Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Everybody saw this coming.

He really is that stupid.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

We still have time to mess this up!

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

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

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Let there be snark.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

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Almost There

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What this week felt like:

In normal times, the fact that the president’s former campaign chairman may go to jail today for witness tampering would be a bigger deal. So would the fact that the president’s current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said this on TV last night:

I believe that Rod Rosenstien and Jeff Sessions have a chance to redeem themselves, and that chance comes about tomorrow. It doesn’t go beyond tomorrow. Tomorrow, Mueller should be suspended, and honest people should be brought in, impartial people [from the New York office — he actually specified that in another segment — ed.] to investigate these people like Strzok. Strzok should be in jail by the end of next week.

Looks like due process is only for spouse abusers. Is Giuliani just flapping his gums to intimidate GOP-appointed officials in an allegedly independent organization to do Trump’s bidding — as Trump himself has done for months now?

Or will Trump use a cherry-picked version of the IG report to justify more direct action to shut down the Mueller probe or compromise it by bringing in goons from his home turf?

I honestly have no idea. I’m just glad this interminable week is coming to an end.

Reader Interactions

255Comments

  4. 4.

    raven

    The United States will impose a 25% tariff on $50 billion of Chinese exports, the president said early Friday.
    The penalty is designed to punish China for stealing American technology and trade secrets. It will apply to roughly 1,100 exports and will target the Chinese aerospace, robotics, manufacturing and auto industries.

  5. 5.

    Immanentize

    @raven: I would not want to be an American Agrabusinessperson right now. China will hurt them.

    But pork will be VERY cheap in the US for the next 6 months.

  6. 6.

    germy

    BREAKING: Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian Foreign Minister said today that she has not ruled out the possibility of retaliatory tariffs and sanctions, not against the American people, but directly against Trump's business!!!

    PLEASE do this!

    We love you Canada!

    — Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) June 15, 2018

  7. 7.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah:

    Today is going to be a wild news day?

    Oh, I think you’re right about that one…first up, Paul Manafort goes to jail in about an hour.

  8. 8.

    kindness

    I have to give liberals credit. No one on our side is screaming for 2nd Amendment solutions even though Trump’s people are pushing it all to go there. Yea we’re crazy but not cray-cray like right wing nutz.

  13. 13.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    If I was Wray, today I’d start assignment swaps – NY field guys to Boise, Helena, ED KY, ED TN, VT, AK, and move the guys from those offices to NY.

  15. 15.

    Immanentize

    @raven: OT but in your world — any opinion on the U of Ga Computer Science program? I may be taking the Immp to see GaTech this summer and wonder if it’s worth checking out the much nicer city of Athens?

  19. 19.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @kindness: Have you read the comments on this blog? I get that the 2nd amendment doesn’t cover tumbrels, but still…

  24. 24.

    raven

    @Immanentize: Not specifically. I worked at Tech for a couple of years after I finished my degree and I know a degree from there has more cachet than UGA. I also know a couple of local kids who went there and bailed after a year because of the high stress environment and sketchy living situations. Is the young person looking to start undergrad? Do they have the grades to get in tech (I assume you wouldn’t be visiting if not).

    eta Here’s a reddit thread from a few years back
    https://www.reddit.com/r/UGA/comments/1z591v/how_is_ugas_computer_science_program/

  25. 25.

    japa21

    Watching Trump’s “news conference”. The lies are unbelievable but the press is trying to push back. Plus, the non-agreement isn’t the important thing about NK. The important thing is he has a good relationship with KJU. It is only through tremendous self control that my TV still exists.

  27. 27.

    Ferdinand

    That press conference was the most blood boiling experience I can recall. What a foul and wicked man.

  29. 29.

    Betty Cracker

    So, this morning Trump supposedly “crashed” a Fox & Friends event on the White House lawn (after coyly tweeting “Maybe I’ll have to take an unannounced trip down to see them?”). Among the things he said on live TV:

    Jesus.

  31. 31.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I think this Mueller Probe is more for to keep the Never Trumpers from bolting from the GOP (they can vote GOP in good conscious because Mueller proves the system works for them), but since Trump is so stupidly self destructive Trump working himself up to shutting it down.

  32. 32.

    Roger Moore

    @Betty Cracker:
    Trump has never been subtle about his admiration for foreign strongmen or his desire to have the same kind of personal power they have. This should come as no surprise.

  33. 33.

    MattF

    I don’t believe anything Giuliani says. It’s disturbing, though, that Giuliani is evidently a ‘trusted advisor’ to Trump– so whatever he’s saying publicly is going to be similar to whatever he’s saying to Trump. OTOH, Trump doesn’t trust anyone or listen to anyone, so it’s all sort of a wash.

  35. 35.

    Immanentize

    @raven: Thanks. My son is going to be a HS senior next year. He has the numbers but he would be an out-of-state applicant which is limited. One of his friends is going to GTech starting in the fall. I’ll let you know what the plans are as they percolate.

  38. 38.

    raven

    @Immanentize: Cool, some people take to living in the ATL but it’s hard to be there if you are from Athens. I know they loves them some out-of-staters!

  39. 39.

    Sab

    @raven: Huh? Please translate. I don’t speak Chinese and my sister who does is in Korea for the next six months.

  40. 40.

    Roger Moore

    @MattF:

    OTOH, Trump doesn’t trust anyone or listen to anyone, so it’s all sort of a wash.

    Trump does listen to and trust the people on his TV. I honestly think this is why so many of his people try so hard to get on TV: it’s the one way they can be sure Trump will care about what they say.

  42. 42.

    mad citizen

    Looks like I picked a good week to be in Europe, though I’ve been reading BJ. Hope I make it home before it’s time to be in the streets.

  43. 43.

    Yarrow

    @germy:

    BREAKING: Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian Foreign Minister said today that she has not ruled out the possibility of retaliatory tariffs and sanctions, not against the American people, but directly against Trump’s business!!!

    Yes! Please do this, Canada.

  44. 44.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Roger Moore:

    I’d start now if I were him. Let them know that Giuliani’s praise cost them their premier posts.

  45. 45.

    Patricia Kayden

    @kindness: I’m not crazy. I’m paying close attention to the many ways in which Trump is destroying this country with the aid and comfort of the entire GOP. Mueller and the November elections are our only hope.

  47. 47.

    Patricia Kayden

    @germy: Yes!! Canada is not some third world country that Trump is going to bully. He has met his match. Ditto the European Union.

  49. 49.

    raven

    @Immanentize: We’ve had record enrollment and record budget cuts for over a decade. Enrollment at the smaller schools is slipping a bit but not at the R-1’s.

  52. 52.

    Mandarama

    @Immanentize: My son is the same age as yours, and it sounds like we are doing locale swaps this summer–we are taking him up the East coast to see schools! I’m a Southerner and my husband is from MA, and our TN born-and-raised kiddo won’t even consider staying near home. I can’t say that I blame him. ☹️ Nashville is blue, but he’s had enough of theocrats and Trumpers in the atmosphere.

    My BIL got a fantastic education at GA Tech. I wish you and the Immp all the best!

  53. 53.

    germy

    @rikyrah: Reply from a Canadian:

    Picking fights with a Nation of hockey players rarely ends well. Fighting the good fight with zero fear and a toothless grin is kind of our thing.

    We are lacing up our skates and we are coming for your President.

    We are your Northern flank. We stand with the #resistance

    — Concerned Canuck ?? (@CanuckConcerned) June 15, 2018

  54. 54.

    Patricia Kayden

    @mad citizen: Lucky you. A friend is about to go on a European cruise which will take her family to Russia. Her niece may have World Cup tickets so they should have a blast. Sometimes it’s good to get away.

  57. 57.

    JPL

    @japa21: I listened to some of it, and then my nervous stomach kicked in and started grumbling. After that I vaccumed my car. Thanks little fingers.

  60. 60.

    germy

    Onion headline:

    President’s Lawyers Move To Discredit Michael Cohen By Pointing Out History Of Committing Crimes For Trump

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    Trump has never been subtle about his admiration for foreign strongmen or his desire to have the same kind of personal power they have. This should come as no surprise.

    It’s not that it’s surprising. It’s how Trump gets so excited and energized after he meets with strongmen.

    He loves him some tough mens.

    And he keeps yearning for large displays of affection, parades and such. His monomania is increasing, and barely under control. Don’t know where it’s headed or how it will next express itself.

  65. 65.

    Roger Moore

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
    If they were so easy to get rid of, I think it would have happened already. The reason they’re so friendly with Giuliani is because he covers for them politically, and you can bet Trump will cover for them now, too. Dealing with them will require either a lot of finesse or a really damning IG report. My hope is that the report will A) come out soon and B) provide enough evidence to fire the lot of them. It’s even possible that Giuliani is pitching a stink now because he knows that IG report is going to be really damaging.

  67. 67.

    JPL

    @Immanentize: GA is suppose to have a strong computer science program, but Tech has a stronger national reputation. Be forewarned, that for some science courses professors have to read a blurb about science just being a theory. It’s because our statehouse is made up of jerks.

  69. 69.

    germy

    Andrew Medina, a security monitor at Parkland, Fla.’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, saw accused shooter Nikolas Cruz step onto campus the day of the massacre. Despite suspecting something was wrong—Medina said he radioed another monitor and told him to “keep your eyes” open—Medina himself didn’t confront the shooter. Now, a new report reveals that a discipline committee wanted to fire the monitor and baseball coach last year after it was alleged that he had sexually harassed two students.

    One of them, Meadow Pollack, was among those who died during the massacre.

    As the Sun Sentinel reported Thursday, Medina was suspended for a whopping three days following an investigation into the claims; a panel’s recommendation to fire the 39-year-old was overruled.

    The Root

  71. 71.

    Joe Falco

    @kindness: That’s because citing the 2nd in this case is stupid and doesn’t mean what those gun humpers think it means. If anybody wanted to cite something as a reason to overthrow the government, they would point to the Declaration of Independence for their reasoning.

  73. 73.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Is Giuliani just flapping his gums

    Just cut it short there. Giuliani is just possibly less trustworthy and accurate than Trump. His very, VERY clear record since taking the job is to say whatever shit comes into his head at the time, in the apparent belief that makes it true. He seems to have reached that stage of narcissism. Has literally anything he’s said whatsoever come true?

    Or will Trump use a cherry-picked version of the IG report to justify more direct action to shut down the Mueller probe

    If he could have, he would have already. I don’t know what’s holding him back, maybe just that Sessions won’t do it and has a hold over Trump that makes it impossible to fire Sessions. That still leaves a big mystery. But what’s clear is, no new motivation or excuse will ever make Trump fire Mueller, because he’s been foaming at the mouth to do it since day one. The block would have to go away under its own power.

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:

    Have you read the comments on this blog?

    You’re right, it’s not an absolute difference, merely a vast difference in scale. For example, our mainstream, even the strongly liberal majority on this blog, scold and discourage violence fantasies. They remain fringe. Mainstream Republicans in power nod and wink at open threats.

    @japa21:
    I told you. Everything. Trump. Touches. Turns. To. Shit. This NK farce is not going to get him brownie points for Presidentialness. It has turned immediately back on him. I doubt joint US/SK exercises will stop. It’s easy to tweet about. It’s harder to give orders to generals that glare furiously at him, while his hawk advisors are telling him it’s the worst idea ever. I mean, anyone with the slightest spine could do that, but Trump is a mythic coward.

    @Betty Cracker:

    I want my people to do the same.

    I want to be as rich and famous as J.K. Rowling. My odds are better than Trump’s of getting it.

  74. 74.

    Aleta

    @germy: I hope Scotland does too.

    Concerned Canuck ?? @CanuckConcerned
    Replying to @krassenstein
    Picking fights with a Nation of hockey players rarely ends well. Fighting the good fight with zero fear and a toothless grin is kind of our thing.

    We are lacing up our skates and we are coming for your President.

    We are your Northern flank. We stand with the #resistance.

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Back in the 70’s I worked with a vet who taught me how to curse in both Vietnamese and Korean. About all I remember for sure is that when you hear something like “Kasikya” (long’a’, short ‘i’, short ‘a’) (Korean) you have just been insulted in the most grievous way.

  78. 78.

    schrodingers_cat

    When you are an immigrant navigating the thicket of immigration rules, everyday feels like the raccoon’s climb up that building. This was the case before this malevolent regime came to power.

  86. 86.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @OzarkHillbilly: 1) that is fantastic– I hope that goes viral fucking everywhere

    2) I can’t fucking believe that hoodie is made*, sold*, and that people wear it in public*.

    * “can’t believe” in the sense of “of fucking course it fucking is”.

  87. 87.

    germy

    All that loyalty didn’t pay off.

    President Trump on Friday claimed that Michael Cohen is not his lawyer, as Cohen faces a federal investigation related to his business dealings.

    As CBS News’ Jeff Pegues has reported Thursday, Cohen is under great pressure to cooperate with federal investigators, and is feeling isolated. Meanwhile, Cohen believes Mr. Trump and his allies are turning on him. Asked by a reporter on the White House lawn Friday if Cohen is still the president’s lawyer, Mr. Trump responded, “No, he’s not my lawyer — anymore.”

    It’s unclear when exactly Cohen stopped being the president’s lawyer.

    Asked also if the president thinks Cohen will flip, Mr. Trump simply responded, “Look, I did nothing wrong.”

  88. 88.

    Elizabelle

    Nevertheless, we persisted.

    Like that sweet raccoon, who found herself in unfamiliar surroundings and climbed and climbed.

    We will too, and we will elect a far better Congress this fall. Take heart in the returns this spring: people are woke. And some of the Parkland-inspired kids have not even reached 18 yet to cast their first votes. But they’re getting into place, too.

    WaPost: The skyscraper raccoon gave America what it’s been missing

    … This year, the day before flag day, there was a raccoon.

    The critter in question caught national notice when it began to scale a 25-story Minnesota skyscraper late Tuesday morning. By lunchtime, the raccoon (a female, it was later revealed, though onlookers initially misgendered her) had reached floor 12. On floor 22, she stopped to take a midafternoon nap. An array of rescue strategies, including extraction by drone, were explored and discounted as impossible. She had to reach the roof, or . . . kersplat.

    Reader, she did it.

    The raccoon would not stop for death, and when she completed her climb she was rewarded with a can of cat food and her release into the wild. The country, which had tracked her progress and prayed for her survival on Twitter, celebrated her victory. Dissent was next to nonexistent.

    It’s not that Americans everywhere didn’t manufacture narratives around the St. Paul raccoon to suit their personal and political fancies, much as they do with the flag. They did. The raccoon, like the nation, faced an existential crisis, but she kept going up and up and up and came out unscathed, said some. Our compassion toward her is the same compassion we should feel for those seeking asylum, said others. No, a Fox News commentator argued, the raccoon was Congress, helpless to act against the overreaches of presidents from either party.

    But somehow, it didn’t matter what anyone thought the raccoon meant. Everyone was rooting for her anyway. A literal garbage animal was bringing us together when the high-flying flag, proud representation of the American spirit, tears us apart. Why?

    The flag is a symbol designed to spark a narrative. It’s a piece of cloth covered in stars and stripes that has no meaning on its own, and was up to the American people to turn that into a mythos — a tale of military might, or freedom from tyranny, or the first leveraged in service of the second.

    The raccoon, on the other hand, is a narrative turned into a symbol. The facts are there: An animal that eats trash and usually only appears in daylight when it has rabies emerged instead to climb a building. You can turn her climb into whatever you want, but the reality remains that you’re talking about whether an innocent creature attempting a remarkable feat lives or dies.

    The story of the Paris “Spider-Man,” a Malian immigrant who plucked out of danger a child dangling from a balcony worked the same way: An argument over immigration lurked in the background, but no one, in the moment, wanted that toddler or his rescuer to fall.

    We don’t believe in the same American story. Some despair at our current predicament because they believe America under the Trump administration — where immigrant children are ripped from their parents and dictators are saluted while the media is cast as a public enemy — isn’t actually America. The president’s supporters say this is America, and America at its best. And still others say America was never great to start with.

    These days, really, we don’t agree on many stories at all. Think-pieces aplenty explain how we’ve entered a post-truth environment….

    Good point, though. The right wing has weaponized the flag. Not so, the raccoon. Yet.

    But everyone can root for the little raccoon who could.

  93. 93.

    ARoomWithAMoose

    @Roger Moore: Giuliani was probably a go to conduit for the NY Field Office leakers for the Trump campaign, there were a number of times on the campaign when he was first to hint at something dropping. He probably re-involved himself in Trump world because the FBI IG probe and Mueller lead Grand Jury CI investigations simply aren’t leaking and are compartmentalized well enough (as counter intel investigations) none of his buddies at the NYFO can claw out any info. Trump world still doesn’t know what Mueller has, which is everything.

  96. 96.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: The other one I think I remember was, “Nee mee shee bee ee peck po jee dah ee, kasikya” which was translated as “Your mother had a bald headed cat” which with the new found knowledge you have supplied me with is maybe “Your mother had a bald headed cat, dog.”

    (sorry for the phonetic spelling and probable breaking up of words into their syllables, he didn’t teach me how to write them)

  97. 97.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @germy:
    Trump is such a mean, selfish shit that he cannot grasp saving someone else to save himself. I suspect this is much wider-spread among Republicans than a liberal would believe.

  98. 98.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    NBC News @ NBCNews
    “Quiet!” Trump says to a reporter: “She’s so obnoxious. Quiet.”

    Asked about this comment on Kim Jong Un and his people standing for him, Trump says he “was kidding and you don’t understand sarcasm,” before directing an ad hominem insult at the CNN reporter who asked the question: “You’re the worst!”

  102. 102.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Elizabelle: Womder why the Washington Post assumes that we want to be on the same side on any issue with Trump supporters. I can celebrate that fierce raccoon without contemplating that bigots are doing the same. Everything doesn’t revolve around them. Arghhhh!!

  104. 104.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yikes! That, if I’m reading correctly, is definitely not about a bald cat. Think of an alternate English p-word for cat and you are much closer to its true meaning.

  107. 107.

    Dorothy Winsor

    Or will Trump use a cherry-picked version of the IG report

    On the way home from the gym, I heard Trump saying the report proved there was no collusion but there was terrible bias against him. That’s cherry-picking at an Olympic level.

    ETA: And for some overlap on topics, my FBI agent friend emailed me while I was at the gym asking in horror if I was watching Trump.

    I also heard him say that when Kim speaks, his people sit up and take notice and he wants his people to do that too. I actually gasped.

  109. 109.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Nah, break up the whole office. The presence of the non-leakers failed to control the leakers. Once you’ve got them scattered and demoralized, the firings can commence.

    This is a law enforcement organization that covered three decades of Trump crimes.

  111. 111.

    Gin & Tonic

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s long been a forbidden word. I’m reminded of that any time I try to mention a women’s musical and political-activism group from Russia.

  118. 118.

    Mandarama

    @raven: ha! Best mascot ever. My eldest loved CA—saw UCLA and several others, but his favorite out there so far is Harvey Mudd.

    @Starfish: We totally agree! I went 10 hours north and my husband went 14 hours south and that’s how we ended up in the middle.

  119. 119.

    Jeffro

    Ms. Petri strikes: We Are Definitely Not a Trump Cult

    Yer darned tootin’ we’re not! No sir!!

    …We are not praising him because we are rudderless and terrified and adrift and have lost sight of our principles. We are praising him because he is right about everything, and he always golfs under par, and his children are gorgeous and deserve power, and his hands are of course the right size. Those who cross him will come to rue it.

    To those who say that Trump is obviously incompetent, small-minded and surrounded by a deep slough of corruption, I can only respond: You are a traitor and a conspirator and you need to get your mind right. Open your eyes, sheep-person! Do not let the Fake News Media sway you with their facts. Do not listen to what John McCain or Bob Corker or Jeff Flake have to say. Honestly, if you can even hear the voices of these malingerers, I wonder about your loyalty….

    Also, too:

    To those who say he has no grasp of the issues at hand, I repeat one of his many simple slogans until the objection stops.

  124. 124.

    Barbara

    @Immanentize: My daughter was wait listed at GT and from my speculation based on the limited information you have provided about your son, he probably has a better record. She was also out of state. We withdrew her application once she committed elsewhere so I don’t know whether she would have been accepted eventually.

  125. 125.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jeffro:

    I am not in a cult. I just love Donald Trump so much, and since deciding to love Trump, my pores have become clearer and my flocks have thrived, and my atherosclerosis went away — maybe spontaneously, but maybe not. I am prospering now as I have never prospered before. I would say that if loving Donald Trump is wrong, I don’t want to be right, but I know that loving Donald Trump is not wrong. It is the only thing that is right. I would give him my arm. I would give him my kidney. I would give him everything that I am. I would have nothing left.

  129. 129.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Talking Points Memo TPM
    Trump shrugs at prospect of losing press secretary: “Everybody leaves”

    should be a warning to all the once and future dignity wraiths: he will not remember your name once you’re no longer of use to him

    not that Jethrene cares, she’s on her way to some high priced gig with some godly corporation, Chick-Fil-A or Hobby Lobby, or a very biblical extraction outfit

  131. 131.

    Immanentize

    @Mandarama: Sorry I was out and about. If I can help in any way when you come this way, let me know. I teach at a downtown University and live near Tufts and can help with the insider lay of the land…. Let me know — catch me on a thread to let me know you are there and I will give you my email addy. And good luck to you and yours too!

  132. 132.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    I think his abandoning Cohen is going to be the clearest sign to anyone who might work for Trump. The more loyal you are, the faster Trump will throw you under the bus. He will go LOOKING for a bus.

    EDIT – Thinking about that… Christ. He really might refuse to pardon, nay, actively sink his own kids if they get into danger. It really seems to be the closer you are to Trump, the less loyal he is.

  133. 133.

    Steve in the ATL

    @kindness:

    I have to give liberals credit. No one on our side is screaming for 2nd Amendment solutions even though Trump’s people are pushing it all to go there. Yea we’re crazy but not cray-cray like right wing nutz.

    #FrenchRevolution

  134. 134.

    No Drought No More

    “I’m just glad this interminable week is coming to an end”.

    “Yesterday
    Today was tomorrow
    And tomorrow
    Today will be yesterday
    So ring out the old, ring in the new”.

    George Harrison

  135. 135.

    Jeffro

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: with this schmuck, you can almost see him left to wander the WH alone, everyone else having fled (or been jailed)…perhaps wandering back out onto the WH lawn every third day or so, increasingly disheveled, looking for his good buddies from Fox and Friends…

    I like it. A LOT.

  138. 138.

    marcopolo

    Saw a thirty second clip of the press gaggle from this morning. It is such a stupid set up. Everyone shouting questions so none of them can actually be heard distinctly. Gives the person responding all the power. If only the media would say something like, “hey mr. president, we are completely stopping coverage of you until you start giving us regular press conferences every other month.” While Trump would probably say great, don’t cover me, you know it would drive him crazy in a matter of days.

    And with that I am off to see the first showing of the RBG documentary with my 85 year young mom.

    Take care y’alls.

  139. 139.

    James Powell

    @Patricia Kayden:

    On my version of Arya’s list – no death penalty – I’ve always had Chris Cillizza assigned to cleaning the latrines in the FEMA camps.

  140. 140.

    Steve in the ATL

    @raven:

    It seems like most local kids in Athens get delayed enrollment at UGA. Don’t know why.

    UGA has been crazy competitive since the Hope Scholarship was created (hi, Zell!). Kids who would normally have gone to Vanderbilt or UVA or Wake Forest were now going to Georgia for free. The scholarship no longer covers everything but the trend has continued. UGA is now more selective than Tech. Lot of kids we know have started elsewhere then transferred to UGA.

    Tech is really hard to get into as well, though. My wife has had to pull a lot of strings to get kids in there now even though they have great credentials.

    ETA: things have changed a lot at Tech. I was driving through it a couple of months ago and saw a pretty girl!

  141. 141.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah: (and everyone else!) This thread has been hugely useful to me (and the Immp). Thank you.
    List today includes: Rice and UT Austin (my wife went there for three! degrees) in TX, Michigan (Immp loved it when we had a quicky visit) and we are going back this summer to talk to the AI guy there, Harvey Mudd and maybe USD and ?? in CA; RIT, Cornell and RPI in NY (closer to home); Worcester Poly, Northeastern (I went to law school there) and Harvard’s new entrepreneurial engineering program (very close to home). Any and all comments/ideas/warnings appreciated. If there is any time, we will check out Chicago and Northwestern too….

    GaTech is on the list… ’cause of the reputation but y’all have pretty much steered me away — especially increased enrollments with budget cuts!

    But the Immp got a summer job! Getting real paid too! Starts Monday….

    Mille Grazie All!!

    ETA — UMass Amherst also in case of unforseen me-disasters

  143. 143.

    Elizabelle

    Incidentally, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette fired their anti-Trump cartoonist.

    I hope that comes back to haunt them. I wish the WaPost would add Rob Rogers to their stable of cartoonists, with his work appearing online, at the least. Got to reward political courage.

    IN RECENT WEEKS, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette spiked numerous cartoons by Rob Rogers that were critical of President Trump, as The Washington Post reported last week.

    On Thursday, Post-Gazette management resolved the matter by firing Rogers, who had been the paper’s political cartoonist for a quarter-century.

    Neither the Post-Gazette publisher, John Robinson Block, nor Rogers’s supervising editor, Keith Burris, immediately replied to Washington Post requests Thursday for comment.

    The paper’s editorial page had increasingly shown support for Trump, according to Rogers and the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, among others.

    Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto reacted to the sacking of Rogers with a sharp statement Thursday, saying, “The move today by the leadership of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to fire Rob Rogers after he drew a series of cartoons critical of President Trump is disappointing, and sends the wrong message about press freedoms in a time when they are under siege.”

    The National Cartoonists Society, which represents hundreds of member cartoonists and other comics-industry professionals, said Thursday in a statement that it “is saddened by the news that our friend and fellow member, Rob Rogers, was fired from his longstanding job at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The NCS supports Rob in his efforts to maintain his integrity in expressing his ideas and viewpoint, and stands against any form of censorship or suppression of free speech.”

    During his 34 years as a political cartoonist in Pittsburgh — including a career at the Post-Gazette spanning four supervising editors — Rogers had two to three cartoons a year, on average, killed by his editors.

    But Rogers told Comic Riffs last week that he had 19 cartoons or cartoon ideas spiked this year, under new supervisor Burris. And between May 25 and June 4, not a single one of his cartoons was deemed worthy of publishing in the paper.

    Fire Burris. He can go on to the NY Times. You are not a great newspaper if you have a Trump-humping editorial page editor.

  144. 144.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Immanentize: my grandfather went to Rice. As soon as he graduated with his engineering degree, the Navy grabbed him and sent to the Pacific to fight the Japanese. So I’d be careful about Rice.

    Plus Houston is built on a swamp.

  147. 147.

    Immanentize

    @Steve in the ATL: my wife grew up outside of Houston and my in-laws are still nearby (Richmond). Rice is pretty great — it is it’s own space in Houston, focussed on undrrgrads and 85% of the classes are taught by — get this! — actual full time Rice faculty. However, it is super hard to get is, so im not sure the Immp will make it….

    ETA the way things are going, another conflict with Japan might just get hot around 2023 when the Immp would graduate.

  148. 148.

    Mandarama

    @Immanentize: will do; thank you so much! Along the same lines, I teach at a university here in Nashville so let me know if I can point you toward anything when y’all head south. (Although you are in good hands with the Georgia jackals!)

  153. 153.

    Sab

    @Immanentize: Full time tenured faculty. No wonder it is so fucking expensive and so impossible to get into. Gets what you pays for in higjer ed.

  155. 155.

    Aleta

    @Frankensteinbeck: He will go LOOKING for a bus.

    Maybe he’ll call Mueller and offer up ‘everyone who operated behind my back.’ // As it is he’s making them walk the plank.

  156. 156.

    Immanentize

    @Gin & Tonic: Ha! So this is kinda funny and tells you a lot about my son — He has a robotics teammate who has two parents that went to MIT. They were very focused on getting this kid in and he didn’t. Watching that whole thing, PLUS the fact that MIT does not take the common app (horrors!) and that the Immp is not that crazy about their CS program … well, he is kinda against it. But we’ll see.

  157. 157.

    Immanentize

    @Sab: It’s really true. At many R1’s the number is flipped! 75% of classes are taught by contingent (adjunct faculty, graduate students, etc.) faculty. Wow.

  159. 159.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    reporting from the Manafort hearing

    Zoe Tillman @ ZoeTillman
    Update: We’re taking a quick break. Paul Manafort pleased not guilty to the new superseding indictment. Judge heard arguments on whether Manafort can stay out of jail pending trial, is expected to announce a decision when we go back in

    Special counsel lawyer said they didn’t believe there were any conditions that could assure the court Manafort would comply with orders if he is released again, saying he engaged in a “sustained campaign.” Manafort’s lawyer argued there should just be a clearer “no contact” order

    does anyone know anything about the judge, or how judges would react to this, but it seems to this non-lawyer that Manafort cannot not have known that contacting witnesses was beyond the pale, and as all those Warner Bros cartoons told us, ignorance of the law is no excuse!

  160. 160.

    Barbara

    @Immanentize: You are free to e-mail me regarding RPI. Just let me know if you do so I check the e-mail address I use for here, which I almost never check otherwise.

  161. 161.

    Blueskies

    @germy: But why would tariffs against Trump businesses be painful to Trump? Didn’t he fully divest himself when he took the oath of office? You know, per the Emoluments Clause?

    /s

  162. 162.

    trollhattan

    Amidst all the drama in our faces I read this morning that 1. Pruitt (who I hate with the fire of a thousand suns) is preparing to a. roll back tailpipe emissions regs and attack state-mandated emission standards and b. eliminate Obama admin water pollution regs covering inland runoff from farms, golf courses (gee, really?) etc. 2. Zinke (make that several hundred suns) is preparing to fine states that halt offshore drilling the amount that the Interior Sec (i.e., Zinke) determines them to be worth as measured by how much royalties they would have generated.

    The rationale for #2 is that coastal states are ROBBING NON-COASTAL STATES of their fair share of offshore oil royalties.

    These fuckers.

  163. 163.

    patrick II

    I thought Ari Melber and Rachel Maddow had the best takeaway from the IG report yesterday. Melber said that the word “perception” was used the the report over seventy times. The FBI, and particularly Comey was too worried about perception. That is not their job, enforcing the law is. Rachel was even stronger on the subject, saying the criticism the Republican party aimed at Comey and the FBI intimidated him into public chastisement of Clinton and then the October surprise was a result of public pressure by the Republicans. And Republicans are still doing it to undercut the FBI if they disagree with republican political aims. They do it because it works.

  164. 164.

    Betty Cracker

    @Steve in the ATL: University of Florida has gotten crazy competitive too — probably a function of the state’s population quadrupling in a relatively short time frame. I’d never get into UF today with my high school grades. (I did not apply myself!)

  165. 165.

    bemused

    @Jeffro:

    This is great but disturbing at the same time because it’s all too real.

    Local blogger had a post on Trump coming to Duluth, MN next week. A regular wingnut loon commenter there was giddy with glee and even more obnoxious than usual. His first comment was interesting listing all these sports quotes about winning and losing such as Bill Parcells “No matter how much you’ve won…if you’re not winning now, you stink.” These trump supporters and majority of republican voters live by a winner-loser creed with no interest in anything in between. I don’t know if there is a term for win or lose mentality but what a lousy, pathetic way to live.

  166. 166.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Judging by the methods he used to contact the witnesses he knew he was suborning perjury. Judges don’t like suspects who don’t comply with the terms of bail. Pretty much pisses them off.

  167. 167.

    StringOnAStick

    Heading out soon to go do calls for my choice for the D Governor primary here in CO.

    Went north yesterday to whitewater raft with friends so I got a chance to review bumper stickers on I-25 for a few hours. My impression is that the coming fuel price hikes are going to be extra tough on the Drumph loving, NRA and RMGO dedazzled, huge 4WD pickup truck crowd. Oh, and also saw a “soot life” sticker on a rolling coal machine. Everything they do is derivative.

  168. 168.

    Mandarama

    @Sab: @Immanentize: Yep, I am a long-term lecturer at an R1 school. We are required to have PhDs and we have a lot of autonomy, but it is always clear that it’s a second-class status. Doesn’t pay very well either, as you would imagine. For me, it’s a choice I made for the sake of family – – but watching my colleagues struggle is horribly frustrating. The union argument has also been very interesting.

  171. 171.

    trollhattan

    @Betty Cracker:
    My kid, the newly minted HS junior is eyeballing U.C. where the new fall 2018 class at Berkeley has an average 4.19 gpa and LA is 4.18. Average. And no, she’s not “settling” for Merced.

    Lord help us when she starts shopping the ivies.

  172. 172.

    trollhattan

    @StringOnAStick:
    Some are fine people.

    CA Republicans are busily tailoring our buck-more gas in a polyester suit to take to the fall ballot. The state gas tax was increased last November in the amount of twelve cents/gallon. All that other increase, Trump totally had nothing to do with that, see?

    The #5 top selling California vehicle: F150.

  173. 173.

    No Drought No More

    Daily Kos: “..Overall, Trump’s morning stroll was so laden with lies on every front—from North Korea, to immigration, to the inspector general report—that sorting them out will take a transcript, footnotes, three color highlighting and maybe the assistance of those two guys whose full-time job it is to tape back together Trump’s torn papers”.

    That noted, it remains true: you can’t fool all the [American] people, all the time. Which is why Trump is fucked.

  175. 175.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    Incidentally, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette fired their anti-Trump cartoonist.

    I hope that comes back to haunt them. I wish the WaPost would add Rob Rogers to their stable of cartoonists, with his work appearing online, at the least.

    This is really sad. Newspaper cartoonists are disappearing even faster than newspapers.

    Back in the 70s and 80s, LA Times Publisher Otis Chandler had a gentleman’s agreement with cartoonist Paul Conrad. The Times rarely, if ever, spiked a Conrad cartoon, especially when Conrad would go after then Governor Ronald Reagan. People would call the editors to complain; and tons of people cancelled their subscriptions. And Conrad kept sticking it to Reagan.

    I hope that Rogers gets hired somewhere else real soon.

  176. 176.

    Mandarama

    @Immanentize: Weelll, his dream school is MIT. ? But he knows that’s a really long shot. So far UChicago and Harvey Mudd are the next in line. So he and Immp have some overlap (including Michigan)!

    On our trip, I think we are going to 7 places. Carnegie Mellon, Penn, Brown, MIT and some others I’m blanking on. Kiddo is all about math. Math and more math plus some physics maybe.

    (We were both English majors.)

  177. 177.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: This is true. Not only ignoring conditions of release, but messing with the integrity of the process. I will be veddy veddy surprised if hestays out. But as rikyrah often says, the curve for rich white men is real.

  180. 180.

    Gin & Tonic

    @trollhattan: Over the last year on several trips to Europe I’ve had opportunity to drive probably 2k+ km in countries ranging from about $6/gal to $8/gal. While the highways are full of people going places, I can probably count the number of stupid American super-sized pickups or SUV’s I saw without taking off my shoes.

    Although I have to say, in Sweden they *love* their old Detroit iron. Clearly a cruise-night thing only, but I was really surprised at the number of cherry-looking cars from oh, about 1956-1965 or so.

  181. 181.

    trollhattan

    @Brachiator:
    The publisher literally has a pic of himself posing with Trump on AF1. I feel like subscribing just so I can angrily cancel.

    Thank goodness our rag keeps Jack Ohman on board–he’s really, really good at Veg-o-matting Trump.

  187. 187.

    Immanentize

    @Mandarama: The Immp may look at Carnegie Mellon (great for math heads!) and Hopkins also…. I really recommend you check out Northeastern in Boston — they have come WAY up in the world and have a ton of money too. I think Harvard is creating its entrepreneurial engineering program because Northeastern is cleaning their clock in engineering and they already lost that fight once in history (to MIT). Seriously, if you are in town, we should let the two STEM heads meet.

  189. 189.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Mandarama: Those are some awfully selective places. Hope there’s a couple of safeties somewhere. That said, I live in RI and my daughter graduated from Brown, so feel free to ask any questions. She *loved* it there, but stayed very far away from math.

  190. 190.

    Hitless

    @Immanentize: FWIW I think rather highly of the University of Illinois CS program in Champaign. Large intro classes, but there are a lot of opportunities to work with faculty on research. And despite the large class sizes there is a commitment to undergrad education. Downside is the location, of course….

  192. 192.

    Immanentize

    @Aleta: The Immp is a somewhat natural programmer. His mom was a really great database architecht who was know for crystal code. That is where his smarts come from. He has done a lot of robotics work/competitions. He does have a space interest. He is less interested in the engineering side of CS, but obviously would need that if he became a solid AI guy.

  194. 194.

    Mary G

    I am taking part of today for a mental health day and going to the Sherman Botanical Gardens in Corona del Mar today. I have never been and it’s a bucket list item that is doable, due to the 14-year-old housemate. Late night Juicers will remember the time he disappeared until midnight or so and had his mother and I worried to death. (He had gone to a concert.)

    The double grounding he received did not deter him from sneaking out on a school night the next week and getting caught by the sheriff with a beer in his hand, which resulted in a ticket for open container that carries a fine of $280.

    His mother was ready to ship him off to Guatemala, but if course worried about his safety there. I offered to hire him so he can make the money to pay it off. He started Wednesday and I had him fertilize every plant in the lot with a liquid organic concoction made from fish and kelp that smells as bad as anything. I thought that would take at least a week, but he s kipped through it the first day.

    I have projects planned in the house and garage, but am not up to it right now, so he’s coming with me to wrangle the wheelchair and scooter and be bored out of his mind while I regale him with garden trivia. Win/win!

    ETA: Yay for Mueller locking Manafort up!

  195. 195.

    Immanentize

    @LAO:

    Manafort’s bail was revoked.

    This gives me some continued faith in predictive behaviors of judges.

  197. 197.

    Immanentize

    @Hitless: Thank you!

    lot of opportunities to work with faculty on research.

    Very important. If we are going to Chicago and South Bend, no reason not to check it out. Really, thanks.

  198. 198.

    C. Isaac

    I do so love seeing ‘Manafort in Jail’ in 24 pt font across CNN’s front page.

    I’m really hoping that starts to become a carousel of names real soon.

    Tick tock, motherfuckers.

  201. 201.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    Early lunch at Liberty BBQ in Falls Church. Good brisket (suck it, pork fanatics), cold lager and World Cup on the box. No Trump anywhere. And the Thai bartender and I are discussing Asian restaurants in the vicinity. Swapping good tips. Life is okay.

    Oh, yeah, got a much-needed haircut earlier, so I’m feeling fly. Asked my Korean cutter for the Kim Jong-un but was advised against it. Got the “retired master sergeant.” Better demographic fit.

  202. 202.

    LAO

    @Immanentize: Agreed.

    And, hmm — Cohen trial balloon?:

    Breaking: #MichaelCohen has indicated to family and friends he is willing to cooperate with federal investigators to alleviate the pressure on himself and his family – source familiar tells CNN.— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) June 15, 2018

  205. 205.

    StringOnAStick

    @trollhattan: F150 = “work truck”, though not all of them are actually for “work”. We’ve got a screaming construction boom going on here and Nat gas production is up; the area where we were driving through is both a drilling area and one of the few parts of the Denver metro area where semi-affordable housing is being built; MAGAT-land.

  207. 207.

    oldgold

    What a week of news – just exhausting.

    Although not planned, the revocation of Manafort’s bail could not have come at a better time.

  209. 209.

    Immanentize

    @Aleta: Wow, Brown looks pretty great…. Thank you, I just forwarded the link to the Immp (who is sitting about 5 feet from me playing some on-line game on his computer).

  210. 210.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Trump has got to be pooping his panties hearing this news. His tweets are going to be manic! I can’t wait.

  211. 211.

    Elizabelle

    Can someone put up a photo of the raccoon (or a raccoon) in a cage? To symbolize Paul Manafort’s new view? Thanks.

    That is some good news I will take. First Manafort, eventually Trump.

    And I would not let Trump settle. Make him pay. And pay. And pay.

  212. 212.

    Gin & Tonic

    @LAO: I’d really love it if Mueller’s response was “Hey, thanks but no thanks, I’ve got all I need already.”

  213. 213.

    JPL

    @LAO: It’s going to be a long weekend for Trump.
    Manafort’s attorneys must have told him, to be prepared. (right)

  215. 215.

    Immanentize

    @LAO: Probably yes a trial balloon, but also probably completely true. You know I’ve always said its the family threats that turn defendants.

  217. 217.

    Patricia Kayden

    At work so I couldn’t scream out in complete joy at the news that Manafort will be in jail until September. Happy Dance!!!!

  219. 219.

    Elizabelle

    @Steeplejack (phone): Meanwhile, a lonely housecat slumbers on her heated throw.

    I mean, she’d be lonely. If she was awake and all.

    Enjoy! I think I am going to get in a good bike ride. Nice weather this weekend which then becomes all high 90s for next week.

  222. 222.

    Immanentize

    @LAO: To add — he is, as we discussed, totally screwed on the pending investigation matters because they flipped his Taxi partner. That means forever prison for tax evasion, money laundering, fraud, etc. So they don’t need or want him on that. What could he possibly offer to keep himself out of prison? :-)

  225. 225.

    Mike in DC

    If/when we win in November, I want new House Judiciary committee chair Nadler to immediately convene a preliminary impeachment inquiry Jan 4, and for the majority members to vote out a resolution that it is the sense of the Committee that all current legal actions involving Trump, his children and his associates are essentially part of the impeachment inquiry, and that therefore the view of the Committee is that any presidential pardons given with respect to the various legal proceedings should be presumed invalid.
    Watch Trump stroke out.

  227. 227.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Jeffro:

    The bartender and I were just discussing that! I haven’t been there yet. For good takeout, try Backyard BBQ, a mile or two north of the East Falls Church Metro station.

  229. 229.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @LAO:

    Breaking: #MichaelCohen has indicated to family and friends he is willing to cooperate with federal investigators

    You would think that this would normally be indicated to the federal investigators by talking to the federal investigators, not the guy sitting next to you at the bar.

    But I guess in Cohen’s case, he has a reasonable expectation that whatever he says within a few meters of the potted plants at home is going to be heard by the feds.

    @Jeffro: Isn’t that whole column pretty much a transcript of Hannity’s show on any given night? I’ll bet the Trumpistas will take that as a sign that she’s come around to rational thinking.

  230. 230.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Elizabelle:

    Ha! Actually, the heating pad times out after an hour, so she has probably retired to her faux sheepskin throw on the bed. Which she has a tendency to do anyway when I leave. I think that’s her “safe space.”

  233. 233.

    Joe Falco

    @Cheryl Rofer: This news warms the cockles of my heart, maybe below the cockles
    Maybe in the sub-cockle area, maybe in the liver
    Maybe in the kidneys, maybe even in the colon, I don’t know.

  234. 234.

    Mnemosyne

    @Immanentize:

    If you’re looking at tech/engineering schools in CA, don’t overlook Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (SLO). It’s probably the best engineering school in the state (Caltech is more for hard science). My brother’s goddaughter got her BS/MS from there and is now working at Lawrence Livermore after a summer internship at Apple.

  235. 235.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Gin & Tonic: Years ago I knew a guy who’d been at MIT for his undergrad physics degree. His tales of legendary technological pranks were pretty awesome.

    And it was MIT who established the official Smoot unit of length, wasn’t it?

  236. 236.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    My favorite line from My Name Is Earl was when an off-screen character was casually referred to as a “daytime hooker.”

    ETA: As Ari Melber noted a few weeks ago, you can’t drink all day if you don’t get started in the morning.

  237. 237.

    Shana

    @raven: Does UGA have a requirement for geographic diversity within the state? I know VA schools have that issue, otherwise they’d all fill up with students for Northern Virginia.

  240. 240.

    Aleta

    @Immanentize: Planetary science goes well with
    data mining, AI /machine learning, and of course modeling and visualization. 
And virtual reality. Hardware robot engineering not so needed in an applied field.

    This video is tangential, but in case it interests him, Brown’s planetary science people are very warm and familial, by intention. At least up until now, they work hard to inspire and include freshmen and undergrads, and have given them amazing opportunities to participate in int’l research.

    From an interview (2013?), Earth Magazine
:
    JH: The future is all about human and robotic partnerships in exploration. My group is preparing for future missions, including helping to choose landing sites on Mars for robotic exploration in 2020 and human exploration in the 2030s. Our landing site for the human exploration mission is really interesting; it’s in the midlatitudes where there are debris-covered glaciers like we’ve worked on in Antarctica. You can get down to really pure ice very rapidly. I’m heading up an international group to analyze these sites, and Apollo 15 Commander Dave Scott is one of the team members. That’s important because he’s had the experience of actually going to another planetary body. Andy Weir [author of “The Martian”] is also on our team.

    Q: You’ve worked on several outreach projects combining art and science. Do you feel the exploration of the solar system is an artistic, as well as a scientific, endeavor?
    JH: Totally! No one can look at images from space and not be awed. I recently gave a presentation where I projected slides of the planets while the Brown University Orchestra performed Holst’s “The Planets.” It was a blast; we packed the place! I also gave a science-art symposium called “Postcards From Other Planets” where I projected about 50 different images of the surface of Mars and just let them sit for 10 seconds each to display their remarkable beauty. My plan was to give a bit of context at the beginning and the end, but to just let the slides flow in between. But of course, being a scientist, as these images were flashing across the screen, I couldn’t help but take my pointer and start pointing out details, like a sand dune. At the end, when I asked my wife, who is an artist, how I did, she said it was fine, but that I needed to “lose the pointer” because it was totally distracting to artists.

    Q: Many senior researchers don’t teach undergraduate courses. Why do you?
    JH: I really enjoy teaching introductory classes because you learn so much from your students. It’s supposed to be the other way around. But sometimes, students will ask you these “fasten-your-seat-belt” questions that you haven’t really thought about, so it’s great fun. Plus, it’s great preparation for research to be able to explain to someone with no background what the problems are. It helps me align my thoughts and realize what I do, and don’t, know.

    Dr. Jim Head (Also involved in vulcanology and lots more all over the world. You can check out some of the other research areas on his ResearchGate page.)

  241. 241.

    Shana

    @Mandarama: My girls both loved UChicago. Of course, one was a Near East Languages and Civ major and the other one was Art History, so not exactly your son’s area, but still.

  242. 242.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Yes, the Mass Ave bridge is still measured in Smoots.

    Probably the funniest part of the Smoot story is that the student in question, Oliver Smoot, went on to a *very* distinguished career in standards, eventually becoming the head of the American National Standards Institute and the International Standards Organization.

  243. 243.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    I don’t care how cute these Israeli tourism chicks are, this tabouli Taboola ad is really chapping me.

    In other news, the bartender comped me a Negroni. “Oops, I made extra.” Cool.

    Thought about asking for a French 75 (per thread from last night) but don’t want to push my luck.

  244. 244.

    J R in WV

    @Immanentize:

    Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh and Illinois U at Champlain are two top CS schools that do cutting edge work. I didn’t see them on your list. I probably wouldn’t choose Illinois at Champlain because it’s in red southern Illinois, but Pittsburgh is a nice little city. And C-M is a great tech school. Only time I felt overawed intellectually was when I visited C-M, I wasn’t really qualified for their grad program at all.

  245. 245.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    Okay, the music has been pretty solid R&B—Michael Jackson, Prince, etc.—but they just kicked it up a notch with the Dazz Band, “Let It Whip.” I may stay here all afternoon.

  247. 247.

    randy khan

    @germy:

    If you hadn’t said anything, it wouldn’t necessarily have been obvious that was an Onion headline. *sigh*

  248. 248.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    That’s cool, re Otis Chandler and Conrad. Think Conrad retired (or died?) a few years back??

    He died in 2010. The Times had a great retrospective of his work, which was also made available online. I think one of his best cartoons was of Reagan Hood robbing the poor and giving to the rich. Conrad would have enjoyed skewering the hell out of Trump.

  249. 249.

    Central Planning

    @Immanentize: I have two at RIT and can answer any questions you might have. Ask one of the FPers to send me your email address.

Comments are closed.