Antonin Scalia died on this day in 2016, after which every single Republican Senator came to the conclusion that it was too late to consider a replacement because of the impending election. They cited a standard that they believed Joe Biden had set years prior.
— Sam Stein (@samstein) February 13, 2020
Tonight, in Virginia:
.@ewarren addresses the overflow outside. pic.twitter.com/eUXIAPYtAm
— Daniella Díaz (@DaniellaMicaela) February 14, 2020
Video. You’re welcome. pic.twitter.com/pefv4ZNBIH
— Brandon Wolf (@bjoewolf) February 14, 2020
And if *that* don’t do it for ya…
Another candidate enters the crowded primary field. https://t.co/u634heKafi
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) February 13, 2020
Enhanced Voting Techniques
ROFL
?BillinGlendaleCA
Bring on the meteor!
HumboldtBlue
Not just a space potato, and no, they aren’t talking about Cole.
Sab
I am in Ohio and was feeling bleak. Got a call from a Warren Iowa worker moved to Ohio. Canvassing this weekend!
Jerzy Russian
As far as I know, most things in space travel at incredible speeds. Also too, I don’t think the asteroid that is on its way here is not the one pictured in the tweet. Sadly, the classification of “potentially” hazardous means it will miss up by a wide margin. Maybe better luck next time.
John Revolta
I heard about the meteor and I started feeling glimmers of hope but then I heard it was going to miss Earth by 3 million miles. Shoulda known
Corr: asteroid
Jerzy Russian
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Actually, having read the linked article, it is good that it will miss us by about 3.6 million miles. This asteroid is about a kilometer in diameter, so the bad effects of a collision would be global.
Misterpuff
Giant Meteor 2020 FTW!
LongHairedWeirdo
Dear lord, we have to ask, which would be better for the USA, DJT, or the asteroid?
And it *does* disturb me how I can’t promise any GOP President since the 1970s was actually *better* than the asteroid.
Nixon created the adage “his real crime was getting caught”.
So Reagan didn’t get caught, and everyone who did got a pardon, because, what’s helping Iran, negotiating with terrorists, and sending money to other terroristic organizations (in contravention of the law), when you *really* get down to it?
George Bush proved that even when you can’t get away with it, you might be able to pardon everyone. (Which is, really, just a tiny bit worse than actually engaging in the activity, when you think about it.)
And George W got caught, but, of course, it was only torture; and lies about a war of choice; and about rampant FISA violations; what’s a few million dead, a few trillion dollars, the eternal ruination of any of America’s moral high ground, and widespread violations of the Constitution, when you *really* get down to it?
Martin
@John Revolta: Buck up, Trump may pull out his sharpie and make it happen.
Sab
@LongHairedWeirdo: I have grandchildren here. Of course I do not want an asteroid.
Jerzy Russian
@John Revolta:
Yes, this one is unusually large for something this close.
If you are bored, there are numerous articles that explain why Bruce Willis can’t save us, for example Here
mrmoshpotato
I see NASA has endorsed SMOD 2020.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Walked over to the low class mall to pick up some stuff at Target and decided to go on over to the Fancy Pants Mall across the street to see if the Samsung store had the new S20’s. They did! Got to play around with the S20 Ultra’s camera, pretty slick.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Look at your fancy ass calling Target low class. :P
(drinks more off-brand Coke)
kindness
What was that pole that New Hampshire Democrats would prefer an extinction event meteor strike to Trump’s re-election?
Sab
@mrmoshpotato: It being a CA mall only Tarjay actually had parking.
HumboldtBlue
A li’l late night open thread music.
Nature Boy
Redshift
@Sab: I have found that getting active is usually the best cure for feeling bleak.
Warren was in fine form tonight. There were “many more people than expected” according to the local news report (hence the visit with people who couldn’t get in), so that’s good.
Sab
@Jerzy Russian: Well, at least we in US probably deserved this. My cats didn’t. They only murdered squirrels when they were extremely hungry or somewhat bored.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Sab: All of our malls have parking, but the Fancy Pants Mall has paid parking. I walked there from home so I didn’t care about parking.
Redshift
@kindness: Yeah, 62%: https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/new-hampshire-democrats-overwhelmingly-prefer-getting-killed-by-meteor-to-seeing-trump-win-in-2020-poll/
mrmoshpotato
@Sab:
Damn!
Sab
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Visited my sister in La Jolla a couple of years ago. Couldn’t park for love or money anywhere. And she thinks its a liveable area.I guess it beats downtown Shanghai, but for me it’s meh.
burnspbesq
I have the best excuse for feeling hopeful.
Getting married in about 14 hours.
burnspbesq
@Sab:
There are other parts of San Diego that are even less car-friendly.
Sab
@mrmoshpotato: Last squirrel, not murdered, kicked the shit out of the cat who attacked. My dad’s nurse aide saw it and is still laughing.
HumboldtBlue
@burnspbesq:
Well hell, have a song!
Slainte! Skol! Mazel tov! Cheers!
Martin
@burnspbesq: Huzzah! Congrats!
Duane
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Buy that fancy ass camera and take pictures of the asteroid. It’ll pay for itself!
Sab
@burnspbesq: Wow. And I was with my husband limping along with a cane and a horrible back. We went to the beach at Torrey Pines. I have a picture of him standing in the surf with his cane. Breaks my heart to see.
Sebastian
@Sab:
how can you not find parking here? (I happen to be in La Jolla tonight). It’s wide open spaces everywhere
Sab
@Sebastian: Possibly not graduation weekend. My sister shouldn’t have had us then, but she is her. What can I say.
Sab
@burnspbesq: WooHoo. I mean that sincerely.
The Lodger
@burnspbesq: Hey, congrats!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@burnspbesq: Molotov!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Duane: It does come with SpaceZoom™. I’m a Note guy, I’ll wait.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@burnspbesq: Fantastic! Congratulations, and all the best.
mrmoshpotato
@Duane: Just as long as he cuts the taxes he pays on the camera.
SectionH
@burnspbesq: Congratulations!!
Sab
@burnspbesq
: I came slinking home after a failed marriage at 45. Restarted my career and met the love of my life. 20 years later I am so happy.
Wish that for you.
Mnemosyne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I was at the low class mall last week and was surprised to see that a bunch of new stores had opened. I guess Caruso didn’t manage to kill it after all.
JWR
So anyway, this is the first I’ve heard of Trump’s obsession with… Badgers? (What, am I not following along closely enough?)
~Sigh~ Our president is a really stupid man. But Seth Meyer’s should be fun tonight, so there’s that, at least.
Mnemosyne
@burnspbesq:
Congratulations and best wishes!
SectionH
@burnspbesq: Uh? I can’t think of any, and I live here. Maybe less Valet parking?
@Sab: We keep the secret parking places secret…
Ok, I lied. For one thing, I haven’t been in La Jolla in ~3 years. The traffic isn’t worth it. There are lots of real places in San Diego where real – not rich – people live. And here the parking is… a challenge, but not impossible. And for ppl who just come for restaurants in our neighborhood, paying in many lots isn’t that expensive – and it’s about damn time that car drivers start paying their share of what it actually costs. I’m pretty cool about a lot of aspects of those trade-offs. And I don’t walk very well, so I get the trade-offs.
But please don’t judge San Diego by La Jolla. Cause, damn.
Mnemosyne
I’m sure this was already addressed in detail in another thread, but I am boggled that Sanders fans have been calling their opponents literal murderers if they’re not all in for M4A and now they’re all LOL it was just a negotiating position why so serious?
This is the Bad Place.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Though I noticed that 2 stores in the food court had closed.
mrmoshpotato
@Mnemosyne: You’re boggled about cult members?
LOL
ETA – “Are they fucking?” – Jameela Jamil about the geese
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SectionH: I’ve only been to La Jolla once, but I did get some nice sunset pics.
Jerzy Russian
@Mnemosyne: Yes, that tweet by that dude whose name I forgot and is not worth looking up was the most incredible thing I have seen in a long time. “You won’t lose anything because my boss’s promised programs won’t actually become law”.
mrmoshpotato
@Jerzy Russian: “Vote for ineffectiveness!” -Wilmer supporters 2020
Duane
@LongHairedWeirdo: A class-action suit against the Republican party, asking they be outlawed and fined into oblivion for being a threat to our nation and the world doesn’t sound so crazy, given all the facts in evidence.
hervevillechaizelounge
I spent the day with my two Trump-voting aunts today; I asked who they planned to vote for and got some (theoretically) good news.
Aunt #1: Dead broke, living on SSI and food-stamps; said she planned to vote for Trump again because he’d done everything he promised. (Right-wing media must be like science fiction at this point.)
Aunt #2: Inherited tens of millions of dollars from her husband; said she’d be voting for Bloomberg if he’s the Dem nominee. I asked why she was switching and she said, “Trump is rich but Bloomberg is REALLY rich and richer is always better.”
Tl;dr: I hadn’t really factored in Republicans’ naked worship of money; I’m not a Bloomberg fan but his appeal to Republicans could be substantial. His appeal to Democrats, however, is lacking; I will never understand why he didn’t run as a Republican:(
Mnemosyne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
They can’t compete with Massis. That place always has a huge line. For kabob! ?♀️
mrmoshpotato
@Mnemosyne: Mmmmmm kabob.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
So, I am not a Christian, though I went to a Lutheran church. I lost my faith when my 7th grade teacher said “if you don’t go to church every Sunday you are stupid” (Currently I’m a post-doc with Bachelors in computer science and biology, and a PhD in Electrical engineering), Also, he was driven from Hawaii about 9 months later for diddling his female students (Got off on the fact that Hawaii laws still had “Harm intent” in their pedophilia laws at the time).
I like to say I’m a Deist on a good day and an agnostic on a bad day, but honestly I feel most religion belief is extremely powerful and dangerous nonsense. Basically, the safest way to treat religion is like trying to dispose of an abandoned can that contains a combination of shock-sensitive and radioactive toxic waste.
(Pro-tip, If you have physical mixed waste like this, no hazardous waste company would ever accept it, you have to hold the mixed waste until the radioactivity decays away. University of New Mexico has mixed waste going back to the 60’s, they will probably have to hold it another 60 years at least before they can dispose it)
Still, four years after the death of Scalia, and living in this current timeline, I hope there is a hell. It gives me a measure of pleasure that Scalia might be beginning to truly understand the concept of “Feeling the Burn”.
mrmoshpotato
OT – going from Zombieland 2 to Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the way to do it.
Amir Khalid
@burnspbesq:
Congratulations. Enjoy this wedding song.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: I’ve eaten there, they’re quite good.
jl
If NASA is right about the asteroid, a miss is as good as 3.6 million miles. Whew….
Though, I do know some people associated with BJ blog who will be disappointed.
Anne Laurie
@burnspbesq: Congratulations! (Now get some sleep. )
westyny
@burnspbesq: Congratulations!
Mnemosyne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It’s usually my default, which is why I wish it wasn’t quite so popular.
Martin
@hervevillechaizelounge: Illustrates how much of a threat to the general order the GOP has become.
If you’re a finance person, Trumps policies are a fucking nightmare. Closing markets is bad. Coal and oil are dying. The only automaker worth anything is Tesla. The money is in batteries, EVs, solar, wind, etc.
And chaos is bad for business. Corruption is bad for business.
SectionH
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I admire your fighting the 5. I was hanging around here long ago enough that one could actually find street parking around La Valencia… (20 yrs ago?)
But Mr S told me this afternoon that um… the checkout woman at Asshole Despot where he bought a furnace filter told him she regularly goes for HH drinks at La Valencia, because they’ll stamp her parking card… (maybe the Valet parking?)
I probably won’t bother, but cool to know there might be something possible. (Also don’t ask me why this became a topic, but I have pretty good idea, which involves the fishing pier – eta on Shelter Island.) (Alas, you will not get any sunsets from Shelter Island. The sun goes behind Point Loma 30+ minutes before it’s actually dark… it’s still my favorite place in SD)
Anne Laurie
Bloomberg is one of the few actual independents… if that’s the proper term for a stone-to-the-bone technocrat. He’s run as a Republican, and as a Democrat, and I think as a capital-I Independent — depending on which ballot line would give him the best chance of winning.
There’s no space in the Republican race right now, they’re 100% in the Trump death cult, either because they believe it or because they’re terrified of the other cultists. Mike is running in the Democratic primaries, because there’s only two parties in America when it comes to picking the president, but he’s made it damned clear that his actual brand is Mike Bloomberg, Autocrat.
If we end up choosing that brand because the only remaining alternative is Moar Trump, well..
Kattails
@burnspbesq: Wonderful! Many happy felicitations. Pics to one of the front pagers? Wish you’d mentioned it earlier, where are you registered?
trnc
Does that mean he hasn’t cut her food stamps yet, or did she get more excited when he did because she knew he also cut them for, you know, those people?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: What, not the original Panda Express next door? The Chinese chicken place and the Korean BiBimBap place both closed. We like the bibimbap, but it was pretty pricey. The Apple store in the Galleria was one of the first two.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@burnspbesq: Congrats!!!
Mary G
@burnspbesq: Congratulations! ?????????
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: What’s funny is there’s an Apple Store in both the low class mall and the fancy pants mall. Very strange.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: Yup, across the street from each other, almost as bad as Starbucks. I’m not sure why they kept the store in the Galleria when they opened the store at Americana. Maybe they had a long term lease they couldn’t break.
ruemara
@burnspbesq: Congratulations!
I’m fairly hopeful. Booked enough VO this week & early enough so that I should be able to pay rent, so go me. Got paid for some design & marcomm work, so double go me. I was planning on baking valentine’s cupcakes for my friends, but I might be working background on a film (er, NDA, sorry) all weekend including friday. Rather glad my February is turning out much nicer than my January.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I doubt that. Apple breaks leases at will. They’re Apple.
My best guess is that they couldn’t get a space large enough in the new mall to meet the combined demand, and had to settle for 2 spaces. I know the original location was WAY beyond capacity.
I know the Third Street Promenade store is at capacity and it’s almost 20K square feet. Also pulls down about half a billion a year, so my guess is they need both until they can get a large enough space. Can’t imagine Glendale gets any less volume than Santa Monica.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
Late night, but a useful tool for Bernie “Supporters”, courtesy of Driftglass. http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-discommendation-of-bernie-bros.html
Any “Supporter” of Bernie should have this link applied repeatedly until delusion subsides or symptoms of trolling become obvious.
In cases of trolling, whether from internal or external sources that can not be helped through mockery or disdain, Pie filter therapy is suggested. This is indicated to lower stress, high blood pressure, and the need to strangle random people on the internet.
TS (the original)
@burnspbesq:
Woot! Have a fabulous day & a fabulous life. Enjoy it all.
Mai naem mobile
Not exactly a ‘ do you remember where you were when the WTC went down’ moment but I remember I was at a store where the Scalia died. They had the teevee tuned to CNN. It was a Saturday afternoon. I was on the cell phone with my non political junkie sister and I was wandering around the store saying ‘OMG Scalia is dead, OMG Scalia died, this is huge, you don’t understand this is OMG, Obama is going to get a lefty on the court to replace Scalia.’ My sister ofcourse didn’t get the full significance of what I was babbling on about. Little did I know how much of a fucking asshole Mitch McConnell was going to be.
Mai naem mobile
@burnspbesq: Congrats! Best wishes . You have zero excuses for forgetting your wedding anniversary now.
SectionH
@Mai naem mobile: So I could actually re-register in Kentucky, um, to vote against McConnell “one more time.” With feeling…
I am not making this up: I was in the elevator from the parking garage to our condo lobby with 3 sets of neighbors when one (I love her) said, “wait? you haven’t sold that house?” and I got what she was saying… it was like, your vote’s just gonna be with the 3+ million of us in CA, but Kentucky?
I don’t actually like that sort of shit, but, yes I was actually feeling guilty by the time I got off the elevator. (bugger, I’m using “lift” from now on, it’s a lot shorter word than elevator)
One more time to vote against Mitch… I have to admit, it’s very tempting
And tbc, almost everyone in the lift was even older than I am. I was delighted. We are so blue in Hillcrest.
JPL
@burnspbesq: Congrats. I hope you are trying to get some shut eye before the big event.
Betty Cracker
@burnspbesq: How optimistic! Congratulations! :)
geg6
@burnspbesq:
You’re never going to see this but congratulations!
HeartlandLiberal
A meditation on how one learns from the Web.
I clicked through to the article at IGN, and ended up reading through a list of recommended top 25 scifi films. Reading about Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”, I learned that a print had been found about 20 years ago in Argentina including 25 minutes of footage from the original theatrical release thought lost forever! From there I tracked down the DVD issued with the restored footage on Amazon, and logged on to my local library and recommended they add it to the collection. One of the most influential films of all time. Restored to as close to original Fritz Lang vision as we will get. I can’t wait. To help you identify it, here is the description from the Amazon prime page:
The Complete Metropolis (Silent)
8.32h 28min192713+
The most influential of all silent films, this astounding new version of Fritz Lang’s visionary masterpiece includes 25 minutes of newly-discovered, digitally restored footage and Gottfried Huppertz’s magnificent original score – the closest version ever seen since the film’s 1927 Berlin premiere. METROPOLIS takes place in 2026, when the populace is divided between workers who must live in the dark underground and the rich who enjoy a futuristic
RedDirtGirl
@burnspbesq: That is good news! Congratulations to you and yours!!!!
burnspbesq
@Martin:
South Coast Plaza and Fashion Island both rock all day every day. Brea, Spectrum, and Mission Viejo less so.
Austin only has two Apple Stores, which is surprising for a metro area this size but speaks to the lack of sufficiently upscale malls. Only the Domain and Barton Creek have the right ambiance. If we ever get a third one, my guess is that it will be downtown.
Baud
@burnspbesq: Congratulations!
RedDirtGirl
@Mnemosyne: These are the purity ponies of which I speak.
RedDirtGirl
@Mai naem mobile: I was on vacation when a work friend texted me the news of his death. Given the source, I wondered why she was telling me that one of our painting subcontractors, Frank La Scala, had died, and why it was such breaking news. Context is everything.
zhena gogolia
No time to read whole thread, but I think she got this from SNL — in which case it was Putin who was the elf on the shelf behind Alec Baldwin. But her delivery is perfect!
zhena gogolia
@hervevillechaizelounge:
I noticed last night that the Russian bots are now going for Bloomberg the way they did for Kamala. I guess that means he’s the front-runner now.
PST
@Mai naem mobile:
Ha! We got married on July 4 for just that reason. I was 61 and so it seemed prudent to anticipate and guard against the danger of memory losses. Congratulations burnspbesq!
Elizabelle
@burnspbesq: All wishes for happiness to you and your bride.
Steeplejack
@hervevillechaizelounge:
Thread long since dead, but I can’t resist asking: couldn’t millionaire Aunt #2, er, “help out” indigent Aunt #1? Or does that break some Republican law of “personal responsibility”?
oldgold
Herehttps://www.pocho.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/kalemole.jpg