Paragon Park in Hull out here dropping Truth Bombs pic.twitter.com/HNcmZNIAQP
— Ratty (@HeyRatty) August 16, 2021
Our current military mission will be short in time and focused in its objectives:
Get our people and our allies to safety as quickly as possible.
And once we have completed this mission, we will conclude our military withdrawal. We will end America’s longest war.
— President Biden (@POTUS) August 17, 2021
IMO, Captain Obvious here (note the date) is not wrong:
I feel like there’s actually very little partisan hypocrisy in Afghanistan — foreign policy elites across both parties oppose withdrawal, have said so across both Trump and Biden, and the public simply disagrees with them and both presidents have acted accordingly.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 13, 2021
On The Road – Wag – Capitol Peak
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
Spanky
“Foreign policy elites”. How much more vague can you get?
zhena gogolia
“very little partisan hypocrisy”? Is he kidding me?
germy
germy
debbie
If Baud were here, he’d have already have posted musing whether punching out might not be a better option?
OzarkHillbilly
I finally got my MRI results yesterday. Fuck me.
germy
Cermet
@OzarkHillbilly: And?
Cermet
@Cermet: I guess, maybe the F’ me is the answer. I hope it isn’t too serious.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Something that I remembered with I work up this morning; the first Western disaster in Afghanistan in 1842 and the First Anglo-Afghanistan War. That started because the English political commissioner decided to score points with London by stopping the British bribes to the Afghani warlords. He ended up dead along with a big chunk of the British army of occupation. It’s always been about “were is my money” there.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Kay
It’s just like our presence in Germany or Japan, right? Exactly the same.
The increased civilian deaths in 2019 got barely any US media coverage, just like the reduction of air strikes in 2012 and then the ramp up in 2014 got barely any coverage. Up and down, over and over.
germy
germy
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: Please elaborate
Gin & Tonic
@germy: Why the fuck is he still employed by them?
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: oh, no! Bad?
rikyrah
??
Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) tweeted at 7:30 AM on Tue, Aug 17, 2021:
Axios-Ipsos poll:
69% of Americans support mandating masks in schools.
Breakdown:
92% of Democrats support
67% of Independents support
44% of Republicans support
(https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1427608650777088037?s=03)
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
??????
rikyrah
@germy:
They found that muthaphucka ?
hueyplong
Enjoyed that brief period in which I had forgotten that Toobin exists.
Looking forward to the next time.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: We’ll be here when you are ready to share.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cermet: I’ve got a long and bumpy road ahead of me. I shouldn’t be surprised, this being the 2nd time I tore this shoulder up, the 1st time leaving it not entirely whole. Still, I was hoping.
Delusion springs eternal.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@OzarkHillbilly: You could at least buy me a drink, maybe flirt with me a little first, before making a demand like that. I mean, I’m easy but not that easy.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: that sucks.
OzarkHillbilly
What do you think I’ve been doing here all these years?
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: This is why I have an itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny spark of hope that Florida will punt DeSantis out of office next year. His anti-mask crusade is high-profile, it’s unpopular, and it’s personal for people because it involves their children’s safety.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
On the topic du jour…the same talking heads that want us to stay in Afghanistan…well, if that’s what you want, you pay for it. Many of these people are awfully quick to concern troll about the deficit and then ask why we can’t just keep a two trillion dollar war going for a little longer, and a little longer after that, ad infinitum. You can’t be “concerned about the deficit” and committed to a perpetual war that isn’t being paid for, so either you find a way to pay for it that doesn’t depend on taxing the rest of us that wanted out, or never wanted in, or just STFU.
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oh, I hope you can get it “fixed.”
p.a.
FoPo elites; John Fogerty: “… and when we asked them how much should we give, they only answered more more more…”
Had a boss in the shit with higher-ups, was therefore getting shuffled to a new location, wanted to know “why?” Higher ups: “we think you’re the man for the job.” “Oh! What will I be doing?” Higher-ups: “we don’t know yet.”
FoPo elites: 1) we stay
2) ???
3) success!
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: The irony is, it’s not even the one that hurts the most right now, that’s the arthritis in the left one. But after the fall, the right shoulder is particularly precarious and w/o surgery is likely to go the rest of the way and become permanently damaged.
Like I said, fuck me.
eta, and the sweetener is I’m already scheduled for a pelvic stent next week but now I need to try to fit this surgery in before that one because I can’t go off the blood thinners after the stent is put in.
Ohio Mom
Uh, wasn’t Matt Yglesias a big fan of both wars, way back when? This is a subject he’s forfeited any credibility on. Make that “one of the subjects,” as I recall from when I used to follow him, he’s all wrong on education policy too.
zhena gogolia
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Bret Stephens has half a page in the NYT today berating Biden on behalf of the “women and girls.” He doesn’t give a fuck about “women and girls.”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Was it a fall, or was it a repetitive strain injury?
narya
@OzarkHillbilly: well, prolly not gonna honor that last request, but I would be happy to send homemade baked goods. They have no power to heal shoulders, though. Bread? Cookies? Pecan rolls? I’d send croissants, but they really don’t travel that well; good ones need to be consumed the same day, though old ones can be used for bread pudding.
Cermet
@OzarkHillbilly: Thank goodness it isn’t organ related; however, arm/shoulder pain and disability is not good. Hope it heals and you recover with full range of motion.
OzarkHillbilly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: 35 years of framing and hanging did a lot of damage, such that the 1st time I blew it up, I did so while tightening a screw. This time it was a fall. They aren’t ever going to be “right,” the best I can hope for is functional.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Dammit, Ozark, that totally sucks.
geg6
NBC and MSNBC need to quit calling Richard Engel’s spots “reporting.” Nothing he has said for the last several days is in any way “reporting.” He has been editorializing, with added angry serious man red face and incoherent screaming about betrayal and how we must save the millions of Afghans who supported the US and, basically, every woman and girl in the country, whatever it takes. I think ol’ Rich should show the courage of his convictions and spend some of the big bucks he gets from NBC/MSNBC and charter a fleet of planes to get them out himself. Maybe he and George Packer can team up on it. Myself, I’m happy to give the president time to get out who he can and get us the hell out of that shithole.
Betty Cracker
@hueyplong: There are so many things to be mad about these days that CNN’s Toobin TV rehabilitation hardly cracks the top 1000, but it is outrageous and disgusting. I happened to be tuned in when CNN first brought him back in front of the cameras. It was an excruciating segment in which
Dana BashAlisyn Camerota was tasked with reviewing his offense for viewers, hearing his regrets, absolving his sins on behalf of all women and welcoming him back to the fold. So gross and so unnecessary since there are certainly dozens if not hundreds and thousands of similarly qualified legal analysts who haven’t showed their wangs to colleagues on a Zoom call.BC in Illinois
@zhena gogolia:
Partisan hypocrisy? I’ll give you partisan hypocrisy. From my Congresswoman, Ann Wagner (Partisan Hypocrisy – MO):
[Emphasis added, for emphasis.]
Ann Wagner is never a profile in courage. She mostly stays out of sight, quietly serving her corporate sponsors. She is a reliable Republican vote and, as a party hack, is thus a good indication of how the GOP winds are blowing. Note the lack of any mention of Trump, or of her suggested way forward.
The rest of her letter to constituents is about child sexual abuse materials on the internet [OnlyFans?], Section 230, the 200th Anniversary of the State of Missouri *, and the crisis at our southern border:
This is how the GOP winds blow. Yes, COVID is flooding into Missouri communities, but it isn’t coming from our southern border. [Unless she means, perhaps, Missouri’s border with Arkansas. That’s possible.]
Nicole
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m so sorry. I will send all good thoughts for functional, and who knows, maybe a little bit more.
Getting older is not for sissies, that’s for sure.
zhena gogolia
@geg6:
Thank you for channeling my feelings. I don’t watch TV, but just hearing about him makes me furious. How many of their children have joined up?
I’m going to cancel my Atlantic subscription over this.
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
Everything I have seen since the collapse shows me they were never, ever going to leave. They would have “reduced” forces for a period, but fudged that with contractors, and in that period they would have ramped up air strikes because with air strikes there’s no US dead and no media coverage- it’s absolutely painless politically for them.
By 2022 they would have been telling Biden to launch another bombing campaign to “force the Taliban to the negotiating table” or beat them back temporarily so they could declare peace again. That was the Trump Doctrine. Kick up a big storm of bullshit while bombing enough to create an illusion there’s progress.
Cermet
@OzarkHillbilly: Stents; been there, got one (heart.) After five years I took myself off the thinners (being pointless.) But I’m a total believer in following medical advice till I considered it to be too much of a hassle … .
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, that’s what that was…flirting?
zhena gogolia
@Kay: I can still remember Laura Bush’s cloying concern for the “women and girls.” Then her husband abandoned the “women and girls” to go take over another huge country we know nothing about.
ETA: They care about “women and girls” unless they’re American women and girls who can’t get birth control or safe abortions.
germy
@geg6:
I’ve said it before here, but Engel is an adrenaline junkie who can never get his facts straight.
He was kidnapped a few years ago, and his network had to issue a correction after he mis-reported who his captors were.
He’s just pissed because he doesn’t get to play “war correspondent” anymore on TV.
Maybe he could report from Somalia?
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: I have a suggestion for Fucker Carlson: If you think that is such a great idea, move there. I’m sure the Taliban would welcome you with open arms.
germy
I’ll be eligible for my booster sometime in January, I believe.
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’d love to see Tucker broadcasting from Tora Bora.
Kay
@geg6:
All it’s doing is convincing me they had no intention of leaving. Ever. One of them was saying “we have a whole generation of Afghans under US presence” as if that’s evidence to stay. The staying creates the reason to stay. It’s endless. That Biden was able to see through this nonsensical morass of bad thinking is a real credit to him. Thank goodness there was ONE.
Kay
@geg6:
All it’s doing is convincing me they had no intention of leaving. Ever. One of them was saying “we have a whole generation of Afghans under US presence” as if that’s evidence to stay. The staying creates the reason to stay. It’s endless. That Biden was able to see through this nonsensical morass of bad thinking is a real credit to him. Thank goodness there was ONE.
Chris
@zhena gogolia:
The worst part is, they didn’t do shit for “women and girls.”
Women’s rights in Afghanistan improved after the U.S. invasion, but that’s mostly due to the fact that compared to the Taliban, almost anything would be an improvement. Women’s rights in Iraq? … not so much! Ditto religious minority rights.
germy
And many don’t even have wangs to show. Thousands of qualified women.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cermet: I’m on the blood thinners for the rest of my life. I’ve had clots twice, my mother had them at least 5 or 6 times. A brother and sister have also gotten them once. It’s got to be genetic, tho not the genetic link they currently know of. (tests were negative there)
The pelvic stents are to improve the blood flow in my legs and alleviate a number of symptoms there.
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: What else could it have been?
Betty Cracker
I cut Richard Engel some slack for his angry reporting on the collapse of Afghanistan because he’s worked in that region for ages and must have many friends and colleagues whose lives will be lost/turned to shit by the U.S. withdrawal. As we all know, there will be terrible consequences, and it’s important to face them, even if we believe (as I do) that leaving with all possible speed is the only option now. Unlike Republicans who are hypocritically trying to make political hay, Engel sincerely cares.
Kay
@Chris:
That’s the other part. We’re all now going to pretend the US backed government of Afghanistan was like Australia.
As it turns out they fail in informing the public when these wars are launched but they also fail when they’re ended. This “discussion” they’re having is unreal. They’re inventing a whole success story.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Biden just had the balls to do something about it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yglesias is talking about what Obama called The Blob (I think Ben Rhodes actually coined the term), the permanent political-media (and industrial) CW churn that always favors boots-on-the-ground and says they favor diplomacy while actually opposing it (see, The Iran Deal). Andrea Mitchell is The Blob in shoes, as is Leon Panetta, who I saw was trolling Biden yesterday. Whenever I saw “high ranking Obama defense official” criticizing Obama, or praising trump, for Syria, or any kind of de-escalation in MENA, I always assume it’s Panetta
ETA: How could I forget Tom Friedman. Actually, it’s because I often forget about Friedman. Like a pre-Obama’s birthday Maureen Dowd, it’s remarkable how little attention Friedman gets in this viral age. It’s like in fiction about law firms, there’s always at least one old partner who comes into the office every day, but has no clients and does no work, just still has a job and an office and no one is sure why.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
So sorry to read this. Can you time it so you won’t lose too much outdoor time (ie, winter)?
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: :-( Sorry that you’re going through all that. One day at a time.
Keep us updated as things go. We’re all pulling for you and for them to have you patched up for another 100,000 miles.
“Better than new!!”
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
That sucks. I hope your surgeon — I’m assuming you’ll have surgery? — knows what he/she is doing.
If not, we have a couple of pretty good orthopedic hospitals in Boston, which is a short drive from East Overshoe, Misery. Maybe Quinerly, JoJo, and you can make it a field trip
ETA: Just saw your comment re: blood thinners. That certainly complicates surgery, I hope something can be done.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
From the view point that Yglesias is talking about yes. They want to cover the map with US armies to control land and deny it to other powers. Dead little brown people is just the price they are willing to pay. Their problem is like 85% of the population has no interest in being The British Empire II; the Yanks are coming! Yglesias is arguing that Afghanistan was always meant to be a forever war just to have an excuse to have an army in Afghanistan.
SFAW
@zhena gogolia:
You’re a nicer person than I am. I’d love to see him broadcasting from the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Biden knew damn well that in 6 months they’d be back telling him to start bombing. Not in Kabul! Not where there’s a media presence or American civilians but …out there somewhere.
He could have done it too. It is the MUCH easier political position. A small, manageable air war far far away where there are few or no US troop casualties and the contractors are all still getting paid.
It would have been ignored until there was a debate question in the 2024 Presidential, if that.
rikyrah
? Black Professor ? (@WonderKing82) tweeted at 8:08 AM on Tue, Aug 17, 2021:
Y’all don’t care about the Muslim community in America but I’m supposed to believe you care about the Muslim community in Afghanistan? Stop playing in my face, you don’t even care for Black and Brown people in your own country but you’re fighting for people thousands miles away?
(https://twitter.com/WonderKing82/status/1427618354148298762?s=03)
Dorothy A. Winsor
We’re leaving soon for a trip to the Japanese Garden in Rockford. That will be better for my blood pressure than reading twitter. Have a good day, everyone.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Twitter-via-Safari is still goofy so I can’t link to it, but I was surprised to see a clip of Nicolle Wallace saying that 95% of viewers will agree with Biden and 95% of journalists will agree with The Blob. Surprising because she’s been exceedingly Blobby from what little I’ve been able to stomach of her the last few days. Rachel Maddow gave at least the second half of her show over to lamentations and how-dare-he! When I dipped back in to MSNBC, I was pleasantly surprised to find Lawrence O’Donnell talking about Covid and SNAP expansion.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rikyrah: That quote is so true it hurts.
Dave
@Kay: You are absolutely correct they would stay to stay and justify it in a million ways. What astounds me is how much of the more militant side of foreign policy establishment (which seems to be the dominant side) doesn’t get that this actually weakens the US over time. Most of these interventions cost far more than they have ever gained. I’m not an isolationist at all but we need to stop being suckered into playing in these sandboxes focus on rebuilding our own infrastructure and support and encourage other nations effort to do the same without being drawn into military intervention as easily as we are.
rikyrah
Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) tweeted at 7:41 AM on Tue, Aug 17, 2021:
BREAKING: Politico super pissed at Biden. ‘Oh no you don’t Joe Biden!’ We’ve seen this before when a president, especially a Democratic president, steps on a narrative DC bigs have spent a few days building. #makingfetchhappen https://t.co/u9fzvxSFVO
(https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1427611554640449539?s=03)
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) tweeted at 7:44 AM on Tue, Aug 17, 2021:
2/ simple images of chaos will hit the public mood in themselves. But we’re seeing what I think will be a pretty clear pattern. Dc establishment journos see they’re actually seeing this differently than most of the country and will double down and get angry because of it.
(https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1427612296931680256?s=03)
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Is terrible. There was no bigger promoter of the Clinton emails hysteria. As I recall her panic had to do with the grave threat to national security with insecure comminications, a concern she never again expressed and has now completely disappeared.
Another Scott
@Kay:
As I mentioned just after I heard the speech live, I’m not at all surprised that the war mongers haven’t addressed this:
(Emphasis added.)
“The enemy always gets a vote.”
As usual, we’re seeing The Narrative constructed in real time by The Blob. They pick their sound bites, then furiously construct their armies of straw men to beat and set fire to for as many news cycles as they’re able. With luck, it won’t work this time.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah:
I’ll never forget a visibly angry Nora O’Donnell on MSNBC giving Cindy Sheehan the how-dare-you treatment for demonstrating against Bush and the Iraq War, both of which were solidly under 50% and falling at the time
natem
The Beltway Elites are in their own fucking world here. Every single Wingnut goober on my FB feed is still whinging over mask mandates and vaccine passports, fighting with the normies who are begging them to “Please stop trying to get my children and parents killed.” The closest I’ve seen is one conservative concern trolling about the orphans, but stopping well-short of saying the U.S. should have stayed. Nobody outside the pundit sphere cares about Afghanistan. Nobody.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
When I was a teenager just starting to get interested in this, From Beirut To Jerusalem was constantly held up as one of the authoritative must-read books on the Middle East. For a while it was on my “I need to read this someday” shelf, but to this date I never have, and the more I hear about/from Tom Friedman, the less I believe that anything he wrote would ever be worth reading.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Oh, you kids and your modern “humor.”
I’m so old, I can remember Rick Scott being at 31 percent approval a year before his re-election was up, and seeing people quite confidently say he was the functional equivalent of “dead meat.” And that was well before Trump.
Not saying you are saying that; merely trying to highlight the moronitude of your fellow Floridian voters. “Corrupt billionaire who made a ton from Medicare fraud? Well, yeah, that’s not great, but those Demon-craps — well, I just don’t know!”
rikyrah
Because she is Black, and was right about everything from the beginning.?
Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) tweeted at 8:28 AM on Tue, Aug 17, 2021:
Can someone please explain to me why Barbara Lee isn’t the only “expert” on American involvement in Afghanistan to be invited on the teehee?
(https://twitter.com/CharlesPPierce/status/1427623379855675396?s=03)
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Fine. But quit calling it reporting. It’s not reporting, it’s not just the facts, it’s editorializing. He’s judging shit for viewers about which he knows exactly nothing. He is not an expert on military matters or even refugee efforts and he’s fucking spouting off as if he is THE EXPERT on it all and can do better than the actual people in charge. Fuck Engel.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Is it the “we won’t really know unit we get in there”? My last shoulder MRI the guy told me it was probably a torn labrum. I don’t get the surgery then and, when I backed off swimming, it got better. Now might right kills me when I do the simplest tasks. Since my back surgery doesn’t seem to have worked I’m not sure what I should do with my shoulder.
Kay
@Dave:
They have to tell people the truth. The reason there were no troop casualties in 2020 was because Trump bombed the shit out of the country in 2019 and cut a fake deal with the Taliban. It was the definition of a temporary patch.
It’s not like Germany or Japan if you bomb the hell our of them every two years and partition off a section for the Taliban. That’s not a real comparison. It’s idiotic.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: What I would like to do is take a leave from my job and come out and work in your gardens and yard while you can be the recovering job boss. I could pitch a tent! and scare away weasel and fox from the coop.
And I would do all that and more while you got better except you live in Misery. Blech.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: Or women like my daughter in law, who has now been waiting for two years for permission to join her husband in th US.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: Gotta go for functional. Best of luck!
Spanky
@Betty Cracker:
No doubt. Therefore what CNN or whoever is doing is exploiting his feelings for eyeballs. And he’s going along with it, since he’s neither stupid nor naive.
OzarkHillbilly
Yep, and he did it anyway. Not because it was easy but because it was the right thing to do. As I said several days ago,
Thank you, Joe.
Kay
Biden’s mistake was listening to them at all when they told him he had 90 days before the Taliban completed the advance that had been underway for months. He should have known that was as wrong as everything else they say. “90 days” even sounds like a made up number.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The words ‘trump’ and ‘Pompeo’ don’t appear in this story, and a lot readers might miss the whole “February 2020” part, but this is what trump and Pompeo are bragging about in the clips and posts you see being recirculated with people whose elephantine memories stretch back more than a month (contra Ted Lasso: Journamalists, let’s not be goldfish). In the Times or the Post yesterday there was a story about two anti-Taliban militia leaders who were shocked to find out their would-be gov’t allies and in fact sold them out, something to bear in mind when people like Engel and Nicolle Wallace start sermonizing about “intelligence failures”.
Another Scott
@Chris: I read FBtJ back when it was new because it was held up as an important and thoughtful book. My very limited recollection is that it had some anecdotes that might have been mildly interesting. But nothing substantive has stuck with me from it.
It’s really easy to bloviate in a few hundred words in a newspaper column a few times a month. It’s really hard to actually work in the trenches for decades…
Experts don’t know all the answers, and some experts are kooks. But real expertise comes from doing the actual work for decades – not from kibitzing from the sidelines.
Smithsonian mag on Steinmetz:
Cheers,
Scott.
Butter Emails!
@Betty Cracker:
Engel cares, but apparently not enough to see the writing on the wall 18 months ago and get these people out as opposed to waiting for “and then Biden pulled a miracle out of his ass”.
geg6
@rikyrah:
This is exactly right. It’s Richard Engel and George Packer all the way down. I think one or both are going to stroke out pretty soon. Which might be the best outcome, IMHO.
Chris
@Dave:
The other myth that for me has been completely punctured about the foreign policy/national security establishment is the notion of “adults in the room.” I remember a widely repeated view in the Bush years, which came back again in the Trump years, that modern politics were a reversal of what they were in the JFK/Curtis LeMay days, because now the senior politicians were the crazy hawks always looking to bomb shit, and the generals and other professionals of that rank were the prudent and reasonable and cautious people who were very wary of violent action (the whole Colin Powell versus Dick Cheney thing)…
Bullshit. The generals aren’t “moderate” and “restrained.” They’re media-savvy, image-obsessed, careful not to project an image that would alienate too many people on either side of the political divide, and really plugged in to the DC punditariat (after all, they know who their publishers/propagandists are). But at the end of the day, they were just as obsessed with their everlasting wars as any far-right lunatic.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: I had to go to Twitter just to ❤️ that comment.
Another Scott
@geg6: +1
As Kay has said on occasion, IIRC, Engle needs to stay in his lane.
Reporters often have to cover stuff that is distressing. Their job is to tell the facts without excessive coloration by their personal feelings and opinions.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@geg6: wasn’t Packer one of the “liberal hawks” who persuaded so many up-and-coming Establishment-adjacent bloggers, including Marshall and Yglesias, to support Bush’s foreign policies post-9/11?
catclub
@rikyrah: also this:
PJ
@Betty Cracker: caring and being angry, without providing the proper context (that preventing the fall of Kabul would require another surge and extension on the Forever War, which will cost tens of billions of dollars every year, hundreds of lives of US troops and hundreds of maimed troops every year, and tens of thousands of Afghan citizens every year) is completely disingenuous. The man is a journalist, but he is just acting like every other right-wing pundit.
Bex
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I was there years ago. Glad to see it’s still open. I went with a group who knew the owners and we had dinner there. Don’t know if the house is still owned by them, or if anyone still lives there. Hope you enjoy the day!
PJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t know how persuasive he was, but Packer was a big Iraq War cheerleader.
oldgold
@Betty Cracker:
Engle is not suited for the job he has. Time after time he goes to global hot spots and reports on them like a local newbie weather person assigned to cover a category 1 hurricane.
jackmac
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Anderson Japanese Gardens in Rockford is a treasure. The weather looks perfect today and I hope you enjoy it!
Just Chuck
@Another Scott: Heard the exact same story involving plumbers and electricians, so I feel fairly safe calling that one an urban legend too.
Just Chuck
@catclub: We have always been at war with (Mid)EastAsia.
I think of my gf’s 15 -year-old son, for whom that’s actually true.
OzarkHillbilly
Unfortunately, probably not. Both the rotator cuff and the one remaining bicep tendon show significant tearing. It’s that 2nd part that makes this so necessary. If that tendon goes, I really am screwed.
Steeplejack
Twitter note:
I was off line most of yesterday ? and didn’t run into the new Twitter blocking gizmo until last night. If you don’t have a Twitter account, it is now much harder to follow threads and see linked tweets and retweets. You get a message to “log in or sign up” and then get bounced back to where you were. At least I do on both my Windows computer and my Android phone.
I have no interest in getting a Twitter account, because reasons, but I did discover an extremely ungainly way to get around the block: open links in a new tab. You get the “log in/sign up” message in that tab, but once you clear it you can see the linked tweet. The worst effect of the blocking gizmo that I have seen is that it has basically nuked Twitter’s search function. You can do a search, but you can’t get to the results because of the block-mo-tron.
To open a link in a new tab: On a computer, you can typically right-click the link and then select “open in new tab” or similar. On a tablet or phone, you press and hold the link to get that option (and others).
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I caught that clip too. Good for her for telling the truth. Wallace has come a long way from her Bush-McCain roots, but I was also a little surprised she so completely repudiated the neocon con.
Kathleen
@OzarkHillbilly: Sorry to hear that. Shoulder pain has to be some if the worst kind of pain. I hope you get relief soon.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: I just can’t imagine. They messed up so much the first time, that it has to be scary to say the least.
Just Chuck
I enabled two-factor auth on my twitter account many years ago, then lost the authenticator, so I’m more or less permanently locked out. I could sign up with a different email, but … naw. I detest what Twitter has done to discourse. Long form posts are a UI disaster, so now everyone is looking for a pithy zinger.
Another Scott
@Just Chuck: Maybe, but that was second-hand (son’s story from his father), not something picked up from a forwarded tweet. ;-)
$10k does seem like a lot, though…
Ford – “I spent a bundle on this thing from you and now I need to spend $10k on what was obviously a defect from the factory??! I’ll see YOU in COURT!!11”
Hehe.
But who knows. Being an engineer, I like the story and will keep it. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Leave the tent at home, we have a pop-up camper. And while Misery is not the place to be in a plague, we isolate pretty well here and there is no place better than Misery in Autumn.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@BC in Illinois: the gqp has tried to stoke anger over unvaxxxed, delta positive messicans coming over the border, but after tomas algodon (q – ar) cried wolf in 2014 over mexican toddlers with ebola in hamas-designed suicidevests, the public could not give a shitless.
Betty Cracker
@oldgold: We’ll have to agree to disagree on that; I think he usually does a pretty good job.
Kathleen
@germy: Or a white gated exurban development populated with Proud Boys.
waratah
Early this morning CNN had the female version of Richard saying how bad the Taliban are while standing on a busy street with Afghans walking along with no problems from the Taliban. She stopped at one point when she realized that a couple of women walked past her. Optics matter.
SiubhanDuinne
OH, CHUCK YOU, FUCK TODD, YOU UNSPEAKABLE GARBAGE SCUM.
Jesus Christ, what a disgusting tool.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly:
New England on line 1 for you, OH.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: Then he should be taken off the air if he can’t do his job.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Kay: everytime she said email, greenspan got hard.
2016 was a sexual thing for the lamestream media’s hottest power couple.
Gin & Tonic
@waratah: My dear wife was watching some network teevee footage from Kabul yesterday, of all the people trying to flee, and said “huh, they’re all men.” She was not sympathetic.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: she was relentless in trolling the Iran Deal, “critics in both parties say….”
Kathleen
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “The Blob” is perfect description.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6:
Is calling entire countries shitholes a no no only when Trump does it?
If indeed Afghanistan deserves that moniker, the Russians, the British and now Americans and Pakistanis have a lot to do with it.
Hildebrand
The sudden renewal of interest in saving the ‘women and girls’ of Afghanistan (didn’t we start this war with that kind of talk from the Republicans?) is just galling. Those pushing this line don’t seem to care an awful lot about misogynistically oppressive regimes if they are our allies (looking at you Saudi Arabia). Frankly, as seen with Carlson, the right-wing applauds the oppression of women and girls. They are envious of the Taliban.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: Good point. Images are always selective.
AlJazeera had a photo of a plane at a gate with people hanging out through the cockpit windows, on top of the wings and fuselage, etc. It was nuts.
All youngish men, of course.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: Wishing you the best. Hoping that the MO-ron Covid deniers will not take up all the facilities you need for speedy surgery. It’s got to be a tad dicey to schedule surgery these days.
Keep us posted.
OzarkHillbilly
@Just Chuck: Many urban legends have a nugget of truth at their core that gets blown way out of proportion, or adapted to another purpose. Years ago I was involved in/the source of an incident in Soulard. It wasn’t anything that anybody who wasn’t there would care about and even if one was it would hardly have mattered to most. Weeks later I was sitting at the bar in Molly’s when this guy starts telling me this really wild story. He was at least 5 minutes into it before I realized he was talking about me.
Nicole
@Another Scott: That Smithsonian article was a fun read; thanks for the link.
Elizabelle
RE Richard Engel: doesn’t it seem that NBC is funded to a significant extent by the military industrial complex? Certainly the Sunday shows.
What a surprise that Engel is hyperventilating about keeping us in a permanent war. Not.
Whoever called him an adrenaline junkie called it right. That said, it has to be wrenching for so many to worry about the non-fundamentalist Afghans now in peril.
Kristine
@OzarkHillbilly: Hoping the road smoothes out more quickly than current info predicts.
JPL
@Hildebrand: They love the Saudi’s.
Betty Cracker
@Kathleen: I agree — with the proviso that I didn’t see anything from Engel yesterday that would warrant such a drastic step, plus with the caveat that I watched maybe 10-15 minutes of his reporting, so it’s possible I missed the most egregious stuff.
OzarkHillbilly
That doesn’t work for me (firefox) (hillbilly operator). This is pissing me off. It’s their business and they have a right to grow it as they best judge, I’m just trying to decide if it’s worth playing along.
Chris
@Hildebrand:
It’d be one thing if they’d ever at least done anything for the women in Afghanistan.
Last I checked, the right wing’s main interest in women’s rights abroad is the Mexico City Policy that prevents any aid funds for abortion. Afghanistan isn’t specifically targeted in this, but if you wanted to help Afghan women in the last twenty years, family planning would have been a pretty good place to start.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: Earlier I had the choice between the local networks in storm mode, or streaming CNN or MSNBC and seeing pictures of the same plane at the airport in Kabul. I did choose another option, which was silence.
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, we all made it the shithole it is, along with the Taliban itself. It has been made a shithole, just as we have made Haiti one, too. I’m sure Afghanistan is a majestic place and I know that Haiti is a beautiful place. But we, meaning Western powers, their enemies in the regions and their sycophants, have turned them into shitholes. I won’t apologize for saying so.
Biff Baxter
@SiubhanDuinne: Chuck never questioned the competence of the Trump Administration for 4 years. He’s a Village Clown.
This so reminds me of the Clinton Impeachment. When The Village so wanted and expected him to resign and the public saw it for what it was and could care less.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: I did say none better. NE’s is equal.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And what about the Iran deal and US credibility? What about the climate change agreement and US credibility?
So if I understand this correctly the only time US credibility is at risk is with wars that these people support? All our other committments can be thrown away like toilet paper but on issues of bombing other countries we must continue, forever.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: ack
geg6
@Kay:
This. No one ever asks them that question. Ever.
germy
I don’t have a twitter account, but I can read tweets.
Those of you being asked to sign up, is it your browser?
Before I bought this chromebook, I was using safari on an old mac, and couldn’t access twitter.
Now, I can read them just fine.
And I recommend Betty Cracker’s twitter. Wise and funny and also featuring some great bird photos.
JPL
@raven: How’s the pup?
Kay
@Chris:
There’s a method to the Right’s eanest devotion to women’s rights in Afghanistan. They use it to shame and bully US women into sitting down and shutting up on women’s rights in the United States. US women should be grateful because after all they could be living under the Taliban. That’s the message they send.
As long as there is one woman anywhere with fewer rights and options all the women everywhere else are privileged whiners. The anti-cancel culture people are the worst – they do this hugely manipulative shit constantly. Whichever group in the US is asking or demanding something is immediately put into the context of the worst-off people worldwide, and judged as somehow not serious in comparison.
mali muso
@Steeplejack:
Thanks for the tips. I noticed this latest tomfoolery yesterday. If I can’t browse through threads at my own convenience, oh well. They’re not going to get me to create an account.
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
It works for me in Firefox (on Win10). Perhaps you could provide details?
Raoul Paste
@OzarkHillbilly: let me emphasise things that you already know. If you have physical therapy right after surgery be sure to do the exercises that they give you
Ms Paste is a physical therapist, and she tells me that there is a critical time period after surgery where, if the necessary exercises aren’t performed there is a bad outcome. I don’t know if this applies to your situation, but just sayiin….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: Just tried Firefox, and it does appear to be a Safari issue, at least on my fairly new MacBook
raven
@JPL: She is so sweet, we remain stunned at how trusting she is. She’s good with adults, kids a and “most” dogs.
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack: Thanx, but I’m so ignorant of all things digital I have no idea of what details might be helpful nor a clue of where to look for them. That’s what I have a wife for. ;-)
Kay
@Chris:
And US women will go along with it. Because they’re trained that way.
After all, being groped by your boss IS much better than an honor killing! That is certainly true! I apologize for even mentioning MY problems in the context of worldwide suffering!
A lot of it is overt. A demand that we be grateful that at least our government isn’t killing us. They got me there! Check mate on my demands!
OzarkHillbilly
@Raoul Paste: Yeah, it will definitely apply here, this is one of those “don’t fuck around” surgeries.
Ken
You’re the Soulard guy with the bag of oranges, the can of motor oil, and the cockatoo?
JPL
@raven: That’s great news. You did good.
Fake Irishman
@Chris:
You should still read from Beirut to Jerulsalem if you get a chance. Friedman was still a top-flight foreign correspondent then; well before he went to seed as a columnist. It breaks down the confusing morass of the Lebanese civil war into its component parts, is a great primer on reporting in a war zone and has genuinely funny observations on the absurdities of the conflict mixed with real compassion for the civilians stuck in the crossfire. The section on Israel really grapples with questions of what Israel is or ought to be, both with interviews, and with Friedman talking very poignantly about his own evolution on what Israel was and symbolized as he moved from an American Jew growing up in the 1960s to reporting on the Israeli massacres of Palestinians in refugee camps.
He’s gotten old and rather fossilized, but he once was a legitimately great reporter. You can profit with his older stuff while bypassing the later dreck.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this guy does not like Engel…
I’d say that’s a general complaint about MSNBC, always playing dramatic footage with their “LIVE” icon in the corner. They were driving me nuts on 1/6
dmsilev
@Steeplejack: What worked for me, so far anyway, to get rid of that annoyance was to trash all Twitter-related cookies and other data. For Safari on iPhone/iPad, go to Settings->Safari->Advanced->Website Data. Type in ‘twi’ in the search field and trash Twitter and a few related domains.
Kay
@Chris:
No one ever says “there are men all but enslaved on commercial fishing boats as we speak! How dare these other men complain about cancel culture. Are you enslaved on a commercial fishing boat? No? Then be grateful”.
prostratedragon
@Steeplejack: Works for me, thanks (firefox/linux).
L85NJGT
@Kay:
A heavy bombing campaign is consistent with the belief that Vietnamization worked, and that they could have kept the NVA perpetually at bay with US air power plus local ground forces (ARVN), if only those hippy lovers in Congress hadn’t intervened.
I suppose then as now, it is about saving face, rather than any tactical utility or strategic gains.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m just glad they got it working. I think of Biden as competent and it worried me. Looking at this INSANE backlash I wouldn’t be suprised if they fucked with the information he got on the timeline. I wouldn’t put it past them. They want to stay. Forever. They are going to take the biggest piece of him they possibly can for him defying their will. He will be punished.
Eunicecycle
@Raoul Paste: Years ago I had physical therapy for my shoulder. The PT told me I was recovering well; how often did I do my home exercises? I told her 3 times a day, like you told me to. She sort of laughed and said it was unusual for people to actually listen to her!
Chris
@Kay:
It’s funny. I know a few Middle Eastern women (Lebanese, mostly) who work in the women’s rights field back home and whose Facebook feeds reguarly weigh in on the topic…
And on the one hand, yes, there are honor killings and things like that to worry about. But at the same time, those things aren’t actually that common. Obviously, it varies by time and country. But on the whole, honor killings in the Middle East are simply the most extreme expression of a general culture of sexism which, frequently, isn’t nearly as dramatic or as far removed from the lives of Western women as the Foxbots want us to believe. The bulk of what my Lebanese friends talk about would sound pretty familiar to any women’s rights activist over here; rampant sexual harassment, rampant domestic violence, a police that refuses to take either problem seriously, pay gaps, glass ceilings, difficulty of getting a career outside of certain carefully gendered fields, etc.
The divide between “good” women’s rights activism in the Middle East (which tackles “serious” problems) and “bad” women’s rights activism in the West has been a big deal for right-wingers and other anti-IdPol turds here for decades, but a lot of it is complete bullshit. The struggles have far more in common than not.
Steeplejack
@dmsilev:
I wondered about that. I’ll give it a try. Thanks.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: Nah, not that guy, he’s weird. I’m the guy who beat the fuck out of his own truck with an iron pipe.
germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Safari is such bullshit
I used to be a mac guy, but I got fed up with all the bullshit.
We went to Italy a few years ago, took photos. I thought I could connect the camera to my mac to transfer the pictures. Nope. Not compatible.
If my son hadn’t been there with his pc, the photos would still be in the camera.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: “We” made the mistakes but they get called the names. Lovely.
Mike in NC
We used to go to Nantasket Beach and Paragon Park as kids, about a million years ago. I don’t think much of it remains…
cain
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I believe he was known here as the “Mustache of Understanding”(tm)
Kay
@L85NJGT:
What bothers me about it is it is a lie. They know they can’t hold the 2020 status quo. They know they’ll be back in 6 months requesting more. I don’t even think it would have been 6 months. I suspect Biden knew there were only two choices- end it or escalate from current levels. There was no status quo option.
That’s why it isn’t “Germany” or “Japan”. We don’t have to bomb Germany every two years to hold off the extremists.
prostratedragon
The browser opera doen’t seem to have the problem so far, though the mice at twitter are likely working on it. Available only for linux as far as I know.
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: People call Misery a shithole all the time, and it bothers me not in the least. In some ways it is a shithole.
Kosh III
@Biff Baxter: Had Clinton resigned we would have had President Gore and we would not be facing climate catastrophes (plural) like we are now. Plus avoided our destruction of Iraq.
Citizen Alan
@zhena gogolia: As I have said many times, the single most repulsive thing about republicans is that they are incapable of caring about any loss of human life unless they can use that loss to slander democrats.
Mart
@rikyrah: Black Professor ? (@WonderKing82) tweeted at 8:08 AM on Tue, Aug 17, 2021:
Y’all don’t care about the Muslim community in America but I’m supposed to believe you care about the Muslim community in Afghanistan?
Screaming about the brown hordes streaming across the border while crying what about the Afgan refugees. 99% of America won’t want any Afgan Muslims anywhere near their backyard.
Kay
@Chris:
Labor unions call this “slice and dice”. They insert a wedge in a group of people – silly, privileged women’s rights versus serious, grave women’s rights – it’s to divide people who would be natural allies.
The “dice” part of that comes after the slice. That’s where they destroy whatever the issue was, for both groups.
Pick the issue- it works for all of them. As long as someone somewhere has worse health insurance or a lower wage than I do I may NOT complain.
mali muso
@dmsilev: Thank you! That seems to have worked for my iPhone at least. :)
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: It does bother me. I think Afghanistan has got a raw deal for two centuries and counting. It seems like victim blaming YMMV.
FWIW, I think Pakistan bears the biggest responsibility for Taliban. From its formation to its current triumphant return.
Chris
@Kay:
To add to the above –
While I’ve never seem my friends mention it, I also have no doubt that women in Lebanon, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, et al are regularly told by the local MRA brigade “shut up bitch, you don’t know how good you have it, do you realize what real oppression would be like in Saudi Arabia?” And women in Saudi Arabia, in turn, are told “shut up bitch, you don’t know how good you have it, do you realize what real oppression would be like under the Taliban/Daesh?”
(I don’t know what version of this the Taliban and Daesh say to women under their jurisdiction, but I’m quite sure it exists there too. Presumably it’s some version of “you don’t know how lucky you are to be raped by me when you could be getting raped by some fucking Hazara/Kurd/insert-unperson-here.”)
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
It descriptive of the environment. Apparently, they are paradise and I’m mistaken.
Kay
@Chris:
Glenn Greenwald, the absolute master of manipulative, bad faith behavior, uses this constantly.
Female journalists or essayists he dislikes may not complain about online harrassment because they went to boarding school and anyway did you know people are imprisoned for speech?
The insurrection wasn’t a REAL insurrection you coddled whiners. Were there tanks?
Spanky
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Didn’t Toobin get fired for doing that?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I find it oddly delightful that the lead doo-wopper (if memory serves) from Sha-Na-Na tweets like a Jackal
Steeplejack
@dmsilev:
That worked (at least for now). Thanks! (Firefox on Win10.)
Note for others who try this: you have to close Firefox and then reopen it to get it to work.
Step-by-step method:
Go to Tools | Settings | Privacy & Security | Cookies & Site Data | Manage Data.
Search for “twi” and then delete the Twitter cookies. (Highlight Twitter, click “Remove Selected,” then click “Save Changes.”)
Close and restart Firefox.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: They are not a paradise and you can call them whatever you want.
Chris
@schrodingers_cat:
My wingnut uncle’s contribution to the family emails was to break out the Niall Ferguson “killer apps” profound insight about how Afghans simply lacked the cultural tools that had made the West a success.
Americans, and not just right-wingers, have an absolute mind block against admitting that if America had to live through a decade of communist occupation followed by a half-decade of gang war followed by a half-decade of rule by a psychopathic cult followed by two decades of more occupation… Afghanistan is exactly what we would look like.
(And if it did, some shithead professors and talking heads in Paris and London would start tut-tutting about how America was never a real and functional country like theirs, what folly it was to ever think it could work long-term… and generally speaking, how there’s nothing to learn from this other than We Are Good And Not Like Them).
VeniceRiley
@geg6:
Came here just to share this sweet burn of Richard Engel with you …
https://twitter.com/chris_notcapn/status/1427170201729110018?s=21
Ken
@Kay: I would have more sympathy for the “men’s rights” movement if they did concentrate on working conditions. On the rare occasions when I’ve checked, I’ve mostly seen whining about alimony and child support, with the
subtext that men shouldn’t have to follow laws they don’t like.Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: I am taking that as a serious open invite…
Just drove through Tennessee and Ar-Kansas (as my family calls it) and that was a scary damn scene. Houston was much better, but I was near the medical center….
Steeplejack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Because he was a huge rainmaker 30 years ago, he’s a vested partner, and he has no life or identity outside of the firm.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: I realize I may have come across as snappy towards you which I didn’t intend so I apologize. I can understand if he’s grieving or emotional etc. So either he should have excused himself or the network should have intervened because while these reporters always wanted to make it about them they still owe the audience information delivered professionally.
Mart
@rikyrah: Black Professor ? (@WonderKing82) tweeted at 8:08 AM on Tue, Aug 17, 2021:
Y’all don’t care about the Muslim community in America but I’m supposed to believe you care about the Muslim community in Afghanistan?
Screaming about the brown hordes streaming across the border while crying what about the Afgan refugees. 99% of America won’t want any Afgan Muslims anywhere near their backyard.
Chris
@Ken:
I think the talking point I loathe the most from the MRA crowd is the one about how male rape is chronically underreported and underdiscussed and how it’s all the feminist movement’s fault.
Because while the former isn’t wrong, the feminist movement is in fact literally the only faction in politics that ever tries to shine a light on it. (“Toxic masculinity hurts men as well as women” has been a cliched talking point since forever in that crowd, and this is one of its biggest cases in point). The MRAs and feminist critics in general never, ever, ever, ever bring it up except in the one specific context of needing to blame feminists.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
Seconded. Autumn’s one of the things I miss the most about the Northeast.
schrodingers_cat
@Chris: How many people know that the leader of the Pathans before independence in NWFP of British India was Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, a Gandhian. And that the Pathans did not welcome the formation of Pakistan.
Pakistan, the dream of the Muslim elite has been a blight for the Muslims of the subcontinent. It has divided them between 3 countries
I see the Sangh-BJP ruling India repeating many of the same mistakes that the Muslim elite in Pakistan did.
Immanentize
@Kay: Biden said exactly that — it’s true. If we did not withdraw (may 1 but he negotiated an extension to Sept. 1), then he was going to be forced to send in ten thousand plus troops. And the war would be back on with killing of Americans….
That was the calculus — withdraw or go back to hot war.
OzarkHillbilly
It is.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Because his hand is constantly outstretched in expectation of his “equity share” despite having gone 20 years without generating so much as a billable hour, the other partners have had enough concern about possible bar implications that they see to it that he has an office and available staff on site. They do this in order to stave off the alternative of all the whining of “I built this place, and these clients were all brought in by me 40 years ago”; he’d follow that up with a poorly managed, misspelled lawsuit that he’d litigate himself. They figure that at the end of the day, they’ll pay for that “equity share” with the never ending labor of a few associates and non-equity partners pulling 60 hour a week schedules.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: Pakistan, or more specifically the ISI, could neuter the Taliban in a week if they wanted to.
rikyrah
Sasha Says Arrest Fetterman (@SashaBeauloux) tweeted at 9:56 AM on Tue, Aug 17, 2021:
I’ve been tryna tell them:
A lot of Black people, who don’t GAF about the PA Senate race
Are watching ⚪️ Progressives spin and defend Fetterman’s history of armed violence against a Black man…
And will NEVER trust Progressives going forward ??♀️
(https://twitter.com/SashaBeauloux/status/1427645427885694981?s=03)
geg6
@VeniceRiley:
Ha! I love Chris Evans.
OzarkHillbilly
Just got a weird phone call:
Caller: “Hello Grandpa.” said a voice I have never heard, sounding kind of high, and very local.
Me: Who are you?
C: I’m your grandson. Don’t you know me?
Me: No.
C: Are you Thomas?
Me: Yes
C: CJ’s father?
Me: Yes, who the F are you?
C: I’m your grandson, R. (my eldest son is R)(this weren’t him)
Me: You’re gonna have to do better than that or I’m hanging up.
C: click.
This is obviously somebody who knows me and my sons. What their game might be, I haven’t a clue, and will be talking to my sons about this soon. Fortunately, they made the mistake of calling on my cell (surprised it rang, most times we get no signal) and they didn’t block their #.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: you’re forgetting the part where the plucky young associate who’s been trying to resolve the Big Case, which may or may not involve a murder or an orphan being cheated or both, casually mentions some detail to ancient partner, and it turns out the old codger has had the key to the mystery the whole time! but no one thought to ask….
zhena gogolia
@Spanky: You win the thread.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Truth but they won’t do it. I mean OBL was living in a town where many senior military personnel do. I haven’t paid much attention to Pakistan’s internal politics off late but do know that Imran Khan the current PM is an ethnic Pathan.
Ken
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Sure, if you want a legal thriller. I’d go with the old codger actually being an ancient vampire, who’s enthralled most of the law firm into not noticing that he’s been around for ninety years.
germy
@OzarkHillbilly:
My MIL got a call like that, too.
It’s common, from what I’ve read. They ask you to send gift cards or something, or wire them money because they’re in trouble.
This caller just learned that not all old folks are confused.
Is it possible they got info from googling? Lots of sites show people and possible relations. Why, I don’t know.
OldDave
Trust me – nobody in Arkansas calls it Ar-Kansas. The handle for a citizen is a point of contention (Ar-Kansan vs Arkansawyer) but for the state, Ar-kan-saw.
The parts of Misery up by Ozark are pretty – it’s hill country. And the Zoo and Science Museum in St. Louis are exceptional and free.
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: The part that bothers me is they had my cell # and knew both my sons. It was just a little too specific for the avg phishing scheme.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“I kept 3 pages from that file, 1 being the true receipt and the other 2 being a signed affidavit of criminal wrongdoing. Thought it might be important one day”, as he reaches into his top drawer and pulls out the only thing inside….
La Nonna
@OzarkHillbilly: Recuperating now from a complete shoulder joint replacement, inverse, titanium, after years of pain. 4 days in ortho hospital, 4 weeks into a 6 week recovery, remarkably pain free and already 80% mobility, looking forward to years of swimming and yoga again.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: Question, since you’re still around. Most of this house (built ~1962) has plaster walls. The plaster is spread on some type of board kind of like sheetrock – the garage ceiling is covered in it, but not plastered. It’s all 16×48″ sheets, and breaks apart like gypsum board. What’s that stuff called?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
but for a half-eaten ham sandwich covered in spectacularly varying shades of green and blue molds, and the body of Tommie, the beloved budgerigar that had kept him company as he worked long, lonely nights plotting the strategy for Markham vs Dunworthy, the case that made his career, also covered in…
Ruviana
@germy: This happened to a friend of mine who got ripped off for $4000. I keep waiting for one so I can lol since I have no kids and obvsly no grandchildren.
Ken
Also the history and art museums. This is thanks to the Zoo-Museum Tax District. I grew up near St. Louis and was disappointed when I learned that few other cities have such a sensible funding arrangement. (Well, actually my disappointment was in having to pay admission.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@OzarkHillbilly: happened to a relative of mine, she didn’t want to admit she didn’t recognize an adult grandson’s voice, cause she has several and she’s closer to some of them than others, and they strung her along for a few minutes, but she figured it out before she gave them any vital info. She was really rattled.
germy
@OzarkHillbilly:
Did you see their phone number? Google it and see what comes up (include the area code)
OzarkHillbilly
@La Nonna: It’s in my future.
@Gin & Tonic: Lathing I do believe, just like the old wooden slats and the wire lathing they used in bathrooms.
J R in WV
@Dave:
Oh, Dave! I’m sorry Dave, we can’t do that!
Having spent ALL our treasure in the Democratic wars of the 'Stans we can't possibly spend any more money on rebuilding our own country~!!~ That would be wrong, we might have to borrow the funds. There might be inflation!
No, having lost the Democratic Wars in the 'Stans, we have to return to fiscal responsibility, stop reckless spending on wasteful support programs like SNAP and Medicaid, and pay down the giant Democratic Debt.
/snark
Or we could write off the Republican War Debt and fight to reclaim our nation first and the rest of the world as quickly as possible after that.
OzarkHillbilly
Jim, Foolish Literalist: No grandsons here, just granddaughters, not that that would work anyway.
germy: I’ll do that, thanx.
dkinPa
@OzarkHillbilly: So sorry to hear that! Hoping things go more smoothly than you expect and wishing you the best.
J R in WV
@WereBear:
Personally, I would go for pain free primary, and functionality secondary. My shoulder replacement due to disappeared cartilage worked pretty well. Tendonitis still hurts, but what are ya gonna do? That’s what holds the joint together…
Good luck, bro! We’re all pulling for you!!
Peale
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: As far as I can tell, we normal folks get absolutely nothing from having our troops in Afghanistan and there is no strategic or tactical advantage for the nation as a whole for being there. But if these elites want to continue it, then I recommend that that Congress pass a special $100,000 annual tax surcharge on the salaries of employees of think tanks and TV hosts to help offset the cost of the occupation that they want to continue because it makes them feel good inside.
J R in WV
@Raoul Paste:
Following each of my total shoulder replacements a few years ago, I was provided with a bulky device to immobilize my arm.shoulder for several weeks before beginning PT.
Once I started my PT with a therapist I had worked with for several problems over the years, he had me not work at home for several weeks, but just let him stretch and strengthen things.
He would move my arm to a limit, and go just a little further, until I would squeak, under stern instructions not to let him go too far.
But for the tendonitis I’m in fairly good shape. Sometimes things hurt, but I can do lots of things around the farm… my own fault, I used those shoulders up really quickly doing things I loved to do.
J R in WV
@Chris:
As if women aren’t killed in the US for defying male parents, “boyfriends” and husbands. Happens every day, every where. Just as horrible here as out there, also too.
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
Along with the Kingdom of Saud, which allegedly poured oil money into the Taliban. I guess the Taliban could have just stolen American aid money?
JAFD
@Gin & Tonic: A couple of years back, I sent message (along with membership renewal) to WBGO.org (maybe not world’s greatest jazz station, but still pretty good, IMHO) (and the only news medium that covers the city of Newark), said “Autumn in New York is one of the classics of The American Songbook, and has been covered by many great artists, but you don’t have to play it every seventy minutes from Labor Day to Thanksgiving.”
Ozark MountainWilliam, hope the docs can enable you to get your daily tasks done and live a pain-free life.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
I think that stuff was called backer board, as opposed to sheet rock. Don’t know why it was smaller sheets of material. It was used after lath fell out of favor, but before sheetrock was used for finish work.
Plaster is a lot harder than finished sheetrock.
My grandma’s house was plastered over that stuff. It’s softer than current day sheetrock, the house was built in around 1930-32. So I recall from family stories, was obviously way before my time.
schrodingers_cat
@J R in WV: Even more than Saud, its the aid and safe haven provided by Pakistan that was key. Taliban’s philosophy comes from a puritanical Islamic sect from northern India and is not really that old, dates back to the 18th century.
Ramalama
@Mike in NC: Just the Carousel remains.
A bunch of restaurants now take up space where the skee ball and other games were, facing the beach, including the most excellent Dalat.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So have the media pundits revealed who is the General that was suppose to lead the heroic General Gordon style last stand at Kabul yet before Biden screwed up by not getting the Afghan army to die to the last man like The Narrative called for?
MoCaAce
I want to see a sign that says
“If you choose to be abusive to our staff, be assured that we need them more than we need your business”
Geminid
@J R in WV: Sheetrock was in widespread use after WW II replacing wooden lathe as a substrate for plaster. Pretty soon, the residential building industry figured out that if larger sheets were taped and skimmed over with joint compound along with the nails, skilled plasterers could be dispensed with and the painters cut loose. Now some more expensive houses still have plastered walls. I think a special board and a harder drying joint compound are used.
A similar sequence occured with cinderblock. Originally, they were laid as stackable forms which were then filled solid with cement or concrete. After a while, builders started leaving the blocks unfilled. Basements were built with horizontal wire reinforcing and vertical rebar in filled cores 24″ on center.
In the 1980’s the central Virginia contractor I worked for hired a good carpenter from Massachusetts as a job foreman. I was in charge of footings and the foundation on his first addition, and when the masons left without filling all the block cores Mr. Putnam very surprised. That’s how we do it down here, I explained. Now builders may do it that way some up in Massachusetts, but these days house foundations are more often built with formed concrete. This method costs more in material, less in labor, and is both stronger and faster.
JCNZ
@Butter Emails!: That is such a brilliant observation – applicable right across the board.