Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Everybody saw this coming.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

In my day, never was longer.

The words do not have to be perfect.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Sunday Evening Open Thread: Hall of *All* the Mirrors

Sunday Evening Open Thread: Hall of *All* the Mirrors

by | 141 Comments

This post is in: ,

Russia is wrapping up its national elections, about which I have not posted because, frankly, there’s enough depressing news on my remit already.

So here’s a space for y’all to vent, about that or anything else.

Reader Interactions

141Comments

  5. 5.

    banditqueen

    WaPo reports that Putin’s party will maintain its death grip. Also, Google and Apple declare another victory for Putin with zero precincts reporting and no opponents running against Putin this time. barf emoji

  6. 6.

    Starfish

    If she and Elizabeth Holmes were only born ten years later and could have chosen “influencer” as a career over “aspire to greatness through criminality.”

  7. 7.

    trollhattan

    This seems on point.

    TAPPER: Governor, if Mississippi were a country, you would have the 2nd worst per capita death toll in the world. And I’m saying, are you going to do anything to try to change that?

    TATE REEVES: Deaths unfortunately are a lagging indicator.

    “Laggards!” They should try harder.

  9. 9.

    Ken

    @VOR: Maybe it’s an attempt to rehabilitate her reputation so that she can resume her attempts to influence American conservatives.

    To which some might respond, “They’d have to be idiots to — oh.”

  12. 12.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Ken: IIUC, the reason she was judged to be a “foreign agent” was that she got donations (heh) from the Overstock CEO guy.  And had some foreign investments.  If anything, it’s a reason to think that the Overstock CEO guy is a Russkie stooge.

  14. 14.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @trollhattan: I think Molly Ivins used to propose as the state motto of Texas, ‘At least we’re not Mississippi!’. Maybe Tater can campaign on “Better Than Alabama!”

    Bianna Golodryga @biannagolodryga 7h
    “For the first time in Alabama’s known history, the state had more deaths than births in 2020… Such a gap had never been recorded, not even during World War I, World War II and the flu pandemic of 1918,”

    “Our state literally shrunk in 2020,” Dr. Scott Harris, Alabama’s state health officer, said at a news conference on Friday. There were 64,714 total deaths in the state last year, compared to 57,641 births, Dr. Harris said. …

    Alabama’s rate of full vaccination is on a par with Idaho’s, tied as the third-lowest rate in the country. The two that rank lower are Wyoming and West Virginia.
    Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, has urged the people of her state to get Covid vaccinations, but like many other Republicans, she objected when President Biden recently announced vaccine mandates, calling them “outrageous” and “overreaching.”

  16. 16.

    Ken

    @Baud: According to the NYT interactive pages, Peru at 612 per 100K population. statista.com agrees, but that may only mean they’re running from the same data.

  17. 17.

    hells littlest angel

    @MomSense: Tapper followed up repeatedly until he gave up in undisguised disgust. He did TateR no favors.

     

     

    Butina won her election — to a district hundreds of miles from her home. Now she can fight for gun rights for Russians!

  18. 18.

    Ken

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I think the governor means that cases have started going down, but deaths lag cases by a couple of weeks.

    Someone should have told him that six weeks ago, when cases started going up.  (Narrator: Someone did.)

  19. 19.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I had two thoughts:

    1. it’s just bafflegab: he’s trying to get past Tapper’s question, so he responds with something that *sounds* like an answer, but is really just likely-sounding mouth noises.
    2. [now, trying to impute some sense to his words, ] maybe he meant that “our case rates are dropping, but gee whiz, deaths are a lagging indicator, so they don’t show up in the death rate yet.

    I don’t give him credit for thinking up #2, but even if he did, it doesn’t really answer the question of why they allowed the situation to get so awful in the first place.

    Honestly, I think it’s all #1.  bafflegab and bullshit.

  20. 20.

    VOR

    @Ken: Wikipedia points to an AP article saying her Republican target got a pardon from Trump on his way out the door. Hadn’t known that.

  21. 21.

    scav

    @trollhattan: Finally, Mississippi finds its event where it shines international GOLD! If it just wasn’t for those meddlesome lagging statistics, it’d already be on that podium . . . .

  31. 31.

    Mike in NC

    It was Putin who inspired our very own Kremlin stooge to try to install himself as unelected dictator-for-life. Putin is obviously not like Trump in the lazy, stupid, and incompetent department.

  33. 33.

    Starfish

    @Baud: The preamble for this was so close and so far away. Every time anyone tries to unionize anything in the South, some company pours salt into the wound of the racial resentment that is never discussed openly between the races.

    All of these states are also right to work states so all of the union busting will happen.

    I hope that the Amazon union thing in Bessemer, AL gets voted on again even though I am not optimistic.

  34. 34.

    Ruckus

    @VOR: 
    Let’s see, trump is protecting his Russian assets, the ones from Russia who actual worked for Russia.
    Does that make him a Russian asset? I think it might. Not that this would bother any of his supporters…

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: 

    Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, has urged the people of her state to get Covid vaccinations, but like many other Republicans, she objected when President Biden recently announced vaccine mandates, calling them “outrageous” and “overreaching.”

    Certain types of conservatives are mentally “stuck.” They insist on holding onto an extreme belief in “individual liberty” and “personal responsibility” even if it leads to disaster for other people, or even themselves.

    People like the Kochs, Murdoch, Trump, etc, helped set this madness in motion, but they can’t stop the madness or redirect it.

  37. 37.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @VOR:  I knew about the Azores potentially casing an Atlantic tsunami, but I didn’t know this one had the potential too.

  39. 39.

    Another Scott

    @Brachiator: They could let people “side-load” apps that are banned in certain places, by letting people bypass the AppStore.  But they want complete control (for good and bad reasons) so they get tarred (for some good reasons) when they take actions that help repressive regimes.

    Apple could change their policies anytime they want…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  40. 40.

    karen marie

    @trollhattan: I’ve got no fucks to give for Tapper.  What was the point of having Reese on?  It certainly wasn’t to better inform the public.  The only reason for that bullshit performance was clickbait.

    Tapper can get stuffed along with Chuck Todd

    @Chetan Murthy: Which is why Tapper had him on as a guest.  Tapper isn’t doing anyone any favors here.

  43. 43.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    They could let people “side-load” apps that are banned in certain places, by letting people bypass the AppStore.

    I doubt it is that simple.

    And the government could take the next step and outlaw all Apple products.

  44. 44.

    sdhays

    @VOR: They’re saying it will collapse in the next few thousand years. Not likely in the next few weeks, at least according to the BBC:

    The collapse of the western flank of the Cumbre Vieja volcano, on the southern half of La Palma, is not going to happen tomorrow or next week. Tourists should not cancel their holidays to the Canary Islands, or to the east coast of the United States or the Caribbean.

    What scientists are predicting is that the collapse is likely to happen any time within the next few thousand years. Scientists also know that a collapse will not happen without any warning. They will be able to alert people to possible danger several weeks in advance.

  46. 46.

    Starfish

    @Brachiator: It really is that simple.

    Apple’s app store is locked down tight. The legitimate part of this is that apps go through a review process to make sure they are not dangerous. The illegitimate part of this is that the app store that Apple has created is a monopoly where they get a significant chunk of any money made through the sale of an app or through any in-app sales.

    Okay, some judge said they were not a monopoly, but any business that makes its money selling an app can easily be blown up by Apple saying “Hey, your app can’t be in the app store anymore.”

  48. 48.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @karen marie: Correctamundo. I haven’t watched the Sunday shows in over a decade but I think it was Aron Rupar’s Twitter feed that noted that Fuck Turd had all Republicans on AGAIN this week. And I’m with you, what’s the point? Weeks of throwing softballs to these jokers and one or two instances of a real interview for which they expect and unfortunately get lavish praise.

  53. 53.

    zhena gogolia

    Okay, the mountain has moved. I’m halfway through a bullshit story in the NYT in which Briahna Joy Gray is given a platform to criticize Ocasio-Cortez for going to the Met Gala but also for her betrayal of the socialist cause.

    Viva Ocasio-Cortez! F–k Briahna Joy Gray!

  60. 60.

    zhena gogolia

    @schrodingers_cat: The article criticizes Ocasio-Cortez precisely for doing the things we think she should be doing — getting with the Dems’ program. So in this case, I’ll take her side.

  67. 67.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, …

    Thread.

    Hi @DanaKennedyLive, my name is Aleisha Gray. You know, the daughter of a co owner of Gray’s Paradise. Remember, the one you recently “grabbed a bite from between hearings”. pic.twitter.com/GYd4SOhob7

    — Aleisha (@CookieG23) September 17, 2021

    Kennedy is “investigative reporter for the NY Post”. And, apparently, a bald-faced liar.

    (via BettyBowers)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  69. 69.

    mrmoshpotato

    Is Accused Of Being US Agent

    Must be a translation error because that definitely isn’t “Was a Russky spy in the US”

  70. 70.

    prostratedragon

    @NotMax:  Someone should catalog the musical genres in which this theme has been expounded. I’d heard this one, an in addition I know of opera, gospel blues, and the show tunes of the inimitable Randy Rainbow –all styles well-suited to people who have reached and surpassed their limit. We need some heavy metal and some free jazz.

  71. 71.

    Brachiator

    I just listened to a radio commercial that began,

    “History shows that America rises to every challenge it faces…”

    After more patriotic palaver, it turns out the ad is for Kaufman Funeral Homes. Some heavy irony happening here.

  75. 75.

    NotMax

    Dialogue just now overheard during a medical program set in the 1890s:

    Doctor: “Please remove the dressing.”

    Nurse (removing spare blanket covering the wounded area): “I already have, Doctor.”

    Doctor (admonishing): “I spent an hour yesterday dressing that wound and you cover it with a dirty blanket.”

    Nurse (huffily): “The blankets are washed every month.”

    Those were the days, my foot.

  77. 77.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Maria Butina, Running For Russian Parliament, Is Accused Of Being US Agent

    The Russians are the world champs of paranoia.  Have been for centuries.

  80. 80.

    Geminid

    @Starfish: The Teamsters have made organizing Amazon a top priority, calling it a matter of long term survival. They recently began this effort at nine of Amazon’s Canadian facilities. The union’s plan is to get buy in from Amazon’s U.S. employees once they see the union succeed across the border.

    Unionizing Amazon is a very heavy lift, but at 1.3 million members in North America, the Teamsters may have what it takes. Amazon drivers are already familiar with their Teamster counterparts at UPS, and know they have a much better deal.

    With only 60,000 members, the Retail Worker and Department Store Union that’s trying to organize Amazon’s Bessemer facility is a very small David to be taking on Goliath. And the RWDSU’s decision to bring in Bernie Sanders to try to close the deal at their final rally had some people scratching their heads. Sanders may have a fervent following nationally, but he never made an especially strong showing in Alabama primaries.

    Personally, I think Jeff Bezos and other Amazon owners would be better off in the long run if the company was unionized, so long as their competitors were in the same boat. A thriving working class would make for a more prosperous middle class, and then everyone would have more money to buy stuff from Amazon. But for some reason, Bezos has yet to ask for my opinion.

  81. 81.

    Suzanne

    @NotMax: It always makes me laugh/horrified to see modern TV shows depict hospitals with shared patient rooms. We haven’t built hospitals like that for twenty years. Most infectious thing ever.

  83. 83.

    Starfish

    @Geminid: Thank you for explaining the details of the unionization battle to me.

    The fight I kept getting into repeatedly with some Southern folks around Bernie Sanders was “Hey, you can’t talk just like a Republican and expect to win on ‘true progressivism.'”

    The Southerners who were Bernie fans were tearing down Democrats with the same enthusiasm as Republicans. You can’t really do that where the a) party is not even organized or b) the party consists of a very small group of black folks who do not trust you at all. If you want anything remotely liberal to happen, you have to build up that second party in a two party system.

  84. 84.

    geg6

    @Brachiator:

    So what?  Is that really going to hurt Apple’s bottom line all that much?  I don’t think so. Fuck Apple and I say that as a devotee of my various iPhones over the years.

  86. 86.

    Mike in NC

    The tale of Maria Butina proves that the Russians have deeply embedded themselves in the NRA, Wall Street, evangelical churches and schools, and all of the other organs of the GOP ecosystem.

  87. 87.

    Ken

    @Dan B: There’s a documentary on the La Palma volcano.

    I google to find the documentary, and the top hits are because the volcano started erupting earlier today!

  88. 88.

    NotMax

    BTW, speaking of medical dramas, mentioning in passing for any who might be looking for something bingeable to pass the time which is not too stressful that all eight seasons of The Royal are currently available on Brtitbox, IMDb TV, Tubi TV, the Roku Channel and the FilmRise channel.

    Follows a not quite struggling but far from flush small hospital in Yorkshire. Set in the 1960s, a pleasant surprise is the accompanying and often unexpected music scattered throughout (they do play a bit fast and loose with the music being exactly from each year depicted, but that’s a minor quibble). Large cast of characters, all as it progresses becoming realistically fleshed out individuals (the sole exception being one who on occasion slips back and forth into caricature).

    Not TV to shout to the rafters about, it’s more akin to putting on a favorite pair of comfy slippers.

  89. 89.

    Bill Arnold

    @WaterGirl:

    I don’t expect much from Google anymore,

    Google actually had mysterious armed men camped out in their office. Moscow does not fuck around with its “elections”.

    Paywalled FT piece (Open in “private window” or other [technical means]); Apple and Google drop Navalny app after Kremlin piles on pressure – Tech groups report legal threats and visit from armed men as Moscow demands app is removed from online stores

    The person close to the situation also said Google employees had received public and private threats of criminal prosecution if the company did not comply with the Kremlin request to remove the app from the store and search engines.
    They said armed men, thought by staff to be police officers, spent several hours in Google’s Moscow offices on Monday. Russia’s bailiff service said on Tuesday its officers had visited to demand the company comply with a Moscow court ruling to remove the app from search results.

  91. 91.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, over at FTFNYT, …

    Here are thousands of deeply reported words on how a scientist was assassinated by an AI-assisted, remote-control killer robot without even a nod toward the legality or illegality of assassinating scientists with AI-assisted, remote-control killer robots. https://t.co/NUeeO07uAS

    — Matt Duss (@mattduss) September 19, 2021

    I’m shocked, shocked.

    (via dsquareddigest)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  92. 92.

    Dan B

    @Suzanne: I was in shared hospital rooms several times as a kid.  One “roommate” had a broken kneecap.  The football we tossed around landed directly on that kneecap.  The poor guy was hustled off to x-ray.  The football was 86’d.

    It’s not just sharing germs.

  94. 94.

    raven

    @debbie: It sooooo good, the footage is great and the lengthy coverage of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm and Ali is awesome. Ali has always been my favorite and, is far, this is the best I’ve seen.

  95. 95.

    Edmund Dantes

    Time to fire the parliamentarian.

    ruled can’t include immigration  in reconciliation even though it’s been included before in reconciliation under other presidents.

  96. 96.

    sab

    @Suzanne: The shared room hospitals are still in use. Friend of ours just escaped from one yesterday. And now he is on chemo. Cleveland Clinic run hospital,

  97. 97.

    Another Scott

    @Edmund Dantes: Made me look. RollCall:

    The consequences of putting millions of people on a path to citizenship would go far beyond the narrow scope of the nation’s budget, MacDonough said.

    Lawful permanent resident “status would give these persons freedom to work, freedom to travel, freedom to live openly in our society in any state in the nation, and to reunite with their families and it would make them eligible, in time, to apply for citizenship – things for which there is no federal fiscal equivalent,” she said. “Changing the law to clear the way to LPR status is tremendous and enduring policy change that dwarfs its budgetary impact.”

    Under what’s known as the “Byrd rule,” measures included in a reconciliation bill — which can pass with a simple majority — must directly affect the federal budget. Democrats made their initial pitch that the immigration changes had budgetary impact to MacDonough on Sept. 10.

    However, the parliamentarian’s decision likely won’t end Democrats’ efforts to pass some sort of immigration relief through reconciliation, but rather will send them back to the drawing board.

    Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer said as much in a statement, saying he was “deeply disappointed” by McDonough’s decision but “the fight to provide lawful status for immigrants in budget reconciliation continues.”

    “Senate Democrats have prepared alternate proposals and will be holding additional meetings with the Senate parliamentarian in the coming days,” he said. “The American people understand that fixing our broken immigration system is a moral and economic imperative.”

    Sens. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., and Alex Padilla, D-Calif., who have been spearheading their party’s efforts to include immigration provisions in the plan, said they were “deeply disappointed in the Parliamentarian’s decision, but the fight for immigration reform will continue.”

    We’ll see.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  98. 98.

    James E Powell

    @hells littlest angel:

    Tapper followed up repeatedly until he gave up in undisguised disgust. He did TateR no favors.

    Tapper didn’t do anyone any favors. How is giving that asshole a platform a good thing for anyone?

  100. 100.

    phdesmond

    Just saw the Burns “Ali.”

    i’ve been looking forward to it since i saw “One Night in Miami,” free on Prime.

  101. 101.

    James E Powell

    @Brachiator:

    People like the Kochs, Murdoch, Trump, etc, helped set this madness in motion, but they can’t stop the madness or redirect it.

    They don’t want to stop it. They don’t need to redirect it. Their money & bought judges will keep them from any harm.

  102. 102.

    piratedan

    @sab: I think Suzanne indicated that they’re not building them that way anymore… for all of those still in existence… yeah, many of them won’t be replaced anytime soon.  The point is, what used to be a fairly forgotten part of hospital departments (Infection Control) is now brought in to consult because of all things COVID.  Time change, Hospitals used to be just as critical on rehab post illness or surgery and with COVID all things have changed.

  103. 103.

    debbie

    @raven:

    Thanks. It repeats tomorrow, so I’ll still have a chance to see the first episode.

    By the way, how’s attendance been at your football games? Here, they are freaking out because only 75,000 attended vs. the usual 110,000.

  106. 106.

    Bill Arnold

    @Another Scott:
    Not to mention further de-facto normalization of extra-national assassination as a political tool.
    Yossi Cohen drove a lot of that, but with Netanyahu’s explicit approval. Also, as that piece said, the Israelis asked the Americans for approval of the Mohsen Fakhrizadeh assassination, which was given, by D.J. Trump.
    These three men are now out of power, much to DJT’s and BN’s surprise, though all three maintain political ambitions, so they all continue to be a threat to Iran and by their own rules are legitimate assassination targets, including by remote control assassination robots. (Netanyahu has said that he would be OK with himself, or Yossi Cohen or Ron Dermer ruling Israel, so the target list is narrow.)

  108. 108.

    Anya

    @zhena gogolia: Bri Bri is ridiculous. She’s Bernie’s Trump level low quality hire. Her tweets show up on my TL every now and then (despite muting her mentions) and I see her snarking with GG over how awful Dems are. What an asshole.

  109. 109.

    Layer8Problem

    I and my better half have just wasted another 45 minutes or so watching another episode of Netflix’ Clickbait, only because a friend has a small role. The script is lame, the characters are mostly cardboard, the twists are obvious, with a “ripped straight from tomorrow’s headlines” presentation. The writers must have spent entire minutes researching articles on how Teh Interwebz and our shallow news media are “pandering to our worst impulses, with no one safe. Have we Gone Too Far?” Yeh, thanks for the heads-up guys.

    We’ll tough it out, for our friend, but I’m not getting these hours back. Anyway, It’s a good idea to occasionally see a bad show or read a bad book so one can recollect the true value of the good stuff.

    So, off to watch more Bordertown for a palate cleanser.

  112. 112.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Brachiator: There is a conspiracy theory that Putin is in fact group of clones made from some Red Army solider in the 1930s and periodically these clones go bad, are liquidated and replaced with a new clone.

    Can North Korea match that?

  117. 117.

    Poe Larity

    So here’s a space for y’all to vent, about that or anything else.

    So visiting fam is intertubes working and needs more time before watching Wu-Tang show and said “go find someone on the internet who is wrong for a few minites”

    So I searched, but there isn’t an app for finding who is wrong on BJ and will only take a few minutes. Why doesn’t a top 10000 blog have a wrongness filter?

  118. 118.

    Ken

    @Poe Larity: The blog does have a pie filter, so if you’ve ever used that you can scroll through old articles until you find pie. Though I guess you’d have to remove the filter if the relatives insist on seeing why the person is wrong.

  120. 120.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Poe Larity:

    So visiting fam is intertubes working and needs more time before watching Wu-Tang show and said “go find someone on the internet who is wrong for a few minites” 

    Hahaha.  “Surf the web some more” didn’t occur to them?

    Or, find something else to watch for a minute?

  121. 121.

    Another Scott

    Brett Kavanaugh lied egregiously in his original Senate hearing to be a federal appeals court judge.

    Anyone who commits perjury like that should definitely not be on the Supreme Court. https://t.co/GZAkVgDEuK pic.twitter.com/UCjAuTd8dN

    — Steven Greenhouse (@greenhousenyt) September 19, 2021

    The FBI, and Kavanaugh, have a lot of explaining to do, about this and lots of other things. The FBI has been incompetent in far too many investigations for far too long. The Senate needs to be competent before confirmation votes as well.

    (via LOLGOP)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  123. 123.

    Another Scott

    Fun story: a group of academics who study upper-class opinion couldn’t raise funding for a rigorous national survey. It’s like they don’t want us to know.

    — Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) September 19, 2021

    That’s just crazy talk.

    (via dsquareddigest)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  124. 124.

    NotMax

    @Layer8Problem

    Netflix? Palate cleanser? If you don’t mind subtitles –

    No car chases, no explosions, no zombies, no stone-faced detectives, just a refreshingly entertaining watch is the Spanish film Toc Toc.

  126. 126.

    SFAW

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    There is a conspiracy theory that Putin is in fact group of clones made from some Red Army solider in the 1930s and periodically these clones go bad, are liquidated and replaced with a new clone.

    I was wondering what Weyoun was up to these days, thanks for clearing that up.

  127. 127.

    Yutsano

    @SFAW: Leave Jeffrey Combs alone!!!
    Seriously though. He’s slated to do a voice on Lower Decks and there’s a rumour he’ll show up on Discovery in season 4. I swear he’s going for the most franchises in Star Trek. The man is a fricking genius.​

  128. 128.

    Layer8Problem

    @NotMax: Hah, I’m all about the subtitles, I get all the car chases I want right outside my window in my peaceful outer borough, I’ve never had a yen for zombies, my last explosion was when I found out my favored ale was out of the lineup at the pub, and stone-faced?  Leave DI Sorjonen and DCS Foyle out of this; I’ll have you know they’ve been known to curl half a lip sardonically!  Occasionally.

    Toc Toc?  I will check that out, and thanks.  Your screen recommendations have looked pretty intriguing.

  131. 131.

    Ruckus

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    I wouldn’t mind if all those white christian republicans would actually go live in Russia. They might find that their choice of leadership, monetary starvation, bogus religion, likely doesn’t fit in there as well as they think it might.

  133. 133.

    Winston

    @Winston: One of the reasons I moved from San Jose, was the projected collapse of Mona Lua creating a 1500 foot tidal wave on the west coast. Then I was 30 feet above sea level.

  136. 136.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    Yeah those were not all that great. Someone to talk to isn’t always the best plan. I was 7, in the hospital and they brought in a kid about my age who was getting a circumcision. His parents lied their asses off telling him how great this was going to be. And at 7, without the awareness that he was going to acquire by going through this, I knew lying to him was not going to make it better. After my tonsillectomy was a breeze compared to his after experience. I hope for their sake they apologized to him for the rest of his life. And think how much better my life would have been if I’d never had to be in that room with him.

  138. 138.

    trollhattan

    Sometimes, behaviors are as simple to explain as you first think. Joe Manchin, everybody.

    September 19, 2021 at 9:11 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
    “Joe Manchin, the powerful West Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate energy panel and earned half a million dollars last year from coal production, is preparing to remake President Biden’s climate legislation in a way that tosses a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry — despite urgent calls from scientists that countries need to quickly pivot away from coal, gas and oil to avoid a climate catastrophe,” the New York Times reports.
    “Mr. Manchin has already emerged as the crucial up-or-down vote in a sharply divided Senate when it comes to Mr. Biden’s push to pass a $3.5 trillion budget bill that could reshape the nation’s social welfare network. But Mr. Biden also wants the bill to include an aggressive climate policy that would compel utilities to stop burning fossil fuels and switch to wind, solar or nuclear energy, sources that do not emit the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet.”

    Joe Manchin, climate plan, go together like anthrax and tire rims.​
    ​
    ​

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