I mean, I have a bit of, “OH LOOK WHO’S TALKING,” seeing as how it’s Britain (HOW’S BREXIT GOING, CHAPS?), but as they are currently getting the vaccine and we are not, okay fine. Harsh but fair.
The UK is going to get the vaccine before we are. It pisses me off so bad that the Trump administration didn’t order more doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. Trump fucked us again
“Texas’s effort to get this Court to pick the next President has no basis in law or fact. The Court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process…”
Josh Shapiro, AG of PA., goes straight to the right place…Ken Paxton’s throat.
All US Republicans must be pilloried for sedition and subornation.
“Take off your mask,” a man ordered Drew Allison after she served him at the bar where she works in Knoxville, Tenn. “I want to see your face; maybe you have moles under there.” The statement was so bizarre that Allison obeyed without thinking, briefly pulling her mask below her chin. Only later did she realize the implication: If the man found her attractive enough, he planned to tip her more. From then on, when a male customer requested she take off her mask — and it kept happening — it almost felt like he was asking her to take off her shirt.
8.
John S.
@Aleta: I’d settle for a good old fashioned tarring and feathering.
9.
Miss Bianca
@Nicole: Yeah, for me that’s a “Dear Kettle, you are so very black, signed, Pot” kind of statement.
I’ve always been fond of the idea that there is a galactic civilization but we’ve been cut off from the rest of the galaxy by the Galactic government and are under observation. We’ll only be contacted once we reach a set of benchmarks and become “advanced” enough. Kind of like ST’s Prime Directive
It’s called the planetarium hypothesis:
The planetarium hypothesis, conceived in 2001 by Stephen Baxter, attempts to provide a solution to the Fermi paradox by holding that our astronomical observations represent an illusion, created by a Type III civilization capable of manipulating matter and energy on galactic scales. He postulates that we do not see evidence of extraterrestrial life because the universe has been engineered so that it appears empty of other life.
13.
Mary G
WaPo says 3,347 Americans dead of Covid so far today; we’ll definitely hit 300,000 total before Christmas. I feel like going out to a mall (CA has joined the stupid states by letting them remain open at 20% (ha!) capacity even in a huge wave of cases) armed with a baseball bat disguised as a Christmas present and whacking everyone there who admits to voting for Trump.
@Arclite: I read that piece this morning. Absolutely horrible. In an ideal world, the restaurant managers would stand up for their staff and inform those asses that they can either leave under their own power or they will be dragged out.
We do not live in an ideal world.
16.
Tenar Arha
@WaterGirl: I love how in response to the Q whether Jason makes a livable wage, he says “Jason is a small sphere and does not require a wage!” —
which makes me think of The Culture novels ;)
17.
Nicole
@WaterGirl: Maybe they’re getting better about it now, but there were a lot of articles over the summer about Brits refusing to wear masks. And saying they didn’t have to because of the rights granted to them via the Magna Carta. Which… no. That’s… not what that says.
Re: this lawsuit and the elected officials who have now signed on to it – i vacillate between horror, being filled with dread, and thinking that they have finally gone so far in their disregard for democracy that any thinking person cannot help but see what they are and feel repulsed.
Sometimes I can’t help but feel the same. I know this (likely) won’t succeed now, but I can’t help but worry about the next election. And the one after that. And so on.
25.
matt the semi-reasonable
@Arclite: This is the kind of thing the Republican Party is fighting for.
Has anybody started receiving their calendars yet? All but 6 calendar orders have shipped.
27.
Gvg
@prostratedragon: There have been mask protests and idiocy in most countries including Germany, Italy and England. Plenty of fools, we aren’t alone. And plenty of stupid thug leaders just as disgraceful as Trump.
i think the Asian countries look smarter this cycle. But possibly I just haven’t heard.
well, no. Notice but to keep on working.
no matter how much I criticize our own mistakes, I never take it well from outsiders.
28.
Amir Khalid
Bianca passed away seven days ago. I was just listening to Linda Ronstadt’s cover of Goodbye My Friend, written by Karla Bonoff about (I am told) the passing of her own cat:
But the time together through all the years/Will take away these tears
I am not quite there yet.
29.
Arclite
@dmsilev: Yeah, I read bad news on a daily basis, but this one really got to me. Made me sick to my stomach. Maybe it was the pure manipulation and abuse of power. Maybe it was the familiarity, as I’ve eaten in restaurants so many times in my life that it was so easy to visualize it.
Tipping needs to go away forever. Pay these servers $15-20 per hour, ban tipping, and this kind of bullshit goes away for the most part (although there will always be assholes that go to restaurants). I lived in Japan for years, and got excellent service in restaurants (usually better than what you get here in the US) with no tipping involved.
Okay, I went back and watched again, and I didn’t hear that exchange at all. Where is it (time marker) in the video? Thanks.
35.
trollhattan
They have a point and yet, motherfuckin’ Boris is driving at top speed to his dream hard-Brexit outcome and who’s stopping him? Anybody? I swear the Tories have gaslighted their nation to lemming level three.
Boris Johnson says there is a “strong possibility” the UK will fail to strike a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU.
Speaking for the first time since a crunch meeting in Brussels, the PM said “now is the time” for firms and people to prepare for a no deal outcome.
Talks continue between the two sides, but Mr Johnson said they were “not yet there at all” in securing a deal.
Time is running out to reach an agreement before the UK stops following EU trade rules on 31 December.
Weeks of intensive talks between officials have failed to overcome obstacles in key areas, including competition rules and fishing rights.
Mr Johnson met European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday, but the pair failed to make a breakthrough.
You can smell the “disappointment” from here.
36.
hedgehog mobile
@WaterGirl: I just ordered mine yesterday. Expected to arrive December 21.
@hedgehog mobile: I can’t believe how long they are taking to ship! Are they coming through the post office, Fed Ex or UPS?
edit: we were so pleased that they were order-able so much earlier this year, and now shipping is longer than I expected. We might have to start next year’s calendars in July!
@SiubhanDuinne: He replied to me that it had been in one of the replies to the video.
41.
bluefoot
@trollhattan: “Now is the time” to prepare for a no-deal Brexit? Yikes. The time was right after the referendum passed, not 22 days before it goes into effect. It’s going to be a horror show.
I swear, between Brexit, the US electing Trump, etc. it seems like the early-to-mid 2010s, the world got tired of relative peace and functionality and decided it wanted chaos and destruction.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think Somtow Sucharitkul got there before Baxter (and maybe others before Somtow). Cf Mallworld, around 1980 but I’m too lazy to look up the publication date.
Listened to a long story about just this topic earlier this week, apparently it’s pervasive right now and servers feel extra pressure to give in because restaurant and bar traffic is so low.
We have…Herman Caine to blame for the federal sub-minimum wage for restaurant employees. He was head of the restaurant association when they signed off on increasing the federal minimum wage if congress would also freeze the sub-minimum wage forever.
Forever is a long time. Can he please die twice of COVID?
Someone asked about a recording of the Tom Levenson zoom, but I can’t remember who it was. It’s been that kind of week.
If you are the person who wanted to hear the recording of Tom’s zoom because you couldn’t make it, let me know. I don’t really want to post the link, but anyone who wants it can send me email asking for the link.
I liked this story, a repost from downstairs. Reuters:
“We need to be very, very clear there’s now a strong possibility, strong possibility that we will have a solution that’s much more like an Australian relationship with the EU, than a Canadian relationship with the EU,” Johnson said.
Australia, unlike Canada, has no comprehensive trade deal with the EU, leaving its trade mostly subject to tariffs. Johnson uses the comparison to suggest a deal is not necessary, though Australia has only a fraction of Britain’s trade with Europe.
Under such a scenario, Britain would see trade barriers imposed with the EU, its main economic partner, in just three weeks.
[…]
Britain left the EU in January and has since been in a transition period, with rules on trade, travel and business unchanged. That ends on Dec. 31.
If by then there is no agreement to protect around $1 trillion in annual trade from tariffs and quotas, businesses on both sides will suffer.
In a sign of potential disruption ahead, trucks heading towards the English port of Dover were stacked up for miles on Thursday, with Brexit stockpiling and pre-Christmas traffic blamed.
Yes, let us burn down the trade agreements we have with our largest trading partner and instead have a new one just like that with a country half-way around the world with a fraction of the volume. What could go wrong??
Thought experiment: If BoJo were a Kremlin plant sent to destroy the UK economy, how would he behave differently from the way BoJo does??
I swear, between Brexit, the US electing Trump, etc. it seems like the early-to-mid 2010s, the world got tired of relative peace and functionality and decided it wanted chaos and destruction.
It feels like we decided that, but it wasn’t something we did by ourselves. Outside influence definitely played a role, though it could only achieve as much as it has by pushing on existing flaws in our societies.
@WaterGirl: The Jar Jar Kush diss (“The malevolent creature known as Jared Kushner – why has no one trapped it in a jar?”) may be heard starting at 1:29 of the video clip embedded in the thread by WaterGirl at #4 supra.
The Tories want this so bad and I have no capacity to discern how they think this is a good outcome for the country. They seem about as realistic as Trump thinking he can conjure up a domestic coal industry in the 21st century.
I swear, between Brexit, the US electing Trump, etc. it seems like the early-to-mid 2010s, the world got tired of relative peace and functionality and decided it wanted chaos and destruction.
Oh there is very definitely a global reactionary movement against modernity. Since yeah, right about then, at the latest.
I saw, and went prowling through not only the replies but some of his other bits. “POV: The Fly in Your Apartment” is quite wonderful. Was so entranced I forgot to come back and edit/delete my comment :-)
I’m convinced climate change is behind some of this. I remember reading an article about a study that found that violence has increased as global temperatures have gone up
Dogs and cats are enough different that they appeal to different kinds of people. Dogs are descended from animals that live in family groups and defer to the head of the family, while cats are descended from animals that live by themselves and interact with others of their kind only on their own terms. Some people have strong preferences for one lifestyle or the other and tend to prefer animals who see the world the same way.
Gotten a few questions about whether I think it’s problematic that Biden is appointing so many Obama alums &/ or people he knows. Here’s a thread in response: No, it’s not problematic. It’s smart. https://t.co/mPMb7mybm1— Jennifer Palmieri (@jmpalmieri) December 11, 2020
64.
Chief Oshkosh
@Gvg: Heck, a bus driver in France was KILLED outright when he told some would-be passengers that they needed to mask up in order to ride on the bus.
Biden has been in public life for 48 yrs. He served under 7 presidents as a Senator & was VP for 8 years. He knows EVERYONE. More importantly he knows what each of these Cabinet and WH jobs require & has selected candidates for job that meet the moment.— Jennifer Palmieri (@jmpalmieri) December 11, 2020
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My neighbor is convinced that the rock with “Go away bears!” painted on it in their front yard has actually kept the bears away.
Does anyone know when the SCOTUS is supposed to decide whether or not to take the Texas case? I’m ready for this shit to be over already. It was interesting for the first couple of weeks, but unless Trump is planning on trying the martial law route, I’m not really interested in his act any more.
@Keith P.: It’s expected it’ll be tomorrow. Justices have a Zoom conference tomorrow morning as part of their regular schedule, and the Electoral College electors meet Monday. You know, it’s getting kind of tiring spending all day worrying that the slightest contact with the outside world could be fatal and all night worrying the next day will be the end of our constitutional democracy. I’m whipped.
76.
Jackie
@Roger Moore: I have a comic strip from years ago on my refrigerator. First cell shows a dog looking adorably at his human, who has a dog dish full of food in his hand. Caption reads “he must be a god!”
Next cell has a cat in the same scenario: “I must be a god…”
I find it entirely plausible that wild bears have learned to read, and are keeping it a secret. If I were a bear, would I want the humans to know I was literate? Hell, no!
79.
Kent
@Keith P.:Does anyone know when the SCOTUS is supposed to decide whether or not to take the Texas case? I’m ready for this shit to be over already. It was interesting for the first couple of weeks, but unless Trump is planning on trying the martial law route, I’m not really interested in his act any more.
Electoral college meets Monday so they had better fucking hurry if they want to actually disrupt it.
I’m pretty sure I read it serialized in Analog Magazine at the time.
82.
Viva BrisVegas
@trollhattan: The Tories, at least Boris’s rump group, believe with all their heart (small and shriveled) that Britain’s (actually England, since they don’t give a stuff about Britain) economic future is as a tax haven for rapacious Russian thugs and libidinous Saudis. After all, tax dodging has worked out very well for the Tory elite so far.
It will not end well for those without their own private jet to get them out of the country when all hell breaks loose.
@trollhattan: They have a point and yet, motherfuckin’ Boris is driving at top speed to his dream hard-Brexit outcome and who’s stopping him?
We got rid of our nutcase, the Brits doubled down on theirs. Boris may be a step up from Trump, but he’s still really bad. The Brits had the opportunity to toss him out and instead they doubled down on him and his ruinous policies.
America has plenty of idiots, but I’d rather be in our shoes two months from now than theirs.
You know, it’s getting kind of tiring spending all day worrying that the slightest contact with the outside world could be fatal and all night worrying the next day will be the end of our constitutional democracy. I’m whipped.
I SO wish that could be a rotating tag.
90.
Punchy
@Keith P.: over? Hahaha! Kraken lawsuits know no limits. Snidley Whiplash, or whatever the fuck her name is, will just keep searching for a sympathetic judge to breathe new life into one of these legalistic abortions. Safe harbor and EC voting means nothing to her.
@Eunicecycle: That article was excellent. Quite possibly my favorite line:
For additional instruction, see: Jesus.
94.
Sloane Ranger
There is always increased traffic at British ports ahead of Christmas but this year is worse because exporters are shoving stuff across the channel in much larger quantities to avoid the tariffs that will come with what looks like a no deal Brexit.
And this is a surprise. I have been expecting a last minute fudge of some sort. The Confederation of British Industries has been warning about the damage a no deal outcome will do for ages now. And a Tory government, which normally rushes to supply tissues and paracetamol every time the CBI clears its throat has been ignoring their warnings.
Proof that the Tories are no longer the party of businesses, but some sort of nationalist cult.
We must be grateful that Cabinet Ministers are still connected enough to reality to accept some scientific advice on pandemic management.
There is a bollywood song that always triggers me – it’s from the soundtack “Om Shanti Om” – one of my fav movies – anyways – when the song plays, it’s like a movie in my mind of how we met, and although the times she was with me when things were happening to me. I still tear up at times.
I finally was able to track my calendars tonight, the post office, like every other part of the government has been screwed right into the ground by shitforbrains. Should be here in LA on Monday.
98.
Anya
@Nicole: Not fair at all when it’s coming from UK. They shouldn’t talk when they gave Buffoon Boris a super majority and before that they voted to literally diminish their influence in the world because they believe a slogan on a bus. They shouldn’t talk. At least we’ve always denied Trump the popular vote.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Watch Steve Schmidt’s interview on Amanpour and Company. He’s got a strategy for targeting Trumpsters that will make their lives difficult. It will give you hope. The guy is furious with the Trumpsters. He will not relent.
There is a certain justice to seeing them fuck themselves over – knowing how many nations they’ve fucked over during the British Empire. That the gun is now pointed to themselves is I guess a form of restitution to those of us who were from former colonies.
@Ruckus: I was thinking tonight that I can’t wait for the Biden administration proposals about banking in post offices. My hope is that rather than pandering to the white working class and rural areas, that Biden will just do what’s right and they will take notice.
That’s when I am at my most optimistic.
106.
Kattails
@Keith P.: Josh Marshall noting an interview Michael Cohen gave to Jane Mayer just before the election. Cohen bet $10,000 that Trump would lose; the tweet encapsulates an exact prediction of what has been going on.
In the main portion of his twitter feed, Marshall also picks up on: “… the Texas AG is rolling in corruption. State crimes, now federal crimes”.
107.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Funniest interpretation of this was in the otherwise terrible Jupiter Ascending, by the Wachowskies. In the movie, because Earth is an inheritance in probate, no-one can do anything to influence our planet until the intergalactic surrogates court decides to whom it actually belongs. Which takes millennia, because that’s how long the aliens fighting over the estate live.
And a Tory government, which normally rushes to supply tissues and paracetamol every time the CBI clears its throat has been ignoring their warnings.
Sounds like the GOP and the Chamber of Commerce. Or the Ohio GOP and the AMA or the ANA. Hospitals are filling up with COVID patients and they try to strip DeWine of his authority to issue statewide health orders. One of the co-sponsers is my state house rep, who was legal counsel/management to a local infectious disease practice; his father is one of the practices’ partners (so he’s likely a nepotism hire). Guy should absolutely know better, but he ran as a “pro-business, pandemic restrictions are destroying businesses” candidate this year after being appointed to the seat. And won.
Ideal world? Mine, yours or ? OK on this point we are in 1000% agreement but still….
I sort of understand, a bar, restaurant sometimes has a hard time making money, COVID is probably making that 10 times harder. Looking forward to losing your business is not fun and I know this first hand.
I wonder if most of the people who think this entire thing is a hoax and they should be able to do whatever they want whenever they want also have no respect for others as a matter of course, COVID or not. Because they certainly are acting like assholes, which is probably their natural instinct.
111.
Keith P.
@Punchy: You’re kind of right about that. There’s now a fucking “Kraken Conference” in Congress. I’m sure it will be comprised of all the best spellers the US political system has to offer.
@schrodingers_cat: I was thinking the same thing…now who is the PM of the UK…
114.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Nicole: this is especially funny because the Magna Carta was explicitly about getting certain lords out of certain feudal taxes. Only as an afterthought did they tack on that justice shall not be for sale and that no man shall be seized without power of law (habeas corpus). It was pressed into service as a charter of rights by jurists who cynically calculated that no-one was keen to go back to parse the original bad medieval latin.
115.
patroclus
The Texas (+17) lawsuit asserts a non-justiciable claim and the plaintiffs have no standing – it’s going nowhere. But what we are facing is a brouhaha in Congress on 1/6 and continuing thereafter when 1 Senator and 1 House Member “object” to what is normally the routine counting of the electoral votes, which will be presided over by Mike Pence. After the 1876 disputed election between Hayes and Tilden, Congress enacted the Electoral Count Act which set up the procedure, which has never been used. After the objections, each House will devolve to separately consider the meritorious nature of the objection. At the least, this means much debate and rambunctious floor fights. At the most, though, this could mean multiple dilatory tactics, delay and a stalemate/impasse, leading to a President Pelosi. Each side of the Capitol, could, for example, further devolve into committee consideration. Presumably, the House, despite the narrower majority, which the new HUD Secretary might decrease further with an early resignation, will reject the objection. It is unknown, not least because of the Georgia Special Elections, what the Senate will do. Mark Kelly is now in, so it’s 46-52-2 (or 48-52, if you consider Sanders and King to be Democrats), so even with delays, it is easy to imagine a Republican-favorable vote agreeing to the objection (with Romney, Murkowski or Collins allowed to vote no and Pence breaking the tie). If there is disagreement, the Act then provides that it goes to the respective Governors of the disputed states. Which seems okay for Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin because they have Democratic Governors. But that could be disputed in the states themselves with Republican-dominated legislatures. If the delays themselves prohibit a resolution (even if the resolution merely involves a disagreement between the Houses), then it is unclear what happens. If it never goes to the Governors because of delay, there will be an impasse. hence, President Pelosi. We’ll see, but this scenario is increasingly likely and is nowhere near as laughable as the lawsuits.
Was taken a bit aback by how crowded Costco and Safeway seemed at 3-ish in the afternoon on a Thursday.
In reality once was ready to check out and saw either zero or one cart waiting in line at the registers I realized they appeared crowded only in comparison to recent months when much stricter occupancy limits were in force.
I’ve been wondering about the Bush brothers and the TX lunacy. This isn’t exactly a clarion call for the defense of the Constitution, but it’s more than nothing.
Jeb Bush @JebBush
This is crazy. it will be killed on arrival. Why are smart people advancing this notion? Let it go. The election is over.
Jon Ossoff is on Stay Tuned with Preet’s podcast today. I haven’t listened yet, but I plan too.
If anyone is interested, Thursdays are the free podcasts, as opposed to Tuesdays where you have to pay.
121.
Punchy
@patroclus: If this is allowed to happen, it will become the norm going forward and the election results will mean nothing going foward. Goodbye functioning country. I fully expect enough moderate GOP Senators will not allow this, knowing a vote to go along would result in almost certainly a low-level civil war.
122.
There are those who call me...tim... (Still posh)
@Amir Khalid:
So many of us. We are still over-populated with entitled asshats who walk around like they own the place, yet, some mornings, we still look around for the ones who left us too soon. Miss you, Booboo and Foofoo. Our hearts, forever.
The UK won’t. I’ve been in their supermarkets – MOST of their food is imported, and most of that imported food comes from the EU. They are literally going to have people starving.
124.
John S.
@Amir Khalid: That’s what my neighbor keeps telling me!
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I don’t know the answer to that, but even if the answer is yes, what about the people who can’t afford to buy food if it becomes a lot more expensive?
Oh, that sounds cool. I’ve never seen JA, but as you say I’ve heard it was terrible
129.
patroclus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They would still be contending for their offices until a resolution. Having received a majority of the popular vote and a plurality of the undisputed electoral votes (but not 270), they would still be President-elect and Vice President-elect, but that would carry no power. They would be like Samuel Tilden prior to the resolution in 1877. I think that the Republicans (or enough of them) would cave but I don’t know that. Arguably, President Pelosi could do some things that Biden wouldn’t – like fire Durham as Special Counsel and terminate any Hunter Biden Special Counsel – and she would also probably implement any planned Biden EO’s.
@WaterGirl: obviously it hurts people with fixed incomes, but that can be addressed with cost of living adjustments, which will occur after the food riots break out (see poll tax riots).
There are more in the Senate that are likely to accept the count, regardless of McConnell’s bullshit. Rooney and Sasse for certain (they don’t much care to live under Twitler’s shadow forever), Lamar Alexander is a likely break as well, and don’t count Tim Scott out.
134.
Anya
I just found out Susan Rice’s son is a hardcore Trump supporter. He said his politics were formed by conservative talk radio and the tea party. He listens to Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin or whatever his name is. Does he hate his mom that much? These guys demonize his mom so much, I don’t understand how he listens to them. WFT is wrong with him.
Yeah I am sure that there might be appointees who meet the challenges of this time better than others, but thus far, they all sound really qualified and competent, YESSSSS!!!
Even back in the days when Forever My President BHO was in charge, well he had Arne Duncan, least fave member of that administration in my book.
And when we have ghouls and con men… con ghouls, really… to usher out the door, I am so ready to be excited about Biden’s cabinet picks. Now I wanna acknowledge that I’ve got no standing to judge Adam’s and other’s concerns about the General as Sec Def, not my area. But the only other critiques I’ve seen have been quite sketchy. “Why did he pick Fudge for HUD and not Ag?” AYKM. The farms of Cleveland… “Why put Rice in a domestic position, that’s so weird” …maybe because the domestic terror groups Trump likes to encourage are gonna take a lot of work to dislodge.
Biden and Harris have an enormous job ahead. I’m glad they’re picking people with a lot of experience.
138.
patroclus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Hopefully, that is the case. But I thought that there would be enough Senators to forego installing Barrett right before the election and I also thought the Texas lawsuit was so laughable that it could never attract legitimate support from 17 other State AG’s and I also thought Trump was so appalling that there would be no way he could ever receive 73 million votes. Under-estimating the strength of the Trump cult is easy to do but we do it at our peril.
139.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: JMG’s comment could be summed up in “Fuck the fucking GOP.”
@Amir Khalid: I’m a lurker often up when you comment. Your loss was too close to me to respond to at the time but I want to share that you express your feelings in such a way that everyone can relate to them.
Thank you. I will miss Bianca as much as my own gone cats…you made her life so vivid by your love for her.
Under-estimating the strength of the Trump cult is easy to do but we do it at our peril.
They, on the other hand, underestimate the peril to their own lives and the lives of their families if they start a civil war. Low-grade, but some(/many) of them (including Federal level politicians and judges) would die, and for the rest of their lives high-profile Republican traitors (and their families) would be forced to worry about IEDs and snipers and car bombs (including in their personal cars) and more exotic assassination methods. (Which would be escalated by right-wing death squads and revenge, iteratively.) There would also be society-level monkey-wrenching of various sorts, much of which can be non-violent. And this would all be amplified covertly/overtly by external enemies of the USA, to cause further implosion of the USA. Republicans are extremely foolish and living in an information-impermeable bubble if they believe otherwise.
(Writing as a believer in non-violent tactics, raised as a Quaker in outlook.)
144.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’d say who cares, but this is gonna drive one old man who still thinks Time magazine is a big deal
AFP News Agency @AFP· 8m #BREAKING Joe Biden and Kamala Harris named Time ‘Person of the Year’
You’re leaving out that on the 6th the results from Georgia will almost certainly not yet be final so the Senate will be 50-48 (counting the Is as siding with the Ds). All it takes is two members (I’d guess Romney as one) to buck McConnell (another perhaps absent due to quarantine) and the Ds prevail.
As for the whole Pelosi scenario – see the period at the end of the last sentence? One could fit the chances of that playing out a thousand times over inside it and still have room to stuff in a hippo.
In the first days of lurking, him and B. Juice were my go-tos.
149.
Aleta
This must be a high point of his “presidency.” Refusing to commute death sentences just because he likes to kill and make suffer, and because it excites him to display that power. Treating this number of deaths as a distinction that will belong to him, like the most notches on a belt, without a bit of effort to achieve it. He’ll boast about it in speeches to come and even inflate the number. He’s as cold as a the eye of a dead fish. It’s a wonder that he still knows how to breathe.
150.
Punchy
Just read an article saying Fat Barr knew all about HBiden’s investy but kept it on the DL thru the election, as per typical-but-not normal under Barr-DOJ rules. This is going to get him canned by tomorrow afternoon, for certain.
151.
dww44
@Aleta: My Congressman was one of them, and get this, he was just reelected in one of the states whose results he wants the SC to overturn in favor of Trump. I’m calling him tomorrow.
Every one of the 106 Congress persons needs to be shamed and called and forced to explain why he or she is opposed to our constitutional representative democracy. It doesn’t matter that the case has no legal merit, their supporting this effort makes them guilty of sedition. All of them should be pilloried for this shameless affront to our democracy.
152.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Punchy: Jonathan Lemire just said on MSNBC that trump is said to be (evergreen said-to-be) “raging in private tonight”
153.
Benw
I’m old enough to remember switching off the Christmas tree lights before bed, so the bulbs wouldn’t get hot enough to start a fire. Can you believe we used to literally burn wires in our houses for Xmas lights?
154.
dww44
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good. Relevant or not, Time taking a stand for our Democracy is a good thing especially in light of what so many of the seditious GOP are up to right now.
155.
Yarrow
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: The borders with the EU will seize up. They’re building giant lorry parking lots in Kent to make all the lorries wait while they’re being inspected. Lorry drivers are going to have to have a special permit, or “Kent Passport,” to go into that area.
France has been doing trial runs of the new customs and border processes and it’s resulting in long lines of lorries. And they’re prepared for what’s coming. The UK hasn’t even hired enough people and trained them to deal with the new border requirements. So that’s going to be a problem and an additional slow down.
A lot of fresh food won’t be worth much once it’s sat in a lorry queue for days, so that’s going to be one issue with food just getting through. Then there are the increased prices as tariffs go into effect. No one really seems to know what they’ll be and how they’ll work. Except prices will go up and shortages will occur.
156.
Aleta
Atima Omara @atima_omara
Brandon Beard’s execution was 1st during a presidential lame-duck period in 130 years. Fed executions was a precedent outgoing Presidents have left to the next President to decide regardless of politics. And the Trump admin has 4 more scheduled before Biden is sworn in.
@Benw: People used to put actual candles on Christmas trees.
159.
dww44
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): There is one thing we should all recognize by now: there is no critical mass within the GOP that can come to its senses and turn that massively broken ship around. The sooner we all recognize this, the more successful we will be in keeping our democratic ship of state turned away from them.
160.
NickM
@patroclus: Couldn’t Biden be elected Speaker of the House- as I recall you don’t actually have to be an elected Rep to hold that role- and become President that way? Since we’re talking about crazy stuff anyway?
I also thought the Texas lawsuit was so laughable that it could never attract legitimate support from 17 other State AG’s
No way is the support from the 17 other state AG’s legitimate. No idea why they want to support trump – other than they think it might be fun. Having to be responsible again & behave like adults is not something any of the trump sycophants want to do.
167.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cain: would we know if McDonald’s food-producing machines had been installed in the White House kitchens?
@TS (the original): interesting who’s not on board: The Republican AGs of Iowa, Ohio and Georgia, an Idaho (somewhat less significant political, maybe, but interesting), and the out-going gov and governor-elect of Utah mildly but very publicly rebuked their AG
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There’s a McDonald’s on 17th Street across from the New Executive Office Building(that’s a 1/2 block up 17th from Pennsylvania).
The horror of it is, Trump is having these men put to death out of spite. He’s lashing out at them because he can. That’s as damning as anything you can say about a person.
But I expect there will be no federal executions during the Biden/Harris administration. Harris is known to be strongly against capital punishment.
@Amir Khalid: Is there a Mickey D’s at Mar-a-Lago? If not, why?
If not, why?
Because high school kids didn’t want to have to see Dump’s disgusting ass several times per day. Also, how do you pay for a McDonald’s franchise on US soil with Russkie mob money?
OT – listening to the Dawn of the Dead theme. Would zombies invade an Amazon warehouse these days?
195.
Calouste
@Yarrow: I went across the border between Bulgaria and Romania in the early 90s. The line for lorries was two days going one way and a week going the other. Seriously. We were in a car and it took us about 13 hours. That’s what’s going to happen between the UK and France.
@Calouste: Yep. It’s going to be a disaster. One thing that might mean fewer lorries on the road is that a new shipping ferry route is opening up from France to Ireland, bypassing the UK altogether. Less congestion on the roads but also fewer jobs for people who work at the UK ports.
205.
Anya
A Texas woman spent $30K on plastic surgery (13) to look like Ivanka Trump. I wonder how many surgeries did Ivanka have to look like her current self?
They are like our conservatives (and conservatives everywhere) who want to go back in time to a country that never actually existed. They think they got ahead by being the “in” group 100-5000 yrs ago. But life back then, while it may have been better for some was still crap for everyone, it was just better crap for a few. This has always been a problem for conservatives, never look forward for answers, always look back.
207.
Yarrow
@Anya: Definitely some. She didn’t used to look like she does now. Even her voice has changed.
She’s had more surgery than Frankenstein. Everything about them is fake
209.
Anya
@Yarrow: She definitely had work done on her nose, chin, cheek bones, eyes among other things. She’s so fake. I legit hate her and her weirdo husband more than I hate her odious father.
Boris Johnson says there is a “strong possibility” the UK will fail to strike a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU.
At this point, deal or not, Blighty is going to be blighted. WTO rules give 2,567 lorry licenses to UK drivers. Those drivers will not be allowed to pick up freight on the trip back from the EU. Ditto for EU drivers going to the UK. Currently a third of the lorry capacity says they will not make a one way haul in or out just to deadhead back. I bet a large portion of the other 2/3 just haven’t thought it thru yet. Even if the UK just waves trucks thru in violation of WTO rules, EU drivers will be stuck going thru customs going back into the EU. Covid may mask the consequences for a week or two. When shipping co. see what the reality is, there’s going to be a reckoning.
If I’m running a twenty truck outfit that can roam from the Polish-Ukrainian border to Portugal am I’m going to redirect resources to sorting out customs declarations for a load of lettuce to be delivered in Wales? I don’t see that happening
Many non-Brexiters are thinking that the consequences are going to be gradually felt. I don’t see it. SME are all about cutting their loses ASP. Unless the customer is willing to pay a premium up front, their docks are going to be empty
213.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Anya: plus her teeth are capped and boob implants – bigly
214.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Benw: Well, that was an improvement over having candles on the trees for lights. Now THAT was a fire hazard!
215.
Tony Jay
Re: Brexit and the “Sez Who?” factor with respect to Lesser Brexitannians pointing at laughing at the soon to be sans-Trump.
Yes, it’s a disaster predicated on decades of propaganda and wilful self-delusion that is going to destroy this country.
No, we can’t point fingers at anyone else. Britain and the United States both made stupid mistakes in 2016 that blighted their futures, but when the United States got a chance to course-correct in a democratic election, it took it. You dumped a lying, bullying scumbag, 43% of our electorate elected one.
While I may well be leaving out one or two other types of producers of things ingestible, the only possible boon I espy from across two ponds is to the English/Welsh wine industry.
@Tony Jay: it seems like two unnecessary elections paved the way for this debacle. David Cameron never should have called for the original referendum. And although I wasn’t paying close attention, I remember that opposition parties helped bring about the last one.
Buzzfeed has a list of the 106 Republican Reps who signed the amicus brief. Chief Whip Scalise (LA) signed it; Minority leader McCarthy (CA) and Conference Chair Cheney (WY) did not.
And hedge-funds betting on a dive for sterling. Plus the big investors looking to pick up collapsed industries for a couple of bitcoin. Oh and compliant politicians looking for a soft landing on the wingnut lecture circuit.
Double yes. Cameron felt squeezed by the Conservative Right and hoped the promise of a referendum (that Leave would, of course, lose) would finally shut them up. Then he and his Chancellor, Osbourne, ran a stunted, ill-planned Remain campaign that chickened out of being pro-EU becase he didn’t want to speak truth to Conservative voters. Typical Tory selfishness that he scuttled away from ASAP.
And yes, there was a chance to prevent Brexit via Parlaiment, but once the pro-Leave minority on the Labour benches started backing Johnson’s bollocks the Scottish Nationalists and the Liberal Democrats did a 180 and announced they’d back an Election. The SNP figured they’d win more seats and get closer to winning a 2nd Independence Vote if Scots had to choose between Brexit Britain and a Wee Free Scotland in the EU, while the Liberal Democrats were just outright delusional. 5 years of backstabbing from the Labour Right did the rest, and here we are.
tl:dr – Everything was Corbyn’s fault. He did it all, on purpose, because shut up, that’s why. /s
222.
opiejeanne
@Geminid: I’m really surprised that McCarthy didn’t sign it.
I need to look at that list to see if any of the eastern WA Republican swine signed on.
@Tony Jay: About a year ago I read that super wealthy Britons were anxious to leave the E.U. before new financial reporting rules took effect January 1, 2020. Was this so?
Pretty much. The idea was to crack down on tax-avoidance and outright fraud, so getting out from under that set all the cockroaches scurrying. You can tell how important a factor it was amongst the shady money set by the virtually total embargo placed on coverage by our ‘independent’ News Media.
They know what it’s all about, but they’d never be so rude as to discuss the Master Race’s affairs in front of the hoi polloi.
@opiejeanne: Three out of four Virginia Republicans did not sign on to the brief. Randy Wittman in the 1st was one. His district to the east of Richmond was actually carried by Biden, although Wittman won easily. My 5th District Congressman, Denver Riggleman, was bounced in a convention by “Biblical Consevative” Bob Good. In his farewell floor speech, Riggleman was quite vocal in his criticism of this effort. And Morgan Griffith, who represents the very conservative Southwestern 9th District, did not sign. Shenandoah Valley 6th District Representative Ben Cline did sign. He’s younger than Griffith, and maybe he fears that a primary might cut short his political career.
Yarrow was asking about that yesterday, and all I can say is that I haven’t seen much sign of it. I’m not on social media at all, but people who are suggest that the public’s main focus has been on Covid, which – has – led to some stockpiling, but with Christmas coming there’s been no oxygen in the room for reality to get a look in. For what it’s worth I saw my first screaming “No Deal Shortages Ahead!” headline just yesterday, and Brexit is back in the news, so the national attitude could spin on a dime and see massive bulk-buying post-Christmas as people start to put two and two together.
As to the points of contention, it basically boils down to delusion vs reality. The new Tory Press Spokesperson (another family member/close friend of the core Johnson Cabal) has just admitted that they may have (and I paraphrase a bit) slightly underestimated the EU’s commitment to retaining the rules under which its single-market functions. Apparently they really have been operating under the delusion that the EU would buckle and allow an independent UK to function as a low-regulation clearing house flooding the EU market with substandard dross from all over the world, and now that it’s starting to dawn on them that the mythical German car manufacturers and French wine industry are not going to bend the ear of Berlin and Paris to bully the rest of the EU 27 Johnson is flabbling away about how outrageous and unacceptable it is that the EU expects the UK to abide by EU trade-rules if it wants access to the EU market.
I’m not even joking. The argument boils down to “We voted not to be bound by EU rules, so it’s unfair of you to expect us to follow them just because everyone else you trade with does. We’re special!”
We’re not special. We’re fucked.
228.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Tony Jay: Ah. In the U.S. the coverage centered on UK voters being tricked into believing Leave would bolster NHS coffers and voters not wanting those Poles and Hungarians living next door. Nothing about undermining and exploiting consumer protection/regulation.
When I lived in Michigan, I had a close friend who had grown up in the Netherlands. Every year, she lighted her tree with real candles. Beautiful to behold, but scared.me.to.fuckin.death.
It’s 45 years later, and she and her husband are still alive, and their house is intact, but I still shudder deeply at the thought of what could go wrong in an instant.
I remember hearing a story that the Prophet (PBUH) had a favourite cat who once fell asleep upon the flowing sleeve of his robe. When it was time for prayers, he was reluctant to disturb her, so instead he cut off the sleeve of his garment so as not to awaken her.
Are you familiar with this anecdote? Are there details that I’ve forgotten, or got wrong?
Bob and Mavis Snell of 16 Garden Lane didn’t want to hear that Brexit was a massive smash-and-grab con job devised and promoted by a ludicrously rich sector of the financial elite using the Tory Right as its willing figurehead that would shatter communities and reduce Britain to a poverty-stricken basketcase. They did want to hear that Brexit was a grass-roots response to politically-correct attacks on their culture and a boot to the face of the London-centric elites who offered them nothing while demanding their votes. So that’s what they were told, and lots of them believed it. They still believe it, to one degree or another, in the same way that deep-dive Trumpers really believe that the Democrats must have stolen the election. Their self-worth is invested in a lie, and it’s always someone else’s fault when reality intervenes.
It’s just that our electoral system and massively biased Media makes it hard to outvote them.
235.
ColoradoGuy
Tony, it’s been a long time I was in the UK (1975), so l’m wondering how much of Brexitmania was driven by nostalgia for the imagined glories of Empire and the lesser glories of the 1950’s Commonwealth days. Do the Tories actually imagine they can drag Australia, New Zealand, and Canada back into the embrace of the Commonwealth?
That’s what the serial u-turns of the last few days were about. The EU refused to let Brexit blow up the Good Friday Agreement, which meant that any customs border would have to be between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. Johnson swore up and down that he could never, ever accept this violation of sovereignty and even had his MPs vote for an Act that would give him the right to break international law by ignoring the GFA and the Withdrawal Act he himself signed. He huffed, and he puffed, and then of course he backed down, because the UK has ZERO credibility and ZERO leverage and the EU doesn’t give a toss about how embarrassing it is for Johnson to have to acknowledge that the GFA is much, much more important to the rest of the world than his overinflated ego or the fevered wank-dreams of Little Englander xenophobes.
There won’t be a border between NI and the Republic of Ireland, which means NI is within the EU single market and more than halfway towards reunification. All because the Tory Party bought nationalist underpants that it never had the balls to pack out.
Not surprisingly, Senator Rand Paul (KY) is gumming up the works as Congress tries to pass the NDAA and a stopgap spending bill. Paul claims that NDAA language barring further troop cuts in Iraq and Afghanistan intrude on Presidential prerogatives (he’ll likely be on the other side of that general argument once Biden is in office). The NDAA also bars planned troop cuts in Germany. Paul and Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) have been slamming each other over the issue, and it’s gotten personal.
It’s hard to say. ‘Brexit’ as a concept was so amorphous that it could be whatever its believers wanted it to be. Flag-waving patriotic declaration of rights? Sure, why not. Xenophobic attack on immigration and the defiantly brown? That too. A primal scream of rage and loneliness from the ‘ignored’ backwaters of the country? Of course it was.
The only thing that you can say about Brexit is that the people who want it just bloody well want it and they’ll vote for it with a smile on their faces and a song in their hearts every time. You can’t argue them out of it because that means you’re saying they’re wrong, which makes you an arrogant know-it-all, and what do we say to arrogant know-it-alls, children? That’s right, we tell them “Piss off!”, that’ll show them.
Oh, there’s one other thing you can say about Brexit. When the fit hits the shan and the country reels from the sudden plunge into poverty and chaos, it’ll be everyone else’s fault but the people who promoted and voted for it.
@Tony Jay: It sounds like elites did a slick job of bamboozling the “grass roots.” Apparently the Brexit campaign was illegally funded, and probably bolstered by Russian social media subversion, but it got the dirty job done.
Yup. But since the inquiry into Russian subversion of the 2016 Referendum came back stating that, “Yeah, there was probably loads and they also own the Tory Party lock, stock and barrel, but since the Intelligence Services ‘decided’ not to investigate the topic we can’t say categorically how bad it was so, oh well, never mind” the News Media and those who get invited on it have decided the question is closed.
@Tony Jay: Well, at least you folks can still keep driving on the left side of the road. The price of fish and chips will go up, but beans are good for you. So long as social distancing measures are observed.
Ah, the sunlit uplands of a better tomorrow. Gnawing on unicorn horns and drinking pixie piss while the Lords and Ladies dance the nights away behind fortress walls.
@Tony Jay: That reminds me of the society Ken Follet depicted in Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. Past may be prologue for England. Maybe it has always been.
251.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: Late to this thread, but I haven’t received mine yet.
Can’t argue with that. The aristos don’t know what they’re in for.
254.
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore: Um…then there are those of us who like both.
255.
S. Cerevisiae
I have always thought that Putin used the Brexit vote as a dry run for his interference in the 2016 US election. I think this’ll go badly for the UK as all of you have been saying, although maybe I can get a good deal on some B & W speakers in a few years.
We have had as many as 3 dogs, but up to 9 cats (after an accidental birth of 5 kittens) but there is no logical explanation for our actions with regard to puppies and kitties.
258.
J R in WV
Regarding Christmas trees and flames: Many years ago we had an xmas party, with a tree so large I had to install guy wires to make it stable, then at the party attendees decorated it, back then we had glass ice-cicles which looked pretty swell in a mostly dark room with the tree lights on.
Anyway, after the holiday season, that tree went into the bottom of a pile of construction debris, lumber ends and such, and brush, which served for a spring party bonfire. I used one match to light the bits of the tree sticking out of the pile, and it went up as if I had poured gasoline/petrol on the pile. I staggered back and the whole pile was totally engulfed in flames in 5 seconds or less.
Never allow a open flame near a pine tree, even fresh and green, they burn like the fuel they are!
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satby
Nope.
Nicole
I mean, I have a bit of, “OH LOOK WHO’S TALKING,” seeing as how it’s Britain (HOW’S BREXIT GOING, CHAPS?), but as they are currently getting the vaccine and we are not, okay fine. Harsh but fair.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Nicole:
Damn, ninja’d ; )
The UK is going to get the vaccine before we are. It pisses me off so bad that the Trump administration didn’t order more doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. Trump fucked us again
WaterGirl
I have watched this more than once. Someone linked to it here, but I have no idea who to thank.
Aleta
All US Republicans must be pilloried for sedition and subornation.
WaterGirl
@Nicole: I guess Brexit did start out as a stupid tantrum, a vote to make a statement, which they thought was safe because it wouldn’t pass.
But are they whining about masks and social distancing? So many tombstones should say “You’re not the boss of me!”
Arclite
OMFG, this is horrific.
https://archive.vn/HuQZI
John S.
@Aleta: I’d settle for a good old fashioned tarring and feathering.
Miss Bianca
@Nicole: Yeah, for me that’s a “Dear Kettle, you are so very black, signed, Pot” kind of statement.
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl:
I love that so much.
schrodingers_cat
Oh please, those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
I’ve always been fond of the idea that there is a galactic civilization but we’ve been cut off from the rest of the galaxy by the Galactic government and are under observation. We’ll only be contacted once we reach a set of benchmarks and become “advanced” enough. Kind of like ST’s Prime Directive
It’s called the planetarium hypothesis:
Mary G
WaPo says 3,347 Americans dead of Covid so far today; we’ll definitely hit 300,000 total before Christmas. I feel like going out to a mall (CA has joined the stupid states by letting them remain open at 20% (ha!) capacity even in a huge wave of cases) armed with a baseball bat disguised as a Christmas present and whacking everyone there who admits to voting for Trump.
WaterGirl
@Aleta: Are we talking literally or figuratively?
dmsilev
@Arclite: I read that piece this morning. Absolutely horrible. In an ideal world, the restaurant managers would stand up for their staff and inform those asses that they can either leave under their own power or they will be dragged out.
We do not live in an ideal world.
Tenar Arha
@WaterGirl: I love how in response to the Q whether Jason makes a livable wage, he says “Jason is a small sphere and does not require a wage!” —
which makes me think of The Culture novels ;)
Nicole
@WaterGirl: Maybe they’re getting better about it now, but there were a lot of articles over the summer about Brits refusing to wear masks. And saying they didn’t have to because of the rights granted to them via the Magna Carta. Which… no. That’s… not what that says.
prostratedragon
@WaterGirl: Has he ever got great timing.
WaterGirl
Re: this lawsuit and the elected officials who have now signed on to it – i vacillate between horror, being filled with dread, and thinking that they have finally gone so far in their disregard for democracy that any thinking person cannot help but see what they are and feel repulsed.
Arclite
@Aleta: Why is Ken Paxton not in jail again?
WaterGirl
@Tenar Arha: Is there a longer version of this video? Because I didn’t hear that question.
WaterGirl
@prostratedragon: He really does!
Van Buren
@WaterGirl: Got my calendars yesterday, so I am a happy camper.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
Sometimes I can’t help but feel the same. I know this (likely) won’t succeed now, but I can’t help but worry about the next election. And the one after that. And so on.
matt the semi-reasonable
@Arclite: This is the kind of thing the Republican Party is fighting for.
WaterGirl
Has anybody started receiving their calendars yet? All but 6 calendar orders have shipped.
Gvg
@prostratedragon: There have been mask protests and idiocy in most countries including Germany, Italy and England. Plenty of fools, we aren’t alone. And plenty of stupid thug leaders just as disgraceful as Trump.
i think the Asian countries look smarter this cycle. But possibly I just haven’t heard.
well, no. Notice but to keep on working.
no matter how much I criticize our own mistakes, I never take it well from outsiders.
Amir Khalid
Bianca passed away seven days ago. I was just listening to Linda Ronstadt’s cover of Goodbye My Friend, written by Karla Bonoff about (I am told) the passing of her own cat:
But the time together through all the years/Will take away these tears
I am not quite there yet.
Arclite
@dmsilev: Yeah, I read bad news on a daily basis, but this one really got to me. Made me sick to my stomach. Maybe it was the pure manipulation and abuse of power. Maybe it was the familiarity, as I’ve eaten in restaurants so many times in my life that it was so easy to visualize it.
Tipping needs to go away forever. Pay these servers $15-20 per hour, ban tipping, and this kind of bullshit goes away for the most part (although there will always be assholes that go to restaurants). I lived in Japan for years, and got excellent service in restaurants (usually better than what you get here in the US) with no tipping involved.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: If you’re at all like me, Amir, you won’t be there for quite some time. Your grief is a testament to the bond you guys had together.
Tenar Arha
@WaterGirl: oops, it’s in the replies, which I occasionally read
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Amir Khalid:
Pets are like close friends and family. They definitely leave a hole when they pass. Always cherish the happy memories you had with them
schrodingers_cat
@Amir Khalid: I am so sorry about Bianca, I enjoyed reading about your interactions with her. May she RIP.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tenar Arha:
Okay, I went back and watched again, and I didn’t hear that exchange at all. Where is it (time marker) in the video? Thanks.
trollhattan
They have a point and yet, motherfuckin’ Boris is driving at top speed to his dream hard-Brexit outcome and who’s stopping him? Anybody? I swear the Tories have gaslighted their nation to lemming level three.
You can smell the “disappointment” from here.
hedgehog mobile
@WaterGirl: I just ordered mine yesterday. Expected to arrive December 21.
WaterGirl
@Tenar Arha: I often don’t read replies, but that sounds like a fun one.
CaseyL
@Amir Khalid: Oh, I am so sorry. The love of a cat feels like a real accomplishment; it’s not automatic.
(Don’t @ me! I love dogs, too! Dogs are wonderful!)
WaterGirl
@hedgehog mobile: I can’t believe how long they are taking to ship! Are they coming through the post office, Fed Ex or UPS?
edit: we were so pleased that they were order-able so much earlier this year, and now shipping is longer than I expected. We might have to start next year’s calendars in July!
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: He replied to me that it had been in one of the replies to the video.
bluefoot
@trollhattan: “Now is the time” to prepare for a no-deal Brexit? Yikes. The time was right after the referendum passed, not 22 days before it goes into effect. It’s going to be a horror show.
I swear, between Brexit, the US electing Trump, etc. it seems like the early-to-mid 2010s, the world got tired of relative peace and functionality and decided it wanted chaos and destruction.
Roger Moore
@Arclite:
Because the rich and powerful deal with a different justice system from you or me.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@CaseyL:
So do I. Never understood the dogs vs cats thing
The Fat White Duchess
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think Somtow Sucharitkul got there before Baxter (and maybe others before Somtow). Cf Mallworld, around 1980 but I’m too lazy to look up the publication date.
trollhattan
@Arclite:
Listened to a long story about just this topic earlier this week, apparently it’s pervasive right now and servers feel extra pressure to give in because restaurant and bar traffic is so low.
We have…Herman Caine to blame for the federal sub-minimum wage for restaurant employees. He was head of the restaurant association when they signed off on increasing the federal minimum wage if congress would also freeze the sub-minimum wage forever.
Forever is a long time. Can he please die twice of COVID?
la caterina
@WaterGirl: We got both of ours today! Squee!
WaterGirl
Someone asked about a recording of the Tom Levenson zoom, but I can’t remember who it was. It’s been that kind of week.
If you are the person who wanted to hear the recording of Tom’s zoom because you couldn’t make it, let me know. I don’t really want to post the link, but anyone who wants it can send me email asking for the link.
Another Scott
@bluefoot:
I liked this story, a repost from downstairs. Reuters:
Yes, let us burn down the trade agreements we have with our largest trading partner and instead have a new one just like that with a country half-way around the world with a fraction of the volume. What could go wrong??
Thought experiment: If BoJo were a Kremlin plant sent to destroy the UK economy, how would he behave differently from the way BoJo does??
[sigh]
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@bluefoot:
It feels like we decided that, but it wasn’t something we did by ourselves. Outside influence definitely played a role, though it could only achieve as much as it has by pushing on existing flaws in our societies.
WaterGirl
@la caterina: Oh good! I haven’t seen them yet in person – sounds like the printed copies are nice?
Tenar Arha
@SiubhanDuinne: sorry, it was in the tweet’s replies
Uncle Cosmo
@WaterGirl: The Jar Jar Kush diss (“The malevolent creature known as Jared Kushner – why has no one trapped it in a jar?”) may be heard starting at 1:29 of the video clip embedded in the thread by WaterGirl at #4 supra.
trollhattan
@bluefoot:
The Tories want this so bad and I have no capacity to discern how they think this is a good outcome for the country. They seem about as realistic as Trump thinking he can conjure up a domestic coal industry in the 21st century.
It will not end well.
AnonPhenom
That sign dates back to November 2016
Major Major Major Major
@bluefoot:
Oh there is very definitely a global reactionary movement against modernity. Since yeah, right about then, at the latest.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
I saw, and went prowling through not only the replies but some of his other bits. “POV: The Fly in Your Apartment” is quite wonderful. Was so entranced I forgot to come back and edit/delete my comment :-)
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
I got my two today! They’re beautiful (although I left one in its package since I’m giving it away).
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m convinced climate change is behind some of this. I remember reading an article about a study that found that violence has increased as global temperatures have gone up
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Dogs and cats are enough different that they appeal to different kinds of people. Dogs are descended from animals that live in family groups and defer to the head of the family, while cats are descended from animals that live by themselves and interact with others of their kind only on their own terms. Some people have strong preferences for one lifestyle or the other and tend to prefer animals who see the world the same way.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: I hadn’t noticed any of his other stuff. I may have to go back to that.
I should also do the same with this tweet. I adore this fellow, I hope he has done more.
la caterina
@WaterGirl: They’re fabulous! And the stock they’re printed on is very sturdy.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@The Fat White Duchess:
I thought I was the only person who ever read Mallworld ( think it was a little later in the 80s).
Spin is another tale kind of on this theme.
rikyrah
Thread
Chief Oshkosh
@Gvg: Heck, a bus driver in France was KILLED outright when he told some would-be passengers that they needed to mask up in order to ride on the bus.
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
rikyrah
Santa is all of us
?????
John S.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My neighbor is convinced that the rock with “Go away bears!” painted on it in their front yard has actually kept the bears away.
Remember, correlation is not causation. ?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
LOL. TikTok is definitely the new Vine
Keith P.
Does anyone know when the SCOTUS is supposed to decide whether or not to take the Texas case? I’m ready for this shit to be over already. It was interesting for the first couple of weeks, but unless Trump is planning on trying the martial law route, I’m not really interested in his act any more.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
ALL the upvotes. ✨
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@John S.:
lol, true. But then again, the UN apparently thinks so:
Climate Change Increases the Risk of Violence Against Women
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: That was great!
I read just a few more tweets, but i loved this one.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
I just placed my order today. It says the arrival date should be the day after Christmas
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: So glad to hear that!
JMG
@Keith P.: It’s expected it’ll be tomorrow. Justices have a Zoom conference tomorrow morning as part of their regular schedule, and the Electoral College electors meet Monday. You know, it’s getting kind of tiring spending all day worrying that the slightest contact with the outside world could be fatal and all night worrying the next day will be the end of our constitutional democracy. I’m whipped.
Jackie
@Roger Moore: I have a comic strip from years ago on my refrigerator. First cell shows a dog looking adorably at his human, who has a dog dish full of food in his hand. Caption reads “he must be a god!”
Next cell has a cat in the same scenario: “I must be a god…”
Best description of dog vs cat ever!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Roger Moore:
That makes a ton of sense
Amir Khalid
@John S.:
I find it entirely plausible that wild bears have learned to read, and are keeping it a secret. If I were a bear, would I want the humans to know I was literate? Hell, no!
Kent
Electoral college meets Monday so they had better fucking hurry if they want to actually disrupt it.
Eunicecycle
Here’s Connie Schultz’s take on the waitress/mask phenomenon (if you didn’t know, she is married to Sen. Sherrod Brown) https://www.creators.com/read/connie-schultz/12/20/speaking-of-baby-jesus-lets-talk-about-tips
Repatriated
@The Fat White Duchess:
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I’m pretty sure I read it serialized in Analog Magazine at the time.
Viva BrisVegas
@trollhattan: The Tories, at least Boris’s rump group, believe with all their heart (small and shriveled) that Britain’s (actually England, since they don’t give a stuff about Britain) economic future is as a tax haven for rapacious Russian thugs and libidinous Saudis. After all, tax dodging has worked out very well for the Tory elite so far.
It will not end well for those without their own private jet to get them out of the country when all hell breaks loose.
WaterGirl
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Wow, that’s more than two weeks?
A lot of people are buying both calendars, which I think is great. I’ve been too busy to even get mine ordered.
Villago Delenda Est
From the idiot country that approved Brexit, this is ironic.
Tenar Arha
@WaterGirl: lol Pavey
Time to End The Gen Z vs Boomer Conflict – Bully Gen X Instead
Jinchi
We got rid of our nutcase, the Brits doubled down on theirs. Boris may be a step up from Trump, but he’s still really bad. The Brits had the opportunity to toss him out and instead they doubled down on him and his ruinous policies.
America has plenty of idiots, but I’d rather be in our shoes two months from now than theirs.
debbie
@rikyrah:
Definitely wins everything.
Kent
And Covid also increases violence against women as well as child marriages: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/opinion/kenya-covid-child-marriage.html
WaterGirl
@JMG:
I SO wish that could be a rotating tag.
Punchy
@Keith P.: over? Hahaha! Kraken lawsuits know no limits. Snidley Whiplash, or whatever the fuck her name is, will just keep searching for a sympathetic judge to breathe new life into one of these legalistic abortions. Safe harbor and EC voting means nothing to her.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
I could’ve gotten it sooner, but I cheaped out on shipping; I choose the $4.99 option
opiejeanne
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I read Mallworld too. I only remember tiny bits of it.
WaterGirl
@Eunicecycle: That article was excellent. Quite possibly my favorite line:
Sloane Ranger
There is always increased traffic at British ports ahead of Christmas but this year is worse because exporters are shoving stuff across the channel in much larger quantities to avoid the tariffs that will come with what looks like a no deal Brexit.
And this is a surprise. I have been expecting a last minute fudge of some sort. The Confederation of British Industries has been warning about the damage a no deal outcome will do for ages now. And a Tory government, which normally rushes to supply tissues and paracetamol every time the CBI clears its throat has been ignoring their warnings.
Proof that the Tories are no longer the party of businesses, but some sort of nationalist cult.
We must be grateful that Cabinet Ministers are still connected enough to reality to accept some scientific advice on pandemic management.
cain
@Amir Khalid:
There is a bollywood song that always triggers me – it’s from the soundtack “Om Shanti Om” – one of my fav movies – anyways – when the song plays, it’s like a movie in my mind of how we met, and although the times she was with me when things were happening to me. I still tear up at times.
Wolvesvalley
@WaterGirl: My calendars came today — yay!
ETA — just saw your comment that you hadn’t seen the calendars in person yet. They are gorgeous. The screen images didn’t do them justice.
I love all the names the jackals give their pets.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
I finally was able to track my calendars tonight, the post office, like every other part of the government has been screwed right into the ground by shitforbrains. Should be here in LA on Monday.
Anya
@Nicole: Not fair at all when it’s coming from UK. They shouldn’t talk when they gave Buffoon Boris a super majority and before that they voted to literally diminish their influence in the world because they believe a slogan on a bus. They shouldn’t talk. At least we’ve always denied Trump the popular vote.
WaterGirl
@Tenar Arha: That was fun, thanks.
Dan B
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Watch Steve Schmidt’s interview on Amanpour and Company. He’s got a strategy for targeting Trumpsters that will make their lives difficult. It will give you hope. The guy is furious with the Trumpsters. He will not relent.
cain
@trollhattan:
There is a certain justice to seeing them fuck themselves over – knowing how many nations they’ve fucked over during the British Empire. That the gun is now pointed to themselves is I guess a form of restitution to those of us who were from former colonies.
WaterGirl
@Wolvesvalley: I’m trying to get a feel for when they are arriving because I’d like to have a Thank You, Beth post once a lot of people have theirs.
geg6
Ummmm, seriously? From the people who brought you Brexit and Boris Johnson? GTFOH.
cain
@Roger Moore:
It’s too bad that we can’t find a team of crooks like in Leverage and get Trump’s tax forms and whatever else and publish it.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: I was thinking tonight that I can’t wait for the Biden administration proposals about banking in post offices. My hope is that rather than pandering to the white working class and rural areas, that Biden will just do what’s right and they will take notice.
That’s when I am at my most optimistic.
Kattails
@Keith P.: Josh Marshall noting an interview Michael Cohen gave to Jane Mayer just before the election. Cohen bet $10,000 that Trump would lose; the tweet encapsulates an exact prediction of what has been going on.
In the main portion of his twitter feed, Marshall also picks up on: “… the Texas AG is rolling in corruption. State crimes, now federal crimes”.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Funniest interpretation of this was in the otherwise terrible Jupiter Ascending, by the Wachowskies. In the movie, because Earth is an inheritance in probate, no-one can do anything to influence our planet until the intergalactic surrogates court decides to whom it actually belongs. Which takes millennia, because that’s how long the aliens fighting over the estate live.
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
Not true of all cats. Lions live in prides — family groups. Feral domestic cats often live in colonies where they have neighbours to get along with.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Sloane Ranger:
Sounds like the GOP and the Chamber of Commerce. Or the Ohio GOP and the AMA or the ANA. Hospitals are filling up with COVID patients and they try to strip DeWine of his authority to issue statewide health orders. One of the co-sponsers is my state house rep, who was legal counsel/management to a local infectious disease practice; his father is one of the practices’ partners (so he’s likely a nepotism hire). Guy should absolutely know better, but he ran as a “pro-business, pandemic restrictions are destroying businesses” candidate this year after being appointed to the seat. And won.
Ruckus
@dmsilev:
Ideal world? Mine, yours or ? OK on this point we are in 1000% agreement but still….
I sort of understand, a bar, restaurant sometimes has a hard time making money, COVID is probably making that 10 times harder. Looking forward to losing your business is not fun and I know this first hand.
I wonder if most of the people who think this entire thing is a hoax and they should be able to do whatever they want whenever they want also have no respect for others as a matter of course, COVID or not. Because they certainly are acting like assholes, which is probably their natural instinct.
Keith P.
@Punchy: You’re kind of right about that. There’s now a fucking “Kraken Conference” in Congress. I’m sure it will be comprised of all the best spellers the US political system has to offer.
WaterGirl
@Wolvesvalley: I am so happy to hear that!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@schrodingers_cat: I was thinking the same thing…now who is the PM of the UK…
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Nicole: this is especially funny because the Magna Carta was explicitly about getting certain lords out of certain feudal taxes. Only as an afterthought did they tack on that justice shall not be for sale and that no man shall be seized without power of law (habeas corpus). It was pressed into service as a charter of rights by jurists who cynically calculated that no-one was keen to go back to parse the original bad medieval latin.
patroclus
The Texas (+17) lawsuit asserts a non-justiciable claim and the plaintiffs have no standing – it’s going nowhere. But what we are facing is a brouhaha in Congress on 1/6 and continuing thereafter when 1 Senator and 1 House Member “object” to what is normally the routine counting of the electoral votes, which will be presided over by Mike Pence. After the 1876 disputed election between Hayes and Tilden, Congress enacted the Electoral Count Act which set up the procedure, which has never been used. After the objections, each House will devolve to separately consider the meritorious nature of the objection. At the least, this means much debate and rambunctious floor fights. At the most, though, this could mean multiple dilatory tactics, delay and a stalemate/impasse, leading to a President Pelosi. Each side of the Capitol, could, for example, further devolve into committee consideration. Presumably, the House, despite the narrower majority, which the new HUD Secretary might decrease further with an early resignation, will reject the objection. It is unknown, not least because of the Georgia Special Elections, what the Senate will do. Mark Kelly is now in, so it’s 46-52-2 (or 48-52, if you consider Sanders and King to be Democrats), so even with delays, it is easy to imagine a Republican-favorable vote agreeing to the objection (with Romney, Murkowski or Collins allowed to vote no and Pence breaking the tie). If there is disagreement, the Act then provides that it goes to the respective Governors of the disputed states. Which seems okay for Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin because they have Democratic Governors. But that could be disputed in the states themselves with Republican-dominated legislatures. If the delays themselves prohibit a resolution (even if the resolution merely involves a disagreement between the Houses), then it is unclear what happens. If it never goes to the Governors because of delay, there will be an impasse. hence, President Pelosi. We’ll see, but this scenario is increasingly likely and is nowhere near as laughable as the lawsuits.
Punchy
@Keith P.: A what? Are you serious?
NotMax
Was taken a bit aback by how crowded Costco and Safeway seemed at 3-ish in the afternoon on a Thursday.
In reality once was ready to check out and saw either zero or one cart waiting in line at the registers I realized they appeared crowded only in comparison to recent months when much stricter occupancy limits were in force.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Dan B:
I’ll have to check it out
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve been wondering about the Bush brothers and the TX lunacy. This isn’t exactly a clarion call for the defense of the Constitution, but it’s more than nothing.
You can already guess at the first response, can’t you?
WaterGirl
Jon Ossoff is on Stay Tuned with Preet’s podcast today. I haven’t listened yet, but I plan too.
If anyone is interested, Thursdays are the free podcasts, as opposed to Tuesdays where you have to pay.
Punchy
@patroclus: If this is allowed to happen, it will become the norm going forward and the election results will mean nothing going foward. Goodbye functioning country. I fully expect enough moderate GOP Senators will not allow this, knowing a vote to go along would result in almost certainly a low-level civil war.
There are those who call me...tim... (Still posh)
@Amir Khalid:
So many of us. We are still over-populated with entitled asshats who walk around like they own the place, yet, some mornings, we still look around for the ones who left us too soon. Miss you, Booboo and Foofoo. Our hearts, forever.
The Moar You Know
@Jinchi: We will have food.
The UK won’t. I’ve been in their supermarkets – MOST of their food is imported, and most of that imported food comes from the EU. They are literally going to have people starving.
John S.
@Amir Khalid: That’s what my neighbor keeps telling me!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@patroclus:
So if Pelosi were to become president, assuming the Republicans didn’t come to their senses before then, where does that leave Biden and Harris?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@The Moar You Know: won’t food still be imported, just more expensive because of tariffs?
WaterGirl
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I don’t know the answer to that, but even if the answer is yes, what about the people who can’t afford to buy food if it becomes a lot more expensive?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chacal Charles Calthrop:
Oh, that sounds cool. I’ve never seen JA, but as you say I’ve heard it was terrible
patroclus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They would still be contending for their offices until a resolution. Having received a majority of the popular vote and a plurality of the undisputed electoral votes (but not 270), they would still be President-elect and Vice President-elect, but that would carry no power. They would be like Samuel Tilden prior to the resolution in 1877. I think that the Republicans (or enough of them) would cave but I don’t know that. Arguably, President Pelosi could do some things that Biden wouldn’t – like fire Durham as Special Counsel and terminate any Hunter Biden Special Counsel – and she would also probably implement any planned Biden EO’s.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
: (
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@WaterGirl: obviously it hurts people with fixed incomes, but that can be addressed with cost of living adjustments, which will occur after the food riots break out (see poll tax riots).
Timill
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: It seems likely that the borders will seize up on 1 Jan as the new requirements come into force.
[Disclaimer: I’ve lived in Tennessee the last dozen years, so can be both out-of-touch and wrong.]
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@patroclus:
There are more in the Senate that are likely to accept the count, regardless of McConnell’s bullshit. Rooney and Sasse for certain (they don’t much care to live under Twitler’s shadow forever), Lamar Alexander is a likely break as well, and don’t count Tim Scott out.
Anya
I just found out Susan Rice’s son is a hardcore Trump supporter. He said his politics were formed by conservative talk radio and the tea party. He listens to Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin or whatever his name is. Does he hate his mom that much? These guys demonize his mom so much, I don’t understand how he listens to them. WFT is wrong with him.
rikyrah
@Amir Khalid:
????
cain
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Why do men suck so much? Why does the weather fuck with them so? Losers.
Lyrebird
@rikyrah:
Yeah I am sure that there might be appointees who meet the challenges of this time better than others, but thus far, they all sound really qualified and competent, YESSSSS!!!
Even back in the days when Forever My President BHO was in charge, well he had Arne Duncan, least fave member of that administration in my book.
And when we have ghouls and con men… con ghouls, really… to usher out the door, I am so ready to be excited about Biden’s cabinet picks. Now I wanna acknowledge that I’ve got no standing to judge Adam’s and other’s concerns about the General as Sec Def, not my area. But the only other critiques I’ve seen have been quite sketchy. “Why did he pick Fudge for HUD and not Ag?” AYKM. The farms of Cleveland… “Why put Rice in a domestic position, that’s so weird” …maybe because the domestic terror groups Trump likes to encourage are gonna take a lot of work to dislodge.
Biden and Harris have an enormous job ahead. I’m glad they’re picking people with a lot of experience.
patroclus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Hopefully, that is the case. But I thought that there would be enough Senators to forego installing Barrett right before the election and I also thought the Texas lawsuit was so laughable that it could never attract legitimate support from 17 other State AG’s and I also thought Trump was so appalling that there would be no way he could ever receive 73 million votes. Under-estimating the strength of the Trump cult is easy to do but we do it at our peril.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: JMG’s comment could be summed up in “Fuck the fucking GOP.”
Timill
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Lamar retires at the end of this Congress, so won’t be involved in the EC counting.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Meant “Toomey”
Sure Lurkalot
@Amir Khalid: I’m a lurker often up when you comment. Your loss was too close to me to respond to at the time but I want to share that you express your feelings in such a way that everyone can relate to them.
Thank you. I will miss Bianca as much as my own gone cats…you made her life so vivid by your love for her.
Bill Arnold
@patroclus:
They, on the other hand, underestimate the peril to their own lives and the lives of their families if they start a civil war. Low-grade, but some(/many) of them (including Federal level politicians and judges) would die, and for the rest of their lives high-profile Republican traitors (and their families) would be forced to worry about IEDs and snipers and car bombs (including in their personal cars) and more exotic assassination methods. (Which would be escalated by right-wing death squads and revenge, iteratively.) There would also be society-level monkey-wrenching of various sorts, much of which can be non-violent. And this would all be amplified covertly/overtly by external enemies of the USA, to cause further implosion of the USA. Republicans are extremely foolish and living in an information-impermeable bubble if they believe otherwise.
(Writing as a believer in non-violent tactics, raised as a Quaker in outlook.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’d say who cares, but this is gonna drive one old man who still thinks Time magazine is a big deal
NotMax
@patroclus
You’re leaving out that on the 6th the results from Georgia will almost certainly not yet be final so the Senate will be 50-48 (counting the Is as siding with the Ds). All it takes is two members (I’d guess Romney as one) to buck McConnell (another perhaps absent due to quarantine) and the Ds prevail.
As for the whole Pelosi scenario – see the period at the end of the last sentence? One could fit the chances of that playing out a thousand times over inside it and still have room to stuff in a hippo.
Amir Khalid
@Sure Lurkalot:
Thank you.
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
???
There are those who call me...tim... (Still posh)
Whatever happened to Scoobie Davis?
In the first days of lurking, him and B. Juice were my go-tos.
Aleta
This must be a high point of his “presidency.” Refusing to commute death sentences just because he likes to kill and make suffer, and because it excites him to display that power. Treating this number of deaths as a distinction that will belong to him, like the most notches on a belt, without a bit of effort to achieve it. He’ll boast about it in speeches to come and even inflate the number. He’s as cold as a the eye of a dead fish. It’s a wonder that he still knows how to breathe.
Punchy
Just read an article saying Fat Barr knew all about HBiden’s investy but kept it on the DL thru the election, as per typical-but-not normal under Barr-DOJ rules. This is going to get him canned by tomorrow afternoon, for certain.
dww44
@Aleta: My Congressman was one of them, and get this, he was just reelected in one of the states whose results he wants the SC to overturn in favor of Trump. I’m calling him tomorrow.
Every one of the 106 Congress persons needs to be shamed and called and forced to explain why he or she is opposed to our constitutional representative democracy. It doesn’t matter that the case has no legal merit, their supporting this effort makes them guilty of sedition. All of them should be pilloried for this shameless affront to our democracy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Punchy: Jonathan Lemire just said on MSNBC that trump is said to be (evergreen said-to-be) “raging in private tonight”
Benw
I’m old enough to remember switching off the Christmas tree lights before bed, so the bulbs wouldn’t get hot enough to start a fire. Can you believe we used to literally burn wires in our houses for Xmas lights?
dww44
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good. Relevant or not, Time taking a stand for our Democracy is a good thing especially in light of what so many of the seditious GOP are up to right now.
Yarrow
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: The borders with the EU will seize up. They’re building giant lorry parking lots in Kent to make all the lorries wait while they’re being inspected. Lorry drivers are going to have to have a special permit, or “Kent Passport,” to go into that area.
France has been doing trial runs of the new customs and border processes and it’s resulting in long lines of lorries. And they’re prepared for what’s coming. The UK hasn’t even hired enough people and trained them to deal with the new border requirements. So that’s going to be a problem and an additional slow down.
A lot of fresh food won’t be worth much once it’s sat in a lorry queue for days, so that’s going to be one issue with food just getting through. Then there are the increased prices as tariffs go into effect. No one really seems to know what they’ll be and how they’ll work. Except prices will go up and shortages will occur.
Aleta
mrmoshpotato
@Benw: Oh bubble lights! You spicy bastards!
Yarrow
@Benw: People used to put actual candles on Christmas trees.
dww44
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): There is one thing we should all recognize by now: there is no critical mass within the GOP that can come to its senses and turn that massively broken ship around. The sooner we all recognize this, the more successful we will be in keeping our democratic ship of state turned away from them.
NickM
@patroclus: Couldn’t Biden be elected Speaker of the House- as I recall you don’t actually have to be an elected Rep to hold that role- and become President that way? Since we’re talking about crazy stuff anyway?
cain
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Seeing this man enraged is what makes life so sweet!
I want life to fuck him like evangelical couple on a pool boy.
StringOnAStick
@Amir Khalid: I’m so sorry your precious kitty friend passed. It is so hard to bear the loss of such a close companion. She knew she was loved.
cain
@Benw:
The great wonders of LED lights :) The same people are righting hard to allow CFL lights when pretty much nobody wants them.
NotMax
@cain
Betcha stress eating too.
And not carrot sticks.
cain
@NotMax:
The orders to McDonalds must be hot and furious.
TS (the original)
@patroclus:
No way is the support from the 17 other state AG’s legitimate. No idea why they want to support trump – other than they think it might be fun. Having to be responsible again & behave like adults is not something any of the trump sycophants want to do.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cain: would we know if McDonald’s food-producing machines had been installed in the White House kitchens?
NotMax
@Yarrow
Some folks still do.
;)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TS (the original): interesting who’s not on board: The Republican AGs of Iowa, Ohio and Georgia, an Idaho (somewhat less significant political, maybe, but interesting), and the out-going gov and governor-elect of Utah mildly but very publicly rebuked their AG
TS (the original)
@Yarrow:
And those complaining the most will be the people who voted for brexit.
Benw
@mrmoshpotato: bubble lights are the best. RIP our two bubble lights that stopped working this year.
@Yarrow: excellent plan. No downside!
Yarrow
@NotMax: Well, they did in 2012…
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“We’re out of McDonald’s hamburger buns!”
“Fuck it! Just soak regular buns in sugar water and squeeze them out!”
Yarrow
@TS (the original): Like conservatism, Brexit cannot fail, it can only be failed.
@Benw: Safety first!
Benw
@Yarrow: LOL
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There’s a McDonald’s on 17th Street across from the New Executive Office Building(that’s a 1/2 block up 17th from Pennsylvania).
Benw
@cain: and LEDs draw so little current!
Amir Khalid
@Aleta:
The horror of it is, Trump is having these men put to death out of spite. He’s lashing out at them because he can. That’s as damning as anything you can say about a person.
But I expect there will be no federal executions during the Biden/Harris administration. Harris is known to be strongly against capital punishment.
Amir Khalid
@mrmoshpotato:
Is there a Mickey D’s at Mar-a-Lago? If not, why?
Calouste
@Anya:
Boris never won the popular vote either. In the British system you can get a good parliamentary majority with 40% of the vote.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: McDonald’s has standards.
Martin
Nice trolling by Time naming Joe and Kamala persons of the year.
I don’t know why that gets under Trumps skin so much, it’s nice of them to continue to pour salt in the wound.
Martin
@Amir Khalid: VERY strongly against. Expect a hard push to end the practice by the federal govt.
Martin
@Benw: Those C9s threw of a hell of a lot of heat. I remember keeping warm by standing next to a strip of them at someones house one year.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Yarrow: Thanks for the explanation.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Presumes facts not in evidence.
// :)
mrmoshpotato
If not, why?
Because high school kids didn’t want to have to see Dump’s disgusting ass several times per day. Also, how do you pay for a McDonald’s franchise on US soil with Russkie mob money?
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: I didn’t say they were high standards.
mrmoshpotato
LOL! Really? Tell me about these “standards.”
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Great Biden-Harris cover (photo)
Omnes Omnibus
@mrmoshpotato: Not being at Mar-a-lago.
Aleta
@Benw: You could burn your finger on them. I have a sparse memory of outdoor ones melting snow.
TS (the original)
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Should say
“restoring democracy to America”
mrmoshpotato
OT – listening to the Dawn of the Dead theme. Would zombies invade an Amazon warehouse these days?
Calouste
@Yarrow: I went across the border between Bulgaria and Romania in the early 90s. The line for lorries was two days going one way and a week going the other. Seriously. We were in a car and it took us about 13 hours. That’s what’s going to happen between the UK and France.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Mar-a-lago.
The house that Grape Nuts built.
The house that Orange Putz ruined.
.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Depends if it’s a location where these are stored.
“Zombie Santa been very very good to me.”
;)
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: At first glance, I thought that was going to be a party-size gummy edible.
Benw
@Martin: @Aleta: I remember burning a finger several times while trying to get those damn lights to work.
The ideal thing to hang around a tree! :)
Steeplejack (phone)
@Amir Khalid:
“Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return.”
Peace to you, friend.
NotMax
@Calouste
If only those impacted had thought of deploying stale bread and fritters/a>.
:)
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Donner party-sized.
:)
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: (groan!)
Yarrow
@Calouste: Yep. It’s going to be a disaster. One thing that might mean fewer lorries on the road is that a new shipping ferry route is opening up from France to Ireland, bypassing the UK altogether. Less congestion on the roads but also fewer jobs for people who work at the UK ports.
Anya
A Texas woman spent $30K on plastic surgery (13) to look like Ivanka Trump. I wonder how many surgeries did Ivanka have to look like her current self?
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
They are like our conservatives (and conservatives everywhere) who want to go back in time to a country that never actually existed. They think they got ahead by being the “in” group 100-5000 yrs ago. But life back then, while it may have been better for some was still crap for everyone, it was just better crap for a few. This has always been a problem for conservatives, never look forward for answers, always look back.
Yarrow
@Anya: Definitely some. She didn’t used to look like she does now. Even her voice has changed.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Anya:
A. Lot. (photo 1) (photo 2) (photo 3)
She’s had more surgery than Frankenstein. Everything about them is fake
Anya
@Yarrow: She definitely had work done on her nose, chin, cheek bones, eyes among other things. She’s so fake. I legit hate her and her weirdo husband more than I hate her odious father.
Anya
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Google “Lil Xan and pre-plastic surgery Ivanka Trump”.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Amir Khalid:
It takes some time to soften the blow, love is like that. You have my condolences on the loss of your dear friend.
The Pale Scot
@trollhattan:
At this point, deal or not, Blighty is going to be blighted. WTO rules give 2,567 lorry licenses to UK drivers. Those drivers will not be allowed to pick up freight on the trip back from the EU. Ditto for EU drivers going to the UK. Currently a third of the lorry capacity says they will not make a one way haul in or out just to deadhead back. I bet a large portion of the other 2/3 just haven’t thought it thru yet. Even if the UK just waves trucks thru in violation of WTO rules, EU drivers will be stuck going thru customs going back into the EU. Covid may mask the consequences for a week or two. When shipping co. see what the reality is, there’s going to be a reckoning.
If I’m running a twenty truck outfit that can roam from the Polish-Ukrainian border to Portugal am I’m going to redirect resources to sorting out customs declarations for a load of lettuce to be delivered in Wales? I don’t see that happening
Many non-Brexiters are thinking that the consequences are going to be gradually felt. I don’t see it. SME are all about cutting their loses ASP. Unless the customer is willing to pay a premium up front, their docks are going to be empty
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Anya: plus her teeth are capped and boob implants – bigly
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Benw: Well, that was an improvement over having candles on the trees for lights. Now THAT was a fire hazard!
Tony Jay
Re: Brexit and the “Sez Who?” factor with respect to Lesser Brexitannians pointing at laughing at the soon to be sans-Trump.
Yes, it’s a disaster predicated on decades of propaganda and wilful self-delusion that is going to destroy this country.
No, we can’t point fingers at anyone else. Britain and the United States both made stupid mistakes in 2016 that blighted their futures, but when the United States got a chance to course-correct in a democratic election, it took it. You dumped a lying, bullying scumbag, 43% of our electorate elected one.
Now we pay the price.
NotMax
@Tony Jay
While I may well be leaving out one or two other types of producers of things ingestible, the only possible boon I espy from across two ponds is to the English/Welsh wine industry.
Geminid
@Tony Jay: it seems like two unnecessary elections paved the way for this debacle. David Cameron never should have called for the original referendum. And although I wasn’t paying close attention, I remember that opposition parties helped bring about the last one.
Geminid
Buzzfeed has a list of the 106 Republican Reps who signed the amicus brief. Chief Whip Scalise (LA) signed it; Minority leader McCarthy (CA) and Conference Chair Cheney (WY) did not.
prostratedragon
Bach getting all impish:
Tony Jay
@NotMax:
And hedge-funds betting on a dive for sterling. Plus the big investors looking to pick up collapsed industries for a couple of bitcoin. Oh and compliant politicians looking for a soft landing on the wingnut lecture circuit.
Plenty of profit to be made if you lack a soul.
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
Double yes. Cameron felt squeezed by the Conservative Right and hoped the promise of a referendum (that Leave would, of course, lose) would finally shut them up. Then he and his Chancellor, Osbourne, ran a stunted, ill-planned Remain campaign that chickened out of being pro-EU becase he didn’t want to speak truth to Conservative voters. Typical Tory selfishness that he scuttled away from ASAP.
And yes, there was a chance to prevent Brexit via Parlaiment, but once the pro-Leave minority on the Labour benches started backing Johnson’s bollocks the Scottish Nationalists and the Liberal Democrats did a 180 and announced they’d back an Election. The SNP figured they’d win more seats and get closer to winning a 2nd Independence Vote if Scots had to choose between Brexit Britain and a Wee Free Scotland in the EU, while the Liberal Democrats were just outright delusional. 5 years of backstabbing from the Labour Right did the rest, and here we are.
tl:dr – Everything was Corbyn’s fault. He did it all, on purpose, because shut up, that’s why. /s
opiejeanne
@Geminid: I’m really surprised that McCarthy didn’t sign it.
I need to look at that list to see if any of the eastern WA Republican swine signed on.
Geminid
@Tony Jay: About a year ago I read that super wealthy Britons were anxious to leave the E.U. before new financial reporting rules took effect January 1, 2020. Was this so?
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
Pretty much. The idea was to crack down on tax-avoidance and outright fraud, so getting out from under that set all the cockroaches scurrying. You can tell how important a factor it was amongst the shady money set by the virtually total embargo placed on coverage by our ‘independent’ News Media.
They know what it’s all about, but they’d never be so rude as to discuss the Master Race’s affairs in front of the hoi polloi.
Geminid
@opiejeanne: Three out of four Virginia Republicans did not sign on to the brief. Randy Wittman in the 1st was one. His district to the east of Richmond was actually carried by Biden, although Wittman won easily. My 5th District Congressman, Denver Riggleman, was bounced in a convention by “Biblical Consevative” Bob Good. In his farewell floor speech, Riggleman was quite vocal in his criticism of this effort. And Morgan Griffith, who represents the very conservative Southwestern 9th District, did not sign. Shenandoah Valley 6th District Representative Ben Cline did sign. He’s younger than Griffith, and maybe he fears that a primary might cut short his political career.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Tony Jay: So what happens now?
Is there panic buying and hoarding occurring?
What are the points of contention preventing a settlement?
ps the Lionesses are so charming (video)
Tony Jay
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Yarrow was asking about that yesterday, and all I can say is that I haven’t seen much sign of it. I’m not on social media at all, but people who are suggest that the public’s main focus has been on Covid, which – has – led to some stockpiling, but with Christmas coming there’s been no oxygen in the room for reality to get a look in. For what it’s worth I saw my first screaming “No Deal Shortages Ahead!” headline just yesterday, and Brexit is back in the news, so the national attitude could spin on a dime and see massive bulk-buying post-Christmas as people start to put two and two together.
As to the points of contention, it basically boils down to delusion vs reality. The new Tory Press Spokesperson (another family member/close friend of the core Johnson Cabal) has just admitted that they may have (and I paraphrase a bit) slightly underestimated the EU’s commitment to retaining the rules under which its single-market functions. Apparently they really have been operating under the delusion that the EU would buckle and allow an independent UK to function as a low-regulation clearing house flooding the EU market with substandard dross from all over the world, and now that it’s starting to dawn on them that the mythical German car manufacturers and French wine industry are not going to bend the ear of Berlin and Paris to bully the rest of the EU 27 Johnson is flabbling away about how outrageous and unacceptable it is that the EU expects the UK to abide by EU trade-rules if it wants access to the EU market.
I’m not even joking. The argument boils down to “We voted not to be bound by EU rules, so it’s unfair of you to expect us to follow them just because everyone else you trade with does. We’re special!”
We’re not special. We’re fucked.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Tony Jay: Ah. In the U.S. the coverage centered on UK voters being tricked into believing Leave would bolster NHS coffers and voters not wanting those Poles and Hungarians living next door. Nothing about undermining and exploiting consumer protection/regulation.
Geminid
@Tony Jay: Will a no-deal Brexit result in custom posts on the Irish border? Some have said these might become targets for IRA diehards.
SiubhanDuinne
@cain:
O. M. G.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
@NotMax:
When I lived in Michigan, I had a close friend who had grown up in the Netherlands. Every year, she lighted her tree with real candles. Beautiful to behold, but scared.me.to.fuckin.death.
It’s 45 years later, and she and her husband are still alive, and their house is intact, but I still shudder deeply at the thought of what could go wrong in an instant.
JAFD
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Here be a third reader of Mallworld.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
I remember hearing a story that the Prophet (PBUH) had a favourite cat who once fell asleep upon the flowing sleeve of his robe. When it was time for prayers, he was reluctant to disturb her, so instead he cut off the sleeve of his garment so as not to awaken her.
Are you familiar with this anecdote? Are there details that I’ve forgotten, or got wrong?
Tony Jay
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Exactly. It’s horses for courses, innit?
Bob and Mavis Snell of 16 Garden Lane didn’t want to hear that Brexit was a massive smash-and-grab con job devised and promoted by a ludicrously rich sector of the financial elite using the Tory Right as its willing figurehead that would shatter communities and reduce Britain to a poverty-stricken basketcase. They did want to hear that Brexit was a grass-roots response to politically-correct attacks on their culture and a boot to the face of the London-centric elites who offered them nothing while demanding their votes. So that’s what they were told, and lots of them believed it. They still believe it, to one degree or another, in the same way that deep-dive Trumpers really believe that the Democrats must have stolen the election. Their self-worth is invested in a lie, and it’s always someone else’s fault when reality intervenes.
It’s just that our electoral system and massively biased Media makes it hard to outvote them.
ColoradoGuy
Tony, it’s been a long time I was in the UK (1975), so l’m wondering how much of Brexitmania was driven by nostalgia for the imagined glories of Empire and the lesser glories of the 1950’s Commonwealth days. Do the Tories actually imagine they can drag Australia, New Zealand, and Canada back into the embrace of the Commonwealth?
Baud
@Tony Jay:
Nominated for the rotating tag.
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
That’s what the serial u-turns of the last few days were about. The EU refused to let Brexit blow up the Good Friday Agreement, which meant that any customs border would have to be between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. Johnson swore up and down that he could never, ever accept this violation of sovereignty and even had his MPs vote for an Act that would give him the right to break international law by ignoring the GFA and the Withdrawal Act he himself signed. He huffed, and he puffed, and then of course he backed down, because the UK has ZERO credibility and ZERO leverage and the EU doesn’t give a toss about how embarrassing it is for Johnson to have to acknowledge that the GFA is much, much more important to the rest of the world than his overinflated ego or the fevered wank-dreams of Little Englander xenophobes.
There won’t be a border between NI and the Republic of Ireland, which means NI is within the EU single market and more than halfway towards reunification. All because the Tory Party bought nationalist underpants that it never had the balls to pack out.
Geminid
Not surprisingly, Senator Rand Paul (KY) is gumming up the works as Congress tries to pass the NDAA and a stopgap spending bill. Paul claims that NDAA language barring further troop cuts in Iraq and Afghanistan intrude on Presidential prerogatives (he’ll likely be on the other side of that general argument once Biden is in office). The NDAA also bars planned troop cuts in Germany. Paul and Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) have been slamming each other over the issue, and it’s gotten personal.
Tony Jay
@ColoradoGuy:
It’s hard to say. ‘Brexit’ as a concept was so amorphous that it could be whatever its believers wanted it to be. Flag-waving patriotic declaration of rights? Sure, why not. Xenophobic attack on immigration and the defiantly brown? That too. A primal scream of rage and loneliness from the ‘ignored’ backwaters of the country? Of course it was.
The only thing that you can say about Brexit is that the people who want it just bloody well want it and they’ll vote for it with a smile on their faces and a song in their hearts every time. You can’t argue them out of it because that means you’re saying they’re wrong, which makes you an arrogant know-it-all, and what do we say to arrogant know-it-alls, children? That’s right, we tell them “Piss off!”, that’ll show them.
Oh, there’s one other thing you can say about Brexit. When the fit hits the shan and the country reels from the sudden plunge into poverty and chaos, it’ll be everyone else’s fault but the people who promoted and voted for it.
Only ‘those people’ fail, not the Brexit.
rikyrah
@Amir Khalid:
This is Bill Barr all the way.
Geminid
@Tony Jay: It sounds like elites did a slick job of bamboozling the “grass roots.” Apparently the Brexit campaign was illegally funded, and probably bolstered by Russian social media subversion, but it got the dirty job done.
NotMax
@Tony Jay
Change the name from Great Britain to Lesser Wankerstan?
:)
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
Yup. But since the inquiry into Russian subversion of the 2016 Referendum came back stating that, “Yeah, there was probably loads and they also own the Tory Party lock, stock and barrel, but since the Intelligence Services ‘decided’ not to investigate the topic we can’t say categorically how bad it was so, oh well, never mind” the News Media and those who get invited on it have decided the question is closed.
Aren’t we marvellous? What a fucking country.
Tony Jay
@NotMax:
It’s an idea. Let’s have a Referendum about it!
Odds on “Wanky McWankland”, though I’ve always preferred the Autonomous Corporate Oblast of Lesser Brexitannia-on-the-Wold.
daize
@Amir Khalid: Been thinking of you. So sorry for the loss of your dear girl.
Geminid
@Tony Jay: Well, at least you folks can still keep driving on the left side of the road. The price of fish and chips will go up, but beans are good for you. So long as social distancing measures are observed.
trnc
@Anya:
They’re people, and people believe what they want. They’re the worst (they being people, of course).
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
Ah, the sunlit uplands of a better tomorrow. Gnawing on unicorn horns and drinking pixie piss while the Lords and Ladies dance the nights away behind fortress walls.
Because it’s worth it!
NotMax
@Tony Jay
Postage stamps wouldn’t fit on an envelope.
;)
Geminid
@Tony Jay: That reminds me of the society Ken Follet depicted in Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. Past may be prologue for England. Maybe it has always been.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: Late to this thread, but I haven’t received mine yet.
Tony Jay
@NotMax:
And who’d be writing to us?
Well, except bailiffs?
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
Can’t argue with that. The aristos don’t know what they’re in for.
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore: Um…then there are those of us who like both.
S. Cerevisiae
I have always thought that Putin used the Brexit vote as a dry run for his interference in the 2016 US election. I think this’ll go badly for the UK as all of you have been saying, although maybe I can get a good deal on some B & W speakers in a few years.
Miss Bianca
@Anya: $30,000 is more than I live on in a year.
J R in WV
@Roger Moore:
We have had as many as 3 dogs, but up to 9 cats (after an accidental birth of 5 kittens) but there is no logical explanation for our actions with regard to puppies and kitties.
J R in WV
Regarding Christmas trees and flames: Many years ago we had an xmas party, with a tree so large I had to install guy wires to make it stable, then at the party attendees decorated it, back then we had glass ice-cicles which looked pretty swell in a mostly dark room with the tree lights on.
Anyway, after the holiday season, that tree went into the bottom of a pile of construction debris, lumber ends and such, and brush, which served for a spring party bonfire. I used one match to light the bits of the tree sticking out of the pile, and it went up as if I had poured gasoline/petrol on the pile. I staggered back and the whole pile was totally engulfed in flames in 5 seconds or less.
Never allow a open flame near a pine tree, even fresh and green, they burn like the fuel they are!