Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

The words do not have to be perfect.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

T R E 4 5 O N

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

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Republicans in disarray!

You cannot shame the shameless.

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

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

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Evening Open Thread

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Zooey and Ric are watching the crows in the yard. They are fascinated by them, but frightened, as well they should be. Fortunately, they don’t have to deal directly with them.

I went to a reading of “Copenhagen” last night. It’s about a meeting between Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr in 1941. Heisenberg was Bohr’s student, but by then he was the head of the Nazi nuclear program. Denmark was occupied by the Nazis. Nobody knows what happened in that meeting, but there has been lively speculation. I’ll have more to say about that later.

I’ve got tabs up about Russia’s weakness, how spies turn people, and what might be discussed at a US – North Korean summit.

Also David Roberts on why the New York Times doesn’t hire real conservatives, and the 2002 NIE on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

I think I’ll kick back for the evening. You?

 

 

Reader Interactions

150Comments

  1. 1.

    efgoldman

    Nobody knows what happened in that meeting, but there has been lively speculation.

    Sounds like a play Tom Stoppard might have written.

  4. 4.

    different-church-lady

    I am not succeeding at anything in my life except Balloon Juice.

    I feel that must do something about this.

    I have no idea what.

  5. 5.

    japa21

    Just got back from setting up the precinct for when the polls open tomorrow. Some stuff needs to be done tomorrow morning which is why I have to be at the polling place at 5:00.

    Just over a week ago I was reassigned form one precinct to another. Initially I thought that it was because they didn’t have enough judges because with my addition there are only 4 judges instead of the usual 5. But then I realized the old precinct only had 4 judges including me. Today I found out what is probably the real reason for the change. All three other judges are total novices and have never worked an election before. One of them is a student judge, meaning she is a high school student who gets credit for doing this.

    So basically, I am the babysitter because I have done this three times before. Fortunately it is a primary and not a general.

  7. 7.

    efgoldman

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Michael Frayn.

    I dunno’. On the surface it reminds me of Travesties.

    The play centres on the figure of Henry Carr, an elderly man who reminisces about Zürich in 1917 during the First World War, and his interactions with James Joyce when he was writing Ulysses, Tristan Tzara during the rise of Dada, and Lenin leading up to the Russian Revolution, all of whom were living in Zürich at that time.

  9. 9.

    Another Scott

    @different-church-lady: New front-pager!!

    Me, I’m fighting off a head/throat cold that I hope doesn’t end up in my lungs. Got the first symptoms late Saturday. I hope it’s not the thing that has been going around and takes 6-8 weeks to vanish… (sigh)

    ‘night all.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  10. 10.

    NotMax

    IIRC, that meeting was included a part of the drama mini-series The Heavy Water War. Norwegian program, previously but not currently available on Netflix.

  12. 12.

    Mary G

    I have that exact same phone and my cat is sitting next to it, but there will be no photos since my desk is much messier than yours is. On the good side, my taxes are done!

  13. 13.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    Really looking forward to your observations/speculations on that meeting. It was such a fascinating time in history.

  14. 14.

    JR

    David Roberts on why the New York Times doesn’t hire real conservatives

    The Times op-eds are the Feuillants of the modern political world. Pissing into the wind.

  16. 16.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    The nerve agent poisoning in England was a message to the rest of the world

    The nerve agent attack on former Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter sends a powerful message to the rest of the world: the assassins aren’t playing by the rules.

    […]

    Still, if the Russian government really was responsible, why use a nerve agent that could so easily be traced back to them? “They’ve had plenty of opportunities to kill Skripal,” says Michael Kofman, an expert on Russian military affairs at the nonprofit research organization CNA. “And there are, frankly, a myriad of much simpler and more practical ways of doing it.”

    But using chemical weapons is about more than just killing. These taboo weapons are instruments of terror, and their use is designed to send a message to the world: that the power behind the attack — Russia, according to the UK — doesn’t think anyone else is ruthless enough to retaliate effectively. And to others who might consider betraying Russia to foreign powers, it’s that snitches get more than stitches — they get murdered.

    The other possibility is that these attacks are intended to send a message — and that message is clear, Vestergaard says: “It’s a ‘fuck you!’” Using Novichok as a calling card could be a way of saying that Russia doesn’t care about looking guilty because whatever retaliation the UK and the West might muster isn’t frightening enough. After all, an in-kind response is off the table, says Michael Kimmage, a professor at The Catholic University of America and expert in Russian foreign affairs. “I don’t think anybody is going to propose that we send James Bond over to kill somebody,” he says.

    If only one side is willing to be ruthless, it changes the rules of the game. This “etiquette of espionage,” for example, held that former spies were off limits for assassination attempts, according to a Moscow Times op-ed by Mark Galeotti, a senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations, Prague. And there’s an international treaty against using chemical weapons, so using them for assassination attempts on foreign soil are beyond the pale. “They do things like this intentionally to show that they in no way will be limited by what are considered to be established rules and norms of behavior,” Kofman says.

    There’s more at the link. The increasing use of chemical weapons by regimes is also discussed.

  17. 17.

    FlyingToaster

    I’m bracing myself for the four-easter coming Wednesday. Heavy, wet snow, massive power outages, and I seriously do not need another nor’easter, nor does WarriorGirl need another day off of school.

    The only saving grace is that it was ‘way fucking worse 3 years ago. But that year the phone pole didn’t break and land on my porch. It probably couldn’t have fallen, since IIRC there was a 7 foot plow wall around the pole. And around the neighbor’s tree, and lining every street in Watertown.

    Tomorrow the contractor comes to look at the mess of my front steps. I can’t imagine he’ll have a chance to start the demo/replacement before April, by which point it should stop with the arctic oscillation that’s driving this nor’easter-break-nor’easter cycle.

  19. 19.

    opiejeanne

    So, that pie I assembled during the podcast? I turned the temperature up to 425 for 15 minutes after 50 minutes at 375, and I must have hit the broil button instead of bake. It’s fine, just has a bit of burned top crust but these are the errors that make me think it’s not long before the kids pick out my assisted living place, and possibly I deserve it.

    I’m calling my eye doctor tomorrow. I really can’t see with these glasses.

  20. 20.

    donnah

    I am just home from teaching a rug hooking workshop in Sebastopol, CA. It was a good group. My 60th birthday was yesterday and they graciously gave me a yummy chocolate cake to celebrate. It’s hard to celebrate a birthday away from my family, but we’ll do a belated party this week sometime.

    Being away from blogs and updates was good for me, but I knew there would be a festival of Trump crap waiting for me to process. Now that I’m back home, I have to prep for another workshop in two weeks, but I want to work on the Winnie the Pooh rug, too! Time’s flying!

  23. 23.

    efgoldman

    @FlyingToaster:

    I seriously do not need another nor’easter, nor does WarriorGirl need another day off of school.

    Nor do we, in the Blackstone Valley. Enough of this shit.
    Was it just three years ago the snow was up to the gutters?

  24. 24.

    different-church-lady

    @efgoldman: Mr. Goldman, with your background in Boston-area radio I think you may be one of the only people who can answer this question I have, which will be a melancoly inquiry.

    I’m a huge fan of Harvard’s WHRB. I don’t care for opera, but I loved listening to David Elliot’s programs — I found his voice so lovely. I didn’t even care about the music so much, I just enjoyed listening to him describe the language of the arias. He is one of those announcers that made me love a genre I previously had no interest in. (Mae Cramer was another one.)

    But about two months ago it seemed like Elliot was suddenly struggling badly to speak — so badly that at first I wasn’t even sure it was the same person. It seems for all the world as though he is recovering from a stroke. Yet my internet research reveals no information about this at all.

    Do you have any knowledge? It’s so depressing for me. I’m very glad he is still working and doing his program, but I can’t bring myself to listen any longer — I love wonderful voices so, and it hurts to hear his taken from us.

  26. 26.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    Who was the worst empire? Was talking about this on LGM and Twitter, and what we came up with was: Belgium was the absolute worst. After that, America and Spain juuust edge out Russia out in the cruelty department, with Portugal ranking about Belgium’s level in fucking up their colonies. Italy and the Ottomans stand out as the least competent; the Mongols and Arabic Empire were judged to be too far back for a comparative judgment. The Han Empire isn’t really one thing.

    Thoughts?

  27. 27.

    NotMax

    @efgoldman

    Acted in a production of Stoppard’s Jumpers forty-mumble mumble years ago. Strange play; no two evenings were quite alike, the invisible energy flowing from the audience shaped the tone and emphasis more than is usually the case.

  30. 30.

    efgoldman

    @different-church-lady:

    Do you have any knowledge?

    I have no knowledge whatsoever, Can’t get WHRB down here – Brown’s WBRU is on the same frequency.
    However I DO know that David is at least a few years older than i am, and I’ll be 73 and had a stroke in ’11. The googler is no immediate help. Elliot is one of the rare alumni (“ghosts”) who are allowed on the air even though they long since ceased being students.

  32. 32.

    FlyingToaster

    @efgoldman: Yep. 2015, 110.6″. At this point (March 19, 2015) we’d already had about 100″. I don’t think RI had it any better.

    We lost 8 days of school that year, and our Feb. Break flight to Florida was cancelled (the 2 feet of snow at Logan put the kibosh on flying).

    We’ve already lost 5 days this year; the π Assembly was postponed to March 30 (because we lost the 14th and 15th so none of the work was done to prep for the Friday assembly); we’re probably going to lose the last violin lesson before Book 3 graduation unless I figure out how to Skype.

    All this, and shovelling too.

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    I was out all – all – day with meetings and what not. But tomorrow I’m back in the office and hope to have at least one of the following two thoughts up in an OT thread:

    1) I did figure out how to break through to Trumpistas (this is obviously anecdote and not data, but still!)

    2) There is a scenario where Trumpov, obviously with no noble motives, actions, or even a plan, actively helps us break both Putin and the GOP. And I don’t mean this November either. Not likely but non-zero, either.

  34. 34.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @FlyingToaster: When I lived in CT (my middle school years were spent in Newtown), I hated the fact that snow days extended the school year into late June. Never happened in IL or WI.

  35. 35.

    Major Major Major Major

    Cat butt!

    I’m moving ever forward in my beta draft, in the thick of a climactic scene now. But I’ve done my writing for the day, and my work of course, so I’m trying to decide between reading the new Stross, playing video games, and watching The Strain.

  36. 36.

    satby

    @japa21: in Chicago the primary is the general for all practical purposes. I just texted my kids to remember to vote tomorrow to throw Lipinski out and for Marie Newman. If she wins the primary she’ll win in November.

  37. 37.

    SFAW

    @efgoldman:

    The play centres on the figure of Henry Carr, an elderly man who reminisces about Zürich in 1917 during the First World War, and his interactions with James Joyce when he was writing Ulysses, Tristan Tzara during the rise of Dada, and Lenin leading up to the Russian Revolution, all of whom were living in Zürich at that time.

    And, at some point, does the narrator ask one of them “Coventry City last won the English Football Cup in what year?“

  41. 41.

    NotMax

    Abode smells yummy. Just pulled a loaf of pizza bread from the super duper bread machine. Pepperoni, mozzarella, garlic, onion, mushrooms, oregano and basil incorporated into a lightly tomato-tinged dough (used some powdered tomato bouillon).

    @Omnes Omnibus

    Sam at the cat on a hot tin roof, “Just by staying on it, I guess.”

    :)

  43. 43.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    It’s so odd to look at your cats–they have the same coloring as mine, but the spots are in different places and it takes me a moment to realize that something is wrong.

  44. 44.

    different-church-lady

    @efgoldman: WHRB’s on-line stream is well worth checking out. I am a hardcore devote of “Hillbilly at Harvard” on Saturday mornings, despite that I otherwise HATE country music! The jazz program on the weekday mornings is sometimes the only thing that saves my mood. And then there’s “Orgy” season, where they choose an artist and play everything that person ever did, in cronological order.

  45. 45.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): By what measure?
    If we tally the number of dead and the $$ looted, British probably beat everyone hands down.

    ETA: Its a gift that keeps on giving, visit almost any trouble spot in the world, you will find that the poisonous tree is still bearing fruit. The Middle-east just being one of the many examples.

  47. 47.

    FlyingToaster

    @Omnes Omnibus: The public schools will be extended. WarriorGirl goes to private school, which won’t. We already got out a week before the local kids; it’s likely to be two weeks, now. In 2015, we got out on June 12th; everyone else got out on June 30th.

    This year, she starts camp on June 25th; I wonder how decimated the camp population will be.

  48. 48.

    Shell

    I hope it’s not the thing that has been going around and takes 6-8 weeks to vanish… (sigh)

    Don’t they all?

  50. 50.

    NotMax

    @Amir Khalid

    Thing I learned (or had forgotten and re-learned) recently – Latvia ascribed at one point to become a world power by setting up colonies in the Caribbean.

  55. 55.

    Gin & Tonic

    I made maple-chile-glazed sweet potatoes in the Instant Pot from Melissa Clark’s recipe. Outstanding.

    Now I’m having a bowl of chocolate ice cream.

  56. 56.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    @Omnes Omnibus: The British empire was the subject of the original tweet, and its stewardship of the subcontinent was discussed at length in the Twitter thread. Certainly it has the greatest cultural impact of the empires – and probably stands out for “most damage done by those independent of the State” (East India Tea Company) – and it’s the scope that stands out about the empire more than unique mishandling or cruelty.
    @Amir Khalid: “No Empire is best; it’s just that some stand out as the worst.”

  57. 57.

    SFAW

    @different-church-lady:

    And then there’s “Orgy” season, where they choose an artist and play everything that person ever did, in cronological order.

    I think the first HRB Orgy I ever listened to was on/for/about Clifford Brown, 35 or 40 years ago. Actually, it may have been the only one I’ve ever listened to, but only because I’m lazy, not because I dislike them. I imagine I have to wait two months for the next round of them, (unjustifiably) assuming I’ll be less lazy this year.

  59. 59.

    different-church-lady

    @SFAW: It seems to be a springtime thing, round about commencement. I got hooked on early Dr. John because of an Orgy.

  60. 60.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Michael S. Schmidt
    ‏ @nytmike
    6m6 minutes ago

    Dowd wants to quit. Trump’s talking about firing Cobb. Another lawyer — who says FBI made up evidence against Trump — was hired today and more new lawyers may be on the way.

    42 replies 126 retweets 170 likes

    So much winning.

  62. 62.

    Gin & Tonic

    @SFAW: I recall Columbia’s WCRB doing them back when I lived in the Big Apple. I still have cassette tapes somewhere in the basement from when they did Eric Dolphy.

  65. 65.

    Major Major Major Major

    @SFAW: there’s a station in the bay area that plays (or did for a long time) every Rush song in alphabetical order, in chunks for several hours every day, each year. ”Rush: from A to YYZ” they call(ed) it.

  67. 67.

    SFAW

    @different-church-lady:

    It seems to be a springtime thing, round about commencement.

    I believe they are timed to coincide with their pre-Finals study break — I think The University That Shall Not Be Mentioned calls it something like “Reading Period” — for each semester. At least, that was how it used to be. Since I do not speak of That Place, I do not know whether that is still the case.

    e to the u, du/dx, baby!

  68. 68.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Joe Fucking DiGenova. Our TV oaf president has a TV oaf lawyer. Like Kellyanne Conway, somebody who used to be a regular guest of Geraldo back during the Great Clenis Hunt and will now be a regular presence in the White House. I wonder if he’ll bring his prop cigar to the briefing room.

  69. 69.

    SFAW

    @Major Major Major Major:

    there’s a station in the bay area that plays (or did for a long time) every Rush song in alphabetical order, in chunks for several hours every day, each year. ”Rush: from A to YYZ” they call(ed) it.

    I thought the Geneva Convention outlawed torture.

  72. 72.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SFAW: who perfected the sneering smirk. I seem to recall their, or her, kid got hired by the Sessions DOJ

  73. 73.

    NotMax

    @Amir Khalid

    Realize you are joshing, but here’s some info.

    @satby

    No adjustment. Played with the ingredient ratios from a recipe had found in order to make a bigger, taller loaf. It’s a teensy bit on the squishy side straight out of the machine but expect it to firm up nicely while resting on the cooling rack, covered with a towel. May up the amount of flour a smidgen next time.

  74. 74.

    Mary G

    Adam Schiff is a mensch. I read the transcript of the podcast he did with Politico, and as usual they want to talk about “Democrats in disarray,” but he wouldn’t have it:

    You’re now even talked about as a potential successor to Nancy Pelosi, should the Democrats win the House. Would you consider running for speaker?

    Schiff: Well, I’m for Nancy. I think she’s the most talented person we have in the caucus and I don’t think there is even a close second. So, my hope is that she stays and is our speaker if we take back the majority. What people don’t realize, I think, is a couple of things. First, whoever has that job in the post-Newt Gingrich era is going to be shredded, going to be torn apart. And you won’t recognize them after a certain of time.

    And the second thing is, we are a very difficult caucus to keep together. We’re a very diverse caucus. Unlike the Republican Conference, we are very diverse, and you really need someone with the kind of skill set that she has to keep us together, and she does an extraordinary job of it.

    The contrast between that and the kind of word salad that Twitler, Nunes, and most Republicans spew is shocking. I loved the shade about the diverse caucus.

    ETA: Oops, forgot the link.

  75. 75.

    SFAW

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    who perfected the sneering smirk. I seem to recall their, or her, kid got hired by the Sessions DOJ

    Don’t know about any of that. I just know that she and her husband are festering boils on the body politic.

  76. 76.

    Bill Arnold

    Zooey and Ric are watching the crows in the yard. They are fascinated by them, but frightened, as well they should be.

    (a) Do the crows know that they are being watched? (b) if not, is the window cracked so that Zooey and Ric can hear the crows chatter?

  77. 77.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SFAW: My alma mater had a reading period prior to each exam week. OTOH, we also had the weird Oxbridge three term system.

  80. 80.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    My alma mater had a reading period prior to each exam week. OTOH, we also had the weird Oxbridge three term system.

    I don’t think that the MOTU what go to Hahvahd would deign to acknowledge that Lawrence exists. (It was Lawrence, right? I’m lucky if I can remember my kids’ names these days.)

  82. 82.

    different-church-lady

    Sorry folks, would love to continue to hang here, but there’s Facebook themed post upstairs, requiring a torrent of stringently-stated opinions…

  83. 83.

    Ruckus

    @SFAW:
    You don’t have to tune it in.
    Of course I’d bet the moron at work would do that. 8 hrs of rush. Now that’s a deal breaker.

  85. 85.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    This “argument” over “which empire was the worstest?” is kind of like an argument over which of Shitgibbon’s appointees is the worst. Meaning, they all, or almost all, suck bigly, so how important is it to rate them?

  86. 86.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Despite being the son of a billionaire, Donald Trump Jr. reportedly was stingy with his wife Vanessa Trump — to the point where she had to ask her parents for money.

    Page Six reported Monday that according to friends, Trump Jr.’s soon-to-be ex-wife is divorcing him because he “treats her like a second-class citizen,” and kept her on a much “tighter budget” than one would expect.

    “He gives her very little help and has been keeping her on a tight budget,” a source close to the divorce told Page Six. “She doesn’t live a lavish life and can very rarely pick up a check at dinner.”

    It’s almost as if Drumpf isn’t really rich.

  87. 87.

    SFAW

    @Ruckus:

    8 hrs of rush. Now that’s a deal breaker.

    More like eight minutes.

    NB: For Rush fans: I’m kidding. Outside of their idiotic glibertarian politics, I have no big problem with them.

  88. 88.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Jealous Corey Lewandowski leaked info about Rob Porter’s abuse because he wasn’t over Hope Hicks: report

    Run the government like a business.

  89. 89.

    efgoldman

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I recall Columbia’s WCRB doing them back when I lived in the Big Apple.

    Wrong call letters. ‘CRB was Charles River Broadcasting in Waltham (long since sold and ruined). I did overnites there for 15 years.

  90. 90.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I made maple-chile-glazed sweet potatoes in the Instant Pot from Melissa Clark’s recipe. Outstanding.

    Should preface by acknowledging that you are not a fan of how I communicate nor how I confront opposition to same. I quite realize that. No worries if you are disinclined to reply.

    But … saw your comment ’bout the InstaPot and was curious. Hadda buddy who does a lotta longlining for black cod n halibut in the central Gulf n is got lotsa pieholes to stuff, n he *lurves* his InstaPot. I gots me a rice cooker, which I reckoned, perhaps ignorantly, was ’bout the same. So, question I gots should you choose to answer it:

    Is the InstaPot a distinction w/a differnce over a rice cooker? Izzit the shit? Do it do more’n a rice-cooker?

    Atta hunnerd bucks, it ain’t like to break the bank, but allus been dodgy ’bout spendin’ unnecessary.

  91. 91.

    Lahke

    @different-church-lady: Was wondering the same thing and having the same reaction. I feel so sorry for him, though, and worry that the station would ditch the Opera program without him.
    As for my evening’s occupation, I’m broiling lime/garlic/chipotle/adobo chicken, and it’s the best.

  92. 92.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Two LU presidents have gone on to be Harvard presidents.

    Hahvahd administrators and Hahvahd student/MOTU are (in my highly-jaded opinion) two different classes of people.

  93. 93.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Dowd wants to quit. Trump’s talking about firing Cobb.

    Kinda surprised Dowd is rumored to want to quit. He seems the much more trumpian character. Isn’t he the one who lied about tweeting out a very obstruction-y message under trump’s name? Cobb, the moustaches notwithstanding, seems rumored to be the more serious lawyer. So it would make sense if trump does want to fire him

  95. 95.

    different-church-lady

    @Lahke: Didn’t it seem like it happened so suddenly? I wonder if they were doing re-broadcasts for a bit until he got back up to enough speed to resume.

  96. 96.

    Yarrow

    @Cheryl Rofer: I saw a production of “Copenhagen” last year or the year before. It was really engaging. There was a lot in it–history, psychology, physics, morality, personal relationships. Enjoyed it a lot.

  97. 97.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    @Omnes Omnibus: Britain was assumed as the baseline for shitty empires (and at any rate its main superlative is in scope). Completely forgot about France, which would rank as worse than the English, but not as cruel as Belgium and reaching up to the Spanish and Americans. (Neither being especially inept among the empires).
    @SFAW: Yes

  100. 100.

    Calouste

    @schrodingers_cat: I think the Mongols outdid the British in number of dead, at least as a percentage of the world population. About 35 million dead in the 13th and 14th centuries.

  102. 102.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    @Omnes Omnibus: Should also add that Spain introduced both the beginnings of Amerindian genocide and cemented racialized, intergenerational slavery. America – acting independently of the Crown – refined genocide into a template replicated in (among other places) Namibia and the Holocaust, as well as being at least as responsible as Spain for Latin America’s many current ills, to say nothing of military misadventures.

  105. 105.

    Calouste

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I’m fairly sure that Vanessa’s play for an uncontested divorce was “I’ll take half of what you say you are worth, because you and your dad surely don’t want the world to find out how little you are actually worth.”

  109. 109.

    J R in WV

    @poleaxedbyboatwork:

    InstaPot is an automated pressure cooker, among other tricks, so nothing like a rice cooker I think. I don’t have a rice cooker, as I can boil water OK without help.

    ;-)

  110. 110.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    We can hear the crows somewhat with the windows closed.

    Well, now. Crows are much like mockingbirds; their capacity for vocalization and mimickry seems infinite; ravens, which we are muchly blessed with here in southeast AK, even more so.

    Solitary bald eagles is gotta watch they ass when a murder a crows abounds. N a big raven just about reaches my 5’10” hip. (Ravens n crows both make the most extraordinary original sounds, quite apart from their impressive imitative talents.)

    Eagles is glory hounds n bullies (kinda like the bluejays of the avian world), but ravens is inneresting and enigmatic and mysterious. N smart as fuck.

    imo

  116. 116.

    Fair Economist

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    Dowd wants to quit. Trump’s talking about firing Cobb. Another lawyer — who says FBI made up evidence against Trump — was hired today and more new lawyers may be on the way.

    I’m starting to think Trump’s lawyers are conmen too.

  117. 117.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Fuck off.

    He should probably just have a “canned” comment on the order of “hey, look how cutesy I can rite stuff! It’s like I’m a combination of James Joyce, Jack Kerouac, William Gibson, and Phil Farmer. Ain’t I something?”

    Plus: added umbrage when other commenters do anything other than applaud his “song stylings” loudly (figuratively speaking).

  119. 119.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    @J R in WV:

    InstaPot is an automated pressure cooker, among other tricks, so nothing like a rice cooker I think. I don’t have a rice cooker, as I can boil water OK without help.

    Thanks for input.

    In my meager defense, what cooking I do is largely onna Adriatic Dickinson diesel stove, so boiling water is certainly doable, but I have found that the gift of 120v electric often delivers better (n more consistent) results. Toward that end, have found the rice cooker to be a godsend, as it not only delivers perfectly cooked white or brown rice w/o fucking up the pot w/a sticky mess, but it also affords plenty a opps to simultaneously steam (e.g.) asparagus n garlic cloves n carrots n broccoli n mushrooms n onions n parsnips n etc. I likes me veggies. Mostly was wondrin’ what n how a InstaPot holds over onna rice cooker.

    fwiw

  121. 121.

    different-church-lady

    @Omnes Omnibus: Mendoza line = under .200 hitting percentage — a theoretical “line” under which it doesn’t matter how good a fielder you are, your hitting is just too poor to stay on the major-league roster.

  123. 123.

    Fair Economist

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    About 35 million dead in the 13th and 14th centuries.

    Is that even reasonable?

    Yes The Mongols utterly wiped out many large cities, such as Nishapur.

  124. 124.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Adding to DCL’s explanation: Mario Mendoza was reputed to have the lowest lifetime batting average of any regular major league player. [“Regular” in this case means someone who actually played a few seasons.] I do not actually know whether Mendoza’s career BA WAS the lowest, but the term “Mendoza Line” has become ubiquitous.

    Outside of Wisconsin, that is.

    ETA: Minor point: although DCL’s point about sub-.200 is where the Mendoza Line falls, Mario Mendoza’s lifetime BA was actually .215. (I had to look it up — I thought it was .217)

  125. 125.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    @SFAW:

    Not even going to bother copy’n’pasting your ninny reactions.

    Your reactions, both of you, say a lot more about you than they do about me.

    (Apparently, w/o provocation, neither of you can help yourselves from reacting inna deranged ridiculous manner. This is unfortunate, for both of you. Perhaps one day you will find a cure.)

  126. 126.

    Rabble Arouser

    @poleaxedbyboatwork: You can cook rice in an Instant Pot just fine, as there’s a rice preset for white and aanual setting for brown, but you can also sauté, cook beans soaked or dry, make soups, make chili, hard boil eggs, whatever you want. I used the manual pressure setting to make my corned beef in about two hours. Came out about perfect, easy, peasy, lemon squeezy.

  128. 128.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    @Omnes Omnibus: OK then: In the wake of decolonization, France’s former properties generally went on to become clear-cut autocracies. At the end of the 2010s, its states can be split into a few reasonably healthy states (Tunisia, Senegal, most of its island states, possibly Jordan); states that are stable but authoritarian (Congo-Brazzaville, Togo, Gabon, Morocco, Cameroon and Algeria); and the rest poor and almost universally unstable (excepting Benin and Guinea). This track record puts them at about on par with American and Spanish imperial actions as one of the worst in terms of administration and post-colonial health, and the original list was entirely in error by neglecting it.

    Is this a sufficient response?

  129. 129.

    SFAW

    @poleaxedbyboatwork:

    Delete your self, child.

    Or get over yourself. I want to read gibberish like yours, I’ll read the fucking Cracker Barrel menu. At least it has a point.

    Oh, and you might get a dictionary, dimwit, to help you learn the meaning of the word “deranged.”

    ETA: And before I forget: I wasn’t talking to you in the first place. You want to intrude on an exchange between me and Omnes? Too fucking bad.

  130. 130.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    @Rabble Arouser:

    Thanks for this. My suspicion, which I had hoped to confirm, and which I think you have, is that the InstaPot is a rice-cooker+, i.e. you can knock out alla what you can (which is considerable) with a rice cooker with a InstaPot but even more.

    It’s why I wanted to know if it’s worth sinking another hunnerd bucks into the proposition. I gots sumpin I’ma happy with but there’s a good chance I’ll be more delighted with more.

    It’s even more versatile, sounds like, which is what I’s try’nta determine.

    Thank you.

  133. 133.

    poleaxedbyboatwork

    @SFAW:

    Apart from your gratuitous insults, it’s inneresting that you cannot help yourself from replying (despite pointedly not being addressed), can you? (Which is the epitome of lame and pathetic.) And in spite of the fact that you embarrass yourself each time you do. This is unfortunate for you, but apparently it’sa ongoing condition.

    You like to pretend that I make no sense or am in some way incomprehensible, when in fact, if you read what I write w/o being a dick, it’s purty transparently clear what I mean.

    But you like to pretend that ain’t so.

    You keep right on fucking that chicken. Maybe one day you’ll even find a unicorn.

    (Sweet Jesu, you are pathetic.)

    Have you considered ignoring my posts? No. Of course not. That’d require you to not attempt (and fail!) to self-aggrandize yourself.

    I sorta feel sorry for your condition.

  136. 136.

    SFAW

    @poleaxedbyboatwork:

    Oh, quit whining, you half-wit. You waste more pixels than Shitgibbon does, puffing up your own inadequacies, and pretending they’re someone else’s.

    But thanks for your concern, CBB.

  141. 141.

    mike in dc

    @Fair Economist: Cohen was never going to be on Trump’s defense team for this. Kasowitz lasted only weeks. Dowd feels Trump is uncontrollable by his attorneys; Cobb isn’t being listened to; Sekulow is incompetent to handle anything but PR; DiGenova is, frankly, mostly a hack; I wonder if Dershowitz is under consideration(though his friends should have already warned him he’d be setting what’s left of his rep on fire).
    Trump needs much higher caliber attorneys to handle what’s coming. It sounds more like he’s downgrading his representation in order to hire hacks and yes-men. Good.

  142. 142.

    opiejeanne

    @chopper: You are too kind.
    I swear, I peered at that set of buttons and thought I pushed “bake” but after making bbq ribs in the same oven an hour later it is apparent that I must have made the mistake because it turned out perfect ribs as well as some perfect Red Lobster cheesy biscuits from their mix package.
    When I set the oven for both of those I took off my damned glasses so that I could see well enough to hit the right button. I was using the reading part of my bifocals when I set the pie temperature, but if I take them off and get up close I can read it perfectly. (The buttons aren’t raised mechanical things, nor are they a different color than the rest of the oven front. They are little touch-pads, gray lettering against a black background, outlined in gray. I am having issues with cataracts but they aren’t ready yet to be removed. Can’t handle a 3D movie unless I sit to the left of the center of the theater because the left side quarter of the screen is mostly a confusing jumble of light and color, or blank like being in a heavy fog.

  143. 143.

    SFAW

    @opiejeanne:

    I’m glad DCL pointed out that number, because I was (mistakenly, as I think I noted) thinking it was his actual batting average.

    I guess it’s a good thing that his BA was not an irrational number. (Not serious, just dragging in the “pi” discussion from the other day.)

  144. 144.

    SFAW

    @opiejeanne:

    Can’t handle a 3D movie unless I sit to the left of the center of the theater because the left side quarter of the screen is mostly a confusing jumble of light and color, or blank like being in a heavy fog.

    Well, according to the RWNJs, there’s nothing but evil (more or less) on the left side anyway.

  145. 145.

    different-church-lady

    @SFAW: I don’t think anyone could possibly stay in the majors long enough to achive a .004 average.

  146. 146.

    SFAW

    @different-church-lady:

    I don’t think anyone could possibly stay in the majors long enough to achive a .004 average.

    Bartolo “Home Run King” Colon, maybe?

    ETA: And 1-for-237 is .422, by the way. Well, if you knock off the first two decimal places, that is.

  147. 147.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @poleaxedbyboatwork:
    I’ve read your stupid comments before and was hoping I would get to be in the same thread as you some day to tell you how much of an idiot you are. Your writing sucks. Sorry, it’s the truth. Look up purple prose and compare your writing.

  148. 148.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @NotMax:

    Thing I learned (or had forgotten and re-learned) recently – Latvia ascribed at one point to become a world power by setting up colonies in the Caribbean.

    Why not? Denmark had one.

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