S.S. Arizona.

One Navy vet called the swim "horrifying." https://t.co/wuBwyvxaXY

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

Man, Xi must have scared the hell out of him

[Sarah Longwell @SarahLongwell25]

“Very elegantly referred to the United States as perhaps being a declining nation”

I wish Trump was smart enough to know when he’s being humiliated.

[Slava Ukraini @AlmostFamous412]

@NerdingonNFL perfectly understandable that you need to focus on the important games featuring #HereWeGo !

[NFL Nerd @NerdingonNFL]

NFL SCHEDULE LEAK

Steelers at Patriots - Week 2 1pm (Sep 20) per @Schultz_Report

[Acyn @Acyn]

PabloReports: Ted Cruz called you a parasite and disparaged your work as a bartender.

AOC: It’s not a secret the disdain Ted Cruz has for people who work working-class jobs. It’s not a secret what he thinks of the waitresses, the line cooks—he thinks we’re less than him. He thinks that because he has a Harvard degree and has never scrubbed a table that it makes him better than someone who has actually had to work for a living.

I think it’s funny that he’s been taking a government paycheck for 23 years but has the audacity to criticize someone who has come from a family that had to work their way up and earn their place here.

[Rick Reilly @ReillyRick]

As a reporter, I'm so disappointed by the men of the White House press corps. They let Trump constantly bully women reporters. In sports, we stood up 4 each other. I once got into a brawl w/ a U Miami ass't coach over the sexist way he treated a female writer. Grow a pair!

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

Strategic failure.

U.S. intel also indicates that Iran retains about 75% of its pre-war inventories of mobile launchers & about 70% of its pre-war stockpiles of missiles, per a U.S. official.

[Unseen Japan @UnseenJapanSite]

ICYMI: Libraries worldwide are struggling as people read fewer books. One library in Kanazawa has figured it out: the Ishikawa Prefectural Library won an iF Design Award, drew more visitors last year than people who live in the entire prefecture.

[Civixplorer @Civixplorer]

🇷🇸 Belgrade is the only major European capital that discharges all its raw, untreated sewage directly into its rivers, the Danube and the Sava.

Enough feces to fill 60,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

[60 Minutes @60Minutes]

Anderson Cooper shares the hummingbird fact he can’t stop thinking about. https://t.co/ttPVdp9HyV

[Rick Reilly @ReillyRick]

No. Nope. Never.
When you walk 18, you get about 8 miles. But Trump always takes a cart and parks on greens and tees like a dick. his caddies throw his balls out of rough. He gets more steps walking back the war plans he TACOS out of every day.

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

Michelle and I can’t wait for you to visit the Obama Presidential Center!

Starting on June 19, the Center will be open to the public, and you’ll be able to check out the Museum along with public spaces like a new branch of the Chicago Public Library with a reading room, a two-acre playground, a fruit and vegetable garden, and more.

Tickets available at https://t.co/ahkDMKalIn.

[John Harwood @JohnJHarwood]

"shot in the head because they're out protesting" hmmm