Kitten holding a duckling pic.twitter.com/A5j7Iw8NBk
— 41 Strange (@41Strange) August 31, 2019
Happy news: Someone who might or might not be Paul Broncks (note the twitter address) is back:
Should I change it back? I'll put it to the people. Since when did that ever go badly?
— Pablo Diablo (@SlenderSherbet) September 1, 2019
And a little practical inspiration, from the Washington Post — “For Baltimore teachers heading back to school, the Book Thing is a treasure”:
A 6,955-square-foot warehouse in Baltimore’s Abell neighborhood holds something of a treasure trove for the city’s teachers.
As they prepare for Tuesday’s first day of school, educators are making last-minute trips to the Book Thing, carefully sorting through the thousands of novels and textbooks and dictionaries they can use to build up their classroom libraries — all free.
For years, people have dropped off unwanted books at the Book Thing’s doors and then gone inside to browse through others’ donated stories. Anyone is welcome to take home as many books as they want from the used book “store.” Some tuck a novel or two into their totes and head out. Others fill cardboard boxes to the brim…
It’s a uniquely important resource for city teachers, whose struggle to pay for the books they needed to fill their classrooms inspired the Book Thing’s creation two decades ago.
Dan Parsons, an English teacher at Frederick Douglass High, walked out of the Book Thing on Saturday with a loaded box in his hands and even more books stuffed into his canvas backpack.
At his West Baltimore school — where many students come from poverty and witness the city’s unrelenting gun violence up close — Parsons transformed his classroom into a literary oasis. Hundreds of books cover nearly every surface. He uses stocked bookshelves to cordon off reading nooks where students can escape into the kinds of stories that both reflect their own experiences and open their minds to new ones…
Yeah, in a better world, we wouldn’t need volunteers to help out teachers who are digging into their own sparse funds to support their students. But there are kids who need those books now — they can’t wait for perfection.
Barb 2
I love photos like this. Baby animals comforting each other. thanks for sharing!
My thoughts are with all of you in Florida and north. The Bahamas – massive damage. before and after photo.
OzarkHillbilly
Revealed: Georgia Republicans use power of state to suppress minority vote
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: No, what a shock!
Nicole
Still jet lagged from our first vacation in almost 3 years, so I’m up to see the morning Open Thread at the start!
The post on Lily Tomlin was great. Coincidentally, we put on some old SNL sketches for the 9-year-old last night, to see if they still held up for the post-millennial generation, and there Ms. Tomlin was, in one of the Land Shark sketches (which, judging from how hard my kid laughed, do still hold up). He was astounded to learn she was the same person who voiced Aunt May in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Lily Tomlin, eternally cool.
All right, the dog is wailing at me to take her out and throw ball before Central Park’s off-leash hours end. At least SOMEONE is benefitting from my jet lag.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: I know, I am as surprised as everyone else here. Especially you.
JPL
@Nicole: Happy dog!
OzarkHillbilly
Houston Astros ace Justin Verlander throws third no-hitter of career
Something tells me Verlander isn’t joking.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ? ??
mere mortal
This is the better world, this is the definition of a community.
A bunch of people have piles of books they will never read (again?), and instead of throwing them away, they gift them to strangers, students, or whomever.
Pleased to have some good news amidst all this awfulness, thanks.
Mary G
https://twitter.com/erinruberry/status/1168328621536284673?s=19
mrmoshpotato
@Nicole: Plumber.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
NotMax
Labor Day related music.
Phil Ochs
Billy Bragg
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Sam Cooke
NotMax
Speaking of labor (and labor unrest), y’all might want to to check out Peterloo on Prime. Could have done with maybe 20 minutes judiciously trimmed from it, but so it goes.
Kay
I did the fec search with a zip code filter for my town and we only have 38 Trump donations since 2017. That’s donations not donors- two donors make up about half of the donations. There’s about 7500 people in the city – it’s technically a “city” in Ohio – and it went 70% Trump. I don’t know what it means but that’s lower than I thought.
If I just do all donations the D’s come up as “Actblue” (they all are donating thru actblue) which is also interesting. I suppose I could filter for each name and see the D candidate.
ET
I ve been there. The place is just a cool idea. But then I am a reader and a librarian.
Baud
I was practicing my Spanish this morning and one of the sentences I had to translate was “The president will destroy our country.” I choose to believe that was deliberate shade.
Baud
@Mary G:
These real action Disney movies are going too far.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning rikyrah and everyone! I pretty much wasted yesterday being wiped out by my 18 hour day Saturday, so I have a huge pile of stuff to try to do today. But I feel like playing hooky and going to the blueberry festival instead. Decisions.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: That goose needs a Honker’s Ale!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@NotMax: I especially like the Billy Bragg.
Tony Jay
Brexit – The rhyme is no coincidence
I’ll say one thing for this whole Brexit farce, it’s provided cast-iron, copper-bottomed, gilt-edged, sterling-silver, stamped and self-addressed proof beyond any reasonable doubt that our own brand of Conservative-in-name-only radical revolutionaries of the Right are every bit as incompetent and reliant on brute force thuggery as their trans-Atlantic cousins. The last few days alone have seen so many of the Regime’s claims exposed as blatant lies that the cat is not so much ‘out of the bag’ as it’s been propelled from the mouth of said bag at super-sonic speeds mounted on a 1961 Triumph TR6 motorcycle while wearing the face of a disappointed and world-weary Steve McQueen and mouthing the words “I should have taken the fucking train” around a well-chewed cigar.
First off, all the blather about how proroguing Parliament (forcing it into a complete recess in advance of a new Queen’s Speech) for 5 weeks has nothing whatsoever to do with preventing Parliament from legislating an official and legally binding “Read my lips, it’s a big fat fucking No!” to the very concept of exiting the European Union without a negotiated withdrawal deal has been blown out of the water by Ben Wallace, the 49 year old work-experience kid recently promoted to the post of Defence Secretary because no one else was stupid enough to sip from that particular poisoned chalice while the Bolton and Pompeo Show is still promoting its late-Summer Revue “Gulf of Lies – Everyone Dies”, loosely based on the ‘Left Behind’ series of Hunky Psycho Jeebus fan-fics and a very nice letter BiBi wrote to Donny about what he should do to drive ‘that negro’ crazy. While shuffling around Helsinki like an apologetic sex-case (“Hello. I’m Ben and I’m legally obligated to tell you that I’m a registered sex-offender….. and a Brextremist”) Wallace the Wally was caught on video telling his French counterpart that the Number 2 in Number 10 had ordered Parliament suspended because;
“Our system is a winner takes all system. If you win a parliamentary majority, you control everything. You control the timetable. There’s no written separation. And we’ve suddenly found ourselves with no majority and a coalition, and that’s not easy for our system.”
Hold the phones, though, apparently this was all cleared up when we were told that soon-to-be ex-Defence Secretary Wallace was just ‘mis-speaking’ and actually meant that Number 10 wasn’t, in fact, lying through its collective arsehole when it denied that proroguing was a massive and illegitimate power grab by the unelected executive. We know this because Number 10 told us so, and no one in Number 10 would ever tell a…. oh…. right…. yeah…..awk-ward.
Then a collective report was leaked from the super-secret bodies advising the redundantly named ‘Department for exiting the EU’ on alternative solutions to the Northern Irish Border problem (how do you control trade, travel and customs duties across an international border without any of the hardware and manpower that are specifically banned under the Good Friday Agreement?) that basically trashed all of the bullshit ‘solutions’ touted by Johnson’s cabal as being viable alternatives to the Backstop (a clause in the EU Withdrawal Agreement that basically says the UK leaves the EU’s political councils on October 31st but remains tied to the EU’s trade and customs system until such a time as a mutually satisfactory alternative is agreed – which would be never) and made it crystal clear that Number 10 was lying through its teeth to the EU and the British public. The report itself rules out publishing any of its findings because;
“(of the) potential negative impacts on the renegotiation with the EU and we understand No 10 are in agreement …”
Damned straight there would be ‘negative impacts’. Johnson has based his entire strategy on threatening to leave the EU without a negotiated deal unless the EU surrenders to his facade of manly confidence and accepts one or all of these ‘alternative solutions’. It’s much harder to run a bluff like that when everyone around the table not only knows that it’s a bluff, but the owners of the gambling establishment who you’ve lied to in order to borrow the stake also know it’s a bluff, and are currently standing behind you discussing Ts & Cs over the phone with a discrete ‘business associate’ who owns a concrete shoe diving school down by the docks.
All of this against the backdrop of Johnson’s threatening his own Party’s MPs with withdrawal of the whip and a ban against them seeking re-election as Conservatives if they so much as think about voting for any legislation forbidding a No-Deal crash-out. For a (let’s say for the sake of brevity) ‘national leader’ who promised to bring his Party and Country together this is a pretty out-there method of achieving that aim, and though the usual suspects down at the BBC are still rendered wide-eyed and weak-kneed by the merest scent of Tory Bad Daddy musk, it remains a cold, hard and boorishly undeniable fact that this pantomime of a Government only has a 1 seat majority. Go ahead, Flobalob, toss that in the bin and try playing the Lord of the Manor with a minority Government and a few dozen now Independent ex-Tories exiled to the Opposition benches with uncombed hair and no fucks left to give.
Honestly, these fucking people. Tomorrow should be ‘fun’.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I’m not so sure. That might have been there because so many are currently saying it.
Spanky
@Baud: It would certainly qualify as a Disney movie. The pair is so … white.
Mary G
@Tony Jay: I love the way you write. Also glad America isn’t alone in having handed our country over to an obviously crooked boob who’s not even good at criminalizing but is completely getting away with it.
So glad to see the massive protests in Britain and Hong Kong and wondering why we aren’t taking to the streets here.
OzarkHillbilly
@Tony Jay: Sometimes I really wish you’d stop beating around the bushes and tell us how you really feel.
Baud
@Spanky:
Haha. At least they aren’t wearing MAGA hats.
Baud
@Mary G:
Britain and Hong Kong are really facing extential crises. Our national shame has been more of a slow boil.
Nicole
@mrmoshpotato:
Oh my gosh! Good suggestion; I’ll show him that one.
Much to my frustration, “Succinctly Speaking” isn’t available anywhere online. FIRE BAD!
Spanky
@Baud: I think the EU could well decide that it could get along fine without Britain. I’m not so sure China could say the same about Hong Kong.
Tony Jay
@Mary G:
I’d hazard a guess that it’s a mixture of having Democrats in control of the public purse and the investigatory authority of the House plus a fixed concentration on the important work of getting more and better Democrats elected in every position in every state.
We’re protesting because our political system gives ALL the political power to whoever sits on the Government benches, you guys have more options available to you.
Tony Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Inability to express our deepest emotions is a national curse that only morphine and gin can dispel. And I don’t like gin.
OzarkHillbilly
The Laundromat looks to be pretty good.
Baud
The picture at the link is interesting.
germy
bush/cheney destabilize the Middle East. The result is a flood of refugees and migrants, which triggers a rise of RW European fascism . . .
I voted for Gore and Kerry. I wish they’d won.
Spanky
@Baud: Hmmmm. That leaves me with just one question.
Baud
@Spanky:
Haha. I knew what that was before I clicked.
OzarkHillbilly
@Tony Jay: I would think a good single malt could help with that.
Baud
@Tony Jay:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-election-guardian/very-strong-rumors-uk-election-could-be-called-this-week-for-before-october-31-the-guardian-idUSKCN1VN115
Sister Golden Bear
Good Morning/Evening everyone.
Latest check-in at the clinic went well, except that they decided to extend the antibiotics by another five day. Which is a bummer because I’ve only got enough probiotics for four days.
But I’ve tolerated the same antibiotic before (for sinus infections) without probiotics, so hopefully it won’t be an issue. Although maybe I can figure out enough Thai to see if I can find more probiotics at one of the local stores.
@Mary G: As Tony Jay said, they’re facing the equivalent of us having lost the House, as well as the existential crises being far worst. Another factor is that Hong Kong is a tiny, incredibly densely-populated country, which lends itself to street protests.
Tony Jay
@Baud:
IANAH, but
It’s hardly surprising that the former East Germany has been a fertile seed-bed for far-Right whinewankers and their siren song of racial resentment. Whatever the former West Germany pumped into the region was never going to be enough to give the Easterners the same standard of living as the Westerners, and thanks to 40+ years of Soviet Occupation the chances of Left Wing solutions getting a fair hearing there were never very good. I guess when the Left is rejected and the ‘Centre’ is deemed to have failed you, the Right doesn’t have to try too hard to catch the eye.
Sister Golden Bear
@Tony Jay: Might I suggest tequila.
germy
@Sister Golden Bear: Is bottled kefir available where you are?
germy
I had forgotten about this:
debbie
Anne, Bronks showed up in my feed this morning as Pablo Diablo, fyi.
Spanky
@germy: You know what would have made me laugh? Trichinosis.
Tenar Arha
Fluffy animals, helping each other.
Did any of you who hangs out on Twitter see these two yet?
Then this thread magic happened….
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Who’da thunk? Investigating this kind of crap state by state needs to be the #1 priority of the next Democratic administration.
germy
@Spanky:
He has good health insurance.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: 6 contributions from my town where Ds outnumber Rs by 3:1. Its all from one guy who is a registered D, BTW.
Dorothy A. Winsor
So far this morning, Trump has tweeted 8 lunatic tweets, not counting retweets of other lunatics or tweets from the weather center about the hurricane track. We should have seen what was coming when R’s adored Reagan who had alzheimers while still in office.
Zinsky
Looks like the kitten was protecting its lunch! @germy: Gore did win in 2000! Hillary Clinton also won in 2016 – but we have an apartheid vote counting system called The Electoral College. Horrible, isn’t it? Another vestige of slavery that haunts this country…
debbie
@Kay:
I just did the same, probably without all the right criteria, but I did find someone I work with who donated $40.48 to Trump. Grrrr!
Amir Khalid
@Spanky:
I neither cook nor eat bacon, as you might guess, but ever since Ted Cruz’s stunt I’ve wondered if there’s enough heat coming from the barrel of an AR-15 to cook bacon.
debbie
@Tony Jay:
I’m genuinely surprised he has the power to do that. Seems, I don’t know, Putinesque.
Another Scott
@Tony Jay: Thanks for the update.
Phillipa Thomas on the BBC just reported that the EU has used the words “Major Disaster” in describing a no-deal Brexit, and by doing so that opens up the possibility of spending disaster funds to mitigate some of the effects on the EU. A sensible preparation.
I wonder if that will have any effect on the votes in Parliament tomorrow…
Cheers,
Scott.
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
Political parties in a parliamentary system (e.g. Britain’s or Malaysia’s) typically don’t use primaries to pick a candidate for each constituency. They rely on a local or national selection committee to do that.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid: The barrel, if the gun is fired often enough, quickly enough, will get hot enough to burn ones hand, which is why they have a heat shield around them to grip with the forward hand.
Betty
@Tony Jay: Thanks for the great language and also giving me a slightly better understanding of the “game” here.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
Which raises another question: is the AR-15 at risk of jamming if Ted fires it fast enough and for long enough to make him some breakfast?
OzarkHillbilly
The phrase, “sweating like a pig” cracks me up, considering the fact that pigs barely sweat at all. That’s why they are so fond of mud and water.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Spanky: I’d call that toxic masculinity.
Sister Golden Bear
@germy: Not sure. I’ll try the fancy grocery store at Western-style mall, which has a variety of Western foods with English-language labels.
It may be available elsewhere, but the challenge is translating label from the Thai, even with Google Translate. Which generally seems to do a good job when needed, but unsurprisingly doesn’t do as well with less common words.
Betty Cracker
@Dorothy A. Winsor: During Trump’s FEMA appearance yesterday, he read some bromides about how people in the Eastern Seaboard states should be prepared and heed official warnings, blah blah blah, and then he went bizarrely off script and started babbling about Alabama, which isn’t forecast to get even a stiff breeze from the hurricane. He tweeted about Alabama being at risk from Dorian too. Haven’t seen any mention of that weirdness in the news. You’d think it would be noteworthy, a “president” name-checking a state that isn’t involved in a statement about an emergency. But I guess ignoring flashing, neon signs of dementia is the new normal.
Tenar Arha
@Mary G: Oops, I didn’t see your link before I posted Waffles & Hemingway again. Did you see the fanart in their thread? ??
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: I want to say I can’t stand it, but we don’t have any choice except to stand it–for now.
Another Scott
@debbie: Someone in my zip code gave $35,000 to the RNC, $25,000 to Eric Holcomb for Governor of Indiana, $10,000 for the Indiana GOP. In just 3 total donations…
Oh, and he’s a registered agent for Saudi Arabia…
Grrr….
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@debbie:
That’s a bit odd. I thought there was a $250 threshold for disclosure of names.
Betty Cracker
The (latest) Texas shooter confronted two neighbors with a gun in recent weeks over trivial matters and allegedly liked to sit on the roof of his shack at night to shoot animals that came on his property. The cops tried to investigate the neighbors’ complaints but couldn’t find the shooter’s house because it’s not a proper residence but more like an unheated storage shed with no running water, and thus it isn’t on GPS.
Why didn’t the cops ask the neighbors who made the reports where the guy lived? Why was a lunatic who exhibited such bizarre behavior allowed to own assault rifles? These are rhetorical questions.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: The NWS almost immediately posted a message that Alabama wasn’t in any danger.
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid: Don’t own one, never even fired one, and about 35 years behind on my gun porn reading, so I can give no definitve answer, but any semi auto* can jam if it’s condition is less than A-1, or if it hasn’t been properly cleaned, etc etc. They had a lot of jamming problems with the M-16 when it was first introduced in ‘Nam. Those problems were eventually cleared up by the manufacturer.
* jamming is not a problem only for semi-auto/automatic fire arms. A bolt action can “jam” also but because the mechanism is more straight forward and simple, it is less likely.
Another Scott
@Baud: There are lots and lots and lots of $5 listings for me to Act Blue there.
(I assume the FEC just dumps everything they receive on the web, and ActBlue reports everything as a matter of course.)
IIRC, all of Bernie’s “$27” donations showed up there too.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sab
@Baud: Did he buy a couple of MAGA hats?
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: * And more than 2500 donations for Ds in the same period! If only rest of America was like us.
debbie
@Baud:
There are more than a few donations well under $250. Like the $2.70 going to Act Blue.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Just saw a map of when Dorian is expected to hit along the coast. I didn’t realize it was so slow moving. The hit in NC is too close to election day for comfort. I guess the district running the special election is pretty far inland?
germy
@Betty Cracker:
There are so many cop shows on TV. Cops and detectives. In every show, law enforcement is totally committed to solving mysteries and fighting crime. They take it personal! They don’t rest until the problem is solved. In real life, it’s just a job.
I remember a few years ago there was a murder-suicide a few towns over from us. My local newspaper had a story online, including a photo gallery of police in front of the house, police tape, etc.
In more than a few photos, they cops were laughing with each other. We can say they were “blowing off steam” or whatever, but in the Law And Order TV shows, the police are grief-stricken and personally offended by every loss of life.
Baud
@Another Scott:
@debbie:
Interesting. News to me.
Tony Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
@Sister Golden Bear:
Spirits-wise I have the constitution of a baby goat with colic. The very thought of whiskey or tequila (or rum, brandy, scotch, etc) makes me greatly atremble and a little bit sick in my mouth.
8-(######)
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Alabama elected Doug Jones, so The Chosen One will make Dorian jump completely over Georgia. //
Sab
@schrodingers_cat: My dad was an old fashioned Republican who lived most of his adult life in Democratic areas ( 20 years in the Dixiecrat South, and the rest in a blue city in Ohio.) He always registered as a Democrat because the primary was the only election that mattered.
It maybe your local Trump guy feels the same.
OzarkHillbilly
@Tony Jay: Boy, sucks to be you. Boris is about to do open heart surgery on you without any anesthetic what so ever. You need to pick up a heroin habit.
Another Scott
@germy: Two US Park Police shot a motorist four times in the head in 2017, killing him and there has been little more than stonewalling thus far.
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
@Tony Jay:
This should be a front page post
rikyrah
@Sister Golden Bear:
Sending you healing ? thoughts
Mary G
@Tenar Arha: No, thanks for pointing it out. I am envious of people who can whip out art like that.
The suggestion that Waffles and Hemingway do a TV detective show are spot on. Those two names together crack me up.
Just One More Canuck
@debbie: you can also follow him on facebook
Tony Jay
@debbie:
It’s his Party and he’ll invite who he wants to. Technically, because the Conservative Party is able to decide who can and cannot claim to represent it and wear its colours Johnson is allowed to have his tantrum and drive all the ‘moderates’ out of the Party, and all the likes of the BBC will do is sigh dreamily and report on how pleased his hardcore supporters are with his show of strength.
Needless to say, that kind of besotted leeway is only given to politicians of the Right kind. The very hint of a suspicion of an unsourced rumour that anyone on ‘the Left’ might be considering the possibility of thinking about suggesting that the leadership should allow Party members to decide who should or should not represent them in Elections would be front-page news and the source of endless hatchet-jobs about ‘Stalinist Purges’ and ‘Bolshevik Bullies’.
Bounders, cads and rotters, the lot of ’em!
rikyrah
@Tenar Arha: ???
Mike E
@Tony Jay:
While visiting Berlin in ’92, I heard this joke from a local: Two Germans were seen arguing, one from the north and one from the south. Their complaints were overheard as follows…”We are better, our financial centres indicate this!” “We build fine automobiles, banker!” “You talk funny!” “You act superior!” They pause as an Ossie walks past them, and as he shuffles off in the distance they clap each other on the back and exclaim, “Haha, there goes shithead!”*
*roughly translated
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Bet if that shooter had been Laquan Johnson or Abdul Nassir, they would have found “the shack”???
Baud
@Tony Jay:
So Labour doesn’t use selection committees?
Dems would do well to have the same rule.
germy
@rikyrah:
rikyrah
@Another Scott:
Don’t smell right ???
SFAW
@Baud:
Google tells me it goes something like
El pinche pendejo presidente, junto con el traidor tortuga, va a destruir nuestra pais, but I might have mis-typed something
Tony Jay
@Another Scott:
That’s very interesting. The EU has certainly played Flobalob like the badly-tuned old fiddle he is. They were never fooled by his shtick and seem quite happy to stick it to him good and proper the way they never were to Zombie May.
The walls are closing in on the Brextremist cult and it’s looking more and more like open warfare is going to break out within the Parliamentary Tory Party starting tomorrow.
I’ll be watching it all happen with a packet of pork scratchings and a glass of something frothy.
Tony Jay
@Betty:
Your welcome. And the ‘game’ is the same here as it is over there. Break shit, loot everything within reach, blame someone else. The only difference is the accents of the villains and the structure of the governmental system under attack.
schrodingers_cat
@Sab: In Massachusetts, independents can ask the primary ballot for either party. Its seems like he doesn’t want anyone to know that he is an R.
Tony Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ve heard it’s super-moreish and, to be honest, if the shit does hit the fan it’s very quickly going to be cheaper to buy that a tin of tuna so… yeah, I’m game.
rikyrah
Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) Tweeted:
My latest: at this pt in 2012 race DC press tried to bury Obama when he was *tied* w/ Romney. today, Trump trails Biden by 16 pts (!) in latest Q poll and press shrugs https://t.co/31t1as3AeT https://twitter.com/EricBoehlert/status/1168171269508009986?s=17
rikyrah
NBC News (@NBCNews) Tweeted:
Woman tosses Molotov cocktail into Florida citizenship office. https://t.co/y9BjushJX0 https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1167988962687766529?s=17
Ken
@Another Scott: Did Trump start raving about disloyal weathermen and disband the NWS?
(Followed, possibly, by orders to the Navy to begin offshore bombardment of the Alabama coast, and make it look like the hurricane did it…)
rikyrah
How many are Republican? ????
Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) Tweeted:
More than 100 members of Congress have denounced the move by the Trump admin to shutter a program that has shielded hundreds of seriously ill immigrants and their families from deportation while they receive life-saving medical treatment in the U.S. https://t.co/DDWjnwjIA3 https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1168131387276136455?s=17
donnah
@satby:
I totally understand how you feel! I drove home yesterday from teaching a rug hooking workshop and last night I slept like the dead. So today I should be unpacking and restocking and planning the next one, but I’m gonna take a day and not do any of it. There’s a lot of stress in prep, teaching, and travel, so I need a day to decompress.
Go to the festival and enjoy!
lahke
Did folks here already chew over Carnival Row in a previous thread, or would you like to now? I saw 3 episodes last night.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
What a great idea. I did a search for my zip code and NO trump donors listed for this year and only ONE in 2016. I’m proud of my area!
Another Scott
Rob Watson at the BBC says that “rebel” Tory MPs will propose legislation tomorrow that will put off Brexit until January 31, 2020 unless Boris has a non-no-deal plan that is approved by Parliament by October 19 (?).
It’s hard to imagine that 3 more months will matter, but kicking the can down the road is better than crashing out.
Cheers,
Scott.
Tony Jay
@Mike E:
Yup. A lot of people feel looked down on by the Establishment, ignored by the more prosperous areas and exploited by politicians who do nothing to help them. Meanwhile nativist conmen with big money backing from interested foreign states are all over the place telling them who to blame and justifying the anger that makes them feel like real people.
Could be talking about anywhere. Which is a big part of the problem.
Gelfling 545
@NotMax: I post the Billy Bragg number on FB every Labor Day.
germy
joel hanes
@germy:
I voted for Gore and Kerry. I wish they’d won.
They did. Both 2000 and 2004 stolen.
SFAW
@joel hanes:
It’s interesting that the last three elections where the Rethug was the “winner” all had the Rethugs cheating in some way. And by “interesting,” I mean “distressing and fucked up.” Or, as a certain Blue Cherub (not that anyone still calls him that) might say: “shit is fucked up and bullshit.”
Tony Jay
@Baud:
It does, but there’s been a co-ordinated campaign to try and make the very idea of local party branches deselecting MPs who are ideologically far to the right of the Party membership toxic and proof of extremism. The general idea is that ‘moderate’ MPs should have a lifetime seat at the table no matter how loudly they shit all over the Party, and if the leadership don’t strip the local parties of their democratic right to voice their opinion then it’s obviously proof of Marxist intolerance or something. It’s so obviously a bad-faith example of narrative over reality that the Party Conference is likely to pass a new rule that allows for mandatory reselection contests anyway.
I’m amazed it doesn’t. I have no problem with Johnson being able to dictate who can stand as Tory MPs if that’s what the local parties want. I do have a problem with the media ‘understanding’ that because he can do it why he’s doing it is irrelevant. I’ve yet to see one single mainstream article or opinion piece that questions whether Johnson being a dictatorial thug riding roughshod over Parliament might conceivably be a problem for him with non-partisan voters. It’s sort of just assumed that because the BBC don’t have an issue with it (it’s so exciting and Byronesque!) that the electorate will just see it as being a strong leader fighting for what he truly believes in.
I don’t think that’s going to be the case at all.
pinacacci
Evacuating today, mom is on a barrier island and she’s a stress bear so this is fun. I do mean BEAR. Pray for me.
ETA not worried about Dorian but my mom might leave scars
zhena gogolia
@pinacacci:
I will!
Tenar Arha
Today is my day for finding the ? Little Sammy with their Pack
debbie
@Just One More Canuck:
Thanks!
Spanky
@O. Felix Culpa: Apparently, someone in my zip code has contributed to the Committee to Defend the President. I didn’t even know there was such a thing, but where there’s a grift there’s a way.
This county went for Trump 2:1, but the 2019 contributions for my zip code are overwhelmingly to ActBlue. There are a lot of Trump donations, but just as many to named Democrats, Amy (!) being the front runner there, but coming from just one donor. Three hundred bucks over 6 months from Mr. “Not Employed”. Ah well, I’m thinking that at least it beats playing Powerball in the probability of improving one’s quality of life.
Sister Golden Bear
The outdoor Thai-Chinese restaurant down the street has the most decadent fried crab balls (made from crabs fresh from offshore).
Yes, I ate an entire plate.
I regret nothing.
germy
@Spanky: I went to the website and entered my zip code and only saw a list of candidates. How do I see a list of donors in my area?
Tony Jay
@Another Scott:
Jeebus in a bathtub full of cream and dildos but these people are pathologically afraid of decision making. Don’t make us vote against our Party just because the Party is trying to melt the country down for scrap! We’d have to vote with that horrid socialist and how would that look at the Golf Club? Really?
There’s going to be an Election. There has to be. Johnson desperately wants one in order to avoid taking the blame for Depression X-Treme: The British Blockade of Britain, Corbyn wants one because have you noticed there are Tories in charge of everything and they are absolutely shit at it, and the Media wants one because Eyeballs and Clicks.
Bring it on.
Tony Jay
@rikyrah:
You’re a wonderful human being and so discerning. 8-)
Spanky
@pinacacci: I feel for ya. My dad retired to the NC beaches and NEVER evacuated. I went to stay with them when Floyd was imminent. I was majorly stressed, but those two slept through it. And the storm managed to skip right by. Go figure.
Sending you as much luck as I may have left.
Spanky
@germy: Go here.
At the bottom is a button to “Search Individual Contributor Data”
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
he also said something to the effect of “i’ve never even heard of a cat 5 before!”, aiming in his fashion to make it out like he has the biggest everything. obama never dealt with something this big!
never mind that 2 cat 5s have made landfall in the us while he was president (tho i’m sure PR doesn’t count cause brown people, but michael was less than a year ago! and it hit florida!).
Spanky
@Another Scott:
Ummmm, doesn’t the EU have a say in that? I wouldn’t bank on their unlimited patience.
germy
@Spanky: Thanks
Josie
@SFAW:
Thanks for the morning laugh. Caught me by surprise.
Ken
@Tony Jay:
I’m with you on the massive debts, scandals, and suspicious involvement with foreign politicians, but as far as I know Johnson hasn’t written any poetry. Also he’s completely failed to tick the “die romantically young” checkbox.
Sister Golden Bear
Eight donors in my zip code, mostly retirees who give every month like clockwork. Hook, line and sucker list.
Sister Golden Bear
@SFAW: That’s the more accurate translation, amirite?
JGabriel
This is completely OT, even for an open thread, but I had to share this.
I read a lot computer reviews, hardware, software, operating systems, etc. The delighifuk paragraph that follows is from a review of the developed in China Linux distro Deepin:
Amir Khalid
@JGabriel:
Privacy for a bodily function from Linux? That’s impressive. What will they think of next?
wasabi gasp
@NotMax:
Todd Rundgren
Ken
@Amir Khalid: As someone who tapes over the built-in camera on my laptops, I appreciate this advance in privacy.
(It’s mostly because the camera invariably points straight up my nostrils, and no one looks good from that angle.)
SFAW
@Sister Golden Bear:
Not for me to say. Those fluent in (Mexican) Spanish might render an opinion, however.
[NB: “Mexican Spanish” because “pinche” has a different meaning/usage elsewhere. Or so I’ve been told.]
Mike in NC
Governor of Georgia talking on the Weather Channel. Giving off a real asshole vibe, to nobody’s surprise.
satby
@donnah: nah, I decided to stay home, catch up on some stuff, and tonight treat myself to a sunset walk in a Lake Michigan beach. Sort of a summer sendoff.
So far I’ve made some ricotta and the dough is mixing in the bread machine. Probably making veggie lasagna for the week because I have tons of tomatoes and summer squash. Feeling very productive ???
Yutsano
@SFAW: I’ll just say as a frequent listener of Mexican Spanish that yes “pinche” has quite a different…subtlety just down south from us.
SFAW
@Yutsano:
Wow, talk about tactful. Nicely done.
[Apropos of nothing in particular: it’s part of the reason I refer to the current publisher of the FTFTFNYT as Pinche Sulzberger. Somehow, it seems better than “Pinch Junior” or “Mini-Pinch.”]
Kathleen
@joel hanes: Yes! They both were. A conversation you’ll never hear in our media.
RAVEN
@Mike in NC: he’s a dumbfuck
Tony Jay
@Ken:
The BBC is remarkably undemanding where Conservative PMs are concerned.
rikyrah
@Mike in NC:
What…The crook is telling folks that the Weather channel is lying to them???
Ruckus
@satby:
One advantage of being old is that you have a perfectly good excuse to actually be the layabout that you always wanted to be. And you don’t get anything less, or more, done than you ever did.
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah: The thieving bastard is probably telling TWC that he won the governorship fair and square.
“Sir, this is The Weather Channel. Arby’s and Wendy’s are down the street.”
Steeplejack
@Sister Golden Bear:
Full-fat yogurt also contains probiotics.
Ruckus
@Tony Jay:
Realizing that conservatives the world over have never heard of the words logic or realistic, how in the hell do they think this is going to end? Well for them? Fucked for everyone? I guess the big question that I always have about conservative bullshit is, “Where is the money coming from and where is it going?” You know, just getting down to the basic premise of their moronic ideas.
Ken
@Ruckus:
Russia.
The London real estate and financial markets.
david
@germy: No, they aren’t. There was a scene of a black woman scolding Jerry Orbach because he was cutting jokes over her son’s death.
James E Powell
@Kay:
I was playing with the FEC search and noted a very large number or $1 and 2$ contributions to ActBlue.
Another Scott
@Ruckus: I was surprised to hear Rob Watson on the BBC say that he figures that Labour is going to campaign on (roughly), “The Tories have been an absolute disaster for the UK for the last 3 years. Why would you give them yet another stint in power?” He also mentioned the “scary Marxis/Socialist” tropes that Corbyn will have to combat.
[eta:] Surprising, because Rob’s reporting often seems to be slanted as the Tories are the natural party to lead the country, but they don’t know how to do politics right. Corbyn’s Labour is far, far to left-win in Rob’s world. This report was almost balanced by comparison.
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
Calouste
@Spanky: The EU does indeed have a say in that, and I think it has gotten to the point that the EU leaders, specially Macron, are having to spend domestic political capital on a further extension. More and more people are getting fed up with the British, who haven’t done anything with this extension, and of course staying in a state of preparedness for an event that keeps moving and moving isn’t exactly free. So I can’t see them giving a three month extension with an election and the holiday period happening during that time.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
New band name?
On a more somber note, need I remind you of Ronnie and Nancy’s concept of protecting the brand? No one on the stupid side of center who needs to will ever admit that their leader has slipped his wig, lost his way, had his brain completely turn to mush. Even though it was 98% there when he took office. Haven taken being the operative word.
Ruckus
@Ken:
Too easy?
Ruckus
@SFAW:
My spanish isn’t good enough to verify the last part but this you have spot on.
catclub
@Spanky:
the EU needs to unanimously approve the change. I still expect the UK – still voting in the EU, but headed by Johnson, to direct their reps to oppose unanimous consent.
Another Scott
@catclub: Macron has been reported to be against any further delays in Brexit. He doesn’t seem to care if he’s painted as being the “bad guy”.
I do hope that Boris’s opposition is building a comprehensive truth table to think about how all the various paths play out. Tony Blair is saying that an election may be an “elephant trap” that would cement Boris’s rule. A no-deal Brexit concurrent with a Tory majority for the next 5 years would seemingly be the worst of all possible timelines… A no-deal Brexit followed by a stable Labour majority could conceivably result in quick changes to mitigate the damage.
Supposedly BoJo is going to give a press conference outside #10 in the next 30 minutes or so.
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
germy
germy
?BillinGlendaleCA
It was a new moon over the weekend so I took a short drive to the coast to take some pics. I had two shots in mind, one was my first attempt at a Milky Way shot from a less light polluted site than here in Beautiful Downtown Glendale at Leo Carrillio State Beach(I had some pics on “On the Road” from there). The pic I attempted 3 years ago, was marred by me having NO CLUE as to what I was doing, not only was the moon in the sky, it was right next to the galactic core. I one goal was to retake that shot(some other photogs were there and provided a bit of inadvertent light painting). The other was a star trail that I’d been thinking about since my trips out there since spring. A Star trail looking to the north(and PCH) at Twin Bush. I’ve got some work to do on that shot, but while I was taking it(they take hours to take), I got this shot.
debbie
@wasabi gasp:
Similarly, the Strawbs.
Bill Arnold
@germy:
Have you found a transcript yet? I hate watching/listening to that guy. (Jacob Rees-Mogg)
Also this:
Doctor asks Brexiteer what level of mortality rate he is willing to accept to deliver Brexit (Jonathon Read, 02 September 2019)
Another Scott
@germy: Politico.eu summary of polling as of August 28 – the day Boris announced he was proroguing Parliament.
It looks like those wanting a second Brexit referendum has been 5+ points ahead for a year or more.
But it also looks like the Tories would beat Labour by 10 points?!!!? They’ve been on a nearly linear upswing since mid-June (before Boris took over).
Weird, weird stuff is apparently poisoning UK politics.
Cheers,
Scott.
Tony Jay
@Ruckus:
Yup. The Conservative Party has always been the ‘Nasty Party’, but even more than that it’s been the Party of Attaining Power, doing whatever it took to get there and stay there for the benefit of its risk donors.
This is different. The Brexit contagion has unleashed something very like Charlie Pierce’s Republican prison disease on the country and it’s galloped through the cognitive centres of the Tory mind like Errol Flynn through a backlot orgy – thoroughly, voraciously and without regard for future good health. They’ve gone utterly mad, to a degree I don’t think anyone in the political Establishment has really come to terms with.
I just hope we can excise them for the body politic before they take us all down with them.
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Beautiful shot. It’s a shame that all that fine white powder got dusted all over the image though.
Oh wait…
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Ken:
And here I thot everyone taped over that camera!?!? First thing I do after plugging in the power brick is find the electrical tape!!
Ruckus
@Kay:
Did my zip code and there are hundreds of donors. The vast majority are dems, as one might expect in socal, and the few rethug donors are mostly repeaters. I expected more trumpers here and am happy to see that I’m wrong.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: Thanks, the purple light painting was actually from a test shot, I used stacking for these, that was one was 40 shots for a 10 minute exposure. I also shot on Saturday night with my local photog friend, the weather conditions weren’t quite as nice as Friday night, there were some clouds.
Tony Jay
Flobalob is apparently going to announce that if Parliament votes tomorrow to stop a No-Deal he’s going to call a Vote to have a General Election in the middle of October.
We’ll see.
Another Scott
@Tony Jay: He just finished. Lots and lots of yelling and chanting and booing in the background. He doesn’t want an election, he says, he says he is full-speed ahead for Halloween Brexit.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Tony Jay:
Well, at least in today’s international economy, a total failure of the English economy won’t be the beginning of The Deluge in the same way it would have been when The Sun Never Sets on The British Empire era was still in effect.
I’m trying hard to not be in a state of shock regarding multiple sets of political catastrophes here. No offense intended to the current catastrophe ongoing in the British Isles!! I do wish that British news commenters would use Boris’s full name: “Alexander Boris de Pfeffle Johnson.”
That sounds a little more Russian that just plain old Boris Johnson. More accurate, a little bit anyway.
Calouste
Johnson is still under the delusion that threatening to leave without a deal actually improves his negotiating position.
Another Scott
@Calouste: How else can he blame someone other than the Tory leadership??
“Yeah, it’s our proposal, yeah we were and are in charge, yeah it’s our negotiators, but hey, it’s not our fault. It’s Corbyn’s fault!!1″
Why UK voters still support them is a mystery up there with why there are no magnetic monopoles…
Cheers,
Scott.
Calouste
@Another Scott: Of course, that is an outright lie. Johnson (or rather Cummings) does want an election and a majority for 5 years while the Brexiteers haven’t yet been relieved from their fantasies by the cold hard reality of a no-deal Brexit.
Tony Jay
@Another Scott:
Typical. Says one thing to the country while his people are briefing everyone behind the scenes with the exact opposite story.
Think the BBC will be irked he’s lying to them? Or just thrilled to the gills with the unpredictable disaster-porn of it all?
James E Powell
@Tony Jay:
That’s exactly what we get from the American press/media. It’s all Revelation 13:4 fascination with the abomination.
Calouste
@Tony Jay: Most journalists are of the same social class as the overpromoted bath-toy (who was of course also a journalist himself), so they know he is lying to the rubes, not to them.
Tony Jay
@J R in WV:
That’s why I never call the vile little shitstain ‘Boris’. That’s just the bumbling character he plays on TV, not the real cold-eyed chancer lurking behind the bluster and fake erudition.
Seeing him go down with the bad ship Brexit after decades of driving for the top job will be very satisfying indeed.
Ruckus
@Tony Jay:
Of course a lot of people have conservative problems world wide. It’s like just the word conservative brings on total mental meltdown. I’ve yet to see any evidence whatsoever that any conservative policies are in any way helpful, useful, positive, logical or worth a shit, anywhere in the world. They exist for one reason only and that is to funnel all the money to the rich tossers. Anything else they do is to protect the rich tossers from being on the receiving end of the next French Revolution, of not having their heads lopped off with a dull machete and all their funds distributed evenly among the unwashed.
catclub
@Tony Jay:
did I read correctly that to call this vote (kind of out of season- if no failed vote of confidence) needs a 2/3rd supermajority – that he is unlikely to get?
Mike E
@Calouste: Mussolini was a journalist, too
Tony Jay
@James E Powell:
@Calouste:
I described it a while ago like this. The Media judges every Right Wing figure’s actions through the lens of “Will this hurt them with their Base?” If not, it doesn’t matter how vile their words or actions were, it’s not a story they’re interested in.
OTOH the actions of every figure on ‘the Left’ is judged through the lens of “Can this be twisted by the Right to hurt them with ‘the Centre’?” If so (and the answer is always yes) then however anodyne or even correct their words or actions were, what the Right say about them is the story.
It’s a racket, and they’re all in on it. Wankers.
catclub
That fire on the diving vessel in CAlifornia is going to be a legal nightmare for the crew. They got off first, and it sure sounds like they didn’t do much else. It is a bad look.
Tony Jay
@catclub:
Yup. 2/3 of MPs have to vote for an early election or it doesn’t happen.
Johnson’s advisors seem to be calculating that he can force Parliament to give him a ‘mandate’ by turning down his offer of an Election, or if they vote for it, the chance to campaign as the ‘anti-Establishment’ candidate against a divided opposition.
Too clever by half. Bite him on the arse, it will.
Another Scott
@Tony Jay: Given the dysfunction in Parliament, we should remember that if Boris loses a confidence vote then a 14 day counter starts. If nobody can form a government, and win a confidence vote, in those 14 days, then an election will be called. There is at least one other ways a new election can be called.
Presumably Boris would try to drag out an election date while maintaining plausible deniability, to do his best to ensure that the UK crashes out on Halloween no matter what happens.
Let’s see. The earliest confidence vote would be on Tuesday 9/3. 14 days is Tuesday 9/17. I see mention of 25 days passing, so that would give an election date of Saturday October 12. At the earliest (I’m sure there are other constraints that I’m missing). It would be close…
tl;dr – Yea, 2/3 is likely impossible. Losing a confidence vote seems more likely. But would it be too late to call an election, seat a new government, and scrap or delay Article 50?
Cheers,
Scott.
Uncle Cosmo
Just FTR, NB: For some years I have been touting The Book Thing of Baltimore here at every even vaguely related opportunity. I live 5 minutes’ drive away & am there at least once every weekend, sometimes twice (it’s only open for browsing 9-5 Sat-Sun). It’s amazing how many wonderful tomes I’ve found there that I never thought I’d see again, or that turned out to be unsuspected gems.
At some point in the next few weeks I’m going to start volunteering to help out during the week.
Book Thing news (1) They’re only accepting donations of specific types for now (IIUC there’s another 5,000-10,000 volumes in storage at an undisclosed location that they don’t have room for on the browsing shelves) and (2) they got a grant to put in A/C (till now they’ve made do with large fans at the ends of aisles) but it’s unlikely to be installed before next spring.
pinacacci
@zhena gogolia: thank ‘ee!
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
But I think that Johnson can set the date of the election. He could choose October 30 or some date in November. This might allow him to get a no deal BREXIT.
I think this is why some think that Johnson is setting a trap in trying to wrangle a general election.
Now, if Parliament could get a guaranteed delay of BREXIT before any general election, then Johnson might in a pickle.
Also, Johnson’s threat to de-select rebellious Tory MPs is risky strategy. Anyone tossed out would be unable to run as a Conservative in the general election. They could run as an independent. But this also would seem to be confusing and would also open things up for any BREXIT party candidates.