Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

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

Second rate reporter says what?

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

“woke” is the new caravan.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

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

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

I really should read my own blog.

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

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Not all heroes wear capes.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

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

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Greenland Declines While Rolling Eyes

Open Thread: Greenland Declines While Rolling Eyes

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A daily embarrassment.

In recipe news – I’m going to do a recipe thread weekly again – do you want Friday evening or Sunday evening? (Those are your choices, if you want another day, bookmark my blog, you jackals. ?)

Open thread

 

Reader Interactions

196Comments

  2. 2.

    Jeffro

    Any other president starts musing out of the blue about buying Greenland (I still can’t believe I typed that) and it’s 25th amendment time. This president*, this timeline? Not so much.

    Are we SURE we’re not some sort of weird reality show for aliens called “DunceWorld” or something?

  3. 3.

    mrmoshpotato

    Points off for no eyeroll emoji in Greenland’s MFA’s tweet. Or several eyeroll emojis, or 280 eyeroll emojis.

    I vote for Friday recipes. “That sounds good. I’ll have to make that tomorrow.”

  7. 7.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Jeffro:

    Any other president starts musing out of the blue about buying Greenland (I still can’t believe I typed that) and it’s 25th amendment time.

    We’ve been living in 25th Amendment land for 2.5+ years. Also ITFMA land, but the Rethuglican House wasn’t going to touch their tax break sugardaddy.

  11. 11.

    Jager

    Speaking of real estate, Mrs. J and I sold our house up in the canyon, so we’re house hunting. We’re on all of the real estate lists. I got one this morning for a 6 bedroom, 10 bath house in Thousand Oaks, CA.for only 29 million dollars. I have no idea why they sent it to us, but they did. With 9 million down, a 30-year mortgage would be 107 thousand a month plus taxes and insurance. The mind boggles. I just got off the phone with our agent, I told her about it, she said, “the buyers of properties like that almost always pay cash.” We really need to raise taxes on the 1% and fast.

  14. 14.

    Elizabelle

    Leaking to the Wall Street Journal that Trump floated the idea of purchasing Greenland: could this be Republicans trying to get him out of the way for a replacement candidate in 2020?

    This comes on the heels of numerous polls showing Trump with an underwater popularity rating in states he won. Although who knows if polling reaches the deplorables who showed up to vote in 2016?

    The economy is showing weakness on multiple fronts. Big money supporting the GOP has to be concerned.

  15. 15.

    The Moar You Know

    Denmark has an enormous amount of power and say in the future of the Arctic by owning Greenland. Giving that up would be national suicide.

    Can’t believe Trump just thought he could buy it. We don’t have enough money. The future returns coming from being a member of the Arctic Council (Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States) dwarf any amount we could offer for the land.

    China has been trying to bulldoze their way into the Council for years and it’s not going to happen. They cannot muster any territorial claim, no matter how hard they’ve tried to stretch the definition of “Arctic” and “China”. A little more melting – which is inevitable – and that really will be the world’s most valuable real estate.

    Any other president starts musing out of the blue about buying Greenland

    @Jeffro: It’s not out of the blue. Russia wants him to. Frankly, if we could and it were on offer it would be in our interests as well.

    For once, this is not Trump sundowning or overdosing on Quarter Pounders.

  16. 16.

    germy

    RAISE HELL: THE LIFE & TIMES OF MOLLY IVINS tells the story of media firebrand Molly Ivins, six feet of Texas trouble who took on the Good Old Boy corruption wherever she found it. Her razor sharp wit left both sides of the aisle laughing, and craving ink in her columns. She knew the Bill of Rights was in peril, and said “Polarizing people is a good way to win an election and a good way to wreck a country.” Molly’s words have proved prescient. Now it’s up to us to raise hell!

    https://trailers.apple.com/trailers/magnolia/raise-hell-the-life-times-of-molly-ivins/

  17. 17.

    different-church-lady

    @ET: A man whose ass is slowly working its way around to the front of his body is fat shaming someone else in the world?

  18. 18.

    Barbara

    Greenland has been on my list of places to visit ever since I read “Greenlanders” by Jane Smiley. If you want a summary of the book, let’s just say that it was hard to finish and the ending was grim. However, it triggered a fascination on my part with the place. I have been to Iceland twice, and you can combine a trip to both places if you leave yourself enough time. Cruises also go there. The coast of Greenland is approximately the same circumference as the earth itself, because it has so many inlets.

  19. 19.

    Elizabelle

    Satirist Andy Borowitz takes on Trump’s latest idiocy:

    The New Yorker: Denmark Offers to Buy U.S.

    COPENHAGEN (The Borowitz Report)—After rebuffing Donald J. Trump’s hypothetical proposal to purchase Greenland, the government of Denmark has announced that it would be interested in buying the United States instead.

    “As we have stated, Greenland is not for sale,” a spokesperson for the Danish government said on Friday. “We have noted, however, that during the Trump regime, pretty much everything in the United States, including its government, has most definitely been for sale.”

    “Denmark would be interested in purchasing the United States in its entirety, with the exception of its government,” the spokesperson added.

    A key provision of the purchase offer, the spokesperson said, would be the relocation of Donald Trump to another country “to be determined,” with Russia and North Korea cited as possible destinations.

    If Denmark’s bid for the United States is accepted, the Scandinavian nation has ambitious plans for its new acquisition. “We believe that by giving the U.S. an educational system and national health care, it could be transformed from a vast land mass into a great nation,” the spokesperson said.

  20. 20.

    jl

    Wiki says Greenland is an ‘autonomous country’ dependent on Denmark, and officially part of the Kingdom of Denmark. So, it is betwixt and between a colony and and independent country. They said they’d far prefer tor take their chances with Denmark. Forgot whether I saw that on twitter, or heard in a news report this morning.

    Turns out the idea is a retread from the Andrew Johnson administration.

    @YAppelbaum
    This was literally the plan when we tried to grab Greenland in 1867:
    https://twitter.com/YAppelbaum/status/1162157631194259456

    Found via Josh Marshall’s twitter

    Edit: I have to wonder if the real plan is to turn Greenland into a vast ice cube factory and glacial water source for Trump properties. The ice is melting anyway, why let that go to waste and flow into the sea? Trump emolument clause business enterprise genius strikes again!

  21. 21.

    MattF

    We can expect that ‘Buying Greenland’ will now become a litmus test for true Republicanism.

  22. 22.

    germy

    Maybe someone can sell Trump a big bucket of water and tell him that's Greenland thanks to his policy failures?— emptywheel (@emptywheel) August 16, 2019

    Anyway, it would be the most on-brand kind of Trump failure to buy a big chunk of land just as it melts into the ocean.— emptywheel (@emptywheel) August 16, 2019

  25. 25.

    germy

    Trump: "You have no choice but to vote for me, because your 401(k)'s down the tubes, everything's gonna be down the tubes," Trump said while speaking in Manchester, N.H. "So whether you love me or hate me, you gotta vote for me," he added.  https://t.co/bSWk5X52ox— EssenViews (@essenviews) August 16, 2019

  26. 26.

    scottinnj

    It’s actually an amazingly strategic move – once we capture Greenland, we can then take Canada and Mexico and we get five extra armies a turn as we control North America. Plus, Greenland is an excellent springboard to capture Iceland, and if we control Iceland, we prevent Putin from taking control of Europe, and also getting 5 extra armies a turn. We can let Putin and Xi hash it out over Asia and while they aren’t watching we can move into South America, and then get two extra armies a turn.We can then win a war of attrition, even if the dice come up tied more often than might be expected.

    It’s a brilliant strategic move, actually, if you are playing Risk.

  27. 27.

    NotMax

    The crazy, it burns.

    On second thought, crazy doesn’t even scratch the surface when it come to describing the timeline.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    Happy holiday! Hope y’all got your Admission Day shopping done in time. (HI state holiday.)

    ;)

  32. 32.

    cmorenc

    Do you want me to send you back to where I found you? Unemployed? In Greenland?

    (From Princess Bride: said by Vizzini to Fezzik when Fezzik expressed his reluctance to participate in Vizzini’s plot to kidnap and kill the Princess).

  33. 33.

    The Dangerman

    So, was Greenland going to be the place to ship all the immigrants (non-white ones, I mean) or the place to ship all the liberals? I need to know so I can go shop for a jacket and muk luks.

    Had to be in downtown LA yesterday and I heard it was first day of school. Public service announcement: Don’t drive in LA on the first day of school. You’re welcome.

  34. 34.

    mrmoshpotato

    @germy:

    everything’s gonna be down the tubes

    Gonna be? It’s not already? To think we could’ve had a real President…

  35. 35.

    jl

    @germy: Whatever happens, including Trump caused economic problems, he is the only one who can save us!

    If there is an economic slowdown or even a recession, certain mindless pundits and corporate press will get savvy and say that presidents don’t have much effect on the economy, and it is a mistake to blame or credit Trump for a causal effect on business cycle. But if there is an exception, it is Trump. Even if a downturn would have occurred anyway, Trump policies have done nothing but make the US more vulnerable to downturn and less able to cushion one that does occur.

    I’ve been thinking downturn in world growth would be a the most likely proximate trigger. If Germany goes into a recession, and that drags down EU economic growth, UK’s growth damaged in short turn due to a hard no deal Brexit, and China’s continues to experience a substantial growth slowdown, that cannot but affect the US economy.

    Take the GOP rich persons’ tax cut as just one example. It has done nothing to boost real business investment, and signs are growing that it is hurting it. The US economic expansion is running almost entirely on growth in consumer spending. But Trump policies have been putting a drag on that. The immediate effect of the GOP tax cut has been to increase the trade deficit, send more Gross National Income overseas (everyone admitted that, GOP and e.g. Krugman and DeLong etc., they just differed on what that would do for the economy). And Trump almost random and fitful tariff war battles have further reduced investment and now even Trumpster partically admitted, increase real consumer costs in the US.

    No way Trump can escape substantial blame for what happens during next downturn either before or immediately after 2020 election.

  39. 39.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Elizabelle:

    could this be Republicans trying to get him out of the way for a replacement candidate in 2020?

    No. He’s an asshole everyone hates to work for or with, so they leak embarrassing information constantly.

  40. 40.

    jl

    And ridiculous and disgusting that Trump now seems to think that the Fed is his new billionaire daddy. He expects the Fed to bail out any and all of his incompetence. Given Trump’s actions to immediately undercut the Fed rate cut with new tariff nonsense, immediately followed by Trump demands that the Fed run in again to cut rates if needed to fix any problems that tariff war produced, Fed unlikely to be willing.

    And if world economic growth does take a serious downturn, unlikely the Fed will be able. The Fed will be in a very tight spot, deciding on whether to use standard tools to forestall a downturn, or save policy tools for cushioning a downturn that may be inevitable. It won’t be able to afford the luxury of catering to Trumpster incompetence.

    Edit: If downturn soon, US will enter it with far fewer standard monetary tools to cushion it than in previous post WWII period. Moscow Mitch will block any effective fiscal measures, though another rich person’s tax cut may be OK with him. Fed will have to go immediately to nonstandard measures, and we don’t know how well they’ll work as a substitute rather than a complement to standard tools.

  41. 41.

    jl

    @AliceBlue: Some one needs to write a book on the history of US ambitions for Greenland. Probably will be something on the internet soon if Trump keeps obsessing over it.

    Probably would be nice for Dems of Trump made that a big 2020 campaign issue.

  42. 42.

    mrmoshpotato

    Heute Show has chimed in on this idiocy. Apparently the Inuit have 91 words for “blithering idiot.”

  43. 43.

    jl

    @mrmoshpotato: I read someplace that the structure of Inuit language allows them to come up with 99 words for anything on the fly. The armory of Inuit insults must be interesting. Sadly Google translate doesn’t include Inuit, from what I see today.

  48. 48.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:
    Six bedrooms? 29 mill? Someone get themselves in a bit of a jam and need a spare 25 mill?
    Na, you could probably talk them down to 10-12 mill. Still a bit much but a lot closer to, well not reality…….

  49. 49.

    opiejeanne

    @Jager: The one across the street from us is nice* and quite a bit cheaper at $10 million and 17,000 square feet on 7.5 acres. Honestly, the mind boggles. The annual property taxes alone are $47k. The guest house is bigger than our humble abode.

    We figure a developer will buy it and lop off a couple of acres to build some McMansions, since the back of the property is on another street.

    *Nice as in well-built and with some nice amenities but you really need a map to figure out where you are inside that thing. We’ve been inside exactly once, during the agent’s open house. The sellers were not particularly nice people, and they never invited us to one of their parties for the local Republican candidates.

  52. 52.

    mrmoshpotato

    @jl: Not sure if it’s serious. On one hand, it’s a comedy show (literally translates to Daily Show). On the other hand, it’s a German comedy show, so maybe it’s very very serious comedy.

  53. 53.

    Geoboy

    Hey Donald – you’ve already got an island – its much closer and warmer than Greenland – it has more population than 20 of the 50 states – and they pay taxes but don’t get to vote. It’s called Puerto Rico. Why don’t you make that a state?

  55. 55.

    Barbara

    @germy: When there are so many things I encounter during the course of a day over the last three years that make me want to say not much more than WTF?, this is one where it really fits. “The stock market is imploding so you have to vote for me” couldn’t possibly make sense anywhere, anytime.

  60. 60.

    MattF

    @Barbara: “And I’ve had absolutely nothing to do with the implosion.” It’s a sort of Jenga tower of projection and blame-shifting.

  61. 61.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Jager:

    I read somewhere the median house price in TO is 770.

    Actually, I’m a bit surprised it’s not about 100k higher. Even the older houses in TO are good sized houses on good sized lots. We lived in a ranch style on a 1/2 acre.

  62. 62.

    Jager

    @different-church-lady:

    I saw a shot of him yesterday from his rally, the bastard is bigger than William Howard Taft, he is a huge fat bastard. He has to be way over 300 lbs. I’m an inch shorter than he is and weighed 237 about 5 years ago, I looked like a skinny little shit compared to trump and he supposedly weighs 243? (I’m reaching around to pat myself on the back, I lost 50 pounds and have kept it off.)

  63. 63.

    MisterForkbeard

    @germy: “I broke your shit, so vote for me!” is not a particularly winning argument for anyone but the stupidest.

    It’ll probably go over well with Republicans.

  66. 66.

    different-church-lady

    @MisterForkbeard:

    “I broke your shit, so vote for me!” is not a particularly winning argument for anyone but the stupidest.

    “Yes, but we’ll need a majority”

  69. 69.

    Jeffro

    @germy: NO way. He really said that?

    “I broke it, and only I can fix it”. That has been a winning campaign message for centuries. LOL please proceed GOP…

  70. 70.

    different-church-lady

    @Jeffro: 1975: You can’t have the sound of a flushing toilet on TV.

    2019: Everyone’s carrying around a little digital picture of a pile of poo with eyes.

  71. 71.

    Another Scott

    @Jager: Supposedly he wears a bunch of body armor out in public. He didn’t look quite so huge in that shot of him at some breakfast bar at MAL a few months back.

    Dunno.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  73. 73.

    Jeffro

    @different-church-lady: Oddly enough, that dovetails nicely with

    1975: Jimmy Carter has to divest himself of his blessed peanut farm before he can be prez

    2019: Emoluments R the bomb! Same with multigenerational tax fraud and using shell companies to pay off porn star mistresses!! Now then…how much for Greenland?

    Boy oh boy the GOP’s going to be feeling the weight of the Orange Millstone right about this time next year…good times!

  74. 74.

    dexwood

    Friday, please. Make sure to include recipes for meals found only in Greenland, I want to be ready for the expansion.

  78. 78.

    Jager

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Lots of 60s era neighborhoods with 3 bedroom ranches jammed together, 4 damn cars in the driveway, street full of cars. About 2 houses per block that are well cared for, they’re priced 400 to 500k. The areas with the bigger lots, 100k higher, remodeled, as in get rid of the avocado appliances, 50 to 100k more. No bargains in Ventura County.

    We made an offer on a super townhouse in Wood Ranch, then the HOA stepped in and said, no German Shepherds, to quote our beloved old friend, EF Goldman, “Fuck Em. We’re back to looking for a single-family house again.

  82. 82.

    Bill Arnold

    @Jeffro:

    Are we SURE we’re not some sort of weird reality show for aliens called “DunceWorld” or something?

    Would you be amused to find out that something close to this is true?
    (Pretty sure aliens don’t create reality TV shows. :-)

  83. 83.

    Catherine D.

    I vote for recipes on Friday. It’s CSA season, and I’m always looking for new ways to add the veg in.

    And may I rant slightly? I wish America recipes would give measurements in weights. I don’t want to guess how big the potatoes or cabbage or whatever are. Sure, I can make a good guess but don’t wanna when I’m surveying the fridge ?

  84. 84.

    NotMax

    Recipes aren’t even necessarily a regular requirement. Just having a weekly dedicated food thread (again) would be the bee’s knees. The non-political threads have become oases.

  85. 85.

    opiejeanne

    @mrmoshpotato: I live in Woodinville, a charming semi-rural area which is trying to turn our piece of the Sammamish River Valley into the Napa/Sonoma district of Washington. It’s all tasting rooms calling themselves wineries and qualifying for that title by growing a few rows of vines somewhere on the property. All of the winery grapes are grown in Eastern Washington.
    Some of those various “wineries” have concerts all summer, and Red Hook, when it was open, had an outdoor movie night every weekend . We are up the hill and about 2 miles from the big winery, Chateau Ste. Michelle. One night a couple of summers ago, I was in the garden and I swore I could hear Ringo Starr singing in the distance. It was about 7pm and we still had more than two hours of daylight left. I climbed up on our lovely septic hump and boy, did it sound like Ringo. I looked up the concert list for that evening and it was Ringo. Amazing that his voice was recognizable at that distance. Anyway, we’ve already got our own more sedate Woodstock here.

  87. 87.

    cain

    @Jager:

    We made an offer on a super townhouse in Wood Ranch, then the HOA stepped in and said, no German Shepherds, to quote our beloved old friend, EF Goldman, “Fuck Em. We’re back to looking for a single-family house again.

    I’d probably not buy anything new and just to rentals, I’m fairly sure a looming housing crash is coming and anything you buy now is going down in value, IMHO.

  92. 92.

    NotMax

    WTF?

    Just noticed the label on the inside of the box of grapes recently purchased advertises in large print they are “crisp and exotic with sweet grape jam flavor.”

  93. 93.

    Catherine D.

    @jeffreyw: The weight could be in parentheses and not even metric …

    Just last week I was doing body scanning for a Canadian company (or in other words how under funded university departments try to survive), and their subject was from the US. I had to translate the measurements ?

    ETA the translation was for the Yank.

  95. 95.

    jl

    From my experience along Alaska west and north coast, the indigenous people up there are very welcoming people. They like to share their culture, at leas from my experience at Alaska ‘Eskimo’ Olympics. The natives wanted everyone to do the walrus dance at the end. Not sure Eskimo is politically correct anymore but that’s what they called it then.

    So, If Trump is an exception, that tells you something.

  98. 98.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Jager: Sounds like the area just east of the high school(Cottage Hills) and just south of there which is a bit more rural(horses allowed). We never had the avocado appliances, that was more of a 70’s upgrade.

  100. 100.

    Yarrow

    I vote for Friday. Good for weekend planning.

    @dexwood:

    Make sure to include recipes for meals found only in Greenland, I want to be ready for the expansion.

    I’m all for this! Do you have any recipes for narwhal blubber?

  101. 101.

    Rand Careaga

    Well, given his legendarily abbreviated attention span, I imagine the short-fingered vulgarian will shortly forget Greenland and fixate on another shiny object. But now and then he becomes obsessive, and hates being told no. I grant the scenario is unlikely, but suppose he determines that we must have the island, and orders the armed forces to seize it? Sure, the Pentagon would stall, but after a week of rage-tweeting his 27% will be shrieking that we want Greenland, we need Greenland, and goddamnit, we deserve Greenland? Do the Joint Chiefs disobey their C-in-C, do they resign on principle (to be replaced by sycophants eager to curry favor with Himself), or do they go ahead and invade, at which point, I dunno, Russia annexes Scandinavia?

    Implausible, of course. But the last three years have been pretty fucking implausible…

  106. 106.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @jl:

    The natives wanted everyone to do the walrus dance at the end.

    I think I saw that in a film that came out in late 1967…”I am the eggman, they are the eggmen, I am the Walrus…”.

  107. 107.

    trollhattan

    @nwerner:
    My very, very young self appreciated the symmetry of the 49-star flag–so easy to draw. Hawaii really screwed up that one.

    NB Alaska statehood was a Big Deal in the Puget Sound region because of their close historical ties. Seattle was the key port supporting the Alaska Gold Rush.

  109. 109.

    Origuy

    From the Wikipedia article on Greenlandic cuisine:

    The national dish of Greenland is suaasat, a traditional Greenlandic soup.[3] It is often made from seal, or from whale, reindeer, or seabirds. The soup often includes onions and potatoes, and is simply seasoned with salt and pepper, or bay leaf. The soup is often thickened with rice, or by soaking barley in the water overnight so that the starches leach into the water.

    I was thinking of hákarl, which is fermented Greenland shark, but that’s Icelandic.

  114. 114.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Spot where Little Boots would alternate between comments stalking Omnes and comments consisting of only a naked link.

  115. 115.

    JoyceH

    What’s funny is that the original founders of Greenland named it that to encourage people to move there. Sort of like naming a patch of Florida swampland Ocean View Estates. So the guy who spent his career doing shady real estate deals fell for the oldest real estate scam in history, just like the rubes he used to scam. You’d think he of all people would know better.

  116. 116.

    nwerner

    @mrmoshpotato: 7 x 7 field. it’s not in great condition and not all that rare from the little looking around i’ve done on ebay. my dad knew it would be an interesting historical artifact and saved it.

  118. 118.

    Quinerly

    @NotMax: I miss a late night music thread. I had been a lurker for many, many years but those threads brought me out. Could we have a regular one again? Maybe Sunday night?

  120. 120.

    chris

    I have a comment but this is a peaceful family blog…

    Congressional Republicans recently circulated talking points on gun violence that falsely described the El Paso massacre and other mass shootings as “violence from the left.” Link

  122. 122.

    Gravenstone

    @mrmoshpotato: Once attended a regional scifi con, in the same hotel as some function involving Miami University. The looks on the college student’s faces tended towards the priceless. Shared an elevator with a bewildered young couple, some cos-players, and the con guest of honor Frederick Pohl. Sort of surreal.

  124. 124.

    bemused

    @chris:

    Not one ounce of decency or humanity in the “family values” cult.
    I’m so tired of getting sick to my stomach.

  126. 126.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Sadly, noticed after posting that linked version cuts off the very last word of the Yoko Ono impersonator’s voice. The missing word is “over.”

  127. 127.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @chris: The the problem with that Culture War nonsense, Left Loonies are just as deadly as Right Wing Loonies and all the more argument about restricting assault rifles and machine guns ownership. . Suppose it might be even the Conservatives get guns are out of control in this country and “the left wing crises actors” is how they will justify regulation in their minds.

    I also noticed my Orange County Conservative on life friend has been prattling on about the need for a Third War between fascism and socialism lately. So mental gymnastics of the conservative mind as they forced to do the right thing.

  128. 128.

    geg6

    @Another Scott:

    Take a good look at him on the golf course. Look at some photos from before he was elected. No body armor. Just Jabba the Hut level lack of physical fitness. Pretty bold of him to be fat shaming anyone at his size.

  129. 129.

    debbie

    @germy:

    …Said the wolf to the lamb.

    If they can’t see he’s the one who’s costing them their 401s, then they deserve to lose everything.

  130. 130.

    germy

    @NotMax: I remember buying that album in the ’70s. Lampoon’s “radio dinner”

    The piano player and voice of “Yoko” was Melissa Manchester, according to the liner notes.

  132. 132.

    Ruckus

    @JoyceH:

    You’d think he of all people would know better.

    Are you new here?
    I’ve never thought he would know better about anything. Because he never has. He only knows one thing, how to take a dollar and turn it gaudy, spray painted gold and worth pennies at best. He knows far less about anything not having to do with money. The only midas touch that trump has is how to not pay someone for spray painting his crap gold.

  133. 133.

    NotMax

    @germy

    Remember cuing it up the day it arrived at the radio station in order to clearly mark which tracks were not broadcast friendly. Happened to be a visiting buddy there too. There were some portions on first listen when we were both falling out of chairs with laughter.

  134. 134.

    germy

    @NotMax: Tony Hendra was later accused of abuse by his daughter. I think he’s more or less retired now. I remember he co-wrote a book with George Carlin, and I think he had something to do with “The Moth” storytelling series.

  135. 135.

    debbie

    @chris:

    All of them, even “establishment” Fox News, are insisting the gunman was leftist, anti-Trump, and an Elizabeth Warren supporter. I heard it with my own ears, and I am still stunned.

  136. 136.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:
    You think Stephen Moore is stupider than trump?
    trump hired him. And he’s so stupid Stephen’s “ideas” didn’t seem stupid to him.
    All one has to do is think, is this the stupidest idea ever? Then it’s trump’s. It’s an even bet it might be someone else’s if the question is “Is this the most evil idea ever?” trump revels in stupid. He’s the poster child for stupid as a life choice.

  137. 137.

    Another Scott

    @NotMax: :-)

    Horse’s mouth:

    PLAYBOY: “‘I am the Walrus.'”

    LENNON: “The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko. Part of it was putting down Hare Krishna. All these people were going on about Hare Krishna, Allen Ginsberg in particular. The reference to ‘Element’ry penguin’ is the elementary, naive attitude of going around chanting, ‘Hare Krishna,’ or putting all your faith in any one idol. I was writing obscurely, a la Dylan, in those days.”

    PLAYBOY: “The song is very complicated, musically.”

    LENNON: “It actually was fantastic in stereo, but you never hear it all. There was too much to get on. It was too messy a mix. One track was live BBC Radio– Shakespeare or something– I just fed in whatever lines came in.”

    PLAYBOY: “What about the walrus itself?”

    LENNON: “It’s from ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter.’ ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ To me, it was a beautiful poem. It never dawned on me that Lewis Carroll was commenting on the capitalist and social system. I never went into that bit about what he really meant, like people are doing with the Beatles’ work. Later, I went back and looked at it and realized that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy. I thought, Oh, shit, I picked the wrong guy. I should have said, ‘I am the carpenter.’ But that wouldn’t have been the same, would it? (singing) ‘I am the carpenter….'”

    :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  141. 141.

    Ruckus

    @geg6:
    His mirrors are all from a carnival house of mirrors and make him look like something completely different, an actual human being. He doesn’t realize that humans don’t see the same thing he does.

  144. 144.

    chris

    @debbie: Well, sure. Everyone knows that Antifa kills upstanding American patriots every day and SPW’s minions cover it up.

  145. 145.

    Roger Moore

    @Ruckus:

    His mirrors are all from a carnival house of mirrors and make him look like something completely different, an actual human being.

    The distortion doesn’t come from his mirrors; it comes from the mind of the man looking in them.

  146. 146.

    Avery Greynold

    Why did Putin have Trump want to buy Greenland? He figures that if Trump pisses off Norway and Greenland enough, they will tear up their treaty allowing the US to maintain an early warning radar site there.

  148. 148.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:
    Well they are both delusionally stupid and a battle of wits would be too much for anyone to hear, thankfully a battle of wits between them would only last about a half second, so the exposure would be minimal. Now it a battle of both of them together against everyone else, that’s a level of stupid that we get to experience on a daily level, and it ain’t pretty in any world.
    So I think it probably doesn’t matter which one of us is right, they are both stupider than a box of over cooked brussles sprouts.

  150. 150.

    Origuy

    I subscribe to a Twitter feed called @MapPornTweet, which sends links to random maps. One of today’s shows the locations of Norse settlements on Greenland. https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4718/39336730994_d2da8a793f_o.png
    Greenland was apparently uninhabited when the Norse got there in 985, as previous migrations from North America had died out. The ancestors of today’s Inuit started arriving around 1200. The Norse were gone by 1500; the fate of the last settlers is still a mystery.

  151. 151.

    Miss Bianca

    @opiejeanne: Is Red Hook no more, then? I haven’t seen them on the shelves lately, but then again, I’m not as much of a beer drinker as I used to be…

  152. 152.

    MoxieM

    My totally off the hook Open Thread contribution is that the penny just dropped and in a different lifetime I knew the guy who Epstein’s GF/whatever, Ghislaine Maxwell, is supposed to have been shacked up with. Name of Scott Borgerson. Knew him courtesy of my ex. (Ex was NOT a pedo. No, not that.) Borgerson I would have said was mostly ambitious rough trade, seriously on the make, and I am not at all surprised that he’s gone from being the son of an Ozarks bounty hunter (think Winter’s Bone) to a 1%-er schmoozing with scumbags. Yeah. Huh, imagine. Name, dropped. Gonna go take a shower.

  156. 156.

    chris

    @Origuy: Thanks, that’s very cool. I did not know that there were so many Vikings in Greenland. But then I just have a hazy memory from a school history book showing a boatload of vikings led by Eric the Red. Leif the Lucky was in there somewhere too.
    Reddit also has a map porn sub that can be fun.

  159. 159.

    trollhattan

    @Miss Bianca:
    Red Hook exists, saw it in a NorCal store recently. Don’t recall which flavor(s). Can’t say whether it’s still brewed in Seattle or the brand lives on as a label slapped on somebody else’s stuff. To their eternal credit they were among the very first of what we now call craft brewers, a wave that saw most of the pioneers die off. (Wicked Pete’s, anybody?)

  160. 160.

    Brachiator

    Coming late to this fun thread because, you know, work and such.

    It’s weird that cranky old orange guy president is so bored with being Commander in chief that he wants to fall back on being a real estate mogul again.

    But he’s rusty. If he was up on his game, he would not offer to buy Greenland. He would propose a Section 1031 exchange, Puerto Rico for Greenland.

  161. 161.

    Dan B

    @Catherine D.: Dud you say you were enjoying Derry Girls? Me too. The premise seems corny but they all seem to be fun to watch, like the cast is having a great time playing right up to the edge of stereotypes and caricature then darting past the shoals

  162. 162.

    Searcher

    Honestly, I think the 48 star flag probably looked the best.

    Maybe we could merge North Dakota and South Dakota?

    Hmm, honestly there are a lot of good state mergers.

    OK, here’s my proposal:

    Merge North/South Dakota, Vermont/New Hampshire, Wyoming/Montana, Rhode Island/Connecticut, dropping us to 46. Admit DC and Puerto Rico, bringing us back to 48 for that nice star arrangement.

    If Guam, the US Virgin Islands, or Greenland want in, we can merge West Virginia back into Virginia. It had a good run, but the Civil War has been over for over 150 years, it’s time for them to reunite. Maybe Delaware and Maryland, Nebraska and Kansas.

  167. 167.

    Brachiator

    @Jeffro:

    Any other president starts musing out of the blue about buying Greenland (I still can’t believe I typed that) and it’s 25th amendment time. This president*, this timeline? Not so much.

    Oh hell, yes!

    This is crazier than the Caine Mutiny, and a captain jibbering about strawberries.

  170. 170.

    opiejeanne

    @Yarrow: my BIL and his lovely bride were living in Alaska and brought a number of delicacies to share with the guests at the wedding. I did not try the muktuk but everyone who did agreed that it was truly awful. An acquired taste, I’m sure.

  172. 172.

    catclub

    I think there are lots of places that ‘if the US could buy that, we should’
    Alaska comes to mind, but we already bought it. Gibraltar and Iceland both spring to mind. How about Diego Garcia?

    The leaking that we are thinking about it, before a deal is done, shows the disfunction of his admin.
    If it came out that Obama was discussing how we need more access to the Arctic and it would be nice to get Greenland, would anyone here be saying he is unhinged? But the point is that if Obama were discussing it, it would not come out until we had bought the island.

  175. 175.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @debbie: The one negative comment I saw reading though it related to picture quality. In defense of the photographer, it’s really hard to get the foreground as light as they did and keep the sky looking acceptable. You could separate the sky and foreground and process them separately and then put them back together, but they’d have to do that for each individual frame. They said it’s roughly 3 hours(180 minutes and the longest exposure would be 30 seconds), so 360 frames at a minimum.

  176. 176.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    The medical examiner has said Epstein’s death was a suicide.

    Trump killed him and the Trump administration is covering it up.

    ETA. That’s my story for as long as the Trump administration, Fox News and Republican strategists keep joking about conspiracies.

  178. 178.

    Brachiator

    @catclub:

    If it came out that Obama was discussing how we need more access to the Arctic and it would be nice to get Greenland, would anyone here be saying he is unhinged?

    Yep.

    I don’t see that Trump’s fixation involves discussion or rational motivation. Unless you want to argue that Trump is a brilliantly instinctive president.

  179. 179.

    Catherine D.

    @Dan B: Yes, I love Derry Girls. My whole catlick immigrant background is laughing. (“Sister Michael, I don’t have a Protestant.”)

  185. 185.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Brachiator:

    Unless you want to argue that Trump is a brilliantly instinctive president.

    Instinctive at what? Sucking dictators’ asses?

  186. 186.

    Miss Bianca

    @trollhattan: Was that Pete’s Wicked Ale? Yeah, drank some of that, back in the day. Some of the old first craft wave are still around, like Anchor Steam. I still enjoy a Liberty Ale, when I can find it.

  187. 187.

    Brachiator

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Unless you want to argue that Trump is a brilliantly instinctive president.

    Instinctive at what? Sucking dictators’ asses?

    Ha! He certainly displays a natural talent for that.

  188. 188.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Gravenstone: For many years in the last millennium 1,500-2,000 SF fans would descend on the (Marriott) Hunt Valley Inn north of Baltimore every Easter weekend for Balticon.

    The hostelry’s Cinnamon Tree restaurant was famous for a primo Easter brunch that attracted the cream of northern Baltimore County society, all dressed to the nines for church. These folks would reach the resto from the front entrance via a long lobby & then past the reception desk.

    Meantime the trail from the guest rooms filled with convention-goers to the event rooms ran from right to left across the top of the lobby right in front of reception.

    The clash of cultures at the reception desk at noonish Sunday was loud enough to ruin your hearing as fancy dresses, sober suits with ties & white shoes (& I’m talking about the kids) intersected with & backed away from the stream of what we now call “cosplayers” – who themselves reared back in shock – both groups thinking the same thing:

    JFC, you people are weird!

    – though to tell the truth the brunchers probably replaced the JFC with a “dear God in heaven”…

    Good memories. (ETA I met Fred Pohl at one Balticon, & knocked off a couple of bottles of Riesling with GoH Algis Budrys at another as we solved the problems of the multiverse…)

    (FWIW the mgmt loved having the convention there – we filled the place at an otherwise moribund period &, per the staff, we were waaaaaay less problematical & property damaging than, e.g., the Shriners.)

  189. 189.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @mrmoshpotato: See #188 supra for somewhat less threatening awkward. (Although TBH some of the “barbarian princesses”, dressed in a scarf & a sneeze & in those benighted days frequently a tad short on the attributes necessary to pull it off [so to speak], probably did nothing to sharpen the bruncher-parents’ appetites…)

  190. 190.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Jager:

    [T]he bastard is bigger than William Howard Taft

    Well hot damn. Taft was large enough to have his own atmosphere. His own weather. Women didn’t dance with him, they orbited.

  193. 193.

    Steeplejack

    Let me just say that Greenland-related Smilla's Sense of Snow is both a good novel (Peter Høeg, 1992) and a good movie (1997, Julia Ormond, Gabriel Byrne). Trailer here.

  194. 194.

    columbusqueen

    @Uncle Cosmo: But Taft wasn’t bad-looking & was a cheerful sort most of the time, unlike the current orange glob of lard. Why any woman would let him touch her (I’m looking at you, Melania) is beyond me.

  195. 195.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Ded thred, I know, but did anyone catch Saturday’s Daily Noose front page? Here’s one source. A luuuuvly play on the iconic October 1975 front page (“FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD”).

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