Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Have at it.
BTW- Smells seem far more important to Lily in the snow than when there is no snow. Are the scents highlighted like a bright color on a clean canvas when there is snow?
*** Update ***
The traffic cop segment is killing me.
*** Update #2 ***
Land shark:
I apologize in advance for such wankery on Saturday night, but I just stumbled across this in a Gail Collins article:
Back in 1971, Congress passed a bill aimed at providing high-quality early childhood education and after-school programs for any American family that wanted them. It was bipartisan, which in those days meant more than a whole lot of Democrats and somebody from Maine. “Having been a working mother, I knew what day-care problems were like,” said Martha Phillips, who was at that time a staffer at the Republican Research Committee in the House.
Then Richard Nixon surprised almost everyone by vetoing it, with a scathing message written by Pat Buchanan, claiming the bill would “commit the vast moral authority of the National Government to the side of communal approaches to child rearing.”
The social right, which was just beginning to come into its own, was delighted! Opponents reinforced the message with a massive letter-writing campaign. They accused members of Congress of plotting to deprive parents of the right to take their offspring to church, give children the power to sue their parents for forcing them to do chores, and, in general, turn the country into a Maoist concentration camp.
Which made me think of this (from a Kathleen Parker piece):
A telling anecdote recounted by Pat Buchanan to New Yorker writer George Packer last year captures the dark spirit that still hovers around the GOP. In 1966 Buchanan and Richard Nixon were at the Wade Hampton Hotel in Columbia, S.C., where Nixon worked a crowd into a frenzy: “Buchanan recalls that the room was full of sweat, cigar smoke, and rage; the rhetoric, which was about patriotism and law and order, ‘burned the paint off the walls.’ As they left the hotel, Nixon said, ‘This is the future of this Party, right here in the South.’ ”
I’ve read much of Nixonland, but I still don’t understand how much Nixon changed American politics, since I know nothing of pre-Nixon (or even pre-Reagan, really) politics. How much did Nixon change things? I know there were all kinds of crazy rightists before Nixon, John Birchers and so on, but that seems a separate issue. It’s one thing to have crazy right-wingers, it’s another to mainstream their paranoia in a way that turns the entire nation’s politics into a crazed right-wing drama. Which, if we’re honest with ourselves, is what our politics has been for quite some time. Was Nixon the primary catalyst for this?
I think of this also because I’ve been following the silly Kaplan “Most Influential Person of the Decade” tournament, where the finalists are Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush. And I wonder: was Nixon the most influential American of the last 50 years?
I don’t mean for this to be an anti-Republican screed. What I’m referring to here is a general political atmosphere, one that some Republicans almost certainly don’t like.
DougJ +5
It is just so depressing so many deeply stupid people are serving in Congress. Here is the latest:
Spending in health care is going to increase no matter what happens. It is going to increase at a completely unsustainable rate if we do nothing. Which is why we’ve been talking about reforming health care for the last couple of decades, and precisely why we’ve been talking about it intently for the last two. It is why we have been talking about “getting health care costs under control” for years. It is why Republicans, for all my lifetime, have been screaming that Medicaid and Medicare are going to bankrupt us- that is, until a couple of weeks ago when in an act of sheer political cynicism, the RNC and the Republicans decided to guarantee unlimited and unchecked Medicare benefits forever.
It is almost like these Republicans are so damned stupid they have no idea what the hell we are even debating. How are they supposed to have a coherent response or be constructive participants if they can’t even figure out the debate?
And that is Tom Price, the Chairman of the Republican Study Committee. The Republican “think tank” in Congress.
And it is “Democratic,” you silly ponce.
This could get interesting:
Stupak said that he was in Northern Michigan, without internet access, with the emails were sent from his office to McConnell’s. Smith “should have let me make up my own mind,” said Stupak.
A spokesman for McConnell declined to comment about the staffers’ exchange.
“Smith” is Erika Smith, the Stupak aide coordinating with the Republicans and others this morning. I’d bet that while the House Democrats will tolerate a lot of things, openly coordinating with Senate Republicans is too much for even them, and Stupak is going to walk this down rather quickly.
Well, things are back to normal around here. That was one crazy week of hippie-on-hippie violence. Then again, I’ve always said that hippies need to have a civil war or at least to have American boys and girls going door to door telling them to suck on this.
Does anyone here have any good recipes for holiday drinks? Preferably without eggs or cream but with alcohol.
Things got back to normal as the train began to roll againPost + Comments (101)
By request:
Love to have some pictures of Lily in the snow, but I have no camera, so you will have to make do with Sam.
Also, looking out my window, there are some profoundly stupid people attempting to drive, and three cars are already abandoned on the hill. Note to people: unless you are bleeding profusely or about to give birth, don’t drive. And even then, call the pros. There is a reason Manchin declared a state of emergency, and it goes beyond just the formality of activating the Guard to assist with snow removal. It means that there IS A LOT OF SNOW AND YOU SHOULD NOT BE DRIVING. Also, it means the folks removing snow and trying to help aforementioned bleeding or birthing people don’t need the additional thrill of trying to avoid your stupid ass in a Honda civic sliding sideways down a hill.
I didn’t go shopping before the snowstorm because I have a ton of stuff in the freezer, but it appears the chicken breasts I put in just a few weeks ago were not completely wrapped and have freezer burn. Any good home remedies for fixing that?
Also, those of you who have the Palladium music channel, at 5 pm there is an Elvis Costello concert.