Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

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

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

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

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

After roe, women are no longer free.

Let there be snark.

Bark louder, little dog.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

T R E 4 5 O N

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

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

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Evening Open Thread: Another Glitch in the Matrix

Monday Evening Open Thread: Another Glitch in the Matrix

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*Someone*’s gotta do the job, and the Qatar oligarchs are big believers in the virtues of nepotism…

Who’s got Meteor strike on their 2022 World Cup bingo card?…

Reader Interactions

52Comments

  3. 3.

    Baud

    I might actually watch this year.  Something extraordinarily bad is bound to happen.

  8. 8.

    Roger Moore

    @Quaker in a Basement:

    Hard to understand why that guy has not changed his name.

    You’d think so, but maybe there are enough people who see his family history as a reason to hire him that it’s good to keep it.  Some of Benito Mussolini’s descendants have run for office in Italy under their family name, which still gets votes in some quarters.

  9. 9.

    Betty

    Can you someone explain what all that is going on outside the actual stadiums, or should I should day stadia?

  12. 12.

    WhatsMyNym

    From the article –

    Speer’s stadium designs are a significant reason why Qatar was awarded the 2022 football World Cup.

    Who even noticed/remembered what the stadiums looked like.

  16. 16.

    Dan B

    @Betty: Haging been in Costa Rica on the beach when the air temperature was 95 and the water 90 there’s not much cooling going on except psychologically.

  18. 18.

    Roger Moore

    @WhatsMyNym:

    Who even noticed/remembered what the stadiums looked like.

    If the stadiums are obviously the most expensive designs possible, it’s a sign the organizers are rich enough to pay big bribes to FIFA members to get the Cup.  Priorities!

  21. 21.

    Old School

    @Quaker in a Basement:

    Hard to understand why that guy has not changed his name.

    I’ve come across people with the last name of Hitler.  I’ve wondered about why they have kept the name.

    I’ve also been amazed that someone willingly married into the Hitler family.

  22. 22.

    Nutmeg again

    @SpaceUnit: Far as I can remember, Gehry wasn’t a, you know, Nuremberg convict like Pops there. Even if some of his buildings look like crumpled tin foil.

  23. 23.

    Kuhlio

    Architect here, who did a huge project in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia nearly 15 years ago:  Let me just say that architects typically have NO input on the Contractor’s means and methods, and how something typically gets built and by whom.

    My project (and almost ever mega-project in that part of the world) was built with labor imported from Africa and Asia – usually India, Pakistan, etc…

    I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying that we as Architects had no say on the labor used to build the projects.

    Cut Jr. some slack on this.

  24. 24.

    dc

    The 2nd stadium looks like a vulva. I think that should be spread around. I’m sure they will like that in Qatar.

  25. 25.

    gene108

    Can someone explain to me why I’m supposed to be outraged?

    Persian Gulf country builds gaudy stadiums doesn’t seem like something to be outraged about. Almost all their big architectural projects are gaudy.

  27. 27.

    gene108

    @Kuhlio:

    From what I read about workers’ conditions building the World Cup stadiums, it doesn’t seem to be any different than the conditions of workers working on any other projects that in that part of the world.

  29. 29.

    Dan B

    @Kuhlio: I apprenticed at an urban planning firm and drew five different options for a freeway location in Minneapolis.  It’s one of the freeways that Buttigieg wants to ameliorate since it destroyed a black neighborhood.

    Fond memories. //s

  31. 31.

    Ken

    @Baud: Something extraordinarily bad is bound to happen.

    “Mr. Speer, a hellmouth has opened in the middle of the field and legions of zombies in SS uniforms are marching forth, slaughtering everyone in their path. Is there something you want to tell us?”

    “… I… I may have plagiarized the design slightly. More than slightly. It’s one of Dad’s that never got built. From the ‘Ahnenerbe’ folder.”

  32. 32.

    Jacqueline Squid Onassis

    I have watched every minute I could of every World Cup since I was randomly living with a family in Badajoz in 1982 but I vowed long ago that I wouldn’t watch a second of the 2022 World Cup Final.  Fuck these guys and fuck every country that doesn’t, at the very last second, decide to boycott this corrupted authoritarian monstrosity.

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    FYI. And note this is not the Post but the Washington Times, a not exactly Republican-averse outlet.

    YouTube removed a video by the Republican National Committee on Friday of an interview with former President Donald Trump, claiming it violated the platform’s policy against elections misinformation. Source

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    Mr. Speer, a hellmouth has opened in the middle of the field and legions of zombies in SS uniforms are marching forth, slaughtering everyone in their path.

     

    Quick, everyone, only the vuvuzelas can force them back to the abyss! Start blowing!

  36. 36.

    Kuhlio

    @gene108: Exactly.  I was not a fan of how the labor was imported and treated.  But in my case in the KSA, it seemed to be better than other areas – especially in the Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, etc.., so I can’t speak to that specific part of the world.

  38. 38.

    Martin

    @oatler: Reminder that Speer claimed to have left all of the speeches early that talked about exterminating the Jews. Ginni Thomas learned from the best.

  40. 40.

    Kent

    @Dan B:@Betty: Haging been in Costa Rica on the beach when the air temperature was 95 and the water 90 there’s not much cooling going on except psychologically.

    That’s what beer is for.

  41. 41.

    Martin

    @Kuhlio: I don’t know. A friend of mine (civil engineer, PE) went over there to work on a big road project. Big money. On his 3rd day they hand him the design plans and as-built to sign off on. The project was half done.

    He left the next day. Labor isn’t their only problem.

  44. 44.

    Kent

    @NotMax: In Costa Rica it would be an Imperial, Pilsen, or Bavaria.  Unless you were at some fru fru all-inclusive American-run resort in which case they would probably also have Bud Light and Heineken.  I’ve never seen Mexican beer sold in Central America come to think of it.

  45. 45.

    gene108

    @Kuhlio:

    I did not mean to imply foreign labor is treated well by U.S. or European standards.

    It’s just that the treatment of the foreign labor brought in to build these stadiums was in-line with their general labor practices for foreign construction workers from what I read and seen. Also I’ve heard stories from a couple of Indian former co-workers who had white collar jobs in KSA and one of the Gulf countries about how domineering the business owners were.

    If people on Twitter are outraged by how these workers were treated building these stadiums, they should be outraged by every building that’s come up, road that’s been paved, etc. in the last 20-30 years.

    There’s a lot of selective outrage out there that can’t really be sustained to address broader issues, and the construction of these stadiums is one of those cases.

  49. 49.

    Another Scott

    We were talking about nuclear plants in Germany recently.

    ?? The problems for the French nuclear fleet are so bad that they turned Europe’s biggest exporter of power into a net importer during March.

    Of Electricite de France SA’s 56 reactors, only 30 are in use right now. – BBG pic.twitter.com/3RqE2DGE2e

    — PiQ  (@PriapusIQ) April 4, 2022

    (via dsquareddigest)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  50. 50.

    Salty Sam

    @gene108: From what I read about workers’ conditions building the World Cup stadiums, it doesn’t seem to be any different than the conditions of workers working on any other projects that in that part of the world.

    I lived and worked in that region in the mid 70’s.  All construction labor was primarily Pakistani.  I watched multi-story concrete buildings going up using human “bucket brigades”, skinny underfed men tossing buckets of concrete to the next guy up the scaffolding, in 100* plus heat.  When the heat invariably took one of them out, they’d have a replacement right away, and the stricken worker would often just lay where he fell.  It was pretty disgusting.

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