Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

T R E 4 5 O N

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

In my day, never was longer.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Let there be snark.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Food / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Happy Hanukkah!

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Happy Hanukkah!

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The Festival of Lights actually starts at sunset this evening, so you still have time to stock up on candles, potato pancakes, and donuts (two of my favorite things to eat, but not in the same bite).

And this happened last week, but I saved you the cookies…

***********
Apart from frying stuff and/or setting things on fire, what’s on the agenda for the day?

Reader Interactions

137Comments

  4. 4.

    Mustang Bobby

    Driving home last night I went through a traffic circle (one of Miami’s latest attempts to raise the accident rate, I think) and got a shuddering from the transmission of my 2007 Mustang. The “OD OFF” light started flashing. It did it a couple of more times when I made turns, then settled down. When I shut off the car and re-started it, the warning light went out.

    According to an on-line forum, it could be anything from a bad solenoid to who-knows-what, but after last year’s experience with the Pontiac’s tranny, I’m not taking any chances; it’s going to the shop first thing this morning.

  6. 6.

    Mustang Bobby

    @raven: It was like the transmission couldn’t decide what gear to be in for a moment and it was shifting hard. These newfangled cars with their computers and stuff confuse me, so I’ll let the mechanics pull the codes and see how much they need to up their holiday funds. Meanwhile I’ll take the Pontiac to work.

  7. 7.

    raven

    There was a great deal of whining and hand wringing last night because the MJ crew didn’t report on the Pennsylvania killings and, rather, on the Sydney hostage situation. Thomas Roberts led with it thin morning right before he went to the 84 kids killed my the Taliban in Peshwar.

  9. 9.

    raven

    @Mustang Bobby: I agree, our Dodge van makes a low pitched whine when we’ve driven a distance. The online forum reveals that there are many “whines” that develop and most of them are benign.

  12. 12.

    ThresherK

    We are changing phone service from what used to be AT&T in CT.

    I don’t like how the only facetime I spent was with two techs they sent out to our new place, as they were fine at their jobs, cheerful, went a bit above and beyond to connect the “inside” wires to their own wires, and also honest about other tech things.

    The contractor tech sent for the second incident actually admitted that a board in a junction 1/2 mile down the road went kaput, and that that board split service, so it can have cut off POTS to 24, 48 or 96 customers. Think about how little he could have gotten away with telling me, but he told me the whole truth.

    The people upstream of the techs are all out of state, and no matter their individual virtues, the system of coordination, communication, and flow control that have been set up for them is nigh unto useless. I mean, the main number for “CT voice customers” never got me into a phone queue for that. And online chats, waiting for two dozen people ahead of me, never got me there either. What crap!

    I look forward to Comcast. (Yes, I am typing that sentence. Shows what the competition has been like.)

  13. 13.

    Mustang Bobby

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s the people who are already in the circle who stop to let someone in, or the dude in the Bimmer who thinks he’s entitled to barge in where I already am that make me furious. I think the damn things were put in at the behest of the insurance industry.

  14. 14.

    raven

    @Steeplejack (tablet): A friend of mine from high school was her keyboard player and wrote Ain’t Nobody This is an interesting tid bit about the song:

    Rufus keyboardist David “Hawk” Wolinski wrote the song around a repeating synthesizer loop backed by a Linn LM-1 Drum Computer. However, drummer John J.R. Robinson played real drums for the recording session. Legendary producer Quincy Jones (who had previously worked with Rufus) wanted Wolinski to give “Ain’t Nobody” to Michael Jackson for the album that would become the blockbuster Thriller, but Wolinski had already promised it to producer Russ Titelman, who ultimately had the band record it as a vocal showcase for Khan.

    the video
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJYfUS96f6w

  16. 16.

    Diana

    Re the mazel tov – Molotov controversy: wasn’t it Bush Sr. who said “f*ck the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway?”

  17. 17.

    ThresherK

    @raven: Heeheehee.

    What state are you in? Has it undergone anything wrenching like AT&T selling its biz in CT to Frontier?

    These guys are contractors, and I don’t remember the company name. There is a certain honesty one gets at the front line of customer service. (Don’t ask me for details, but I’ve been on the provider’s side of some things not dissimilar to that.)

    I hope we’re not setting ourselves up for the Benny Hill Double Switch.

    All I know re other providers is that Comcast cable at our previous home was not problematic, and when one of the outside splitters gave out (turned green-never a good color for copper unless it’s sculpture), they fixed it and replaced some dodgy cable, frieldlily.

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Mustang Bobby: Heh. My complaint is always about people who don’t know how to proceed at a 4 way stop. You know, who goes first? Left turn yields? The jackass who doesn’t even pretend to stop? Pick your poison, as they say.

  22. 22.

    satby

    @ThresherK: My choices for an ISP here in Michigassippi have been between AT&T and Comcast. I went with AT&T reluctantly, because I had Comcast 15 or more years ago in Chicago before we got a competitive service provider, and the experience so scarred me I still can’t consider Comcast. But the fresher memories being made of new service horrors may move me in a few years.

  23. 23.

    satby

    @raven: I remember Rufus playing at our high school for some dance or something. Not prom, probably a sock hop. Just typing”sock hop” makes me sound even older than I am.

  25. 25.

    ThresherK

    @satby: That’s why I keep worrying about the the Benny Hill Double Switch. (Do you know what it is? Apologies if I’m going over familiar ground with the reference.)

    The looked-forward-to part is that I’ve ordered the doodads to go with it, rather than rent from Comcast.
    Unlike some of my, um, less successful home maintenance efforts from previously, this will not stand the risk of me telling a licenced professional the words which make their eyes go ($)^($), “I tried fixing it first.”.

  26. 26.

    satby

    @Amir Khalid: Just heard that horrible story myself.
    I can never understand what ends are accomplished by such cruelty, does the Taliban think that the families of those children wouldn’t fight to the last breath to avenge them? Because I would expect that.

  28. 28.

    Debbie(aussie)

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Don’t know how old it was, but just saw a MythBusters episode where they did a comparison of four way stops with round-about (which I am guessing is what we are talking about). Round-about allowed much more traffic to flow through the intersection. We don’t have four way stops in Aust, plenty of round-abouts though.

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Rob: Accchhhh… Child’s play. For real fun and adventure, try them in Mexico. And from what I hear, those don’t hold a candle to the ones in Italy. I wonder if they have them in Russia? Those would be the tops.

  33. 33.

    Randy P

    @Debbie(aussie): An American traffic circle usually consists of a paved circular path with grass in the center. It is impossible to drive straight or anywhere but in the circular direction. Also, the diameter of the circle is typically wider than the road.

    I spent a couple days in London years ago, and on my first day there I saw what I think you mean by a “round-about”: a 4-way intersection with no stop signs, just a circular arrow painted in the area where the two roads intersect. So the pattern of driving in a circle is a suggestion rather than something forced by the road. Nothing would prevent a tourist from driving straight through.

    That alone convinced me that I would never, ever drive in London.

  35. 35.

    Randy P

    The Pakistan killings are front page at nytimes.com. But this caught my eye. Turns out you can still run away and join the French Foreign Legion under an assumed name. I thought that was just a thing from 1930s movies.

    Side note. Comment on the NY Times from my brother-in-law at Thanksgiving dinner: “I never read that thing. I get all my news from Drudge.” He’s otherwise a pretty intelligent and good guy, I could never figure out the wingnut thing.

  36. 36.

    ThresherK

    @David Fud: Hey, remember when BPL was going to save us all?

    I mean, I hope that works out for Google, but as a late adopter, I have no problem waiting for the winner.

    (PS I’m not disintersted: As a radio amateur I knew the Telecom Act of 1996 was a pile of horsecrap in 1995, and that Michael Powell grew from an egg laid on it.)

  37. 37.

    Elizabelle

    BBC World News covering the Pakistan school massacre. I wonder if this was actually suicidal for the Taliban. They apparently aim for destabilization. I hope they’ve brought the roof down on their own heads.

  38. 38.

    Rob

    @OzarkHillbilly fortunately when I lived in Italy I was too young to drive so I have no memories of the traffic circles/roundabout there.

  39. 39.

    Botsplainer

    I’m calling my aunt this morning to enlist her in my effort to get my mother to recognize that it’s OK to quickly dispose of (as in “throw in the trash or consign sale”) my toxic racist maternal grandmother’s household items in an attempt to get that dingy, dark, dusty, shitty, claustrophobic closed up crackerbox sold.

    There’s 70 years of accumulated worthless shit in there. When she was healthy, my grandmother despised change and the outside world, including the people who live in it; she generally pulled her blinds to it. Starting when my grandmother was in her early 50s she wanted to be old, so she demanded that my mother come sceral times a week to do things – trash, grocery runs, etc. about 30 years ago, even when my grandfather was living, that evolved to daily visits.

    I had no idea, but starting about 9 months ago when my grandbitch was put into a too-nice for her nursing facility, my mom had come up with excuses to go by daily. I assumed she was packing the crackerbox. She’d been nagging the shit out of me to take some of the furniture to keep (instead of consigning it through a really nice client of mine) and for the sake of getting her off my ass, I agreed to take a full size bed which I could make some use of in a former kid room. When we got there, we realized that she’s just been going over there and fondling every dusty thing and wandering around that fucking hellhole monument to everything that is wrong about old white authentic heartland ‘Murkans.

    She found a box with my grandfathers straight razor collection in the attic and gave me the stink eye when I suggested that they be sold to a dealer as a lot. She gave me the halting “weeellllllllll” when I suggested something similar about any pocketknives or coin folders she finds. Kitchen drawes are full of utensils. Cabinets are full of jelly jars and Corel. My suggestion of goodwill donations of those things were met with excuses. She complained that the plastic bags holding clothes in the attic had deteriorated, but when I suggested putting them in construction bags for disposal said that some items were usable. She made a point of saying that some clothes that were still hanging in closets were really nice, and that she wanted to give a coat to a friend of hers. There was a bottle of Boraxo hand soap that was probably 60 years old sitting on the kitchen table that she found. I picked it up to look at it (thinking it kinda neat); she asked me if I wanted it, oblivious to the fact that I can be interested in a thing and not wish to possess it.

    My oldest daughter told me that my mom contacted her right after Thanksgiving and in an effort to get her to come back to this city said she could buy the house at a “discount” price of 65K, which was declined. I’ve told her repeatedly that the shitbox isn’t worth but 30-35, that it is a crappy house with a crumbling garage on a boggy lot in a shitty white trash neighborhood.

    When I talked to mom yesterday I told her how concerned I was for her mental state and told her to quit giving things to specific people. She made excuses about it and is in her delusion. She did say she would consider grief counseling if I find her a referral. Dad has stepped back completely, and I know he’s disgusted with it.

  40. 40.

    Elizabelle

    How do you get people to pay attention to your deep sea snail?

    Name it after a punk icon.

    “Because they look like punk rockers in the 70s and 80s and they have purple blood and live in such an extreme environment, we decided to name one new species after a punk rock icon,” said Shannon Johnson, a researcher at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

    The name A. strummeri honors Joe Strummer, the lead singer and a guitarist of the British punk rock band The Clash.

    … It’s not uncommon to name species after celebrities and cultural icons. To name a few, there’s a Bob Marley crustacean parasite, a Beyoncé bee-like fly and Lady Gaga genus of plant. One scientist named a species of jellyfish after Frank Zappa in hopes of meeting the musician. And it worked.

  42. 42.

    Elizabelle

    @Botsplainer:

    Since your “grandbitch” was so detestable, your mom didn’t get what she needed from her mom. So the house may have taken on outsize importance. There may be some good memories tucked in that house.

    Maybe someone should photograph the house and its collections. I wish you could get a vintage sales specialist or a theatrical props house in there.

    Good luck, and don’t be too hard on your mom. People don’t come away from a mother like hers without damage.

  43. 43.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Randy P: Those are in fact ‘mini roundabouts’. Most australian roundabouts are normal sized – like the American ones. Speaking as someone who learned to drive in Boston then honed her driving in Europe, it always amazes me how orderly non-Bostonians (or at least non-Bostonians who have learned roundabout etiquette) are when approaching, entering and leaving roundabouts. I grew up near an oval rotary and regularly went on the multi-laned one on the Jamaica way before I left the states. Whole different ball game.

  44. 44.

    Frankensteinbeck

    While that menora is cool, it does not have feathers. The ‘T-Rex is too big to have feathers’ argument has been blown to Hell, so that bad boy needs a layer of floof on him. T-Rex is a bird, get used to it!

    EDIT – @Elizabelle:
    And losing your mother is painful even when she is an abusive bitch. I’ve gotten to watch that play out up close. In some ways more painful, because ‘Thank God she’s gone’ adds a heaping helping of guilt.

  46. 46.

    Keith G

    On his podcast, The Gist, Mike Pesca does a really great take down of Dick Cheney and the ideas expressed by Cheney in the MTP interview. This occurs in the last 9 minutes. The first segment is a discussion about podcasting with Marc Maron.

    Speaking of Maron, his discussion with Chrissie Hynde (WTF Podcast) was pretty great.

  47. 47.

    JPL

    @Elizabelle: What a sweet comment. Here I am thinking the best would be for the house to burn down and you write something from the heart. My friend’s father was a hoarder and there is little you can do it that situation.

  50. 50.

    Betty Cracker

    @Botsplainer: She’s grieving, so she’s not being entirely rational. Might be a good idea to find that counselor referral for her ASAP. Sounds like she could use some support.

  53. 53.

    Botsplainer

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    In some ways more painful, because ‘Thank God she’s gone’ adds a heaping helping of guilt.

    I’ve been warning her to pull back for the past 15 years and stated this very reason. Of course, I’m stupid and know nothing.

    This is in the same category of me knowing nothing as when I was telling her from spring forward to get the house ready to list, that the economics weren’t working (the house costs $500 a month to keep, this includes taxes, insurance utilities, landline for the alarm, the alarm company and mowing). I offered to help, she said she wasn’t ready to let it go.

    Yesterday she tells me that she should have done it the summer but that you all (me and my wife) “like to travel a lot” and that everybody expects her “to give up her time to this”. We went to Belize the last week of April, and Jamaica at the end of July. Mrs. Botsplainer had an ovary removed and a couple of breast cancer false alarms and procedures during the summer, but we still coulda bagged and dumped.

    At 8K a month for the nursing home, Mom is into her own money in March. She says she’ll go with Medicaid bed starting then but I don’t believe her.

  55. 55.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Debbie(aussie): A roundabout does allow more traffic, assuming that people follow the rules of the road. But.

    A friend in Tampa was looking at the proposed roundabout along her commute and happily saying, “It looks like I’ll be able to use this like an interchange on-ramp and zoom right through the intersection without stopping!”

    She was Not Happy when I pointed out that a properly designed roundabout will force you to slow down. It’s considered a traffic calming device.

  57. 57.

    debbie

    @Mustang Bobby:

    Years ago, I was trying to walk across a rotary in Boston (near the BU Bridge). I was focusing on cars coming from one direction when I was almost hit by a guy backing up because he’d missed his turn.

  58. 58.

    Botsplainer

    @Betty Cracker:

    She’s grieving, so she’s not being entirely rational. Might be a good idea to find that counselor referral for her ASAP. Sounds like she could use some support.

    Yeah, dad and I are too close to it and too angry over the manipulation, hatefulness and waste of time to be of much help in supporting her. She’ll try and elevate some trait of her mother’s in an effort to elevate stature or of pretend that she actually gave a shit about her immediate family, the best I can give is a forced grunt of “uh huh”.

    Mom asked me if I remembered her cooking or canning, and I could honestly say I didn’t, that all I remembered was her bossing my grandfather around about what he was allowed to buy from the fried chicken place down the road.

  59. 59.

    Elizabelle

    @JPL:

    Were you looking for suggestions of a good bubbly pour?

    It’s not $50, or anywhere near it, but I love Domaine Chandon Blanc de Noirs. Maybe $18-25/bottle, with a chill pink bubble. Refreshing and — the biggie — I have never gotten a headache or hangover off it.

    Mumm’s Blanc de Noirs is good too, but I swear by Domaine Chandon. I think a $50 bottle would be wasted on me …

  61. 61.

    Gin & Tonic

    Continuing a conversation from late last night, looks like the ruble continues to head down the drain in a big hurry. AFP tweeted that it’s below 80 to the dollar. This after the central bank raised the interest rate to 17%. I guess that didn’t instill much confidence.

  64. 64.

    Mustang Bobby

    @micheline: Aside from the big one at Cocoplum (LeJeune and Sunset), which has been there for decades, there are now three on my way home through the Gables and a couple in Palmetto Bay. It’s the new version of dodgem cars.

    (Edited to take out a word that offends the system.)

  65. 65.

    debbie

    @Botsplainer:

    After my mom died, we found all kinds of things packed into the back of her deep closets. She’d kept the visible part of her apartment so tidy, we had had no idea she’d saved so much. The stuff all had to do with my dad and the things they’d done together before he’d died at 44 (travel brochures, etc.). As far as I know, she never looked at the stuff after she moved, but I’m sure it was all a comfort to her. Plus, she thought if she tossed it all, she was also basically tossing him out of her life.

    She’d probably have been like your mom if we’d found this stuff while she was still alive. Get her a gift certificate for an organizer for Christmas.

  66. 66.

    Elizabelle

    @Botsplainer:

    Your mom knew her mother before she turned into the grandbitch. Maybe grandma was always rotten to the core, or maybe life soured her. Your mom might be hanging on to the sweet or reassuring memories she has, because her mother might have liked your mom, when she was an appealing little girl, and it’s easier to remember in that silent house than dealing in life with the mean creature that used to call it home.

    The big plus is that physical grandma, and all of her awfulness, is dead and buried. But your mom might be mourning the small portion of her mother that was not awful. And can you say it did not exist? Because you guys met the post-childhood “grandbitch”, not the parent your mother knows.

    A good grief counselor will be a big help. Your mom’s had a loss, even if it looks like a blessing to you (and her). She might feel protective of her mother, too, since Mom is now vulnerable and can no longer speak for herself.

    It will all work out with time. Will $500/month break your family for the time being?

  67. 67.

    Cervantes

    @Diana:

    Re the mazel tov – Molotov controversy: wasn’t it Bush Sr. who said “f*ck the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway?”

    No, it wasn’t Bush. It was his chief diplomat, Secretary of State James Baker.

    In the presidential election, Bush had received a minority of “the Jewish vote”: about 27%.

  68. 68.

    ThresherK

    @debbie: Just when I mastered the art of avoiding Massholes driving on the sidewalk, or taking shortcuts behind the fire hydrants…

  70. 70.

    Violet

    @Botsplainer: Watch any of those “Hoarders” type shows and you’ll see it’s not about the stuff. It’s never about the stuff. The stuff is a symptom. Your mom is attached to the house and stuff in it as some tie to her mother. What that tie is, only she knows, or maybe she isn’t even aware.

    Getting her into counseling as soon as possible is a good idea. Finding someone who she clicks with and who can help her with grief, this version of hoarding, and helping her move on is key. Would it help her go if you offered to go to the first couple of sessions with her? Call it family counseling and rope in your dad. Use it as a kind of intervention so you can all talk to the therapist about your concerns.

    Also, since you’ve got grown kids, your own mom can’t be young. She could be experiencing some health issues that affect her ability to make the necessary decisions. Is she current with her own health checkups? Anything you can pursue on that end?

    Dealing with this stuff is hard. No easy way around it.

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: In Massachusetts there are a lot of old rotaries that are built essentially tangent to one of the major through roads, possibly on the grounds of maximizing throughput, and the people on the tangent road will often just zoom straight through instead of yielding to traffic in the rotary. It’s incredibly dangerous.

    The new trend is to put in “modern roundabouts”, which specifically don’t do that.

  72. 72.

    JPL

    Oh no! I just received notification that my calendars were shipped and when I checked the tracking number, it said delivered. It wasn’t delivered here though.. I have to call and see what happened.

  73. 73.

    Betty Cracker

    From WaPo article, a Taliban spokesman explains the school massacre:

    “We selected the army’s school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females,” Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani told reporters. “We want them to feel the pain.”

  74. 74.

    Cervantes

    @Botsplainer:

    When we got there, we realized that she’s just been going over there and fondling every dusty thing and wandering around that fucking hellhole monument to everything that is wrong about old white authentic heartland ‘Murkans.

    You know, that’s probably not how she sees it.

    Anyhow, all families are unique and you must do what you feel you must do — but sometimes — and this is really a more general point — it’s useful for us all to remember that even when we think no is watching, our kids are.

  75. 75.

    WereBear

    @Botsplainer: In other, less toxic ways, my own MIL was like this. She didn’t want to confront anything, and had a million excuses for not doing so.

    If your mom has spent decades not looking at things, it’s not going to change very quickly or easily. Good luck with the grief counselor, it’s a great idea.

  76. 76.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    Can’t help but wonder how history might be different if the Taliban had told al-Qaeda in the 90s, “Find somewhere else to hole up; we’re happy in Afghanistan and don’t won’t any trouble with the outside world.”

  77. 77.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:

    They will bring even more pain down on their own heads.

    Destroying so many young lives, and their teachers, on purpose? They’ve just demonstrated what a cancer they are.

  79. 79.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:

    Or that Cleveland police union guy. Or the fine folks in NYC who don’t want the mayor at police department funerals.

  81. 81.

    JPL

    @JPL: As an update, FedEx is using recycled numbers so they are showing delivered dates, when in fact they haven’t been delivered.

  83. 83.

    Cervantes

    @Betty Cracker: Quoting:

    “We selected the army’s school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females,” Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani told reporters. “We want them to feel the pain.”

    That was in the WP. Here’s a version published by Al-Jazeera, quoting perhaps the identical spokesman:

    Muhammad Khorasani, TTP spokesperson, told Al Jazeera that six suicide bombers had been sent to the school. He said the attackers had been given orders to allow the youngest students to leave but to kill the rest. The attack was in retaliation for an ongoing Pakistan Army operation against the TTP and its allies in the North Waziristan tribal area, Khorasani said. The TTP said many of their family members had been killed in the campaign, and said the attack on the school was in revenge for those deaths.

    It’s reassuring in its own way to see the Taliban give approximately as much weight to the lives of innocent human beings as we do.

  84. 84.

    elmo

    Fuck me, I need something to cleanse my soul. I was stuck in the Marriott Concierge Lounge because it is the only place to get a quick decent cup of coffee at 6 am in this hotel – where the fuck is the Starbucks that is in nearly every Marriott lobby? – and they have Fox n Fiends blaring on the TV, with Laura Ingraham chortling over the librul media that KSM supposedly “predicted” would turn against the honorable brave torturers patriots who were doing God’s own work baptizing those terrorists.

    Cue the string of guests insisting that “it isn’t torture if you can walk away,” and “we did it to our own guys,” and anyway all those people had it coming because 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11!!!!eleven!

    Then comes the obligatory piece on the protest marches, with an African American gentleman (Bishop something) brought on for one reason and one reason only: in order to say the protesters should “go to Africa,” which is what all the doddering old racists in the audience are saying to themselves and they get a thrill out of the black guy saying it.

    Jesus Christ, I’ll never be able to get that stink off me. What foul, toxic sludge.

  85. 85.

    Elizabelle

    @elmo:

    Did they even notice the Taliban massacre at the Pakistan school?

    Do they have much to say about the red-haired gentleman in Pennsylvania who killed a lot of family members and shot his own teenage son (who’s survived) and is still at large?

    PS: I usually ask the lounge turn the channel if it’s Fox, unless the sound is so low it’s not intrusive. Local news might be more palatable. Often whoever turned the set to Fox is no longer watching.

  86. 86.

    Cervantes

    @elmo:

    If a corporation could be a practising Mormon and a card-carrying Republican, that corporation would be Marriott. What did you expect to find there?

  88. 88.

    elmo

    @Elizabelle:

    Did they even notice the Taliban massacre at the Pakistan school?

    Oh yes, they mentioned that, as a segue into “See why you have to torture these animals?”

  89. 89.

    Elizabelle

    End of the year news quiz for students from the NYTimes, 50 questions with a list of answers at the bottom, but most of you can probably answer the questions without a prompt.

    Farewell, 2014.

    Links for quizzes for 2009-2013, if you want to relive those glory years.

  91. 91.

    JPL

    @elmo: Well the CIA tortured the wrong guys then, cuz a lot of students died today. What are the odds that Pakistan doesn’t torture.

  92. 92.

    Botsplainer

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    What do you expect will happen if not the Medicaid bed?

    She’ll make up the approximately $6300 monthly difference between SS and facility cost from her earnings and whatever savings they can’t afford, thereby increasing the likelihood that I’ll be stuck with having to spend mine for their care.

  93. 93.

    Botsplainer

    @Violet:

    I wish it were so simple as that.

    She’s always fetishized the old – practically worships them.

    Last week, she was giving me some load of shit she heard Dennis Prager say about the duty to honor old assholes – something about how we’ll always honor those who do right by everybody by default, but that assholes need it too.

    I’m guessing that only applies to white olds.

  94. 94.

    MomSense

    So Pope Francis wants to help President Obama close Guantanamo. The Vatican offered to go to their many contacts to help place the remaining detainees.

  96. 96.

    Cervantes

    @MomSense:

    Or as La Stampa put it:

    Naturally, the idea of bringing [any prisoners] to the Vatican City State is out of the question. No details were given regarding the proposal which the US probably made in the hope that the Holy See could use its large network of diplomatic connections to persuade other countries to take on the responsibility of welcoming the alleged terrorists in their detention facilities. All Fr. Lombardi was willing to add was that the Holy See “looked upon” the closure of the maximum-security prison at Guantanamo Bay “favourably”.

  97. 97.

    rikyrah

    Liberal state lawmakers form new group to counter growing GOP power

    By Tom Hamburger December 15 at 2:00 PM 

    As Republicans assume greater control over state government than at any time in recent history, a group of left-leaning Democrats gathered this weekend to make plans to fight back in 2015.

    More than 200 state legislators, Democratic consultants, liberal donors and interest group activists gathered for the first national meeting of the State Innovation Exchange, a coalition designed to counter the impact of state-focused groups on the right, including the corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council.

    The SiX session at the Omni Shoreham hotel included an address by Gara LaMarche, chairman of the Democracy Alliance, a group of wealthy liberal donors who have turned to state activism as an important new area for political investment.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/15/liberal-state-lawmakers-form-new-group-to-counter-growing-gop-power/

  100. 100.

    Amir Khalid

    @TheMightyTrowel:
    The mini-est roundabout on the planet is in the city of Petaling Jaya, just down the Federal Highway from Kuala Lumpur. I have seen it many times: it’s a bump in the tarmac, a foot wide and maybe three inches high, marked with a circle of yellow paint.

  102. 102.

    Violet

    @Botsplainer: Well, you can only do what you can do. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. You can hand your mom the card for the counselor, even make the appointment and offer to go with her, but if she won’t go there’s not much you can do.

    Forgot to mention that as far as the stuff goes, you can always take it and consign it or sell it or donate it yourself. I’ve known adult kids that have done that. “Sure mom! I’d love that silver tea service/grandpa’s pajamas/tupperware set. I’ll be right over to pick it up.” Go get it and donate or sell it. Unless mom is expecting to come to your house and see it displayed, that’s a reasonable solution.

  103. 103.

    Paul in KY

    @Rob: Thank God I don’t live there anymore. The traffic was horrific back in early 80s. Traffic circles will only make it worse.

  104. 104.

    Paul in KY

    @Debbie(aussie): In Miami, you have a toxic mix of:

    1) Tourists who are unfamiliar with area & not sure where they may be going (nav stuff has helped this out, I assume)

    2) Old people who drive slow, etc. etc.

    3) Hispanic/Cuban drivers who are infected with the ‘you passa me, I keel you’ driving ethos.

    Good times…

  105. 105.

    Violet

    I don’t think anyone can claim their roundabouts are the worst they’ve also visited India’s major cities to compare.

  107. 107.

    Cervantes

    @Amir Khalid:

    The mini-est roundabout on the planet is in the city of Petaling Jaya, just down the Federal Highway from Kuala Lumpur.

    Is that by any chance the one on the edge of Section 14? Last time I was there, people were driving over it.

  118. 118.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Paul in KY: And my favorite: an old person in a twenty-year-old Corolla cruising at 45 in the fast lane of I-95 with their left blinker on, a death grip on the wheel, and the passenger-side seat belt dangling out the door, the buckle bouncing on the pavement and throwing sparks.

  120. 120.

    Paul in KY

    @Mustang Bobby: Man, you took me right back with that post. I have seen that down there! Also on the non-highways, the big grassy medians that separate the lanes & require u-turns (The Official State Turn of Florida) to get to your destination, if you are on the opposite side of road from where you are going.

  121. 121.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Amir Khalid: What I find more amazing than the collapse of the ruble is the buy-sell spread. I saw a tweet from Sevastopol today where they’re buying dollars at 62.10 and selling them at 90. Nobody wants rubles any more.

  123. 123.

    Frank in midtown

    If one types mosltov (a phonetic attempt at mazal tov) in Word it has a little red line underline and the first suggested “correct” spelling is molotov. They didn’t actually write out molotov, the right clicked their way to it. Mosltov everyone.

    And yes the traffic circles in India are extra exciting, but I think the traffic circles in Mexico City are even more exciting.

  124. 124.

    Cervantes

    @dedc79:

    The negative: you eat this, you have a heart attack. The positive: you make some mother so proud of her son who became a doctor.

  126. 126.

    PurpleGirl

    @dedc79: One problem with that double latke sandwich — it’s not kosher as they show it there. You can’t have both brisket and sour cream together; that would make it mixing meat and dairy. You can latkes and sour cream or latkes and brisket but not all three at the same time.

  127. 127.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Mustang Bobby: Update on the Mustang transmission: like I suspected, the repair shop at the dealer says it’s the shifter solenoids, but they need to do a $660 tear-down to make sure there’s no internal damage. Uh huh. But they also offered me a brand-new out-of-the-box transmission from Ford for the low, low price of $3,600. I laughed out loud, said I’m a poor government official, and said go for the first option, which is more than I can easily afford as it is.

    My usual mechanic does not do automatic transmissions. More’s the pity.

  128. 128.

    catclub

    @Mustang Bobby: My family had a traumatic reaction to automatic transmission repairs, which I think ended up at about $6k after all was said and done. We bought manuals, which have to be special ordered in the US. I am surprised you do not have a manual, with a nym like that.

  130. 130.

    J R in WV

    @Mustang Bobby:

    What year is your Mustang? I guess the warranty is over with already? Drivetrain warranties last longer than the bumper-to-bumper – and sometimes if there’s a persistent problem the manufacturer will extend warranty service beyond the strict mileage/age cutoff.

    You would probably have to go around and round with Ford starting with a district manager level, etc. Sounds like this problem isn’t a surprise to the dealership, doesn’t it?

    I guess I should remember you are a car guy so I’m teaching my Grandma how to suck eggs. Sorry.

  131. 131.

    Barbara

    @Cervantes: Should be noted though that the Jewish vote varies re: secular v. “Jewishly affiliated.” Secular Jews on the whole remain as Democratic as ever, however, the closer someone gets to Orthodox observance levels, the more likely to they are to identify as a Republican because of (mis)perception that right-wingers are better for Israel. As if Israel is the be-all and end-all of our grand tradition…

    IIRC, less than half of all American Jews are affiliated with a synagogue. I’m of the opinion that many of these Jews are staying away because they don’t want their spiritual life to be reduced to cheering for Israel. But that is a question the Jewish community’s funders of things like sociological research certainly don’t want to ask, so we won’t ever really know.

  132. 132.

    dedc79

    @Barbara: I don’t know how much of it is because of orthodox perceptions re Israel and how much is because the orthodox are much more culturally conservative, but I tend to think it’s a mix.

  133. 133.

    J R in WV

    @Barbara:

    I have recently started to get mass mailings intended for a Jewish audience, even though my family has been Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Christian Scientist, etc. The last name is Germanic, my paternal grandfather was born here of recently arrived Swiss immigrants, but no one in the family background has been Jewish so far as I know.

    Holocaust Museum, Support Israel, Anti-defamation League, etc…

    Perhaps some kind of attempt to bring perceived strays back into the flock? Maybe just because I donate to Planned Parenthood and Dem candidates? I’ll never know as I don’t intend to give them any encouragement by contacting them. I hope they just go away, soon. The same for other religious orgs.

  134. 134.

    Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)

    @Cervantes:

    Comfortable mattresses. I think Marriott has the only hotel mattresses that don’t make me wake up with an aching lower back. I’m seriously considering buying one directly from them when we’re ready for a new mattress.

  135. 135.

    Anonymous At Work

    We need a new tag and/or Lexicon update with “America is Awesome” as a way to show American exceptionalism without the messy and timely and realty-based research that goes into proving that America is exceptional.
    Seriously. Kevin Drum had a good article on the prices for various medical procedures varying greatly in the US but 1-3 orders of magnitude cheaper in the EU. I thought as I read it, “But the defense against changing our health care system to be like theirs will be ‘America is awesome’.”

  136. 136.

    Barbara

    @dedc79: Yes, you have a point. There is definite overlap in other areas. For one example, the people who run Jewish day schools (the Jewish version of Catholic Parochial schools), and the parents who send their kids to them are very fond of conservative Republican proposals for school vouchers. For obvious reasons, private schools are expensive to run.

    @J R in WV: My brother jokes that he writes “Return to Sender: Converted” on his similar junk mail.

  137. 137.

    Cervantes

    @Barbara:

    IIRC, less than half of all American Jews are affiliated with a synagogue.

    YDRC. In the last survey I looked at (Pew, 2013), that fraction was less than a third.

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