Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Come on, man.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

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

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

We still have time to mess this up!

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

After roe, women are no longer free.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

We are aware of all internet traditions.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

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

Nothing worth doing is easy.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

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

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Late Night Open Thread: GIF of the Week

Late Night Open Thread: GIF of the Week

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Buzz Aldrin, for the win!

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141Comments

  2. 2.

    eclare

    Well then why in the fuck did he show up to this clown show and give it legitimacy? Everything this POS touches turns to shit, everything. Seriously, what the fuck did he expect?

  4. 4.

    efgoldman

    @eclare:

    why in the fuck did he show up to this clown show and give it legitimacy?

    Every day I ask myself and the four walls the same question about whoever is visiting the WH. Last week it was the tech company chiefs. Before that it was union guys. Citron Shitweasel doesn’t understand a word they say after “good morning.”
    I mean, I know there’s a certain prestige in being invited. There is, after all, only one “president”. But really, fellas and gals? Most of you can buy and sell him and everything he owns multiple times over. Pretty soon he and his whole family are going to be exposed as the small-time criminals they really are. Why do you want that taint upon you?

    ETA: Time for Ben & Jerry’s

  5. 5.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Are they deliberately selecting pictures that make Trump look like he has a learning disability?

  6. 6.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @efgoldman:

    Citron Shitweasel doesn’t understand a word they say after “good morning.”

    That’s because they didn’t say “Merry Christmas”. Silly efgoldman.

    Buzz probably showed up because he was raised that way and was a military officer.

    ETA: Enjoy the Ben & Jerry’s, I’m thinkin’ of having some cheesecake.

  7. 7.

    Adam L Silverman

    @eclare: @efgoldman: @?BillinGlendaleCA: Bill is correct. Aldrin showed up because he’s basically the grand old man of NASA at this point. And despite him making it clear over the years that he’s not taking crap or BS from anyone, he’s also a professional. Regardless of who is President, if your presence is required you show up, attempt to maintain your professional demeanor and bearing, and not make a scene.

  8. 8.

    eclare

    @efgoldman: I feel the same way, really, Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos, you are giving him cover? You are going there to kiss the ring? You do not need him.

  10. 10.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: The only other pictures are of him scowling, which he decided to do after being informed that that was what Churchill did to project leadership.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/us/politics/trump-obama-wiretapping-motivation.html

    As a presidential candidate, he wanted to look dour, and vetoed any campaign imagery that so much as hinted at weakness, aides said. Which is why every self-selected snapshot — down to the squinty-eyed scowl attached to his Twitter account — features a tough-guy sourpuss. “Like Churchill,” is what Mr. Trump would tell staffers when asked what look he was going for.

  11. 11.

    SiubhanDuinne

    It has to be something — but it could be infinity, right? Okay.

    Make this a rotating tag, stat.

  13. 13.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Aldrin showed up because he’s basically the grand old man of NASA at this point.

    But he’s also retired, right? No longer active duty? Or do old living astronauts have some kind of exemption?

  14. 14.

    Mary G

    Buzz is even better in the longer clip I saw on Twitter, where his grimaces get more and more emphatic and the young sycophant behind them keeping nodding like Twitler is saying the smartest things evah.

  19. 19.

    Achrachno

    “The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House. But I’m president, and they’re not,” – D. Trump, today

    He’s still unaware that he’s an idiot and they’re not.

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: I don’t disagree. Including the body posture, hand gestures, and inflection points when speaking. But even if that is the case, what are you going to do if you’re a senior staffer? Say the President is mirroring his mannerisms after Mussolini? Not even this crowd would do that (maybe Miller…). So they went with Churchill.

  23. 23.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?

    Quick question: Could Dick Cheney, under the right circumstances, have become a dictator a la Putin? Did he have the personality/ideological convictions? For a potential story I’m thinking of. Would just like some of your opinions. Was young when he was VP so really don’t know. Also too lazy to research ?

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    @Adam L. Silverman

    More likely is that both Dolt 45 and the staff are mixing up balding, clean shaven, somewhat squat WW2 leaders.

    Churchill: ~5′ 6½”. Mussolini: 5′ 7″.

    “History is hard.”

  26. 26.

    Chet Murthy

    @? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?: Absolutely. I recall he had a grandfather (out walking with his grandson) arrested, for mouthing off at him. And remember he got the guy he shot in the face, to apologize for it.

    And more importantly, look into David Addington (Darth’s consigliere). The fucker was mosdef dictator-enabler material.

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mary G: It has been building slowly since the 1930s. In fact, when the population approached equalization between urban and rural, with urban catching up, Congress, specifically members representing rural districts and states in both chambers that still had an advantage in numbers in the House changed the reapportionment rules. Prior to the mid 1930s whenever the House reapportioned it also increased the number of seats to account for an increase in the citizenry. When it finally looked like the urban citizenry was going to begin to surpass the rural with the next reapportionment, Congress capped the number of seats in the House at 435. Reapportionment would still happen, but no actual increase in representation. If we had reapportionment under the original rules there would be well over 800 members of the House now. And the vast majority would represent diverse, urban areas with the next largest block coming from the suburbs. This is almost never discussed, but it was basically a Federal gerrymander to lock in rural power in the House and it remains in place and in effect to this day. As a result the House is, by Federal law, set up to be almost as unrepresentative as the Senate in order to privilege rural interests over urban ones.

  29. 29.

    Adam L Silverman

    @? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?: As much as I disagree with VP Cheney (or the version of him we got in the 00s as opposed to the version of him that was SecDef in the late 80s/early 90s), I don’t think so. My impression of him is that while he fully believed the President’s powers could rarely be checked in war time in matters of war and foreign affairs, he did not believe that was the case domestically.

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    @Goku

    Was young when he was VP

    He turned 60 just after first becoming veep, was ten days shy of 68 when left office.

    Not decrepit, but not young either.

  31. 31.

    efgoldman

    @NotMax:

    More likely is that both Dolt 45 and the staff are mixing up balding, clean shaven, somewhat squat WW2 leaders.

    Everything Amber Asswipe knows about history would fit on the back of a baseball card, in 16 pt type, with plenty of white space

  32. 32.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: Mussolini was in much better shape than Churchill so it is kind of hard to mix them up. Of course, in Churchill’s defense, round is a shape.

  36. 36.

    ArchTeryx

    @Adam L Silverman: And in a few words, Aldrin showed more wit then the Orange Orangutan showed his entire miserable life.

    Anyone that riffs off his own name and Toy Story is a winner in my book, even if Trump didn’t get the joke. Because of course he wouldn’t.

  37. 37.

    SarahT

    De-lurking to post this Buzz Aldrin video. Love this almost as much as when he punched the moon landing denier: youtu.be

  40. 40.

    Aleta

    @eclare: Pretty sure he’s there to lobby for funding the space program again, despite how he feels about Trump. The people who worked on the manned space program were deeply upset when it was stopped, and some like Aldrin lobbied Washington hard (worked for years) to keep it going and since then to restart it. For the US to not lose the huge investment we’d made in the technology and research and to not lose the technological knowledge itself. Apparently a lot has been lost already.

    Astronauts and NASA people believed shutting down the program was a horrible mistake for the country, and also turning to the Russians to take US astronauts to the space station.

    Some wanted to keep sending people to the moon, but Aldrich has been passionate about research on sending people to Mars. For one reason, the spin off advances in knowledge that come from from the pure research done to work out the problems, and from the experiments and test flights.

    My understanding is that he’s not the obedient type who would show up just for duty. He was deeply invested in the manned space travel and the space program overall. So he’s not giving away his shot I guess.

  43. 43.

    Another Scott

    @Mary G: If true (I haven’t checked the stats), it is indeed unfair.

    But the Senate was never intended to be “fair”, it is designed to represent the States and not the population.

    Of course, we didn’t have the Constitution in 1776, but the total population was around 2.5 M then:

    1. Virginia 447,016
    2. Pennsylvania 240,057
    3. Massachusetts 235,808
    4. Maryland 202,599
    5. North Carolina 197,200
    6. Connecticut 183,881
    7. New York 162,920
    8. South Carolina 124,244
    9. New Jersey 117,431
    10. Rhode Island 58,196
    11. New Hampshire 62,396
    12. Delaware 35,496
    13. Georgia 23,375

    Virginia had roughly 20x the population of Georgia, but the same number of Senators by the time the Constitution was ratified.

    It’s the system we’ve got, and it’s quite unlikely that the Senate is going to be made more democratic (reflecting the will of the population as a whole) any time soon. We have to win seats in spite of those institutional challenges.

    And with climate change, increasing costs for transportation (no more $0.25/gal gas), efficiency demanding that cities get larger and more efficient, the cities in Red states are likely to gain power over their increasingly empty rural areas, so things may not turn out to be as bleak as described. Georgia may turn blue sooner than many expect. States with relatively small populations can share interests with larger states if they both share a concentration of their populations in cities…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  44. 44.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I am very bad at identifying people. Who is the guy behind Trump, and who is the one to his immediate left? Both of them look like they can’t believe a fucking word they’re hearing.

  48. 48.

    SgrAstar

    @Mary G: Not just unfair, a recipe for disaster. Civil war? Secession? Dunno, but the densely populated, successful Blue States are not going to keep tolerating the efforts of the gun-god-racist clingers to dominate national politics. Why should we support them with our taxes? Getting rid of the electoral college and revising Senator selection could save the republic…but. I’m not optimistic.

  49. 49.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?

    @Adam L Silverman: In my story there are special circumstances, of the supernatural kind that give powers to 1% or 5% of the human population in the year 2000. What would you do if you could shoot fire out of your hands? Would you (not directly you) still follow the rules? What about criminals that could do such things?

  50. 50.

    Another Scott

    @Frankensteinbeck: WH.gov

    I’d like to extend a special welcome to an American hero who’ve I’ve known actually for a long time, Buzz Aldrin, who is with us today. (Applause.) Known him a long time. Thank you also to Astronauts Benjamin Drew and David Wolf and former NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz for being with us and for working with us on exactly what we’re doing today. Thank you all very much. We appreciate it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. (Applause.)

    So presumably the other two astronauts are directly behind him.

    We’re also joined by our great Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, who spent the morning negotiating trade deals with South Korea. And as you know, that trade deal is coming due, and it actually came due a couple of weeks ago. And I think we’re going to make a good deal, right?

    SECRETARY ROSS: We’ve made some progress.

    Heck of a job, Wilbur!! The deals are almost done after a morning of negotiating!!!11

    What??

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  51. 51.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Time to watch Manny Pacquiao commit suicide.

    I’m old enough to have seen a young kid in his first pro fight (a six-rounder, I think) on Gillette Cavalcade of Sports on live TV.
    His name then was Cassius Clay.
    Watching the Friday, and later Saturday night fights was one of the few things my dad and i did together. Almost all, including the championships, were on free TV, in glorious, streaky, ghosty black and white.

  52. 52.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?

    @Adam L Silverman: Who needs the First Amendment anyway? The Founders were just a bunch of losers pansy who wore women’s wigs! What did they know!?

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: I watched the weekend fights on broadcast TV with my Dad as a kid in the 70s as he was coming to the end of his career/unfortunately extending his career past when he should have retired. Pacquiao is just trying to set up pressure for a rematch with Mayweather. Because what I want to see is a really past his prime Pacquiao get beaten by a past his prime and boring to watch Mayweather.//

  60. 60.

    efgoldman

    @SgrAstar:

    Getting rid of the electoral college and revising Senator selection could save the republic…but. I’m not optimistic.

    Nor should you be. Look at the requirements for amending the constitution.

  62. 62.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Another Scott:

    So presumably the other two astronauts are directly behind him.

    There was actually one other former astronaut present, Sandy Magnus, whom the president did not acknowledge.

    Sandy Magnus is female.

  67. 67.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Because what I want to see is a really past his prime Pacquiao get beaten by a past his prime and boring to watch Mayweather.

    I’ve never, ever sprung for pay-per-view, and never will. For a while, when the cable company mistakenly gave us HBO and Showtime for free, i watched a few fights. And Wide World of Sports used to put some on Saturday afternoons, before collitch f’bawl got so huge. But boxing has always been such a sewer, and the mishagas so overwhelms the fights themselves, that I just don’t bother.
    I know I have old man syndrome, but really truly the likes of Sugar Ray Robinson, Emil Griffith, Floyd Patterson used to show up on Friday nights fairly regularly. Most of the bozos fighting now couldn’t stay in the ring with those guys for five rounds.

  68. 68.

    Leaving Texas

    @Adam L Silverman:

    A rather deep exchange between Trump and Buzz Aldrin

    Good Lord. You know, Bush W. had ideas. They weren’t good ideas, or nuanced ideas, or artfully expressed ideas. But they were ideas. Trump just repeats words.

  72. 72.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: I’ve never ordered pay per view either. Pacquiao is in trouble. He butted his opponents chin and cut himself over his right eye and was looking for the doctor before he’d restart. Then his opponent caught him moving in with a great right to the solar plexus.

  73. 73.

    Adam L Silverman

    Nothing suspicious about this at all… (emphasis mine!)
    http://lifehacker.com/how-to-treat-a-furry-in-public-1796498476

    Over 7,000 furries are coming to Pittsburgh this weekend for Anthrocon, the annual convention for people who dress like wolves, dragons, and combination wolf-dragons. The convention includes a public parade, which last year featured 2,100 participants. Anthrocon rep John Cole gave the Incline some etiquette tips for interacting with furries. The advice boils down to two rules of thumb: Don’t be invasive, and remember that fursuits are hot as hell.

  74. 74.

    NotMax

    Police ludicrous understatement of the week (emphasis added):

    Tens of thousands of dollars in rings have been stolen across two states. Police said a couple is using a bait and switch scheme at jewelry stores to steal expensive rings.
    [snip]
    Police in two states are trying to find the two serial ring thieves. They said in multiple cases, the couple has tricked jewelry stores into switching expensive rings with cheap, decoy ones.

    “There’s every indication that this was planned,” MSgt. Gary Knight said. Source

    Gee, ya think so, Captain Obvious?

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Can always use ’em as cookie cutters. Or if spacious enough, when making poached eggs. :)

  75. 75.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Then his appointment caught him moving in with a great right to the solar plexus.

    If I were to watch Pacquaio / Maywether, I’d be rooting for both of them to lose – maybe each connect simultaneously like in some old cartoons and both be knocked out.

  76. 76.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:
    “Jewellery” is British spelling, as you’d expect at a website whose URL ends in “.co.uk”. But you knew that, of course.

  77. 77.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    (Would be leery from the get-go, anyway, as to the utility of any fashion accessory advice from a site which misspells the word jewelry.)

    I couldn’t find the “misspelling” you referenced, but I’m guessing it was “jewellery.” That’s the standard British spelling, and from other evidence the site appears to be U.K.-based.

    ETA: Curse you, Amir!

  79. 79.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Anthrocon rep John Cole gave the Incline some etiquette tips for interacting with furries. The advice boils down to two rules of thumb: Don’t be invasive, and remember that fursuits are hot as hell.

    First time I heard of this was on a very early first-season episode of CSI. I thought they made it up for the story.

  83. 83.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?

    @Major Major Major Major: Yeah. That’s the hard part. As much as I follow politics, I’m drawing a blank on who that might be. I suppose the world of my story doesn’t 100% have to resemble ours (ie fictionalized politicians)

  84. 84.

    Peej

    Of course, most of Orange Sterculius’ base believe the moon landing was a hoax.

    Aldrin #FakeAstronaut

  90. 90.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: This sounds like the old confuse the teller/cashier scam. Go in, buy something, and then ask to make change for a 20. Or a 50 at a bank. Start kibbitzing and distract the person making the change. Then inform them they handed you a one instead of a ten by mistake whole holding up the one after you’ve palmed the ten. Then you hand them the one and they hand you the ten. Hit multiple sites a day.

  92. 92.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: Other than I need to go to bed, I’m not sure how opponent became appointment.

    Regardless, the fight just ended. Both survived 12 rounds. Waiting for the scorecards.

  94. 94.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: Regardless of what you thought of CSI, they did do a lot of background research.

    And you’re just going to let the John Cole thing slide?

  95. 95.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?

    @Frankensteinbeck: I hate those stupid “ripped from the headlines” plots on those crime shows. Law and Order: SVU is especially bad about this. Civil rights? What’s that? Back when Stabler was on, he’d often beat the shit out of suspects. It’s supposed to be okay (sometimes even funny) because they’re scumbags who deserve it. Or it’s necessary to RESCUE THE HOSTAGE!!!

  99. 99.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: Aldrin did pretty good. Almost batted a thousand, IMHO. But, he is human. Apparently a very smart human, so, well.. he almost batted a thousand at doing his duty.

  103. 103.

    Amir Khalid

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Manny Pacquiao should just quit boxing once and for all, and stick to being a Congressman. Being a legendary sportsman gets him the votes for his extreme right-wing politics.

  106. 106.

    Karen

    @efgoldman: I remember my Dad and I seeing the Clay Liston fight; we had a deal he took me to a movie I wanted to see and I went with him to see the fight. Don’t even remember movie but do the fight; boy, did Dad get in trouble for taking me to fight.

  108. 108.

    Anne Laurie

    @Adam L Silverman: You ever looked at that fine website HowManyOfMe?

    There are, per its calculations, 3716 people named “John Cole” in the United States (and 24 named “Adam Silverman”. Now you know why Cole uses his middle name in his email.

  109. 109.

    Tom

    @Mary G: Agreed, and not only that, but the 70% will be producing 90%+ of the GDP. There’s going to come a tipping point where the 70% say, in essence, “Fuck this, these stunted haters aren’t the boss of me.”

  111. 111.

    Amir Khalid

    @Anne Laurie:
    According to How Many Of Me,there’s “one or fewer” people in America named Amir Khalid or Amir Khalid Hussain.

    Pout.

  113. 113.

    NotMax

    @Anne Laurie

    Census trivia: Fastest growing segment of the population?

    Age 100 and up.

    Related, from north of the border.

    Salute those 100 years and older — they are the fastest-growing age group in Canada.

    The 2016 census counted 8,230 centenarians, a [jump of] 41.3 per cent over the 2011 figures. Source

  116. 116.

    Anne Laurie

    @Amir Khalid: According to HowMany, there’s 89 people using “Anne + [my last name]” — but only one “Anne Laurie + [last name]”. Which is only kinda-sorta true, because I’ve been mistaken for other people of that name in two separate subcultures over the past thirty years (sf fandom & AKC dog ‘fancy’); all of us named after that same obsolete pop song, but I suspect the others spelled it the way Rabby Burns did.

  118. 118.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Major Major Major Major:
    I always thought Amir Khalid was Obama. I mean, we all know Obama comments on Balloon Juice, but Amir is the only one who fits the description. Intelligent, educated, infinitely patient and polite, thoughtful, and of course a foreign Muslim who has yet to show us his birth certificate.

    EDIT – I won’t deny that Schrodinger’s sophisticated love of the arts and anti-colonialism also put him on the short list, but nobody has patience like Amir.

  120. 120.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    8337 for me. I’m common as dirt.
    Three of the same last names that pop up are film directors. One is an actress. A couple we won’t discuss because they are assholes who anyone on this blog would recognize.

  126. 126.

    Origuy

    My first name is relatively common; my last name is extremely rare. That website says there are 315 people with that name in the US. It says there is “1 or fewer” people with that combination. Well, there’s at least one, the one asking the question. Facebook has two other people with my name, in fact.

  127. 127.

    dance around in your bones

    There are four other people who share my name. I guess ‘dance’ + ‘bones’ isn’t as common as one might think…. as well as ‘around in your’ ….. bones around in your dance? DAIYB?

    Sleep now, bones …..

  128. 128.

    Steeplejack

    @Anne Laurie:

    Wow. That site says there are 121 or fewer people in the country with my surname. I knew it was rare, but now I feel like I should be on the endangered species list or something.

  129. 129.

    glaukopis

    Only one with my irl name combination too. I knew my last name was fairly rare, but not nearly as rare as Steeplejack’s.

  130. 130.

    OGLiberal

    @Steeplejack: If that site is correct, I am the only person with my first name, last name combo in the US. Why did I ever start signing my name with my middle initial?

  131. 131.

    Leem

    The link says there are 1 or Fewer People with my name. I’m starting to worry about my existence. Lucky there are 121 with my last name.

  132. 132.

    Nora

    There’s got to be something wrong with that site. It says there are six people with the combination of my first and last names in America. There are two of us in the small city in which I live. Is it possible there are only four more in the whole country??

  133. 133.

    bystander

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And you’re just going to let the John Cole thing slide?

    I could see Cole cosplaying in a giant Tunch/Steve suit and daring people to grab him. But I don’t have much of an imagination for cosplay.

  134. 134.

    jake the antisoshul soshulist

    @NotMax:
    One person’s role play.
    Schoolgirl or cheerleader
    role play is just about as creepy
    if you think about it. Though may be not as obsessive. Different strokes and consenting adults.

  135. 135.

    Another Scott

    @Anne Laurie: Reminds me of doppelgangers.

    I’m Not a Look-Alike (via BBC Future)

    There are rumors that new phones, etc., are working on using Facial Recognition to replace fingerprints and passwords. FR has been around a long time, but it hasn’t been bullet-proof. It needs to get very, very good to handle situations like that (and people changing hairstyles and all the rest). I don’t think it’s there yet (but haven’t looked carefully).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  136. 136.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Ruckus: At least one more of me. The story:

    I had just joined the defense-contracting divison of a major US corporation a few months before & had been put in charge of 3 contract employees; our desks were cheektojowl in a bullpen in one of the satellite buildings, & we shared a phone extension. From our casual conversations, I was well known to them as a footloose bachelor-about-town.

    One day, feeling fluish (funny, I didn’t look fluish) I called in sick. At some point in the early afternoon the phone rang & Mike picked up:

    This is XYZ School, could I speak with [my first & last name]?

    Sorry, he’s not in today.

    Well, can you tell me how to reach his wife?

    Wife? …Uhh, no.

    It’s very important – his son is sick at school.

    Son… Uhh, sorry. [click]

    Mike turned to the other contractors & said, “Is there something he’s been keeping from us?”

    Next day when I returned, they (with some slight discomfort) told me the story – & I just laughed. Unbeknownst to them my cousin – who’d been with the firm 15 years longer than me & worked in a different building – shares my first & last names. (We were named after the same person – my father.) And he was married, with a son who’d been sick at school the day before. (I think the school eventually tracked his wife down.)

  137. 137.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Uncle Cosmo: And speaking of name’s-the-same, the institution I frequent for medical care is convinced there is at least one other person around with my first & last names: My father. Who died almost 20 years ago. At their institution. I give them my DOB every time I call. (The last time the clerk said, I didn’t think you were born before World War I…) These guys are lucky I let them charge me for treating a hangnail…

  138. 138.

    Seth Owen

    At least most of the furries don’t think they are real wolves or dragons, as opposed to the camo
    -wearing, rifle-toting militia men cosplaying in the woods who imagine they are real soldiers.

  139. 139.

    Ruckus

    @Uncle Cosmo:
    You probably will never see this but here goes.
    When I was 18 I was denied credit, they said I owed way too much for someone 18 and with my income. I went to the credit place and found out that they didn’t look at the SSN that they asked for and used my dad’s debt and my income. They did fix it. Second time was in the navy. I was between ships and part of the time I was the master of arms of the transit barracks at Long Beach. Easy duty, check people in and give them a room, check them out when they leave. It’s somewhat akin to being the captain of a ship, you are in charge no matter your or the other person’s rate. One day a fella comes in to check in, waiting for discharge. Gives me his last name. Same. First name. Same. Middle int. Same. Small world. Third was my dad, a Shriner on his way to Las Vegas on a Shriner debauchery bus trip. Sits down, seat mate says “Hi I’m _____. The Response, “Hi I’m – same. Last names, same. Turns out this guy has a daughter with the same first name as my sister and their son has the same name as me and our middle int are the same. And they live about a mile away.
    ETA and no the navy guy and the kid a mile away were not the same people.

  140. 140.

    Ruckus

    @Uncle Cosmo:
    Here’s something else and along the medical issue.
    At the VA clinic I frequent most there is a guy with my last name and the same last 4 of our SSN, which is the most asked ID. I have to remind people all the time that there are 2 of us.

  141. 141.

    Hurling Dervish

    @Adam L Silverman: Sorry, no. Buzz Aldrin endorsed Trump and was on his space advisory committee. This is what buzz Aldrin wanted to happen to our country. Buzz Aldrin can eat it.

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