Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This really is a full service blog.

T R E 4 5 O N

This blog will pay for itself.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

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

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Republicans in disarray!

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

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

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

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

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Optimism opens the door to great things.

“woke” is the new caravan.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

I was promised a recession.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: From the, uh, Archives

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: From the, uh, Archives

by | 84 Comments

This post is in: 

I, at least, need a quick respite break… been trying to clean out some of the vast clutter of ‘potentially useful links’ I have stacked up on my machine…

Reader Interactions

84Comments

  1. 1.

    Elizabelle

    That last one. LOL. Perfect. And the little doggie in the coyote vest. Looks a tad like Lovey (Thurston’s sister).

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Okay, every single ONE of those is the best godsdarn .gif I have ever seen in my life. Thank you, AL.

  6. 6.

    Bill Arnold

    I am wondering whether tomorrow’s Pence-focused hearing will bring us more about this, which may be nothing, or may have been some criminal sedition:
    Pence Refusing to Get in Secret Service Car on Jan. 6 ‘Chilling’: Raskin (THOMAS KIKA, 4/23/2022)

    “I’m not getting in the car, Tim,” Pence said, in response to Giebels’ insistence that he enter the armored vehicle. “I trust you, Tim, but you’re not driving the car. If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off. I’m not getting in the car.”

    NEW: Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the Senate president pro tempore, says he and not Vice President Mike Pence will preside over the certification of Electoral College votes, since “we don’t expect him to be there.”
    — Roll Call (@rollcall) January 5, 2021

    Hearing ➡️ tomorrow at 1:00pm

    Witnesses:
    • Mr. Greg Jacob, Former Counsel to Vice President Mike Pence
    • The Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Retired judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and informal advisor to Mike Pence
    — January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 15, 2022

  8. 8.

    NotMax

    ‘@Steeplejack

    Hoping to catch you on a respitey thread. IIRC you are a watcher of MHz.

    By any chance have you sampled Murders at Barlume (same production team as for Inspector Montalbano)?

  9. 9.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Check this out. Jason Alexander, aka George Costanza from Seinfeld, is a pretty good singer. I read he was classically trained and was on Broadway before he made it to television. He was in a lot of commercials in the 80s. This one stuck out to me the most lol:

    Jason Alexander 1985 McDonald’s Ad

    The New McDonald’s McD.L.T.!

    It’s catchy in a little corny kind of way

  11. 11.

    jnfr

    Love Mars so much. I joined Twitter in 2008 so I could follow Spirit and Opportunity and I still love space twitter.

    That last photo is excellent. Thanks for that.

  14. 14.

    Steeplejack

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I hope this is part of their plan—if such a plan exists—to drip-drip-drip hot niblets every day to be devoured by the short-attention-span press.

  18. 18.

    Steeplejack

    @NotMax:

    I saw only a few episodes before MHz got nuked from Cox Cable here, and I never got around to subscribing to MHz—which I should do. I just could never figure out whether there was a difference between doing it through Amazon Prime or stand-alone. Now thinking Prime is probably okay.

    But I digress. The episodes I saw were pretty good, but I don’t think I saw enough to have a solid opinion on the whole series. I will say that Young Montalbano sucked big-time.

  23. 23.

    Jay

    Burnt out by stress today.

    Power went out at noon today.

    SWMBO forgot to pay the Hydro bill.

    No internet, no land line, and only my phone, ( which doesn’t have the account info), had a partial charge. Then of course, navigating through the “contact us” process, hoping the phone didn’t die.

    Power is back on now.

  24. 24.

    Ken

    @Baud: The Martians first landed in Surrey, but I think later projectiles targeted the Midlands, as part of the encirclement of London.

  27. 27.

    arrieve

    @Gin & Tonic:  One of the first Broadway shows I ever saw when I moved to New York in the early 80’s was 42nd Street, starring Jerry Orbach. I never saw Law & Order until it was ubiquitous in reruns and so didn’t realize that he was on the show.

  32. 32.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack: Yes, he’s fully filled in on Ruby’s story now, and has seen Christmas in Connecticut, Double Indemnity, Ball of Fire, and Remember the Night multiple times.

  36. 36.

    Delk

    Speaking of Mars, in honor of Paul’s upcoming 80th birthday I listened to “Venus and Mars” this afternoon.

  38. 38.

    Amir Khalid

    @S Cerevisiae:

    If Mickey D’s ever holds a slogan contest here, my entry will be “McDonald’s — It’s Almost Like Real Food!”​

    ETA: Dang.

  39. 39.

    JoyceH

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): ​
     

    Jason Alexander 1985 McDonald’s Ad

    The New McDonald’s McD.L.T.!

    It’s catchy in a little corny kind of way

    Surely unintentional, but I get a real Music Man vibe from that commercial! Smooth, fast-talking con man pops up to convince the town folk that something that never seemed problematic before was actually a real problem, and hey, he’s got a solution!

  40. 40.

    JoyceH

    @Steeplejack:

    Oh please oh please oh please.

    Ditto ditto ditto! The way stuff keeps popping up, the hearings might wind up renewed for a second season by popular demand, and carry over through the fall.

    Let’s subpoena Ginny every other day until Clarence decides that heck,  maybe it’s time to retire.

  42. 42.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Reposting since the thread downstairs is dead, and this turns out not the be an official respite thread, and I’m feeling saltier than a stadium pretzel…

    The FTFNYT published yet another (at least the fourth so far) moral panic hit piece on trans kids and trans healthcare for kids That’s Just Asking Questions.

    It’s currently getting eviscerated on Trans Twitter. The article bared quoted trans kids themselves (I believe only one), but instead give a platform to a parent who was overtly transphobic towards their kid, the same set of “conversion” therapists who always get quoted (and who they were warned about), and linked to an anti-trans group that publicly poses as moderate, but posts on their Substack that they’re the equivalent of the French Resistance battling Nazi (i.e. trans people). And there’s pretty anti-LGB as well.

    It’s large-scale concern trolling about a problem that doesn’t fucking exist — they couldn’t cite a single actual example of trans kids receiving necessary healthcare without an assessment. But they’d rather worry about imaginary cis kids than actual trans kids.

    We’re not trying to turn cis straight kids into trans queer kids, we’re trying to make sure our trans and/or queer kids don’t end up as dead kids.

    All this by a journalist who’s done good reporting elsewhere. But there’s something about trans people that causes cis people to lose their damn minds.

    Happy Pride…. Did I mention how tired I get having to post about this kind of shit.

  43. 43.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    You know, back in December I watched Christmas in Connecticut all the way through for the first time in years, and I found it really thin, which surprised me. The whole “fraudulent Martha Stewart” MacGuffin didn’t hold up—even as a MacGuffin!—and there were other things that bugged me, like how the nurse became Dennis Morgan’s fiancée and then ended up with his sidekick. And criminal underuse of S.Z. Sakall.

    Eh, maybe I just watched it on a grumpy night. But I much prefer Remember the Night now.

  45. 45.

    Sister Golden Bear

    In Baltimore last night, someone torched a Pride flag hung outside a row house, destroying three homes, with two people seriously injured and critically injuring three more.

    All the Republican/reactionary Christo-fascist (but I repeat myself) frothing-at-the-mouth hatred being directed against LGBTQ+ people (and others obviously) is inciting stochastic terrorism that’s going to end up getting people killed. To them that’s a feature, not a bug.

    Happy fucking Pride…

    (A reminder, Pride wasn’t born of a new to celebrate being LGBTQ+, rather our right to live without persecution. So instead of wondering why there isn’t a Straight Pride, be thankful you don’t need one.)

  48. 48.

    Suzanne

    @Sister Golden Bear: as the mom of a trans kid, I have to say that nothing that the transphobes describe about the healthcare aspects of transition matches my experience. Spawn’s doctor is amazing.

  49. 49.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Steeplejack: My guess is that if they’re only “considering” it, it’s not a pure smoking gun like “I know we totally lost but we need to overthrow the country and make up as much crap as we can” and probably more like “We need to do literally everything we can to assure a Trump win and punish the Democratic traitors who cheated in this election”

    So in other words, totally inappropriate for her and her husband but not anything that Republicans would admit is improper or needs any changes.

  55. 55.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    The plot isn’t the attraction, but the clunky parts of it actively get in the way (more so than usual in the genre).

    I was reminded how . . . amiable Dennis Morgan is, and how many movies he was in with so few memorable ones (Kitty Foyle and God Is My Co-Pilot in addition to this one). Maybe he didn’t get quite the right material at the right time.

  57. 57.

    Ruckus

    @Amir Khalid:

    “McDonald’s — It’s Almost Like Real Food!”​

    No, no it’s not.

    I may be prejudiced, I have gotten severe food poisoning from McDs.

  58. 58.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Sister Golden Bear: I appreciate every one of your posts, and I too am sorry you have to keep posting them. I do not understand why we cannot just leave people  alone and let them live their lives.

  63. 63.

    Scout211

    For Pride Month, POTUS signs  Historic Executive Order Advancing LGBTQI+ Equality During Pride Month

    Laws would be better, but EOs are a good start

    Biden launches plan to protect transgender youths’ health care

    President Joe Biden on Wednesday will order his health agency to begin efforts to ban conversion therapy and expand access to gender-affirming treatment after a slew of state attempts to limit transgender health care, particularly for children.
    The president’s executive order will call on the Department of Health and Human Services to clarify that federally funded programs cannot offer conversion therapy, a widely discredited practice that attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, and work on a public information campaign about the practice. Biden is also directing HHS to take “steps to address the barriers and exclusionary policies” to different types of health care and treatment.

  66. 66.

    Steeplejack

    Five Easy Pieces (1970) coming up at 10:15 p.m. EDT on TCM, for those who haven’t seen it in a while. Oscar nominations for best picture, original screenplay, actor (Jack Nicholson) and supp0rting actress (Karen Black).

  67. 67.

    Alison Rose

    @Jay:

    Some cis people.

    I don’t mean to call you out here, but this isn’t a good response. It’s very #notallmen energy and isn’t necessary nor helpful.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    @Sister Golden Bear: 

    They beat “CRT” to death, they beat cancel culture to death – cannot credibly sell another article or substack on those- so they needed a new enemy to vanquish.
    Also don’t underestimate how much of it is just about really ungracefully entering middle age:

    Matt Taibbi: Lastly: I grew up in the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s. A liberal was the person who was willing to talk about anything, had a sense of humor, was willing to entertain far-out ideas, didn’t get offended easily, and would’ve had a theoretical discussion about anything. Then all of a sudden, it feels like in the last five years this dynamic has just been turned on its head, and this issue is probably Exhibit A as to that phenomenon. Do you have any thoughts about why?

    They love the 1990’s, when they were young and radical. Now they’re older and really cranky. They completely dominate the NYTimes and Fox News. One would think that would be enough. Can’t MSNBC have someone else on?

  70. 70.

    Suzanne

    @Kay: There’s a subset of white dudes who are just horrified to realize that no one thinks they’re cool and no one wants to cater to their tastes.

  71. 71.

    Another Scott

    Interesting DW story on possible effects of the interest rate increases:

    How exactly a company earns ‘zombie’ status is ill-defined.

    Generally, the name refers to firms that roll over their debt with continued access to credit markets, without being able to pay off their debt interest.

    These firms stumble along, just covering operating expenses but soulless as far as profitability and productivity are concerned.

    Zombies are ubiquitous in the US economy: They comprise 16% of US firms according to one Morgan Stanley calculation.

    Bloomberg reports that approximately one-fifth of America’s largest 3,000 public companies are zombies, with debts totaling $900 billion (€853 billion).

    America is not alone in its corporate rot. Zombies account for more than 20% of Europe’s companies.

    Grana told DW that zombie companies often compensate for their low productivity and high debt burdens by squeezing their workers with low wages and poor conditions.

    “Their mere survival is having negative consequences on other companies and workers,” he said.

    Observers may be surprised to find staple American brands among the zombie ranks.

    They mention Delta in the story. Of course, airlines are notorious for not having net profits for decades (a consequence of the volatility of fuel prices, among other things). Having yet more concentration in the airline industry is probably not a good idea (unless we’re willing to add more regulation along with it).

    If interest rates really finally do go back to “normal” levels (where normal humans could earn, say 5% (rather than 0.5%)), there are going to be winners and losers and the economy as a whole will be better off. But there could be severe pain in places, and having that pain happen when workers are doing reasonably well (like now) is probably a best case timing-wise.

    We’ll see!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  72. 72.

    Jay

    @Alison Rose :

    It’s fine to call me out on my verbage.

    We all need allies.

    Most people don’t care about a huge chunk of the “culture wars” the TERF’s and Christofacists are trying to “sell”.

    While on the one hand, a bunch of their targets have to constantly remember the danger they are in, they should also try to remember all the support they get from friends, family and even strangers.

    It’s not the 70’s. There is a tiny minority of nutcases out there, trying hard to make life difficult for people we know and love, and because they have seized control of a political party, (even here in Canada), they have greatly amplified their hate and have adopted eliminationist rhetoric and in some places, legislation.

    We, us allies, need people to remind us (constantly) about what is happening, and we need to be allies.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    @Suzanne:

    Fewer words, same message:

    “President Biden has appointed wack jobs. I mean, it’s like these people dropped acid in an Outback parking lot. You can’t reason with them, they are just so woke.” — Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) 

    It’s free too! Don’t even have to pay for a subscription.

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @Suzanne:

    It’s a shame, although I never had any use for Taibbi I’m sure some of them had “ideas” or something at one time. The feminists don’t talk about feminism anymore, the Leftists don’t talk about workers or class, the centrists don’t talk about whatever centrists talk about – public/private partnerships- whatever- it’s all this “woke” and “we are being cancelled” shit. It’s its own subject. They don’t have any identifiable ideology or beliefs other than this, which is why they moved so easily Right. It swallowed them as writers and thinkers. Still seething about the 1619 project. And why arent they on MSNBC! Riddle me THAT!

  76. 76.

    Ken

    @Another Scott: where normal humans could earn, say 5% (rather than 0.5%)

    Where are you getting 0.5%?  Can you hook me up with them? is it illegal? I don’t want to do anything illegal. Well, not too illegal. Come on, man, I’m desperate here. I’ll give you a cut of a fifth of what I get.

  77. 77.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Jay: stolen from Stonekettle:

    Emergency Not All
    ____________________

    …not all…
    _____________________

    Break glass and insert “not all” into any tweet post where I’ve used a general label to generally describe a general group, sex, ideology, religion, or population.

    Or gender identity, or sexual orientation.

    There’s 99 problems in the world today, but a rhetorical generalization ain’t one.

  79. 79.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Kay:

    Matt Tabbi:

    A liberal was the person who was willing to talk about anything, had a sense of humor, was willing to entertain far-out ideas, didn’t get offended easily, and would’ve had a theoretical discussion about anything. When we could shit talk  about people not like us, and they didn’t call us on it.

  81. 81.

    Jay

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    ❤️❤️❤️❤️

    I didn’t take it as a burn,

    I just wanted to remind you that the world is now filled with allies.

    One of the things that pisses me off the most about the current crop of homophobes, is that they are going after kids, children, the most defenceless with terrorism.

  83. 83.

    Another Scott

    @Ken: :-)

    E.g. Vanguard Brokered CD, $1000, 1 year, several FDIC banks are offering more than 2.5%.

    (Rates have gone up since I last looked!)

    NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. CAVEAT EMPTOR. UNDERSTAND THE RISKS OF BROKERED CDs. THIS COMMENT IS WORTH WHAT YOU PAID FOR IT.

    HTH a little.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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