Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

“They not like us!” (that’s for sure!)

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

The willow is too close to the house.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread

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Bring out the fainting couches!

Ted Cruz claimed to have spent his vacation ‘monitoring the weather in Texas’. From a getaway in Montana, apparently:


Should’ve kept his well-nourished arse away from the confirmation hearing…

“We’re not racists, people! We just play racists on the teevee, cuz our voters like that stuff!

… Well, ‘cept for Miz Blackburn. She’s so racist, she may single-handedly manage to revive the antebellum ‘Sarah and Hagar‘ libel.

Reader Interactions

120Comments

  1. 1.

    Gin & Tonic

    Not confirmation hearings, but I note that the Ukrainian railroad company states it has managed to evacuate nearly 1,000 people from Mariupol overnight/this morning, and they are on their way to Lviv. Ukraine’s Channel 5 is reporting that there will also be three “humanitarian corridors” today, March 22.

    Let us hope.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    if she has a hidden agenda that favors criminals

    You would think Republicans would support such an agenda given their nature.

  3. 3.

    germy

    Me: Marsha Blackburn is a walking Fox News talking point with unkempt hair.

    @Hegemommy: like if a box of wine were on the judiciary committee

  4. 4.

    sdhays

    @Baud: They expect her to say no. If she said, “Actually, I do”, they’d say, “Wait, really? Maybe we’ve judged you too hastily. Tell us more!”

  5. 5.

    MJS

    I don’t believe Ted Cruz became “unruly” because there is no accompanying report of Ted Cruz getting his ass beat. I believe every man, woman and child in this country would take the opportunity of Ted getting “unruly” to justifiably beat him to a pulp.

  6. 6.

    Tony Jay

    Blackburn – “Is it your personal hidden agenda to incorporate CRT into our legal system?”

    Black Lady – “I don’t know how to answer that without permanently lowering my IQ.”

    Blackburn – “It’s not a difficult question.” (smirks)

    Black Lady – “I wouldn’t imagine it would be for you, Senator.”

    Blackburn – “That’s very kind of you to… to, uh… hem-hem.” (stops smirking)

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    There’s a confirmation hearings livestream downstairs if anyone’s interested.

  9. 9.

    Old School

    Wouldn’t Dolly have been more likely to say, “I told you to wait in the truck.”?

  10. 10.

    lowtechcyclist

    Ted Cruz claimed to have spent his vacation ‘monitoring the weather in Texas’. From a getaway in Montana, apparently:

    Probably was up there hobnobbing with all the dental floss tycoons.

  12. 12.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Betty Cracker: I figure a lot of Republicans will say a lot of stupid shit and ask abominable and repulsive questions, and after enduring however many days of that, she’ll get confirmed.

    I think I’ll go get some work done.  Still another 21 months of this job!

  13. 13.

    Raoul Paste

    Yesterday I read Blackburn‘s remarks, and it was such a  baseless non-stop smear that I had to go take  a walk.  Despicable

  14. 14.

    BC in Illinois

    On a Ukraine-related topic — actually the topic of indiscriminate war crimes and the soldiers who carry them out:

    Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in The Mortal Danger (1980, p67), talked of

    “. . . the young Soviet soldiers who refused to fire upon insurgents – in Berlin, in Budapest, or in Afghanistan – and who were summarily executed (as they knew they would be!).”

    Now, his point was related to the controversies of that time, which I’m not going into here. I simply want to know more about the incidents he describes.

    He’s describing the rightful refusal to obey a wrongful order.

    No country has a deep tradition of refusal-to-obey. We say that we want that kind of refusal to happen; civilization sometimes depends on that kind of refusal to obey. Where can I find more details of times it actually happened?

    Anyone?

  16. 16.

    Tony Jay

    Serious question. Has John de Lancie ever been chased through the streets of downtown Austin by a howling mob of well-informed citizens and wondered what the hell it is he keeps on doing to piss people off in this goddamned city?

  18. 18.

    Bill K

    Bushrod Washington?  How does Cruz even know who that is and why is it relevant to the hearing?  WaPo has a paywall.

  23. 23.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Raoul Paste: Mentioned “Montana” to my dentist the other day; she wasn’t familiar with it.  I told her that it was her professional responsibility to know about it – after all, how many songs are there about dental floss?

  30. 30.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Got some questions:

    1. Kirill has gone from being the voice of affiliated religious lunacy to being an active participant in this thing, as far as I’m concerned. What should a war crimes tribunal do with him?

    2. Assuming that Putin and his top tier commanders are held to account for war crimes, is there not a danger to leaving them alive?

    3. Given what we know about Russian war planning, shouldn’t the entire edifice of their war planning/staff college system be razed to the ground and a new one started from scratch? It appears to me that the basic rules taught are “throw what you have at the enemy. If that fails, take reprisals against the softer civilian population to break down the will to resist. Relocate civilian populations to points behind our lines for punishment and/or correction. Don’t let them communicate about their condition. Exterminate their animals.”

    4. Why are tankies so enamored of long power strongmen?

  31. 31.

    Anne Laurie

    @Bill K: It’s a typically too-clever-by-half Cruz dogwhistle:

    … Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) began his speech with an attempt to give Jackson, who if confirmed would be the first Black woman on the court, a history lesson.

    “Supreme Court confirmations weren’t always controversial,” Cruz said. “In fact, Bushrod Washington, when nominated to the Supreme Court in 1798, was confirmed the very next day.”

    It is true that Bushrod Washington — a favorite nephew of George Washington who had never served as a judge before — was officially nominated to the Supreme Court on Dec. 19, 1798, and confirmed the next day by voice vote in the Senate. However, he had already been serving on the court since Nov. 9 via recess appointment from President John Adams. (Ten justices have been recess appointed, the last coming during the Eisenhower administration.)

    It is also true that Washington was an enslaver. If Cruz was merely looking for an example of a nominee who was quickly confirmed, there have been about 10 nominees confirmed the same day they were nominated and at least another dozen confirmedin only one day, just like Washington, according to Senate records. Washington was neither the first nor the last to be confirmed that quickly…

    Washington served on the court for more than 31 years, longer than any of the current justices. And in those 31 years, he was definitely controversial, largely because of his actions as an enslaver…

    See how clever & scholarly I am — giving this would-be Supreme Court Judge a history lesson, about — harharhar — a guy who might’ve kept her relatives as slaves! Am I the smartest little boy in the local MENSA chapter, or what?

  33. 33.

    Tony Jay

    @NeenerNeener:

    True, true. It’s a pity Gary Shandling played a fictionalised version of Canada’s Secret Shame in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and so has first dibs, or De Lancie could have applied the ‘Just For Men’ and had a starring role in ‘Wrapped in a Flag…”, the planned 2025 HBO series about the rise and fall of the modern Republican Party.

    Yes, I made that up. But someone should really look into doing something like that.

  34. 34.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Anne Laurie: So is Cruz arguing that Judge Jackson should be confirmed today? I don’t get it. But then again, I didn’t go to a top-tier Ivy.

  35. 35.

    Anne Laurie

    @Gin & Tonic: Cruz is ‘suggesting’ that if Judge Brown Jackson wanted to be appointed ‘uncontroversially’ — without being gummed around the ankles by cheapjack humanoids like Ted Cruz — she should’ve had the good sense to be born White.  And, preferably, male.

  36. 36.

    Tony Jay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’d like to think there’s a hell of a backstory to this that I just don’t know about. In fact, I’m happy just imagining what it could be

    ETA

    Q! Q!!! I got it!

  38. 38.

    HinTN

    @germy:

    like if a box of wine were on the judiciary committee

    Gives her far too much credit. Some people like a box of wine.

  39. 39.

    RSA

    The Texas senator, 51, reportedly got into an altercation with airline personnel, resulting in the intervention of airport security

    Guaranteed that some version of “Do you know who I am?” was expressed at some point.

  41. 41.

    Sloane Ranger

    I know from previous comments that some posters here are fans of Time Team, which was cancelled about10 years ago and thought they might like to know that it’s back.

    The Team has crowd funded the money to produce new episodes from fans through YouTube and Patreon and put out its first 3 episodes over the weekend. Unfortunately, there’s no Tony Robinson or Phil Harding but most of the fan favourites are back, including John Gater and Stewart Ainsworth.

    Links to the episodes here.

    Episode 1

    https://youtu.be/j8_sbq37AUs

    Episode 2

    https://youtu.be/WEiOj-ZufaQ

    Episode 3

    https://youtu.be/fXeuNTEfO4s

  44. 44.

    Kalakal

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Why are tankies so enamored of long power strongmen?

    They are absolutely convinced they are right and that anyone who disagrees is either a knave or a fool ( or both), there is absolutely no possibility of error on their part. Therefore it is their moral duty to bring the unfortunate unbelievers to the promised land even by force. The ends justify the means no matter how much it hurts them personally, they are suffering for us all.

    They’re sociopathic fucks who get a kick out of violence which they see as a just punishment for the enemies of their idea of the greater good.

    There’s a very old English joke about Tankies

    Speaker: “Comrades! Come the the revolution, everyone will eat peaches and cream!

    Timid voice from crowd “But comrade, I don’t like peaches and cream”

    Speaker (glares) “Come the revolution, everyone will eat peaches  and cream and bloody well like it!”

  45. 45.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Why are tankies so enamored of long power strongmen?

    They like their MAGA brethren seeks easy answers to difficult problems. They subscribe to the Great Man theory of politics. Hence the love for Magic Grandpa or Putin. Besides several tankie man children do this as a rebellion against their parents politics.  Its like cool you know, preaching revolution on their iphones.

  46. 46.

    grubert

    First heard that Dolly Parton line “thought I told you to wait in the trunk!”  from Homer and Jethro on “Live at the Country Club”

    Ah, the classics!

  47. 47.

    Central Planning

    @Baud:

    if she has a hidden agenda that favors criminals

    In her interviews with republicans, it would be funny if she lied and said “Only the white-collar ones.” She would get a thumbs up from all of them.

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    It still blows my mind that Ted Cruz – Ted freakin’ Cruz – came in 2nd in the 2016 GQP primaries!

    Republicans, your problems are way, waaay bigger than trumpov and trumpism. Demand better representation!

  49. 49.

    schrodingers_cat

    OT: Does anyone have a Roomba or any other robot vac? How well do they work? I am thinking of getting one. Suggestions appreciated. Looking for something that is effective and robust and can be repaired if needed.
    Thanks.

  51. 51.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @RSA:

    The good part about TSA assholes and airline counter and/or gate personnel that are in love with their authority is that they haven’t any self awareness about when to hit the “off” switch. They dig in no matter what, which makes the Clash of the Petty Assholes that much funnier when they run up against a Ted Cruz.

  54. 54.

    prostratedragon

    @Another Scott:  zinc some cases noscript extension helps. Turn off scripts from the site. I can read WaPo, NYT, and some others that way, though not FT or WSj. Turning off scripts also helps with sites that bug you about adblocker. Only thing is that you might not have access to graphics or interactives.

  56. 56.

    Geminid

    @Kalakal: Commentator Magdi Semrau describes some interesting pushback on tankies by another component of the Left, the “anarchist” left.

  57. 57.

    Another Scott

    @schrodingers_cat: We have a few year old Roomba.  It works, but has limitations.  We don’t use it much.

    1. Can have trouble going over edges of carpets if the carpet and pad is too high.
    2. Can seemingly get confused figuring out the room dimensions, placement of furniture, etc.  It may take a long while for it to figure out where it can go so that it doesn’t get stuck.

    I don’t know how well it would work doing more than one room (e.g. figuring out where a hallway is).  It might not be a good choice if you don’t have lots of open area.

    Later models may be better.  Dunno.

    HTH a little.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  58. 58.

    dm

    Sorry, I read the Biblical citation Anne linked to, but I don’t know my Southern mythology well enough to figure out from it what “the antebellum Sara and Hagar libel” means.

  59. 59.

    Wapiti

    @BC in Illinois: Imo, one of the admirable acts of the second US-Iraq War was the refusal of Lieutenant Watada to deploy to Iraq. He offered to deploy to Afghanistan instead, but reasoned that Iraq was an illegal war. He was court-martialed, of course, for missing movement (not being with his unit when they deployed) and for conduct unbecoming of an officer (for public comments about the war before the trial).

    I think it ended in a mistrial, and he was allowed to resign.

  62. 62.

    Ohio Mom

    @schrodingers_cat: I don’t have a robot vacuum but recently some thinking about vacuums because I needed a new one.

    The one I ended up with, an upright Shark, is not as good as my old Miele upright in getting into corners and under the furniture — the attachments are not angled optimally.

    There was no way to know this in advance because there are so many vacuum models that not all of them can be on display. I had to go on reviews from various internet sites and order it sight unseen.

    I think a robot could be a good second vacuum, especially if you want to keep up with pet hair (not an issue in this allergic household).

    Good luck!

  63. 63.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @BC in Illinois: he Mortal Danger (1980, p67),

    Book is written in 1980, before the Soviet Archives were open, now we have the actual records.

    Try this video. The answer is complex.

    https://youtu.be/JOKAIDpOY80

    Basically in WW2 the NKVD mostly would threaten the soldiers if they didn’t return to their post, arrest them them if that didn’t work and summary executions were uncommon. Shit like that scene in the movie Enemy at the Gates were the NKVD is machine gunning down thousands of Russian soldiers never happen (In fact TIK did a video monday of that very event that scene was based on and pointed out there were more actors in the scene than soldiers the actual division had at the time) While TIK maybe a bit of loony libertarian he does cite his sources.

  64. 64.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @dm: God willed some people to be slaves and they should accept their lot in life as part of the Divine plan.

  65. 65.

    Starfish

    @schrodingers_cat: You have cats.

    The question is how will the cats react to them? Do you have any cats that poop outside the litter box? If the answer to the second question is “Yes,” then the Roomba may spread poop around the house.

    Apparently, iRobot has worked on fixing this problem.

  66. 66.

    Ohio Mom

    I am not defending Ted Cruz but I know from my cousin who lives in Great Falls that there are limited flights in and out of the state.

    When she wants to travel home to NYC, there is exactly ONE flight a day out of town (heading east at least) at some ungodly hour in the very early morning. No one in her family is anywhere near an early bird but still they have managed to never miss their flight.

  69. 69.

    Gin & Tonic

    @schrodingers_cat: We got some model of Eufy as a gift from our daughter. It mostly works pretty well, but the first floor here is largely open, so I sometimes put down objects to block it and restrict its movement. As Another Scott notes, they ride low and may have trouble getting up onto a carpet if it’s thick and/or has a thick pad. But we have a dog who sheds a lot, so it’s working every night.

  71. 71.

    prostratedragon

    @dm:  Maybe that Arabs are supposed to be the children of Hagar,  or her son Ismail, as black or African people are supposed to be children of Noah’s son Ham.

  75. 75.

    Sloane Ranger

    @VeniceRiley: Unfortunately no. It’s a Cornish Fogou and associated sites. The episodes are about 30 minutes long and shown over 3 nights.

    They’re doing a Romano-British villa in Oxfordshire next, but I don’t know when those episodes will be released.

    If you’re interested in their partnership with the National Trust and Sutton Hoo, they have updates on their website and YouTube Channel.

    https://www.timeteamdigital.com/digs-new

    I can’t find a link to their channel, but just go into YouTube and search for Time Team Official.

  78. 78.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I have some insight into Indian tankies. The colonial experience brings baggage makes most Indians suspicious of the idea of the “benevolent” west.

    US inherited the mantle of the leader of the “west” from Britain during the Cold War, so that suspicion is transferred to the US. Soviet Union then and now Putin stands in opposition to western interests. So that makes them view Putin favorably.

  80. 80.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat:

    The problem with all tankies is not that the West hasn’t done things that would make people hate them.  The problem is that tankies (at least in the U.S.) is that most of them pretend to be about high minded principles rather than blanket opposition to Western power.

  81. 81.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: I gave you the reasons why Indian lefties are susceptible to the tankie propaganda and make excuses for the likes of Stalin and Putin

    I have had fruitless debates with otherwise smart and astute people from India who believe that the US is the root of all evil in the post WWII era.

    Its not just the lefties who are suspicious.

    For example my SIL who is a pathologist firmly believes that the CIA was responsible for the AIDS epidemic. She is a normie but has a deep suspicion of the US. This was before social media was a thing.

  83. 83.

    Gin & Tonic

    I am awaiting further confirmation, but reports here are that the Russian troops northwest of Kyiv (Bucha, Irpin) have been surrounded and cut off from supplies and reinforcements.

    ❗️It is reported that the #Russian occupiers in #Bucha, #Irpen, and #Gostomel are cut off from supplies and surrounded.— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 22, 2022

  84. 84.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Yeah I know. My anecdote is from the 90s. I had many similar preconceived notions like being suspicious of western intentions and giving the Russkies benefit of the doubt (not the ridiculous CIA AIDS conspiracy theory), what changed my mind was coming to the US, living here and meeting people from all over the world, including those at the receiving end of the Soviet tanks.

  88. 88.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    To me, they seem to resent any notion that the Western liberal order

    1. Is capable of societal change and redemption in order to incorporate people it previously oppressed in legitimate shared power structures and economies;

    2. Is in any position to militarily contest the whims and will of long haul authoritarians, no matter how cruel or destructive.

  89. 89.

    Nelle

    @Ohio Mom: i witnessed this behavior more than once when I lived in Montana.  One time, it was a woman in furs and jewels demanding that they open the door and let her board because the plane was right there and hadn’t left the gate.  That was an entertaining tantrum.

    Montana has such an intersection of self absorbed rich celebrities flying in to play and immensely pragmatic Montanans who hunt and fish to provide for themselves that the intersections are eye rolling.   Nothing new for ticket agents.

  90. 90.

    Baud

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Yes, they’ve basically canceled the West because of past crimes.  Which is fine in that it’s a point of view.  But like any point of view, it can be criticized and rejected, in whole or in part, especially where, as with Ukraine, the West is on the right side of the fight.

  92. 92.

    trollhattan

    @Another Scott:

    IMO the robot things are designed for suburban subdivision model homes with display furniture and…nothing else. No rugs with fringe, no lamp cords, no clutter of day-to-day living or god help you, kid and dog toys. Love the idea, just think they’re designed for a different world than the one I occupy. Same goes for self-driving cars.

  93. 93.

    tom

    @germy: that reminds of the old joke about some schmo who got angry at a gate agent when he missed his flight and yelled “Do you know who I am?”.

    The gate agent gets on the PA and says, “Passengers, we have a man at the gate who doesn’t know who he is. Can someone help this poor man?”

  94. 94.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @trollhattan: yup. I bought one on impulse, and I’m not sorry I did because it gets under the beds and dressers, and it seems to get out the dust and dirt and such, but things like cords can be a nuisance.

  95. 95.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: I remember listening to Radio Moscow on shortwave in the 1980s and hearing them push the idea that HIV was an American biological weapon. It was exactly the kind of bullshit being tossed around today about COVID.

  96. 96.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Baud:

    it can be criticized and rejected, in whole or in part

    Hold on there one second, you pinko! That sounds like [ominous drum roll] canceling.

  97. 97.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I don’t think we have many new conspiracy theories.  They are just magnified now because (1) social media and (2) the GOP’s decision to embrace that culture.

  100. 100.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    “Clarence Thomas and Janice Rogers Brown, neither of whom  I support, were treated shamefully by Senate Democrats.”

    – by Glenn Greenwald (paraphrased from his timeline)

  101. 101.

    bjacques

    @Soprano2: as an engineer all my working life, I can confirm this is correct.

    I’ve got a few Asian / South Asian friends who are all “Har har, not our fight, shitlib / neoliberal imperialists!” I wonder what they’ll say if the war grinds into the summer and the winter wheat in Russia and/or Ukraine doesn’t get harvested for the global market.

  103. 103.

    surfk9

    @schrodingers_cat: ​
     We have a Roomba i3. It is an upgrade for us. We had an earlier version that we used for three years that used to get stuck a lot. The new one we have has only been stuck once in the five months we have had it. We have two cats and it does a great job of picking up the hair. It also empties itself into its stand. We like it a lot.

  104. 104.

    Ruckus

    @Jeffro:

    You have to remember that everything in their universe is backassawkwards.

    They are religious, sort of, it’s just that their god is a racist, robbing, fascist, ass.

    They are kind. The kind of assholes who hate, steal, destroy and lower the collective IQ of a room below 50 when they walk in.

    They are petty. No I didn’t mistype pretty.

    They are far worse than useless. If they were just useless they would always just be in the way. But no, they aren’t just in the way, they are actively trying to change the world to be the worst possible, to match their level, massive assholes. In their diaries they write, every day, Massive assholes rule! At least they have an ethos to live down to.

  105. 105.

    Calouste

    @Baud: An underlying problem is that these people seem to think that the enemy of their enemy is their friend. They aren’t, they are allies of convenience with partially overlapping  interests. But they have interests of their own that do not align with your interests, and they have the agency to act on them. And that seems to get ignored.

  107. 107.

    Origuy

    @Sloane Ranger: I’ve been a patron of Time Team since they announced the Patreon campaign. I think the Roman episodes will air April 8-10, but I’m not sure about that.

    As far as I know, they haven’t started their dig at Sutton Hoo. I’ve seen a few videos of the project to construct a replica of the boat.

  108. 108.

    Soprano2

    @bjacques: I hope you weren’t offended, but I’ve worked around a lot of engineers here in the sewer department and with consultants, and some of them think because they’re smart about engineering they know everything about everything!

  109. 109.

    PaulB

    To avoid the Washington Post paywall, just turn off JavaScript in the browser. Also works for the New York Times. Without JavaScript, you won’t get the graphs, visualizations, or pictures, but you will get the article text. This can be done on a site-specific basis so that it doesn’t affect the other sites you read.

    In Chrome, for example, go to Settings -> Security and Privacy -> Site Settings -> JavaScript. Under “Not allowed to use Javascript,” add [*.]nytimes.com and [*.]washingtonpost.com as two separate items.

  110. 110.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2:

    “Mister Hoover was an engineer, and he knew that water trickles down….[But] he didn’t know that money trickles up.”

    Will Rogers on Herbert Hoover.

  111. 111.

    Kelly

    @Gin & Tonic: Reports of Belarus railway sabotage to stop Russian supplies over the last several days. This seems like a another big problem for Russian logistics.

  114. 114.

    Dopey-o

    @dm: Sorry, I read the Biblical citation Anne linked to, but I don’t know my Southern mythology well enough to figure out from it what “the antebellum Sara and Hagar libel” means

    “Call me Ishmael.”* Herman Mehlville’s narrator begins “Moby Dick” by identifying himself as a bastard son, cast out of family and society.

    Sarah was Abraham’s barren wife, and Hagar was her Egyptian handmaid chosen to be Sarah’s surrogate.

    After the birth of Ishmael, Sara grew jealous and forced Hagar and Ishmael to flee into the desert. Ishmael became the father of the arab race, and among his descents was the Prophet Mohammed.

    More than you wanted to know about the story.

    * ETA: The best opening sentence of any novel, packing 3,000 years of history into 3 words. Any 19th century American would know this Biblical reference and that it presaged a tale of great sufferring and eventual triumph.

  115. 115.

    Ishiyama

    @Kalakal:

    They are absolutely convinced they are right and that anyone who disagrees is either a knave or a fool ( or both), there is absolutely no possibility of error on their part. Therefore it is their moral duty to bring the unfortunate unbelievers to the promised land even by force. The ends justify the means no matter how much it hurts them personally, they are suffering for us all.

    They’re sociopathic fucks who get a kick out of violence which they see as a just punishment for the enemies of their idea of the greater good.

    There’s a very old English joke about Tankies

    Speaker: “Comrades! Come the the revolution, everyone will eat peaches and cream!

    Timid voice from crowd “But comrade, I don’t like peaches and cream”

    Speaker (glares) “Come the revolution, everyone will eat peaches  and cream and bloody well like it!”

    Not to be a pedant, but they way I learned it from my mother it was strawberries and cream.

  116. 116.

    Ishiyama

    @surfk9:

    We have a Roomba i3. It is an upgrade for us. We had an earlier version that we used for three years that used to get stuck a lot. The new one we have has only been stuck once in the five months we have had it. We have two cats and it does a great job of picking up the hair. It also empties itself into its stand. We like it a lot.

    I have a copy of The Door Into Summer. It is good at collecting dust.

  117. 117.

    Bill Arnold

    @Baud:

    The CIA thing is an old conspiracy theory.

    Launched by the USSR:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_INFEKTION

    Operation INFEKTION was an active measure disinformation campaign run by the KGB in the 1980s to plant the idea that the United States had invented HIV/AIDS as part of a biological weapons research project at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

    And post-USSR, the Russians continue to actively launch and/or amplify anti-USA conspiracy theories.

  118. 118.

    JAFD

    Myself, ended up getting small ‘shop vacuum’.  Half the price, powerful.

    ( In other words’ ‘a real man’s vacuum’.  You can tell them because:

    1 – Outside is solid black and either fire-engine red or safety orange

    2 – Prominent outside is their motor’s horsepower.  Shift decimal point 2 places and you’d have a ’60’s muscle car

    3 – Instructions say ‘Wear Ear Protection While Using’  )

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