— Tom Morello (@tmorello) December 30, 2020
Programming note:
President-elect Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden are set to give “their last interview of the year” in New York’s Times Square as part of @ABCNetwork's New Year's #RockinEve special with @RyanSeacrest.https://t.co/jqKxXr2ACD
— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) December 30, 2020
*frantically searching for game about puppy dogs and rainbows that can be delivered by end of day*
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) December 31, 2020
Mexico will repay the party guests. https://t.co/1ycwpqyvV6
— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) December 31, 2020
Palate cleanser:
raven
I coulda been in dat band!
Bruuuuce
Happy New Year! A bit of beauty to start New Year’s Eve: NYC just opened the Moynihan Train Hall in the old Post Office building across Eighth Avenue from Madison Square Garden. Go look at the photo gallery!
Baud
Is it over already?
waspuppet
Gee I’m sure Melania’s really happy about that.
Not that she’s not a terrible person too, but I’ve gotten to the point where literally everything that makes Trump unhappy makes me happy, and I’m sure she’s not making his life any easier right now.
germy
Ten Bears
Technically the ninth day of the new year, but who’s counting, aeh?
germy
Trump leaving Mar-a-Lago early. I’m surprised. I really thought he’d stay there after Christmas and refuse to return to Washington.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@germy: Trump probably thinks he can force the senate not the accept the Electoral Collage.
JPL
ANNE, The dog video is great, and thank you for posting it.
@germy: I wonder why? It might be that he wasn’t receiving the attention that he thought he deserved in FL.
germy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yes, now that Pence won’t do it.
germy
@JPL:
I read somewhere they got a smaller crowd agreeing to attend the party, and he was miffed.
Elizabelle
Prolific serial killer Samuel Little died yesterday. Has confessed to 93 murders. The WaPost headline last night:
Deadliest serial killer in American history dies at 80, with police still searching for his victims
WaPost reader commenters beg to differ. Top reader comment (most liked):
Along that vein:
Cannot argue. I hope that we get justice in prosecuting Donald Trump, in years to come. For financial crimes, if nothing else.
NotMax
Picture for the day (and night0.
And because a thread can always benefit from music –
Champagne Galop
Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne (Challenge: how many incorporated themes can you recognize?)
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Shit, I love dogs so fucking much. I don’t know how I could make it without them. And now I have to go give Smedley Darlington Mingobat some love.
rikyrah
germy
@Elizabelle:
It’s horrifying to realize that right this very minute there’s a younger version of Little out there, doing his thing.
Also horrifying to realize there’s a younger Trump out there somewhere in the Republican party, watching and learning.
germy
@rikyrah:
NotMax
@rikyrah
Unfortunately, for an entrenched segment of the electorate in Georgia (and the South in general), that’s an endorsement.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: Seems like nobody has ever heard of Josef Stalin.
rikyrah
???
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle:In truth*, he’s not even close. Hitler pales in comparison to Stalin. Not sure where Mao fits on the scale. Never forget Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. I’m sure there were others that got up there in antiquity too.
*I just finished reading Bloodlands. The numbers are overwhelming, impossible to feel the loss.
germy
@NotMax:
He’s an “ex-klansman” so maybe that brand is too toxic for some of them down there.
rikyrah
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: Tell us something we don’t already know, Roland.
Cameron
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Sounds right to me.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
But- but – Uncle Joe was crusty but benign on Petticoat Junction.
;)
Cameron
@rikyrah: It’s great that he was willing to call her out, but I doubt that anybody in the Fox News audience cares.
Kristine
@rikyrah: Good morning ☀️!
Last morning of this damned year. I’m at an age where I don’t like wishing time away, but I’ll be glad to see the back of it.
germy
JPL
@rikyrah: That’s good news. There are fewer places to early vote in Cobb, and I was afraid that would hurt turnout. Now Gwinnett dems need to vote in high numbers.
NotMax
@germy
It’s all in the hearing, innit?
“A Klansman and a member of the X-men? I’m in!”
//
JPL
Washington Post had a nice article about the last Calvin and Hobbes strip, twenty five years ago. New snow is like a big white sheet of paper to draw on. I’d like to believe that 2021 is like that, but unfortunately trump is still president. link
NotMax
@JPL
So, counting on Gwinnett to button it up?
(couldn’t resist) ;)
germy
Ryan Seacrest makes my skin crawl.
oatler.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-johnson-father-idUSKBN2950VV
MomSense
I’ve never wished I had authored a tweet until now. That Morello tweet is perfection.
Betty Cracker
Re: Trump going to DC — he’s been encouraging the cultists to show up and protest Congress’s certification of the election on 1/6, and maybe he plans to address them at a Nuremberg-style rally. But he wouldn’t have to miss the NYE shindig at Disgraceland for that. More worrisome, maybe he’s planning military action against Iran or some other country.
Nelle
@OzarkHillbilly: Another Snyder reader? My husband has read Bloodlands and Black Earth (italics not working for me) this fall. NPR had an interview with him this week about his latest book on the healthcare system and his experience as a patient last year.
NotMax
@JPL
Watterson was a cartoon wunderkind but placing him on the same plane as Winsor McCay is several bridges too far, IMHO.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Betty Cracker: So Trump will claim there is a war going on and we can’t have a pesky change of leadership during it? Never mind the Civil War and the WW2, or that we’ve have three changes of government during the Iraq War?
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly:
Read about the Great Leap Forward. Here or here.
debbie
@germy:
He’s got to pack up all the stuff he wants to steal.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Thank you for the Dogs of 2020 link. I needed that so much.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Doom pron? Really? With all due respect, strongly suggest going back to bed and getting out on the other side.
Immanentize
@NotMax: perhaps benign, but he was always movin’ kinda slow….
debbie
@rikyrah:
Best thing I’ll see all day, I bet. Thanks!
germy
@NotMax:
I don’t know. When Calvin’s dinosaur and spaceman fantasies were illustrated, it was impressive, like a whole different comic strip.
Immanentize
@raven:
Rave Ramone works for me. But the blond must go?
Zzyzx
It’s 2021 in Sydney right now. It’s another reason to be envious of those in Australia.
Nelle
I’m pretty low-key about tonight and saving my celebration for the evening of January 20. Not even the 19th. I distrust anticipation. I think the universe agrees with me. I ordered two calendars for 2021; neither has arrived yet.
Ken
@germy: Conversely, many cartoonists have at one time or another paid tribute to Watterson by using his C&H style. One of my favorites is in the Locke and Key series.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Remember how he and his staff conducted policy in the middle of MaL’s dining room after the first North Korea bomb run? Why not do that now? It certainly got him all kinds of attention.
Ken
@Zzyzx: UTC+14:00 for the win. Also for the most damage to the International Date Line.
OzarkHillbilly
@Nelle: Bloodlands was the first of his I’ve read. Very good, but like I said, overwhelming. I’ll look for his interview. Thanx for the tip.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: Do you have a recommendation on which?
zhena gogolia
@Bruuuuce:
My husband is so excited.
germy
@Ken:
I thought it was most hilarious when Watterson had Calvin and Susie in a soap opera style comic strip (like Mary Worth or Rex Morgan, M.D.) but with Watterson’s dialog.
Ken
@debbie: I’m not sure you can call discussing classified information in front of uncleared diners “conducting policy”. Then again, I’m not sure anything Trump has done for the last four years can be called “conducting policy”.
Hypothetical question – if you’re one of the (probably many) foreign agents who bought a Mar-a-lago membership, do you cancel it in January, or wait for it to lapse normally? Which would be better, in terms of not drawing attention to yourself?
Soprano2
This is totally believable, since he thinks they should want to come and worship him even in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Perhaps he’s finally becoming aware that people wanting to suck up to him is coming to an end.
I listened to a “Planet Money” podcast yesterday about the Black Death in 1347 – 1349 in Europe, and how it affected the economy. It made me wonder what the death rate for COVID would be if we didn’t have modern medical treatment and didn’t even know how it spread. The Black Death had a death rate of 50%! I don’t think it would be that high, but it might be as high as 5-10%. The Black Death changed the economy of Europe for a century; it allowed people to move into new professions and demand more in wages. It was one of the few times when inequality became less. What a horrible way to get there, though.
Also this morning I heard a story on “Morning Edition” about a 59-year-old woman who lost her husband, who was in his mid-70’s, to COVID, and all I could think was “that could have been me”. I’m totally aware of how lucky we both were. I’m slowly getting some of my sense of smell back; I can smell most perfumes, and I tasted my amaretto coffee yesterday! Don’t underestimate how much better eating is when you can actually taste the flavor of the food
(Edited several times for dumbass mistakes)
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
I voted in Gwinnett a couple of days ago, early afternoon. Took about an hour from the end of the line to scanning my ballot. I did notice when I left that the line was much longer than it was when I had joined it, and found that encouraging.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: I watched that twice last night and once again this morning. Show ’em how it’s done, Jon
edit: 3.7 million views!
Soprano2
Oh, and thanks for that “Dogs of 2020” video. It made me tear up in several places. Palate cleanser indeed, it’s a reminder that no matter how much things suck there is still joy and happiness in the world. I don’t know where I saw it, but I saw a cartoon where two humans were saying “2020 was the worst year of my life”, while two dogs were saying “2020 was the best year of my life”. It’s all in the perspective.
OzarkHillbilly
Spurs’ Becky Hammon becomes first woman to direct NBA team
Elizabelle
I love the Dogs of 2020 video.
It’s good we don’t have to pay them for all their wonderfulness, because we could never afford them.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I have been assured by some that there is “No way!” that trump will start a war with Iran. I’m not sure how they could be so certain, though.
debbie
@Bruuuuce:
Wow! I remember Penn Station as such a dreary, dreary, place.
Elizabelle
@Soprano2: 2020 was the best year in a lot of dogs’ lives. LOL.
I have seen articles like “how to prepare your dog for your return to the office.” Maybe a tad premature, but it’s a thing.
SiubhanDuinne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I’ve been wondering if Trump is going to try to pull some last-ditch stunt, like personally storming the Senate on the 6th.
Elizabelle
@Soprano2: Good to hear that you are on the mend, and that taste is returning.
And all best thoughts for japa21, who has been hospitalized for COVID. Think he/she was waiting for a bed sometime last night.
Danielx
@debbie:
Do you suppose there’s a gold plated bust of himself?
WaterGirl
@Cameron: Well 3.7 million people have viewed that 2 minute FOX news interview, so it’s definitely getting some play.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: I have only read the Dikötter one.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Some people pick on Jon Ossoff for his “thin resume.” But after years of producing documentaries, he certainly knew what to do when handed some free Fox airtime.
Betty Cracker
@debbie: It’s probably pointless to look for logic in the actions of a desperate madman, but it does seem odd that he’d bug out of his own shindig. Allegedly, Trump asked for options on an Iran strike in mid-November but was dissuaded from taking any action. [NYT] He’s become even more unraveled since then. Or maybe it’s just that party ticket sales were slow. In any case, it’ll be a relief not to have to worry about what a decompensating narcissist will do with US military hardware after 1/20.
debbie
@Danielx:
Yes, dressed as Caligula.
SiubhanDuinne
@Bruuuuce:
Gorgeous! Thanks for that link.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: And? ;-)
debbie
@Geminid:
It seems like résumés don’t mean anything anymore. Thanks, Populism!
Elizabelle
Jackals: do you have your 12 grapes (each) ready for this evening?
Food Republic: 12 Grapes At Midnight: Spain’s Great New Year’s Eve Tradition, And Superstition
We did this in Alicante, Spain a few years ago, in a big plaza with a band. They had been setting off fireworks in broad daylight, hours before. It was the best. Spaniards know how to celebrate!
To our being able to roam the world again before long, and to losing our national “plague rat” status.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I’m guessing it’s more along the lines of “you can’t fire me, I quit.”
The small crowd at his party tonight isn’t because they didn’t want to be there – the crowd is small because Trump isn’t there.
Or maybe he is finally accepting that he really did lose and he can’t face any of them.
Chyron HR
@Geminid:
Donald the Dove is alliterative, what more proof do you need?
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, I mean it is a real historical accomplishment, just as Snyder’s work is. But it’s really hard to read about millions of people starving to death. And having gone through Harvest of Sorrow and Bloodlands doesn’t make it any easier.
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: Hear hear!
I am ready to ramble.
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker:
Even before, but especially since the Israeli assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, I’ve been concerned that a substantial component of Trump’s plan to subvert the election results would be to provoke a new, huge military misadventure abroad, coupled with brazenly insisting that such a moment of crisis is no time to switch Presidents with the election result still in dispute, and then leverage the ongoing hot conflict to stall, stall, stall to indefinitely delay Biden from taking office and bet that the democrats will be unable to summon the muscle needed to forcefully evict Trump from the White House or block him from continuing to act as President .
Thankfully, he’s not quite bold or Machiavellian clever enough (so far) to attempt such a high-risk tactic, whereas continuing to stoke political opposition and seek judicial intervention to overturn the election are actually a much safer in that he doesn’t incur any additional personal risk from following that course instead. Trump is brazen and totally amoral and narcissistically hungry for power and attention, yet a coward against taking an “all-in” risk of attempting a forceful coup where he would need to count on the agents of force within the government standing down from effectively challenging or removing him.
germy
@WaterGirl:
I think they sent out RSVP invitations and didn’t get the replies they’d hoped for.
Geminid
@Soprano2: In Ken Follet’s novel World Without End, the Black Plague and it’s economic impact are major substories. Follet is a good story teller, and the book is hard to put down. It is a sequel to Pillars of the Earth.
Raoul Paste
t@MomSense: I want to take guitar lessons from Tom Morello
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Soprano2: Years ago, I read A Distant Mirror about the Black Death. It’s by Barbara Tuchman. The consequences were staggering. Even the age at which women typically married dropped lower because young men inherited farms and they could support themselves.
Connie Willis also has a spec fic book, The Doomsday Book. It’s set in near future Oxford. The only speculative element is that they can time travel. Historians do research that way. So the premise is that this grad student is going back to Oxford in the early 14 century to research Christmas customs. Something goes wrong and she winds up in the middle of the Black Death and since the machine is malfunctioning, she can’t get back.
I took a class from Connie once, and wound up with her driving me to dinner (at which George Martin was present). She told me that it took her years to write the book, and then her editor rejected it, saying the story would drive readers away because basically it was all life is shit and then you die. Obviously, she eventually revised enough for it to be published, but in the meantime, she hadn’t sold a book in 5 years. After she got the rejection, she went to visit her husband who was living away from home to finish a degree. He thought he’d just flubbed an exam and they sat across a restaurant table, holding hands, and crying.
I seem to be rambling.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Elizabelle: No! Japa lives near me. He and Mrs Japa once came to a library sale where I had a table. They were very kind. Oh wow. I hope he’s all right.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
Wait. Lucky food is to be eaten on NYE instead of Jan. 1? I’ve been doing it wrong all this time?
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: That was classic–my other favorite artistic departure was “Calvin, the mighty god, creates the universe with pure will!”
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah, there is no way I could read it right now, but in a year I might be ready to wade into such murder and mayhem again.
JAFD
Heather Cox Richardson’s morning newsletter today
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-30-2020
is the best summary of the first fifth of the 21st century I have seen, and, IMAO, well worth your perusal.
As you may know, WQXR asks listeners to vote for their favorite works of classical music, and plays the top 100 in decending order befor the New Year – you can listen to the top 17 today. Dollars to donuts* LvB’s 9th will be in top spot again, and the Ode to Joy will be heard early in 2021, but minor front in culture war has broken out in comments to
https://www.wqxr.org/story/2020-classical-countdown-vote-now/
(*The yoots who patronize Krispy Kream these days must wonder where that phase came from.)
Hoping all of you have a healthy, happy and prosperous 2021 !
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I am hoping so, too. They have gotten much better at knowing how to treat covid, which is really important. Japa21 also has pneumonia.
His wife was going to leave his phone charger at the front desk this morning, so he may pop up on Balloon Juice once his phone is charged.
Bruuuuce
@zhena gogolia: It’s gorgeous. With break dancing among the clouds in stained glass. I hope he gets to see it soon, and is okay in doing so.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: No wonder your life has been pure shit all this time.
Elizabelle
@debbie: Technically, if you’re slow on eating your grapes ….
This year calls for lucky food every effing day. Thank dog we just have one left. To 2021 being a return to sanity.
germy
Bruuuuce
@debbie: The modern one is. This one was apparently modeled in part on the old Penn Station, which when it was torn down inspired NYC’s historic preservation movement.
Matt McIrvin
@cmorenc:
He can certainly try, but the problem with this is that it makes sense only to Trump, or a Trump fanatic–nobody else, certainly no Democrat or centrist, would believe that the danger of switching Presidents is greater than the danger of keeping Trump in charge of whatever is happening. The urgency of getting him out of there so Biden can defuse or manage the new crisis would only increase. The lack of any institutional or legal basis for keeping Trump in would just make this choice easier. Come noon on January 20, he is not Commander-in-Chief and the military must not obey his orders.
Bruuuuce
@SiubhanDuinne: De nada.
M31
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I love Willis’s work! Thanks for the story about, her — how was the class?
Doomsday book is pretty intense, I will say. Though in most parts of the world in 1349 ‘life is shit and then you die’ was about right.
(‘To Say Nothing of the Dog’ is one of my all time favorite books)
germy
Tony Jay
@NotMax:
The X-Klansmen were not a well recieved spin-off from the main series* and very few fans objected when Magneto dropped half of downtown Manhattan on their pointy little heads.
*and also one of the few X-teams Wolverine was not a member of.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
There’s the slow-rolling death machine in the Congo as well – those numbers are shocking.
Elizabelle
@JAFD: You may have seen this. The NY Times media critic, Ben Smith, did a big and favorable writeup on the fabulous Heather Cox Richardson.
And, for whatever reason, mentioned in the last paragraphs that he doesn’t actually read her stuff. He’s too busy with twitter. ‘Splains a lot over at that newspaper.
Dr. HCP is a sanity and intelligence pill.
NY Times:
Heather Cox Richardson Offers a Break From the Media Maelstrom. It’s Working.
She is the breakout star of the newsletter platform Substack, doing the opposite of most media as she calmly situates the news of the day in the long sweep of American history.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Genghis Khan is said to be far and away the deadliest.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Zzyzx:
We did NYE 2019 in Sydney – a lot of fun, too much rain, and the numbers of people were intimidating. As I understand, this year is really subdued.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@M31: The class was good. It was 2 week speculative novel workshop in Taos. I worked my butt off.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
Susie – “Doctor, I have a headache.”
Calvin – “You need a lobotomy. Let me get my saw.”
Cracks me up every time.
Elizabelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I read the Doomsday Book this year, and its scenes set in 1348 were gripping; the characters there seemed more real than the university crowd. The present day stuff, not so much, (she could lose the bell ringers and that irritating woman) but she imagined quite a bit of technology that is now commonplace.
How cool that you have talked with her.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Hawley has actually done us a favor by forcing the GOP to take a vote they are destined to lose. Takes the spotlight away from Pence when it comes to opening up the electoral votes.
Matt McIrvin
…The other thing about really BIG military misadventures is that it’s too late for Trump to start one, unless it’s something like a thermonuclear war (and, while you can’t rule anything out with a decompensating pissed-off narcissist, I don’t think Trump is actually suicidal). He can order air strikes and create a big mess, but it takes months to spool up the logistics for something like a ground invasion.
M31
@Baud: In terms of percentage of the total world population killed, Genghis wins.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Soprano2:
We were in Tuscany in 2016, and a have a lot of nice photos. One of the is of a car park in Siena bounded by a huge wall of an incomplete structure. I asked the guide what the wall was for. She advised that it was to be the largest cathedral in all Christendom, but that the Black Death halted the work.
It was a silent, sobering pause that followed.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I was thinking about Genghis Khan too although — way for everyone to miss the point (and you did not start that). It’s placing Trump as a mass murderer; he doesn’t have to be only the 9th to 23rd worst in history.
People are forgetting the Cherokees’ Trail of Tears, under Andrew Jackson, too.
We gloom too much here, but Trump is not going to escape his part in making a pandemic more deadly. History is not going to be kind to him, or to his supporters and political party.
germy
@M31:
How about King Leopold?
germy
@Elizabelle:
Depends who writes the history books.
My history textbooks in the 1960s devoted several pages to “carpetbaggers” (with a cartoon illustration of an evil, sneaky man) who swarmed the South after the Civil War.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Elizabelle:
Bought my black eyed peas already.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Right!?!
TS (the original)
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Sydney has just become the Australian hotspot of covid-19 – although by world standards not yet out of control. Entry to the city center tonight was via a permit – so the fireworks went ahead with limited city spectators.
It was suggested that they just show last years event on TV & no-one would know the difference. Would have saved a few million $ as well.
My city cancelled the fireworks so we watched Sydney on TV. I am so over this year. Surely 2021 will be better.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
We’ll, if you want to go down that road, being negligent or indifferent or even reckless is different in kind than deliberately murdering people. Trump is awful and I don’t know that we are aided by hyperbolizing his awfulness.
Bruuuuce
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The Doomsday Book has been immortalized musically in a song that requires a Kleenex warning.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
Yeah, I seem to remember a large chunk of mine referring to those guys as well.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: And yet, to me at least, there is a difference between inflicting death on others as part and parcel of military conquest, and inflicting death on your own population due to insane socioeconomic theory (e.g. the Khmers Rouges, Mao’s Great Leap Forward.)
mrmoshpotato
It’s January 19th?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@TS (the original):
So it was a GREAT deal for kajillionaires with homes on the Harbour.
debbie
@germy:
Dammit with these fanatic assholes!
germy
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Yeah. Hitler killed more Russians than Jews, but most Russians were killed in war while the Jews were straight up murdered.
Baud
@germy:
Standard operating procedure, but good.
mrmoshpotato
@germy: LOL Brilliant!
AWOL
Johnny Ramone. Met him. A right-wing piece of shit. If he didn’t fill himself with drugs, liquor, bile, and necrophiliac-reading/AV materials and kick-off young, he’d be Minister of KKKulture in the Trump Regime.
M31
in terms of ‘unforced choices by a President that caused death’ Trump wins by a mile.
Sure more Americans were killed in WWII but it’s not like FDR could have stayed out of it. LBJ could have ended Vietnam, but Trump’s personal choices killed hundreds of thousands.
Gotta go back to the Confederacy to kill more people than Trump, though by the time the pandemic is over Trump will be pretty close.
It’s gruesome, and cheered along every step of the way by the GOP.
(I didn’t include Vietnamese/Cambodian dead, so maybe it’s Nixon after all)
WaterGirl
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: If only there were a place to submit photos so they could be shared on Balloon Juice! :-)
debbie
@Elizabelle:
These acts of terrorizing (which is what they really are) have been non-stop since forever, as shown by this small, powerful book. Evil or indifference aside, they never seem to work, but the monsters keep trying.
debbie
@AWOL:
In the Ramones’ honor.
germy
Warning:
TS (the original)
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
As usual – and they didn’t have to see the unwashed hordes!
debbie
@Bruuuuce:
God, I loved walking into Grand Central Station!
Ken
In percentage terms, Cain wiped out 25% of the human population.
Genghis has a lot of descendants, according to historical records and DNA testing. He’s got a good shot at someday being an ancestor of all living humans (see explainxkcd for a brief rundown on that).
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: What makes you think it wasn’t deliberate?
AWOL
Saw Joey once. Never heard him play. He was sitting above me in the balcony of the Palladium rattling his jewelry while PIL played. This was on a bizarre freezing summer night in NYC in the early ’90s. Heard he was a nice fellow Queens dude.
Johnny was into sick, heavy ultraviolence. Met him at primitive version of a ComicCon in Albany.
Thanks for sharing the cute Amy Rigby song.
germy
@AWOL:
Johnny Rotten is a trump supporter. I wasn’t surprised when I learned that.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
IIRC, Don Jr’s birthday is NYEve. Donald skipping out tonight wouldn’t be the first time he’s dissed his eldest child.
germy
Didn’t we learn that Jared’s plan was to leave the blue states to their own devices, and “it’ll be their problem” ?
Sounds deliberate.
dww44
@Geminid: Thin resume? Less thin than what Perdue brought to the table in 2014 from his corporate background? Both he and Loeffler have less claim to relevant Public policy experience than Ossoff.
FYI the RSCC unleashed a new anti Warnock ad calling out the candidate for domestic abuse earlier in 2020 for running over his wife’s foot. It was backed up with video of her in tears and of the report in the AJC. This is all brand new to me. Not good if true.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: Prediction: most of these early COVID vaccine doses in the United States are going to be thrown away unused, either because somebody sabotaged them, or (mostly) because the people they were earmarked for refused to get vaccinated and they went bad before they could be allocated to anyone willing to take them.
I hope people can get their shit together after January 20th, but they’re going to get no meaningful central direction before then.
AWOL
@germy: Yup. I read that. Not surprised. Punk became neo-nazi “Oi!” music. Curbstomp music. Asshole movement.
I’m glad I’m listening to WKCR’s pandemic BachFest right now. These days I stick to Talking Heads, Eno, Jazz, Classical.
Life is too short for idiots.
debbie
@Matt McIrvin:
Sorry, but sabotage is criminal. I hope there are consequences, though I’d bet “religious freedom” will pop up somewhere in this.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: He was exactly who I had in mind when I wrote that.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@SiubhanDuinne: He is a drama queen. I don’t buy a rally with the proud boys because they might upstage him, but Trump storming the senate or a bombing attack on Iran would fit.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@SiubhanDuinne: He is a drama queen. I don’t buy a rally with the proud boys because they might upstage him, but Trump storming the senate or a bombing attack on Iran would fit.
rikyrah
Happy New Year, Kay.
I still miss you :(
JanieM
@germy: Typical of Clickbait to go off in a snit, getting back at the ones who decided not to come by punishing the ones who were coming.
Tony Jay
@germy:
He’s the very definition of a contrarian arsehole. If the ‘kewl kids’ are doing it, no matter what it is, he’s your go-to rentaquote for why it’s “PC bullshit”.
Such a ‘free spirit’ he’s entirely and endlessly predictable.
germy
@JanieM:
Clickbait. Excellent name for him.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Trump wouldn’t do an actual war with Iran for the same reason he called that attack off in 2019; because all the attention goes to the generals in the Central Command and not on him. Some limited attack were the press will be bothered to show up and listen to Trump rant sure, but a real war no, because it wouldn’t be about Trump.
Jeffro
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: same here!
One year I almost forgot and had to hit three stores in order to find a single can. Never again!!
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne: It is.
Frankensteinbeck
@Betty Cracker:
It’s the party, Becky. Think like a narcissist. Everything is about external validation. Right now, he’s miserable and vulnerable. Any hint that the party won’t make him feel adulated, and he will run away from it. Low RSVPs would do it. He fetishizes attendance numbers. Or he got it into his head people will tell him he lost. Remember he’s screening who he talks to so no one can say it.
@Geminid:
I assured you, and I have been dead center correct so far. He’s lazy and a coward. A war won’t get him praise, and the only governmental thing he’s spent more than five minutes on is pardons, because it features people licking his boots.
@Baud:
I’m going to throw in that Mao killed at least a hundred million of his own people in famines caused by his ego and hatred of science.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Ken: The Mongols got an assist because of the 1257 Samalas volcanic eruption that is thought to be worst in the last several thousand years and caused a nuclear winter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1257_Samalas_eruption
Bruuuuce
@debbie:
I remember two times doing that when I was awed. The very first, of course, lo these many years gone.
And later, after they’d completed washing the constellations ceiling, I just moved into a quiet niche and looked upward for about ten minutes, at the restored gorgeous blue.
Geminid
@dww44: I wasn’t picking on Ossoff’s resume, just saying others were. The Warnock episode was reported on when Warnock entered the race. He and his estranged wife had a heated argument (I think over child custody) in her driveway, and she called the police, claiming he ran over her foot while trying to leave. I believe Warnock stuck around to tell the officers his side. In any event, the police declined to press charges after finding no damage done.
chopper
@AWOL:
never met johnny but i hung out with marky and that dude was pretty solid.
Geminid
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I understand and appreciate the reasons. Just not the certainty.
debbie
@Bruuuuce:
I bet that ceiling is something! What I really liked was walking through a narrow, darkish hall and emerging into that huge, airy, practically boundless room. Awe is exactly how I’d describe it.
Matt McIrvin
@debbie: I hope so too! That Twitter discussion is confusing, I think because the press release was worded to make it not obvious at first glance that the employee admitted deliberate sabotage.
chopper
uh, what
Ruckus
@raven:
You old hippy!
Welcome to the club.
Wapiti
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I loved The Doomsday Book. Somehow it really got into the existential dread that the protagonist (the researcher) was facing.
Geminid
@Frankensteinbeck: Well, trump still has three weeks to deviate from your confident psychological profile. I hope you are right.
Frankensteinbeck
Topic-parallel, Trump is steeping himself in the most insane of conspiracy theories right now, particularly the ones about why he lost and how he can overturn the election. That means he has two things on his mind right now: On the 6th, he expects Pence to choose to count the fake GOP electors, and he wants to use the Insurrection Act and some obscure, inapplicable EO from years ago to stage a military coup. The generals have told him repeatedly that the military will not obey that order. He’s unlikely to face the shame of declaring it and having the military refuse.
AWOL
@chopper: I think they were all cool dudes save for Johnny, who must have had enough weapons for twelve Las Vegas–massacres when he kicked.
AWOL
@chopper: Oi! Music was skinhead music. As in:
“Put on your Doc Martens, Oi Boy, and let’s curbstomp some Pakis!”
mrmoshpotato
@Soprano2:
???
Nelle
@Elizabelle: I was startled by that admission that he doesn’t actually read Dr. Richardson. Too cool to do his homework? Explains even more about the NYT. Did no one even edit it for infantilism on the part of the reporter? I guess laziness is that much a part of the normal landscape there.
japa21
Good morning. The hospital kicked me out last night. Although at the evaluation clinic my O2 level dropped to 93 and 91 with activity , at the ER it was a stable 95. Due to a shortage of bed, they are only admitting patients with a lower level.
I am doing okay and being taken care of by a private nurse who came out of retirement to take the job. I am of course speaking of Mrs Japa who so far is symptom free.
The key for me right now is to do absolutely nothing.
WaterGirl
@japa21: Best to you and Mrs. Japa!
JanieM
@germy: I haven’t typed any other name for him since he got elected. My small contribution to thwarting the overarching goal implied by the nickname.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@japa21: Oh wow, I guess that’s good news. I hope Mrs japa continues symptom free.
pamelabrown53
Bought my mom a jitterbug 2 phone for Christmas and she just sent me her first text message ever. I’m so excited for her!
JanieM
@japa21: Hoping you have a speedy and glitch-free recovery. All the best.
Uncle Cosmo
@Geminid: Kudos for reminding me: I obtained a copy of Pillars of the Earth several years ago & thoroughly enjoyed it before the project was overcome by events about halfway through. In the interim I picked up a copy of World Without End. Two more tomes to add to the hunkerdown reading list!
FTR England under the Black Death is a major setting for Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book (1992), the first of her Oxford-time-travelers oeuvres. All worth the time even for the SF-allergic. (ETA: I see DAW got there firstest with the mostest at #89 supra.)
TS (the original)
@japa21: Great to hear your news. And blessing to the retired nurse. May you soon recover and may she stay well.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
Glad you are getting better.
If you wonder what losing your sense of smell 100% and having it permeant is like, you get used to it. Not enjoy it for sure but you can get used to it. Probably because you have no choice in the matter. It does change things, as you can see. One has to be far more careful in many situations.
OzarkHillbilly
Immanentize
@japa21: Good, good.
Crisis of care protocols here in Mass. I believe now have the admittance level of O2 at 85– you are in a good place.
Also, you can use this: I asked my son last week if he wanted to do something out of the house and he said: “No thanks, my day already fully booked with absolutely nothing.”
Also, lie on your side and stomach as much as possible?
Pace!
OzarkHillbilly
@japa21: Good news indeed.
debbie
@japa21:
Glad to read you’re out of there, and I hope you can stick to the doing nothing until you’ve recovered.
sheila in nc
@Geminid: “Follet is a good story teller, and the book is hard to put down.”
Tell me about it. I took the book-on-CD copy with me on a road trip from Chapel Hill to Arkansas. I was so engaged I never even noticed Tennessee.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@JPL: We cut out that strip the day it came out and later framed it.
JPL
@japa21: Good news, but follow the nurse’s orders so you can continue on the mend.
OzarkHillbilly
Subsole
@Soprano2: I read an interesting book about the Great Plague, The Great Mortality by John Kelley. Tracks the course of the plague and its social effects. Interesting read.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
My impression Trump has been trolling for some sucker to do his dirty work for him so when it all goes south Trump just blames the sucker. Sort of like how Trump is claiming it’s all the State’s fault there aren’t the 20 million vaccines Trump’s people promised.
Uncle Cosmo
@debbie: Apparently in Italy it’s lentils with pork sausage. Which is fine by me, I’ve got both in the larder – though I’ll probably wait till the next day to cook & eat. Auguri!
Jeffro
@OzarkHillbilly: that was one heck of an autobiography/memoir…Fro Jr read it and really dug it, too. Inspired him to try harder in school!
(I don’t think it was entirely due to the gorilla suit thing, though ;)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@germy: I’m absolutely sure Joe’s folks are keeping a list, updated and reprioritized daily, of the messes that need to be cleaned up. It thrills me to imagine how many things are going to be undone just within the first 24 hours. I expect there’s a historic flood of executive orders already drafted and ready to go before the sun has set on Inauguration Day and while the White House staff is still opening windows and spraying air freshener.
Jeffro
Is anyone else tracking this wacky Lin Wood “John Roberts is a pedophile and Jeffrey Epstein – who is alive – can prove it” stuff? Really going off the deep end now, this trumpov crowd…
Also looks like Sasse has decided not to join said crowd all the way down the spiral. Looking forward to him and Hawley having it out, rooting for injuries, etc etc.
debbie
@Uncle Cosmo:
Right, lentils. I’ve got those. I’ll figure out something to make, have them tonight, and then have collard greens tomorrow. Cover all bases.
mrmoshpotato
Didn’t Tricky Dick bomb Laos too?
Mike in NC
I was hoping they put Brad Parscale in charge of the invites to Fat Bastard’s New Years Eve shindig and then forgot that they fired him.
MagdaInBlack
@Subsole: I’ve read that one as well
TomatoQueen
@japa21: I’m glad to see you’re at home and in the capable hands of mrsjapa. Now do plenty of nothing. All good wishes for your recovery and return to health.
Immanentize
@Jeffro:
It would be wrong not to speculate….
Actually, I think this is just the end game of years of Republicans softening up their opposition or “enemies.” Max Cleland worked! Swiftboating worked! How about Supreme Court child sex trafficer and baby cannibal?
As all things they say are projection, I really think that this baby cannibal stuff is just a version of blood infusions from babies and children which is the big fountain-of-youth rage among the white and rich these days.
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck: I am kind of worried about what happens if Pence actually tries this stunt. Not that it would “take” in the way they’re imagining, but I certainly wouldn’t want it to be yet another crisis or for the media to insist that there are clouds and shadows over the result. I’m telling myself that Pelosi and Schumer probably already have this gamed out six ways from Sunday.
raven
@Ruckus: Old is right, I got my nerve conduction and emg test and it looks like surgery may be in order. I asked if folks had any experience with it last night and didn’t get much action.
Immanentize
@mrmoshpotato:
Ask Sean Flynn
pamelabrown53
@japa21:
Great news that you’re home. Please take good care of yourself!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jeffro: Good lord no. Tracking that would drive me crazy. And not in a good way.
debbie
@raven:
There’s nothing you can do short of surgery?
frosty
@raven: No kidding! You look good – by the time my hair was getting that long it was starting to fall out. Bummer.
Brachiator
Hell yes, this has been a long ass year. Not doing too much on New Years Day because, there ain’t much to do, and I have to work Saturday.
But I note that even with everything to be done in 2021, I feel a burden lifted just knowing that Biden and Harris won (and Trump was defeated) and that we now have a vaccine.
But again, big burden lifted. Swear to no one in particular that some mornings I would wake up and think “I cannot believe that muthafucking Trump is muthafucking president.” Don’t do that anymore.
Also happy new year to all the Balloon Juice jackals. You all also helped me get through the year. Humble and sincere thanks.
raven
@debbie: I’ve been in physical therapy for 7 months and it hasn’t done diddly. I told her that I wasn’t going to do surgery while I have Bohdi to take care of so I still have time. I had rods installed on my t-6 some 45 years ago and this surgery is WAY less intrusive so there is that.
Immanentize
@raven: I missed this news! Bad! Is it something to do with your earlier back break nerve-wise?
raven
@japa21: Good as can be hoped for I guess?
zhena gogolia
I don’t understand the tweet at the top of the OP by Tom Morello. But I guess you have to know something about the Ramones to understand it, and I know nothing about the Ramones.
zhena gogolia
@japa21:
That sounds hopeful, I hope! We’re all thinking of you.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
24 Hours to Go is one of the Ramones’ best songs.
raven
@Immanentize: No, I’ve been having walking issues for some time and the MRI was pretty inconclusive but these tests are pretty reliable and the diagnoses is consistent with my situation. My wife had a similar surgery and it’s served her well.
zhena gogolia
@JanieM:
Yeah, it’s so typical.
I remember a local New Haven broadcaster of classical organ music who kept saying on Super Bowl day that he knew nobody was listening. It was so infuriating for his actual audience — THE PEOPLE WATCHING THE FOOTBALL GAME AREN’T LISTENING, BUT WE ARE, YOU IDIOT!
glory b
@rikyrah: I saw a segment on the lines in Smyrna GA. The reporter was saying people came extra early to vote before work, but many had to leave. One person who had just voted said she saw online that the wait would be one half hour, she waited more than two.
Also, congrats to Levi Fetterman, who won Room Rater’s best dog of the year award! The Fettermans said they are honored that Levi allows them to live with him.
Gin & Tonic
@Uncle Cosmo: Oh, man, I had an incredible lentil and sausage stew in a funky little restaurant in El Calafate, Argentina, that I’ve tried and failed to duplicate at home a couple of times. But it wasn’t for New Year’s.
debbie
@raven:
I don’t know anyone who’s had that surgery, but will whatever it does keep you from the kind of movements you need to make when you’re fishing at the ocean?
zhena gogolia
@Geminid:
If he’d run over her foot, bones would most certainly have been broken.
Baud
@japa21:
Good news. Stay lazy, my friend.
raven
@debbie: In the short term yes but for the long term it would be best. Also, we’re not going back to the beach while the pup is still with us. The last trip did not go well for him and it’s not fair. AND, the vaccine!
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
What if it was the other foot?
Immanentize
@raven: Ugh. Good!
debbie
@raven:
Then you should do it. Pain sucks.
AliceBlue
@debbie: Small nitpick–the name of the song is “I Wanna Be Sedated” and yes it is one of the Ramones’ best songs!
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Most mainstream media I’ve seen has pretty much internalized that everything Trump is doing is bullshit. The Today show even called out Hawley this morning for suggesting otherwise.
Baud
@AliceBlue:
Agree.
SiubhanDuinne
@japa21:
Relieved to hear you are home and getting the best possible care. Keep on healing!
Immanentize
@AliceBlue: You are correct!!!
Baud
According to LGM, Sasse has issued a strong statement against the Hawley nonsense.
Soprano2
When I was in college I went on two choir trips to England and Europe. On the first one, in 1980, we sang at All Hallows by the Tower, which is a church right by the Tower of London. After the service they took us downstairs to see some of their historic artifacts. One was the book where they recorded the church deaths. They showed us how during the Black Death there were pages and pages and pages of deaths, many many more than normal, and talked about how bad it was.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
I am mildly, very mildly, interested to see if any GOP members of Congress continue with any traitorous loyalty to Trump after Jan 6. Use it as an excuse to oppose anything that Biden proposes.
Otherwise, I have already forgotten about Trump. He bleats, whines, and makes sorrowful noises, but he is done. These last minute feints are annoying, but meaningless.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
See, this is exactly who I want in the United States Senate. Good for Mark!
laura
@zhena gogolia: here ya go go go:
https://youtu.be/bm51ihfi1p4
Keep getting better Japa21!
Just received word that my longest and dearest friends mother tested positive for Covid last night. She’s in a memory care unit and scheduled for her jab today. I’m so done with this year of sorrow and misery. So. Very. Done.
Matt McIrvin
@SiubhanDuinne: There’s a correction in the thread: it was a conspiracy between Mark and his twin brother, Scott, who is the guy wearing the gorilla suit. Mark had the suit sent up as a personal care package for Scott.
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks, that is so beautiful.
Frankensteinbeck
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I absolutely believe this. It’s typical of a coward on his spectacular level. It’s a gangster cliche, and he seems to view those as a role model for behavior. “It sure would be a shame if someone were to take out that other candidate.” But instead of someone running off to do his evil bidding, they’ve coughed and looked the other direction. Still, the loons he currently is listening to are specifically loons who are telling him to stage a military coup. Except, again, the military has publicly said that ain’t happening.
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s one of my few concerns, for similar reasons to yours. Pence is so stupid it’s hard to tell what he’ll do. He does what he’s told, but who is telling him? Trump has certainly ordered him to refuse to count Biden’s electors, but the rest of the Republican establishment – which McConnell runs – wants Pence to just shut up and go through the regular process without deviation, which is what Pence is best at.
Pence has no power to choose electors, but I don’t want the fuss if he tries. It’s bad enough there are a couple of asshole Senators willing to buck McConnell and force votes. I don’t know how a vote in the Senate would play out. It’s moot because the House would also have to throw out votes, but shoving scared and stupid people into the spotlight and double dog daring them to commit treason makes me uncomfortable.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Who wants to be president? Who wants to be president? You do, Ben, you want to be president!
germy
Geminid
@zhena gogolia: The story was that the police found no abrasions on Mrs. Warnock’s shoe or foot. This may have been a story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I remember seeing it when Warnock announced for Senate earlier this year, and I researched him. Word was that Stacey Abrams talked Warnock into running. While Warnock and Loeffler did not go head to head in the Nov. 3 jungle primary, the aggregates of votes for the various republican and Democratic candidates were very close. Turnout obviously will be critical next Tuesday. Attorney Lin Wood is peddling this cockamamie idea that a low republican turnout will expose the subversion of Georgia voting machines. There is anecdotal evidence that some conservatives believe this, or at least are willing to stay home to spite traitorous party leadership. How many remains to be seen.
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
Thanks!
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Hmmm, not sure I get it.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Just being silly.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
His statement should have been made by McConnell.
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck: Well, the idea is that Pence insists on opening the fake electoral-vote envelopes instead of the real ones, under the theory that then the default is that the fake votes get counted and it takes a vote of both houses to reject them.
Of course, Pence would be violating all the associated laws by doing this–they clearly state what envelopes he’s supposed to open, and which votes are supposed to be counted in the event of a controversy, and it ain’t those. But then we end up in somewhat uncharted territory, about what’s supposed to happen if the Vice-President just decides to go rogue. I’m guessing that the Democrats just walk out and deny a quorum, with the threat hanging over Pence that if a legit count doesn’t happen by the 20th, Nancy Pelosi becomes Acting President until somebody (which I think would be Chuck Grassley in the absence of a VP, unless Democrats take the Senate) is willing to preside over a count of the real votes.
zhena gogolia
@laura:
thanks for the video. First time I’ve heard it (although I’d heard of it). Now I get the joke.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
Pence never struck me as someone who likes to stick his neck out, but we’ll see.
Eunicecycle
@germy: I always figured the Secret Service probably hated Trump because of course he treated them all like garbage, but I guess not! That guy that took the political job should be fired. That he is now a trainer is frightening.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
What happens if there is no Veep? Obviously, it must fall on someone else to open the votes.
debbie
@AliceBlue:
Had I gone with that, it would have made no sense to zhena.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Maybe the President pro tem? Just guessing.
Uncle Cosmo
IIUC, the zebra-striped 13th century cathedral in Siena is, in effect, merely the transept of what was intended.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’m assuming that Lin Wood wants this to be the last new year that he enters with an active law license, because he’s not gonna have one next year.
SiubhanDuinne
Countdown to midnight. Twelve hours to go from … right … NOW!
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: Almost had it.
J R in WV
@japa21:
So good to hear!
No where better to be kicked out of that a hospital.
And O2 levels anywhere in the 90% range are doing OK, esp if you intend to do bed rest. Get a blood oxygen finger meter to track that while you recover, they aren’t expensive at all. If it drops too low, ask for a prescription for a rental home Oxygen machine while you recover.
So glad to hear you’re doing better and ready to rest at home. Keep in touch!!
frosty
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I made Hoppin’ John for luck last year – that didn’t work out, did it? I think I’ll skip it this time around.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Uncle Cosmo:
I think so, as it adjoins that car park and is magnificent in its own right.
I do love me some old sacred spaces, regardless of how I feel about the theology. I’m glad I got to see Notre Dame prior to the fire, and still grin a little over picking up the Paschal service bulletin (we were there Bright Monday) and noticing that it was full of activities like any other Catholic parish in the world – ladies’ society, food drives, building committee, men’s group, youth, etc. in other words, an actual working parish for normal people.
zhena gogolia
@frosty:
You’re still here, aren’t you? Hoppin John worked.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@frosty:
It was me this time – I forgot to make it last year.
My bad – 2020 was entirely my fault.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: That’s actually happened several times, since before the 25th Amendment the VP slot was often vacant, and also Humphrey apparently recused himself in ’69. In practice it seems to be the president pro tem of the Senate (Grassley, currently).
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
So Pelosi can just start cutting people until she finds one that will count the vote correctly.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
This is why it is unfortunate that the GOP Congressional leadership has not shut Trump down. They continue to play a stupid game.
Trump is a coward. No sane Republican is going to back Trump in an attempted coup. There is no upside to this. Most idiots can be contained and kept quiet.
This still leaves a few fools who don’t realize that the GOP is playing political games to try to score cheap points with the base, and is too used to kiss Trump’s ass to stop cold turkey.
Subsole
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
“Say it! Say I’m the doctor!”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Eunicecycle:
I know a SS retiree – wingnut to the core.
CarolDuhart2
It can’t be a fun NYE for Melania. Dealing with Trump having lost-and irreversably is dealing with a very grumpy man who has nowhere to go and really nothing to do. Corona has no doubt made the guest list much smaller, making Trump even more grumpier. And he hates her decorating and really has no place to settle into.
Geminid
@Baud: Probably Grassley, if no Pence. I think Grassley would play it straight. I never thought republican Senators respected trump, and just used him to achieve their own ends. After the Georgia Senate runoff, trump will be of no use to them. Although he might hurt them by promoting primary challenges in 2022. Twenty two Republican Senate seats are up that year.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Just like me to rush the season! (I hit Send about 5 seconds early, as my posts usually take that long to appear. Apparently that wasn’t the case today.)
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: She doesn’t have any power over who is president pro tem of the Senate, but she can deny a quorum and stop the proceedings.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Subsole:
So great.
I don’t remember if Watterson ever said who drew the panels for him.
brantl
@Baud: It doesn’t make them any less dead, does it? If it helps, just remember his careless disregard for the people who would die, every day after his Woodward-Coronovirus quote?
Uncle Cosmo
@Gin & Tonic: The sausage is already cooked, so I may dig back through my 60-Miinute Gourmet books for the recipe for a lentils-&-diced-tomato salad that looked interesting once upon a time.
Matt McIrvin
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I always figured Watterson drew them himself–his technical skill was clearly great.
Subsole
@Baud:
There is a story that t hg e great Khan wanted to exterminate the ingabitants of every city he conquered. He relented only when it was pointed out that it is easier to tax the living than the dead.
Apocryphal, but by all accounts illustrative.
SiubhanDuinne
@CarolDuhart2:
Saw a clip of them boarding AF1 to return to D.C. He went lumbering up the stairs ahead of her, then turned to glower for the cameras. She marched right up, pushed past him, and went inside without so much as a flick of the wrist to those on the ground.
Baud
@brantl:
It also doesn’t place him in the ranks of history’s most infamous mass murderers.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I meant literally cutting them.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: My thought exactly! Though you worded it much more cleverly than I would have.
zhena gogolia
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: My money says that Japa and Mrs. Japa already have a pulse oximeter in the house.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Matt McIrvin:
I think you’re right – I’m finding no reference. Did find the panel, though – Susie claimed a “hurt foot” not a headache as I mistakenly recalled. Hobbes clearly had a crush on the adult Susie.
Brachiator
@CarolDuhart2:
Trump will probably turn into an even more unbearable Mr Grumpy. He will return to his business empire, I guess, but will continue to be weighed down by being such a big loser.
Anytime in the future that he is interviewed by anyone other than Fox News, a reporter can listen to what Trump says and then reply, “OK. But you lost the 2020 election.”
WaterGirl
@CarolDuhart2: No sympathy for the birther and I don’t care about babies in cages lady. There is no amount of money that could get me to tie myself to a sociopathic narcissist like Donald Trump. That she chose to do that reflects on her.
No sympathy.
mad citizen
@zhena gogolia: That’s funny! Not everyone tunes into the Super Bowl. Reminds me of back in the 1980s when rock radio was a bigger deal (one dominant station in our market). When I knew a concert was happening in Indy (say the Dead) and a Dead song came on the radio, I would say–what are they doing? All the Dead fans are at the concert–play something else!
As far as New Year’s food goes, my wife used to go for the awful corned beef and cabbage deal–whether at a restaurant or a time or two I think she tried to make it. Will not eat.
For tonight we decided on one of our rarely-made favorites: Cioppino, the tomato-wine-based seafood stew/soup outta San Francisco. (And not Trader Joe’s freezer version, although it’s decent. Our meat will be scallops, shrimp and snapper. Maybe some mussels. I’m not a huge clam guy so no clams–only the clam juice.)
Subsole
@germy: “They got what they deserved,” springs to mind as well.
mad citizen
@SiubhanDuinne: Good to read–they are asses to the end. I’m wondering if he’ll be able to come up with the cash to buy a new Palm Beach house.
Also waiting until the Jan 6 vote closing to blow my airhorn some more.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: I would love to see that video, please.
Subsole
@Nelle: I have heard the Gray Lady does not, in factt, make use of a copy desk.
I cannot quite wrap my brain around that, having written and edited for a small town paper very briefly, many years ago.
catclub
@Elizabelle: So how much good did those grapes do for people who ate all 12 a year ago?
brantl
@germy: Cheeto Clickbait, better?
Subsole
@japa21: Glad to hear you are doing ok. Keep well.
catclub
@Subsole: This is updated now in the Sane and Insane Billionaires argument.
debbie
Totally my sentiments:
SFBayAreaGal
@Immanentize: Baby cannibalism, along with abortion being made illegal is a short story written by James Triptree Jr.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
She clearly was not ready to leave MarALago.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jeffro: So Episten is alive along with Hugo Chavez and Robert Kennedy Jr up in the International Space Station now?
brantl
@Baud: Give it time. I expect it certainly puts him among the dumbest. All the deaths in the U.S. are on his head, and they are far from done yet. Much as it grieves me to say that.
Subsole
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
It really was. I always loved the Spaceman Spiff strips. The landscapes were always so surreal and evocative. I heard he based them on rock formations in Moab, UT.
Also loved the camping arcs.
CarolDuhart2
@WaterGirl: I don’t feel sorry for her. She married him for money and status and maybe a bit of fame. Was willing to overlook much-I think she’s like Scarlet O’Hara in that she doesn’t want to live the life of a Slovenian counter girl anymore. And she has been rumored to live mostly apart from him.
But she has to interact with him at least some of the time, and while he’s no gem of a person, I bet he’s even more hard to deal with now.
Subsole
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
“I almost told her our secret treehouse code when she rubbed my tummy.”
“GOOD GRAVY WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON!!!”
Ken
@SFBayAreaGal: Neil Gaiman’s twist on that was “Babycakes“.
Subsole
@catclub: Does anyone else hear David Byrne???
Sister Golden Bear
Can I be sedated until January 20th?
Brachiator
If you type New Year’s Eve into a Google search bar you get digital confetti all over your computer screen
debbie
@Brachiator
Even more lazily, just click on the Doodle. The page opens and down comes the confetti!
Matt McIrvin
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: He did at least three of them–soap-opera-strip Calvin seems like the same guy in all of them, but I notice now that he actually distinguished “Susie as Calvin’s wife” and “Susie as Dr. Calvin’s patient” as distinct characters. (In the third one, she is also President, which Calvin doesn’t seem to enjoy.)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Interesting, one of the gossips from the Trump camp is Trump is worried that Iran will retaliate against him personally for killing that Iranian general last winter on Jan 3rd and he bailed for the White House because it’s safer. Considering what a gutless coward Trump is that would be explain all his freaking out.
Yutsano
@CarolDuhart2: I wonder if we’re looking at this the wrong way. My understanding is her parents are relatively conservative even for Slovenia. It’s entirely possible she stays with him because she’s been taught from her Catholic upbringing that divorce is verboten. Again, no real evidence, but that might be why she hasn’t left even before the whole notion for the Orange Doofus running for office. She’s still a terrible person, just traditional. In that one regard.
Another Scott
@SiubhanDuinne: Made me look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwMGUXOW-ss
Around 0:58 – 1:30 or so.
It’s just a view from the back, so it’s hard to tell what’s going on – he might be mumbling something to her, but she seems to be ignoring him.
Too bad, so sad.
Cheers,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Yutsano: I think Melania could make a good argument to The Church for annulment of her marriage with Trump on the grounds he is unfaithful.
Also I am betting Trump and Melania didn’t get married in a Catholic Church, which would also not make it a real marriage in a Traditional Catholic’s eyes.
Ruckus
@japa21:
Good news. Doing nothing is great, I try to do as much of it as possible.
Another Scott
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Oooh. Lots of possibilities.
I’m sure she’s gamed all this out with the help of various lawyers. With any luck, if/when she does the deed she will do it in a way that’s as painful to him as possible (maximizes her payment, child support, and all the rest).
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@raven:
Did I misunderstand that you’d already done the nerve conduction test? Or am I thinking of an earlier comment?
In answer to your question I have not had an operation for my back, my nerve conduction study worked fine, which they knew because the voltmeter told them it went away from my brain and my brain saying “motherfucker” just a wee bit louder than my normal voice told them it went that way.
SWMBO
@Another Scott: Jesus fucking Christ on a trisket. Where are their masks?! After the head of security losing a foot among others who take care of the Tangerine Taint and Natasha Asswipe, I would think that SOMEONE would insist on them wearing a mask or hire their own private security.
Ruckus
@debbie:
That’s why they gave me a nerve conduction test because I have random shooting pains and numbness in different locations with no obvious causes. As it’s not nerve conductivity, I’m waiting for them to figure our the possibilities. Or learn to live with it. So far, other than being extremely annoying at the most inopportune times, I’d guess it’s just life getting back at me for something.
Another Scott
@SWMBO: They both had COVID-19, according to news reports (which I believe). I saw parts of the Senate votes on the relief bill yesterday – Rand wasn’t wearing a mask either (while everyone else I saw in the chamber was).
They all apparently think that since they got it and survived (so far) there is no need to set an example for others.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
CarolDuhart2
They were
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: They were married in an Episcopal Church, so divorce is not forbidden. Also if she was conservative, she was raised by members of the Communist Party, that tends to not be all that religiously bound by rules.
Also a more traditionalist person would not have taken five years to get married, or worked as an escort instead of going to school.