Bah. I started a Hillary vs Beltway Media thread below, and even I can’t bear to think about it anymore, so here’s a fresh canvas. Let us consider instead a dignified senior citizen sovereign with a lifelong love of dogs, which means she’s got her good points, whatever your opinions on the British monarchy (and, yes, we all know who else loved dogs):
As of today, Queen Elizabeth II has reigned longer than her great-grandmama, Queen Victoria, who previously held the title of longest-reigning British monarch.
I’m sure y’all can come up with a better caption, but mine would be, “The QUEEN, that’s who.”
Anyhoo, open thread!
UPDATE: Meanwhile, back in The Colonies, President Obama’s White House just smacked would-be monarch Dick Cheney into the middle of the 18th century with this take-down:
BOOM, motherfucker!
[H/T: Valued Commenter MDBlanche]
Roger Moore
Victoria’s grandpa, bad old George III also had a very long reign. The Hanoverians seem to be a long-lived group.
schrodinger's cat
I have to say that her reign was better for India, than Victoria’s.
trollhattan
Happy anniversary day, Liz! Also, too, California turns 165 today.
srv
Trump understands how to take responsibility, even when it wasn’t his failure:
Debbie
Not a caption, but she does have a way with a scarf.
schrodinger's cat
@Debbie: And hats too!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“Muggles! Act natural”
debbie
@schrodinger’s cat:
Actually, it’s impressive how long she can keep her arm crooked to hold her handbag. My arm would cramp up after a couple minutes.
Elmo
All my Irish instincts and prejudices rail against me for this, but I can’t help admiring her a little bit. She was shoved into this role, and her conduct during Britain’s darkest hours since the Armada brought honor and credit to her entire line.
mdblanche
The White House rummaged around for a fuck to give. Finding none, they gave us this video instead.
schrodinger's cat
@debbie: Can you imagine the Queen wearing a cross body bag?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mdblanche: That “So?” response to Martha Raddatz should be the end of the attention he never should have had. What the fuck goes through the minds of people inviting this incompetent old ghoul to be on TV?
And fucking Liz Cheney… She makes Meghan McCain and Luke Russet look like scrappy strivers.
Lee Rudolph
As I realized one day a few years ago (really, it came to me in a flash), walking back from the village to my own humble cottage, she’s sovereign, she probably thinks The Queen is about her.
Punchy
I have a question about Kim Davis. Since her only boss appears to be the State Legy, and they’re not in session (and have no appetite to impeach her when they return), doesn’t she have de facto no boss? I noticed that she’s not returning to work for several more days….who monitors her PTO usage? Who monitors whether she actually does anything within the office walls? Couldn’t she, in theory, take another 3 weeks (3 months?) “rest” under her “because, shut up nobody can say no” rules of her gig and there’s nothing that can be done?
In short, she’s as irresponsible as they come, yet without a boss. Who the fuck thought this electoral set-up was a good idea? She can make any rule she wants and there’s no one save a federal judge that can keep order in that shithole state?
Lastly, can she fire staff members who dont obey her order to stop issuing licenses? So why wouldn’t she upon return?
trollhattan
Is that an MG-B?
Bex
“The QUEEN, that’s whoooo.”
mdblanche
@Roger Moore: They keep trying to outlive their embarrassing Princes of Wales.
benw
“One of these creatures exemplifies wisdom, nobility, and dignity. The other is the Queen of England.”
This open thread makes me want to listen to some Sex Pistols. “God save the Queen, she ain’t no human being!”
MomSense
Around the time of the Kate Wills wedding, some UK knitters created a royal family knitting pattern book. The best patterns in the book are the corgis. I’m thinking I might make some corgis to give to wee ones this Christmas. They are adorable doggies.
Cool photo choices, Betty.
NonyNony
@Punchy:
Nope – her bosses are the voters. She can be removed from office at the next election. The Leg can impeach her, but that doesn’t make them her boss – just the representatives of the voters between elections.
I’ve wondered about this too. It would definitely put her in contempt of court and land her back in jail. I don’t know if a judge could void her action and reinstate the deputy. I do suspect that any deputy fired by her would probably be able to land a nice fat payout from the county after the county lost a lawsuit due to unlawful termination. She may not care about that, but I’m starting to wonder just how secure the little sinecure that her mommy set up for her with this job actually is.
Shana
@Punchy: I suspect there are a number of things that a County Clerk does other than issue Marriage Licenses so in theory she could do all the other things and let her other staff members do the Marriage Licenses. But IANAL.
shell
I think I read in the story about her release., the deputy clerks are required to make reports to the judge about their own work/output.
Mark B.
@trollhattan: Indeed it is. A little downscale for a monarch, but a nice ride, nonetheless. Judging by the grille, it’s 68 or earlier.
shell
“Just delivering your invitation to the Hogwarts reunion.”
Mark B.
@trollhattan: Although I’ve never seen fender mirrors like that on an MGB. That must be a dealer option. Most MGB drivers didn’t care that much about the traffic behind them, they’d catch up soon enough.
sukabi
@shell: I’m betting that there’s at least one person in that office that has volunteered to keep tabs on Ms Davis work habits and report back to the judge.
Mark B.
@Mark B.: Correction, that’s the recessed grille from the 68-72 models.
Betty Cracker
@mdblanche: That is a wonderful smack-down. Updated post to include it. Thanks!
schrodinger's cat
Cheney is evil. Too bad that he hasn’t been indicted for committing war crimes, yet.
Betty Cracker
@sukabi: I’m sure the self-righteous busybody is not universally beloved in that office too.
Zinsky
Monarchs have no use in the modern world. They perpetuate the fatuous notion that some human beings are innately better or more privileged than others. While she may be a nice lady and likes animals, she should be stripped of the trappings of wealth and be forced to live out her remaining years as a commoner. It might be humbling and educational for her.
Mike in NC
@Punchy: Davis sits at home watching soap operas and stuffing her pie hole while filling out time sheets that she gets to approve. Nice work if you can get it.
Mark B.
@srv: I translated Trumps response as ‘Argle Bargle, blame Obama, Argle Bargle.’ Nice he realizes that it’s a humanitarian crisis, but honestly the knee jerk reaction to blame Obama for anything bad that happens ever is infuriating, and no one ever gets called on it, except for that one time that Cheney did.
JoyceH
@shell:
I was thinking something similar. An owl? Must be a letter. Maybe she was sending a Howler to a grandson.
As for the handbag, mentioned upthread, I read somewhere that it’s just a prop and there’s really nothing in it. But when she’s at some function and switches her bag to her other arm, that’s a signal to staff and family – ‘save me from this bore!’.
benw
@Betty Cracker:
The WH is trying to tie oppo to the Iran deal to Dick Cheney. So obvious, yet so clever! And I’m going to try not to think about Hillz, Bern, Kimmy, or Big Richard for the rest of the day.
Mark B.
@Punchy: It’s a relic from the times that it was several day’s ride from the county seat to the state capitol. The counties were pretty much autonomous entities back then and there were only two remedies for a bad elected official, defeat them at the next election or impeach them in cases of gross misconduct. I don’t think timekeeping was much of a concern when the office was originally established because it wasn’t a full time position, the counties were so sparsely populated that it wouldn’t have taken that much time to do the paperwork required by the clerk.
Nowadays the county clerk is pretty much an office relegated to routine paperwork and probably should be a civil service job instead of an elected position.
MomSense
@shell:
Are we sure that isn’t photoshopped? I was thinking the owl might be the Queen’s Animagus. Even the scarf matches the owl’s coloration.
Brachiator
@benw:
And the little snippet from the Beatles,
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl,
but she doesn’t have a lot to say
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl
but she changes from day to day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb4uGHGUZMs
Mustang Bobby
@Mark B.: Plus, you can always find your way to a British car show; just follow the trail of oil on the road.
Brachiator
I got moderated. Hmm. Let’s try that again.
And the little snippet from the Beatles,
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl,
but she doesn’t have a lot to say
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl
but she changes from day to day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb4uGHGUZMs
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: According to Buzzfeed (yeah, I know), it’s from a display of birds of prey at a horse show and is for realz.
kindness
That photo of the Queen with her Corgis….Was she driving the MG behind her in the photo? That would be quite cool for an English Monarch, driving her own MG I mean.
peach flavored shampoo
Photo caption: Hey Lady! You see this mouse ovah there?
MattF
@Betty Cracker: Kinda cool that there are a couple of conservajournalists at the end giving the Evil One a hard time.
Brachiator
During an IM chat, a friend proposed that Hillary needed a political image makeover:
And here is what her follower’s are proposing (via the Guardian)
Did she twerk when she appeared on Ellen?
sigaba
@Roger Moore:
George III and Victoria were Hanoverian, as they were direct descendants of Electress Sophia of the Palatinate. However, QE2 and her father and grandfather are of the House of Wettin, renamed House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, later renamed House of Windsor, as their common male ancestor is Victoria’s consort, Albert.
(However some would demand to see the long-form certificate of live birth, no doubt. There’s an interesting parallel between birtherism and 18th century royal succession controversies.)
SRW1
I have no Royalist sympathies, but as long as Lisbeth keeps Charles out …
VOR
@kindness: The Queen once took King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for a drive. That’s right, the ruler of a country where women are not allowed to drive being forced to ride in a car driven by a woman.
pamelabrown53
@MomSense:
That pic of the Queen wearing her babushka looks so much like my late maternal grandmother it’s uncanny.
BTW, I think it’s a wonderful idea to knit the Corgis for the wee ones for Christmas. Where did you find that pattern book?
ThresherK (GPad)
@Brachiator: Sounds to me like the NYT came up with “blueprint for spontaneity” to slag Hillary with. Is that the case?
It’d be very much their kind of thing–unrebukeable and impervious to fact-checking, and tailor made for the Fox News graphics dept.
Belafon
Obama can be ruthless in a campaign, and yet appear to be calm.
Peale
@Brachiator: I think this gets filed under “stuff I wonder why it gets leaked”. If people complain she is phony, which bozo decided to leak how they were planning to manipulate her presence. Drives me nuts.
Paul in KY
@NonyNony: I think she could fire them. Would have to be ‘for cause’ though (I think).
Iowa Old Lady
@ThresherK (GPad): Kos reports that the NYT DC bureau chief is being reassigned to NYC. The implication is that it’s connected to the Clinton stories that had to be retracted.
Paul in KY
@Mark B.: I thought a lot of MGB drivers would be waiting on side of road with hood up ;-)
Peale
@NonyNony: Eventually, they will run out of same sex couples who are in need of a licence in the county for a bit. Right now, there is probably a backlog since people have been waiting for marriage to become available. But then we have to wait for new couples to form and want to get married. In a small county, that may take a while. I could see some of the assistant clerks calling up their lesbian friends and begging them to get married to prove to the judge that they are still issuing licenses and not turning anyone away.
srv
It’s the economy stupid:
Librarian
@VOR: During WW2, she was trained as a mechanic. She knows a lot about cars.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Iowa Old Lady: That hack is reassigned to NYC? Hope it’s to their navel-gazing Style section, but I only get so many wishes in life, and I may not want to waste it on this matter.
MomSense
@pamelabrown53:
The patterns are on ravelry but the book is also for sale at knitpicks and amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Knit-Your-Own-Royal-Wedding/dp/1449409245
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
It’s a great picture but I do love the idea of the queen transfiguring into an owl and flying around England at night.
Grumpy Code Monkey
“No, we are not interested in teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts this term…”
Mark B.
@Paul in KY: Nah, they would have the tool kit out and be working on the car. Unlike modern autos, you can fix them yourself when they break down.
Although, when I used my MGB as a daily driver, it was pretty reliable. Not a typical experience, I know.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: I think your friend is onto something. Hillary is a real-life Leslie Knope. She’s earnest and wonkish enough to have a spontaneity strategy. Shouldn’t try to be anything else.
pamelabrown53
@Paul in KY:
I owned an MG midget in the early 80’s. We looked good together: tiny car, tiny woman (5’1″, size 2), however I had difficulty reaching the pedals even with my corduroy cushion. While I didn’t have the privilege of road side break downs or oil leaks, I do remember repairs were extremely expensive.
FlipYrWhig
@ThresherK (GPad):
Sounds like that to me too. This is the “earth tones” part of the campaign, I guess: “she needs coaching! uncomfortable in her own skin! doesn’t know who she is!” IOW, they just opened up the Al Gore 1999 folder and started copy-pasting. Bunch of nauseating smirky imbeciles covering politics at that rag.
MomSense
@pamelabrown53:
It’s also a free pattern and the guardian published the details.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/20/royal-wedding-knitting-pattern-corgi
Mark B.
@pamelabrown53: I’m 6’2″ and people are always surprised when I step out of my MGB. It doesn’t look like a car that small should have that much legroom, but it does.
WaterGirl
Could we please have BOOM, motherfucker! as a rotating tag line?
srv
@Brachiator:
I bet your friend writes Visual Basic or Java code.
Brachiator
@ThresherK (GPad):
Probably not. This could be info leaked from a “friendly source” to see what the reaction might be.
Mike in NC
@Paul in KY: No, you were thinking of Jaguars. When I lived in Newport, RI there was an annual “Parade of Jags”. A friend of mine quipped that the owners should just go to the Cliffwalk and open their wallets so the money could fly out to sea.
Belafon
@srv: You must not know about some of the new Java 8 features.
WJS
She will always be the Hanoverian ursurper to me…
goblue72
@srv: Simpleton Republican Voter has returned.
Ray C. Fair’s Presidential Election Prediction Model is not the rip-roaring success you seem to believe –
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/models-based-on-fundamentals-have-failed-at-predicting-presidential-elections/
Cacti
I’m a small “r” republican and anti-royalist down to my marrow.
But I’ll refrain from being snide, and say for Liz that she has been a steadying national figure for the Brits as the country transitioned into its post-imperial age.
She’s also avoided turning herself or her position into a global punch line during her reign. In Charles, OTOH, I see the death of the monarchy if he ascends to the throne.
Mark B.
@srv: I don’t get that reference. Java and VB are completely different animals. I’m not a huge fan of Java, but it’s a much more advanced and useful language than VB, which is an antiquated abomination.
srv
@Belafon: I’ll ask the people I know who know the people who will be running her IT.
Obama was a Drupal guy, but that’s passe now I think.
RSA
@Punchy:
I don’t have any answers to your questions, but I thought I’d repeat this one. (How helpful, right?)
I’ve only spent a little bit of time Googling and reading about the expectations of a county clerk position, and to me they seem very much like middle managers or in some cases admin assistants, with not very much in the way of decision-making responsibilities. Which is fine. But why should a job like this be an elected position?
Doug R
@kindness: When Saudi King Abdullah died, some recounted when he was taken on a backroads tour of her estate. With her driving of course. He got to white knuckle it while she showed off some of her driving skillz she learned driving ambulances during the war.
J R in WV
Love the owl. They are fascinating birds. We have consistently had a group of Barred Owls living in and near the hollow we live in. I can hoot their standard call, and they will respond, although I doubt they are fooled, just being polite.
When several of them begin hooting the standard call together, they soon expand those calls to include a wide variety of sounds similar to the standard call, but so different as to be like switching to French or German from W Va accented English. I’m sure they are talking and understand each other well, but there seems to be no way to prove that.
The sounds are quite other-worldly in the late evening, with moonlight cutting through the trees and shining on the rocks. They mostly hang just north 200 or 300 yards on the ridge top, where there are very large twisted trees, from severe weather coming across the ridge.
The MG is also interesting, and the dogs. Q E II could have been a perfectly good ordinary person left to her own devices, if monarchy hadn’t called upon her, and the trappings of monarchy been used to smother her as much as possible. She looks quite dependent upon the dogs for comfort in that photo, which is quite normal in the B-J world.
Keith G
Regarding the video featured in the update: Now that is a god damn righteous use of the “bully pulpit”.
Emma
@VOR: She can also strip down a Jeep (WWII vintage) and rebuild the engine. She also acted with James Bond. She has forgotten more about horse racing than most people remember. She’s amazing.
Doug R
@VOR: beat me to the driving story.
SiubhanDuinne
I put this up, late yesterday, on my FB page, but since it’s on-topic here, I’ll repeat it. Do feel free to laugh and point.
King George VI died, and his daughter Elizabeth became Queen, when I was 9-1/2 years old. I remember being very sad that the King had died, but thrilled to my core that a real-life Princess was suddenly, magically, a real-life Queen. I obsessively read about her, collected pictures and articles, put together scrapbooks, and basically embarked on a lifetime of loving Queen Elizabeth, which eventually expanded to a more generalized interest in the history of monarchy and from there to the history of Great Britain/UK/Empire/Commonwealth writ large.
All of this is preface to my sharing a poem (at least what I can remember of it) that I wrote and mailed to the new Queen, probably within days of her accession. It was meant to be sung to the tune of “America the Beautiful” — and no, I didn’t understand irony at that age! The first line is especially poignant now, as HM surpasses HLM in longevity on the throne:
Victoria, Victoria, the longest-reigning Queen,
It makes me wonder just to think of all the things she’s seen.
Victoria, Victoria, she died in 1901,
And so two Royal services were ended and begun.
Elizabeth, Elizabeth, the prettiest Queen of all,
She’s something something umpty tum, petite and very small.
Elizabeth, Elizabeth, she starts her reign today
And something something tra la la and toodle oodle ay.
(I told you I don’t remember all of it. And I remind you, I was very young.)
Congratulations to Queen Elizabeth II on this milestone. Vivat Regina!
gelfling545
@Shana: IANAL either & I have a question for those who are. Is one’s attorney supposed to go about announcing that one plans to violate the court’s order at the first opportunity?
Villago Delenda Est
Dick Cheney is a vile sack of shit who should be kidnapped by someone and hustled to Den Haag for trial.
Germy Shoemangler
1927 News Report: Donald Trump’s Father Arrested in KKK Brawl With Cops
Brachiator
@srv:
You lost that bet.
srv
@Brachiator: Then he’s a libertarian I could work with.
Peale
@Brachiator: LOL. Or it could be a loudmouth who’s interested that reporters from the big newspaper want to be his friend. Or someone who was born yesterday.
J R in WV
@Villago Delenda Est:
.
Yes, and the most excellent video linked shows him lying time after time, blatantly attempting to pass the blame for most that went wrong on his watch to everyone or anyone else standing in the vicinity.
Dick Cheney
Wrong then, Wrong Now!
A slogan to live by, isn’t it ! !
Paul in KY
@Mark B.: Well said.
Doug R
http://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/princess-elizabeth-driving-an-ambulance-during-her-wartime-news-photo/88681164
Paul in KY
@pamelabrown53: Hope you enjoyed the car. Bet it was fun to drive.
Germy Shoemangler
I KNEW Kim Davis looked familiar:
http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/2500/1329/original.jpg
I kept thinking, where have I seen her before?
honus
@kindness: Yeah, I would think she’d have a jag or an Aston. Or at least a Morgan. I’m not much of an admirer of the royals, but i do respect anybody that can keep an MG running.
Paul in KY
@Mike in NC: They could have had Lotuses.
Lots
Of
Trouble,
Usually
Serious
Patricia Kayden
Happy Everlasting Reigning to Queen Elizabeth. My Mum was much more into the Royal Family than I could ever be. She even has scrapbooks of them and speaks of them fondly. Shrugs. They can be interesting at times but President Obama and his family are more of my kind of royalty.
@Villago Delenda Est: So true. Aren’t you a bit surprised that he’s still with us despite his bad heart condition? I am.
Paul in KY
@Cacti: I think having William there will help him get through his reign without being deposed. He can’t rule too awful long, as he’ll probably be 75 when he gets the throne.
mdblanche
@Betty Cracker: Much obliged.
@WJS: These days the king over the water is a German too.
Brachiator
@Germy Shoemangler:
This is where you should have started and stopped.
I don’t like Trump. But there is no reason to dredge up crap on his father and other relatives and then “wonder” whether Trump should be smeared with the same brush. I’m sure that Trump has enough of a record on his own to dig through.
PurpleGirl
@JoyceH: She carries her eyeglasses in the handbag.
Southern Beale
Today in Rifle Jesus we have an actual Jesus Rifle. Totally Muslim-free!
I’ve also just read that Louie Dumbfuck Gohmert says he’ll retire from Congress if the Iran deal passes, waiting out the pending apocalypse in a bunker somewhere. All the more reason to vote for it, IMHO.
PurpleGirl
@kindness: She probably does drive the car herself. Remember during WWII, she worked in a motor pool and was vehicle mechanic.
ETA: She might not have been in an active war zone but she was trained to take care of vehicles, and the Germans did bomb London and other areas.
Emma
There is a royal car collection but that’s more of the “held in trust for the country” sort of thing. She drives Land Rovers; country girl at heart.
Mike J
@Brachiator: It’s not going to hurt him with the Republican base any way.
If he actually makes it to the general election, I may re-calibrate my ick-o-meter as using the sins of the father against him, but until then, why bother?
Brachiator
Go inform the Ministry of Magic that I had to have a nosy muggle photographer sent up to the Tower.
Roger Moore
@kindness:
It wouldn’t be the most surprising thing she’s driven. She drove and serviced trucks for a while during WWII.
SiubhanDuinne
“Bring out your dead!”
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/09/terry-gilliam-dead-monty-python-variety-blunder
Mike J
#queenfacts is trending on Twitter
http://imgur.com/gallery/wLUge
Germy Shoemangler
@Brachiator:
Eric U.
someone mentioned the lack of people that want SSM in Rowan county. I had that question myself, there must be a finite number of such couples. However, Rowan County just issued a marriage certificate for a San Fransisco couple, so apparently this isn’t going away.
Timurid
@pamelabrown53:
It’s a hijab! Study it out…
/still waiting for her birth certificate
Brachiator
@Mike J:
Not really the point. And pointlessly trading in slime might hurt those who try to use it against him.
Brachiator
@Germy Shoemangler:
It raises questions….. Slimy innuendo. A waste of your time.
Haydnseek
@trollhattan: Yeah, with 98% humidity………….
Calouste
@Eric U.: In the Netherlands, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2001, same-sex marriage make up about 2% of all marriages, although it was as high as 6% in the first few months after legislation. I remember reading somewhere else that Rowan county does about 200 marriages per year, so the total number of same-sex marriages in the first year will probably be somewhere between 5 and 10.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Serious above-partisanship truth-hunter Trey Gowdy
I guess there’s some context that might make that sentence slightly, only slightly, less absurd
Carmon’s twitter feed suggests this hearing was by turns interesting and appalling.
Paul in KY
@SiubhanDuinne: Very nice. Scanned well.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: There’s one fact about Trump’s father that is totally relevant to today’s campaign: He left his son a fuck-ton of cash. Trump fashions himself a self-made man. When confronted with the fact that his slum lord father left him millions, he counters that he was shrewd enough to parlay that into a much larger fortune. But the fact is, if Trump had simply invested his inheritance in an index fund, he’d be about as rich as he is right now. His chief qualification is a load of bullshit.
Paul in KY
@Germy Shoemangler: Exactly how old is The Donald?
Paul in KY
@honus: She probably has them. You know Windsor castle probably has an expansive garage.
Mark B.
@Paul in KY: AgeOfDirt + 1
Steeplejack (phone)
First thread in ages where reign is used correctly! I have copy editor’s tears of joy reining down my face.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
I think the only spontaneity strategy she needs is to stop relentlessly planning everything she says or does to the N-th degree. It seems to me that one of the flaws of her previous campaign was that it tried to turn Hillary into the dream candidate, rather than trying to convince people to like her as she was. That meant mapping out her activities in ridiculous detail and killed any chance of spontaneity, and it was ultimately pointless because people already knew who she was and weren’t going to be fooled by a PR blitz. If this is a matter of her campaign deciding to let her go out and be herself rather than trying to be a carefully calculated media construct, it’s a great idea.
Bobby Thomson
@Iowa Old Lady: he’s wrong. She’s being reassigned to the 2016 campaign. It’s really just formalizing something that has already happened.
Germy Shoemangler
@Paul in KY:
Old enough to know better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A3pX_shcyU
realbtl
Re: Fender mirrors on the MGB. I had similar on my ’64 TR-4A (w/IRS) and loved them. They pretty much eliminated the typical side mirror blind spots. Bring ’em back!
Paul in KY
@Mark B.: About that. His dad must have bee fairly young back in 1927. My dad would have been 3.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
I believe the term of art is “extraordinary rendition”, and is one that former VP Cheney knows very well.
mdblanche
@SiubhanDuinne: Gilliam will be dead soon. He’s very ill.
Brachiator
@srv:
She’s not a libertarian.
pamelabrown53
@MomSense:
Thanks so much!
Paul in KY
@Germy Shoemangler: One should never try to place the Beatles in any Trump associated comment. They are too Yuge & classy for the likes of him!
scav
I looked at the owl one and suddenly thought how spot-on the Pythons actually were. (Wonder what’s happening out of frame to the lower right.)
dedc79
Mexican TV Network Uses Donald Trump to Troll US Men’s Soccer Team
Emma
@Roger Moore: The problem is that every time she’s spontaneous she’s clobbered for it, even — ESPECIALLY — if she’s telling the truth.
And I doubt very much if we “know” who Hillary is. She’s a palimpsest — everyone sees what they want.
trollhattan
File under U for “Ugh, is there nothing that Murdoch can’t ruin?”
Looking forward to the NG special, “Whales: Fish-Thieving, Shit-Spewing Bastards of the Seven Seas”
Germy Shoemangler
The post-watergate democratic party has eaten itself
trollhattan
@mdblanche:
Had not heard that. It will be a very sad day.
Roger Moore
@J R in WV:
Wrong today, wrong tomorrow, wrong forever!
Roger Moore
@Emma:
She does own an awful lot of open land, so a vehicle that can go off-road is important.
Humboldtblue
@kindness: She now happily driver a Range Rover on Scottish estates and she doesn’t even have a driver’s license.
She served in WW2 as a truck driver and has always liked to drive, she just doesn’t do it in public anymore.
Iowa Old Lady
@Bobby Thomson: So then if the question is “Is our reporters learning?” the answer is no.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Not being a Trump supporter, I really don’t know that much about him. Did he inherit cash or the family business? I’ve seen him brag about being a huuuge success and a great person, but I haven’t heard him preen about being self-made.
Everything he says indicates to me that he is about as qualified to be president as was Sarah Palin, which means about a negative gazillion in my book. But I am enjoying watching him kick the other GOP pretenders around.
In my political chat with my friend, I noted that Latinos I know despise him with deep fervor, but also noted that he had not been questioned in any detail (as far as I know) about civil rights, black history, or even aspects of his own company and nonwhites. I would find this interesting.
How he got his money. Doesn’t impress me one way or another. What his father did. No interest.
Bobby Thomson
@Germy Shoemangler: it does raise questions that he should be asked, regardless of what pearl clutchers think.
Bobby Thomson
@Brachiator: if Hitler had a son who ran for Chancellor, would it have offended you to ask him if he agreed with his father’s politics?
...now I try to be amused
I need a cigarette after watching that video, and I don’t even smoke. Bonus points for damning Cheney with so much Fox News video.
Bobby Thomson
@trollhattan: ugh, indeed.
mdblanche
@trollhattan: Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to imply he was really very ill. Actually he thinks he’ll go for a walk. He feels happy.
@trollhattan: Now please tell me that is a joke. But it would explain the turning over noise coming from my father’s grave.
trollhattan
@mdblanche:
Yarrr, ya got me! Have atchoo!
srv
Latest bruhaha deflated:
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Have read daddy Trump’s estate included more than 100k housing units. If so, a pretty darn good start on grownup life. The Donald got a LOT of fawning press back in the ’70s when he was supposedly some kind of Wunderkind.
Amir Khalid
@Bobby Thomson:
If Hitler had raised that son himself, it would certainly have been pertinent to ask the son that question in post-WWII West Germany. As it was, I seem to recall that Hitler did father a son during his WWI service, with a French girl. That son fought in the French Resistance before he found out who his biological father was.
Cervantes
Victoria
Edward VII
George V
George VI
Elizabeth II
RaflW
Duck Dynasty is now advising the GOP on foreign policy.
I am not sure David Brooks can find a false equivalency “Democrats do it too!” for this one. But he will try.
Brachiator
@Bobby Thomson:
It’s too early in the day (California Time) for this.
To paraphrase Robert Downey, Jr. “
Origuy
@Peale: I read that the married couples (or their officiant) have to file the license with the county after the ceremony. SInce some of the weddings haven’t taken place yet, that would be the time for her or her son to refuse to accept them.
srv
Even Californians have had enough of Federal oppression – is Jerry going to be put in jail?
Cervantes
That’s the bright side.
On the other hand, the same thirteen-plus-year record shows that he’s been asked the same question over and over — why is this necessary? — and that he’s been getting away with his non-answers — and how is this possible?
Paul in KY
@srv: Just exactly like the regular army. All those classes, and detention & such.
agorabum
I love the “God save the Queen” sentiment followed by Boom, motherfucker!
And second that it would be a great tag…
Brachiator
Speaking of Godwin’s Law (and I did), there is the suggestion of a new corollary, one near and dear to some Balloon Juicers. From Gizmodo:
Godwin’s Law is one of the oldest laws of the internet. Attorney Mike Godwin invented it back in the 1990s, and it goes as follows: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”
And now there’s a new addendum to the law for the social media age. Of course, it involves drone strikes.
A glaring example can be seen today on Vox, in an interview with Jon Ronson, author of a recent book about shaming. In it, Vox interviewer Todd VanDerWerff asks Ronson about Gawker writer Sam Biddle’s now-infamous post containing PR rep Justine Sacco’s racist tweet. Biddle’s story got so big that Sacco briefly became the internet’s most hated person — and then she was fired.
Here’s what Ronson has to say about that:
Oh, OK. So people being d icks on the internet are the same as drone strike operators murdering people in villages. This definitely merits its own subsection to Godwin’s Law, or maybe a whole new law, in which social media commentary has reached rock bottom as soon as somebody brings up drone strikes.
Mike J
@Brachiator:
I would be shocked to see Hilary bring it up. In fact, if Trump wins the nomination, I will loudly, repeatedly, in every venue I can find, tell people that his father being in the KKK is irrelevant and we just should talk about his father being in the KKK. Until he gets the nom, it’s pointless.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@RaflW:
Bear Grylls.
RaflW
@Steeplejack (tablet): That would seem to be falsely equivalent!
Roger Moore
@Cervantes:
And the broader point is that he’s still seen as a person it’s worth talking to about anything. If he’s both wrong about important issues and a liar about his past wrongness, what’s the point in asking him questions? Why is anyone giving a dishonest, incompetent warmonger like Cheney a platform to continue spewing his lies, especially if they know in advance that they’re going to have to contradict him?
goblue72
@srv: I believe the actual translation from the original German should be – “People will start respecting each other – or they’ll be lined up and shot.”
goblue72
@srv: Put the bong down, dude.
Cervantes
@Roger Moore:
Good questions, thanks.
Brachiator
@Mike J:
I wasn’t specifically thinking about Hillary, but in general the Democrats seem to be rightly ignoring this weird but funny in-fighting among Republicans, except for the occasional mocking jab.
trollhattan
@goblue72:
Conversely, think of how he’s be sans bong.
Elizabelle
Andrew Kohut has died. Founding director of the Pew Research Center and pollster about town; used to be on the Snooze Hour pretty regularly.
Aged 73. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
trollhattan
@Mike J:
Tell you what, were a comet to take out the opposition and Cruz get the nom, I’d be bringing up Good Old Dad every two minutes. Just recall, for a moment, how Reverend Wright, Bill Ayres, a dead dad and that Alinsky author were all hung around Obama’s neck in 2008. In reality (not a space dwelt in by Republicans) not one had a significant role in shaping Obama, but they may as well have been standing on his shoulders whispering into his ears, 24/7.
Mike in NC
@Cervantes: I think most of us appreciate the Village attitude towards Dich Cheney. He’s been on the DC scene for decades, so they regard him with a mixture of awe and terror. Someone who’s an expert on every subject, no matter how wrong he gets things. Pity that he isn’t going away anytime soon because when he needs another organ replaced, he can afford to buy a new one with lower mileage.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Too bad. He was a go-to guy on NPR, also, too, around election time. Had a very good ability to turn the numbers into meaningful narrative.
Heliopause
Scene: Movie executive’s office, year is 1980. Screenwriter from the future comes in for a meeting.
Exec: OK, give me your pitch.
Writer: It’s the year 2015. We’re at a rally on the National Mall in Washington. First speaker is a US senator who looks just like Joe McCarthy and says that a second Holocaust is imminent. Next speaker is the polling leader of the Republican party primary, he’s a real estate developer who pledges to build an impenetrable 2000 mile wall on the Mexican border. Next speaker is a professional duck hunter and TV star with a two foot long beard who speaks reverently of the Patriarchs of the Bible. Next speaker is a female former vice presidential candidate who speaks words at a very high frequency that is beyond human hearing. Next…
Exec: Oh, for cryin’ out loud, get out of my office.
Writer: But, but…
Exec: That’s the most ridiculous premise I’ve ever heard! What else are you gonna tell me? A black guy with a Muslim name is President? Go on, get the hell out!
Cervantes
@Mike in NC:
But when you look at the included clip of, say, Megyn Kelly interviewing him, do you not sense at least a modicum of contempt? (On her part; whereas with him it’s a given.)
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator: When one lives in a hereditary oligarchy, the sins of the father do indeed tarnish the children.
Trump’s shitheel father is fair game.
rea
@Roger Moore: She can also handle a motorcycle . . .
Paul in KY
@Heliopause: That is what would happen, if he was timewarped back there. He’d end up in the looney bin.