Light the TBogg Signal!…
Ten years from now they’ll be writing books about when God-Empress Shakira discovered the will to power. https://t.co/IPKnA20xEU
— Starfish Who Had Fun For An Hour (@IRHotTakes) April 24, 2020
I’M SORRY, WHAT ?https://t.co/TbOc6PizC0
— Milli Lake (@MilliLake) April 24, 2020
… While Parton was not herself credited as a producer on the long-running fantasy series, a company she co-created and owned was responsible for it coming to television.
Sandollar Entertainment, which is listed on the end credits of every episode of the show, was created by Parton and her friend and former business partner Sandy Gallin in 1986. It produced a number of films, including Father of the Bride (1991) and Fly Away Home (1996), as well as several Parton projects – most recently her Netflix anthology series Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings.
It also produced the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, released in 1992 to dismal reviews. It was Gail Berman, then an executive at Sandollar, who still believed there was potential in the property, and proposed launching the concept as a TV series.
Both Berman and Gallin are credited as executive producers on the Buffy series, along with its spin-off series Angel, though Parton herself is not. She did, however, play a fundamental if often forgotten role in bringing Joss Whedon’s creation to the screen.
While it has never been confirmed, some have suggested that Buffy Summers’ on-screen birthday (19 January) is a secret tribute to Parton – the country star herself being born on the same day…
Seriously, though… If Parton’s name had been associated with Whedon’s project, would it have gotten the attention it drew? Or would it have been dismissed as ‘more Hallmark channel pap for the chicks’?
.
Speaking of icons:
‘There will not be a bill without state and local’ aid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned Republicans, on a fifth coronavirus-response bill that is being readied https://t.co/MQTgew9Q0i https://t.co/ksoo2NSX0E
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 25, 2020
.
Not an icon, but a favorite BJ chewtoy. I’d like to believe this is a joke, but…
Megan McArdle is an absolute machine of bad takes. https://t.co/zRbgI2PUfV
— Galar Regional Medical Director (@weedlewobble) April 25, 2020
Sorry, to be clear: noise is a problem because when it is noisy, people raise their voices to be heard, which facilitates droplet transmission. I'm not suggesting that, like, noise gives you covid.
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) April 24, 2020
Stuff McArgleBargle hates (noisy restaurants, ucch) are bound to be dangerous, obvs. It’s not like she was telling you to drink bleach, people!
Baud
McArdle should play it safe and STFU.
WereBear
McArgleBargle is a fountain of consistency.
NotMax
If kultcha is your thing, the free All-Arts channel is fairly new to Roku (and other streaming venues).
Amir Khalid
I’m impressed that someone is paying Megan McArdle to let her brain farts rip. Where can I get a gig like that?
NotMax
There was a minor detour into martini talk in one overnight thread. In light of that, and strictly to bring on a WTF amused-slash-astonished reaction, direct your attention to this abomination.
:)
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: You have to start very early in life. Before birth, in fact.
Then you have to be patient as society degenerates around the idea that the only people allowed to run things are the ones with the most money.
Once you are born, you are coddled like an egg until you hatch into a pundit job that your prestigious degree from a university your parents gave money to is awarded.
Then all your colleagues in right wing media prop you up as you are propped up. Lots of job security. Cellar levels of self-esteem.
For instance, David Brooks, a perfect case study, actually got his job through talent: for ass kissing. But is he happy in his big house dribbling out the same column in some Sisyphean form of punishment?
No, visibly no. So be careful what you enquire about.
JR
If you want to be surprised, look up Danny Devito’s career as movie producer.
OzarkHillbilly
@JR: He’s an underappreciated talent.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
You mean he receives short shrift?
;)
Baud
@JR:
IMDB says this in the trivia section for DeVito.
?
low-tech cyclist
The House can pass whatever it wants, but there will not be a bill that the Senate takes up anytime soon.
I’d love to be proven wrong, but as far as I can tell, Mitch McConnell has everything he wants already, so Pelosi has no leverage here. The time to play hardball was on the previous bills, especially this last one.
Steeplejack
Y’all quit being mean to Megan McArdle! COVID-19 has affected her personally. Peresonally, you hear?!
And Susan of Texas drops the hammer:
SFAW
For the most part, I can’t stand country music. But Dolly Parton is pretty amazing, and incredibly talented.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Someday, you’re gonna pay. Bigly.
sukabi
@Baud: yep. Why is she still being published?
SFAW
@Steeplejack:
Well, in fairness to McArgleBargle …
nah, screw that. In a more just world, the leopard would have eaten her face a lot earlier.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ve found that “someday” only comes long after the rest of us have paid for it.
Barney
Fred Clark at Slacktivist noted the link between two of his cultural lodestars 8 years ago:
As someone who is credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with introducing a word to the world (“slacktivism”), his knowledge and opinions are worth reading. Plus he’s done one of the most devastating takedowns of the far-right death cult there is, when savaging the “Left Behind” nonsense.
SFAW
@sukabi:
Well, the Bezos Post (which apparently is forcing the USPS to pay Amazon to ship Amazon packages, according to the Murderer-/Moron-in-Chief) is still trying to decide whether McArgleBargle, Hugh Halfwit, or Marc “Don’t call me Tiffany Amber” Thiessen is the bigger/biggest moron.
[Now, if that ain’t a set-up line, then I don’t know what is.]
John S.
@JR: Death to Smoochy!
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: We’re paying for it at least 3 or 4 times a day, every day.
NotMax
Should you find the time, look up the admirable political record of character actor Lionel Stander.
SFAW
@Steeplejack:
Even after all of that, it seems highly unlikely that McArgleBargle will have any kind of epiphany about the cause-and-effect of her past scrawlings. Which means she’s just like every other RWMF pundit/politician.
Jeffro
@SFAW: McCardle is dumb; Hewitt, Thiessen, and Henry Olsen are malicious, lying hacks. As is that clown from the Ohio hinterlands (Gary Abernathy) who manages to get a ‘the salt of the earth/real Americans are still in trumpov’s corner all the way’ column published every two weeks.
Anyway, hopefully someone enlightened McMegs that the reason her examples (choir practice, soccer games, restaurants) are noisy is that they require people to be near each other, in great numbers.
NotMax
@NotMax
Whoopsie. Left out notation of who was replying to.
@Baud
Should you find the time, look up the admirable political record of character actor Lionel Stander.
Chyron HR
I believe the proper formulation is, “I was being sarcastic.”
cmorenc
@Amir Khalid:
McArdle is being paid to say stupid stuff, so that the rest of us don’t have to.
SFAW
@NotMax:
I thought you libtards would have learned by now: entertainers who support Demon-rats are supposed to “shut up and sing” (or whatever).
Immanentize
@SFAW: true. Nothing is real to people like McArdle until it affects them personally. Then, it is the only thing that is real — and it is real only in the ways it affects them.
debbie
I fell for Dolly’s giggly aw-shucks persona (her greatest acting performance) for years, but have come to see she’s smarter than most of the rest of us. Also more talented.
OzarkHillbilly
Hmmm…
On the one hand, it would explain a lot, fit’s his MO to a tee, and timing is dead on.
On the other hand it would mean that he actually read something more than the captions to dirty pictures.
I’m just not sure. Maybe if it was written in sharpie?
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
No idiot survives alone. //
WereBear
@debbie: Contrast her with Porter Waggoner as a misogyny exercise.
SFAW
@WereBear:
For those of us that don’t “do” country music, could you explain further? I know his name, but that’s about it.
Spanky
I would like to think that Bezos pays those clowns to be pinatas, as the comments to their columns suggest.
I would like to think that, but …
NotMax
@Debbie
Suddenly flashed back to this extremely peripherally related oddball ad for Warner Bros. records, distributed to college radio stations at the dawn of the 70s as part of a promo album. Quite risqué for its time.
:)
ThresherK
@JR: My favorite odd tidbit about DeVito is from an interview in by Roger Ebert, who mentioned that DeVito’s body language and manner isn’t that of a short (4’10”) man with a Napoleon complex, trying to convince everyone he’s tough.
Rather, he acts like a guy who almost has to restrain himself, like a NFL lineman holding back to keep from “filling up the space” emotionally, intimidating and dominating people offhandedly.
JPL
@Steeplejack:
Apparently there are needs besides buying fancy kitchen gadgets Let her eat Himalayan salt.
trnc
McArdle is an offense against humanity for countless reasons, but I think this is a stopped clock situation. It’s not crazy to think that singing or yelling is going to push droplets further than quiet speaking. She presents it as her own idea, which it isn’t, so that’s a little annoying. But the thing that really hacks me off is that, because she thinks it’s her idea, she’s ready to institute a government policy to minimize it. McArdle. Policy. MCARDLE! POLICY!!
Hell, instead of coming down for her on it, I’d make this the only thing I say forever the next time she talks smack about climate change.
debbie
@SFAW:
Overly simplified: Dolly got her start with Porter, but at some point felt he was holding her back and holding her down. It was difficult for her to separate herself from him without hurting him. She finally wrote that song, “I Will Always Love You” as her way of telling him she was leaving. And he finally got it that she was too talented for him and let her go.
germy
@debbie: My favorite Parton story is how she pitched “I Will Always Love You” to Elvis. He loved the song and wanted to record it, but the Colonel insisted Elvis get songwriting credit.
Parton said “Nope” and Elvis didn’t record the song.
debbie
@NotMax:
Cheesecake bunny is enough to frighten anyone.
SFAW
@debbie:
Thanks. I heard someone saying she wrote both that song, and “Jolene,” in one night. [Snopes says it’s True.]
debbie
@germy:
I didn’t know that. I can hear his voice singing the song, but yay! to Dolly for standing up for herself.
germy
McArdle is proof that you can be dumb as a rock, but if you write things that pleases Koch et al. you’ll be given a spot in the most prestigious news outlets.
https://shameproject.com/profile/megan-mcardle/
Imagine Betty Cracker or Anne Laurie being given a column in one of the biggest newspapers? NYT or WaPo?
If they used their talents to say “We need less regulation, not more” or “Tax cuts pay for themselves actually” they’d be syndicated all over the country.
Raven
@debbie: “it takes a lot of money to look this cheap”!
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: from his NYT obituary:
debbie
@SFAW:
I know, right?
debbie
@Raven:
And then those giggles!
germy
Dolly and Porter story examined in Drunk History:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFR-2m9CHI0
satby
@Immanentize: I’m unclear why McArdle thinks she’s at elevated risk from Covid-19? Is there some backstory there?
But yes, until she was personally affected, she didn’t care. That’s every conservative’s mo since forever.
RSA
@Steeplejack:
I don’t know the whole story, but for many people, I think, seeing an older relative go into a nursing home is painful because it’s a last resort. As she describes her situation, it sounds as though her (presumed) relative could have stayed in the nursing home (huge risk to self and others) or gone home (less risk). Am I wrong in taking her complaint as being self-centered to the point of selfishness?
WereBear
@SFAW: My grandparents loved Porter Waggoner’s country music show, where Dolly made her first TV appearances. She was on the show for seven years.
In short, he thought he owned her. And… who is the bigger one now?
SFAW
@germy:
Trivia (if true): I once heard — it’s gotta be 30 or 40 years ago — that the Colonel did not let Elvis tour in Europe, because (A) Parker was afraid he [Parker] would not be allowed to re-enter the US (since he was actually not born here, and may not (?) have been a citizen), so he could not go on a European tour with Elvis, and (B) was worried that Elvis would sign with someone else while away from Parker’s clutches.
germy
@debbie:
wikipedia
germy
@RSA: she’s a libertarian, so yes.
Steeplejack
@debbie:
Too lazy to check now, but I think Parton also had to buy her way out of a contract with Wagoner, or give him some sort of payment.
This was covered well in Ken Burns’s Country Music.
OzarkHillbilly
Thanx guys, now I have to listen to “I Will Always Love You” again. I just know I’m gonna fall down a Dolly youtube rabbit hole. There goes my Saturday.
debbie
@germy:
The Colonel was a jerk.
SFAW
@WereBear:
Well, since he died in 2007 …
satby
You can never go wrong assuming that of every conservative.
Steeplejack
@satby:
From reading her thread, it appears that she has high blood pressure. I didn’t see anything else.
But, yes, it has that usual conservative tone where they have to heighten or emphasize their own personal situation in regard to whatever the topic is.
ETA: She probably needs to lay off the Himalayan salt.
germy
@SFAW: Albert Goldman’s researchers got that scoop for a biography Goldman wrote.
The Colonel was an immigrant, and he lived in terror someone would find out he wasn’t actually a fine old southern gentleman.
He also was a compulsive gambler who took 50% of Presley’s earnings and gambled it away.
SFAW
@germy:
That is a beautiful quote.
debbie
@Steeplejack:
I did label my comment “oversimplified.” ?
SFAW
@germy:
Didn’t know about the gambling thing. What a dick he was. [Not just for the gambling, of course.]
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks for posting that.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Heh, and then there is this:
SFAW
@germy:
“The Lying Dutchman”?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
MagdaInBlack
@OzarkHillbilly:
Ya, me too. With a dip in to Kris Kristofferson, for some reason.
Enjoy! ?
Steeplejack
@RSA:
The patient is her father. It was unclear (to me) from the thread why he was being discharged. At first I thought it was because the nursing home didn’t want him there infecting other people. But I don’t know.
In any case, yes, McArdle does come off as extremely self-centered.
rikyrah
@Steeplejack:
Truth ??
JMG
If you want to feel depressed about your productivity in the shutdown, consider that Parton wrote “I Will Always Love You” and “Jolene” on the same damn day. Wagoner was a B+ level country star, which isn’t bad. Parton is a transcendent genius of the genre.
NotMax
@OzarkHillibilly
He joined the Air Force in WW2 and later quipped they refused to allow him to fly a plane because he was categorized “a premature anti-Fascist.”
Sloane Ranger
@SFAW:
Yeah. I picked up on that. Aren’t the USPS prevented by law from charging different rates for delivering business as opposed to personal packages?
And isn’t there a cap on how much they can charge anyway?
I was surprised one of the reporters didn’t pick him up on that but I suppose they were too focused on the inject disinfectant issue.
Amir Khalid
@trnc:
This is not a stopped-clock situation. Read the tweet. McArdle isn’t thinking about transmission of droplets of bodily fluids at all, or the close physical proximity between people at these gatherings. She is suggesting that the sound-pressure level at choir practice sessions, football games, etc. is what spreads the coronavirus, by some mechanism that virologists have failed to consider. That is her brain fart.
RSA
Thanks for the perspective on the McArdle story, all.
rikyrah
@Steeplejack:
As always, Dear Meggie couldn’t be bothered..
UNTIL IT HAPPENED TO HER PERSONALLY??
She always had a reason why our side was wrong.
But…when it HAPPENED TO HER.
Then everyone should stand up and take notice ???
Lord, these people get on my last Black nerve??
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
Nice version of “Jolene.” Dolly is also a pretty good guitar picker.
germy
Complaining that it’s too cheap to mail packages and buy stamps is a great way to win an election.
Will his followers chant it at their next rally?
“I wanna pay more to mail stuff! I wanna pay more to mail stuff!!”
rikyrah
@JMG:
I would forever be in awe of Ms. Parton when I read that.????
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Heh, a “premature anti fascist” is a bumper sticker waiting to be made.
germy
@rikyrah:
Maggie: “Why is that leopard looking at my face like that?”
Steeplejack
@debbie:
I wasn’t criticizing, I was just adding on.
germy
@Steeplejack: There was a fad a few years back to play the 45rpm single version of “Jolene” at 33 1/3 rpm. But I’m not sure why.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Good morning. ?
Yutsano
@SFAW: Fun fact: according to Dolly, she didn’t know Whitney had covered “I Will Always Love You” until she heard it on the radio. But apparently she loved it, and not just because it made her a boatload.
Also: Miley Cyrus is her goddaughter. And whatever you might think of her talent, her cover of
“Jolene” is damn good.
SFAW
@Sloane Ranger:
I’m speculating that the USPS has a contract with Amazon (perhaps in concert with UPS and FedEx) for delivery of Amazon packages. The Murderer-in-Chief has made it clear for a couple of years that he wants to hurt Bezos financially, because the WaPo has the temerity not to proclaim him god-trumperor. The “the USPS is getting screwed by Amazon and should charge more” bullshit is one manifestation of that.
I’m pretty sure the USPS would not have entered into a contractual relationship with Amazon, if it were the “we’ll take a loss on each delivery, but make it up in volume” type of deal.
Can someone remind me again how the Murderer-in-Chief is different from a banana republic dictator?
SFAW
@germy:
I know it’s a typo, but “Maggie” vomits up stuff for the FTFTFNYT, not the WaPo.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: I fully expect UPS and FEDEX to loudly get on the pro USPS bus. The last thing they want is to make all those back road rural deliveries when they can just pay the USPS to do it for them for a whole lot less. I could not begin to estimate the tonnage I’ve seen them drop off at our post office.
MagdaInBlack
What happens to all that “pre-funded” pension money if the USPS goes/is driven “out of business? “
rikyrah
@germy:
People tried to start shyt when The Bodyguard…asking Dolly how she feels about ‘her’ recording her song(Whitney Houston)
Parton’s response?
‘I feel really good when I go to the mailbox and get those checks.’
Love ?her?
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I hope so. Let’s hope they talk to their Senators, too, since they’re headquartered in GA and TN. [Better if one were in KY, so that Traitor Turtle might get muscled.] Of course, the Insane Clown Prexy might not even listen to Moscow Mitch, if Mitch tries to get in the way of his punishing someone he hates.
germy
She’s right, though.
SFAW
@MagdaInBlack:
Jared and the Trump Disorganization will take care of everything just fine..
MattF
@Sloane Ranger: Didn’t realize that Trump’s threats towards USPS stem from his vendetta against Bezos. The WaPo story was clear about that— and also made it clear that the threat was exceedingly stupid, given that Amazon, FedEx, and UPS could respond by delivering the USPS packages. The only victims would be USPS and anyone who relies on its package delivery service.
rikyrah
@MagdaInBlack:
Uh huh
Uh huh ??
Ask?it?
Steeplejack
@germy:
It’s an interesting take.
germy
@Steeplejack: youtube comment:
Steeplejack
@germy:
No argument here.
NotMax
@SFAW
From May of last year:
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
A Ghost to Most
@SFAW: It’s not the music, it’s the lyrics and the pop crap that comes out of Nashville. There’s an entire genre of lefty music that hides out in the crack between rock and country.
O. Felix Culpa
@SFAW: Actually, she’s at the WaPo now. Unfortunately.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/megan-mcardle/
SFAW
@NotMax:
Interesting. I had not heard about that. One hopes they’ll have “a little chat” with Moscow Mitch.
SFAW
@O. Felix Culpa:
Unless things have changed in the last 24 hours, “Meggie” is at the WaPo, “Maggie” (Haberman) is at the FTFTFNYT.
rikyrah
Another one of these stories ???
Steeplejack
@O. Felix Culpa:
“Maggie” is Haberman of the Times, not Megan of the Post. Apparently germy had a brain typo at #84.
trnc
@Amir Khalid: I read the tweet, which was followed by this tweet:
It’s entirely possible that she’s just trying to cover for a stupid statement, but that in itself would be a first. I have literally never seen McArdle back off from any statement she shits out.
hueyplong
@germy: The sight as well as the sound of Trump are repulsive to me, so I hadn’t seen video of him for a long time. But this week I watched the infamous disinfectant sequence, and noticed what looked like an odd bald/thinned down spot on the upper left side of his head when he turned to get all serious with the scarf doctor.
What’s that about?
SFAW
@A Ghost to Most:
The issue (for me) is not the music, nor the formerly-ubiquitous “mah dawg died, the li’l woman left me, I luv mah truck and guns” type of lyrics. It’s the not-completely-rational association I have for country music with the racist/neo-Confederate motherfuckers who are ruining this country. If the South were not actively trying to destroy this country — or, rather, the professed “American ideal” — I would probably be neutral about country music. [Yes, I realize that, even during good times, the country has fallen far short of the “American ideal,” especially for those who are not white males.]
Immanentize
@germy: All of the rural supporters that he brags about (I win land!) Just live to pay more to ship and receive packages! In this time, prices should be decreasing.
trnc
@rikyrah:
Have lawsuits been filed yet? I realize the emergency declarations can give the feds some powers they don’t otherwise have, but it doesn’t seem like stealing items already paid for by cities and states would be covered.
germy
O. Felix Culpa
@SFAW: @Steeplejack:
Oops. My bad. Where’s my coffee, dangit?
My best excuse is that both those women are interchangeably vapid and evil. And I need more coffee.
OzarkHillbilly
Strange way of saying “enslaved 12,500 people”.
SFAW
@O. Felix Culpa:
Arguments are next door, if that’s what you’re looking for.
O. Felix Culpa
@SFAW: This isn’t an argument. It’s just contradiction.
SFAW
@O. Felix Culpa:
No, it isn’t.
I’m sorry, are going to do this for five minutes, or the full 30?
O. Felix Culpa
@SFAW: LOL. I want to complain.
Dorothy A. Winsor
My building leaves little treats on the package shelf outside my door. One day this week it was donuts. Today it’s two face masks. Sign of the time.
And actually good since Illinois’s shelter in place order is extended to the end of May and now includes mandatory wearing of face masks if you have to go out anywhere you can’t maintain 6 feet of distancing.
germy
@Steeplejack:
I blame my cat, who was on my lap distracting me.
I’ve lived with male cats and I’ve lived with female cats. The male cats would simply jump on my lap. My current cat (a beautiful female tabby) instead stands next to me and yells until I pick her up and put her on my lap. She expects to be swept off her feet.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
The point of the citation was to point out that they have a significant footprint in Kentucky. The blockquoted snippet is from Amazon itself, so of course self-serving.
Know from experience that when I track packages from them those parcels often make a pit stop at Hebron, KY.
senyordave
@germy: Good comment on twitter:
For Kudlow hairdrsser must be euphemism for coke dealer
germy
SFAW
@O. Felix Culpa:
You want to complain! Look at these shoes. I’ve only had them three weeks and the heels are worn right through.
Stupid git.
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
Thus far not enough of an impetus for Mom’s small co-op apartment building to finally install some sort of receptacle for outgoing mail in the lobby so the tenants don’t have to make the four block trek to the post office, which by whatever bizarre viral reaction reasoning has now removed the outdoor mailboxes which one could drive up to and deposit mail.
SFAW
@NotMax:
In at least one town, the outdoor boxes are being changed to ones with better security. [Apparently, some persons are “fishing” for some unknown reason (steal money from envelopes? Get SS #s? I have no idea), the new boxes will be better at preventing that.]
WereBear
@SFAW: Likewise, I have a personal issue with country music, which is how a giant percentage of it is the guy losing yet another gal because he treated her like dirt, yet gets drunk and wails “this always happens” instead of realizing his fundamental problem.
Essence of right wing art…
MomSense
They had flour at the market!!! They let me buy 1 bag of King Arthur white whole wheat!
I saw that McArdle last night and it sent me down a rabbit hole of her tweets. There was one thread where she was complaining about the architecture of the FBI building and someone replied with a little snark about countertops. Dear dog, that led McArgle bargle on a whole self pity trip about her old kitchen with wood countertops, drawers that don’t open, and wall cabinets that keep falling and trying to kill her husband. WTF was this supposed to be her I’m just like you confession? She makes a fuckton of money and won’t fix her kitchen for some kind of street cred?
It made me hate her all the more.
WereBear
I just wear face masks whenever I leave the property. Other residents of my building are awesome about dancing around each other and we can always hear ourselves coming.
However, outside is a whole different story, and I’m constantly almost running into people popping up out of nowhere and sidle up because they aren’t thinking. It makes grocery shopping (I now wear glasses at all times) pretty nerve-wracking above and beyond the background situation.
SFAW
@NotMax:
I’m hoping Abigail Johnson calls up Moscow Mitch and says “you know that facility we have in Covington? Southern Illinois is looking a lot better for it, at the moment, unless you rein in that stupid motherfucker.”
[Ms. Johnson is the head of Fidelity, and I’m pretty sure she would not use some of those words. Her net worth is also about 100x that of the Grifter-in-Chief.]
SFAW
@WereBear:
I, on the other hand, have been told to wear a full-face opaque mask when my wife is home.
Sab
@satby: She has an autoimmune disorder, hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
bemused
I was trying to think of what trump’s sharpie signature reminded me of and finally realized that it looks very much like a polygraph test.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Hey, I found the BJ post with Tim F’s recipe! I added the link to the Life is Short post from last night.
https://balloon-juice.com/2008/12/12/pork-tenderloin/
It was actually a front page post from Tim, featuring the recipe. I can’t wait to read the whole thread.
patrick II
@NotMax:
I am a near teetotaler and know nothing about drink naming conventions, but why would you call that a martini? I don’t think it has a single common ingredient (my ignorance perhaps). Does the glass make all of the difference? If I serve chocolate milk in that glass, is it a martini?
OzarkHillbilly
@O. Felix Culpa: 3rd door down on the right.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax:I know, I just couldn’t pass up an opportunity to slam their anti union labor practices.
WereBear
If you add vodka or gin: YES.
danielx
@NotMax:
At the Cincinnati airport which is, amazingly enough, in Kentucky.
danielx
@patrick II:
There is a drink known as a chocolate martini.
I know, it’s barbaric.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: I did eventually get it posted to the thread last night. We had thunderboomers pass thru and it knocked out our satellite for quite some time. I’m glad you found Tim’s original, I tried and failed.
Steeplejack (phone)
@patrick II:
Chocotini. Or Ovaltini, if you’re old-school.
zhena gogolia
Something fun for tomorrow night:
https://www.broadway.com/buzz/199128/jaw-dropping-lineup-of-stars-to-salute-stephen-sondheim-in-broadwaycom-birthday-concert-event/
Quinerly
@MagdaInBlack: “Cedar Creek Sessions” by Kris is free on Amazon Basic Prime. Great stuff.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: I did see yours last night and dutifully added it to my recipes! I’m gonna try it as soon as I am going shopping again.
But I thought you might like to see the original.
I found it by copying this to google, and searching for it:
SFAW
@danielx:
No more so than a “greasy martini” [w/mayonnaise]
Dorothy A. Winsor
@danielx:
Barbaric? Maybe. Delicious? Absolutely.
patrick II
@low-tech cyclist:
I think you are right about the time to play hardball being earlier in the process. An advantage both Trump and McConnell have is that when you look into the future, even given their past, it is difficult to project how craven they will act. Shutting down the post office and bankrupting the states during a pandemic. It crosses over from craven to evil.
The Post Office is less of a surprise. Get Beezos and no absentee voting, even if it requires tearing apart an organization created by the Constitution as part of a framework to hold this country together.
No money for states was the bigger surprise. To me at least. But reorganizing will kill unions and their power base — pensions. So, for McConnell and Trump, it’s worth it.
I shouldn’t be surprised since they have shown they will let other, unempowered people, die for their cause before. Thatcher’s dream will come true, this isn’t a country, but a bunch of individuals acting in their own self-interest. We’ll see how long that lasts.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I need to get out more – I only recognized about 2/3 of the people.
If there are any broadway people here who are bored out of their minds, I would love a list in order of the pics so I can see who the rest are.
danielx
@OzarkHillbilly:
If you’re ever feeling ambitious, Paul Prudhomme’s Cajun Pork Loin Roast is to die for. I’ve fixed it for Christmas dinner on a number of occasions; a lot of work but worth it.
Pro tip: fix the veggie mix the night before and then chill it.
jonas
I wouldn’t put it past Amazon to have actually created 25,000 part-time positions so they wouldn’t have to pay any benefits, but then call it “full-time” (equivalent) based on the number of hours worked or something.
debbie
@Steeplejack:
I knew you weren’t. I was poking at myself.
O/T: I planned on making zucchini or banana bread tomorrow. Who knew baking powder was scarce? Not I. The stuff I have is past expiration date, but it does fizz up a bit. Is there an equivalent I could use? I know the bread wouldn’t rise as high, but would there be any issues taste-wise with using half-flat baking powder?
debbie
@MagdaInBlack:
Hence McConnell’s smug expression. It will magically fly into his back pocket, of course!
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
There’s a caption under the picture — can you see it? I started to do a list but then saw it’s already there.
WereBear
@debbie: Use twice as much.
Also, I actually prefer milk soured with vinegar and baking soda.
PST
@SFAW:
Hewitt is not a moron and I don’t think Thiessen is. They are evil. I know you can be both, we have proof of that every day at 5:00, but Hewitt and Thiessen strike me as too clever and calculated to be stupid. A smart friend of mine roomed with Hewitt in college and says he is quite intelligent. Thiessen is loathsome, but you can see a Goebbels-like talent for manipulation in what he writes. It isn’t logical, of course, and isn’t intended to be. It reads like what a logical person would create to sway illogical people.
debbie
@WereBear:
Wouldn’t using twice as much affect the taste?
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: It is sooooooooooo gooooooooood and sooooooooo simple…
Let me apologize right now. You will be ruined by it.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
USPS also makes the last leg of the trip for UPS, FedEx, etc. around here.
WereBear
@debbie: It doesn’t add taste. It adds rising power. Now, too much rising power is its own problem, but that texture. Still not taste.
OzarkHillbilly
@danielx: Thanx! I tend to prefer simple recipes with fewer ingredients but I’ll give it a shot.
debbie
@WereBear:
Great. Thanks so much!
OzarkHillbilly
@jonas: Neither would I.
danielx
Note – I saw video of Stephen Miller shouting and gesticulating at a podium within the last couple of days. Class project: find video of Josef Goebbels delivering a speech; compare and contrast.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Oh, duh! I swear I looked before I asked, and all I saw was a list in the text below that, which started with Streep and was definitely not in order.
thank you
WaterGirl
@debbie: I was going to say the same thing – use more.
If you don’t have much left in the first place, though, maybe conserve by using 1.5 times as much?
WereBear
For those in need of leavening:
10 baking powder substitutes
Booger
@debbie: Baking soda and cream of tartar will work, but it’s just a gas release when they mix; baking powder does a gas release on mixing plus a heat-generated release, hence the term ‘double-acting.’ Good luck.
Josie
@debbie:
You can combine your half-flat baking powder with baking soda and sour milk or yogurt or buttermilk in the same recipe. For every 2 cups of flour, use 1 T of baking power and 1 tsp of baking soda. You can sour milk with lemon juice or vinegar to work with the baking soda.
PST
@MattF: In respect of USPS, Trump clearly demonstrates that he never heard of price elasticity of demand. That’s a critical shortcoming for a businessman.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack (phone): I’m even older-school. Boscotini, anyone?
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear: Thank you very much.
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne:
That is way old-school!
MattF
@PST: I think both Hewitt and Thiessen are mostly taking orders directly from the WH. With Hewitt, it’s pretty obvious, while Thiessen tends to add a dose of personal venom. Putting them together, you can see what the WH is trying to push out.
Jinchi
@OzarkHillbilly:
That article just keeps getting better
Keyes is literally the basis of the 27% Crazification factor.
scav
@debbie: mmmmmhhhmmmmrrr, there could be taste issues with half flat baking powder, depending on which element has gone flat. If I remember the basic elements correctly, if what’s missing is the dry acidic element, there won’t be enough to activate all the soda and so theoretically you’ld have the metallic taste — Does soda ever go bad so you’d have too much of the dry acid and does it in fact ever taste acid? If it’s the double-acting (heat activated element) that’s dead, I think that would just be flatter than usual. If you don’t mind maybe a little extra acid in your bread, maybe add a little lemon juice to compensate for the possibly dead dry acid (and lower risk that metallic tang). Or just forge ahead and live wild!
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
????
jonas
@PST: You’re right about both. Hewitt, IIRC, went to Michigan Law and was assistant WH counsel under Reagan or something. So he’s not dumb, but possibly the most shameless hack in the history of RW media — and that’s saying something. Never have so many shit sandwiches been eaten with such gusto, day in, day out.
danielx
@SFAW:
Who possessed the deeply twisted mind that came up with this abomination?
MattF
@SiubhanDuinne: Apparently, Bosco still exists. There’s some disagreement about the meaning of the name, though. Wikipedia claims that it comes from the Greek βόσκω, meaning ‘I nourish’ while the linked article says it comes from ‘bosque’ , a small wooded area.
Jinchi
Sounds great. I’m not sure they appreciate being the counterpoint to Megan McArdle, though.
MagdaInBlack
@Quinerly:
Thank you. Will check it out ?
debbie
Thanks again, everyone!
Rand Careaga
@WereBear: Regarding what may or may not be regarded as a proper martini, Bernard DeVoto would like a word. Several words, in fact.
(I didn’t catch the overnight thread, so it may be that someone else has linked to this classic rant already.)
Jinchi
That’s the way I read it too. Megan doesn’t seem concerned that an elderly (relative?) was at serious risk living in a nursing home.
Brachiator
Buffy was initially dismissed by a lot of critics. Was the show a parody? A farce? And what’s the deal with this vampire killer chick and all her teenage angst? What kind of super hero is this supposed to be?
And the movie had also been dumped on.
SFAW
@PST:
Po-TAY-toe, to-MAH-toe.
More seriously: I appreciate the insight/information. But I think there’s a discussion to be had re: when an allegedly-intelligent person continually makes stupid/illogical arguments, is it merely because that person is evil? Or is the person actually not that smart? At some point, a truly smart person would (I hope) realize that his (or her) argument is just so much bullshit, and just stop making that/those argument(s). Call it an epiphany, maybe. Cole had one, Charles Johnson had one. I hope that others have one. That Hewitt and Thiessen have not, given the fundamental intellectual bankruptcy of their positions, makes me question their level of intelligence.
WereBear
@Brachiator:
In my opinion, unfairly. Buffy had a real character arc. Paul Rubens played the second banana vampire with panache, including a side-splitting death scene.
And Rutger Hauer. I’ll watch him in a sewer monster movie. (And I have.)
Jinchi
Maybe it’s the reason he wants all the hairdressers back to work.
rikyrah
@senyordave:
It would be irresponsible not to speculate ??
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Nothing bonkers about that. On the other hand the first one could have been worded better, considering she is professional writer and not some dork on the internets.
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator: True fact: I really liked the movie and resisted watching the TV series for a long time on the grounds that it couldn’t be as good as the movie! Oy, was I wrong!
joel hanes
@SFAW:
Informed comments by “MIJ” over at LGM clarify the situation considerably. Here’s the one mot relevant to Amazon’s shipping costs, but MIJ probably has ten comments in that thread. Recommended.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/04/as-catastrophically-stupid-an-idea-that-anyone-could-ever-imagine#comment-4889303507
A Ghost to Most
@PST: Theissen is a fascist mouthpiece apparatchik. A truly evil fuck. Fugh Fuckwit is a self-aggrandizing talking points ass kisser.
Poe Larity
I’m breathless waiting for McMegans treatise on Glibertarian Pandemic Policy. Think of finally being able to enjoy a safe night out because of decibel meter enforced sound levels.
Also, too, research how many fifth graders would it take to smother a virus?
joel hanes
@MagdaInBlack:
What happens to all that “pre-funded” pension money if the USPS goes/is driven “out of business? “
Perhaps the same thing that happened to the Ampad pension fund after Bain Capital looted the company:
https://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/05/bankruptcy-report-on-bain-owned-ampad-creditors-repaid-002-for-every-dollar-owed-124072
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW: There’s a subgenre of country music with lyrics that actively celebrate reactionary neo-Confederate attitudes, or are just all about how “country” the singer is, which usually amounts to the same thing in thinly disguised code–white Southern identity politics. That’s the kind I don’t like. Sometimes it’s basically syrupy pop-rock underneath and the only thing to distinguish it as country is the politics, the twangy accent and the hats.
Yutsano
@MomSense: I actually saw three whole bags of Gold Medal flour! At of all places Walgreen’s! I ALMOST bought it except I have plenty right now. It can be snatched up by some other hoarder.
Jinchi
It doesn’t surprise me at all that they’d screw over the states. These guys have repeatedly threatened to shut down the country, and actually did it a couple of times. If they don’t want to fund the country why would they want to fund the states?
They believe tax money should go to billionaires. That’s it.
Cleardale
@WereBear: That sewer monster movie is on Amazon Prime right now, which is great because it wasn’t available anywhere for years.
Matt McIrvin
…said “usually” here because I can think of one definite counterexample–the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ “I Am A Country Girl”, which was about black rural Southern identity…
Brachiator
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
RE: Sorry. to be clear: noise is a problem because when it is noisy, people raise their voices to be heard, which facilitates droplet transmission.
No, this is still stupid on so many levels. It bypasses the simple explanation, people in social groups and sometimes in close body contact, with an unnecessarily complicated one, noisy people opening their mouths and what, spitting on people?
And does she even know the rates of infection at these places? It’s not about clarity of writing. Her speculation is about on par with an average blog comment. And even this comparison gives her musings more value than they are worth.
raven
@Matt McIrvin: ya’ll ternative, DBT on the case.
Subsole
@SFAW:
Everyone tells me to just wear a paper bag.
Yutsano
@debbie: I’m a little surprised no one mentioned the really old school way of making baked goods rise. You can separate the whites from the yolks, beat them to about soft peak stage (Chef John at Food Wishes has several great demonstrations about what that looks like) then gently fold them into whatever batter you’re making. You won’t get the rise you’d get from chemical leavening but it should still have a light texture. So that’s another option.
randy khan
@low-tech cyclist:
My over-under on the number of additional relief bills that will be passed is 2, and honestly I’m tempted to say 3. The Hill guy at my office already is looking at what will be in the next bill.
The bill to pour more money into the Paycheck Protection Program sets the template – when things run out of money, they will decide to spend more. The Republicans have realized their only hope here is to make it as close to a V-shaped downturn as possible. (This, I suspect, is one reason the stock market is doing better, because the traders understand that the spigot will not be turned off.)
Also, the red state governors are going to start chiming in on federal aid pretty soon.
Jinchi
Maybe I’m missing something, but why do they need 50 National Guard members to help run a manufacturing facility at a time when over 20 million people have lost their jobs?
It seems like they could hire some people, but I guess then they’d be expected to pay them.
Uncle Cosmo
No doubt it goes straight into the pockets of the vulture crapitalists who buy it, about 5 seconds after the deal is signed.
I have mailed 3 packages first class with the USPS in the last year. The first one was lost & not found until I raised hell with them – finally reaching its destination, not in the 3 days they “estimated” originally, but 18 days. I could have walked it there faster!
The other 2 – both sent certified, return receipt requested – were apparently delivered (again, at Pony Express speed). But now they appear to have lost one of the return receipts, and I am again in the process of raising Cain.
I am starting to seriously entertain the notion that there is a cabal inside USPS working with prospective buzzard-bazillionaire buyers to destroy it from within in return for a share of the pensions theft after privatization – a promise that will be reneged upon about 10 seconds after the papers are signed, but hey, “A greedy bastard hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.”
debbie
@Yutsano:
The batter for zucchini bread is really pretty heavy. Those eggs wouldn’t stand a chance.
japa21
@Brachiator:
For most blogs possibly, but not at BJ. Although not sure which way it compares.
Brachiator
Apparently Trump has lost his mind. Again. Another Twitter rant. Blasting Democrats.
He really is much like his North Korean authoritarian buddy, but without summary incarceration and other extremes.
Looking forward to the spirited defense of Trump by his conservative pundit enablers on the Sunday pundit shows.
RedDirtGirl
@NotMax: thanks for that! Some great quotes from his HUAC testimony!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Noise conditions forces people together into bodily contact so they can hear each other, a disease vector and makes them shout, which results in spitting another vector; so a double tap. She was speculating why the exceptional high rate in New York City with 16,000 dead as opposed to say San Fransisco with 20 dead, even though SF apparently had the virus months before NYC. Otherwise, what’s the reason for SF, the virus should have over ran the city long before the shelter in place order, so what is it? Avocados? Alien Space Bats?
I think media is so breathless with the disaster porn that people lose sight of the bright spots in this mess and you know, try to find out why there are these a bright spots instead of wallowing in despair.
danielx
@Brachiator:
Details!
WereBear
@Cleardale: Thanks! And I am JUST in the mood…
Yutsano
@debbie: There is a solution. You take about a third of the whites after they’re whipped up ans “sacrifice” them to lighten up the texture. Then you fold in the rest. It’s doable, you just have to be a bit careful.
Or honestly doubling the baking powder amount will work too.
WereBear
@Uncle Cosmo: Then there’s FedEx, which I now refuse to use. Their drivers seem to throw the package from the window as the vehicle speeds by, and their customer service is literally the Eliza bot from early computer AI.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@NotMax:
The fuck you say.
That’s a drink for a 20 year old girl who has just discovered her dad’s martini shaker. Guaranteed to inspire red puke among all her friends.
joel hanes
@Uncle Cosmo:
Any business whose owners deliberately seek its destruction will have some problems making customers happy.
The Republicans have been purposely stomping their hobnailed boots on the USPS’s metaphorical instep for decades. It’s no wonder that the organization occasionally limps a bit.
Jinchi
SF didn’t have the virus months before NYC. We knew there were unconfirmed case early on. We’ve learned about a few of the early ones from California recently. That doesn’t mean there were none in NYC around the same time.
Uncle Cosmo
@danielx: Miller is Reinhard Heydrich’s Mini-Me. You thought I was joking???
Martin
Shakira strikes me as the most normal celebrity that I wouldn’t expect to be normal. I keep expecting her to live up the street from me, because she always looks like someone who would live up the street from me.
And Dolly Parton producing Buffy doesn’t surprise me at all. She is smart as hell, as proven by countless decisions she has made throughout her career.
And that McArdle is still an idiot is somehow comforting to me.
In worse news, the WHO says that there is no evidence that exposure to Covid produces immunity. That is not out of character for coronaviruses. Might explain the high exposure data coming out of serology studies seemingly being out of step with other data.
MomSense
@Brachiator:
The immigration detention centers and the rounding up of American citizens they suspect are undocumented suggest that we do have summary incarceration. The conditions in the detention centers also cross the extreme measures threshold.
The difference here is that it is much easier to not see it happen or experience it first hand.
germy
different-church-lady
NAILED IT:
rikyrah
@randy khan:
Their outbreaks are here, and the red States don’t nearly have the medical infrastructure to handle it
Martin
@Jinchi: Yeah, CA and NYC were always going to be the first two places to get Covid based on travel patterns. That we stumbled into one and not the other while there was a prohibition on testing isn’t surprising. It was definitely in NYC in Feb, and almost certainly in Jan.
Wuhan’s data suggests they had single digit numbers of cases weeks before they got a cluster to suggest it was something other than a not-uncommon viral pneumonia. It took a good month for those single cases to spread into an epidemic. Not unreasonable for the same pattern to have played out here.
germy
Martin
@Yutsano: That works well for cakes – I make several cakes that way. Never tried it in bread, though.
Kent
Baking powder is self-rising. Baking soda requires some kind of acid in the batter and the reaction with acid causes the rise. So baking soda-only recipes always have some sort of acid (lemon juice, buttermilk, etc.) If you have only baking soda, modify the recipe to add some sort of acid.
Kent
She is also the best damn looking 43 years old I have ever seen.
MattF
@different-church-lady: In fact, there are 411 Bernie-to-Trumpers and each one filled a quota of 100 tweets. Thanks Vlad!!
frosty
@SiubhanDuinne: Perfect sequence of emojis!
I don’t want to know what else goes in a greasy martini. And FYI it isn’t in our Bartender’s Little Black Book which has every cocktail known to man. Or I thought it did.
different-church-lady
@SiubhanDuinne: THERE ARE WRONG THINGS YOU CAN PUT IN A MARTINI!!1!
Kent
@Brachiator: All those nursing homes where covid is spreading like wildfire? Noisiest places in the city, aren’t they? All those geriatrics screaming to be heard over the throbbing speakers?
Citizen Alan
@Brachiator:
The movie was objectively bad because the director completely misunderstood the point of it and allowed both Rutger Hauer and Peewee Herman to mug shamelessly. Also, Luke Perry was so far past high school age at that point his casting was almost cartoonish.
EDIT: Obviously, Werebear disagrees with my critique.
WereBear
@frosty: FAT is a macronutrient that just does not go into a cocktail. I’ve got some pretty creative bartenders in my mental Rolodex and none of them would go near such a thing.
Martin
Not picking on Kentucky with this, but it does speak to why the President needs to be stored in a hermetically sealed container where humans can’t find him. People do believe him.
Brachiator
@different-church-lady:
How about Mayo?
germy
The stupidity is spreading?
https://wnyt.com/money/the-latest-india-announces-easing-of-lockdown-restrictions/5710300/?utm_source=zetaglobal&utm_campaign=thumbnails&utm_medium=onsite
Martin
@SFAW: Cole and Johnson weren’t being directly paid for their intellectual bankruptcy. Fox News is, if nothing else, a marketplace for idiots. It is moron Tinder. The WH is the same, as are most highly subsidized political publications whose charter is to deliver a certain viewpoint no matter how stupid the argument needs to be to get there. If you’re going to pay Hewitt to say dumb shit, he’s going to say dumb shit. And if not him, someone else will take that role.
Brachiator
@Martin:
You must live on a hell of a street.
I keep imagining Shakira shaking her hips as she pulls her trash cans to the curb.
Those hips don’t lie.
WereBear
@Citizen Alan:
It worked for me :)
Also, I went to high school in places where guys were going bald by senior year. It’s a curse of the inbred-light-complected type, seemingly.
germy
@WereBear: Speaking of bald.
What do you think of a cat who had her belly shaved by the vet last year, and it still looks like a crew cut?
Asking for a friend (my cat).
The Thin Black Duke
@different-church-lady: Depends on how many martinis you drink.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator: The hips don’t lie, but the auto-tune does.
Martin
@Brachiator: Not the performing part – that’s the ‘wouldn’t expect to be normal’ trigger. But then I see a photo of her, and I’m like, ‘oh, that’s Jennie with the golden retriever’.
I think the Kardashians have broken me. I kind of expect people with talent to do weird shit, because they’ve earned that entitlement, but then there are the Kardashians, who are untalented people doing weird shit and being rewarded for it, so now I assume there are no normal talented people.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Will just say that after the Miami Superbowl halftime we all have a go-to video demonstrating the difference between a dancer and a person who has been trained to dance.
Brachiator
@Citizen Alan:
There is no such thing as objectively bad when it comes to movies or other arts.
I thought the movie was fun, but no great shakes just because I like the genre.
Casting is often a bad compromise between who is perceived to be a safe money bet and who is “appropriate,” whatever that means.
Luke Perry was probably seen to be a better box office draw than Kristy Swanson, the main protagonist.
The Lodger
@WaterGirl: Don’t feel bad – I recognized two, Mandy Patinkin and someone I don’t remember now.
WereBear
@germy: It can be age, which lowers the nutrients they can get from digestion. It can be a lack of of B vitamins, or fat, both of which don’t last long in cat food.
I would suggest some brewer’s yeast on the food, and a dab of butter on the edge of the dish. It’s what I do for my cats.
Also, many cats have an allergy to corn. Check the labels on the food. It can appear as itching, or simply slow/dry fur growth.
Almost a third of a cat’s metabolism goes to the fur and skin. This is why malnutrition, of whatever kind, can show up there.
trollhattan
@Martin:
“Famous for being famous” is indeed, a thing.
germy
@WereBear: Thank you.
Citizen Alan
@trollhattan: Indeed. I am still stunned that “Youtube Influencer” is a thing. People getting paid to post videos of themselves playing video games because so many people watch them play video games that a viable percentage will also buy whatever ads play before the video.
sdhays
Banana republic dictators watch less television.
germy
@trollhattan: that was a thing a hundred years ago, too. Various socialites were always in the newspapers back in the 1920s.
Alexander Woollcott was famous for being famous. He was called one of the worst writers in the world. He personally disagreed – he said he was the greatest writer in the world, but had nothing to say.
But his “witticisms” were always being quoted, and he even starred in a short film, playing himself.
hueyplong
@sdhays: And banana republic dictators are aware that they’re responsible if everything goes FUBAR.
patrick II
@patrick II:
I am rethinking what I wrote earlier — and what I read in most places — about Mitch and Trump’s proposals to wipe out the post office and bankrupt states. Their proposals are terrible policy, but may be effective blackmail. And in the Nixon crazy man way, if others believe you will do it it is more effective blackmail.
They are blackmailers more than policy makers since even they know what they propose to do to the states at least is harmful. But it’s hard to say go ahead, kill the kid, to blackmailers.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@different-church-lady: That is a fascinating interview. It has a certain Albert Speer quality (ie: I embraced everything about Bernie, but deep down I never trusted it).
joel hanes
@WereBear:
guys were going bald by senior year
[raises hand]
Yo.
Bouncers stopped carding me well before I was 18, let alone 21. My best friend, who in his 40s still looked like he was in his 20s, entering behind me, got carded every time. Made him so mad.
That youthful appearance served him well from 40 onward, though. Until recently, if you saw us together, you’d never guess that we are almost the same age.
Fair Economist
@Citizen Alan:
(Muses on a certain actor’s noted popularity playing a teen on Beverly Hills 90210 at the time.)
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
When she was a school girl, Shakira was known as “that belly dancer girl.” But I give Jennifer Lopez props.
zhena gogolia
@Martin:
So in other words, I’ll be confined to my house for the rest of my life?
Another Scott
@debbie: She’s always had a great head on her shoulders.
That time she said No to Elvis and wouldn’t let him do a cover of her song.
[eta:] Late to the party again. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
Thread for history buffs:
Mohagan
@SFAW: I’ve heard that too. The Colonel was born in Belgium.
satby
@Uncle Cosmo: I do all the shipping for my online store through USPS, and it’s invariably received in reasonable to rapid timeframes, easily tracked, and only once in 10 years has anything been “lost”, in which case the postage paid label came off but the return address had not, so it eventually was returned to me.
The USPS does fantastic work under often lousy conditions with rude, ungrateful customers. Though individual locations may not.
germy
@Mohagan: Tom Hanks is portraying the Colonel in an upcoming Elvis biopic.
Martin
@joel hanes: I had a friend in college whose hairline had receded nearly to a monk hairstyle. He was 19, one of the better basketball players on the school’s team, and every game there were fans who were like ‘hey, who brought their dad out to play?’.
Needless to say, he had a pretty rough time of it. There’s a specific kind of girl in college who’s good with being seen hanging off the arm of an apparent 50 year old, and they weren’t interested in someone who was 19 and eating ramen like the rest of us. He eventually did get a girlfriend, and literally every person at the college thought she was the best human being ever to grace the institution.
germy
@satby:
In my experience they’re 100x better than the privateers like Fed Ex and UPS I’ve dealt with.
CaseyL
@zhena gogolia: Oooooooohhhh – I have that bookmarked. Thanks!
Martin
@zhena gogolia: I don’t think so. Treatments will come along, probably sooner than a vaccine will, actually. And just because exposure doesn’t give immunity, doesn’t mean that immunity is not possible. A vaccine can still work – its just harder to do. It just means that natural herd immunity won’t happen, which is something we’re trying to avoid anyway. The most direct consequence for now is that if you had it and recovered, you aren’t safe to run headlong into society.
And even if you don’t have immunity, you likely have resistance. And that will at least help slow the spread.
Another Scott
@trnc: Well, there was that time when gastritis broke her calculator.
Oh, you’re right.
Carry on.
Cheers,
Scott.
Dorothy A. Winsor
More reports that Kim Jong-un is dead. We’ll see.
Uncle Cosmo
If that means “no long-lasting immunity,” – e.g., someone who’s had COVID-19 & developed antibodies loses the ability to produce antibodies to fight a subsequent infection after (say) 3-4 months – that might be compensated for by shortening the booster schedule for any subsequent vaccine. (We kind of do that with seasonal flu vaccines on a yearly rotation anyway.) Pain in the ass (or upper arm, your pick) but consider the alternatives. Of course if antibody production goes away after a week or two….
If it means that a COVID-19 survivor might not be able to produce antibodies to fight off a different strain of SARS-CoV-2, an effective vaccine would have to include snips of virus stuff that (taken together) to provoke antibody production against all strains. Another PITA(UA) but probably feasible so long as the virus isn’t throwing off new strains faster than they can be found & sequenced.
But if it means that the ability to generate antibodies is forgotten by the immune system as soon as the virus has been cleared…then that may preclude the development of any vaccine. We may be stuck with this shit forever – a recurring “common cold-cocker” with a significant mortality rate** – & we’d better get our arses in gear developing treatments.
** E.g., presume a CFR of 0.5%, which is not out of range for the data so far. Other things being equal (which they never are, but for a zeroth-order SWAG), a human who catches COVID-19 twice a year starting (say) at age 4 would have a 23% chance of dying from the stuff by the age of 30. “Logan’s flu,” anyone?
bluehill
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Everything Trump touches dies – working in unexpected ways.
different-church-lady
@Dorothy A. Winsor: TMZ is not one to traffic in rumors.
Mohagan
@WereBear: Oh yeah, Rutger Hauer fan here also. Ladyhawke is a classic. I even liked Split Second!
different-church-lady
@bluehill: If only he’d touch the damn virus.
Martin
@Uncle Cosmo: Well, they can’t evaluate on long-lasting. It must be in response to people that contracted it since Dec and are getting infected again. That’s pretty short-term. But we respond to cold viruses similarly – you get some resistance, but no real immunity. The resistance often both means ‘you won’t get infected when exposed’ but also ‘you won’t get as sick when exposed’ because your immune system is already primed to go.
So it might be a cumulative resistance thing. The first time you get it is pretty severe, but the 2nd time isn’t as bad, and the 4th time you mostly just shake it off. That doesn’t help people like zhena who are worried they won’t make it through that first case, and there will be the temptation to ‘sacrifice’ those people while everyone with antibodies runs back to work trusting that it’ll just turn into a routine mild illness for those folks. We’re going to learn a lot about what kind of society we really are in November.
Mohagan
@germy: Right. That’s why he was in Australia when he caught covid-19. I think the filming is indefinitely delayed due to the pandemic.
Martin
@different-church-lady: TMZ fully embraces stochastic reporting. 80% of what they report is flat-out wrong, but the 20% they get right they get way before anyone else because they don’t fucking care if they might be wrong – they already got the clicks.
germy
@Mohagan: Should be an interesting film. Some great casting:
Yola is a powerful singer and guitarist.
She will play Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Baz Luhrmann’s new, currently untitled Elvis Presley movie. She called it a “great honor,” as Rosetta is “foundational character in contemporary music, rock ’n’ roll specifically.”
Maggie Gyllenhaal will be playing Gladys Presley.
Olivia DeJonge has also reportedly signed on to the film in the role of Priscilla Presley.
Uncle Cosmo
@germy:
From memory. The Great War is when everything changed. After it nothing about the world or the human existence within it was the same.
Mohagan
@germy: THe Man Who Came to Dinner was inspired by Woollcott. I fell in love with the play when I was in junior high school and read widely in my mother’s book “Best Plays of the American Theatre”. I was an adult before learning it was a satire on Woollcott and Hollywood in the 1930s and that Banjo was an obvious take-off on Harpo Marx.
Baud
@Martin:
Did WHO say “no evidence of lasting immunity” or “evidence of no lasting immunity”?
Yutsano
@germy:Paging Adam L. Silverman! Mr. Silverman please come to the white courtesy phone for an important message. Mr. Adam L. Silverman.
Mohagan
@germy: Maggie Gyllenhaal as Gladys Presley?!? That will take a lot of make-up. But yeah, should be an interesting movie.
zhena gogolia
@Martin:
Another question I haven’t seen answered: they say high blood pressure is a significant factor in getting a severe case. But does that include controlled high blood pressure as well? If so, then a hell of a lot of people have that risk factor.
ThresherK
@Mohagan: It’s not really something revived much, but the musical play Sherry! has more than its share of charms.
There’s a good album with Nathan Lane, Carol Burnett, Bernadette Peters, Tommy Tune, Tom Wopat, and Mike Meyers (as Banjo) you might want to listen to.
westyny
@danielx: Onion headline from long ago: “I’m Just Like a Chocoholic Only With Booze”
germy
@Mohagan: Monty Woolley, a somewhat closeted gay actor, playing Woollcott, a somewhat-closeted gay writer/personality.
Another Scott
@joel hanes: I have recollection of a guy in my high school who had a really full, like Santa (but brown), beard when he was about 15.
Hair is weird.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie:
I heard on a podcast that when Waggoner was sick and having financial problems, Dolly Parton bought his company– recording? TV production? I don’t know– and after he died, gave it back to his family. She’s good people
Dorothy A. Winsor
@zhena gogolia:
Since my BP has suddenly become less well controlled, I wonder about that too.
Brachiator
@zhena gogolia:
A lot of good questions, and hopefully, the data is being accumulated so that the effect of the virus can be thoroughly investigated. But these analyses could take years, and new associations might be uncovered.
For example, we might assume that in countries with advanced health care systems, more people might be on blood pressure medication, but this is obviously something to be tested.
We don’t know how detailed the past medical histories were of people in nursing homes, but again, here is another situation where it may be possible to look at some detail into medications being taken, and other health details, compared to with wider population of people who have been infected.
MattF
@zhena gogolia: I’d like to know also, but it looks like the answer is ‘it depends’. There’s evidence (but not proof) that ACE inhibitors make the disease less fatal.
Uncle Cosmo
The post office branch for my ZIP code may be the least competent in the country. The Baltimore central post office may be the least competent central PO in the country. And this has been true for decades. Not long after I bought my house (1987) the mugghegia was transferred to a company that required monthly payments to be sent to a PO box in the central Baltimore post office. I would at times drive down there to drop off the envelope (with correct postage). I learned the hard way to do this early in the month – because at times my payment would take 5 days to make it across the fucking corridor.
My current home mail service is equally abysmal – the carrier frequently does not arrive before 6 PM, and from November through March, if I forget to put on the porch light, I don’t get delivery that day. “First-class” from city addresses can take as long as 10 days from postmark. And on the rare occasions when I have registered or certified mail incoming, no letter carrier has ever knocked on the door – they shove the prewritten notice slip into the mailbox & force me to drive down to collect the item (sometimes more than once, because they’ve taken it back out with them when I call at the branch for it).
It may be of some interest to know that the items I’ve had trouble with recently were all “first-class” mail. I’ve never had a problem with Priority Mail – but that costs as much if not more as Brown or ExLax delivery.
What really torques me is that “letter carrier” was my summer job in college, & I & everyone I worked with took our responsibilities very, very seriously. Precious little sign of that these days…
Jinchi
That only works when you believe the blackmail will stop if you pay the mobster. Trump has been taking hostages from day one. There’s no point paying off a kidnapper if he just keeps the white van parked in front of your house.
A Ghost to Most
@SFAW: Absolutely. “Country music” is the propagandist christian fascist bullshit that the selfish Nazi assholes listen to.
“Americana” is the Lefty crack where thinking man’s man’s country lives, in opposition to the Korporate Kuntry Krap out of Nashville.
Uncle Cosmo
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I was about to post, Couldn’t happen to a more deserving arsehole –
but then I reconsidered.
Elizabelle
Here’s video of Cuomo O’Clock today. C-Span link. 34 minutes long.
Always a good time to listen to some sanity, since it is in rare supply these days.
Happy Saturday, jackals.
Brachiator
@Mohagan:
Yep. Really liked Ladyhawke. Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer were both so beautiful.
Funny how the original NY Times Vincent Canby review was so negative.
Again, I thought it was a wonderful genre picture. And the lead cast was strong. Even Matthew Broderick worked for me.
Living in Los Angeles, it was also easy to find Hauer’s great work in Dutch films such as “Turkish Delight” and “Soldier of Orange.”
ETA: I have never seen “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” but I think the movie might be available on TCM. I will check and add it to my Pandemic Film Festival list.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Thought I’d leave this here:
YouTube: “Rainbowland” Miley Cyrus (featuring Dolly Parton)
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@A Ghost to Most:
There’s good music (and lots of crap) in all genres. Labels are for food, anyhow.
Music is magic. (For good or ill…)
Brachiator
From BBC News, a look at the economic impact of the pandemic
And this guy has a hell of a perspective on what this all might mean.
Talk about a long-term view.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Uncle Cosmo:
So many choices.
The Pale Scot
Tale End Charlie again;
Dolly Parton walks into a pub in County Kerry and is asked to sing a song.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@SFAW: generally stealing money orders. Poor people pay the rent with money orders either because they don’t want to bounce checks with all the fees or they don’t have a checking account at all.
germy
WereBear
@Mohagan: He is always worth watching even if the movie isn’t. Yes in Ladyhawke !
Brachiator
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
And we don’t know anything about the impact of the pandemic on North Korea. How the country deals with things should Kim be dead or seriously ill will have global repercussions.
Shit, even if the dude just has a bad cold could make other countries in the region nervous.
It appears he has only one child, a daughter.
Spanky
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
No no no, he’s outside
Looking in.
This post going to remain on top until it achieves a tbogg unit?
James E Powell
@RSA:
A large portion of the American right wing is composed of well-off educated white people who are open and unapologetic a-holes. It’s like a badge of their success and status that they can be horrible people and not suffer for it. Trump has always been something of a hero to this sort.
Jinchi
@Baud:
WHO statement:
“There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.”
Baud
@Jinchi: Thanks. Sounds like they don’t know for sure one way or the other.
zhena gogolia
@Brachiator:
The film “The Man Who Came to Dinner” is funnier in theory than in reality. But Jimmy Durante’s scenes as Banjo are great. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Monty Woolley, but it’s a real stagey film.
WereBear
@Brachiator: I just told Mr WereBear that someone is recovering from plastic surgery as we speak!
Brachiator
@Chacal Charles Calthrop:
Poor people pay the rent with money orders either because they don’t want to bounce checks with all the fees or they don’t have a checking account at all.
A lot of poor people don’t have checking accounts because banks don’t see a profit in putting banks in low income neighborhoods.
From one Stanford survey:
I think that debit cards and lower cost smartphones could help low income families avoid many of these drains on their income and create alternatives to traditional banking.
Uncle Cosmo
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Brought to mind the old Jack Benny set piece where the robber sticks a gun in his back & snarls, Your money or your life! – & after a few seconds of silence: Well?!?!
& the erstwhile Benjamin Kubelski replies, I’m thinking, I’m thinking…
A Ghost to Most
Not when it’s right wing christianist propaganda. Fuck that.
Everything else is cool with me, except opera, musicals, and anything auto-tuned.
Eric U.
People making predictions about the bleach thing peeling off a lot of Trump voters reminds me of Cole’s peak wingnut prediction. It’s amazing how many people don’t realize there is no peak wingnut.
Omnes Omnibus
I am wondering why this matters?
Brachiator
@zhena gogolia:
Not a problem. A lot of stagey films from the era. With the debut of sound, some studios felt that they should try to recreate stage drama on film, and didn’t quite understand that movies were their own thing.
Great film comedians didn’t have to worry about that burden. Westerns and other action films were also free to ignore stage drama conventions.
MattF
@Eric U.: Given that Trump has already won the prize for Asshole + Narcissist + Liar + Moron + Criminal + Racist, the fact that his medical advice isn’t so good isn’t going to change a lot of minds.
Jinchi
Hard to believe that was 2008 and disproven before the end of it’s own thread.
Brachiator
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Stop it.
No soccer playing or choirs on the West Coast?
Again, speculation without data analysis is a bad blog post.
This has got nothing to do with the media. And I don’t give a shit about “bright spots.” Understanding how the virus is spread is about science, not about making people feel good.
PST
Smart people constantly say things that they know are bullshit. (By the way, I’m a lawyer.) For a right-wing pundits, it doesn’t matters that people of average intelligence can recognize the fallacy of their arguments. They know that their friends, rather than doubt their brainpower, will admire the cleverness of their sophistry. They get a kick out of knowing that their drivel drives their enemies to drink.
A Ghost to Most
@Eric U.: Yes there is. It involves death, destruction, and mushroom clouds. They have an eschatology to fulfill.
satby
So the recognition thread last night for the front pagers was a GBCW and they just didn’t tell us?
BBA
@PST: That’s the only way to make sense of the White House. Owning the libs is an end in itself.
Baud
@satby:
They got high on their own supply.
Uncle Cosmo
@The Pale Scot: Country music is huge in Ireland – and since it is the distant descendant of the music that came to the US in colonial days with the Scots-Irish and made its way with them inland & upland to the Appalachians, how à propos.
pamelabrown53
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
Thanks for the link: never heard it and really enjoyed it. A good singer-songwriter is magic regardless the genre. Poetry/prose set to music. Could there be a higher form of self expression?!
zhena gogolia
I’ve been loving Stephen Colbert’s socially distanced monologues.
PST
@WereBear: Glad to hear someone stand up for movie Buffy. I thought it was great fun. And there are a few surprising faces among the minor roles. My only problem with the movie is that I assumed, as is usually the case, that a series based on a movie I liked would be crap. I understand that this was not the case for Buffy, but I ended up never watching it.
Sister Golden Bear
@SFAW:
Yes they, and most other online retailers, do.* It’s to handle the “last mile” of delivery — which in rural areas can equal many, many miles — which is too costly for private carriers like UPS and FedEx to do cost-efficiently. I believe Amazon also has a direct contract with the USPS, which enables that to do Sunday deliveries, among other reasons.
I learned more than a bit about shipping networks when I had to overall the order history page at my former employer. A big headache at the time was that 1) tracking numbers changed (from UPS to USPS), and 2) the USPS tracking system was less robust, so once UPS delivered an order to the local post office, we could only tell customers that it would be delivered in the next 24-48 hours.
*Although most online retailers will also have UPS/FedEx deliver directly as well, usually for orders where customers want faster delivery. Also used when there’s a delay on the retailers end that threatened to make an order for a promised date. My former employer had a custom-build program to determine which shipping method to use for a particular order, given how busy the production center was at a given point in time.
Uncle Cosmo
@Spanky:
@Spanky:
germy
Uncle Cosmo
@Omnes Omnibus: In the opening shot of Mel Brooks’ 1983 remake of To Be Or Not To Be (1942), starring (among others) Jack Benny, the camera moves down from on high to street level of a busy thoroughfare, swinging past a street sign in the foreground, which prominently reads, KUBIELSKI ST.
That’s why it matters. Capeesh?
Kent
Banana Republic dictators don’t have access to nuclear launch codes.
Ksmiami
@Jinchi: you’re better off just getting better armed at that point and I think making Republicans and Trumpers feat should happen
Sab
@Brachiator: In Europe the post offices handle a lot of banking for customers their banks don’t want. Our banks have blocked that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Uncle Cosmo: If you say so.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@A Ghost to Most:
#notallcountry
…is right-wing. Check the link I left in Comment #307 as an example. I’m sure there are many others out there.
Yutsano
So…are we going to Tbogg by default?
Elizabelle
@Yutsano: An embarrassment of riches. Two fresh threads up. Second is Tom L with “Happy DNA Day.”
FWIW, it is also Penguin Day. So, Happy Penguin Day too.
Kent
There is some sort of wingnut Overton Window at play. Every time we reach some sort of new peak, it only pushes the whole frame further to the right. Which just opens up whole new fertile ground for more wingnuts to grow. The closer you get to “peak wingnut” the more new terrain unfolds in front of you. It is like an infinity function in math. No matter how far you go, the horizon is still limitless.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Wingnttery is fractal.
eddie blake
@WereBear:
split second?
Elizabelle
@satby:
LOL. One of the best comments in the thread. Well done.
J R in WV
@SFAW:
Trump cannot and will never be able to speak Spanish. Otherwise many similarities.
J R in WV
@MagdaInBlack:
The Republican party intends to take it all, every penny. That’s about half of why they are trying to kill off Ben Franklin’s invention. The other half is the union membership of the workers. They hate that a whole lot.
NotMax
@Brachiator
The film almost must be stagey, as 90%+ of the time it takes place in one room. Great fun to watch, though. Mary Wickes, Ann Sheridan and Billie Burke have impeccable timing, whereas Bette Davis’ seems distracted and off somehow this time out for her.
Keep an eye out for Patrick McVey as the baggage clerk, who has one tiny scene in which he waits just the right ever so slightly noticeable comedic beat prior to delivering his punch line.
debbie
@germy:
Thank you for this.
Just Chuck
Noise from windmills causes cancer, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t contribute to coronavirus infections.
Just Chuck
@Kent: Also known as “The Wingularity”
anarchoRex
lmao, fifth times the charm!