Looks like it is just me here tonight. I’m still watching Georgia/Clemson and reading a trashy Clive Cussler novel.
You?
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Actually, this sort of sums things up rather well:
Archives for August 2013
Saturday Night Open Thread
Low key night tonight, starting with dinner, which was just mac and cheese and stewed tomatoes. Again. Got a bunch of tomatoes from the garden waiting to be devoured, so I see a tomato sandwich in my future.
I’m watching the Georgia v. Clemson game because mom is a Georgia grad and they are kind of my adopted team other than the Eers, and I was on the phone with mom talking about it, and I was petting Steve who was on my lap, and apparently I reached my belly pet limit and he bit me hard, and this happened:
Me: There is just something about the Clemson coach I don’t li… OUCH, DAMNIT TUNCH!
Mom: It’s not Tunch, Seth. Err J.G.
Both of us: Hysterical laughter….
I had to ask if this was ok to post, because she was really mad about my post last night because she knows who Miley Cyrus is and she thinks I made it sound like they are crazy old people. I mean, they are both crazy and old, but they aren’t crazy and old in THAT way. They’re both pretty with it.
And I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you the only reason I wrote this is because my dad made the best pasta fagioli the other day, but with a summer twist with a lot of zucchini and squash, and even though it was soup the squash and zucchini were both crisp and I inhaled it, burning my tongue in the process. So I asked him to make some more and I need to kiss a little ass here.
Today in baby news
Slept for six hours straight last night. Whoever invented infant anti-gas drops will get a condo in heaven.
Open thread.
More on the Syria Issue
@AdamSerwer A clever way for the neocons to have their war and eat it too.
— billmon (@billmon1) August 31, 2013
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TPM has the full text of the President’s remarks, for anyone who wants to parse it.
What I’ve been looking for — unsuccessfully, so far — is information on how this will affect the G20 meeting, which is due to start in Russia next Thursday, with or without Congressional approval. Shortly before the Rose Garden announcement, according to the AP, “Putin urged President Barack Obama on Saturday not to rush into a decision on striking Syria, but to consider whether strikes would help end the violence and be worth the civilian casualties they would inevitably cause.”
This was not gonna be the most cheerful G20 under any circumstances, but the intersection of finance and politics-by-other-means cranks the gruesome up to eleven. And it’s not like they can just reschedule this year’s bunfest, because there’s (always) too much going on with the global economy to look for a convenient plague outbreak or an Icelandic volcano erupting.
ETA: Count on Time‘s Swampland to live up to its title: “To make matters more complicated, Obama’s aides made clear that the President’s search for affirmation from Congress would not be binding.”
ETAA: From Politico:
The White House has sent Congress a draft resolution authorizing the use of American military force in Syria, with a narrow focus on interdicting chemical weapons — or their use — by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The draft resolution, crafted by White House officials, does not set any deadline for U.S. action, but it is clearly written to assuage congressional concerns over open-ended American involvement in the two-year-old Syria civil war…
Today in Fake Problems (Open Thread)
Seen on I-75 in Central FL. Busy day — and posting from an iPhone, which sucks big green gators (as a WP UI). Please discuss whatever.
Obama Asks Congress to Okay Syria Strike
Didn’t see that coming! That’s the way it’s supposed to work, so good move, Mr. President. What do y’all think?
Obama Asks Congress to Okay Syria StrikePost + Comments (280)
Open thread
Talk about whatever. College football, for example!
This must be the best song Big Star never did.
Put it in a brown bag for me
Harry Enten has a good article about how the man is keeping the Tea Party down. Republican leadership positions in the House and Senate are overwhelmingly occupied by Republicans whose voting record is more centrist than the typical Congressional Republican. Enten makes a good argument that this cannot be accounted for by seniority.
Moreover, establishment fav Chris Christie (R – Morning Joe) would be by far the most moderate Republican presidential nnominee in the past 50 years:
To my mind, this argues against Christie being the nominee. I don’t see how the teahadists would accept it.
Open Thread Potpourri: Justice Ginsburg Is Gay-Marrying John Roberts
(Matt Davies via GoComics.com)
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No, not that John Roberts:
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will become the first Supreme Court member to conduct a same-sex marriage ceremony Saturday when she officiates at the Washington wedding of Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser.
The gala wedding of Kaiser and economist John Roberts at the performing arts center brings together the nation’s highest court and the capital’s high society and will mark a new milepost in the recognition of same-sex unions…
Ginsburg and Kaiser are close friends. She is perhaps the Supreme Court’s most ardent supporter of the fine arts, especially opera. Kaiser, 59, has been at the helm of the Kennedy Center since 2001 and is an internationally recognized expert in arts management and one of Washington’s most influential civic leaders…
I understand that Justice Scalia is also an opera aficionado, but I’m not sure whether his name is on the guest list.
(Hat tip to commentor JGabriel, although I think he linked to a different source.)
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Advice from the ever-helpful Gail Collins (with a Cole-adjacent tie-in):
It is time to start thinking about running for the U.S. Senate. Allow me to explain.
There are no major Congressional elections this fall, except that one lone Senate special election in New Jersey, where Cory Booker is facing The Person Running Against Cory Booker. We need to look forward to 2014. There are already some exciting races shaping up, like the one in Kentucky where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is battling for his survival with the help of a campaign manager who admits having said he was “sort of holding my nose” to stay in McConnell’s corner…
And then there are other states where nobody is running at all. For instance, Democratic Senator Tim Johnson is retiring in South Dakota, and his party seems to be having a hell of a time just finding a serious nominee. (Democratic position: “We are aggressively recruiting in South Dakota and plan on being competitive there.”)
The cupboard is also sort of bare in Montana, where Senator Max Baucus is retiring. But not in West Virginia. This is Senator Jay Rockefeller’s seat, and for a long while it looked as if nobody in the entire state was interested in being the Democratic nominee to replace him. But now the party may have a promising volunteer in the form of Natalie Tennant, who is both the secretary of state and the former mascot of the West Virginia University football team.
Happily, being the West Virginia mascot does not involve jumping around at games dressed like a gopher or a frog or the Fighting Okra. WVU’s mascot is “The Mountaineer,” who looks like Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett. Tennant in 1990 was the first woman ever to have the job. “People would throw cups at her. They would chant: ‘We don’t want a mountain deer. Bring us back our Mountaineer,’ ” the campus mascot adviser once told a local magazine…
Here’s your mission, people. Start to check out the Senate races — there are going to be 35 next year, and 10 or 12 might involve real competition. You may want to send a few of the candidates donations — control of Congress hangs in the balance. The rest of the pack aren’t going to require much attention. Unless, of course, one of the parties doesn’t seem prepared to produce a nominee. Then you know what you have to do.
Open Thread Potpourri: Justice Ginsburg Is Gay-Marrying John RobertsPost + Comments (66)
Later Night Open Thread
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Via the New Yorker‘s music critic Sasha Weiss, the tumblr of Miley Twerking On Things We Should Talk About.
Because when I went looking for the clip below (h/t Omnes Omnibus) YouTube suggested I might like the one above. And the first music I ever bought, age 14, were two new-fangled cassettes, one Melanie Safka and one Mary Travers album.