Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

In after Baud. Damn.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

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

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Morning Open Thread: Laugh or Cringe

Monday Morning Open Thread: Laugh or Cringe

by | 189 Comments

This post is in: 

I will admit, David Axelrod made my morning, so I had to share before I dashed off to begin my week.

If you need some good twitter thoughts today, I suggest you follow the amazing young activists from Parkland. They continue to inspire.  @davidhogg111, @Emma4Change, @JaclynCorin to name just a few. 

What’s everyone up to on the first day of the work week?

Open thread

Reader Interactions

189Comments

  1. 1.

    Jeffro

    Speaking of “laugh or cringe”…I saw in various places that the ‘flat-earther’ who built himself a rocket to prove, well, that the earth is flat managed to launch himself a half mile into the air, then make it back to earth safely. How this proves he’s right, I’ll never know. But clearly Darwin needs to tweak his theory a bit…

  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    John Kelly should hire Stormy Daniels to administer the spankings to Trump’s Presidential behind.

  5. 5.

    Roger Moore

    @Jeffro:

    saw in various places that the ‘flat-earther’ who built himself a rocket to prove, well, that the earth is flat managed to launch himself a half mile into the air, then make it back to earth safely. How this proves he’s right, I’ll never know.

    As I understand it, this is just the first part. He wants to be able to launch himself to the edge of space so he’ll be high enough to see the curvature of the Earth. He expects not to see any, thus proving the Earth is flat. Basically, he thinks everyone else who’s gone that high is part of the conspiracy, so it’s necessary to have a Flat Earther in a rocket designed by Flat Earthers to do it.

  9. 9.

    eric

    @Roger Moore: I am not a rocket scientist, but to prove the presence or absence of the earth;s curvature, all you need is a really tall building and a telescope. The point at which the top of the building disappears (if it does) will tell you the curvature of the earth. Maybe just use a helicopter flying over a field in Nebraska.

  10. 10.

    Amir Khalid

    @Jeffro:
    800 meters (half a mile, in American money) isn’t very high at all. Airliners cruise at 9km or 10km, and from that height you still can’t see the curvature of Earth. I suppose that having failed to see any curvature, this genius will call that his proof of no curvature.

  11. 11.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @Amir Khalid: I accidentally wandered into their web page and in their faqs, this is exactly the proof they offer that the earth is flat – you can’t see the curvature in Kansas. I. Kid. You. Not.

    I’ll never get those brain cells back.

  15. 15.

    schrodingers_cat

    @eric: You don’t even need a tall building. You can detect earth’s motion with a telescope. Point it, focus it on say the moon and you will see that you need to focus it again in minutes. The earth rotates 1 degree in 4 minutes.

  16. 16.

    PaulWartenberg

    Okay, I did the math.

    Emma Gonzalez turns 35 by 2035, meaning she can run for President in 2036.

    Can we all agree to live that long to make sure we vote her in? Yes, please?

    P.S. please don’t break our hearts, kid.

  17. 17.

    Major Major Major Major

    Just about to start my morning commute writing. Almost done with the beta draft, so very close. Then I will get to work, where I will be pulled in two very conflicting directions all week. Yay.

    @NotMax: oh no! Brains are the worst.

  21. 21.

    SFAW

    @Roger Moore:

    I hope he makes it to the edge, so he can peer over it to see Great A’Tuin. Maybe take pictures. He should remember to bring The Luggage, just in case.

    ETA: Someone smarter or better-read (or both) than I might be able to answer this: do the four elephants have names?

  23. 23.

    Roger Moore

    @eric:
    I think, though I’m not absolutely sure, that he won’t believe Earth is curved until the curvature is naked-eye visible.

    And, strictly speaking, you don’t even need a tower and a telescope. The way people first figured out the world is spherical was by watching ships sail in to port. When they’re really far away, you can only see the tops of the masts, and you can see more and more of them the closer they come to shore.

    Eratosthenes was able to calculate the curvature of the Earth by measuring the length of shadows at noon in two places on the same day. Technically speaking, he didn’t measure the shadow in one of the places; there was a well where it was known that sun light would reach all the way to the bottom on a specific day, so he knew there would be no shadow in that place on that day. He then measured the length of a shadow at noon in a different place a known distance away and was able to calculate the curvature of the Earth using those two facts and some spherical geometry.

  27. 27.

    Chyron HR

    @Amir Khalid:

    I suppose that having failed to see any curvature collusion, this genius will call that his proof of no curvature collusion.

    Works for the GOP.

  28. 28.

    guachi

    I don’t know how Kyle can say the AR-15 isn’t a military style weapon. the Armalite series of weapons were designed for the military. The fact it’s a military style weapon is exactly why it’s popular.

  31. 31.

    Chyron HR

    @germy:

    I guess it’s nice that the works of Ursula Le Guin have outlived her, but I’m getting pretty tired of this “YOU MUST KNOW MY GUN’S TRUE NAME TO HAVE POWER OVER IT!” shit.

  32. 32.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodingers_cat:
    You can’t convince a flat Earther by pointing at heavenly bodies, since their movement across the sky could be explained by actual movement through space.

    ETA: Not to mention the general difficulty of reasoning people out of an essentially irrational position.

  33. 33.

    RedDirtGirl

    First day of a new job. Switching from working on job sites to working in the office of an architectural restoration firm. Looking forward to a more predictable schedule (and a bit more money!)

  34. 34.

    MattF

    Of course, flat-earth is the premise of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. One must ask, where are the elephants on whose backs the Earth rests?? Where is the Great Space Turtle A’Tuin on whose back the elephants stand??

  38. 38.

    Baud

    Flat earthers are just as stupid as round earthers. Smart people know that the planet is hyperbolic.

  39. 39.

    eric

    @Roger Moore: I know. These people are just as bad as the expanding earth people (See Neal Adams). I was just trying to give a landlocked guy a chance ;)

    I wonder how they explain the asymmetrical gravitational forces on a large disc. (Though not enough to go back to their websites.)

  44. 44.

    germy

    @Chyron HR:

    I’m getting pretty tired of this “YOU MUST KNOW MY GUN’S TRUE NAME TO HAVE POWER OVER IT!” shit.

    One also needs a degree in mixology before one can speak intelligently about the menace of drunk driving.

  45. 45.

    opiejeanne

    @SFAW: IIRC, the four elephants do not have names. I think Sir Pterry discussed this in one of the books but danged if I know which one.

    ETA: Annnnd, I’m wrong:

    Their names are Tubul, Jerakeen, Berilia and Great T’Phon.

    We all know what happened to the Fifth Elephant.

  46. 46.

    lollipopguild

    @guachi: Hunting rifles are almost all bolt action that fire one shot at a time. BAR and Garand, M-14 and M16(AR-15) are all designed to do one thing-kill people.

  47. 47.

    chris

    On twitter recently someone proposed an Amazing Race styled reality show starring flat-earthers trying to get to the edge. I despise reality TV but I might watch that.

  50. 50.

    Amir Khalid

    @guachi:

    I don’t know how Kyle can say the AR-15 isn’t a military style weapon.

    Not hard at all. All he has to do is lie.

  51. 51.

    Roger Moore

    @eric:

    I wonder how they explain the asymmetrical gravitational forces on a large disc.

    My guess would be that they don’t bother, since their audience is too ignorant to ask that kind of question. Besides, if you start asking questions about gravity, you need to answer really hard ones, like why a flat Earth wouldn’t quickly collapse into a sphere under the force of gravity.

  53. 53.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Chyron HR: I loved the sign at a march Saturday that said “name all these parts of the female reproductive system.”

  54. 54.

    Old Dan and Little Anne

    @schrodingers_cat: That’s the one thing that blew my mind last summer when I finally got a telescope. Once I was able to zero in on the moon it does not stay there for very long. I was amazed.

  57. 57.

    ET

    I am going with laugh and cringe. But given that the evangelicals gave him a mulligan and likely many of his hard core supporters have to problem with this, I suspect to see a lot of shrugged shoulders and mutters of fake news.

  58. 58.

    Roger Moore

    @Old Dan and Little Anne:
    The other thing that’s amazing about the moon is just how bright it is. As a photographer, I’m used to thinking about very long exposures at night, but moon photos are the exception. It seems amazing at first, until you remember that the moon is an object in direct sunlight.

  60. 60.

    Bruce K

    With regard to the flat-earth thing, something occurs to me: it is entirely possible for two people six or more time zones apart to have a conversation with video in effectively real time. One person can watch the sun set while it’s right overhead for the other person. Wouldn’t that constitute pretty definitive proof of the spherical shape of the world?

  61. 61.

    Kraux Pas

    @Roger Moore:

    The way people first figured out the world is spherical was by watching ships sail in to port.

    They have “disproven” this with videos of ships sailing along the horizon. They also love abusing mirages and light’s movement through clouds.

    @Roger Moore:

    Besides, if you start asking questions about gravity, you need to answer really hard ones, like why a flat Earth wouldn’t quickly collapse into a sphere under the force of gravity.

    There is no gravity. We’re held to the ground my magnetism or the ground moving up or pixies or I don’t know. And calculus is just fake math to prove gravity.

  62. 62.

    patrick II

    Stormy said Donald “perched” on the side of the bed when she walked out of the bathroom in Donald’s hotel and then she knew what he wanted. The next question after the “perched” lead in would have been “What was he wearing?”

    I’m guessing we don’t want to know. Sorry, but it seemed obvious to ask.

  64. 64.

    Kraux Pas

    @Bruce K:

    With regard to the flat-earth thing, something occurs to me: it is entirely possible for two people six or more time zones apart to have a conversation with video in effectively real time. One person can watch the sun set while it’s right overhead for the other person. Wouldn’t that constitute pretty definitive proof of the spherical shape of the world?

    The sun moves in a circle around a flat map that looks like the UN logo, duh. /adhocrationalization

    @eric:

    that one is easy…see Saturn’s rings….disc. QED.

    Don’t try to trick us. You know that Saturn is just a computer generated fake from NASA.

  66. 66.

    Immanentize

    @Amir Khalid:

    I suppose that having failed to see any curvature, this genius will call that his proof of no curvature.

    And yet, so many flat-earthers claim to believe in a god.

    ETA Or maybe just huge, trolling Disc World fans?

  67. 67.

    Jeffro

    @PaulWartenberg:

    Okay, I did the math.

    Emma Gonzalez turns 35 by 2035, meaning she can run for President in 2036.

    Can we all agree to live that long to make sure we vote her in? Yes, please?

    Well, there go my daughter’s plans…I guess she’ll have to settle for running and winning in 2044.

    I’ll tell her to run in the 2036 primary anyway, just to get her name out there…

  72. 72.

    Bruce K

    @Immanentize: I seem to recall reading somewhere that the speed of light was significantly slower on and around the Disc (like hundreds of miles per hour instead of 186,000 miles per second), because of the stupefying amounts of magic permeating its environment.

  73. 73.

    MattF

    @Bruce K: Terry Pratchett sez

    Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

  74. 74.

    Immanentize

    @Bruce K: That is true. I think someone even outsails dawn in one of the books, Sadly, here on round world, we lack the necessary “stupefying amounts of magic” to keep us flat. But the Gods on Disc World are oddly not flat…. @eric

  80. 80.

    Immanentize

    @eric: OMG!!!

    You are asked to believe continents swim about willy nilly, sliding around as if on a greased skillet….

    I just got measurably dumber… Thanks, Eric!

  81. 81.

    SFAW

    @opiejeanne:

    We all know what happened to the Fifth Elephant.

    Actually, I don’t. I haven’t read that far in the series. Yet. But since I plan to get there before too long, please no spoilers.

    But thanks for the names of the Four. I was too lazy to Google/Wiki it.

  82. 82.

    No Drought No More

    Spanked, hell. Upon conviction for treason (“step one”) Trump should be executed, or sentenced to life in that Colorado super-max. I’m leaning towards the super max, where he can best be studied for purposes of national security, and as gist for the mills of future historical researchers.

  84. 84.

    geg6

    @Roger Moore:

    IANA rocket scientist, but I’m pretty sure you have to take the curve of the earth into account when planning how your rocket will land where you want it to. Why is this idiot allowing to shoot random shit into space without a permit or something? With my luck, the damn thing will land on my house.

  86. 86.

    Betty Cracker

    @germy: Gun pedants are the worst pedants. I don’t give a flying fuck what they call it — they can call it their snuggy-bunny-gunny for all I care — if it can fire dozens of rounds a minute, civilians have no goddamn business owning one. The Bushmaster manual says the AR-15, unmodified, can fire 45 rounds a minute.

  88. 88.

    Waldo

    @eric: That’s awesome. I would pay to see the flat-earthers, expanding-earthers and hollow-earthers hash it out once and for all. Alex Jones can moderate.

  89. 89.

    David Evans

    All you people (well, some of you) think that watching a ship go over the horizon, and similar effects, proves the Earth is a sphere. It doesn’t. All it proves is that the surface is slightly curved near where you are, which could still count as “flat”. To prove it’s a sphere, you really need to compare observations over long distances.

    One of my favourites is that as you go from the UK to Australia, the Moon turns upside down. Not just the phase, but the surface features..

  90. 90.

    mcquibster

    The flat earth rocket guy is just a self-styled Evel Knievel who’s using the “Flat Earth” thing for visibility and to get some dupes to fund his kickstarter.

  91. 91.

    different-church-lady

    @Betty Cracker: My now-standard repsonse for this BS is, “Oh, forgive me for not being up to date on the precise terminology applied the the technology used for mass slaughter.”

  92. 92.

    Jeffro

    Can we all agree that it’s pointless to argue with flat-earthers, expanding-earthers, ammosexuals, and most Republicans? It’s almost a ‘category error’ – thinking that there is a way to reason with folks that unreasonable.

    Let’s just be sure to outvote them, EVERY TIME.

    Ok, never mind, this idea is better:
    @Waldo:

    I would pay to see the flat-earthers, expanding-earthers and hollow-earthers hash it out once and for all.

  94. 94.

    rikyrah

    LOL!!!

    Joseph diGenova has decided that he will not join the Trump legal team.

    I’m going to go out on a limb and say Trump is standing on really shaky legal ground if lawyers are running away from representing him. pic.twitter.com/CBiLCnR4Ht

    — Red T Raccoon (@RedTRaccoon) March 25, 2018

    WH Mueller Defense Team Shrinks To One Lawyer – https://t.co/pieKUntUfY pic.twitter.com/62MMzTJa1y

    — JoeMyGod (@JoeMyGod) March 26, 2018

  95. 95.

    different-church-lady

    @rikyrah: TRUMP: “Your honor, I am going to represent myself.”

    JUDGE: “Ah, so you’re pleading insanity?”

  96. 96.

    Citizen Alan

    @eric:

    The best thing about that video was that the comment section seems to have been completely derailed by a fundy Christian and a Muslim getting into an extended argument over the divinity of Jesus.

  98. 98.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Chyron HR:

    I guess it’s nice that the works of Ursula Le Guin have outlived her, but I’m getting pretty tired of this “YOU MUST KNOW MY GUN’S TRUE NAME TO HAVE POWER OVER IT!” shit.

    Guns, magic wands, they are both penis extenders.

  101. 101.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Remington maker of the AR-15 files for Chapter 11.

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/remington-bankruptcy-protection-filing

    Kind of mixed about this, the gun fetishism is absurd and dangerous, on the other hand the military does need these things and you just can’t magic up an assemly line.

    This was intresting

    The company was cleared of wrongdoing in the Sandy Hook shooting, but investors wanted nothing to do with it. Cerberus Capital Management, which had acquired the company in 2007 as gun sales began to boom, tried to sell it less than a week after the shooting.

    There were no takers.

  106. 106.

    rikyrah

    of course…all trash!

    So Broidy, the Trump fundraiser who accepted bribes on his behalf from UAE – he’s himself a convicted felon who defrauded NY’s state pension. https://t.co/pDZ80jiUQw

    — Eric Garland (@ericgarland) March 26, 2018

  107. 107.

    rikyrah

    This is strategic planning…

    First is the townhall in every congressional district on 4/7
    Than another school walkout on 4/20
    In a few months marches on every state capital
    Maybe another March right before midterms on Washington
    And starting clubs for poltical activism at schools and communities across

    — David Hogg (@davidhogg111) March 26, 2018

  111. 111.

    maya

    With only one lawyer left representing him and now facing more problems re Stormy Daniels DJT needs to become more creative in picking representative counsel. If available, Ron Jeremy might be a good fit.

  112. 112.

    Brachiator

    @David Evans:

    All you people (well, some of you) think that watching a ship go over the horizon, and similar effects, proves the Earth is a sphere. It doesn’t.

    This reminds me of a fun Qi segment about when the sun sets on the horizon. The reaction of the game show panelists is priceless!

    Reality is so much more fun than the insanity of the flat-earthers.

  114. 114.

    sukabi

    @patrick II: if her first response was “ugh, here we go” it’s pretty obvious he was sitting there mostly, if not entirely, naked.

    Anderson should have asked her how she kept from puking.

  115. 115.

    SFAW

    @Spanky:

    Pete Best?

    No, George Martin.

    And, you’ll forgive me for broaching the subject, but: in light of certain “proclivities” purportedly exhibited by Shitgibbon, a/k/a Lying Littledick a/k/a Dumbert Dumbert, are you concerned that the Grifter-in-Chief will adopt (willingly or not) your nym/nom?

  118. 118.

    hilts

    Asshole of the Day – Eagles of Death Metal’s Jesse Hughes for his hysterical tirade against the March for Lives participants:

    Eagles of Death Metal’s Jesse Hughes, a survivor of a mass-shooting incident, called the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School “disgusting vile abusers of the dead” for participating in the March for Our Lives protest.

    Hughes penned his tirade in the caption of an Instagram post that mocked gun control and the efforts for stricter gun laws. “Obviously … The best thing to do to combat chronic abusers and disregarders of the law (like the law against Murder) is to … pass another Law,” Hughes wrote. “But before we pass this law we’re going to denigrate the memory and curse ourselves by exploiting the death of 16 of our fellow students for a few Facebook likes and some media attention.”

    “As the survivor of a mass shooting I can tell you from first-hand experience that all of you protesting and taking days off from school insult the memory of those who were killed and abuse and insult me and every other lover of liberty by your every action,” Hughes wrote.

    https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/eagles-death-metal-apos-jesse-131129513.html

  119. 119.

    Spanky

    And appropriately enough after this weekend:

    Remington Outdoor Brands has filed for bankruptcy.

    But sadly

    The bankruptcy filing allows Remington to stay in business while restructuring its massive debt. The company has been planning to reduce its debt by $700 million through the Chapter 11 process and contribute $145 million to its subsidiaries.

    Remington plans to keep on making guns. The company said, when it first announced its plan to file for bankruptcy in February, that operations “will not be disrupted by the restructuring process.”

  120. 120.

    Ruckus

    @Bruce K:
    You are asking rational questions of people who have no rational anything. Flat earthers live in a tiny little world no bigger than they can see with their own eyes. Everyone else is lying to them. They can not see the curvature of the earth, therefore it doesn’t exist. They are the kinds of people who think that there aren’t anymore people in the world than they can see at one time. Six-seven billion, no way could there be that many people. Their world is very tiny.

  121. 121.

    sukabi

    @rikyrah: soooo, did Ty Cobb sneak out the door too? He was one of trump’s lawyers the other day, but is not mentioned in the link..

  125. 125.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ruckus:

    Flat earthers live in a tiny little world no bigger than they can see with their own eyes. Everyone else is lying to them. They can not see the curvature of the earth, therefore it doesn’t exist.

    See also, fundamentalist Christians who think that they understand everything that God thinks and believes, because it would be impossible for an omnipotent being to know more than they do.

  127. 127.

    Jeffro

    @maya: I am picturing the president*. of. the. united. states. needing a court-appointed attorney because no one else will represent him…and yes, I’m starting to chuckle out loud to myself here…

  128. 128.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @hilts: So, basically a rocker thought almost being shot was awesome. The gods help us we are living in the Onion World.

  129. 129.

    Spanky

    @maya:

    If available, Ron Jeremy might be a good fit.

    On the one hand, I see what you did there. On the other hand, Ron Jeremy was a Special Ed teacher, so he literally would be a good fit an appropriate choice.

  130. 130.

    Jeffro

    @hilts: Glad to see he’s dealing with his trauma in such a thoughtful, productive way…he’s sure putting those nutty teenagers in their place, ain’t he???

    (Meanwhile, the teenagers are like, “Let’s see…next rally on April 20th…voter registration drives all summer…more rallies right before the mid-terms…”)

  132. 132.

    SFAW

    @Jeffro:

    I am picturing the president*. of. the. united. states. needing a court-appointed attorney because no one else will represent him…and yes, I’m starting to chuckle out loud to myself here…

    Well, I didn’t scare the cats with my laughter, but it was close.

    I think that idea has great potential to become an ubiquitous meme.

  133. 133.

    Ruckus

    @Jeffro:
    Well one certainly can’t argue with them using logic, reason, learning, intelligence so really there is no reason to argue with them. Could they be brought back aboard the mothership of logic, reason, learning, intelligence? I doubt it, they have been inhaling the either of stupidity for too long and it’s possible that most of their brain cells are dead.

  134. 134.

    SFAW

    @Ruckus:

    and it’s possible that most of their brain cells are dead

    What’s up with this new, charitable version of you?

  135. 135.

    Shell

    Flat earthers are just as stupid as round earthers. Smart people know that the planet is hyperbolic.

    I prefer to think of it as one big Lava Lamp.

  136. 136.

    Jeffro

    @SFAW:

    I think that idea has great potential to become an ubiquitous meme.

    Let’s see what we can do about that! ;)

    It boggles the mind. He’s a billionaire AND innocent, right? (sorry, that was supposed to be “billionaire” and “innocent”)

    And these are LAWYERS we’re talking about here (sorry BJ legal peeps, I’m just sayin!)

  137. 137.

    Ruckus

    @Spanky:
    As I understand it they got infected with the MBA disease and started treating the hired craft help as disposable peons who were getting paid far too much considering that upper, upper management was getting paid in the fashion to which would bankrupt the company and something had to give. And as that can not be upper, upper management’s fault the money grubbing craft peons had to go. Quality dropped but prices didn’t so sales dropped but upper, upper management’s take didn’t so they are screwing the shareholders, banks, etc. IOW big business as usual.

  138. 138.

    ? Martin

    @sukabi: This can be pretty confusing. Ty Cobb is Special Counsel for the White House, not for Trump personally. So Cobb works with McGahn and Cobb is specifically working on the Russia investigation so that McGahn can focus on everything else. The WH counsel responds to requests to the Office of the President, which would include other staff there, but doesn’t cover the period prior to Trump taking office (not sure if it covers the transition – it may).

    Trump has two notable personal lawyers – Cohen who doesn’t deal with Russia, but does deal with porn stars. And Sekulow who is handling the Russia stuff. Cobb isn’t going to be terribly helpful to Trump since ultimately his responsibility is to protecting the office, not the officeholder.

    Trump has been threatening to fire Cobb, and McGahn is desperate to leave, so he may not even have them.

  140. 140.

    Ruckus

    @SFAW:
    Well they are still walking around so they can’t have killed all the brain cells. They are extremely lucky that autonomic functions exist though.
    Also it’s early in the day and I haven’t had my total daily share of caffeine yet. Give it a few more fucking minutes. OK now it’s taking effect.

  144. 144.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Quinerly: So who is Daniels threatening with these pictures of a naked Donald Trump; Trump himself or the rest of us’?

  145. 145.

    Yutsano

    @PAM Dirac: Or trying to communicate with anyone that “HEY WE’RE HERE PEOPLE!!!” But it’s interesting how every time they try to come up with some natural explanation it gets swatted away by nothing else looks like that. I’m all about ET trolling us personally.

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yes.

  146. 146.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    I was going to add something about them then walking into a house of worship and completely accepting the presence of a god, even though no one has ever seen him, her, it.
    But as SFAW noticed I’m a bit mellow this morning. I’m shaking it off, but at Monday morning speed so it may be a while for total assholyness.

  147. 147.

    Brachiator

    @? Martin:

    This can be pretty confusing. Ty Cobb is Special Counsel for the White House, not for Trump personally.

    Reminds me of a comedy routine. Who’s on First?

  148. 148.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Ruckus: I thought the story was gun sales were very very good because of the War of Terror and hording by gun re-sellers during the Obama admin and then Trump happened.

  150. 150.

    Captain C

    @Chyron HR:

    “YOU MUST KNOW MY GUN’S TRUE NAME TO HAVE POWER OVER IT!” shit.

    By this standard, ammosexuals who have not had friends or family murdered by guns have no authority to talk about mass shootings, and how to stop them.

  151. 151.

    ? Martin

    @Ruckus: Well, I don’t know about any of that, but they’re selling into a shrinking market – # of people buying guns has been declining for years.

    But this reveals a lot about the NRA. The AR-15 is a gun Remington makes money off of, but gun sales are only good under a Democratic president. Their sales fell off a cliff in Nov 2016. If the NRA was acting in the interests of the gun manufacturers, they’d be screaming about Democrats taking their guns away and then doing everything in their power to get a Democrat in the WH but a GOP congress. That’s when the gun makers clean up.

    No, the NRA is just a white supremacist group acting under 501c3 protection. It’s just another branch in Atwaters Southern Strategy tree.

  153. 153.

    PAM Dirac

    @Yutsano:

    Or trying to communicate with anyone that “HEY WE’RE HERE PEOPLE!!!”

    This new dip comes just a few weeks after there was a paper published that said it was definitely NOT alien megastructures, but just dust, so maybe it is ET saying “See if your dust can do this!!”. OTOH, it is about 1300 light years away, so the response time is problematic :-)

  155. 155.

    Captain C

    @SFAW: The Fifth Elephant eats the Death Star to save the Disc from the wrath of Ming the Merciless after his daughter was captured by Klingons.

  156. 156.

    proudgradofcatladyacademy

    Good morning/afternoon:

    Hi, delurking a bit for brief updates:

    1. Our healthcare exchange department was scheduled this week or next to be laid off. I secured a position that I call a “meh job” just today. It’s not my dream job but I am sensible cat lady with sensible shoes who needs to have all my sensible things paid for by a sensible meh job. Plus, I can look outside the company in the next year if I truly hate it, or transfer in a year. I can do anything for year.

    2. I used the last Hartz tub of flea/tick preventative today. I was going to move Princess Buttercup to a longer acting and more expensive preventative after these 12 weeks expired, because see above about jobs and potential lay offs and being frugal in case I didn’t get a new job. Somehow my cat for the first time ever worked on her cirque de Soleil moves and managed to lick the spot between her shoulder blades where I applied the medicine this morning. I30 minutes later, hear this yowling, she is running around and then she stops and plops on her spot on the bed with her face away from me. I go over because this is really not like her, and turn her around to see frothing at the mouth and yelping. Called Animal Poison Control and 59 dollars later, told not to worry about it too much, cats don’t have saliva glands like we do and froth like rabid dogs when they eat/lick something bad tasting. Was advised to give tuna to “clean the palate” and water with a little broth in it. Take her to the vet if she vomits more than 3 times today but she is probably just fine and got a bad taste in her mouth Cat is furious at me, and hiding but did come out and eat the tuna. I am worried sick but since she hasn’t vomited yet, that may be the best 59 bucks I spent this year to hear a nice reassuring voice tell me it’s going to be fine.

    Consoling myself with a plowman’s lunch which for the uninitiated includes a good apple cider, a great pickle fantastic English cheddar and apple(good bread highly recommended, but I ignore that a lot) , because it’s been stressful all ready, and I have yet to call my dad to see how he is doing after his long hospitalization and move to a rehab center.

    Posting all of this here for general sympathies, and for chastisement that I should have moved her to a more expensive flea/tick medication instead of being a cheap ass cat owner a long timer ago. Because I thought about it but wanted to use what I had on hand and she always was so good about it.

    Hope everyone else is having a better day than I am, cat wise of course. I am happy I have a new job that is telecommute with no reduction in job grades or salary. Not working at my dream job is something I have been doing for 10 years now, I will survive it.

  157. 157.

    Yutsano

    @PAM Dirac: This new dip definitely throws some gears in the dust cloud theory. Plus they still haven’t answered how the dust would block infrared which this structure seems to do. They haven’t even given a composition explanation for the “dust cloud” for the infrared blockage.

  158. 158.

    proudgradofcatladyacademy

    Also, sorry I meant to edit, but am being told it’s spam, I am happy about the meh job offer. It’s telecommute still and no reduction of salary, which was looking might be the case if I stayed with company.

  160. 160.

    Jager

    @eclare: They all do. Here’s Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital’s record, in the last month, Guitar Center, Toys R Us and IHeart. Notice in the ‘business” news reports, the role of the venture capitalists is seldom mentioned. It’s always about the crushing debt, they seldom report who put all that debt on the company. Bain borrowed 1.9 billion to take over Guitar Center, took it public and gutted it. Unlike the employees, nobody at Bain ever missed a paycheck.Bain took 200 million in fees from the Guitar Center deal. The Toys r Us deal paid them 470 million.

  161. 161.

    Ninedragonspot

    @Jeffro: I think that guy is just a DIY rocket hobbyist who discovered that he could get flat-earthing rubes to fund his kickstarters. That ain’t rocket science!

  163. 163.

    SFAW

    @Captain C:

    The Fifth Elephant eats the Death Star to save the Disc from the wrath of Ming the Merciless after his daughter was captured by Klingons.

    FAKE NEWS! You forgot the Daleks! And Gort! And Khaaaaaaaannnnn!!!!!!!

  166. 166.

    SFAW

    @boatboy_srq:

    A District of Columbia PD

    I know it’s not what you meant, but I saw the “PD,” and thought of Shitgibbon being in a DC Police Department lineup for public indecency.

    Now I’m worried about me.

  167. 167.

    Ruckus

    @? Martin:
    The market is shrinking that’s true. But Remington was at one time a premier mfg, highly respected for quality. But making things and selling things are two different businesses. You can make and sell quality, you can make and sell lots of quality but it costs more, you can sell anything that someone wants, but at the price they willing to pay, what you can’t do is to make and sell crap at a high price in a market that is shrinking and which is rather crowded with too much product. That last niche is where they ended up because the latest owners had no idea that some products have their own requirements besides lowest price, or minimal quality and that a name is not just what you print on the side of the box.

  168. 168.

    Brachiator

    @mcquibster:

    The flat earth rocket guy is just a self-styled Evel Knievel who’s using the “Flat Earth” thing for visibility and to get some dupes to fund his kickstarter.

    Not sure who’s dumber. The rocket guy or the dopes who would give him money.

  169. 169.

    germy

    @? Martin:

    a white supremacist group acting under 501c3 protection.

    Sneaky devils used Killer Mike as a spokesman.

    Remember Mike from Wilmer’s campaign? Wilmer thought “the Blacks” would go for Killer big time, because… he’s got the word “killer” in his name.

  170. 170.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Ruckus: Well it’s part of the War of Terror winding and part the hording stopped because Trump and a GOP congress would never pass any kinds of weapons restrictions.

  172. 172.

    Jager

    @Frankensteinbeck: There is a chapter in Joshua Slocum’s “Sailing Around the World Alone” about when he arrived in South Africa, President Paul Kruger summoned him to a meeting to explain to Slocum that the world was flat. Slocum brought his charts and laid them out, Kruger said something to the effect, see the earth is flat. Slocum tried to explain Mercator projection: to Kruger and his cabinet to no avail.

  175. 175.

    Chyron HR

    @germy:

    Wilmer thought “the Blacks” would go for Killer big time, because… he’s got the word “killer” in his name.

    Okay, that is a completely unfair misrepresentation. He thought they would do what Killer Mike says because he’s a rapper.

  177. 177.

    Ruckus

    @Jager:
    Yep. They all are bad.
    The concept is to buy something, strip it for parts and get out before the fire sale. They seem to have hit all the big targets and are now settling for the medium sized ones to destroy. The problem is that a big enough one with some semblance of a reasonable product can possibly survive the assault and rebuild. A medium sized company probably can not. Small companies probably will be safe and may even grow if the medium and large companies flounder for long enough or die off. Of course lots of people will suffer, lose a job, maybe their house, taxes collected drop off which makes all of us suffer from a lack of reasonable government but damn it all some rich fucker was able to pad his investment account another 1/4%, which brings him to about 5000% more that he can possibly spend in a lifetime, so it all must be worth it.

  178. 178.

    gene108

    @Captain C:

    By this standard, ammosexuals who have not had friends or family murdered by guns have no authority to talk about mass shootings, and how to stop them.

    The Ammosexual standard is only people very knowledgeable about guns – knowing all the types of ammo, models, how to disassemble and clean, etc. – have a right to talk about gun laws.

    Even if you have other experiences, like being part of a mass shooting, you aren’t qualified to talk about guns.

    They’ve basically set a standard, wherein they are the only people qualified to talk about guns.

    ***********************************************

    @Jager:

    M&A activity has done more, in the last 38 years, to gut the middle class than anything else. More than outsourcing, more than immigration, more than free trade, more than any other bogeyman people want dredge up.

    The whole point of M&A is for shareholders to get paid a premium and the new owners to make back their money, with some profit of course, as quickly as possible, by any means necessary.

    Reagan unleashed this and no one has bothered to put the djinni back in the bottle. Hell, I think enough people in Congress are so in-hock to the finance sector, they threw the bottle away, to make it almost impossible to change.

    *****************************************************

    @? Martin:

    No, the NRA is just a white supremacist group acting under 501c3 protection. It’s just another branch in Atwaters Southern Strategy tree.

    The entire gun lobby is a front for white supremacists. Keep in mind there are many thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands, if other gun groups internal reporting is to be believed) people, who view the NRA as liberal squishes.

    All the gun laws that they push benefit hoarders. And who hordes the most? White supremacist, sovereign citizen, gun nuts like the Bundy-gang.

    They want a bunch of militant white people to be heavily armed to intimidate the rest of us.

  179. 179.

    gene108

    @Ruckus:

    Small companies probably will be safe and may even grow if the medium and large companies flounder

    There are certain barriers to entry that can keep a small company from filling niches left by medium to large companies.

    In retail, the pressure of on-line sales can make getting enough credit to increase operations hard to get. I think, especially with retail, when large retailers die, nothing is going to come in and replace them on that scale.

    At some point, we’ll only be able to shop at Amazon.com.

  180. 180.

    J R in WV

    @Amir Khalid:

    @guachi:

    I don’t know how Kyle can say the AR-15 isn’t a military style weapon.

    Not hard at all. All he has to do is lie.

    I think in this case he can just be wrong, and also be too arrogant to ask a soldier about it. Stupid explains so much about those guys!

  181. 181.

    Ruckus

    @gene108:
    What I meant was that smaller companies won’t be targets if for no other reason, they aren’t juicy enough. Or think another way, there isn’t enough to steal to make it worth the effort.
    I do agree that it’s difficult to break into the next level for a lot of reasons but it can be done if the product/service is worth the effort. A lot are not and sometimes just for the reason that there is too much competition. Big companies didn’t start that way. And yes there may be different roadblocks today than it might have been 50-60 yrs ago but the concept of growth isn’t.

  183. 183.

    Mnemosyne

    @gene108:

    The Ammosexual standard is only people very knowledgeable about guns – knowing all the types of ammo, models, how to disassemble and clean, etc. – have a right to talk about gun laws.

    That’s why my new favorite meme is: “Think we should ban abortion? Here’s a blank piece of paper. Draw and label the female reproductive system. After all, we need people to understand what they’re regulating.”

  184. 184.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Roger Moore: The thing is, if he really wanted to prove it for himself one way or the other, he wouldn’t need to go to that length at all. Just get one of those weather balloons that people always use to send something “into space” (really to the upper atmosphere where the sky is black and the curve of the horizon is clearly visible). You can get a kit for like 70 bucks.

    The flat-earthers always complain, when shown footage from these balloons, that the cameras use wide-angle fisheye lenses that give the horizon an artificial curve. But that problem is easy to solve! If it’s your balloon, you can control the camera. But to remove any doubt, you can have the balloon carry up a rigid rectangular grid that you make yourself, and shoot the horizon through it. That gives you a completely straight basis for comparison. Is the horizon a straight line relative to that grid, or isn’t it?

    Sadly, these people are already so bereft of logic on this subject that this sort of experiment probably wouldn’t help much. And there’s the distinction between doing an experiment because you really want to know the answer, and doing an experiment because you want it to produce a certain answer.

  185. 185.

    Matt McIrvin

    @eric: Some of them say that gravitational theory is a fraud and the plane of the Earth is simply perpetually accelerating upward at 9.8 meters per second squared.

    There are a million ways to object to this, but of course they’ll just dismiss them as lies and fraud.

    When asked why it’s day and night in different places at different times, they say the Sun has a directional beam like a car headlight, and circles around the sky shining on different parts at different times. When asked why it appears to rise and set (along with the Moon, all of the stars, etc.) instead of just winking on and off, they start saying incoherent things about “the vanishing point” and our imperfect senses, and it’s too illogical to even argue with.

  187. 187.

    Captain C

    @Matt McIrvin: :

    the plane of the Earth is simply perpetually accelerating upward at 9.8 meters per second squared

    That covers the first year or so until the “plane of the Earth” reaches C. What happens after?

  189. 189.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Captain C: Actually the ones saying this are just clever enough to know that in special relativity, you can keep up a constant acceleration like that forever–thanks to the space-time distortions associated with rapid motion, you just get closer and closer to the speed of light relative to your initial frame of reference.

    (Assuming you have a magical, inexhaustible power source…)

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