Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

People are complicated. Love is not.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

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

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

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

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

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

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

You are here: Home / Books / Not John McCain (Or Guns) Open Thread

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86Comments

  6. 6.

    Platonailedit

    Current Turkish gallows humour: A prisoner goes to the prison library, asks for a specific book. The guard tells him, "we don't have that book… but we do have the author."

    — Moshik Temkin (@moshik_temkin) August 24, 2018

  7. 7.

    Mnemosyne

    Prepping my stuffed peppers for the crock pot took WAY longer than the recipe said it would (because it always seems to), so I haven’t gotten to use the Instant Pot for an actual dish yet. I did run the recommended “Initial Test Run” and all went smoothly, though it seemed to take a surprisingly long time for it to build up a head of steam and start the actual cooking countdown. I guess even Instant Pot can’t make water boil any faster than nature intended. ?

    In the meantime, I have to put on some pants and go meet G for dinner. Later, all!

  8. 8.

    frosty

    Just finished another Sunday night grillfest: salmon, halibut, and brats. One flaw: somehow when I lift the lid of the Weber I’m causing an updraft that deposits a bunch of charcoal ash on the food. I may have to practice on some cheap hot dogs.

  9. 9.

    jeffreyw

    Installed the 1050ti in the PC in hopes of achieving 4K HDR. Got the 4K resolution (3840×2160) over the HDMI cablebut enabling HDR still causes the display to go black. Ordered an adapter, an active DP 1.4 > HDMI 2.0 to try that route. It’s looking pretty good even without the High Dynamic Range enabled but I do so want to have what I want.
    A little study today says the HDMI standard will be upgraded to 2.1 and that will work for 4K + HDR but they aren’t there yet with any consumer hardware.

  11. 11.

    MagdaInBlack

    About to move to the balcony to read. Its a lovely cicada filled August evening.

    As always, MMMM, that is a handsome feline ?

  12. 12.

    Mary G

    @Cheryl Rofer: The people aren’t paid to look the other way, and are not sheltered from the changes the way the 1% are.

    @M4: Did you take Samwise’s bow tie off, or did he, or am I not just seeing it?

  14. 14.

    Roger Moore

    @Mnemosyne:
    Yeah, the drawback of pressure cookers is that they take a while to heat up. If you’re cooking one of the things where they brag about cooking in 2 minutes, you need to remember that’s 2 minutes after it’s reached pressure, so you don’t actually save appreciable time compared to cooking conventionally, and certainly not compared to a microwave. But if you’re cooking one of those things that normally takes ages, like stew or dried beans, they’re amazing.

  15. 15.

    Barbara

    Your kitty is gorgeous. I spent all weekend taking advantage of my husband’s absence to shred documents we don’t need anymore. He can’t do it.

  16. 16.

    West of the Rockies

    Which Binge, 4M?
    I’ve read the hive-mind alien encounters novels and Rainbow’s End.

  17. 17.

    debit

    We grilled some steaks, portabella caps and corn on the cob as is our wont on Sundays, then finished with a slice of blueberry pie. Food coma in three, two, one.

  19. 19.

    Mainmata

    @Platonailedit: While I am a big fan of Beto and Wendy, it’s pretty obvious that the vast majority of “real Texans” are reactioary conservatives. Basically, I only see Beto winning if TX GOP voters are too depressed to vote and TX Democrats come out in droves. Could happen but hasn’t in nearly 25 years

  21. 21.

    hedgehog the occasional commenter

    Spaghetti for dinner. Currently reading Theodora Goss’ European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman (featuring Mary Jekyll, Diana Hyde, Justine Frankenstein, and others. Good read so far; I discovered the author at Worldcon last week.

  24. 24.

    Platonailedit

    Apparently going back to do it all by yourself caveman is a thingy now.

    Art Markman, professor of psychology at the University of Texas, says: “There are two aspects to the appeal of creating things without help.

    “One is that most of us realise that we could not survive without the collective work of many strangers.

    “Using simple tools makes it feel like something that an individual could create, as opposed to something that requires an army of individuals.

    Ironic they need youtubes & blogs to spread that message.

  25. 25.

    Mainmata

    @Cheryl Rofer: I work in the environmental management/climate change field and this doesn’t surpris me at all. The American public has long been pro-environment; this isn’t new. The average American is on the front edge of environmental damage whether it is asthma from pollution, degraded housing values or poisonous water supplies and, more recently, the impacts of climate change. The so-called conservatives are corporate whores who resist any kind of sensible environmental regulation even when it would actually save corporations money.

  26. 26.

    RSA

    @JimV:

    Wait, are you saying there’s a new Vernor Vinge book?

    Yeah, which Vinge?

    I like his ideas, though other literary qualities of his novels are… typical of science fiction. :-)

  28. 28.

    Baud

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    70% prioritize environmental issues over economic growth,

    I also saw a poll that 70% of people support Roe. Since Hillary didn’t get 70% of the vote, I take it about 20 percentage points of respondents hate Dems above all other priorities. Maybe 2018 and 2020 will be different though.

  29. 29.

    PaulWartenberg

    chair installed. it’s a 400-lb weight limit (yes, I am fatty boomdelatty) with a mesh backside so I can lean into it for ergonomic purposes. I figure this one should last 3 years.

  33. 33.

    Gin & Tonic

    Sweet corn again tonight. But for a change I grilled it, since I was also grilling a couple of pieces of salmon. Followed by a cocktail.

  36. 36.

    RSA

    @oatler.:

    Is this the “Viriconium” guy?

    Hey, cool, I’ll have to look up M. John Harrison. Thanks. For a long time Vinge was known as the “True Names” guy, but now he’s best know for his Zones of Thought novels, A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky.

  37. 37.

    Platonailedit

    Bet the totus thug will take the credit for this?

    The unified Korean 500m women’s dragon boating team has won a gold medal in the Asian Games – the first time the north and south have combined to win top prize at a multisport competition.

    Cross-border teams are also competing together in rowing and basketball events at the games.

    Earlier this year they competed together in women’s ice hockey at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

    The sporting co-operation comes amid improving political relations.

    The 16-member canoeing team won the top prize on Sunday with a time of two minutes 24.788 seconds – narrowly beating China, who took silver.

  38. 38.

    dnfree

    @Mnemosyne: I agree about the Instant Pot. It takes a long time to come to pressure. So it’s good for things like maybe beef stew or beans, or something that you were planning to cook a long time if you weren’t using pressure. The other day I was making a zucchini soup recipe that was for the Instant Pot, but I wound up just making it in a regular stew pot because how long does it take zucchini to cook? Maybe 15 minutes maximum? There was no advantage for the Instant Pot to take 12 minutes to come to pressure and then cook for 3 minutes.

    I did make a potato salad recipe the other day in which you used the Instant Pot to cook the potatoes and boil the eggs at the same time, so that worked out well.

  39. 39.

    Mandarama

    My family said goodbye to our sweet golden Murphy today. He let us know during this long, arduous, sleepless weekend that it was time. The kind vet came to our house and I let Murph lick a whole bowl of chocolate-chip-cookie-dough ice cream out of my hands and then he peacefully went to sleep. Best Good Boy we could have dreamed of.

    We have been full of love and grief. And my dramatic youngest already is puppy-lobbying “because there’s a dog-shaped hole in my heart, Mom.”

  40. 40.

    Amir Khalid

    It’s just as well you said not to commmen about guns or McCain in this thread, since I mentioned both in my previous comment.

  42. 42.

    Doug R

    @Mnemosyne: It helps if you sauteed something beforehand to heat it up. Also, how long it takes to pressure up is related to how much water you use-even though it takes longer to heat, you need at least a cup to get pressure.

  44. 44.

    Doug R

    @jeffreyw: I got some HDMI cables from Costco that claimed to be 2.1 or 2.2. Works fine between my 4K blu ray player and my 4K tv.

  46. 46.

    J R in WV

    @Mandarama:

    I’m sorry for your loss. Sounds like Murph had a good farewell party.

    You will need to get another dawg for your kids, though, that’s how it works!

  49. 49.

    Mandarama

    @J R in WV: Ha! I know you’re right. But my sons would sneak one in the back door this very night if a smart pup wandered up the yard.

    We’ve made them pet lovers. It was a goal, after all.

    Thanks so much, everyone, for your kind thoughts.

  50. 50.

    hilts

    reading Vernor Vinge.

    For someone who’s unfamiliar with Vinge’s work, which book of his would you recommend reading first?

  52. 52.

    dmsilev

    @hilts: A Fire Upon The Deep and A Deepness in the Sky are classics, but are pretty substantial investments of time. I’d suggest starting with Marooned in Realtime. It’s a sequel of sorts (to The Peace War), but it’s a vastly superior book to its predecessor and you don’t really need to read the first one to be able to follow the other.

  53. 53.

    debit

    @Mnemosyne: I mostly use my Instant Pot for brown rice. It’s nice to have it in 20 minutes instead of 45, and while the pressure is building I’m usually prepping or cooking something else. But where it really shines for me is roasts. What usually takes a full day in a slow cooker is done to fall apart tenderness in 90 minutes. Or making pulled pork or carnitas or… damn it, now I want carnitas.

  55. 55.

    NotMax

    @Mnemosyne

    Yes, it takes a short while to come up to pressure, a bit more if using frozen stuff. And some more time if doing a natural release.

    BUT – the other side of the coin is that you don’t have to keep on eye of it or stand around and stir, plus you can readily use frozen ingredients without thawing. And, of course, just the one pot to clean.

    Another thing is that the pressurized cooking (IMHO) results in more consistent outcomes and slightly intensified spice flavors.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    @Mandarama: I am so very sorry. Home with you guys, eating ice cream, wonderful last moments, but surely breaking your heart. Tears.

  59. 59.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @hilts:

    Marooned in RealTime is quite fun. The more heralded Fire Upon the Deep and a Deepness in the Sky have their moments but suffer badly from Herman Melville levels of bloat. They could have been edited down to about a third without losing anything.

    His ex-wife Joan Vinge is also a noted SF writer. Outcasts of Heaven Belt and the Snow Queen probably being her best.

  61. 61.

    Mandarama

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Oh, I hope so! I worry about whether we deserved him. We were so lucky he came into our lives. I took inspiration when John Cole got Lily and there were all the pet rescue stories here.

  62. 62.

    catclub

    @Platonailedit: I was thinking one even more bad aspect to all the Trump news is even less interest by USians
    in international things – like Turkey seeming to be ready to quit NATO, or at least give it the finger and mean it.
    I have noticed if you go to Bloomberg news, after you pick almost any article, an article on the Chinese economy pops up, and so are most of the successive articles. Even Informed Comment concentrates too much on Trump news versus its usual international/mideast focus.

    Any better websites I should be looking at?

  67. 67.

    Platonailedit

    @catclub:

    I rarely look at any of US rags. BBC seems just about enough for me. Not that they are very epitome of journalism, they do blow the trumpturd often, but generally they cover the world news better.

  68. 68.

    Bill Arnold

    @Major Major Major Major:

    A Deepness in the Sky. I haven’t read him before.

    That story has one of the best one liners about techno-panopticons[0], about the localizers:

    “Abused, they lead to ubiquituous law enforcement, and a quick end to civilization. Who will you sell them to?”

    I once asked Vernor Vinge f2f (early 2000s) whether he knew what the OnOff star was; he quickly said yes. (This was much more fun than asking what it is.)

    [0] e.g.
    Bentham, Deleuze and Beyond: An Overview of Surveillance Theories from the Panopticon to Participation     (13 May 2016)

  71. 71.

    J R in WV

    I like the Guardian for external coverage of US affairs and international news.

    I’ve read all the Vernor Vinge novels, and liked them all. Longer books give me more words per dollar spent, take longer to read, have more detail to help m imagination. Hadn’t realized that Joan Vinge was his wife, should have.

    Mr. Vinge is a retired math and computer science professor who gave up that career to write. So he brings a real science feeling to his fiction.

  72. 72.

    Steeplejack

    @RSA:

    Also The Children of the Sky (2011), according to Wikipedia. Surprisingly dismal reaction in the reviews on Amazon. I was thinking of ordering it until I saw that.

    I read and liked the other two, although I have vague memories of stretches of lumbering prose. But the ideas are great.

  73. 73.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:
    @debit:

    I’m starting with chicken cacciatore, which is essentially a stew, plus I have an actual adapted-for-the-Instant Pot recipe for it. If that works out, I’m going to try to make my favorite one-pot lemon chicken because the rice for that (which you cook in the juices of the sauteed chicken) always takes FOREVER to cook. I’m hoping the Instant Pot will make that part a lot less annoying.

  74. 74.

    Platonailedit

    Yet another instance of voters nonvoting, against their own interests.

    Colombia’s anti-corruption referendum has failed to reach the minimum number of votes required for it to be valid.

    Less that 12 million people went to the polls and the referendum needed a little more than 12 million to take part for it to be binding.

    However, an overwhelming majority of those who did vote approved the anti-corruption measures proposed.

    Each of the seven measures had more than 99% support.

    But for the referendum to be valid, a third of the country’s 36.4 million eligible voters had to take part and the turnout fell just short of that.

    The proposed measures include a cut in wages of members of Congress, bans on alternative sentences like house arrest for corruption, forcing elected officials to publish their tax returns and a three-term limit on local and national lawmakers.

  76. 76.

    Steeplejack

    @Mandarama:

    Raven has no doubt gone to bed, so I’ll offer the quotation from Irving Townsend’s book Separate Lifetimes:

    We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necesssary plan.

  83. 83.

    Mandarama

    @Steeplejack: This is so beautiful. Thank you!

    Many thanks to all. I love thinking of him as sunshine in canine form…our pets really hone what is best in our humanity.

  84. 84.

    Tarragon

    @hilts: Deepness in The Sky is a great book to start with. It was written after A Fire upon the Deep but it’s a prequel, and I think a better book.

    I also highly recommend the standalone Rainbows End.

  85. 85.

    Tehanu

    @Tarragon: Totallly agree with you. Wonderful book. Fire Upon the Deep is good too but Deepness has everything, especially the kid characters.

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