Jen Psaki responds to Ted Cruz calling her “Peppermint Patty” at CPAC today. pic.twitter.com/l1gMsclckN
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) February 24, 2022
House has votes to pass reparations bill, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee says https://t.co/C0R3IrxKgy
— Victoria Benning (@VLBenning) February 25, 2022
Biden has decided on his U.S. Supreme Court choice -source https://t.co/oyTVZKB5x3 pic.twitter.com/5Qzw6Hy9wI
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 25, 2022
"Not a final, final. No job offer has been made," @PressSec says about Biden's Supreme Court pick after @tparti asks if the president has decided on a nominee.
— darlene superville (@dsupervilleap) February 24, 2022
Pres. Biden is zeroing in on his first pick for the U.S. Supreme Court, completing interviews with candidates on his short list and moving toward a final decision this week. @rachelvscott has more on the possible top contenders. https://t.co/OeAp2GuTBq pic.twitter.com/2mL5lfQoSx
— Good Morning America (@GMA) February 23, 2022
"And while Biden's choice of a Black woman will be a first for SCOTUS, the ideological balance of the court will remain stubbornly unchanged at 6-to-3, which explains why the Republicans aren't making a lot of noise about it," writes @EleanorClift https://t.co/HR5ZEnZxcF
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) February 24, 2022
Biden has reportedly made his pick for the Supreme Court. @chrisgeidner talked to @RepPressley earlier this month about the selection and what it means. Watch the full chat here. pic.twitter.com/pzejDXzypj
— Grid (@gridnews) February 25, 2022
***********
Social media is a wondrous place. The single word Ursula was ‘trending’ on Twitter, and I clicked over to find the thread divided between two very different women:
‘President Putin is responsible for bringing war back to Europe,’ European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said, adding that the EU would impose new sanctions on Russia over its ‘barbaric attack’ on Ukraine https://t.co/oqzuJANs32 pic.twitter.com/yrrhsbHJtC
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 24, 2022
In a new cover story with Variety, Lizzo reflected on the situation. "Everyone knows I auditioned for Ursula in The Little Mermaid, and I didn’t get it. But you know, I’m fine as hell. That has nothing to do with Ursula, but I was down to make Ursula a THOT, shaking ass." pic.twitter.com/wVu0EHBUgN
— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) February 24, 2022
Coda:
It is very rare in the history of war for so many of Earth’s people to be aware it is happening as it happens. We still aren’t great as a species at processing our own reactions to constant bombardment of traumas happening to others. Bear this in mind over the next few days. https://t.co/IQAbUWOV0C
— Dara Lind (@DLind) February 24, 2022
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
germy
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
Still rooting for Angry Black Lady to get the nod.
Betty Cracker
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson it is, according to CNN. Great pick
ETA: It’s so weird that PAUL RYAN, of all people, is her brother in law! Must make for some interesting holiday meal conversations. Ryan is horrid, of course, but on this issue he’s been helpful — he put in a good word with Republicans for the judge when she was in hearings for her current gig.
Mousebumples
News on the Twitter is that the choice is Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Eta – Betty got there first. ?
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
Good morning! ???
germy
@Mousebumples:
I hope it’s Jackson.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Re Jen Psaki as Peppermint Patty. (I hope most people can see this on twitter)
Gin & Tonic
My morning update on Ukraine is in the late-night thread.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Whoa. I didn’t know that.
Dorothy A. Winsor
OT, but while I’m posting links to social media, a fellow Inspired Quill author, Anne Goodwin, has been experimenting with TikTok. She’s not a typical TikTok user (ie she’d fit in well with the geezers here), but she just had a post go viral. She’s opining on what it means that 60% of her followers are from Nigeria
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Several news sources are stating definitively that it is Jackson. She seems like an excellent choice. Biden had an embarrassment of riches in his field of potential picks. I didn’t have a preference — would have been happy with any of them — but Ketanji Brown Jackson seems to be exceptionally well qualified.
O. Felix Culpa
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks for that. You might as well post it here too. I appreciate your updates.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I was mistaken about when Ryan testified on the judge’s behalf. It was in 2012, per a 2016 ABC News report:
germy
I’m glad it’s Jackson.
This is interesting, it’s a small world after all:
EDIT: And Ms. Cracker beat me to the quote.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That’s wonderful!
What started this whole “Psaki-as-Peppermint-Patty” thing anyhow? I mean, I know Ted Cruz called her that, presumably as an insult, but why? What kind of point was he trying to make, and why would he think “Peppermint Patty” was insulting in the first place? (Apart from the fact that he’s Ted Cruz, therefore an idiot.)
germy
@SiubhanDuinne:
Red straight hair.
Trolling at a junior high school level is all Ted has. It’s a case of arrested development.
germy
Multi-Oscar winning actor Sean Penn is on the ground in Ukraine, making a documentary about the Russian invasion as the world watches it unfold.
Gin & Tonic
Dragged up here from the basement:
Morning update: Russian troops are getting closer to Kyiv, but anyone with a semi-reliable news source doesn’t need me for those kinds of updates.
The Ukrainian armed forces are inflicting casualties on the Russian troops at a much higher rate than they are suffering themselves. They are, of course motivated by the fact that they are defending their home. Russians do not appear to be that well-motivated. President Zelensky is really rising to the occasion. It’s funny, he was a comedian on TV before this, and a lot of people thought he was a lightweight, but he is an inspiring leader and the country is really rallying around him.
Kyiv will be hard to take, militarily, unless Putin goes *way* beyond anything seen so far. It is a large, dense city, population about 3 million. Russian troops will have to deal with the fact that there could very well be an AK-47 pointed at them out of any window. Things are likely to get very ugly.
Few people in my circle have left. Male citizens aged 18-60 are now prohibited anyway. Expats, at least those I know, are largely staying, but it’s for practical reasons – if you’ve lived there for 20 years, have a spouse and kids, maybe a business, where are you going to go? You don’t have a home in the US/Germany/wherever any more.
“Decapitate the leadership and install a puppet government” is something people with no skin in the game bandy about. That’s actually a difficult project to execute, IMO. This is a nation of over 40 million people that’s been independent for 30 years, with a large government and a population largely united in its hatred of Russia. The last two Presidents have been firmly oriented Westward, and the aims of accession to the EU and NATO are a) very popular and b) now enshrined in the Constitution (by popular mandate.) How many troops will it take to subvert that?
The bad: Putin has so far been restrained in his use of his (significantly greater) air power, and has only inserted a portion of the troops sitting on the several borders. There’s a lot more muscle he can apply. This is somewhat of a problem in a country where everyone has at least one cell phone in their pocket and can upload video at a moment’s notice, but it is already clear that Putin does not give a shit about world opinion.
What’s next? I don’t know, other than the fact that Ukrainians will suffer and die.
Later update: WSJ just notified me that Russia is open to some talks with the UA gov’t and is prepared to send a delegation to Minsk. I don’t know if that’s true or, if it is, what it means. But it doesn’t strike me as something you do when you are confident of military victory (I am, of course, not any kind of military expert.)
Ken
Further PROOF that there is NO DIFFERENCE between the PARTIES and they are just WINGS of the NEO-LIBERAL CORPORATIST CABAL that runs EVERYTHING.
UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I remember when it came out that Obama was distantly related to Dick Cheney and Obama responded “every family has a black sheep.”
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Jesus Christ. Really? REALLY?? That’s all he’s got?
Gin & Tonic
@germy: He’s been there for quite a while, actually.
Ken
Eh, Canadians.
germy
@Gin & Tonic:
Have you seen this thread?
narya
Good morning, juicers! I have to get a Covid test today (or tomorrow), in preparation for Monday’s surgery . . . trying to keep busy and keep the mind occupied. And carbo-loading? This is apparently now a pre-surgery thing.
germy
@Gin & Tonic:
germy
@SiubhanDuinne:
Well, I don’t think he’s calling her a lesbian.
Maybe he is, I don’t know.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Normally I am meh on the ethics of people playing roles, but let’s face it, an Apex Karen like Ursula has to be played by a white woman.
Gin & Tonic
@germy: Yes, I saw that, and discussed it with Adam late last night.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Really appreciate your insights on the situation. President Zelensky has risen to the difficult occasion as you noted.* Just got a NYT phone alert saying “the Kremlin was ready for talks with Ukraine.” Hmmm. Maybe they didn’t expect the level of resistance they’ve encountered?
*As an American, it makes me cringe to remember Zelensky sitting opposite the ridiculous buffoon Trump, who would have fled screaming from this country if Putin had so much as threatened to blow out a match and touch Trump’s tiny hand with it.
germy
Amir Khalid
Somehow, I’m mostly unsurprised that Ted of Cancun is so feeble at hurling insults.
sab
@Gin & Tonic: Have you seen the retweeting by Jane Lytvincenko of a list Ukrainians put together how we outside of Ukraine can help (donations etc.)
My tablet won’t let me link. Feb 21 the date of it.
What do you think of the list?
dmsilev
@Ken:
Always nice to see the classics reused.
MomSense
@SiubhanDuinne:
He also couldn’t grasp the plot twist at the end of Green Eggs and Ham.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
My god, dinner with Paul Ryan, that would like be the borning thing short of a family dinner with Mark Zuckerberg. Ryan seems like the kind of guy to have a Powerpoint presentation about his hat collection on his cell phone.
raven
@sab: Here ya go
Baud
The problem is that some idiot White House press reporter wasted Psaki’s precious time asking questions about Cruz’s school boy insult.
Mai Naem mobile
It would have been interesting to see how Tim Scott and Lindsay Graham would have justified their vote on Childs. I am assuming Susan Collins will vote with the Dems on this since it doesn’t make a difference . Anybody know if Sen Lujan is back to working yet?
p.a.
@SiubhanDuinne:
From Peanutswiki:
“Rumors
It is rumored that Peppermint Patty and Marcie are a lesbian couple. Many people interpret the two as lesbians and this has been reflected in references on television shows such as Saturday Night Live, “Scrubs”, Family Guy, Robot Chicken and The Simpsons. On The Big Bang Theory, characters Wolowitz, Raj and Leonard argue about whether the two friends are lesbians—while Raj thinks that Peppermint Patty is the lesbian, Leonard thinks she is just athletic and that Marcie is the lesbian.
Charles M. Schulz denied that there was any truth in the rumor, saying that the characters are supposed to be very young children and they both have crushes on Charlie Brown.”
scumbag Ted would probably go there because in his world implying Psaki is a lesbian is considered a smear.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, what the hell game are they playing?
Zelenskyy has been impressive as hell.
Gin & Tonic
@sab: I haven’t. Some time last night, though Leto posted a link to a Reddit thread that also had a lot of potential charities. I don’t really have much to add – I have my own causes and my own methods, but those aren’t for sharing.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Thanks for that.
dmsilev
@zhena gogolia: Very strange. My first thought is that the “peace” offer will be “let us carve off half of your country, and maybe we’ll let you and the other half survive”, but Putin’s speeches over the last week or so make it pretty clear that he regards the entire country of Ukraine as belonging to him, so that doesn’t seem too likely.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Wants to quell protests at home?
Formula 1 just pulled out of Russia. There’s pressure on Eurovision to reverse its stance.
MomSense
@Gin & Tonic:
I follow a number of Russian ballet dancers and yesterday I saw some disturbing social media posts from a dancer I have loved for years. She is reposting social media posts from the Russian Orthodox church plus posts from supposed Russians being rescued in Ukraine – these posts look straight out of the Wag the Dog movie. I have to use the translate feature on instagram so the English is a little rough.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, isn’t Peppermint Patty clearly the most intelligent of the kids in the Peanuts?
What is, this the best Cruize could come up with a
fter the tenth margarita in Cancun and a frustrating day of being told “no, and your’ Spanish sucks” over and over again by the waitresses,doing research on issues very important to the people Texas during the break?narya
@Baud: Yeah, one of my F1 friends just texted me that. And apparently Vettel had said he would boycott if it wasn’t cancelled.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I don’t think he gives too much of a shit about protests at home, but I’ve been wrong about everything up to now so no time to start being right.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@zhena gogolia: er, damn, that was quick.
Maybe they are just following the plan and Putin assumed they would have control of Kiev by day two and like that Russian reconnaissance unit, no one told Peskov things have changed?
zhena gogolia
@MomSense: Yeah, I wouldn’t look for a lot of outside-the-box thinking from Russian ballerinas. You don’t get there by being an oppositionist.
zhena gogolia
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: That’s kind of what I think. But again, I’m always wrong. I’m the anti-Adam Silverman.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: NATO and EU members have been signaling tougher sanctions targeting Putin personally. I think it’s just a ploy to delay more sanctions. Maybe Putin is actually the snake trump referred to.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@zhena gogolia: I know, the Russian realizing this invasion has gone hell and wanting to bail seems way to good to be true.
japa21
@Gin & Tonic: Just want to say how much I appreciate your presence here. I know how difficult this is for you and how frustrating, specially when dealing with a few (mercifully only a few) commenters with their idiocy.
Also, I am finding a lot more use for Google Translate these days.
Soprano2
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks for this update. I heard on NPR this morning that Putin is open to talks if Ukraine surrenders and all their military puts down their arms. As if that’s going to happen after one day! He’s high on his own supply for sure.
I find myself really worried about President Zelensky. I don’t know what Putin would do if the Russians captured him, but I know it would be bad. I don’t think there is anything Putin can do to keep him from being seen as the courageous leader of the Ukrainian people, though.
Gin & Tonic
@MomSense: They have been subject to Russian propaganda for years and don’t know any better.
A couple of years ago my son was in Moscow on an educational exchange, and met socially with a young lady his age who was a grad student at MGIMO, basically Russia’s equivalent of Georgetown or Fletcher for international relations. He gave her a brief rundown of Ukrainian history which was all completely news to her – a master’s student at Russia’s most prestigious school. She had no idea.
Jeffro
I noticed even ol’ Tucker has figured out that the vast majority of the world and US are against Putin and his war of choice. It’s going to be great watching scum like him, Pompeo, and the former guy try to walk back their slavering suppport of their leash-holder.
debbie
I think it’s long past time the title “President” be given to Putin. He’s not deserving.
eclare
@Gin & Tonic: Thank you for the update, I was hoping you would comment.
Gin & Tonic
@japa21: Thanks. As I’ve said more than once, I am not objective and don’t pretend to be.
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
I follow all the other top dancers and they’ve all been quiet. On March 6th the Bolshoi’s performance of Swan Lake is supposed to be simulcast at Cinemas worldwide. Yesterday the Bolshoi’s US account posted a video of Les Cygnets to tease the performance. The comments were negative. I’m wondering what the attendance will be. I know I won’t be going and I’m a loyal attendee.
Soprano2
@Baud: I know, that seems like a dumb thing to ask her about. What did they think she was going to say anyway, that her feelings were hurt?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jeffro: How long before Dumbass Donny is mouthing off about “Putin? Never heard of the guy, I think I meet him at the UN once and thought, what a loser.”
Baud
@Soprano2:
They want her to react so they can report on the “spat” as if they were TMZ.
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: I thank you also. Since Russia has a large cyber facility, are your friends prepared for power outages, etc. It’s surprising that Putin hasn’t done that yet.
japa21
@Gin & Tonic: In a case like this, nobody can be totally objective, but I know you won’t lie to is.
debbie
@Soprano2:
I would have said I’m a long-time fan of the candy, but Jen’s answer is much better.
Yarrow
@Jeffro: When you’re owned by the mob you can’t leave. They can try to walk it back but there’s only so far they can go.
MomSense
@Gin & Tonic:
In 1986 I told a Fletcher Student I was going to hear Caspar Weinberger and she asked me if it was a bar…
The formative women in my upbringing were my ballet teachers, most of whom defected from the Soviet Union. My experience was that they knew the score and were educated and well informed. I guess things have changed.
ETA Stupid phone likes the ghost cartoon -fixed the spelling of the former SecDef.
Geminid
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It could be that Putin is throwing the Chinese a bone. The Times of Israel reports that high level Chinese officials have called for negotiations to settle the conflict. It’s 36 hours into his invasion, and that would be early for Putin to throw in the towel, it seems to me. He may want to show China some respect, though.
Basilisc
Oh Jen, Jen.
Nothing wrong with showing some class, but the correct response was: “Ted Cruz and his fellow Republicans just spent four years cheering on Donald Trump as he built up Putin, humiliated Ukraine, and tried to tear down NATO. And now the tragic failures of those policies are plain for all to see. So I can see why the best they can do is some weak, meaningless name calling based on a comic strip that stopped running 20 years ago. But it’s kind of pathetic.”
Can’t anyone play this game?
Omnes Omnibus
@Yarrow: I would like to think that they have incinerated their chances for elective office, but, with today’s GOP, who knows?
hueyplong
I guess it will be after she steps down that Jen can answer the Cruz question by saying, “Teddy’s 11th birthday can’t come soon enough.
ETA: Basilisc’s proposed response could be given from the podium now, while Jen is still in her current role.
lowtechcyclist
@germy:
Fortunately, the number of places where that’s an insult is rapidly diminishing.
Jeffro
The stories on Fox News dot com have really shifted, too. It’s all about the heroism of the Ukrainian people and how Putin may have “bitten off more than he can chew”.
All while bashing Biden for “inviting aggression”, too. But still.
They all got out over their skis, bigly. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense: Quiet is probably the best you can hope for.
ETA: I’m not on Facebook, but I do hear that a lot of prominent Russians are being quite frank there.
sab
@raven: Thanks.
@Gin & Tonic: Sorry. I hadn’t meant to make you vet the list, but rereading my comment that’s exactly what it sounded like.
ETA I was just hoping someone would link, and raven did.
Omnes Omnibus
@Basilisc: No offense, but I’ll trust her play. She’s pretty good at this thing.
Baud
@Geminid:
The Chinese, or the Taliban?
SiubhanDuinne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I laughed.
Yarrow
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s certainly an opportunity for any Democratic candidate to make it clear that Republicans have been supporting Putin for years. There are so many examples of it it shouldn’t be hard to make a good ad.
Geminid
@Omnes Omnibus: Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance walked back his “I don’t care about Ukraine” statement, and tried to refocus people’s anger at him onto “the elites.” But at this point, Vance may just be trying not to come in last in the May primary.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yarrow: I am sure it will used against Ron Johnson. And that pleases me.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: My first thought was hope – upon reading that Putin said they are ready for talks.
My second thought was to wonder if he has plans to poison them all.
My next thought was to wonder if he is going to offer to stop the war if they will only just nicely roll over and let him take over the two areas he announced earlier this week.
As others have said, fuck these fucking interesting times.
Ella in New Mexico
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Not until Putin and his oligarchs have no more money to launder throught one of his PACs
SiubhanDuinne
@MomSense:
I’ve been wrestling with that. I had made plans some months ago to see it with friends — and I do love Swan Lake — but I’m reluctant to give or even suggest support for any Russian institution right now, no matter how beautiful and traditional. So I’m torn now about seeing it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geminid:
Dude forgot about Cleveland. He’s nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is.
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
She was the baby ballerina in the film Ballerinas, Evgenia Obraztsova.
O. Felix Culpa
@WaterGirl:
This will be his ploy. I doubt the Ukrainians will accept
ETA: I am neither a Ukrainian nor a foreign policy expert. However, accepting such terms will leave the door open for Putin’s next incursion…and the next…and the next.
MomSense
@SiubhanDuinne:
I always take my mom. In the before times we used to meet friends. I looooove those performances. Not this time. UGH.
Jeffro
@Jeffro: oops spoke too soon…3rd top story on Fox is how Hillary is blaming trumpov for events in Ukraine, instead of blaming Biden like she should.
Yes, really.
Beyond parody.
Geminid
@Omnes Omnibus: And Marjorie Taylor Greene’s endorsement did not give Vance’s campaign the boost he was hoping for.
The Moar You Know
@SiubhanDuinne: He’s implying Psaki is gay.
Gin & Tonic
@Geminid: “Elites”? Are those, like, people who went to Yale Law and worked at VC firms and hedge funds?
debbie
@Yarrow:
Aren’t there photographs of their July 4th visit?
Omnes Omnibus
@O. Felix Culpa: Then he will announce that the Ukrainians are now at fault for the continuing violence. It will be bullshit, but he’ll do it.
Ken
Putin really has achieved his goal of returning Russia to its glory days under Tsar Nicholas.
Lyrebird
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks for that and for recommending the Kyiv Independent.
Talking out loud…
There’s a link there now to this Unian article which I dont have time to translate now, saying what others here are reporting, that Moscow is now talking about talks.
Hoping the attacks will cease…
Soprano2
@Baud: I know, it’s so pathetic. I wish questions like that meant automatically getting thrown out of the room. Perhaps if enough of that happened they would ask better questions.
Gin & Tonic
@O. Felix Culpa: Look up the defenders of Snake Island. They are national heroes.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Only if they’re liberal.
jnfr
Very happy about the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson. Such an excellent, extremely qualified choice. I like her background in criminal defense too.
@Gin & Tonic:
Thanks so much for helping to keep us informed.
Ken
George Orwell’s estate should sue them for copyright violation. “We have always been at war with Eastasia” indeed.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Do you think it would be responsible to add that list as a link in the sidebar?
I have no way to know whether any or all of those are legitimate, and i don’t follow social media enough to even know who the person is who originally posted it.
But if it has your blessing, that would make me more comfortable doing that.
hueyplong
We’re only a couple of days into hot hostilities.
It’s difficult to imagine Putin reacting to setbacks in the field (if they are in fact happening) by doing anything other than ratcheting up the intensity of the violence.
The best news would be an announcement that Putin has fallen ill and that [insert name here] will be acting in his place for [who cares how long they announce].
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Matt McIrvin
@germy:
He totally is. The homophobic slam is one of the go-to insults when any right-wing asshole encounters any woman.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: That’s going to go down in military lore like “Then we will fight in the dark” and “Nuts.”
The Moar You Know
@Geminid: There’s a great documentary out there, “When Siberia Will Be Chinese”, that shows in some detail just how much Russia is a vassal state of China, and becoming more so with each passing year. If the Chinese are suggesting anything to Putin, that’s an order and not a “suggestion”.
Amir Khalid
@Basilisc:
Psaki knows better than to rise, even slightly, to Cruz’s bait — to give him any room to claim that he got her goat. She went for “disarm opponent”; she managed to do it cleanly and without fuss. That’s how they do it in the pros.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Sounds like Putin has Trump’s Disease.
WaterGirl
@Soprano2: They are so foolish and immature… I think they thought they would get to “make the girl cry.” As if Jen Psaki could give a fuck about what names Ted Cruz wants to call her by.
Geminid
@Gin & Tonic: Right wing (and left wing) “populists” would not be defined by their own economic status (Vance himself is a millionaire, and he wouldn’t have run for that Senate seat without the backing of billionaire Peter Thiel). Rather, their “populism” is expressed in their hostilty to the “establishment” wing of their party, Chamber of Commerce types such as McConnell and Mitt Romney.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: They will ask better questions when their bosses demand it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Matt McIrvin: they don’t tend to think these things through. I’m old enough to remember Dick Morris hinting in one media appearance that HRC was a lesbian and in the next she had Vince Foster killed because he was going to reveal their affair
it is kind of amazing to see Cruz wielding those legendary Ivy League (first tier, need it be said?) debate team skills like a super-intellectual ninja
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Geminid: Speaking of China, I think I can hear giggling coming from Beijing right now. In one day Putin manage to make the CCP go from the big problem in Asia to the picture of serenity and international stability. I am sure the Chinese Communist Party will be telling Chinese dissidents “look, you want to live in a China that’s going places, or a China that is disease filled, hopelessly polluted, depressed economy, hated by the rest of the world and trapped in eternal war like Russia?”
OzarkHillbilly
@hueyplong: No, the best news would be an announcement that Putin has fallen out a 10th floor window.
lowtechcyclist
As they should be. They had to know they were signing their death warrants by telling the Russian warship to go fuck themselves, but they did it anyway.
Betty Cracker
Speaking tangentially of Russian dancers, I was so amused to learn that the actor who played Lavinia in the highly recommended Dickinson series on Apple TV is Mikhail Baryshnikov’s daughter. I had no idea who she was when I started watching the show, but she reminded me of someone, and it was bugging me. When I finally looked the cast up and figured it out, I said, “Of course!” She looks like her dad.
waratah
@SiubhanDuinne: We have so many serious news to report on and our reporters want to focus on what Ted Cruz says. He knows she is popular and is trying to get attention to him. I hope he sinks.
MomSense
@Gin & Tonic:
The go fuck yourself heard round the world.
The Ukrainian artist known as @tribal.cat on social media has been posting lots of footage she has taken in Kyiv and messages she is receiving. The teenage girls are saying that they are arming themselves with kitchen knives and prepared to fight.
Spanky
@Baud:
And then they looked at each other and laughed and laughed.
Amir Khalid
@Ken:
Orwell died in 1950, and that might be long enough for his works to fall into the public domain.
The Moar You Know
@OzarkHillbilly: Five times, falling through a roof into a knife factory. Happens there a lot, I am told.
Omnes Omnibus
That might be the most frightening thing in the world. Teenage girls can be vicious.
Ken
Falling out a 2nd floor window five times would also be acceptable.
(Now I’m vaguely wondering if Russians count floors in the US or UK style.)
Gin & Tonic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Putin seems to read only the disinformation that his agencies put out. He is completely high on his own supply.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
Terrifying and awesome.
The Moar You Know
@MomSense: I am in awe.
@Omnes Omnibus: If I were Putin and this particular bit of info crossed my desk, I’d pull out the entire army right then and there. But then again, I am acquainted with teenage girls (my wife was a dance teacher for 20 years) in a way that Putin might not be. Surrender now or lose the whole army, Vlad. I’m not kidding.
Spanky
I just had a thought that, if true, should terrify Putin.
What if the St. Petersburg trolls we get on Balloon Juice really are the best he’s got?
gvg
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: No Marcie was. Peppermint Pattie was the athletic character that overlooked social clues, but was very freindly. I also don’t recall her as being a red head. I think she had brown hair. As usual Ted doesn’t make any sense.
O. Felix Culpa
@Gin & Tonic: Yes, I read about it. Tragic, and very, very brave.
Spanky
Cruz is totally calling JP a lesbian. He’s talking at
the He-Man Women Haters ClubCPAC, remember.Geminid
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The Times of Israel also reports that the Ukraine conflict is not expected to derail talks to revive the JCPOA agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program. China, Russia and European countries are conducting them with Iran, in Geneva, and a new agreement is expected to be reached next week. The U.S. is involved, but indirectly since the Iranians will not meet with U.S. officials.
Gravenstone
@OzarkHillbilly: Followed by a baby grand piano mysteriously landing atop him.
SiubhanDuinne
@Quite a few commenters:
Am I just hopelessly naïve/out of touch? I literally had no idea that Peppermint Patty was gay.
Gin & Tonic
This does not sound like someone ready to surrender
Gin & Tonic
@Gravenstone: A bathtub. You have to follow the script.
hueyplong
@gvg: It’s possible some Cruz assistant even less socially adept than Ted fed him the idea of Peppermint Patty as an uproarious takedown.
It’s almost inconceivable that a single soul can be found who actually respects Ted Cruz. But we live in a world in which somewhere between 27 and 40% of the country doesn’t include “respect” in the checklist.
O. Felix Culpa
@SiubhanDuinne: She’s athletic. In the mind of right-wing juveniles (but I repeat myself), athletic females-even of the comic book persuasion- = gay.
PST
I’m parked on Washington at LaSalle in the Chicago Loop. A huge convoy of cars and pickup trucks is going by me, horns honking, with Ukrainian (and some American) flags flying. Even though there is plenty of Trumpian sentiment among some white people of Eastern European background, I doubt there will be much patience with his pro-Putin stance. You don’t have to be Ukrainian to fear Russian expansionism.
delk
The pope has gone to the Russian Embassy. Unprecedented.
gvg
@SiubhanDuinne: I have never heard that. Not sure I believe it either. I guess some people would assume that now but in my experience gay people don’t fit stereotypes and I never really tried to guess about comic book characters.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Damn, contemplating the kind of person who does respect Cruz…. all I get is a vision of some dude who thinks the Weekly World News is serious and swallows live rats whole for dinner.
lowtechcyclist
@Gin & Tonic: Bathtub? I guess ‘took some sleeping pills, fell asleep in the bathtub and drowned’ is more of a Western thing, probably.
Old School
@SiubhanDuinne:
She’s not. But she’s tomboyish and hangs out with Marcie who calls her “Sir.”
MomSense
@SiubhanDuinne:
I had no idea. She was clever and snarky – obvs I’m a fan.
WaterGirl
@O. Felix Culpa:
That was my thinking, too, but I didn’t take the time to write it. Only a weakling or a fool would take that deal, and the President of Ukraine is neither.
Gin & Tonic
@lowtechcyclist: No, no, you fall out a window while installing a bathtub and it falls on top of you. That’s one of the classics.
Cacti
The Klitschko brothers of world heavyweight boxing fame have both announced they will be joining the resistance against the Russian invasion.
O. Felix Culpa
Apart from assigning (dubious) sexuality to a comic strip character, it is, shall we say, telling, that “gay” is an insult in Ted’s tiny mind.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@PST: Someone down posts was pointing out Putin’s whole White racist movement he’s been pushing for decades is going to bite Putin in the ass with the Ukraine because Ukrainians are white and this isn’t like Syria were he can gas brown people and no one will care.
Gin & Tonic
Fog of war, too early, potentially unreliable and all, but
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: First time I heard it was a Chris Rock rant about why Franklin got so little face time in the strips and the TV specials.
But am I the only one who remembers “You touched my hand, Chuck! you sly dog”
Baud
@delk:
Maybe the pope was inspired to tell the Russians to go fuck themselves in person.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: Yes, exactly. She made it a non-story.
What does Peppermint Patty have to do with being gay?
Gin & Tonic
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’ve told you more than once, as have others: writing “the” Ukraine is offensive. Stop doing it.
Lyrebird
@MomSense:
I believe it.Crying.
Gee seems that it’s not only Vietnamese people and Afghan people who are pretty determined to defend their homes and their families.
The Snake Island heroes merit all the honors they will get, but they were somebody’s babies, brothers, daddies (not sure if women were in the unit, just don’t have time to edit)
I hope the debt holders to the East and the financial squeeze from the West can work on the war criminal responsible for this, as soon as possible.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@The Moar You Know:
After shooting himself nine times in the back of the head. “Worst case of suicide I ever saw”, as the joke goes.
Geminid
@PST: This may portend a little more air leaking out of the Trump balloon, among the people you speak of. They sound like what used to be called “Reagan Democrats.”
Gin & Tonic
@Cacti: One of them is the mayor of Kyiv.
Steeplejack
@JPL:
I read this morning that Ukraine had successfully decoupled its electric grid from Belarus and Russia and was running independently.
Cacti
@Gin & Tonic: I remember reading that. Brave men both.
SFAW
@Gin & Tonic:
How do you say “Pentangeli” in Russian? [I’m assuming — well, guessing, actually — that “Pentangeli” means “five angels” in English.]
JPL
@Baud:???
JPL
@Steeplejack: thanks.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@SFAW: I don’t know Russian, but Google Translate coughs up “pyat’ angelov” (пять ангелов in Cyrillic).
Matt McIrvin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: A lot of homophobes see homosexuality as a kind of generalized sex mania. I remember when the Family Research Council was promoting all these crank papers about the mortal dangers of homosexuality, and there was one that I saw touted as exploding forever the claim that lesbians were less vulnerable to STDs. The core claim of the paper was that lesbians have more sex with men than straight women do. It was all part of their promiscuous, orgy- and drug-filled “lesbian lifestyle”. I thought about all the many lesbians I personally know and just laughed.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Apparently the Russian paratrooper unit that tried to take the Kyve airport was destroyed. the Russian attempt to force the Dienper bridges failed and slow going in the east and north for the Russians.
Maybe Putin’s planning just assumed it would be all over in day and there isn’t the supplies to sustain this?
SFAW
@Ken:
Split the difference? How about five times from a 10th floor window? [Because falling out a 2nd floor window is not a guaranteed fatality.]
hueyplong
@SFAW: Well, Tom Hagen does call him “Frankie Five Angels” in the talk that leads to the tub scene.
SFAW
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Спасибо
SFAW
@hueyplong:
Thanks. Didn’t remember that part.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Gin & Tonic: if that’s true the Russians lost in one day what they lost in two years in the Chechen Wars.
Matt McIrvin
@SiubhanDuinne:
She’s not. Canonically, she’s got one of those endless unrequited Charles Schulz crushes on Charlie Brown. If anything, it seems more like Marcy has an unrequited same-sex crush on her. (The world of Peanuts is one big network of unfulfilled longing.) But the idea that Peppermint Patty resembles a stereotypical lesbian is a long-running bro joke.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: I wouldn’t be. Torn about it, I mean. But then, I’m not a big ballet buff.
If it were the Moscow Art Theater (do they even still exist?) doing Chekhov, I might be torn.
On second thought…nah.
hueyplong
@SFAW: Could be your subconscious did remember it and that’s why your conscious “guess” was a good one.
Cacti
@Matt McIrvin: I was going to say. It seems like Marci was the one with a crush on Peppermint Patty that the former never seems to notice.
SiubhanDuinne
This just arrived in my email inbox. I haven’t linked to any of the selections yet, but thought perhaps some of you might like to join me in listening to a few Ukrainian classical music selections. Sorry about the ugly link — best I can do on the phone.
Link
geg6
@germy:
I am not a fan of his and think he can be a real dick, but he is very, very brave, I have to say. I remember reading some stuff about him dropping into Haiti after the earthquake and just doing the work in very difficult and dangerous conditions. Someone needs to be documenting what is happening in Ukraine and no one trusts the MSM to do it properly. I know I certainly don’t.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I did read that the current logistics chain was insufficient to keep the large number of troops supplied. They’re out ahead of themselves.
Almost Retired
@SiubhanDuinne: Teddy probably was recalling this Chris Rock bit re Charlie Brown from, I think, SNL:
“I was the only black kid in my grade. I felt like Franklin from The Charlie Brown Show. You’ve seen Franklin for 25 years and not one line! Nothing. Twenty five years! Everyone on Charlie Brown is their own character that’s all thought out, you know, Linus got the blanket, Lucy’s a b*tch, Shroder plays the piano, Peppermint Patty’s a lesbian. Everybody got their thing except Franklin. Come on, give him a Jamaican accent or something! Twenty five years man! They don’t even invite him to the parties, but Snoopy’s dancing his ass off. He’s in the house, I don’t believe it! Pig Pen’s in the house! Pig Pen! I’m upset. I gotta go! I can’t take this! That damn dog!”
Yarrow
YLE is Finland’s state broadcaster.
MomSense
Guys, the plow truck keeps stalling outside my house. The dog is insane with barking rage. Whatever is happening with the truck is not good. The engine sounds like clanging metal.
delk
Marcie grows up to be Velma.
SFAW
@hueyplong:
No, it’s actually that I (think I) know enough Italian to be dangerous.
PPCLI
@O. Felix Culpa: Indeed. One of her central character traits is her huge crush on Charley Brown, often stated, never concealed.
But exceptional athlete, so therefore, to that crowd, gay.
Peale
@Matt McIrvin: Though she and Marcy are coded as lesbians and are kind of icons for the community. Look, I know Schulz wasn’t doing it on purpose, but when the strip was running 60 years ago, you did what you could to have characters to relate to.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense: Are you having ice?
Soprano2
@WaterGirl: I would take it as a badge of honor if Ted Cruz insulted me! It’s such a silly, childish thing he did anyway. I swear on the inside most of us are still about 10 years old.
Miss Bianca
@PST: I can bet that among the assholes I personally encountered in Ukrainian Village when I lived in Chicago (my last address was around Division and Western, so I lived across the street from there, basically), there would have been a lot of white supremacist Trump-voting trash among the inhabitants.
However, I absolutely agree with you that they’d have zero patience with his Putin worship.
debbie
@Baud:
Backwards. Trump has Putin’s Disease.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: True, but if the really stupid ones got them thrown out of the White House press room, that would put pressure on for better questions.
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
Strangely, we are having actual snow.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PPCLI: she also wore sandals, which I think was Schultz looking at hippies from a confused distance and trying to be “with it”, as the kids said at the time
Miss Bianca
@Gin & Tonic: In a way, I hate to say that I’m rooting for massive Russian injuries and death.
In another way, I couldn’t care less if the entire Russian Army gets stomped into oblivion. In fact, I would cheer for that outcome.
geg6
@Geminid:
Lots and lots of Ukrainians in and around Cleveland.
Geminid
@Yarrow: Some Finland news from this past December: Finland signed a contract to purchase 64 Lockheed F-35 fighter jets. The planes and weapon systems will cost $9.4 billion. From Reuters.
O. Felix Culpa
@Peale: Ummm, no. As others have pointed out, she had a huge crush on Charlie Brown. Not typically a gay indicator.
ETA: I can’t believe we’re having a serious discussion on a comic character from over 20 years ago.
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
I know that you know what you need to do. It may seem a small thing, but everything helps.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The sexuality about children comic character from an artist who clearly was avoid any subtext too.
Chief Oshkosh
@Basilisc: You win the intert00bes for the day!!!
Warblewarble
Angry Putin calls on Ukraines army to overthrow Zelensky, Well that makes sense if Putins army can’t do it.
PST
@Geminid:
Right. I remember also references to “the ethnics,” which strikes me as condescending these days, but usually meant mostly blue collar Eastern European communities. In Cleveland, where I was living in 1980, a Reagan rally would have signs Hungarians for Reagan, Slovenians for Reagan, etc. I don’t think the viciousness you find in many small-town MAGAts is as prevalent or as deep in these communities. And as for anti-Russian sentiment, we aren’t just talking about people whose roots are in Eastern Europe. The U.S. may not get too many of those Norwegians TFG wanted, but European immigration has never stopped. When I used to take cabs daily, I would meet people from everywhere. I’m not someone who asks intrusive questions, but often drivers would start a conversation by asking, “Where do you think I’m from?” I know a guy who makes his living practicing immigration law with a Rumanian clientele. Polish competes with Spanish on construction sites. Yelp has a list of top ten Ukrainian restaurants in Chicago. I’m not sure a prick like Tucker Carlson has any idea how negatively part of “the base” is going to react to the invasion.
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: Yes, Ukrainian Village was staunchly white and conservative when I lived in the area. I wonder if there might be a shift in political alliances now.
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I may be misremembering, but wasn’t Peppermint Patty in love with Charlie Brown? Doesn’t necessarily prove she wasn’t a gay character, but kinda makes it unlikely and the kind of stupid wingnut insult that everyone else in the world just goes “Huh? No.” to.
The Moar You Know
@Geminid: they have the money but they’ll regret that decision. The F-35 has grossly overpromised and so far has completely underdelivered. The same amount of money could get them some F-15s, F-18s and some Eurofighters – planes that work – and they’d be far better off.
rikyrah
@narya:
Prayers for you
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
If they’re like nonimmigrant whites who vote GOP, neither this country nor the old one is a priority.
Yarrow
Speaking of falling from windows…
Betty Cracker
Interesting…
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: The old country is DEFINITELY a priority in Chicago. The Ukrainian flags were ubiquitous, even decades ago. The ethnic identity is strong.
ETA: The Chicago Tribune has reported on Ukrainian protests against the Russian invasion in Ukrainian Village and elsewhere in the city.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I didn’t know HRC had given an interview to two of trump’s most feather-headed 2016 enablers
delk
@O. Felix Culpa: 2nd Ward (Ukrainian Village) went 79% Biden.
The Moar You Know
@Warblewarble: Putin is pissed because Zelenskyy was “his hire” – one of the first to be put into office by the St. Petersburg FB/troll psywar army. Unfortunately for Putin, Zelenskyy is acting like a real president instead of a bought and paid for shill named Donald Trump.
Shame that didn’t happen here, but frankly the Ukrainian people really need a good guy in charge right now and it looks like they’ve got one.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Yarrow: Holy obvious, Batman
zhena gogolia
@MomSense: It’s ice here, seems to be turning to rain now. Yuck.
Baud
@delk:
?
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
She’s interviewed on their show a bunch of times. Often because she’s promoting a book.
Ruckus
@germy:
It’s a case of arrested development.
Arrested development would mean development was possible. I don’t believe that any development was possible in his case. He is exactly what you see. No less and for sure no more.
O. Felix Culpa
@delk: That’s excellent! Maybe the “Reagan Democrat” alliances started shifting some time ago. Glad to hear it.
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oh no, they were warning us about him from the beginning – so says Joe now.
Steeplejack
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It isn’t even like Chechnya with its icky Muslims. The Russians will not be able to destroy Kyiv like they did Grozny without massive International condemnation (and probably a good bit within Russia). And, also unlike Grozny, it will all be captured on cell-phone cameras.
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
I call that mix of sleet and freezing rain – sleezing.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: May be. But the populist left and their class warfare rhetoric gives many former citizens of socialist and/or communist regimes a pause
Miss Bianca
@O. Felix Culpa: I wonder. I’d like to think so.
(I forgot you used to live in Chicago too!)
@delk: Can I just say “wow”? I was *not* expecting that datum!
Old School
@O. Felix Culpa:
Twenty?
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
According to others in the thread, the Ukrainians in Ohio have seen the light.
PST
@Miss Bianca: Division and Western? I rode my bike through your neighborhood just a couple of days ago when we had a brief thaw and I decided to ride from park to park. Small world.
Spanky
@WaterGirl:
Not a damn thing, for normal people. But if you’re the type that goes to CPAC to listen to Ted “Cancun” Cruz, you’re obligated to “Hur, hur!” at the implication.
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: Yes, our paths should have crossed multiple times in Chicago (theater work, neighborhoods, etc.) But here we are on BJ!
Baud
Just to close the loop, we’ve concluded that Peppermint Patty is bi, correct?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Good.
delk
@PST: and I was at Western and Diversey Monday! LOL
ETA and I got soaking wet waiting for a bus.
O. Felix Culpa
@Old School: Schulz died in 2000, so that’s the source of my dating. Of course the characters were created much earlier.
Almost Retired
@Baud: She’s polyamorous.
trollhattan
@Steeplejack:
My spidey sense is this thing is going to be over rapidly (“thing” being unknown, but bifurcating the country and taking the eastern half, Kyiv included, sounding likely).
trollhattan
@Almost Retired:
Loves both polystyrene and polyethylene equally.
Miss Bianca
@PST: I lived a lot farther north on the North Side for much of my time in Chicago (Northwestern student and all), but yeah, my ex-husband and I lived on…hmmm, Cortez, I think it was…our last couple years there. Right across the street from Roberto Clemente High, as I recall.
Haven’t been back in over twenty years, it was a bit of a seedy neighborhood then, bet it’s all been gentrified by now – no more street-corner bodegas like the one I used to shop at.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
BTW, J L Cauvin’s TFG has weighed in on Biden’s Supreme Court pick. Neither his best nor his worst sketch, but he put it up in less than an hour after the news broke so I’ll cut him some slack.
Not linking to it, ‘cause that’s your job.
:-)
NotMax
@MomSense
So much for that Vespa.
;)
Yarrow
Putin is threatening Finland and Sweden now.
Bill Arnold
@Soprano2:
Another way to put it: Mr V. Putin’s Russia is invading Ukraine to depose its Jewish president, who was democratically elected in 2018, and power was peacefully transferred to him.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY and the Jews of eastern Ukraine (NATALIE GRYVNYAK)
Gin & Tonic
Ooh, this has gotta hurt:
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
As others have said: female, athletic => lesbian.
That meme is a leftover from maybe 1979, but right-wing Christianists are somewhat out of touch culturally.
Spanky
OT, but this just came across my Gmail. Can somebody put this into English?
Ken
@Baud: Forget Peppermint Patty, how does the green M&M swing?
Starboard Tack
@The Moar You Know: The requirement to include supersonic flight and VTOL/STOL in the same airframe doomed the project to mediocrity. I doubt the savings from interoperability will make up for the cost overruns. At least the second engine was canceled.
Yarrow
@Gin & Tonic: Yep. Glad to see it.
Miss Bianca
@Yarrow: Will no one rid us of this troublesome President?
Spanky
@Yarrow: He stepped on a rake in Ukraine, and now he wants to fuck with the Finns?!?
Never fuck with the Finns. The Soviets knew this back in ’45.
ETA: And anyway, doesn’t he have something like 200% of all his operational forces around Ukraine?
Brachiator
Very cool. All the nominees mentioned in the news were great.
different-church-lady
Cruz is obviously not a student of Charles Schultz. Peppermint Patty was second only to Snoopy as far as coolness was concerned. (And hell, the entire world is second to Snoopy in that regard.)
Kay
@Baud:
Peppermint Patty is great. Psaki should say “wow, thanks!”
Ken
@Spanky: “The Algorithm will be sucking up more of your personal information. Do not be alarmed, the Algorithm is your friend.”
Jackie
@The Moar You Know: Funny thing is, apparently Cruz’s 13 year old daughter is supposedly bi. I’m on my phone, so can’t link, but there are lots of articles under “Ted Cruz daughter.” She’s a braver person than her dad.
Bill Arnold
@japa21:
The google translate phone app is especially addicting: you can click on camera and point it at real life text or an image of text (even a paused TV image) and it will attempt a translation.
different-church-lady
@Spanky:
“We’re telling you we’re experimenting with new ways of being evil in a banal way, without saying we’re being evil in a banal way.”
Yarrow
@Spanky: I have no idea what all that means but I did hear that Apple allowing their users to stop ads tracking them across the internet has put pressure on other Silicon Valley giants like Google and that Google was going to move in that direction. Maybe this is that.
different-church-lady
@Ken:
I pity the Algorithm, I must be boring it to tears.
Yarrow
@Jackie: It’s been clear for a long time that his daughters don’t like him.
Geminid
@The Moar You Know: Finland chose the F-35 after a competition between Lockheed and French and Swedish companies. According to Reuters, the Finns found the jet to be operationally superior to the other candidates.
I know the F-35 has been labeled a “failure,” and it is one in that the F-35 did not turn to be the relatively low cost weapon system it was pitched as. It seems to have lived up to it’s promise operationally, though.
From what I’ve read the Israelis seem to like theirs. A couple of years ago they reportedly flew three F-35s to Teheran and back without detection. That is a tough story to verify, but when it was reported in a Gulf defense news outlet Lockheex stock took a big jump, so some people believed it..
.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Peppermint Patty is about six years old and probably hasn’t worked that out for herself just yet.
C’mon people…
Spanky
@different-church-lady:
Most companies use the shorter
Amir Khalid
Help!
I have a huge refund voucher from online market Lazada that is going to expire soon. If I can’t think of ways to use it up, RM1,900 of my money will go poof. (It’s that huge because a vendor turned out not to have the Epiphone ES-335 he was listing.) I can’t think of a guitar I want to buy right now, but I’m fielding any and all suggestions.
trollhattan
@Spanky:
Lemme try: “Give us your money.”
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t know why this brings a smile to my face, but it does.
different-church-lady
@trollhattan:
You should see Polythene Pam.
Tenar Arha
@delk: & @O. Felix Culpa:
Wow. I can’t seem to find it, but there was a study making the rounds at one point on how people who were white but remembered & identified with their family origins & ethnic backgrounds were more likely to vote for Democrats. If people think of themselves as Ukrainian American, makes sense they would vote overwhelmingly for Biden.
Soprano2
I just got an e-mail from our IT department that they are restricting access to our network to the U.S. because of what’s happening in Ukraine.
different-church-lady
@trollhattan:
“Give our advertisers your money, we’ll take your info.”
germy
Fun fact: Schultz hated the “Peanuts” title for his comic strip. It was imposed on him, and he felt it was belittling to the characters.
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: “The past is not dead. It’s not even past”: Pogo.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: Ah, you’re having what we had yesterday. We had “thunder sleet” yesterday morning. It was weird.
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid: Why not think of a guitar I want to buy instead?
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t know. This would almost be the best of both worlds.
Kalakal
@Amir Khalid: fx pedals? Amp or if like me you don’t want to disturb people in the early hours an amp sim. Travel case, straps. combination of the above?
Ken
@Starboard Tack: Charles Stross has a great passage in The Labyrinth Index where he notes that in the 1980s and 1990s, British Airways beat every air force in the world at total hours of supersonic flight. And the Concorde was built for sustained supersonic flight, with a cruise speed matching the sprint speed of the supersonic fighters.
Ken
@Brachiator: It agrees with what I’ve observed on Cinemax.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker: I guess Zelensky must be one of the drug addicts, because Jewish neo-Nazis aren’t exactly a thing.
Spanky
@Geminid: Pogo read Faulkner. Makes sense. Both Southern boys.
germy
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
I think it’s possible that vlad has seen that it’s quite possible that he’s going to lose and lose badly. This takeover is not going to happen easily. vlad is going to lose a lot of troops and quite possibly may lose completely. I believe that he thought it would be a cake walk because his army is bigger than Ukraine’s and as he’s not actually seemingly doing a lot of real thought here, he expected to take over in a short time. And what is happening is that he’s getting his butt handed to him. His troops are likely in no way motivated, his opposition is fierce and as it seems it’s likely a large percentage of the Ukraine citizens, the possibility that he could lose is pretty damn good. Yes it will be messy and deadly for all concerned. But vlad is a person who seemingly believes in big power and in this case his power is a hell of a lot less than he thought it is – he stands to lose and look far worse as well as end up in a far weaker position than he is in now. If his attempt gets decimated, which seems likely to me, because numbers aside, he’s got nothing. The world seems to be mostly against him, Ukraine is not going down easy, and his troops seem to be way less than effective. He seems to have only two ways out. First he doubles down. But that seems out of the question, he’d be destroying the reason for going in the first place. Second, he stops and gives up. Unlike him but if he’s done the math, in any way realistically, he knows staying and losing would be far worse than leaving. He really has everything to lose and nothing to gain, he just couldn’t see that, likely because he never looked, has sycophants rather than staff, and he is who he is.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid: Truth.
O. Felix Culpa
@lowtechcyclist: Stephen Miller would like to have a word.
ETA: Although granted, he is (one hopes) a rarity.
Peale
@Amir Khalid: Have you thought of getting a mandolin or a banjo? I’m assuming that there is a very tiny bluegrass subculture in Malaysia that is always desperate. Or a pedal steel for all those Malaysian hula dance troupes looking for accompaniment.
Yarrow
@Amir Khalid: Does that online market sell other things you could use? Shoes, books, a mouse for your computer, that kind of thing?
Alternatively, can you contact them and ask them to extend the expiration date of the voucher?
Or, could you buy something, cancel that, and get another voucher?
MomSense
@Amir Khalid:
My youngest got a tele 70s Vintera custom. It has a humbucker for the neck pick up and a single coil for the bridge. He picked all black with black pick guard. It looks like the tele George Harrison uses on the rooftop.
He said it arrived perfect. It didn’t need a set up and it sounds and plays amazingly well.
different-church-lady
@SFAW: I was told there would be no math…
MomSense
@Peale:
@Yarrow:
Trust me, Amir needs a hot rod guitar.
delk
@Amir Khalid: I just got a Positive Grid Spark 40 for my den. Love it. They just came out with a mini.
Kay
Desperately trying to get on the right side of this. Too late, assholes.
Barbara
This is only marginally related, but it’s been bothering me since I read it. J.D. Vance apparently stated in his latest misbegotten pretense at being a serious person that he didn’t care what happened to Ukraine. Apart from being callous, I looked it up and, as I recalled, there are actually a fair number of Ukrainians living in Ohio who might care. Even if there weren’t enough to change the outcome of an election, I just can’t fathom someone saying they don’t care at all what happens in another country, any country. What we do about it, how we respond, okay, up for debate, but not caring — what a complete fuckwad.
trollhattan
@different-church-lady:
??
trollhattan
Succinct, accurate. I hope to hell his 15 minutes are all used up, because I do not wish to see or hear one iota more.
lowtechcyclist
@Bill Arnold: I’d have thought being a war criminal would make the top three in Kissinger’s ranking.
Amir Khalid
@different-church-lady:
Remember the RWNJ who insisted the purple Teletubby was gay? The whispers about Bert and Ernie? Such accusations are mystifying to normal folk, but that doesn’t stop people who have done the hard work to dream up the conspiracy theories that produce these bizarre claims.
different-church-lady
@Kay: “But I never imagined the Leopard Who Is Going to Eat My Face Specifically candidate would eat my face specifically!”
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Guitar case(s)?
Decade”s worth of strings?
Depleted uranium picks? (Okay, that one’s facetious. I hope.)
I haven’t the slightest idea what other stuff is sold on that site, so further ideas are consequently limited.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
What’s the old saying?
In for dime, in for a dollar…..
It’s not exactly Mensa over there
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid:
Point of order: a lot of people on the left are thrilled about the idea of Bert and Ernie being a couple.
I prefer to think that for the most part Sesame Street Muppets do not have sexuality.
Yarrow
@MomSense: I’m sure he does! But if he’s not yet sure which one he needs, perhaps he could extend the date on the voucher.
Geminid
@Peale: One of the mandolins, maybe tenor mandolin, is tuned like a guitar. At least, that’s what my Atlanta friend told me.
Kay
@Barbara:
One of Vance’s handlers told him that so he issued another statement. He’s not very smart. It doesn’t matter though- he isn’t going to win. Just look at it as burning up Right wing billionaire money that might have gone to something more dangerous.
different-church-lady
The Mandolin is the thing that ruined R.E.M. Fight me.
Brachiator
@Yarrow:
Good point. We will see what happens.
But there is also a strange thing happening with the GOP base. They don’t connect the dots to anything, and seem happy to be unhappy, a mass of rage like their Dear Leader Trump.
Someone recently noted that Trump seemed to be saying “Putin is so clever!” and “Putin would not have tried anything if I were still president.”
This obviously makes no sense. But his base will applaud both statements.
Anyway, I will be happy if Democrats can break through this nonsense.
Barbara
@Ruckus: A different war, a different dictator, but isn’t that what is generally agreed to have happened in the war between Russia and Japan — a significant miscalculation by Russia of Japan’s capabilities and determination? I believe that Japan actually initiated the live hostilities, but Russia miscalculated by continuing military operations in the belief that a prolonged war would swing in its favor.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@The Moar You Know:
Maybe.. but I don’t think that is necessarily it. Religious right people bristle at the implication that something wholesome like the Peanuts would have gay characters. I think its more basic than that. To someone like Cruz, Peppermint Pattie is loud, bossy, and mouthy, which is the opposite of what a lady should be. Us delicate flowers are supposed to defer to the manfolk, don’t ya know?
Kay
@different-church-lady:
What the Ukranians are doing is what every Right winger fantasizes about doing- protecting their country from an invader- and so of course given an actual example of it they picked the wrong side.
Was it HARD to pick the right side in this? Jesus.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
The Cult of Personality is a hell of a drug.
Ruckus
@Baud:
Come on, that’s not nice at all.
I mean vlad is lower than a snake’s belly but that’s harsh…..
Ken
@different-church-lady: There goes my hope to have my Statler slash Waldorf fanfic made into a major motion picture.
Fair Economist
@Yarrow: In spite of never having had anything other than Android, my next phone is an IPhone if Google doesn’t put in a Do not track feature. I expect many others feel the same, so yes Google is under pressure.
Peale
@Kay: Its rather funny that they’ll claim that Ukraine had legitimate elections when they’ve spent the last 3 months claiming that the government was installed by a coup. And will never admit that the 2020 elections in our own country were legit.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: The one gleam of mellow satisfaction I perceive in this scramble for re-alignment among the right-wing media is that all the GOP Putin-fluffers – from Tucker Carlson to Ron Johnson to Donald Trump – might finally get some measure of the blowback they so richly deserve.
I mean, it’s not likely to cause permanent damage to their brand, but I live in hope that (in my best Judy Tenuta voice) “IT COULD HAPPEN!”
different-church-lady
@Kay:
They have a hard time picking the right side of cellophane tape.
Barbara
@different-church-lady: It’s also the adultification of a story that is meant for kids — I always thought Bert and Ernie were the muppet version of the movie about the friendship between Skinny and Fatty — which I saw via Shari Lewis’ Lamb Chop show. Does anyone else remember that?
lollipopguild
@Yarrow: Putin will end up getting Sweden and Finland to join NATO by threatening them IF they join NATO.
different-church-lady
@Ken:
I did specify Sesame Street Muppets, so Rule 34 and godspeed.
NotMax
@Kay
Could be wrong but I don’t think Ukrainian has a word for “Wolverines!”
;)
Ken
The Algorithm doesn’t feel boredom or remorse, it can’t be reasoned with, and it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you click on one of the targeted ads it’s served you.
EDIT: And it won’t stop then, lest I give the impression you can escape from it.
Ruckus
@gvg:
As usual Ted doesn’t make any sense.
If Ted made any sense – he wouldn’t be Ted.
lowtechcyclist
@O. Felix Culpa:
And I would like to put Stephen Miller in a room with all those mothers who had their children taken away from them at the border, and lock the door from the outside for an hour or two.
different-church-lady
@Fair Economist:
The think I like about Apple is how they go about being evil in a completely unique way from all the other tech companies.
Yarrow
@Kay: It’s way too late. And for some of them it’s not even possible. The ones owned by Russia can’t quit them. It’s do as told by their owners or window time.
Kropacetic
Don’t I remember, good grief, Ted Cruz ranting not too long ago about how pur soldiers (in ads) look weak and Russian soldiers look stong (in ads)?
opiejeanne
@different-church-lady: THANK YOU!
I remember having a crush on a girl named Linda when I was about that age, and the next year a crush on a boy named David, and most girls I knew thought boys were icky with one or two exceptions if they were cute or nice. I didn’t want to give valentines to any of the boys in second grade, except for David, because I didn’t want any of the others to get the wrong impression.
Amir Khalid
Interesting, this. Per Sky Sports News, UEFA is looking to cut even more ties with Gazprom.
different-church-lady
@Ken:
I dunno, I imagine the The Algorithm is more like Marvin than Skynet: “Oh, you want me to scrape data again today. I can also pick up this piece of paper if you like…”
NotMax
@
CHAPTER 5
Statler tosses Waldorf’s salad.
;)
NotMax
Fix.
@Ken
CHAPTER 5
Statler tosses Waldorf’s salad.
;)
lowtechcyclist
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
As my kid sister said roughly 40 years ago, “women aren’t as mere as they used to be.”
different-church-lady
@NotMax:
I WITHDRAW MY GODSPEED!!! I WITHDRAW IT WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE!!!!
Southern Goth
@Amir Khalid:
Maybe a modeling amp if you don’t have one?
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
I cannot stand this nonsense. The idea that comic characters and puppets have sexuality is beyond stupid.
But Betty Rubble from the Flintstones is hot!
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
She doesn’t have to be gay, they just have to smear her with the insinuation that she is because gay to conservatives is like having to touch a red hot piece of metal, or something scary. It’s a concept that can not be explained or tolerated because it doesn’t fit the narrative of the All American Man.
Kay
Desperate, sweaty spinning.
Jim Appleton
@Miss Bianca: I spend next to no effort peering into the dark side, but my limited impression is that the Tuck/Ron/etc fluffing has and continues to metastasize.
realbtl
@Amir Khalid: Epiphone Casino, the early Beatles favorite.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
I think that was what they fantasized about up to fifteen or twenty years ago. Now they fantasize about killing all the libs.
ETA: And they would regard Putin as an ally who’d help them fulfill that fantasy.
indycat32
I’m very late to the Peppermint Patty discussion, but maybe Cruz wasn’t implying Jen is gay, but rather cartoonish.
different-church-lady
@Ruckus:
Once again, y’all overthinking it. It’s a cheap playground taunt, it has no deeper meaning.
Anyway
I wish Dem-aligned commenters who get on CNN / have big twitter voices point out more forcefully that Trump and other Reps have been in Putin’s pocket the last few years. Don’t know that normies are as aware of it as readers of top 10,000 blogs. MSM softpedals Rep action of this kind while amplifying Dem actions that could be misconstrued.
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
Same thing. You’re the invader. Big, soft rich Bannon sitting on his ass in his “studio” sneering that Ukraine isn’t a country. He’d last 5 minutes.
trollhattan
Runway or magazine?
Peale
@Amir Khalid: The problem with the complaint about the Teletubby being gay was that it was very clear that the accusors thought that carrying what they thought was a “purse” by a male character indicated homosexuality. Hah. Could easily be queer. Could be non-binary. Could be a trans person. Could be pan or demi. Its like they haven’t spent a lot of time on the issue. They are absolutely obsessed with our existence and have been for 50 years, yet they appeared to know nothing about us. Sad.
Spanky
@different-church-lady:
The internets are yours, Lady!
Baud
@Kay:
https://i.redd.it/2eilvkubezj81.png
trollhattan
@different-church-lady:
Exactly. It’s 12YO-level Ted being Ted. May have even riffed it; no doubt whatsoever he believed it fantastically clever and gave himself a 50:50 chance of having Psaki resign on the spot once she heard it.
Whether he was referencing cartoon character (cartoon that ended 22 years ago) or candy shall remain unknown. Jen likes the candy, that we now know.
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: OMG that is so cool!! We just finished Season Two last night. Love it and LOVE Lavinia. She’s absolutely HILARIOUS! That show is just overflowing with comedic talent. I couldn’t even pick who the “funniest” character is, because they are all so good.
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: When I was a kid, I thought Bert was Ernie’s father. That was the vibe I got from them. And I think I had a storybook in which Bert colloquially addresses Ernie as “son” (maybe to get a rhyme?) which I used as evidence.
NotMax
@Brachiator
If it wasn’t for sexuality, Betty Boop would never have stuck out from the pack of fungible cartoon characters.
;)
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
vlad expected a cake walk. Little opposition, little damage, destruction or death to his occupying army. FA&FO.
lowtechcyclist
A reader writes in to Cecil Adams’ “The Straight Dope” column in 1987:
Kay
@Baud:
I love when they issue orders on how to view them:
Donald Trump, the unequivocal leader of the conservative “movement” and GOP, is now a “sideshow freak”
No one has to accept their definition of what they are. We see what they are. We don’t need guidance.
Brantl
@Baud: Every family has someone that they call he/she-who-must-not-be-named, too. But they don’t talk about that one; that’s Darth Cheney.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
I swear on the inside most of us are still about 10 years old.
So, mature for your age I see….
Ruviana
@Kay: What the hell does communism have to do with this?
Miss Bianca
@Jim Appleton: Oh well…as I’ve said before, a girl can dream.
NotMax
Okay, how about conflating Russians and cartoon characters?
(Just knew if I was patient that one day the link would fit.)
:)
Baud
@Kay:
“Sideshow freaks I would vote for in a heartbeat.”
Amir Khalid
@Southern Goth:
I have a Fender Champion 100; it’s a 2×12 100W combo amp, it sounds fine, it has 16 amp voicings, 16 effects, and it will go loud AF if I tell it to. I have an entry-level multiFX pedal which covers all my effects needs for a fraction of the price of the real-deal gear. So I’m good on amps and pedals.
Eolirin
@Ruviana: Since they keep saying liberal policies are communism, I think it means he’s going to keep supporting Putin’s assault on our democracy. :P
Miss Bianca
@lowtechcyclist: Sadly, yes – I think you’re right.
Ken
@different-church-lady: As long as it doesn’t get perky, like some of Sirius Cybernetics’ other models.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jackie: I know you don’t mean anything by it, but I think we should leave a 13 year old some privacy
Yarrow
@Kay: I’ve long found it so weird that they have these arguments about what “real conservativism” is. “He’s a real conservative.” “That’s not what being conservative means.” They all fight about the word, as if it means something or is important. Meghan McCain is just another in the long line of people trying to make the brand be what they want it to be instead of what it is.
Gin & Tonic
@Barbara: Somebody better versed, like Kay or Geminid might know, but I thought I read 80,000. And they are motivated, and vote. Maybe smart guy isn’t so smart.
Yarrow
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Well, she’s on TikTok, which isn’t exactly private.
Ruviana
@Eolirin: You’re probably right, unfortunately.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Yarrow: That’s her choice.
Ken
@NotMax: I was expecting Boris and Natasha plotting against Moose and Squirrel.
Jim Appleton
@Miss Bianca: I like your dream.
lowtechcyclist
Maybe, but we’re already here, unsuspectingly going about our business, which is part of the fantasy. They fantasize that they can just waltz into a liberal enclave with their semi-auto and start shooting all those unarmed liberals.
Taking on an invading army isn’t even part of their fantasies, it’s so far beyond the reach of most of them.
Kay
@Ruviana:
He knows that Russia is using him and his former boss as pro-Putin propoganda, so he has no answer to the question, so has to go back to the Right’s opposition to communism.
They have no response to these things that they’ve said lavishing praise on Putin. When they said them they didn’t know what would happen.
I don’t think he matters that much though. He’s never going to be president.
zhena gogolia
We’re having a heartbreaking webinar with Ukrainian students. They’re begging for help. A faculty member wrote this to the listserv:
“Raising funds for arms instead of raising arms in classrooms… SMH…”
Brachiator
@NotMax:
Well, yeah. Betty Boop was a parody or homage to “It Girl” sexy flappers.
Blondie in the original comic strip was Blondie Boobadoop, a sexy flapper. Dagwood was a rich kid who was disinherited when they married. In the postwar era Blondie was domesticated and turned into a loving housewife.
But Betty Rubble, mmmm!
Bill Arnold
@The Moar You Know:
Links, please.
Yarrow
@Dorothy A. Winsor: True. A lot of news outlets covered the story so it’s not exactly breaking news or anything. She has since made her TikTok private.
Amir Khalid
@realbtl:
Most Epiphone instruments seem to be out of stock at any vendor here, alas, online or the other kind.
frosty
@Amir Khalid: Do you have a different amp for each guitar? No? Problem solved.
Friends of mine like Quilter. Good sound, lightweight. I’m old school – tubes for me.
Geminid
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t know Ohio well, I follow Ohio politics from 300 miles away. Ohio jackals have been talking about the Ukrainian American communities in several Ohio cities as an important voting bloc. I bet Polish Americans are very concerned about this invasion also.
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
It’s beyond the reach of me too, honestly. I completely sympathize with those “WTF?” looks on the faces of the Ukranians in the subway tunnels. “They INVADED?”
NotMax
@Brachiator
Trivia: Most people unaware that in her earliest appearances Ms Boop was drawn with unmistakably doglike features.
Brachiator
@lowtechcyclist:
I would buy a bottle of Betty Chewables in a heartbeat!
Yarrow
@Kay: The subway photos really got to me. Other things aside, they’re amazing subways. But seeing so many people crowded in them to shelter from an invading force…I just don’t have words. Also, I didn’t set a lot of masks. It seems like along with all the other horror, this whole thing will spread a lot of Covid. So awful.
Just One More Canuck
@Ken: You broke him, you bought him
Kay
@Gin & Tonic:
I’ve always heard it’s 100k and they’re in the northern tier of the state. I genuinely believe JD Vance is unfamiliar with the whole northern tier, so Cleveland to Toledo.
The thing is, he’ll say anything. Even the MAGAS know he’s a phony.
Yarrow
Video if you click through.
opiejeanne
@Matt McIrvin: I always thought Bert and Ernie were brothers, but who were also best friends.
When my son was in elementary school, there were two janitors who worked there named Bert and Ernie. The kids were very amused.
Bill Arnold
@different-church-lady:
It doesn’t feel boredom; it feels machine-satisfaction[1] in proportion to how much revenue it extracts from you from you. It will keep trying… Its programmers will keep tweeking its design…
(It’s also a play by Google to further it’s ambition to be a gatekeeper for all online advertising revenue.)
[1] https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/objective_function
Gin & Tonic
@Kay: Yeah, but how about fighting fascism, Mike?
opiejeanne
@Ruckus: I, personally, am 17 years old inside.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow:
I remember in 2012 when Meghan publicly announced that her services as a consultant were on offer to any campaign that wanted to “kick Obama’s ass”. I suspect she never recovered from vast and echoing silence that came in reply. She’s tried to walk a line between personally hating trump because of Daddy, and her delusion that she’s the future of a Xian-ist brand of conservatism that her Daddy probably would have rolled his eyes at (even as he sucked up to it), and that is all in on trump
A trust-fund-baby bible-thumper, a combination as repellent as it is dangerous, and from a long line of people for whom “born on third base and thinks they hit a triple” only scratches the surface of their clueless sense of entitlement. The Bushes, the Romneys, Rebekah (sp?) Mercer, the various DeVos and Princes….
Brachiator
@NotMax:
So I see.
I don’t think I have ever seen the earliest Betty Boop appearances.
There is some suggestion that the later evolution of Betty was based on a black performer, Esther Jones.
Gin & Tonic
A charitable opportunity that will appeal to this crowd: Baker Creek seeds says that 100 percent of all sales between now and Sunday night go toward humanitarian aid for Ukrainian refugees.
Barbara
@Kay: It’s like that scene from the Terminator where the Terminator is programmed by computer to respond to comments, and “Fuck you asshole” is usually the default selection. “I’ve been fighting communism since I was a teenager” is probably one of three statements that Pompeo has programmed into his brain to respond to any question about Putin that suggests he is not much more than a sycophant collaborator of Vlad.
JPL
@Kay: She’s tired of MSM broadcasting the freak show which is now the republican party. She’s embarrassed.
NotMax
Just now checked and it appears Zelensky’s fictional election sitcom (predating his actual election) Servant of the People is no longer on Netflix.
In all likelihood left there some time back, so no nefarious implication being made.
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You left out who she’s married to – Ben Domenech of “The Federalist.” Nothing good going on there.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@Gin & Tonic: I noticed those personnel losses weren’t broken down—so if anyone asks how could that be accurate, a large portion might represent captured/surrendered/defected and not just killed.
I wouldn’t be shocked to find there are a lot of Russians who just quit.
scav
@Kay: Pompeo has also probably been fighting the common cold since he was a teenager and the two have exactly the same relevance to the current situation.
Barbara
@JPL: Not embarrassed enough.
Ruckus
@Barbara:
I believe in this case vlad thought that Ukraine and Russia were similar and that he and Zelenskyy are similar in some way. Well Ukraine and Russia are counties and he and Zelenskyy are their leaders, but that’s as far as that connection goes. Seemingly not much of Russia actually like vlad and a lot of Ukraine likes Zelenskyy. Etc, etc, etc. I believe that vlad can’t understand anything past the other end of that long table he sits at, that something is going far wrong with that blob on vlad’s shoulders and he’s very scared of life right now. Could be any number of things but I’ll say that he’s in the age range my dad was when he started showing early signs of Alzheimers. Not suggesting a diagnosis, just saying that differences have been noticed by many.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow: I’m only disappointed in my theory that back when “Who funds the Federalist?” was a thing, my theory that it was Cindy didn’t pan out
Ruckus
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I’m going with C, both of the above.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
OK that got a good chuckle!
trollhattan
Shit I’m not happy to have been right about: driving tanks around the Chernobyl site is going to stir up the radionuclides.
NotMax
@opiejeanne
Personally, I’d prefer Bert and Harry.
;)
Frank Wilhoit
@MomSense: Well, what do you expect us to do about it?
Barbara
@Ruckus: I have been marveling for 20 years at how Putin and his fellow travelers have made Russia weaker by crushing Russian creativity and talent almost wherever and however it arises. As more than one bemused European has observed, Germany has more power now than it ever could have hoped to achieve in the two world wars it instigated. It’s not an easy principle to execute, but Putin doesn’t even seem to grasp it. It’s like he has been banging his head against the wall for so long and now, instead of learning that continuing to beat the military drums, he has doubled down by actually invading.
Yarrow
This is good news.
JPL
@Barbara: True. You would think being married to Ben Domenech would be enough.
NotMax
@Barbara
Reason #3 why Wally Cox was not cast as Terminator.
;)
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
Mom!
Come on, let us have our fun!
WaterGirl
@Soprano2: You read my mind. I was actually thinking “badge of honor” as I was typing the post. I went back and looked, and I had not, but I was definitely thinking it.
Ksmiami
@Gin & Tonic: Watch China. They are pressuring Putin to solve this diplomatically;
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Agreed; China through history has achieved success through trade and natural population growth/absorption… Russia is destroying itself rn. No one wants to be Russia.
debbie
@Barbara:
I heard that on NPR yesterday. I then listened to two different late night local news program and neither mentioned it. My hope is that Tim Ryan will ride to town with that very stupid statement at some point in the campaign.
SiubhanDuinne
I know a lot of you have RWNJ relatives. Some of you have written them off altogether, some of you argue with them, some of you just ignore them and hope they’ll go away. I don’t want to cut ties with my own RWNJ brother, but I can’t stand the way my BP shoots up every time I see he’s sent an email. I’ve drafted a letter to him. Debating whether I should send it.
Miss Bianca
@Frank Wilhoit: For some reason, I’m reminded of my favorite-ever tweet of Cole’s from a few years back, which was simply:
GODDAMNIT THURSTON STOP BARKING
SFAW
@The Moar You Know:
I thought it was Poroshenko that was Putin’s shill, and that Zelensky was not? I think I remember Poroshenko fleeing to Russia and sniping at Zelensky from there, but maybe I’m mistaken
Jim Appleton
I smell Tbogg …
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: I think you answered your own question. Your health is more important.
zhena gogolia
We just had a webinar with incredible young Ukrainian students. They are strong and determined.
zhena gogolia
@SFAW: Zelenskyy was not put in office by Putin.
Ruckus
@Barbara:
Never forget that vlad was a KGB officer. That he would be who he is may not be destiny but he’s got the chops to be another in a long line of Russian dictators.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
I’d bet Penzy’s will do something similar.
Ksmiami
@Kay: That’s too generous- he’d soil himself and get killed within 1 minute. He couldn’t last 2 minutes at Western and Labrea…
The Thin Black Duke
The GOP in 2023: Remember when the Democrats turned their backs on Ukraine?
SiubhanDuinne
@Ruckus:
“Nothing ventured, nothing win,
Blood is thick, but water’s thin,
In for a penny, in for a pound,
It’s love that makes the world go ‘round!”
— W. S. Gilbert, Iolanthe
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Speaking as someone who has cut off all contacts with my brothers and their families, I’d just delete the emails or file them away in a special folder. You never know when you could have a change of heart. Keep your options open.
trollhattan
@The Thin Black Duke: Yup. Afhganawho? Seems like five years ago.
SFAW
@indycat32:
One wonders whether the MSM will ask Traitor Ted WTF he actually meant by that comment. [Of course, I expect his response would be something like “It’s pretty obvious, so I’ll let you figure it out for yourselves.” And then some moron takes the bait, asks if he meant JP is gay, and we’re off to RWMF soundbite city!
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
LOL
Yarrow
@SiubhanDuinne: You have to do what’s right for you. You could always ask him to stop sending you emails that include political things of any sort. That emails like that are good for your blood pressure. If he doesn’t respect your request then you could take another step. Like increasing sanctions on your brother.
Uncle Cosmo
Just FTR, “Pentangeli” may be an Italian surname and it may mean “five angels” – just not in Italian. The Italian form would be Cinqu’angeli from cinque = 5. “Pentangeli” is “5 angels” in Greek (where πεντε = “pente” = 5). There are a fair number of Greek-derived names in southern Italy and Sicily, which area was colonized by the Greeks long before the Romans got there. (E.g., Naples, “Napoli,” is derived from neapolis = Greek for “new city.”) /pedant
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
Oh, my letter definitely keeps the options open. But for the moment, it is indeed in a special folder.
Gin & Tonic
Here’s a vid from tonight, Zelensky in the heart of Kyiv, along with the PM, the head of the office of Presidential administration, the head of his party and others. Saying “we are here, and we are defending our country.”
Soprano2
@SiubhanDuinne: My mother and I agreed not to talk about politics, although sometimes the topic came up anyway. This summer while my mother was in the hospital I told her she could be watching the Olympics, which is something she always did before, and she started ranting about how she hoped the women’s soccer team lost because they hated America. So it’s an easy thing to say you won’t talk about politics with them, but harder to do when it seems like almost everything has a political angle.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Unfortunately, today is not that day.
SFAW
@Uncle Cosmo:
Damn your language skills!
But thanks for the correction. I guess some (apparently non-functioning) part of my brain “knew” that “penta” was not an Italian root, but decided to go with it anyway.
citizen dave
@geg6: Probably posting quite late here, but I’m generally the same on Sean Penn. He sure has disparate parts happening in his life. He popped up in Licorice Pizza playing a Bill Holden type guy, a couple scenes and was gone. Loved seeing Tom Waits as the sidekick, though.
F Putin.
Josie
@Soprano2:
This is so true. I have been close friends with the other grandmother for a number of years. We have stayed that way by not talking politics. Lately, it has become increasingly difficult to talk about anything without politics raising its ugly head. And I am finding it more difficult all the time to respect her.
Ksmiami
@Miss Bianca: Agreed- I hope a lot of them just lay down arms and defect.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
Yeah, that’s pretty much what the message says (but with more words): Don’t send me flat-earth theories and anti-vax rants and misogynistic “jokes.” Feel free to keep sending music links and pictures of your dogs.
Geoduck
Re: Peppermint Patty being 20 years out of date. I know a lot fewer people read newspapers these days, but for those that do, Peanuts is still in endless reruns on the comics page. So for some people, PP is something they are regularly exposed to.
opiejeanne
@Gin & Tonic: Baker Creek’s current catalog has a striking photo of Chocolate Cherry Sunflowers on the cover. I need to dig through last year’s seed packets and see what I bought from them, and if I need more, but I think I need some of those sunflower seeds.
Gin & Tonic
@SFAW: No, Poroshenko handed over the Presidency with no fuss (imagine an incumbent being voted out and leaving gracefully.) In fairly short order there were parliamentary elections, in which he was elected to the legislature. He’s still the head of his party, called “European Solidarity.” He’s not squeaky-clean, since nobody who’s amassed great wealth there is, but he is a patriot.
Darkrose
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Schultz was from Santa Rosa. He didn’t have to look at hippies from a confused distance—they were everywhere in Northern California, especially a town in wine country.
NotMax
@Darkrose – @Jim, Foolish Literalist
Schulz.
/pedant
Yarrow
@SiubhanDuinne: You can always blame it on your doctor. “My cardiologist says I am to avoid stress. He/she specifically said to avoid politics and things related to it.” That will only work if you don’t speak/post about political stuff elsewhere (Facebook, etc.) where your brother could see it. But if you don’t then your brother has a face-saving reason to stop. If it’s just you asking him then you can get caught in old sibling relationship issues.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@NotMax: Wiktionary tells me that the Ukrainian word for wolverine is росома́ха f (rosomáxa). I have no idea how to make that plural, let alone a warcry, but apparently they do have a word for the critters.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@SiubhanDuinne: I haven’t written off my right wing family. However, I am firm about avoiding politics. When they inject it, I confront it. I let them know I don’t agree at all, that think their information sources are crap, and I will avoid them if they keep shoving that crap down my throat. I point out that I don’t send them articles and stories they have an issue with, but I could.
NotMax
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Sign them up for the Pee of the Month Club.
//
Gin & Tonic
@a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio: The plural would be росомахи – rosomakhy, the last phoneme sounding like the short “i” in “bin.”
Soprano2
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I just had two friends on FB basically call me a liar after I posted a link to Trump praising Putin as smart when they said they don’t believe the Yahoo link! is real! I swear, they say “fake news” to anything they want to deny the truth of. I told them to Google it themselves if they want to call me a liar.
catclub
@Yarrow:
 
Cutting him off from cash transfers?
lowtechcyclist
@Yarrow:
This. My BIL is a RWNJ, and my wife and I are pretty much on the same page politically. We get along with my BIL by a mutual not-talking-of-politics when he is together with one or both of us. He and my wife are both on Facebook (I’m not, can’t stand the place) but they are not FB friends, so they don’t see each other’s posts and don’t get into arguments there.
So SD, if you guys can come to some sort of accord like this, that might save your relationship. If you think even the attempt to do so is likely to exacerbate things, then I have no great suggestions. Situations like this suck, no question about it.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kay:
The fact Newsmax is attacking Carlson gives me joy. Attack each other harder, please!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Soprano2: Nice!
James E Powell
@Amir Khalid:
Like @Kalakal: I’d suggest pedals & a pedal board. In my times playing in cover & blues bands, I never had more than three pedals. Now, I have ten pedal board because why not? It’s really my favorite toy ever.
WaterGirl
Amir are you still here? I have something time-sensitive to communicate to you by email, but I do not know if the email you use for BJ actually works.
SFBayAreaGal
@Baud: Going on my Facebook front page. ?
Thank you for posting this
frosty
@Amir Khalid: Time to buy a bass then!!!
Steve in the ATL
@Amir Khalid:
I don’t even know who you are anymore
scribbler
@Soprano2: So true. This was my experience with my mother. I would specifically ask her not to talk to me or write to me about politics, but she would preface all of her replies with “this isn’t about politics, it’s about loving our country” or some similar misdirection. I could not stop her political comments and emails because she refused to accept they were political.
Soprano2
@scribbler: It was so dumb – I was trying to suggest something that would help with the boredom of having to be in the hospital, and she immediately made it political! I tried hard not to do that, but she did it quite a few times. It was almost like she was challenging me to fight with her.
scribbler
@Soprano2: Maybe she was! I feel like my mom did that too. It was a personal insult to her that I felt differently about politics and what was good for the country than she did.
Soprano2
@scribbler: Yep, that describes it exactly. We couldn’t understand how each other felt about these things, although there were some issues where we weren’t that far apart.
Mo MacArbie
Just here to throw another Bogg on the fire.
H-Bob
While Psaki should take the high road, the liberal snark army shouldn’t — we need to figure out the cartoon character for Ted Cruz (Milhouse, Wimpy, Blunder-dog, Chumley, etc.) and relentlessly call him that at every opportunity!
Jim Appleton
@Mo MacArbie: How’s the weather out your way?
evodevo
@Yarrow: It’s the winger version of the “True Christian” meme circulated in megachurch/talibangelical circles. If you disagree with someone ideologically, then they aren’t a real Xtian, just a pale imitation who isn’t down with the “real full Gospel” like you are. It’s a derivative of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy…
Miss Bianca
@H-Bob:
Bluto
evodevo
@SFAW: Yep that’s the way I remembered it…I don’t know why Zelensky would be Pootie Poot’s puppet…
evodevo
@SFAW: Oh, never mind…it was Yanukovich who was the putin puppet.
apocalipstick
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It’s not straight-up BiL: Ryan’s wife’s sister is married to the twin brother of Judge Jackson’s husband.
apocalipstick
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: No, that would be Linus or Marcie. Peppermint Patty wears sandals and is kinda a hippie.
apocalipstick
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It’s not straight-up BiL: Ryan’s wife’s sister is married to the twin brother of Judge Jackson’s husband.
Origuy
@Amir Khalid: Do they sell a dobro? I always thought those are cool.
jeffreyw
@Amir Khalid: Steel guitar?
Mo MacArbie
@Amir Khalid: Hmm, you said no Epiphone, so that probably rules out something like an SG. I forget if you already have an SG. Is there anything in a Chinese Rickenbacker?