Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

T R E 4 5 O N

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

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

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Petty moves from a petty man.

When we show up, we win.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

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

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

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

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

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / A Metaphor for our Political Times

A Metaphor for our Political Times

by | 164 Comments

This post is in: 

That’s my brother’s three week old car that a drunk driver ran into the other night in his DRIVEWAY and then took off. It spun the car 180 degrees. Fortunately he is fully insured and is getting a full replacement, and they are treating it as if it was an uninsured motorist.

There is no insurance for our smashed democracy, unfortunately. I’m angry as fuck, and it ain’t about the car.

Reader Interactions

164Comments

  1. 1.

    Starfish

    Oh no! I am sorry about your brother’s car.

    I have never clicked through on a post so quickly to make sure that you were okay. I am glad that no one that you know was injured.

    The democracy thing sucks also too.

  2. 2.

    Steeplejack

    But, but—can’t the lab techs on CSI: Bethany take paint scrapings and match them to only six possible cars in all of Brooke County? And then the cops can find the owner of the one that’s messed up and hopefully cut him down in a hail of bullets as he’s reaching for we thought a gun but it was his cell phone—oops, sorry, he’s probably white—give him a stern talking-to?

  4. 4.

    hitless

    It is amazing to me that after seeing where 8 years of Republican governance by W led, that now we are here.

  7. 7.

    Dorothy Winsor

    Getting run into in a driveway is maddening, but if you’re gonna get hit, that’s the place to do it because no one was in the car.

    I haven’t moved on to being mad yet. I’m still in shock.

  9. 9.

    Nicole

    Same thing happened (although parked in front, not the driveway) to my dad’s pride and joy sports car back in the early ‘80s. Neighbor kid driving home drunk. Dad went to talk to the neighbor with the suspiciously damaged car the next day and the father lied through his teeth to protect his kid. Nothing my dad could do. These days, that story feels like allegory for our times.

  11. 11.

    Elizabelle

    What happened to the drunk driver?

    I am rather hoping he/she is on the Federalist 25 picks list. One down.

  12. 12.

    cmorenc

    @John Cole:

    The fact that the hit-and-run driver was probably drunk likely played an even greater role in their perfidy than the fact that they are also probably a punk. In our own neighborhood, every three or four years some late-at-night driver will come around the curve.at the edge of our and my neighbor’s yard too fast and take out one or both mailboxes, post and all, and keep right on going despite doubtless heavy damage to their car and hundreds of $$ of property damage to our yards – primarily because the incident reminds them that they are driving drunk and don’t want to get caught. And then in a couple of days, they take their car to a body shop they know won’t tattle on them to the police. Only reason they don’t take out any parked cars is that no residents of our neighborhood park on the street, but too far up in their driveway to potentially be in harm’s way of a reckless/drunk driver – and it’s relatively infrequent that visitors park on the street at night here.

  13. 13.

    Shell

    @NotMax: Did they get hold of the guy, or was it someones observation. Sorry to be nitpicking; the important thing is, thank god noone got hurt.

  17. 17.

    chris

    It can’t be that hard to find the perpetrator’s vehicle. It will have major damage and lots of maroon (?) paint on it. I’m surprised they could drive it away.

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    @Dorothy Winsor:

    I haven’t moved on to being mad yet. I’m still in shock.

    Me, too. In shock, tears in my eyes, just stunned. The best I can muster is FUCK.

  20. 20.

    NotMax

    @Shell

    I have no way of knowing. Reasonably sure, though, that it was not a freshly licensed Saudi Arabian woman.

    ;)

  21. 21.

    Ohio Mom

    @Starfish: Yeah, that was my first thought too, Oh No, what happened to Cole?

    A similar crash happened to me about twenty-five years ago. Came out of my apartment building one morning to see the driver’s side of my car had been smashed in. The car was parked on the street, looked like someone might have been trying to do a u-turn. They must have succeeded because there was no trace of them.

    @Dorothy Winsor: I too am still in shock. It was such a nice day here, how could my country be falling apart so thoroughly?

  24. 24.

    SiubhanDuinne

    OMG! I am so glad Seth wasn’t in the car at the time, but holy shit!

    (It occurs to me that it’s a very good thing I’m not an insurance adjustor, because if I were I expect I’d spend all my time saying “Holy Fuck!” and “Jesus in a Fucking Shithouse!” and similar, whenever I saw a damage photo or read a claim description.)

  26. 26.

    chopper

    @Steeplejack:

    CSI: Bethany

    jesus that’s the craziest show ever. three weeks of figuring out how the naked mopping guy managed to break a femur.

  27. 27.

    ruemara

    That looks a serious mess. Hey, just like our country! Glad your brother is ok, too.

    I’m at the gym, either burning off my anger & fear in hour 2 or tiring myself out so I don’t get rip roaring drunk. I have photo work to do & scripts to start practicing. It a beautiful day, which I suppose can remind me that this will pass.

  33. 33.

    westyny

    Glad to see your brother has/had a Subaru. Sensible car with a surprisingly good sound system.

  35. 35.

    Mary G

    I saw the picture and even though I know it’s not John’s, immediately went to “Oh no, Lily is injured,” just because today’s been such a shot sandwich. Glad it was unoccupied.

    The same thing happened to my beloved first car, Betsy. It’s awful.

  39. 39.

    spudgun

    @M4: Thank you – pet pix are the only things that are sustaining me right now.

    Samwise is a very handsome boy!

  40. 40.

    Mandalay

    Yesterday it was big news when incumbent Joe Crowley (D) got beaten by his challenger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I knew Crowley was a DINO, but I didn’t realize what a mediocre politician he was until I saw the first of three debates between them on June 15.

    Ocasio-Cortez used Crowley as a floor mop. She stuffed him in the wood chipper. She humiliated him. And her campaign ad attack on him was just brutal:

    It’s time we acknowledge that not all Democrats are the same. That a Democrat who takes corporate money, profits off foreclosure, doesn’t live here, doesn’t send his kids to our schools, doesn’t drink our water, or breathe our air, cannot possibly represent us.

    At least Crowley did much better in the second and third debates, when he decided not to show up.

  41. 41.

    Steeplejack

    @WaterGirl:

    A low bar!

    Actually, CSI: Bethany got canceled early in its first season because a lot of scenes were basically: “Well, we mailed the samples to Charleston and should get the results back in a couple of weeks.”

  43. 43.

    Steeplejack

    @Elizabelle:

    The housecat and I are at odds this evening. She is being extremely picky about her food and I am not opening another goddamn can this close to last call. But thanks. I’ll save the scritch for later.

  44. 44.

    CaseyL

    Holy hell, how fast was the sonofabitch going?? (Though it doesn’t take much to wreck a car these days.)

    As a metaphor for American politics, it is unfortunately too apt. With SCOTUS down the shitter, “free and fair” elections will be a thing of the past. They might have been anyway, since our populace has the collective IQ of Dolt45’s glove size – but a couple more decisions allowing states to purge or otherwise ignore any voters they don’t like puts the seal on the deal.

    Ah, well. I am childless, post-menopausal, and willing to fight in a civil war.

  45. 45.

    Cermet

    We lost the battle because not unlike the North in 1860, we failed to realize both who the true enemy was and how seriously dangerous they were. These forces of today are the same ones who created the confederacy back in 1860. The mega elite (i.e. the real money or also the 0.001%) that cares not about anyone but themselves or our democracy but their own power they weld through money; whether they were the slave owners and the cattle that followed them for scraps (the poor whites that fought and died in the elite’s war) or the investors that own over 70% of all this countries wealth and again have the poor whites (mostly evangelicals) still licking their ass’s for scraps. They are the true enemy and they have never been defeated. We must not lose the war – we must take back this country and destroy the wealthy – until they fall, our democracy is in grave danger. We lost sight of this and allowed these monsters to once again accumulate vast wealth and power – we must take back the government, tax those monsters into a cage, and clean the inferior court of its enablers. Till then, the new civil war will not be over. make no mistake, a new civil war has started and only one side can win. We need to make sure we win and learn how to fight like our enemy so they stay down.

  46. 46.

    joel hanes

    @cmorenc:

    You need to mount your mailbox on a heavy 6-inch pipe driven six feet into the ground.

    Out in the countryside, yahoos used to lean waaay out of the passenger window of a moving pickup to whack mailboxes with a baseball bat.
    Rural residents got smart and started erecting unsmashable boxes, camouflaged to look like an ordinary one.

  47. 47.

    Steve in the STL

    @CaseyL:

    “free and fair” elections will be a thing of the past

    Yeah, that already happened, at least since 2000.

  48. 48.

    Steve in the STL

    @joel hanes:

    You need to mount your mailbox on a heavy 6-inch pipe driven six feet into the ground.

    College friend used to run over rural mailboxes. One farmer wised up and did something like this. Totaled the friend’s Volvo!

  55. 55.

    Karen Hancock

    @WaterGirl: I spent all of five minutes in shock, three or less in “fuck”, then moved quickly into Fuck Them! They WANT us to still be in shock, that’s how they’ve managed to successfully pull off the shit they have. But we HAVE to pull ourselves out of shock and into “Fuck Them” ASAP…otherwise, we will not survive as a Republic/Democracy. This is the fight or our generation. We must be ready! So, gird your loins, put on your battle gear, don your war paint, and join The Resistance. THIS is what we feared, yet knew, was coming…a final showdown between the forces of humanity/love/tolerance/inclusion/compassion/empathy versus the forces of evil. And make no mistake, these folks are evil. Every. Damn. One. Of. Them.

    And yeah…I’m using my real name now. Fuck it….when they start rounding us “libtards” up into gulags, I want them to fucking know my goddamn name!

  57. 57.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    That video with those protesters confronting McConnell has struck me that he wasn’t that well protected. He had a few secret service agents from what I could tell.

  58. 58.

    jl

    Dang. I lost my breath for a moment. Glad it was hit in the driveway and no Cole kin nor animals were hurt.
    Post a pic of the shiny new car, full-service blog and all that.

  61. 61.

    lamh36

    Alright, I’m going to bed now, but with the news of the day, we all need something to chuckle at!

    @AngryManTV
    Follow Follow @AngryManTV
    More
    My 4-y/o daughter tried to jam me up today.

    Kid: Mommy, why is your bra in daddy’s car?
    Me: What!?

    The Mrs hit me wit a killer side eye. She ain’t been in my car in weeks

    Me: Ain’t no bra in my car!!
    Kid: Ya huh, cup thingie with straps

    *we all go to garage & look in car*
    https://twitter.com/AngryManTV/status/1011986911718715392

    Good night

  63. 63.

    zhena gogolia

    Is the blog ever going to get fixed? I have this feeling that Alain thinks it’s fixed.

  64. 64.

    B.B.A.

    I used to think Rage Against the Machine was an immature whiny communist rapping empty slogans over some admittedly badass guitar solos. Now I realize Zack de la Rocha was a poet and a prophet.

    I propose the new Democratic Party motto: Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me. Motherfucker.

  71. 71.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Same thing happened to us a couple of years ago. Drunk driver sliced the side off my husband’s car when it was parked in our yard. He also took out several mail boxes and half of our neighbor’s yard. The only evidence we found was a Ford headlight cover. We had one payment left on the car. Deductible cost us $500, insurance paid us $1500, no way near enough to get a new car. That put us on a downward spiral for years.

  72. 72.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @EBT:
    Man, Bernie sure is getting beat up from people who should be his fans. He always was a fool.

  75. 75.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @B.B.A.:
    I agree. I’m saying that he’s shot himself in the foot finally. He isn’t Trump and his supporters weren’t for the most part braindead worshippers, just naive and occasionally contrarian. I wonder if he’s still the most popular politician in America after this shit.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    It’s true though. Bernie talks too much. Would it kill him just to not weigh in? Talk about health care or something. Every time he veers off-topic he runs into a ditch.

    I cannot even believe we spent a week talking about Sarah Sanders failed dinner party. It would have been horrible anyway. Her guests should thank us for rescuing them. She probably lies to them too.

  77. 77.

    Steve in the STL

    @zhena gogolia: I am, and I will be Steve in the ATL again tomorrow night. And then Steve at Lake Oconee, and then Steve in the ATL, and then Steve in the STL again, and then Steve in the MCO, and then Steve in the DFW…and so on and so forth.

  78. 78.

    Paul W.

    I know there are many car lovers here… and I’m freaking out so could use some advice.

    I just took home an older kitty that my gf and I adopted to separate her from a rambunctious new kitten we also got. The ol gal seems to have played too hard and is limping.

    But, when I get her home she has this huge clear gook on her right eye that might be nothing or might be her third eyelid. Either way we just at took her to the vet a few hours ago and that wasn’t there and now I’m afraid I’ve injured the girl on the way home. Does anyone know what to do? THis day is just going from horrible to catastrophic

  79. 79.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @EBT: Well, he is a self-described social democrat. I would think he would draw them naturally. He is self-aggrandizing and a moron.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    I think Bernie is convinced that if he had won the primary he would have taken voters from Trump. That’s why he kisses their ass. To him they’re really his voters.

    It’s all a big fantasy. None of the Trump voters I know would ever vote for him, because they’re Republicans.

  81. 81.

    Peale

    @Kay: yep. They’ll take it to their graves though that tariffs and that one time he said that social security was safe means Trump was a secret left winger in the making and only Bernie could have stolen those issues back from them.

  82. 82.

    EBT

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: The problem is most americans have no idea what their parties look like in context of the globe. Democrats are like Canada’s Progressive Conservatives, Brittan’s Torries, or Germany’s Christain Democratic Union. The Republicans are UKIP, Greece’s Golden Dawn or Austria’s Freedom Party.

  83. 83.

    Peale

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: nah. It looks like they’re beating themselves up. I kind of agree that the quote from the always ever so carefully unbiased The Hill is out of context, but the discussion soon delves into charges of ageism and whether it’s allowable under socialism.

  84. 84.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Mulling it over, I still come back to “why is Kennedy doing this now?” From the conservatives POV, the GOP will likely control the senate next year and if Trump leaves office then Pence can do it. The only urgency is for Trump personally so I think this is Trump trying to stack the courts if he is impeached.

  86. 86.

    Mnemosyne

    I stepped away to work on my business cards for an upcoming writing conference. I feel slightly better now, but still REALLY pissed off.

    If anyone sees jl, tell him I apologized to him in Adam’s thread below. I e-yelled at him earlier today and I feel bad about it.

  88. 88.

    Steve in the STL

    @Paul W.: in my experience, cats hate cars.

    Also, cats tend to be quite resilient. Get some sleep and see how she looks in the morning. Also, buy WereBear’s ebook, The Way of Cats

  89. 89.

    Mnemosyne

    @Paul W.:

    Sometimes if the cat is really tired, their third eyelid doesn’t quite retract even if their eyes are open. Let Kitty sleep overnight and see how she is in the morning.

  92. 92.

    Kelly

    There was always just enough virtue in the Republic to save it; sometimes none to spare.

    William H Seward as quoted by Abraham Lincoln page 479 of “Grant” by Ron Chernow

    It’s been worse. I’m resigned that it’ll never be as good as it could be. We’ll always need to fight the bad guys. Better people than me have made real progress toward justice.

  93. 93.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @EBT:
    Americans seem live in their own little world and it makes me sick. It’s the same kind of bullshit like baseall’s championship in the US being called the World Series. It’s arrogant. And nobody outside the United States gives a shit who won the Super Bowel. @Kay:
    Agreed. I wish the old fuck would just STFU.

  94. 94.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Peale:
    And then you have a bunch of people saying that they agree with it. Your point?

  95. 95.

    MomSense

    So my kid was asked to sit in with a band last night (established with a good circuit of gigs) and I guess it went well because they hired him to play lead and to play on their new recording. They start rehearsals right away.

    So today we are all so happy for him and all so furious about this political mess. I’m just going to bombard Collins and King with messages and get as many people as I can to help.

  97. 97.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay: Sanders, like Trump, really romanticizes the idea of the rally. It sticks in his head as a signal of massive adoration. So since he went to resource-extraction and heavy-industry states where Democrats don’t do well and got crowds and then won THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY there, he thinks this means that the people who aren’t at the rally also love him. And “the left” has been kissing his ass for this for 2 and 1/2 years, even though the previous person who accomplished the feat of getting such Democrats to vote for said person IN THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY was Hillary Clinton. I’m tired of this stupid theory.

    (I’m also tired of retyping my name and email before posting, and similarly skeptical that I may have to live with it that way forever.)

  98. 98.

    FlipYrWhig

    @jk: I’m still not entirely sure why McConnell, who no one on either side of the electorate particularly likes and who looks absolutely ridiculous, isn’t a hate-figure to rival Nancy Pelosi.

  100. 100.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay: He was on Chris Hayes’s show and was prickly and impatient TO HAYES, his biggest and most uncritical fan in the media. He just seems like an asshole. But I like that his mouthing off helped undercut the notion that had begun to arise among lefter-than-left sorts on my FB feed that civility was something fetishized solely by The Establishment.

  104. 104.

    B.B.A.

    @FlipYrWhig: Misogyny. Duh.

    McConnell is so cynical he makes Machiavelli look like Fred Rogers. I’d almost be impressed if I wasn’t so horrified.

  106. 106.

    FlipYrWhig

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I’m not sure that’s it. I’m guessing that people don’t know who he is, so whenever the consultants focus-group the ads that feature him they don’t connect. Right-wing media makes people into hate figures, and then mainstream media hears enough about what the right-wing media is doing that they pick up on it, with the result being that Democrats get badgered about whether they support Nancy Pelosi. There’s no left-wing noise machine constantly dousing our pleasure centers with sweet sweet hatred. Usually that’s a good thing.

  108. 108.

    FlipYrWhig

    @B.B.A.: That’s part of it but the right hated Ted Kennedy too. They like to say that the local Dem is a rubber stamp for EVIL ICON. I feel like McConnell is a truly vile person but for whatever reason harping on his vileness doesn’t gain any traction when it counts. I’d bet that Paul Ryan is far more widely reviled among Democrats who vote regularly. I’d be that Clarence Thomas is far more widely reviled STILL than McConnell ever has been. It’s a strange phenomenon.

  109. 109.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @FlipYrWhig:

    There’s no left-wing noise machine constantly dousing our pleasure centers with sweet sweet hatred.

    Well, there’s Balloon Juice and it’s host who tells us how much he hates us on a daily basis.

  110. 110.

    Amir Khalid

    The latest on former Malaysian Official One Najib. The Royal Malaysian Police have released an estimate of the value of cash and valuables seized in raids on homes and other premises belonging to Najib. This is video of the English portion of their media conference, given by Commercial Crimes Investigation Dept. director Commissioner Amar Singh. He’s mentioning amounts in Malaysian ringgit (about four to US$1); these are figures to smack one’s gob all the way into next year.
    Donald Trump once called Najib “my favourite prime minister.” I think we can see why.

    In other news, the online vendor has apologised for the delay in sending out my new white Strat, and order tracking confirms the guitar is indeed in transit to me. I’ll celebrate when she’s here and safe.

  113. 113.

    Doug R

    @joel hanes:

    You need to mount your mailbox on a heavy 6-inch pipe driven six feet into the ground.

    Out in the countryside, yahoos used to lean waaay out of the passenger window of a moving pickup to whack mailboxes with a baseball bat.
    Rural residents got smart and started erecting unsmashable boxes, camouflaged to look like an ordinary one.

    I can recall at least one idiot dying around here from leaning out the car the wrong way.

  114. 114.

    B.B.A.

    @FlipYrWhig: He’s not a firebrand or an engaging speaker or…really a recognizable public figure at all. More of a cure for insomnia. He just drones on and on and on and on never letting anyone else get a word in edgewise until you start foaming at the mouth and falling over backwards…

  116. 116.

    FlipYrWhig

    @B.B.A.: Nancy Pelosi isn’t that exciting either, but everyone knows her name and that they’re not supposed to like her for some reason. Just seems like a lost opportunity for demonization. He’s surely earned it.

  118. 118.

    B.B.A.

    I’ll say this much: if any of the rumors about Mitch McConnell’s sexual proclivities are true, now is the time for someone with knowledge to come forward. I don’t expect anyone on this blog to know anything, but apparently something happened that forced him out of the Army Reserve for “medical reasons” after just a few months. There may or may not have been a court martial. It would be irresponsible not to speculate, and equally irresponsible not to spread the rumors far and wide.

  119. 119.

    Amir Khalid

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    Definitely. Comm Amar Singh mentions that the cash and jewellery and wristwatches and designer sunglasses and Hermes etc. bags could be worth as much as RM1 billion total. They should sell that shit, all of it, and put the proceeds in the crowdfund for paying down the national debt.

  122. 122.

    Platonailedit

    Add this to if Obama had done this column.

    The North Korean national anthem was played at a Virginia Women for Trump gala.

    It was to pay tribute to the Trump-Kim Summit.

    https://t.co/ZytMX9gVbd— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 28, 2018

    What exactly do the rethugs think the traitorous thug has really achieved with the other nutjob?

  123. 123.

    Platonailedit

    China won’t give up ‘one inch’ of territory says President Xi to Mattis.

    China is committed to peace but will not give up “even one inch” of territory, President Xi Jinping has said, after talks with visiting US Defence Secretary James Mattis.

    Tensions between both countries are mounting over trade hostilities and China’s increasingly assertive claims to territory in the South China Sea.

    Mr Mattis is the first Pentagon chief to visit China since 2014.

    It’s part of a trip across Asia, meeting several regional US allies.

    Mr Mattis said his talks with Mr Xi in Beijing and other officials on Wednesday had been “very, very” good, adding that the US was assigning a “high degree of importance to the military relationship” with China.

    Mr Xi added that China had peaceful intentions, but reasserted his view that there would be no concessions from China about what it considers to be Chinese territory.

    “We cannot lose even one inch of the territory left behind by our ancestors,” Mr Xi said, according to Chinese state media. “What is other people’s we do not want at all.”

    What was very, very good about that, mad dog?

  124. 124.

    joel hanes

    @B.B.A.:

    Everybody who would care at all already knows about Miss McConnell, and that his wife is a beard.
    Republicans won’t care; hell, look who Trump is. They don’t fucking care.

    They actually care only about sticking it to liberals.

  126. 126.

    Yarrow

    @eclare: I’ve climbed Half Dome. The chains are pretty freaky. Especially when weather moves in and you’re trying to go up while everyone else is coming down.

  130. 130.

    Mel

    @chopper: I would like to see CSI: Bethany premiere as an animated series starring the Cole menagerie as the forensic team.

    Lily, the unflappable forensic pathologist. Thurston, the newbie lab tech. Steve, the enigmatic lead investigator. Rosie, the cranky coroner with a heart of gold. And so forth.

  135. 135.

    Yarrow

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Getting started going down was hard. It was like dropping over the edge of the world. We had motivation because a thunderstorm was heading our way. You’re pretty exposed up there if lightning is around.

  138. 138.

    Mnemosyne

    @Gretchen:

    Is that an Impreza? I didn’t recognize it. I have the 2013 hatchback in blue. I really love the color — it’s a medium blue that changes to lavender shades depending on the light.

  140. 140.

    jacy

    @Mnemosyne:

    Both The Boyfriend and the Evil Ex independently bought new Subarus the same month. I found that oddly disconcerting. Ex has a red Impreza, Boyfriend has a blue WRX.

  141. 141.

    jacy

    @Amir Khalid:

    You and my youngest — he has an Epiphone and Strat (I think?), some kind of pedal, two different amps, and also a Pearl roadkit drum set and a new keyboard. And a ukelele. He want’s some other guitar and an electric ukelele, but he starts talking and it’s like another language to me. He had to move his desk out of his room to make way for more instruments. I fully support it tho — he seems to love it. He just turned 13, but I think he’s found his passion.

  142. 142.

    Mnemosyne

    @jacy:

    Meh. It’s a popular brand. That’s like being disconcerted because they both bought Hondas or Toyotas.

    Now, if they’d brought home the same model and color, THEN I’d be worried for you. ?

  143. 143.

    Amir Khalid

    She seems to have arrived more or less in working order. The serial number sticker is still in place. No obvious dings/scratches on the body or metalwork. The fret ends are fine, no sharp edges sticking out, and fret levelling will not be necessary. The pickups, selector switch, and volume and tone pots seem to work. The strings are obviously old and need to be changed. It’ll be D’Addario EXL 120s, 9-42 gauge. The maple fretboard looks a bit grubby, but I can clean that. String action and intonation need to be adjusted; the curve of the string bed doesn’t quite match the fretboard’s 9.5″ radius of curvature. Peeling the plastic sheet off the pickguard will be quite a chore on a Strat: one must first loosen 19 screws and the nut attaching each of three pots to said pickguard. I need to install the strap pins for the Schaller system strap locks.

    All that said, Lady is a beauty.

  144. 144.

    Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ

    Well I posted a rant in the previous thread that might have been more appropriate here. Story of my life. Suffice it to say, I’m furious and Kennedy and all those mothereffers can go chingado sus madres.

  145. 145.

    Nelle

    Feels like the wheels are coming off the infrastructure here. Water main broke last month for the second year in a row. Power went out last night before 7. Getting text updates that it will be fixed by 8:30, 11, 1, 2:30, and now 4am. Likely have to throw out the freezer and fridge contents. High humidity and temps have it feeling like 92. At 3 am. Went through this last August.
    High temp to be above 100 today. Need to move North. Used to live off the North coast of Alaska. That might do.

  147. 147.

    magurakurin

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    as an American, I will heartily agree that Americans, many of them, are arrogant assholes who live in a bubble ignorant of the world…but…If the New York Yankees (god forbid) win the World Series, tell me, what team in the world can beat them in a seven game series? If France or India or Australia or anywhere has a problem with the moniker…I say, make a team and give it a shot.

    also, too, MLB teams are not national teams, obviously, and their rosters are filled with the best players from anywhere in the world that they may be found.

    but otherwise, I cosign what you say…

  148. 148.

    TriassicSands

    Paul Ryan looking at the Suburu: Looks normal to me.
    Mitch McConnell looking at the Suburu: What’s the problem? Looks OK to me.
    Donald Trump looking at the Suburu: Damn those Mexicans…or Muslims.

  149. 149.

    otmar

    @cmorenc: that sounds like the ideal place for a decorative rock. Don’t underestimate the stopping power of 3 tons of granite.

  150. 150.

    TriassicSands

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Looking at that photo of the moon, all I could think was — You know what the moon needs? An atmosphere. Preferably, a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere.

    Maybe the Space Force can build one.

  152. 152.

    Amir Khalid

    @magurakurin:
    MLB surely doesn’t have all the best baseball players on the planet. I understand some of the very best Japanese and Caribbean players are playing for the top teams in their home country.

  153. 153.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @FlipYrWhig: The only reason he’s defending Huckabee and “civility” is because he is still angry at BLM for interrupting 2 of his droning stomp speeches.

  154. 154.

    joel hanes

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I climbed El Castillo at Chichen iIza as a thunder storm moved in.

    Ah.

    I was once alone on Lassen peak in the early evening, as a row of cumulus sailed in on the ocean breeze and lifted over the mountain. Each time a cloud was overhead my hair lifted with the static charge. Each time a cloud went between me and the sun, the light changed. Fire: crisp angular fragments of black dacite with embedded white crystals. Ice : in the shade, snow with sun-cups three feet deep.
    I made offerings to the chipmunk god of the place, and hastened down the mountain in the red light of sunset.

  155. 155.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    @Amir Khalid:

    Japan, South Korea and Latin America all have a lot of young talent. MLB regularly scouts outside the US.

    Is the 100W amp a serious consideration?

  157. 157.

    Leem

    @Mnemosyne: it looks like the Crosstrek, an Impreza with bigger wheels, trim and a little suspension lift. Mine just rolled over 100k and has been an wonderful car.

  162. 162.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    My wife’s friend lives in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood in Chicago and was in a hit and run accident a few blocks south of her home. A couple of days later she saw a tow truck come down her street and she assumed that they were with the insurance company. It turns out that it was just some very efficient car thieves who towed her SUV away, never to be seen again.

  163. 163.

    The Moar You Know

    tubes or GTFO!

    @Steve in the STL: Of all things, the cheap solid-state MG series Marshalls have proven to be a very acceptable amp. My guitar player usually leaves his Mesa setup at home these days (it weighs a ton and I don’t blame him) and takes that out instead.

  164. 164.

    TenguPhule

    @Platonailedit:

    The North Korean national anthem was played at a Virginia Women for Trump gala.

    Somebody stop the planet, we need to kick these people off it!

Comments are closed.