President-elect Joe Biden and his treasury secretary nominee Janet Yellen urged lawmakers to move quickly and pass a coronavirus relief measure to help reactivate an economy ravaged by the global pandemic https://t.co/Ya6WpmyeKB pic.twitter.com/P4MwBihnXA
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 2, 2020
Breaking: Manhattan absentee/affidavit ballots just added…
Biden 225,435(90%)
Trump 20,184 (8%)Biden's national popular vote lead climbs to 6.55 million (4.2%).
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) December 1, 2020
Breaking: Biden/Harris just became the first presidential ticket in U.S. history to surpass 81 million votes.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) December 1, 2020
I am here for four years of Politics Twitter freaking out about Biden normcore and none of it actually mattering. https://t.co/TuvVXxVniU
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) December 1, 2020
President-elect Biden has a request for @Lin_Manuel: Write the musical about the first woman Treasury Secretary, @JanetYellen. pic.twitter.com/1weOB6UaTC
— The Recount (@therecount) December 1, 2020
Dr. Anthony Fauci's effort to educate the public on the coronavirus pandemic has earned him scores of admirers, but his work on the global HIV/AIDS crisis saw him cheered on Tuesday by one star-studded fan — Elton John. https://t.co/mmDDpD73Z0
— CNN (@CNN) December 2, 2020
japa21
Good morning.
debbie
It’s time for Trump’s McCarthy moment: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”
Baud
Finally, a nod to our voters, not Trump’s.
Baud
@japa21: Good morning.
Baud
I would like to see Lin Manuel play Yellin.
mali muso
Good morning!
Unless my countdown is incorrect, 49 days to go until Biden day (inauguration). So close and yet so much fuckery to be expected between now and then.
OzarkHillbilly
The Guardian is doing a survey. I answered:
Describe 2020 in a single word:
Blech.
Describe what you think 2021 will be in a single word:
deBlech.
MJS
@debbie: There have been many of those moments, a couple even delivered by Republicans. The response has always been a resounding, “No, of course I don’t. Only losers have a sense of decency.”
Baud
@mali muso:
Lots of fuckery after Inauguration Day too, but not from the White House.
debbie
Has anyone figured out who it is who’s trying to buy a pardon from Trump?
germy
@debbie:
REDACTED
SFAW
@debbie:
All of ’em,
Katiedebbiedebbie
@germy:
??♀️
stinger
Biden keeps delivering in what are, for me, unexpected ways. I’ve been so impressed by how in every announcement and speech the Vice President-elect is mentioned, how she has a place at the mike on virtually every occasion. I don’t recall that prominent a role for any VP ever, especially this early on. At first I thought it was just his commitment to making his administration a reflection of the nation, his awareness that as a white man he should keep his WOC running mate before the cameras.
But yesterday it struck me that he is probably also pretty aware of his age. A VP as involved and prominent as Harris is could step into his shoes without missing a beat, should dog forbid the need arise. It’s smart practice, as well as good politics, to have a VP who is up to the minute on all your deliberations and decisions–as Obama apparently did–and who is also a familiar face and voice to the public.
Procopius
@debbie: Just a wild guess — Ghislane Maxwell? Beyond her there aren’t nearly enough people with that much money in prison. There should be a lot more.
debbie
@Procopius:
Or, it could be someone as talented as Trump in exaggerating the funds available to buy that pardon.
Baud
@Procopius:
Would suggest she doesn’t have blackmail material on him.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: LOL. 2021 as the antidote to Blech.
RandomMonster
@Baud:
I got 99 problems but a prez ain’t one.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
You know, I’d almost be afraid of what “blech” means in Scotland.
ByRookorbyCrook
Everyone forgets how cheap Trump is. I doubt he is trying to get top dollar for his pardons. He has infinite supply so I don’t think we should discount anyone as REDACTED.
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: Rick Gates is the speculation.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Or maybe she’s got some really good shit on him, you know, the kind that will keep her getting paid for the rest of her life?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
If so, why would she pay him for a pardon?
MomSense
@Procopius:
Wasn’t Bannon indicted over the summer? He’s got the ??
RandomMonster
@OzarkHillbilly: I like that theory a lot.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I didn’t say she was. I said the payments go the other way.
RandomMonster
Do we know for sure that money was the lure? What if it’s “Don’t rat me out”?
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
The deBlechification of the calendar.
germy
germy
@schrodingers_cat:
stinger
@OzarkHillbilly: May it be so.
Baud
@germy:
LOL. Yeah, let’s pretend that this isn’t the work of the Deep Calendar.
raven
We started watching
“THE GOOD LORD BIRD”
Ethan Hawke stars as abolitionist John Brown in a humorous, dramatic and historical tapestry of Antebellum America.
Pretty strange but I sure the literati here have read the book.
Spanky
@germy: Just as important in that redaction is its shortness. About 5 letters.
RandomMonster
@germy:
It’s Jesus or Moses!
Brachiator
@OzarkHillbilly:
She may have stuff on a lot of people. Very prominent people. But I don’t see her getting a pardon any time soon.
Also, I don’t see a Trump pardon sitting well with his base. It would be a hard sell.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Calendars have a liberal bias!
Danielx
Is it safe to assume Bill Barr had a really unpleasant evening?
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I read a review on it. They gave it good marks, more or less.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
Thanks. It’d be great if it was Maxwell, though. Or even both.
Sloane Ranger
I read speculation that it might be Martin Shkreli, who’s currently serving seven years for fraud. He certainly has the money to give a very generous bribe.
debbie
@germy:
Redaction is an art; you’d think people would be more appreciative of that. //
OzarkHillbilly
Not at all. IOKIYAT is IOKIYAR on steroids.
Brachiator
It makes me happy to know that these numbers make Trump so unhappy.
germy
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
????
rikyrah
@Sloane Ranger:
Hmmmm ?????
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: It reminds me of Little Big Man.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
Gates has that kind of money??
Dorothy A. Winsor
Once a week, building management sends around someone to take our temperatures. They use one of those no-touch thermometers they hold to your forehead. Yesterday, I asked the woman if she ever found anyone with a temperature. She said that day she’d had someone with a slightly elevated one. I figure that’s the aftermath of Thanksgiving starting to show up.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
TRUTH
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Stay safe ?
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: I saw some internet sleuthing suggesting a 5-letter surname. Unfortunately, that doesn’t narrow it down all that much in Trumpworld
ETA: Late, of course
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: That’s a movie I haven’t seen in damn near forever.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s a good day to die.
NotMax
It’s December, so kosher to link stuff that filches holiday tuneage.
rikyrah
So, I am looking at the numbers in our state. I know that it’s about to get even worse. I am trying to get laptops for the staff. We have a new operating system. Just got it in August. When we did surveys about telecommuting and which staff should get it, I chose the staff that I knew could catch on quick, and needed little supervision.
Well now, the other group needs computers. They aren’t the high producing group, but we have so much work to do that I can separate out work for them to get done.
My superiors want to ‘talk about it’
For me, there’s nothing to talk about. We have had three different cases that have caused quarantines for 90% of the floor over the past month. I don’t want anyone in the office.
I need two to three weeks for scanning of work to get done, and then I will have enough work for six to eight weeks that can be done at home.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: OT question – I have clapboard on the front of the house, looks like about 3″ overlap. I’ve mounted one light fixture using one of these but I have another fixture with a much larger base, probably 8-10″, so overlapping multiple rows. Is there an easy way of doing something similar, to avoid the gaps behind the mounting block?
OldDave
@mali muso:
Soon to be 48 days and counting…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@rikyrah: Working on it! It should be all right. Management will keep checking on this person, and if they do have COVID, all contacts will be notified. There wouldn’t be many in the building anyway because the restaurants and movie theater are closed, lectures are canceled, etc.
germy
NotMax
Anyone mentioned that the budget continuing resolution goes bye-bye at the end of next week?
Wouldn’t put it past His Petulance to go for a shutdown, if only to dry up transition funding.
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Do you ever use dictation in your writing?
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: Your organization is lucky to have you in management. Not to mention your employees, and their health.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@raven: No. Some people do, but my speech is too tangled.
RandomMonster
Lev Parnas has a short name that ends in ‘s’.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Elizabelle: Yeah, I was just thinking that. Rikyrah sounds so organized and thoughtful.
Ken
@Spanky: Soros.
@RandomMonster: Most modern style guides say “always add ‘s”, but some call out a few classical names, Jesus among them, as only taking the apostrophe.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic:
I am assuming you do NOT have vinyl/aluminum/steel siding but rather some variant of wood or hardboard. The short answer is no. But a question first: Is there an electrical box in the wall?
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’ve been looking at some Joanna Penn videos and the idea that typing slows you down makes sense to me. I’ve been trying some dictation in “pages” on my iphone and it works pretty well. As far as what I’m getting. . .well, it’s pretty dry.
PAM Dirac
@raven:
Some times the magic works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Chief Dan George was so brilliant in so many movies.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
The “good” thing is that there are relatively good values in laptops due to innovations in processors. Laptops with AMD chips seem to perform very well but cost less than similar laptops with standard Intel chips.
Good luck.
germy
raven
@PAM Dirac: I was afraid of this. . .
Ken
Via zoom call? Or are they going to come into the office and crowd into a small conference room for a two-hour meeting?
Brachiator
@NotMax:
I think that Pelosi and the Treasury secretary have been having discussions.
It is sad, but telling, that the GOP and ever spiteful Trump seem willing to let the country suffer rather than help Biden.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@raven: Different people work differently. I tend to work in what I’d call layers. I have to get my ideas down, clear my cache so to speak, and then look at what I have, think about it, and kind of let it compost. Then I revise. I’m slow because I have to do that repeatedly. Maybe dictation gets that first layer down for people. I can see that. If it’s dry, you probably just haven’t yet articulated what’s vibrant there. Something is there. Otherwise you wouldn’t have surfaced it. You just haven’t identified it yet.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: He may have friends with deep pockets.
RandomMonster
@Ken:
That’s exactly what I was thinking about! (I’m a technical writer, so I’ve reviewed those rules many times. IIRC, Jesus and Moses were examples in Strunk and White.)
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
That is who they are.
They chose ECONOMIC TREASON in 2009.
Why not now??
PAM Dirac
@raven: How many times in the last 4 years has that line been appropriate? In the wise words of the noted poet, “Blech”
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Thanks, I’m just trying to get started on a memoir so I started with and insane trip to Arizona, Mexico, LA and back to Illinois in 1974!
artem1s
@debbie:
I think the proper way to phrase that question is, “has anyone figured out who is being offered a pardon for cash by the Trump family and administration”. I’m betting Jr or Jared is taking the lead on this one but the orders to ‘get something out of them’ came from the top.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@raven: Someone in my writing critique group is writing a memoir. It looks hard to me.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
Still, thanks.
debbie
@artem1s:
That would certainly be valid.
JMG
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The trouble with a memoir is that the least interesting stuff comes at the end of the book. I have a lot of funny/interesting stories from my career as a sportswriter, but they’d make a better after-dinner speech than trying to stretch them into a book. Also, it’d be kind of an anticlimax to have the true ending as of now. Chapter Whatever: 2017-2020. Played golf whenever I could and did a good deal of shitposting on social media and other Internet sites. The end.
artem1s
@SFAW:
My money is on someone who wants to keep Householder from turning states evidence against higher ups in the OH GOP and their donors. They are already bribing officials. why stop at the Ohio state house?
germy
Ken
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Offhand I’d say the hard part is making it interesting. I have that problem when I call my parents, and we end up saying “No, didn’t really do anything today.” A lot of memoirs may end up with a gap for 2020.
Geminid
@Danielx: I don’t know if this counts as a pleasant evening, but this morning’s Politico Playbook reported a sighting of Bill Barr and Mike Pompeo dining together Tuesday night at a nice Italian restaurant in Arlington, Va. The report did not say if they had brought special long spoons.
germy
@JMG:
This wasn’t quite a memoir, but when James Thurber wrote his book “The Years With Ross” he decided against using any chronological order, and just made each chapter a bunch of anecdotes exploring different aspects of his subject’s personality.
Skepticat
To get into The Bahamas, one must have a negative PCR COVID test, submit it to the Bahamian government, and receive a travel visa within five days of arrival. Though I respect and appreciate their fairly successful efforts to control the spread of the virus, it’s a grueling and now a very expensive effort to meet that deadline. Had the U.S. maladministration made any effort early on, perhaps there would be more labs with the systems and equipment to expedite the process. They might even work on weekends and holidays, given the heavy demand. I’ve already missed one flight because it’s been more than a week since my last test and I still don’t have results, and now I’ve had to spend hundreds of dollars for a supposedly quick-turnaround test and priority FedEx shipping from a company in California, though it’s still cutting it very close. I’m going to be some peeved if I drive from Virginia to Florida only to find results don’t arrive in time for another flight this weekend. (Or, heaven forfend, I’m positive.) Yes, mine is a first-world problem and I’m really only venting, but there are people with more serious needs for tests who must be up against the same sort of wall.
germy
OzarkHillbilly
@artem1s: I just read that Jared is in charge of pardons.
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: You mean from a source other than this nearly-top-10000 blog?
OzarkHillbilly
Or navel gazing.
WaterGirl
We plan to upload the calendar to Cafe Press around 11am, so if you haven’t done so already, please check your pets in the calendars and let us know if there are any changes needed.
There is a Calendar section in the sidebar. The spreadsheets tell you whether your guys are in Calendar A or Calendar B, and what month they are in. The bottom two link take you to the threads with the calendar images so you can check those.
Thank you!
Geminid
@Sloane Ranger: Shkreli is serving time at the Allenwood Pa. federal prison, and he is not scheduled for release until September 2023. Reports are that he has $30+ million. This summer Shkreli petitioned for early release so he could help his company invent a cure for Covid-19, but the judge turned him down. A bribed pardon might be plan B. Shkreli seems like the kind of guy who would try this.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: Yeah, the Guardian, or TPM or Politico. I could look it up in my history but I’m too lazy.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
Imagine being Mike Pompeo and believing that there is a constituency sizeable enough to make you President.
Same thing applies to Tom Cotton.
Immanentize
Someone must remember Kate in deed as well as thought:
rikyrah
@Ken:
Via Microsoft Teams call
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: Yes, wood clapboard. Yes, there is an electrical box. This is really just a trim/finish question.
Jeffro
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Imagine being in a party where Ted Cruz was the runner-up in 2016
Imagine being in a party where Kristi Noem is still a viable candidate for 2024 despite the world’s highest Covid infection rates
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@rikyrah: They should get their thumbs out and do it. The majority of our people went home, lugging their government-issued computers with them, at the end of March—those we have left in the office are the people who handle the mail, tend the printers, and do the scanning, or handle the legacy all-paper cases, or else couldn’t resolve their connectivity issues. We’ve had cases, but no one caught it at work, and we’re an official government cube farm.
Geminid
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I look at potential 2024 republican presidential contenders, and they all look like assholes to me. Pompeo began his political career as Congressman for Wichita Kansas, headquarters of Koch Industries, so he will probably at least have wealthy sponsors. But as Jeb Bush found out in 2016, money is not neccesarily enough to win the base republican base.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
We had a positive in our office and we were told to come in to work on Monday anyway. I’m ready to break shit.
I wish you were my boss. Thank you for taking care of your staff
rikyrah
@artem1s:
And, of course, you know it’s not just one person whose trying to buy a pardon, right?
Gin & Tonic
@Geminid:
Pure Keynesianism – demand creates its own supply.
snoey
@Geminid: The news came out because the case involved potentially privileged communications on seized electronics. This means that someone still has an upcoming trial.
Shkreli is undoubtably trying to buy his way out, but this is someone else.
WereBear
@germy: All right, that’s the best laugh I’ve had all week. Thanks!
Amir Khalid
@stinger:
Joe has always said, he wants a VP who can be President on day one. I anticipate that as VP Kamala will be at least as engaged in things as he was during the Obama presidency, and quite likely even more so. I think Joe wants her to have an influence on things. (Look out for the MSM to insinuate that she thinks she’s POTUS.) She’s definitely not going to be a nonentity like the outgoing VP has been.
I also suspect that Joe is aware that at 82 he might not be up to campaigning for a second term in 2024’s post-Covid-19 America, or serving. And that Kamala is therefore his, the Democraric party’s, and America’s, insurance against that.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: OK, so like I said, there is no easy solution. You are probably best served by cutting the siding back and putting an appropriate length of 2×12 in that place, then caulking and painting. One thing is you will want to put a trim ring on the box, either 1 1/4″ or 1 1/2″ deep. Depending on what type box you have, you may or may not be able to. I was at an Elec supply store recently trying to get one for a 4″ round box, but they don’t make them. Hex box, yes. Round box, no. We had to find another way to ensure the old wiring wouldn’t start a fire
OzarkHillbilly
There’s a reason for that.
Bunter
@MomSense: Same here! We got an email last Friday or Saturday telling us someone tested positive. And we’re all in the office. We’re not essential workers. We do have jerks for bosses though.
Geminid
@Geminid: Speaking of Kansas, I read that Kansas republicans plan to redraw the Kansa 3rd Congressional District so as to knock out second year Congresswoman Sharice Davids in 2022. Davids won reelection last month by about 10 points.
WereBear
@raven: I do dictation for drafts and it works well. I’m going to go over it all anyway, I don’t mind it being ragged at that point.
Ken
I suppose it’s politically impossible for you to insist on a face-to-face meeting in the office space.
I’m just venting – I get very irritated at people who, from their basement offices, insist that others have to go to the physical office. Especially when they’re on Fox…
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@rikyrah: I’m betting that Jared is running a silent auction on pardons. Those make great fund raisers.
snoey
@snoey: My bad, communications about the plot, not the underlying. More coffee needed.
Amir Khalid
@RandomMonster:
My rule with the possessive s is, ‘s if the name doesn’t already end in s, just the apostrophe if it does.
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m always told I have a great memory and lots of crazy experiences so I’m trying to get it down somehow.
Calouste
@JMG: Just write about your career as a sportswriter and call the book “The First Half”. Suggest that there is a book in the works about your life after that called “The Second Half” that would make James Bond look like a suburban insurance salesman. Pocket the publisher’s advance, never write the book.
Yarrow
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Those no-touch thermometers can be wildly inaccurate, especially in more extreme temps.
My dad’s place takes everyone’s temperature at the gate. In the summer with the a/c going in the car it blows cold air onto my head as I lean out to be tested and my temps were always lower. I think I had a temp of 96.0 one time. I felt fine.
They’re known to be inaccurate in cold weather. Maybe it’s fine when you are inside and it can be done accurately but I’ll have mine taken several times throughout a day in varying conditions and it will vary widely.
Imo, most people, and especially those in more communal living situations, should be taking their temps on a regular basis to get an idea of what their normal is. If something changes then you’ll see it because you know what your normal temp is.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks. I have easy access to the back side, where the box is, so I can easily replace it if I need to.
Yarrow
@raven: I took a class on memoir writing once. Sort of a continuing education type thing. One of the takeaways I got was that there are a ton of memoir styles out there. Maybe reading a few memoirs or even parts of them would spark something for you.
MomSense
@Bunter:
The meaning of not being essential has taken new depth.
JMG
@Calouste: I like the way you think.
jonas
So recently pardoned felon Michael Flynn is apparently now using his newfound liberty to ask Trump to declare martial law and suspend the Constitution to overturn the election.
Totally normal.
Miss Bianca
@raven: I read the book, really enjoyed it. Waiting for the movie version to come out on DVD, cuz that’s how we roll down here at the Mountain Hacienda.
raven
@Yarrow: Good idea
raven
@Miss Bianca: We picked p a free 30 day trial on Showtime so we should be Abel to get through it that way.
Immanentize
@raven: Back from chores. Why not try to just focus on ONE of those trips (heh) like the one you described. Lots of details about the one tour. Don’t go for your whole life, just a slice — fear and loathing, on the road, etc. Write about just that one adventure and then let people you know help edit to add or subtract?
Immanentize
@MomSense: You are essential to many here.
JanieM
@OldDave: I *love* that timeanddate.com page. Thanks!!!
Helen
cmorenc
@raven:
I’ve been watching the series – it’s compellingly good viewing on several levels. Hawke does a great job portraying Brown as a charismatic madman intensely driven by religion and anti-slavery morality, with enough driven magnetism to persuade most followers to stick with him even through some wildly, lethally ill-thought schemes to forcefully combat slaveholding. In short, Hawke succeeds in making John Brown a believable, though outsized human figure. The series also vividly transports the viewer back into the social and physical environment of the immediate pre-civil War period in the border regions between slaveholding states and free states, and the web of social customs governing relations between blacks and whites in that era.
RandomMonster
@Amir Khalid: You see that often, but it’s the Chicago Manual of Style disagrees.
Immanentize
@raven: This seems to be what you (and all of us) need and fear:
Also DAW:
Immanentize
@RandomMonster: I’m with Amir on this now. Apostrophe only after an “s” (and even maybe a “z”). But I am fully in favor of the Cambridge comma. Fight me!
Amir Khalid
@RandomMonster:
I have my disagreements with The Chicago Manual of Style, and that’s one of them.
MomSense
@Immanentize: ?
raven
@cmorenc: Thanks!
raven
@Immanentize: The one I mentioned WAS one trip!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Geminid:
The trick with the GOP base is to just out-asshole everybody else.
You’d think that Ted Cruz being a complete candy-ass regarding Trump’s treatment of his dad and wife would have finished him completely for ANY elected office, but Texas seems to have a different standard for manliness.
He reminds me of a kid that I gave explicit authority to go tear into bullies at a scout campout of a troop I was helping once. They were rough kids, and he was really soft, and they did like 12 year olds do. I corrected it if it was right in front of me, but knew that was fleeting. At some point, he said “Ooooh – one of these days I’m gonna…”
I said “why don’t you, then? They’ve been hard on you. You should stand your ground and fight back.”
He said “but I’ll get in trouble.”
I said “not from me you won’t. I’ll back you up on that and I guarantee that you’re not getting in trouble – you’ve got permission, but no sticks or objects – it’s man to man.”
Little putz didn’t take up that offer. He might have got his ass beat, but he would be left alone after.
Cruz reminds me of that kid – all mouth, no action. Combined with his insufferable smugness, THAT is what makes him the second biggest asshole in the room.
mrmoshpotato
???
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Geminid:
Bring back the earmark, and that shit stops. At that point, it is advantageous to your state to have a mixed delegation in order to make the sausage.
tybee
@raven:
fear and loathing in arizona?
Immanentize
@raven:
I know! What groups did you see? What songs stood out? Car/truck? What were the smells you remember? Clothes?
A second one you could write would be about Dewey Canyon II? You got a million memoires in you. I’d like to read about your trip to the Boston Common.
raven
@tybee: And then when the state trooper pulled us over in the driveway car in the Texas Panhandle after we drove thought Whiote Sands Missile Range to avoid. . . .well, you know!
Immanentize
@tybee: I want to be cast as the 300 pound Samoan attorney! But thinner.
raven
@Immanentize: Dewey Canyon III.
Immanentize
@raven: Ever read “Blue Highways” by William Least Heat Moon? It’s a fabulous road book and besides I love typing his name.
Immanentize
@raven:. Three, sorry. I know what the cover pic could be.
Porlock Junior
@RandomMonster:
Right. Xerxes is too long.
(Actually the Chicago Manual of Style changed that rule some years ago to include classical names ending in s generally. Assuming they haven’t changed it back.
Geminid
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: You are right about republicans out-assholing each other. That’s why I discount the 2024 chances of Marco Rubio and Nicky Haley. Those two are just half-ass holes.
Danielx
@Jeffro:
True dat. On the other hand, consider the number of complete freaks who were thought to be at least semi-viable Republican candidates in the recent past – Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, et al. After them, you can’t really blame anybody who has ever achieved elected office above the local level for seeing presidential timber when they look in a mirror.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Yarrow: Michele Obama’s book is a great memoir. She tells interesting stories and connects her growing up to how she turned out. She benefits, of course, from the reader’s knowledge of what she’s building to.
Spanky
I’m comforted this morning by receipt of a message, “Your return is confirmed”.
True, it was from Zappos and was about a pair of shoes, but you gots to get your comfort where you can these days.
(The shoes provided no comfort.)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@raven: Maybe it doesn’t have to be a book. Maybe you can do short, non-fiction pieces for magazines.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: If I wrote a memoire, It would probably be about my decade in Texas representing death row inmates. I have two titles: “Diaster Box” which is what was painted in big red letters on a large locked wooden crate in the death row visiting room at Huntsville. Yes, spelled like that which spoke volumes about how f’ed up things were in Texas.
Or, “Killing Time in Texas.” Less explanation needed.
Geminid
@snoey: You’re probably right about Shkreli not being the subject in the pardon investigation. But CBS reported in April 2019 that Shkreli was in solitary confinement at a Fort Dix federal prison facility because of his unauthorized use of a cell phone. The report said that the going price for a cell phone in this facility was $1000.
frosty
@Yarrow: My mother took the same type of class for writing a memoir. Hers ended up being by subject, not chronology. It was a good thing for her to read when she started having memory issues.
I’ve been thinking of doing the same thing, starting with vacations and road trips. I kept a journal for two of them so that’s a start.
I just have to get past this profound retirement laziness LOL.
O. Felix Culpa
@raven: Thankfully you ended up better than this guy did. Plus ça change….
J R in WV
@germy:
Don’t know Klasfeld, but if he is an actual reporter, he should know, as I do (a retired software hippy in the woods) that Judge Howell is a female — and use the proper pronoun, “…her order…”
ETA:
From The AP:
Plus I would think that the given name “Beryl” would be 99.99% given to female offspring. Just a wild guess.
germy
@J R in WV:
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: I would read that memoir, painful though I expect it would be.
ETA: Because of subject matter, not your writing of course. :)
stinger
Oh, good point.
catclub
No such luck for me. I submitted my taxes on paper ( as usual) this year, in march, and they still have not been processed. Except they cashed the check I enclosed.
Uncle Cosmo
I was kinda hoping for that – everybody hates that mofo & even the loyalest Trumpistas might recoil in disgust – but it seems not.
Benw
@Danielx: yup. In fact, the one they actually elected is the freakiest of all! The next Republican primary is going to be nuts (and fascist, racist, hateful, and assholish)!
Amir Khalid
@stinger:
I like Kamala. There are no flies on her.
PST
@Geminid:
I misread that as Bill Maher as I skimmed through and had to look back. That might be fun. They could discuss religion.
O. Felix Culpa
@Amir Khalid: Hah! or Groan! But well played.
Jay C
@jonas:
Flynn wasn’t alone: one GEN (Ret.) Thomas McInerney – spending his retirement as an occasional contributor to Fox News, apparently – made a similar suggestion on some Fox broadcast (?today?).
Is there a Retired Fascist Generals Club somewhere where they find these guys…?
Geminid
@Geminid: CBS’s April 2019 report about Shkreli’s cell phone use at Fort Dix said that while a phone could be obtained in that lockup for $1000, some inmates just rented time from others who had phones.
scav
Their three basic options for releasing the Pardons4Ca$h!! info were: a) before the election; b) after the election or c) the president is never investigated! Of course the only non-conspratorial option in their eyes is c) especially given their usual baseline of the president is above the law and the only legitimate American voters or presidents are an increasingly limited set of loyal Republicans. Maybe they can just repackage that show, the TurkeyPardonPoll and the Rush2Execution!! binge into the new TrumpNewsNetwork’s Gladiator lineup.
rikyrah
@Bunter:
Prayers for you. Get that test. And quarantine.
Geminid
@Jay C: re retired General McInerney: Military Times reported yesterday that McInerney asserts that five service members reported killed last month in a helicopter crash in the Sinai Peninsula actually died during a Special Forces assault on a CIA server farm in Germany that held evidence of election fraud. trump sure brings out the crazy in people.
Ramalama
@germy: Rhinestones. Denied rhinestones.
Elizabelle
@Geminid: The poor other diners.
Could you keep your dinner down, if you had to sit there and watch Barr and Pompeo? (Of course, not a good time to be out eating in a restaurant, to begin with.)
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I don’t think you should go in. Do you have any options?
Yutsano
@catclub:
Yeah…the COVID evacuations have set everything behind.
You should be sorted then. If for some reason you get a notice get a hold of someone ASAP.
Uncle Cosmo
Yeah, well, that may fly in Mêlée-Zha, mon ami, but for possessives in the avuncular Cosmos, we add “‘s” to singular words whether or not they end in an “s” while “s'” is strictly reserved for plurals.
NotMax
@Uncle Cosmo
Was brought up to use only the possessive apostrophe if the word ends in an s or an x.
YMMV. It’s a matter of habit and what looks right to the eye of the writer more than of following any sort of rule.
Mary Ellen Sandahl
@Procopius:Sure someone else has said this, but it’s been noted, going by the size of the redction blots, that whoever it is has a short name – and apparently the name ends in “s”.