Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

The revolution will be supervised.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Come on, man.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

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

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

In after Baud. Damn.

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

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

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Reader Interactions

215Comments

  1. 1.

    Schlemazel

    most wingnuts either can’t imagine or couldn’t care less about how a not-man urinates. That explains the sticker. They also don’t keep up on the news so that explains how so many of their reference points are 10 or more years old.

  3. 3.

    Ruckus

    Betty, I’d bet that the men that’s aimed at (couldn’t resist!) don’t really consider that a problem. They, as you know they don’t really give women any consideration, other than to be available when they want for what they want.

  4. 4.

    Amir Khalid

    I never knew urinal stickers were a thing.

    Wait, is that a men’s urinal in a ladies’ restroom?

  6. 6.

    dmsilev

    Might one delicately inquire as to how you were in a position to take said photograph?

  7. 7.

    gogol's wife

    My husband just said he read Bernie Sanders’s platform and he wants to vote for him.

  8. 8.

    Betty Cracker

    It’s a regular ladies room toilet, and a tidy one at that. Gotta give ’em credit for a clean pissoir…

  9. 9.

    Davis X. Machina

    Mit dem Derp kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens, as Schiller would have said.

  12. 12.

    gogol's wife

    @Baud:

    I’m just a little surprised, since in general he’s more conservative than I am. But these days, the socialist is looking like a Republican of the old stripe.

  18. 18.

    gogol's wife

    I gather no one on here is watching Poldark. The hero is yummy, and Phil Davis (homicidal taxi driver from Sherlock) is brilliant. I can’t follow the plot, but I don’t care.

  25. 25.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker: @dmsilev: I always check the bowl before alighting (for frogs),

    Your photos always make me think Florida’s a pretty place (because humidity, like vampires, doesn’t appear in photographs), and I should get down there; your stories, sometimes, suggest a waking nightmare

  26. 26.

    bemused

    @gogol’s wife:

    You’re not the only one. We settle down every week for our local PBS Sunday night lineup, Last Tango in Halifax, Poldark, The Crimson Field and Father Brown.

  27. 27.

    scav

    @gogol’s wife: Isn’t the plot extraneous? Certainly the comments I’ve been hearing from watchers would indicate so. (granted, one of same actually wants to see the scything for the actual scyth and period tool obsessive is probably a niche demographic).

  29. 29.

    Pogonip

    @Betty Cracker: Have you seen a headshrinker about this frog obsession?

    A while back a professional organizer posted a list of the oddest things his clients found under the bed when they began organizing. One person found a live frog. I thought “Hot damn, this guy cleaned Betty Cracker’s house!”

  30. 30.

    Schlemazel

    @Baud:
    No, he was of draft age. You should really read his autobiography, its a very interesting story and it contains the story of him practicing with friends to run to Canada if they get drafted. I give him a pass for avoiding the draft because he was against that war & all the resent ones. Those who scream for blood while refusing to partake in the ‘adventure’ deserve no leeway.

  31. 31.

    gogol's wife

    @bemused: @scav:

    The plot is extraneous to: a. beautiful Cornwall scenery and b. Aiden Turner skinny dipping. I haven’t noticed the scythes.

  33. 33.

    Suzanne

    Frogs. Holy Christ.

    Well, I guess I check my shoes for scorpions and that is arguably worse. But FROGS in the toilet. Holy balls.

  34. 34.

    gogol's wife

    @bemused:

    Re Last Tango: Is there a law in the UK that Rupert Graves has to be a regular on every single show? Not that I’m complaining, I love him.

  36. 36.

    Pogonip

    P.S. The most common thing was pet “souvenirs.”. I would think if you have pets, you would not consider it odd to find dried puke under the bed. ( When we have pets we put the beds, and anything else too heavy to move much, on a big sheet of plastic for precisely this reason.)

  37. 37.

    Schlemazel

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    We used to joke that it was the “plague of the month club” because it seemed like once a month we had some invasion. One day the entire side of our house was covered in frogs. While it should be obvious (look who she married!) my wife is pretty fearless which was a good thing because she often had to extract snakes from the pool so the kids could swim when they got home.

    My favorite though are ‘love bugs’ you only see them for a day or two twice a year, the fly united & form huge clouds in the ditch. Their fluids will eat the paint off your car though so be sure to wash if you drive through a cloud of them.

  38. 38.

    raven

    @bemused: Thanks for reminding me. I caught the last few seconds of Tango last night and I did not know a new season was afoot! Poldark is ok but, damn, Crimson is a bummer. I do like Chalpin, she was good in The Hour.

  39. 39.

    Gimlet

    (Left on the dead thread)

    Mr Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, is understood to believe that Greece’s latest proposals, which were approved by the parliament in Athens on Friday, are insufficient. One German official labelled them “a joke”, according to Bild, a German newspaper.

    http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jul/12/greek-debt-crisis-eu-leaders-meeting-cancelled-no-deal-live#block-55a22d46e4b05111b7559b75

    Incidentally, our readers flag up that the organisation which could take control of €50bn of “valuable Greek assets” is linked to none other than Wolfgang Schäuble himself.

    The Press Project has done some digging on the Luxembourg “Institution for Growth” to which the 4-page eurogroup paper demands that €50bn of Greek state property must be transferred. Guess what. This Luxembourg “institution” is wholly owned subsidiary of German KfW and the chairman of its board is a certain Wolfgang Schäuble.

    The Institution for Growth was announced just two years ago, by Schäuble and Greek PM Antonis Samaras.

  41. 41.

    raven

    @Schlemazel: I know I’ve already been pummeled for this but he was born in 195 fuck 4. He may have been technically “draft age” but he wasn’t going to the Nam.

    s). The draft numbers issued in 1972 were never used to call for induction into service, because the last call was December 7 and authority to induct expired June 30, 1973. The 1972 to 1975 lottery numbers were used to call some men born 1953 to 1956 for physical exams and the highest number called for a physical was 215 (for tables 1970 through 1976).

  43. 43.

    Schlemazel

    @Amir Khalid:
    I’m rusty:
    Ich glaube nicht, dafür Ich bin eine Flügelmutter

    mostly I wanted to show off that I know the German for ‘wingnut’

  44. 44.

    Adam Lang

    I love the dollar sign on the hat. One could be excused for thinking that they hated money-grubbers from that little touch, if one didn’t know that what they hate is when a liberal is successful and still stays a liberal. As for rich folks who are Republicans, it’s just dandy, no matter how they made their money.

  45. 45.

    satby

    @gogol’s wife: re: Poldark, I am and I’m enjoying this version. I tried watching the 70s one on Acorn TV, but it was too long. I like the tighter pacing of this one.
    Also a big fan of Last Tango in Halifax, too.

  46. 46.

    Cervantes

    Pro-tip, he-man fascists: we ladies don’t generally aim our pee

    Reminds me of the old joke about the … um … contest won by a woman once the use of hands was disallowed …

    Anyhow, Jane Fonda was right and they were flat-out wrong, if not worse — and that’s what they can’t forgive.

  48. 48.

    Roger Moore

    @Pogonip:

    A while back a professional organizer posted a list of the oddest things his clients found under the bed when they began organizing. One person found a live frog.

    Hmm. The strangest thing I’ve ever found under my bed was a dead hummingbird, but that one is my cat’s fault.

  49. 49.

    Schlemazel

    @raven:
    who would pummel you for that? But that would make him in 18 in ’72 people were still going in 72, not as many as in 68 or 70 but more than enough.

  50. 50.

    satby

    @bemused: I’m quite bitter that for some reason I am not able to get the new Father Brown on my PBS feed on Acorn. I suppose I could watch in on my laptop, but I’d rather watch it on my TV.

  51. 51.

    Schlemazel

    @Schlemazel: won’t allow me to edit but I should add that he was probably not yet 18 (I seem to remember that he didn’t yet know what his number would be) or that numbers would not be called in 73

  52. 52.

    bemused

    @gogol’s wife:

    We just started watching Tango this year. How many seasons have we missed? I hate that, coming into a series late but still got hooked.

  54. 54.

    satby

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I remember being in Bolivia while we were working on an orphanage build and we had to check the toilet (and the path to and from inside the cabin) to be sure we didn’t step on or sit on any snakes or frogs. Some of the frogs were venomous too, we were in the Amazonian highlands.
    The last night I stayed there, after sleeping for two weeks in the loft, is when I found out that the bats that roosted under the eves were vampire bats. Luckily, they actually prefer livestock, which was right outside.
    Good times.

  55. 55.

    mai naem mobile

    The wingnuts can say what they want about Jane Fonda but she looks damn good for 50 and she’s 72. She sure as heck looks better than any wingnut celebrity including Bo Derek, Patricia.Heaton,Victoria Jackson and the chick from Northern Exposure.

  57. 57.

    debbie

    @gogol’s wife:

    I missed the first couple of episodes so I mostly just have it on until Crimson Tide begins. The people are very pretty, but I don’t have a clue what’s going on.

  58. 58.

    gogol's wife

    @bemused:

    I believe this is the third season (but it might be the 4th!). I’ve been in and out. I really liked the first season, then kind of lost the thread.

  59. 59.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    When did Moore go to a country we were at war with, and anyway, when is the last time Moor been topical?

  62. 62.

    gogol's wife

    @debbie:

    You wouldn’t if you’d watched the beginning, either. It’s one of those (like Wolf Hall) that I think is designed for people who’ve read the book. I loved Wolf Hall, but I have no idea what it would mean to someone who hadn’t read it.

  64. 64.

    Schlemazel

    @Adam Lang:
    They resent that people can make money in ways they do not approve of. They want people to make money the old fashioned way, inherit it from daddy (Trump’s dad left him 27,000 properties in NY)

  65. 65.

    bemused

    @satby:

    Sigh, just like what happened to me with Downton Abbey & Doc Martin so I had to get the dvds to catch up quickly.

  67. 67.

    satby

    @bemused: Yes. Always some far-fetched family crisis, but to be fair, I think more time is supposed to have passed between episodes and isn’t captured well by the series.

  68. 68.

    Pogonip

    @raven: And then the adults get revenge by making the fisherman’s car slide off the road.

    Having developed a cigarette allergy, I haven’t been in a bar in 30 years. Still miss enjoying a good bar band.

  70. 70.

    chopper

    fonda? moore? wow, real current there guys. the more I see this sort of shit the more the polls convince me that yes, the average republican really is 800 years old.

  71. 71.

    bemused

    @satby:

    Well, it does keep me watching to see what kind of wild event happens next. I think my spouse gets a little bored with all that family drama but he is a big fan of Crimson drama, actual war drama vs family war drama.

  72. 72.

    SFAW

    @Schlemazel:

    mostly I wanted to show off that I know the German for ‘wingnut’

    OK, smart guy – translate this:

    Wenn ist das Nunstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!

  73. 73.

    MattF

    @Roger Moore: I can’t help being reminded of the demands Austria made of Serbia in the ultimatum that started WWI. Have they all forgotten?

  74. 74.

    debbie

    @chopper:

    You’d have thought they’d be all over McCain for posing with pictures with Syrian rebels who later joined up with ISIS. But, surprisingly, no.

  76. 76.

    shell

    Hmm. The strangest thing I’ve ever found under my bed was a dead hummingbird, but that one is my cat’s fault.

    The worst Ive found is lots and lots of Milk Bone dust; and that is my dogs fault.

  79. 79.

    RSA

    Gotta give ’em credit for a clean pissoir…

    Not really related… Some of my professional work studies subtle cues that influence how people interact with technology. Work some years ago on flies in urinals made a splash, so to speak.

    At Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam the urinals had a life-sized drawing of a fly strategically placed in them. You can guess the result: guys aimed at it and spillage was reduced.

  81. 81.

    CarolDuhart2

    @Schlemazel: And with Nixon in office, there was a great deal of paranoia-would he start another war to keep him from being evicted-or ramp up the old one? Remember Nixon was in his second term, already being beleagured by Watergate, and a pretty nasty character to boot.

    I wouldn’t blame Moore for wondering if there wouldn’t be another made-up war somewhere or a last try to “win” in Vietnam somehow.

  82. 82.

    Roger Moore

    @SFAW:

    OK, smart guy – translate this:

    Wenn ist das Nunstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!

    I believe the closest possible translation is “Der ver zwei peanuts, valking down der strasse, and von vas… assaulted! peanut. Ho-ho-ho-ho.”

    @debbie:

    You’d have thought they’d be all over McCain for posing with pictures with Syrian rebels who later joined up with ISIS.

    IOKIYAR.

  83. 83.

    SFAW

    @Roger Moore:

    I believe the closest possible translation is “Der ver zwei peanuts, valking down der strasse, and von vas… assaulted! peanut. Ho-ho-ho-ho.”

    Damn! You’re good.

  85. 85.

    Schlemazel

    @SFAW:

    This is Mrs. Schlemazel, something horrible happened, I think my husband is dead but I wanted you to know your nym was the last thing he said.

  86. 86.

    Eric U.

    @Roger Moore: once came home from a week at the beach and found a dead squirrel under the couch. Not sure how it died, but it explained every picture in the house being askew.

    I’m cleaning my shop right now, and I’m glad that I’ve gotten it to the point that I’m pretty sure there are no dead animals in there. Found a dead animal once while cleaning the garage, but my shop had many more layers of cruft than the garage ever did.

  88. 88.

    SFAW

    @Schlemazel:

    Thanks. Glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read your reply.

    And, sorry for your loss, of course.

    ETA: Normally, I would have said “sorry for your loss, Mrs. S,” but the only other Mrs. S I could think of was Mrs. S-C-U-M.

  91. 91.

    Schlemazel

    @SFAW:
    It had me going, I am very very rusty and was not sure what some of those words were so I assumed it was my failure. I got out my old Deutsch buch and was drawing blanks, thought maybe it was some technology terms or something but it made no sense so I googled it.

    Sadly, google & Internet translations is allowing me to be lazier & my German is now almost nonexistent. I hope for a babble fish

  92. 92.

    Gimlet

    Reminiscent of Bush’s “Terrorist Alert Levels”

    Charles P. Pierce

    “I do believe our work disrupted efforts to kill people, likely in connection with July 4,” Comey told reporters at FBI headquarters in Washington. Comey’s comments are a public confirmation made by other law enforcement that several people were arrested in the past month over concerns that they might have been inspired by ISIS to carry out attacks either during the holiday or during the Muslim holy period of Ramadan.

    The FBI has arrested around a dozen people in the past four weeks, Comey said. “We made the arrests to thwart what we thought they were up to,” he added. “Some of them were focused on the Fourth of July, and that’s as specific as I can get.”

    Show me the evidence. Bring them all to trial.

  93. 93.

    p.a.

    @MattF: it’s really just conservative performance art now. Dump everything you think you know about your perceived anti-Americanism in a blender, mix and use whatever floats to the top. How Palin’s speeches are made.

  94. 94.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    @Gimlet: It’s not a surprise that Schäuble is a board member of KfW. It’s a development bank owned by the German government.

    That’s not to say that the Institution for Growth doesn’t appear to be a bit interesting (cough…shady) and being based in Luxembourg would Jean-Claude Juncker be in for a cut? Interesting that the KfW losses with Lehman Brothers and Iceland don’t show on the English wiki page but do on the German one.

    How long until someone leaks a documents showing how much tax evaded funds have ended up in Switzerland…?

    KfW per english wiki:

    The KfW, formerly KfW Bankengruppe (banking group), is a German government-owned development bank, based in Frankfurt. Its name originally comes from Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (“Reconstruction Credit Institute”). It was formed in 1948 after World War II as part of the Marshall Plan.

    It is owned by the Federal Republic of Germany (80%) and the States of Germany (20%).[2] It is led by a six-member Managing Board headed by Ulrich Schröder, which in turn reports to a 37-member Supervisory Board. The chair of the Supervisory Board changes annually between the German Federal Ministers of Finance and Economic Affairs; the chairman for 2014 is Sigmar Gabriel.[3]

    …

    KfW Entwicklungsbank (KfW Development Bank) provides financing to governments, public enterprises and commercial banks engaged in microfinance and SME promotion in developing countries. It does so through loans close to market terms using its own resources (“promotional loans”), soft loans that blend KfW resources with support from the federal government’s aid budget (“development loans”), as well as highly subsidized loans and grants, the latter two coming entirely from the federal aid budget. Different country groups are offered different financing conditions depending mainly on their per capita income. All these financing instruments are part of what is officially called development cooperation and is more commonly called “development aid”.

    …

    The largest subsidiary of KfW banking group is the IPEX Bank. IPEX Bank is active in project finance and corporate finance related to German or European exports. It also promotes foreign investments in Germany. Unlike KfW, it competes directly with commercial banks. Therefore, and in response to concerns voiced by the European Commission concerning unfair competition, IPEX Bank has become legally and financially independent in 2008. IPEX Bank’s main sectors of activity are ports, airports, toll roads, bridges and tunnels, railways, ships, planes, telecommunications, energy, and manufacturing. IPEX Bank had a lending volume of €17.6 billion in 2008.[4]

  95. 95.

    RaflW

    K-thug is up in arms about Greece. Actually, he’s up in arms about how horrible the Europeans are being, with Germany taking the lead. It’s a cluster-F, and makes me feel pretty furious about the whole never-ending load of austerity codswallop.

    [T]his Eurogroup list of demands is madness. The trending hashtag #ThisIsACoup is exactly right. This goes beyond harsh into pure vindictiveness, complete destruction of national sovereignty, and no hope of relief. It is, presumably, meant to be an offer Greece can’t accept; but even so, it’s a grotesque betrayal of everything the European project was supposed to stand for.

    Go read the whole thing, it’s not long.

  97. 97.

    ms_canadada

    @gogol’s wife: Oh, I am! At first I wasn’t sure I’d like the remake, but the actor who plays Ross has the look of Robin Ellis, the original Captain Poldark. I have all the books, written by Winston Graham, and I watched the original PBS series years ago, with the role of Demelza played by Angharad Rees, who sadly passed away from cancer in 2012. It’s a great story, but I do recommend reading the books.

    @satby Yes, Last Tango is a good one. Having been to Yorkshire several times, I love the scenery, and the Yorkshire accent & characters bring back so many great memories. And to top it off, anything with Derek Jacobi is a must-see (I Claudius) imho.

  98. 98.

    Howard Beale IV

    Remember when Bloom County ended? The storyline was Donald Trump bought out the strip and fired all the cast members?

    Looks like Bloom County (like Heroes) is being reborn….

  100. 100.

    RaflW

    @p.a.: “Making” a “speech” suggests there is a plan, or a draft, or something that is aimed for or intended. I think Palin just unclicks the pause button in her brain and words flow out until either she gets tired or someone stops her.

    Trump seems to do a variation on that too, but he’s not quite as stupid as she is.

  102. 102.

    MattF

    @Gimlet: I was on the Mall the evening of July 4th, and the security was intense. So I’m not surprised to hear that something was going on.

  103. 103.

    trollhattan

    @efgoldman:
    Hell, they can’t even arrest RWNJ thieves and vandals who commit their crimes out in the open, like Cliven Bundy.

  104. 104.

    Bruce Webb

    @MattF: Hmm if you want to see Jane Fonda in her primest prime try the opening credits of Barbarella.
    Doffing a space suit in zero gravity and bubbles being popped by what exactly? Suspect you need the get the actual movie, clips I found don’t do it justice. And then there is Cat Ballou. A very lovely shot here – if you ignore the western style noose. It was a comedy for Gosh sakes. Only Lee Marvin actually got banged around in the movie.

    http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/f5/b8/96/f5b896c5d8a5b06802dc65d6b42de1a0.jpg

  105. 105.

    Gimlet

    @efgoldman:

    They obviously need more funding

    Some of those arrested, Comey said, had been using end-to-end encryption programs to communicate with ISIS. He warned Congress on Wednesday that it’s becoming much harder for the FBI to track potential ISIS followers because of the growth in encryption technology.

  109. 109.

    gogol's wife

    @ms_canadada:

    Jacobi is great in it. And Anne Reid has cred with me for her brilliant scene in Hot Fuzz (“God rest his soul.”)

  110. 110.

    J R in WV

    @raven: Born in 1950, lottery number was two digit, I think 29, or 79, I forget, low enough for bizness, tho.

    Got the draft notice in early 1970, enlisted in the US Navy, whose members didn’t sleep in muddy foxholes, but in crowded metal bunks. With 3 hot meals, kinda. Discharged in early 1973 as the services didn’t need wartime population since the war was over for us.

    It was interesting, glad in retrospect I did it that way, could have been killed in the US Navy as it was hard dangerous work.

  111. 111.

    Zinsky

    The brown stains at 1 o’clock to Mike’s smiling face really bring a sense of verisimilitude that you are in a skeesy redneck joint takin’ a wizz….

  112. 112.

    PurpleGirl

    @gogol’s wife: I understood Wolf Hall quite well and I hadn’t read or known about the books. But, I’ve read quite a bit about the Tudor period and the various people of prominence.

  114. 114.

    MomSense

    @gogol’s wife:

    I’m glad I’m not the only one who is not keeping track of the plot.

    I also confess that I watched one episode of the BBC show Being Human out of curiosity but ended up watching a few seasons because Aidan Turner is so handsome.

  117. 117.

    mdblanche

    @RaflW: “This program is looking forward to converting Greece into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in its character.”

    I’m sure it’s meant to be an offer Greece can’t accept, but if the goal is to make the Greeks look responsible a Grexit*, it’s backfiring in the ugliest way.

    *ETA: still a more popular idea in Germany than in Greece! Well, before this weekend at least.

  118. 118.

    MomSense

    @gogol’s wife:

    I think I sort of tune out a bit in the counting house scenes. Sunday nights are also sort of weird at my house. It’s always a cramming all the laundry and logistics for the week into too short a time. Tomorrow I might re watch the first two episodes and actually pay attention. After spending two fantastic days listening to music and dancing in the hot sun, I will need a quiet morning.

  121. 121.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    Wife is getting headhunted for a super big time job in the AFL-CIO…basically under trumpka’s CoS.

    Would require moving to DC, but would be a terrific opportunity for her.

    Ugh.

  122. 122.

    PaulW

    I am planning to take my nephews to the Tampa Bay Comic Con on August 1st. Please, this may be their first comic-con, so be gentle you cosplayers. I don’t want them freaking out by all the weirdos… (slips into his jedi robe to make sure it still fits).

  123. 123.

    Pogonip

    @efgoldman: Midwest. But they can’t smoke in restaurants, thank God.

    Bloom County’s coming back? But at the end he killed Opus! Remember, Steve rushed to the animal shelter to save him but was too late. I don’t think the strip would be nearly as entertaining without Opus.

  125. 125.

    Tripod

    Somebody should mention that to FoMoCo. There’s a Ford plant in Hai Duong.

    Also… Remember the Maine!

  127. 127.

    Xantar

    Satoru Iwata, CEO of Nintendo has died. You may or may not care too much about Nintendo these days, but in his early days as a young programmer, he was responsible for Kirby and Earthbound.

  132. 132.

    Mike J

    @efgoldman: My Dad joined the Navy in 64? 65? after getting a draft notice. He had the idea that it was less dangerous than the army, and for him it was. He operated the radar in the back of planes that got shot off carriers. Which was a pretty good gig if your ship was in the Med, or the Caribbean, as his were. Other people in his squadron got sent into oceans that had Migs nearby and didn’t come back. Pure dumb luck he got put on the right ship. There was one ship he was supposed to go out on, but I got born. They gave him leave and told him to catch the next one. The one he missed went to SE Asia, the one he took went to Rapallo, Italy and Barcelona.

  133. 133.

    ThresherK

    @gogol’s wife: Hey, I was sitting here with my wife, who is a regular for Poldark, and I asked her if there was any skinny dipping in it.

    (Hesitantly) “Yes…..”

    “How long were you going to keep that secret from me?”

    “Do you mind (me watching a guy skinny dipping in a high-class drammer)?”

    “Hell, no! Call me if the women do it too.”

  134. 134.

    Ruckus

    @raven:
    I joined in late 69. Was already 1A for a while and getting real nervous. Dec Lottery for 1970 number was 15. Turned 21 in boot camp.
    @efgoldman:
    As you can see I’m pretty sure I missed my letter in the mail as well.

  135. 135.

    Ruckus

    @Mike J:
    Used to know a back seat radar officer. His third time that the plane got shot they didn’t make it back to the carrier and had to splash. He resigned his commission, right after being pulled out of the water, said he wasn’t taking any more chances.

  136. 136.

    realbtl

    @Ruckus: I was 18th in the first lottery. Had obviously flat (deformed actually) feet so I got free beer all night in Boulder CO.

  137. 137.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Penguins have remarkable regenerative powers. I thought everyone knew that.

    So that means Phil Kessel will score 50 in Pittsburgh next year?

  138. 138.

    Tree With Water

    @Mike J: My father was drafted in 1942. Volunteered as a glider pilot at one point, for which he was trained. But he spent most of the war as a navigator aboard one of the Clipper Ships that ferried brass, mail, and wounded back and forth from San Francisco to Honolulu. I have absolutely no idea how he lucked into that duty, but he did.

  139. 139.

    Rob

    This is exciting news about Bloom County, which was one of my three favorite comic strips (the others being Doonesbury and Calvin & Hobbes).

  140. 140.

    My Truth Hurts

    Does anyone under the age of 70 give a shit about what Jane Fonda did to protest a war that was waged over 40 years ago? The myopic arrogance of baby boomers and the silent generation never fails to amuse me. Their pet issues are no longer the issues of the day. Their cultural reference points are outdated and meaningless to most people these days. The politics of the ’60’s are over. I guess they didn’t get the memo.

  141. 141.

    Mike J

    @Ruckus: Sadly, the enlisted guys who were in the back of the plane didn’t get the option of quitting when they wanted to.

    He was in what they now call an E-1, but at the time called a WF-2(Willy Fudd). Similar to the E-2, but piston driven, not turboprop.

    That pic above: my dad flew in that very plane, but not off that carrier. His squadron had tail numbers 700-750. It wasn’t his “regular” plane, just one of many he was in.

  143. 143.

    Seanly

    I have a neighbor who has two newish cars that both have anti-Jane Fonda stickers. They both say “Vietnam vets are not Fonda Jane”. I can understand being mad about that at one point, but at this point it was over 45 years ago. There are people who forgive those who murdered their children or raped them. Those were people who were wronged by someone directly. And they didn’t hang on to anger for 45 years…

  144. 144.

    yet another jeff

    @Baud:

    Yeah…Swisher made them…every time I see one, I think “Say no to drugs? Piss on that!”

  145. 145.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Seanly: Jane Fonda as a target of anger is just stupid. The US normalized relations with Vietnam, for pity sake.

    Which, btw, really makes me roll my eyes at the people who don’t want us to do the same with Cuba.

  146. 146.

    Tree With Water

    @My Truth Hurts: There is no censure too severe for the generation that lived through the War in Vietnam, yet permitted the 2003 War in Iraq to unfold. That it happened was the greatest political gut punch of my life, bar none.

  147. 147.

    divF

    @p.a.:

    Marx’ comment about the Bourbons

    Actually, I think it was Talleyrand.

    ETA: The provenance is more complicated than that, according to wikiquote. In any case, it is quite applicable.

  148. 148.

    Cervantes

    @efgoldman:

    @p.a.: Marx’ comment about the Bourbons applies to the wingers

    Groucho?

    Yes, he used to say that he drank it “scraped off of Orval Faubus.”

  149. 149.

    Botsplainer

    So the founder of Lebowski Fest got locked up smoking weed behind a bowling alley here in the People’s Democratic Socialist Kenyan Republic of Louisville. It would only be better if he had a Kahlua and Cream in his hand.

    Given that it is here, the judge will probably bust a gut laughing before dismissing it.

  151. 151.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I guess I’m gonna root for injuries here

    Donald J. TrumpVerified account
    ‏@ realDonaldTrump
    I hear that sleepy eyes @ chucktodd will be fired like a dog from ratings starved Meet The Press? I can’t imagine what is taking so long!

    “sleepy eyes”?

  153. 153.

    J R in WV

    @raven:

    Regarding stripping paint – we had a nice transparent gray wash on the deck, and I asked a guy working for us go get Thompsons Transparent stain… well, the Bahr’s gray paint was so cheap, when I got home, our deck was painted, not stained.

    A couple years pass, and I start trying stripper, but I need one that isn’t too poisonous, the deck is 6 horizontal feet from the creek. No luck, substance after substance. nothing could cut that paint.

    Finally I saw a soy based paint remover, people were recommending it. I ordered enough to allegedly do the job. No smell, no poison control safety warnings, paint it on, wash it AND the paint right off.

    This was 4 or 5 years ago, so my elderly memory is not sure, but this might be the one:

    http://franmar.com/consumer-products/removers

    It seems to be at least very similar from the reviews on the site. If you really have a lot of paint to strip, try it out. Mrs J suggested that I pass this on…

  155. 155.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SiubhanDuinne: it’s a huge and classy expression, one of the smartest expressions ever minted, minted like money, which I have a lot of. And nobody knows firing like Trump.

  157. 157.

    J R in WV

    @Seanly:

    $50 says that boy never left the continent of North America. Guys who went wouldn’t do that. Jane and all the rest of the antiwar folks were trying to save their lives through political action.

    Nixon was too big a turd for that to work. War crimes were among the least of that bastard’s flaws.

  158. 158.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Iowa Old Lady: The US normalized relations with Vietnam, for pity sake.

    A few years back in Hanoi I took a photo of a socialist-realist style pennant on a lamppost in the old part of town, with the date 30.4.1975. Parked directly under that pennant was a new Chevy Blazer. They’ve been over the war for a good long time.

  159. 159.

    Roger Moore

    @Seanly:
    I think the anger about Jane Fonda, and about Teh Hippies Selling Us Out In ‘Nam in general, is displacement. It’s our version of the dolchstosslegend. If you believe in them, then you can continue to believe that victory was possible and failure was the other guys’ fault. The alternative is accepting that victory was not possible and the war was a bad idea, or that maybe victory was possible but the generals and politicians leading the war effort messed it up. Neither of those is an appealing conclusion, so people continue to believe in the betrayal myth to avoid facing them.

  160. 160.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Roger Moore:

    victory was not possible and the war was a bad idea,

    Given that the quoted alternative is the correct one, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for those who completely deny reality.

  163. 163.

    Botsplainer

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Whenever I hear older boomers talk about Hanoi Jane or how liberals “lost” Vietnam, I point out that Vietnam is a reliable security partner, a solid trading partner and clearly over a shitload of death and destruction, so it’s time to move on.

  164. 164.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Roger Moore: A few weeks ago, McCain had what I’m sure what he thought was a mike-drop moment, saying that the American withdrawal from Iraq reminded him of another war where America lacked the resolve to fight to the end.

    Some pundit once said of McCain that in spite of his age and record, he suggest the WWII generation more than Vietnam> I think that sums up both his appeal to the daddy-issue-bedeviled boomers (ETA, of the Village, that is, Brokaw, Russet and Tweety being the Big Three of that club), and his own inability to understand war as anything but a clash of nation-states that ends in signing papers.

    ETA again: WP autocorrects Russert, to Russet, which seems appropriate. I bet that man ate more spuds than I have, and that’s saying something.

  165. 165.

    Bill Arnold

    @Thor Heyerdahl:

    How long until someone leaks a documents showing how much tax evaded funds have ended up in Switzerland…?

    A flood of embarrassing disclosures about conservative Northern European bankers would be interesting.

  166. 166.

    Roger Moore

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Lot of their people were killed, though.

    Yeah, and lots were killed fighting the French before us and the Chinese after us, and a lot of the ones who died while we were there were killed by other Vietnamese. In our minds, we were the key player in the drama, but for them we were just one among many.

  167. 167.

    J R in WV

    @Gin & Tonic: And Cambodians, and Laotians, and Hmong, and … Henry K and Tricky Dick carpet bombed Cambodia, North Vietnam, had Rangers or whatever they were called back then lurking along the Ho Chi Mien trail in Laos, etc.

    People are still dying from unexploded ordnance in their farm fields and rice paddys. There are people dying today from crimes Kissinger and Nixon committed 40 years ago. One of the worst was lying about his secret plan to end the war when running against HHH.

    Too long ago, but still the crime continues to resonate with each explosion.

    Edit to fix many typos, getting late, raw shoulder doesn’t help typing atall.

  169. 169.

    jl

    I’m late to this thread. I don’t get it. What does Michael Moore have to do with the Vietnam War or Hanoi?
    Or is this another example of wingnut code talking?

  170. 170.

    divF

    According to the Guardian, they are announcing in Brussels a compromise over the Greek financial crisis. It immediately brought to mind the quote from Tacitus about the Roman Empire.

    They make a desolation and they call it peace.

  172. 172.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    @Suzanne: yeah, very big deal for her.

    Hard to imagine living in DC with housing costs, even though it would be a huge salary increase for her.

    Sounds like they are willing to create something regional for her in the midwest, or maybe even the PNW which is where our interests lie.

    Time will tell.

  174. 174.

    Roger Moore

    @divF:

    According to the Guardian, they are announcing in Brussels a compromise over the Greek financial crisis.

    I’ll believe it when I see it. My guess is this is another case of the Germans offering something ridiculous, calling it a compromise, and badmouthing the Greeks when they refuse.

  176. 176.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @J R in WV: I had been a pedant with your comment and then I noticed your typo apology/explanation, so I pulled the comment.

  177. 177.

    Ruckus

    @Mike J:
    Guy I knew was in the A6.
    That is a bit of the military that pissed me off, officers can quit, enlisted can not. I signed up for a full tour, so did officers, supposedly. They got better pay, better quarters, better food. Although I understand that everyone on board ship now eats in the same mess. That doesn’t sound like much but I’d bet the food is a notch or two above what I ate most of the time.

  178. 178.

    J R in WV

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    OK. Thanks.I f stuff up sometimes, try to fix it. At my age it’s easy to forget things that were 40 or 50 years ago, no matter how important they were at the time.

    G’Night! I hope we all sleep well tonight.

  180. 180.

    divF

    @Roger Moore:

    That is a possible outcome. But the fact Merkel, Hollande, and Tusk have been working over with a rubber hose meeting with Tsipras in closed session for the last couple of hours indicates they may have a deal that Tsipras may feel he can try to put over. Hence the quote from Tacitus.

    ETA: I’ve been following the livefeed from the Guardian and discussion at LGM all day today. All informative.

  181. 181.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @divF: I have been reading things that indicate that Hollande may be pulling back and looking for a more liveable deal.* I don’t think the Germans will give. They are playing this as a morality play. They are also playing this like idiots.

    *On sources like Twitter throughout the day. I don’t have links.

  185. 185.

    divF

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    They are also playing this like idiots.

    That seems to be the consensus everywhere except in Germany and countries to the north and east in the Eurozone.

    Krugman and Stiglitz have been particularly scathing today.

  186. 186.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @divF: Who is north and east of Germany in the Eurozone who has any real voice?

    ETA: I read Krugman already, do you have a Stiglitz link?

  187. 187.

    PurpleGirl

    @efgoldman: I don’t think they’ve forgotten history. I think they’ve had a delusion about the aims and goals of the war from the beginning and denied that it could be lost or wasn’t able to be fought at all. And they’ve continued seeing war that way ever since.

  188. 188.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    Lucky bastard. And I mean that in the nicest way.

    Same lottery, one of my two best friends got 315.
    The other one sat his ass down at the local National Guard armory every Thursday afternoon, waiting for them to post an opening. He got in. His number was, if I remember correctly 115. He would have missed out on going, a couple yrs later we were told that no one over 105 was actually drafted.

  190. 190.

    divF

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Real voice: probably none of them. Obnoxious loud voices include Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Slovakia.

  191. 191.

    Ruckus

    @PurpleGirl:
    This.
    I see deluded people every time I go to the VA. I believe that their military time was the best period of their lives. Last visit I talked to a fellow around 60 wearing an army paratrooper insignia in his hat. He is still as we used to say “All ate up with it.” I declined to pry/talk/discuss any thing more with him, sanity being an issue.

  193. 193.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    Lucky at birth, lucky at love, lucky at life. For some it’s all pretty much the same thing.

    BTW Cataracts. How long before you had to have surgery? I just got the news that I have them, not all that bad yet but one more thing to look forward to. So to speak.

  196. 196.

    divF

    @efgoldman:

    “with all due respect, sir….”

    My Dad was 26 years in the Army. He was slightly less temperate, though. The best story was when a less-than-bright company commander asked if Dad was questioning his judgement, he answered “With all due respect, sir, you may not be chickenshit, but you sure have some henhouse ways.”

  197. 197.

    mdblanche

    @Omnes Omnibus: “The German mind has a talent for making no mistakes but the very greatest.”

    @Tree With Water: When Krugman first compared what’s going down to the July Crisis a few weeks back, I thought it was misleading. Now it’s clear just how right he was. This about more than just economics now. The post-WWII order based on European unity is being put at risk by short-sightedness and bungling. Even in the best case scenario this is going to poison European politics more broadly for years or decades to come.

  199. 199.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    You are having the same response that I am. After 3 yrs at the VA I’m pretty sure a lot of men (they are almost all men at our age) fondly remember or better, selectively remember their service as the best of times. They wear shirts/vests with their unit logos, unit hats, Vietnam Vet hats, pins, honors they earned. That’s about half or more. Also the last time I stood in line behind a fellow who had a hat on with his purple heart pinned to it. All the men I spent time in the hospital with, they tried so very hard to forget. 40+ yrs later I’d bet everyone of them still is.

  200. 200.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @divF: One of my proudest accomplishments as an army lieutenant is that nothing like that was ever said to me. (Behind my back, I don’t know, but not to my face.)

  201. 201.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    I had laser surgery about 20 yrs ago, had worn glasses/contacts for about 30 yrs at that time. The surgery doesn’t bother me, it’s the time and all the other things that are going wrong as well.

  202. 202.

    divF

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Good for you. Dad was a professional, and had enormous respect for most of the officers he served with, including ones twenty years his junior. However, he did not suffer fools gladly, for better or worse.

  203. 203.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman: No, actually I didn’t. Proud of that too. OTOH, I generally just signed off on what my senior NCOs did while I read skiing mags.

  204. 204.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I never said anything like that to any officer. Well except on my discharge interviews. The XO was the last in the chain you had to talk to and get a signature. He told me I’d be back, my kind always came back. I asked him if they would make me an admiral. No of course not was the answer. My reply, “I have a friend who owns a dairy. Every one of those cows shits a ton every day. Shoveling that cow shit for minimum wage for the rest of my life would be a far better fate for me than working for people like you for another minute.” He just handed me the paper and didn’t say another word.

  206. 206.

    Gretchen

    @Ruckus:
    I had cataracts for awhile. Doc expected it would be years before they got bad enough to need to be dealt with. Then they suddenly got a lot worse and I couldnt see very well. had the surgery, have 20/40 vision without glases. Crazy. I need $20 reading glasses.

  207. 207.

    Gretchen

    @Ruckus:
    I had cataracts for awhile. Doc expected it would be years before they got bad enough to need to be dealt with. Then they suddenly got a lot worse and I couldnt see very well. had the surgery, have 20/40 vision without glases. Crazy. I need $20 reading glasses.

  211. 211.

    Tree With Water

    @Davis X. Machina: To every season turn, but it’s not football season and that’s that..

    Still, I am hoping that Tom Brady privately delivered an ultimatum to Roger Goodell: publicly eat a shit sandwich and announce the withdrawal of the QB’s 4 game suspension (a suspension the sad sack commissioner pulled out of his ass), or he (Brady) will walk away from the game. Brady is a football immortal, and Goodell is Bo Bo the Clown, and his treatment of arguably the best ever has been disgraceful throughout this entire ridiculous episode… as has Robert Kraft’s behavior, for that matter. In any event, it’s the only off-season story I’m interested in. Go Niners…

  212. 212.

    Nancy

    I rarely comment here but here is the story I was given by a Vietnam vet when I asked him why they are still so mad at Jane. He said when she was in North Vietnam she was allowed to meet some POWs, one passed her a note saying he and the other soldiers were being tortured. Instead of telling people about the note she handed it to the Viet cong and the beatings increased. No idea if this is true, but that is their side.

  213. 213.

    Cervantes

    @Nancy:

    False.

    Although Fonda’s actions in visiting North Vietnam were sufficient to earn her the wrath of many Americans, in the years since those events took place they have been embellished to the point that the one tale most commonly associated with her Vietnam trip is an incident that never took place: a tale about U.S. POWs who furtively slipped messages to Fonda while she was meeting with them and whom Fonda promptly betrayed by turning those messages over to the POWs’ North Vietnamese captors (resulting in several of those prisoners’ being beaten, tortured, or killed). The fact is that while in North Vietnam, Fonda met with only a single group of seven U.S POWs: all seven of those POWs agreed to meet with her, no POWs were tortured for declining to meet with her (or for behaving inappropiately during the meeting), and no POWs secretly slipped Fonda messages which she turned over to the North Vietnamese. The persons named in inflammatory claims about this apocryphal incident have repeatedly and categorically denied the events they supposedly were part of.

  214. 214.

    gus

    “Hanoi” Mike? Tip to the dummies marketing these things, you’re four decades behind the times.

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