Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

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

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Second rate reporter says what?

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

Accountability, motherfuckers.

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

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Monday Morning Open Thread: Back to the Good Work

Monday Morning Open Thread: Back to the Good Work

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Monday Morning Open Thread: Back to the Grind

(Walt Handelsman via GoComics.com)

Ohana: Nobody gets left behind, or forgotten…



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Reader Interactions

166Comments

  5. 5.

    germy shoemangler

    BREAKING: Puerto Rico just had 100% of their electricity cut out by Hurricane Fiona. President Biden acted without delay – he declared and emergency and ordered FEMA to take action immediately.

    What would a Republican in power do? 🤔

    — Nathalie Jacoby (@nathaliejacoby1) September 18, 2022

  8. 8.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

     we can say now that there was no real backlash to (at least) modest student debt relief

    There was never a backlash. It was a media fabrication, brought to you by the makers of Tan Suit and Mustard on CheeseburgerGate.

  9. 9.

    arrieve

    Good morning everyone. I wanted to say thank you for all the good wishes and great suggestions sent my way Saturday about teaching the first classes for the practicum for my master’s in TESOL.

    I got through it (obviously). I did a lot of training during my career in IT and I always loved being in front of a classroom, but every time you’re teaching a new class it’s almost like starting from scratch. And English is hard to learn and tricky to teach.

    But except for the overhead projector crapping out in my Level 1 class when I had 50 slides with pictures of boys, girls, books, etc., and I (despite my many decades of alleged IT experience) couldn’t get it to work, it went very well. (I ended up turning the PC monitor around and showing my slides that way.) And I love the students–adults, almost all Spanish-speaking, who have been in the US anywhere from one month to eight years. They are so eager to learn!

  13. 13.

    Matt McIrvin

    At this point any positive story about Biden is very likely to be of the “disaster averted” or “crisis successfully managed” variety, and by their very nature, those stories don’t linger in the memory like catastrophic failure or “Republicans do horrible shit, own the libs” do. But presumably they affect general attitudes in an under-the-radar way.

    I don’t suppose we’re going to get another splashy legislative success on the level of IRA passage before November, because those are rare. But the successes that have already happened keep paying off.

  15. 15.

    Betty Cracker

    Rolling Stone has some hopeful tidings for those of us who are longing for a Trump vs. DeSantis steel cage death match:

    IN RECENT DAYS, Donald Trump has privately voiced his anger over Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis sending planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. Trump’s displeasure, however, has nothing to do with moral revulsions at the governor using human beings as unsuspecting pawns for a political attack. Instead, Trump is telling allies and confidants he’s outraged that DeSantis seems to think he’s allowed to steal the ex-president’s mantle as both media star, and as undocumented-immigrant-basher-in-chief…

    Trump has fumed over all the praise DeSantis’ action has been receiving in influential conservative circles lately — such as on right-wing media like Fox News — and has privately accused DeSantis of doing this largely to generate a 2024 polling boost for himself among GOP voters. (Earlier this month, Trump and his political operation blasted out a brief statement claiming, “Mar-a-Lago raid gave Trump a 10-point boost over DeSantis with Republican primary voters, poll shows.”)

    Potentially excellent news for Charlie Crist!

  16. 16.

    Brit in Chicago

    “effected”/”affected”, sigh. Oh well, “impacted” would have been worse. /pedantry

  17. 17.

    Betty Cracker

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Two weeks from last Friday, according to the vet’s advice. We’re all a lot happier with the inflatable collar than the damnable cone he came back from the vet’s wearing.

    Thank you to everyone who weighed in on cone alternatives in response to a previous post.

  18. 18.

    Amir Khalid

    I’m watching parts of the royal funeral procession on YouTube. I wonder what the horses involved make of the whole thing.​
    ETA: a soldier standing at attention just fainted.

  19. 19.

    Soprano2

    NPR broadcast Queen Elizabeth’s funeral live this morning, which was nice. What wasn’t nice – every time they started some kind of music, the “anchors” started babbling over it. I appreciated them telling me who was speaking and what was being sung, but I could have done without the running commentary. I switched to streaming on my phone!

  20. 20.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Betty Cracker: God, I hope so. I want TFG to take DeSantis down before the DoJ takes TFG down.

    OT more or less: Do any of you read Fredrick Backman’s fiction? His most famous book is A MAN CALLED OVE, but my favorite is BEARTOWN. This week, I reread US AGAINST YOU, the second book in the BEARTOWN trilogy because the third book will be out at the end of the month. It’s less intimate than BEARTOWN because there’s a narrator who comments on how rivalry and hatred can be stirred up. Seemed relevant to today’s political environment.

  21. 21.

    Shalimar

    @Betty Cracker: I joined Truth Social just so I can tell Trump to kneecap DeSantis now, that DeSantis will win the 2024 primary if he is re-elected governor.  Haven’t been banned yet.

  27. 27.

    Shalimar

    @Baud: I would use that one, but I think I’m already going to get banned.  Trump is back at Mar-a-Lago, apparently so he can complain about the raid 6 weeks ago and act like it just happened.  I suggested he also search for Jimmy Hoffa’s body.  I hear he disappeared recently.

  28. 28.

    Amir Khalid

    @Soprano2:

    I’ve seen two or three televised state funerals here in Malaysia. There’s not a lot to say about a funeral procession, either; it’s just a bunch of people in uniforms marching down the street.  I think the”anchors” are supposed to keep talking so their bosses will know they haven’t fallen asleep.

  30. 30.

    Ken

    @Shalimar: He’ll probably complain that the mess still hasn’t been cleaned up. Which makes sense, the only reason the cleaning staff hired on was so they could photograph the classified documents that were lying around.

  31. 31.

    Baud

    It occurs to me that the fact that His and Her both begin with H and that King and Queen are both one syllable words really saves UK a lot of headaches.

  33. 33.

    Soprano2

    @Amir Khalid: I wouldn’t mind at all if they talked over the procession, it’s just a casket being pulled down the road. Talking over all the music, though, to me was gross and disrespectful to the musicians who I know have been rehearsing for this for the whole week. But yeah, perhaps they are required to say so much per minute or something just so the boss knows they aren’t asleep.

  36. 36.

    Shalimar

    @Ken: You nailed it.  He’s complaining about how messy the FBI left the place, and also that they didn’t take their shoes off when they were in his bedroom.

  37. 37.

    Amir Khalid

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I would assume Biden did arrive on the bus. It’s what the King asked of the foreign dignitaries, and there’s no real reason for the Secret Service to object. Besides, using his own transport, against Charles’ wishes, is the kind of dick move only TFG would pull.

  39. 39.

    Soprano2

    Found out this weekend that a high school classmate died, probably of Covid. The facts fit – he was OK, then suddenly got sick and admitted to the ICU, was there two weeks before he died. I took a peek at his FB page, and suffice it so say I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he wasn’t vaxxed even though I’ve been told his younger brother died of Covid last year. I swear, lies about Covid and the vaccine have killed as many people as Covid has.

    I didn’t sleep well last night, I hope I make it through today ok. My co-worker who does the same work I do caught Covid from her nurse (!) friend who she met up with while on vacation last week. The friend knew she wasn’t feeling well – she was coughing! – but showed up anyway. Co-worker thinks that’s probably where she got it. She’s vaxxed and boosted once because she’s under 50, so hopefully it’ll be a mild case. I think she had it the last week of February 2020 – she was really sick with something respiratory that the doctors couldn’t figure out, she was tested for flu and strep and it wasn’t either of those so they told her she must have some kind of virus. This was before we knew Covid was in the U.S.

  42. 42.

    dmsilev

    @Amir Khalid: I remember watching Diana’s funeral and the “talk while people are marching” moments led to at least one bit of awkwardness. Peter Jennings said something like “and here we see all of the trappings of a fading empire on display. (pause) I mean that in a good way, of course.”

    Heh.

  43. 43.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: Yeah, no way Secret Service would agree to him arriving on a bus. I was thinking about how high the security must be with all those world leaders in the same place. That, and wondering where the row of port-a-potties is!

  46. 46.

    germy shoemangler

    The crisis of democracy occurred 20 years ago when a council of lifetime appointed mystics who divine the intentions of dead Freemasons gave the presidency to the son of a former president to carry out his family’s genocidal vendetta & kept a state of emergency going for 20 years

    — detty (@0ddette) September 19, 2022

  47. 47.

    Ken

    @delphinium: The recent ruling from the Fifth Circuit means that TruthSocial, like every other social platform, cannot ban users or remove any content they have posted.

  49. 49.

    Ken

    @Baud: Are you saying Donald Trump’s social media platform is not large?  Not the biggest, most magnificent, most widely-read platform of all time?

    Room 101.

  52. 52.

    Layer8Problem

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:
    @Chief Oshkosh:

    I read Anxious People after my partner recommended it with “the book club liked it and it has your sense of humor.”  I liked it, and the TV serial.  After that I found My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry in the laundry room bookshelf, and after an acquaintance saw me reading it at the pub and said I should really read A Man Called Ove,  I read that too.  I enjoyed them all.  Beartown looks like it might be a harder lift for me from what I’ve heard given the subject.  How was it?

    ETA:  answered directly below.

  54. 54.

    Layer8Problem

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:  I was a hockey parent once.  :-)  Sport-mad parents are, to put it bluntly, assholes.  The painful event one of the characters has in Beartown is the thing making me tentative about it.

  55. 55.

    germy shoemangler

    Hey guys, I’m back… Twitter suspended me because I drank too much microwaved coffee and tweeted out the holy name of our species in the secret language of God. I’ve learned my lesson and it won’t happen again.

    — Brooks Otterlake (@i_zzzzzz) September 18, 2022

  57. 57.

    Shalimar

    @Ken: Tell them that.  I haven’t been banned, but all 3 of my truths are gone like they never existed.  All the angry replies seem to be gone too.  I thought I got away with the first 2 anti-DeSantis comments a few days ago, but they got rid of them too.  Their police seem very slow.

  59. 59.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Soprano2: Yes the Brits do fantastic choral music. It’s probably the best, most transcendent aspect of the funeral…so let’s babble over it constantly.

    I mean I know it’s a spectacle but if the gave this much fawning attention to Biden’s speeches about the fact that American democracy is teetering on the brink we’d be in a better place.

  61. 61.

    germy shoemangler

    @Shalimar:

    I admire your courage, though.

    I’ve sometimes been tempted to troll maga sites, but I suspect they’re full of malware.

    I remember a former commenter  (someone who had keys to this place) who got mad after some people here criticized him.  He said something to the effect of “I know your IP address, I can do all sorts of things to you” and I don’t know if he was kidding or not, but I don’t want to share my info with magats.

  62. 62.

    Tony G

    @Amir Khalid: Jesus, the English ruling class is loonier than I thought.  I have nothing against The Queen personally, she seemed to have been a decent enough person, but she was a 96-year-old woman who died 11 days ago after a lifetime of extreme luxury and no real accomplishments, as a member of a monarchy that became obsolete almost 400 years ago.  Just put the poor woman In the ground already!

  63. 63.

    Ken

    @germy shoemangler: I like one of the “related tweets” though as usual have no idea why The Algorithm thinks it’s related.

    NASA press release: “Discovered an Earth-like exoplanet, but it rains lava at night.”

    Response: “how is that like earth at all then”.

  65. 65.

    jonas

    @Soprano2: The friend knew she wasn’t feeling well – she was coughing! – but showed up anyway.

    JFC, what were they thinking? A couple of weeks ago, I came down with a mild cough and tested myself twice to make sure it wasn’t Covid before leaving the house. It was just a cold I caught from one of the kids, who also tested negative for Covid several times, but I wanted to be extra sure.

  66. 66.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I never understood either of those made up controversies but especially mustard on a hamburger. I haven’t had a McDonald’s hamburger in decades but my recollection is that their standard burger and the Quarter Pounder both come topped with ketchup AND mustard. If McD’s puts it on burgers how can it be considered not a standard all American topping?

  67. 67.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Soprano2: Which choir is it – the Royal College of Music or the house Westminster Cathedral choir? Either way it’s top notch.

  69. 69.

    Soprano2

    @Tony G: The NPR commentators were babbling about how she was actually quite humble and lived a relatively humble lifestyle, and all I could think was “are you kidding me?”. There’s respect, then there’s unnecessary fluffing. That said, I’m sure there are a lot of things she didn’t have much say in, knowing how much the British love tradition. It would be like living in a comfortable, gilded cage.

  70. 70.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty Cracker:

    Great pic!

    When Henry had to wear his blue collar, I had the same thought – he looked like some English king.  Though my naming wasn’t half as good as yours.

    What collar did you finally decide on?  That looks like a good one, do you have a link?  Or did you (shudder) buy it in a store?

  71. 71.

    Betty Cracker

    @Shalimar: I read about those complaints too — doesn’t he have staff to Febreze and vacuum the tacky-ass carpet? Trump is such a fucking crybaby; it’ll never make sense to me that people find constant whining about personal grievances appealing.

    I saw a short clip of Trump’s Youngstown rally, and it seems he’s gone full Q. According to Will Bunch at the Philly Inquirer, the theme music was straight from the Q cult videos, and the far-from-capacity crowd responded with Nazi-esque salutes with a raised index finger. (I’d raise a different finger!)

    One is tempted to dismiss it as buffoonery, but there are millions of lunatics out there who respond to it.

  72. 72.

    PST

    @Brit in Chicago:

    “effected”/”affected”, sigh. Oh well, “impacted” would have been worse. /pedantry

    Agreed. Mixing up “effected” and “affected” is an easy mistake, the kind of slip we all make. Using “impacted” in this way is a deliberate choice.

  73. 73.

    Soprano2

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:  This is what Google told me, which is what I figured. I saw children singing in the video.:

    The service for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was led by the Dean of Westminster, with music sung by the choristers of The Choir of Westminster Abbey and The Choir of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal.

  75. 75.

    Layer8Problem

    @germy shoemangler:  If they don’t have access to the site logs and haven’t broken into the servers I have strong doubts they can get your IP address.  I personally would respond to passive-aggressive assertions like that with “of course you do, dear boy|girl.”  It’s like the emails telling you they’ve secretly recorded your naughty behavior using your own video camera and send money or your life’s ruined because they have all your email contacts too and will send everyone on it the goods.  They’ve got nothing.

  77. 77.

    Geminid

    @Amir Khalid: Media outlet Whalehunting.projectbrazen.com reports that fugitive Leonard Francis, aka “Fat Leonard,” has been spotted. Their article is paywalled, but @TomWrightAsia reports they say Leonard “is in Venezuela with his son, likely  in his way to Brazil.”

    Mr. Wright was retweeted by Marcy Wheeler, which is how I found the news.

  78. 78.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)

    @arrieve: So glad it was a success. The hiccups will always be there. When it comes to tech, always have plan B. EFL/ESL is not easy to teach. But, a passion to teach combined with a thirst for learning puts you all on the path to success!

  79. 79.

    germy shoemangler

    @Layer8Problem:

    There’s a maga blog I peek at sometimes without commenting.

    Whenever someone leaves a comment they don’t like, they reply by posting that person’s IP address.  Sometimes they’ll also reveal what part of the country the comment came from.

    I always thought that’s all they can learn from an IP address.

  80. 80.

    Layer8Problem

    @Ken:

    NASA press release: “Discovered an Earth-like exoplanet, but it rains lava at night.”

    Response: “how is that like earth at all then”.

    Have you never been to the borough of Queens?

  83. 83.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker:  the far-from-capacity crowd responded with Nazi-esque salutes with a raised index finger.

    I’m surprised no one’s outside the venue selling giant foam fingers. They already make them for football, it wouldn’t be hard to get them in red with the MAGA logo.

  85. 85.

    Betty Cracker

    @WaterGirl: I drove 20 miles each way to buy it at a store because I needed it right away. We can get the USPS and UPS back here on our awful, washed-out swamp pig trail of a dirt road to deliver things, there’s no such thing as same-day delivery (or pizza delivery, or Instacart, or Uber, etc.).

    Not sure what the collar brand is (Care Paws or something like that?), but it’s a soft inflatable collar, which allows the patient to rest more peacefully and spares us the scraped shins and smacks in the face we got with the vet’s hard-edged e-collar. It also gives Pete better peripheral vision and doesn’t smoosh his ears down, so he’s happier.

  87. 87.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Tony G: as a member of a monarchy that became obsolete almost 400 years

    A couple of days ago I went on a little Google side project to try to figure out when the English monarchy last had actual power. I didn’t get an answer to my question, but under “Victoria having influence on the culture” I read a story about her giving birth and the question of whether she should use this new-fangled anesthetic stuff.

    The doctors in their wisdom thought it would make women weak if they gave birth with anesthetic.

    Can’t find the actual quote now, but she said something queenly about “we are going to use the anesthetic” that settled the matter not only for her but for medical practice in the rest of the country.​

    (And you can infer that other than one or two stories like that, the Royal Family wasn’t very relevant to 19th century England either)

    Edit: Thinking about this question some more, Victoria’s reign began in 1837, and George III who ruled during the American Revolution was king until 1820. So there’s not a big window there for when the monarchy went from powerful to symbolic.

  89. 89.

    MisterDancer

    @germy shoemangler: Your IP address is also oftentimes tied to your Internet Provider. This is how things like DCMA takedowns get started, by finding the Provider of whomever posted the content from a certain IP Address, and getting that Provider to notify the user of that IP of the content violation notification.

    A VPN can mitigate this risk, but it also depends heavily on the VPN company and their privacy policies.

  90. 90.

    Layer8Problem

    @germy shoemangler:  My bad, I didn’t notice in your comment that your commenter had the keys to the place.  Yeah, then they can get the IP address.  It’s more information and can give a possible general location.

  91. 91.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Queen Elizabeth was this and that, but I think about courage and dignity she displayed when she survived the assassination attempt in Los Angeles (photo)

  93. 93.

    germy shoemangler

    @Layer8Problem:

    I’ve visited a few maga sites and they all look like they were created in 1997.

    There’s a local guy in my city who has a blog (he seems to update it every six months or so) and he complains about the “woke” public school system and BLM protesters.  His design is a bright red background with white text.  His site is as ugly as his opinions.

  94. 94.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: A couple years ago I might have considered trump’s playing to the Q-crowd a cynical attempt to fill his rally space. But I think the guy’s brain is starting to seize up, and they may have captured him.

    This could answer a question I’ve pondered: how exactly is trump going to sandbag DeSantis? There probably are enough Q-crazies to make a difference in Florida, and who’ll believe that the real DeSantis was executed at Guantanamo and that this one’s a Lizard Person.

    . I halfway believe the latter part myself!

  95. 95.

    germy shoemangler

    @Geminid:

    desantis is going to pull stunt after stunt between now and the 2024 primaries in a desperate attempt to raise his profile amongst the nations dumbest and meanest conservatives then get absolutely wiped off the map the moment trump calls him "Miss Florida" at one of the debates

    — Guntars Haribo (@KrangTNelson) September 16, 2022

  98. 98.

    Ken

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Once in a while someone will turn up some obscure theoretical power of the royals, which generally exists either because of some flaw in the wording of a law, or because no one’s bothered to update the relevant law since the fifteenth century.

    There was a recent one where a law professor argued that then-Prince Charles in his role as Duke of Whatever could (theoretically) set off nuclear weapons without government authorization. This was because the Duke of Whatever had some ancient right to make use of arms without the monarch’s permission, and Parliament’s (theoretical) authority derives from that of the monarch. Everyone basically said “very cute, but not really”.

  101. 101.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Betty Cracker:

    One is tempted to dismiss it as buffoonery

    That temptation is to be resisted. My mom grew up in Nazi Germany. Hitler and his followers were also dismissed by many as buffoons, and the rest, as the kids say, is history.

  102. 102.

    germy shoemangler

    @Ken:

    King Charles is an influencer who loves alternative quack medicine.  I wonder how many of the people who think it’s a fine idea to stand in line for hours to see a coffin also heed his advice about homeopathy, etc.

  103. 103.

    Ken

    @Geminid:  the real DeSantis was executed at Guantanamo and that this one’s a Lizard Person.

    You may be thinking of Rick Scott. His human mask is very poor and you can see the shape of the skull underneath.

  106. 106.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: My guess is the narcissistic injury of being kicked out of office left Trump’s always fragile ego shattered (hence the doubling-down on lies and bravado). A cult devoted to a wounded narcissist — a cult that valorizes him and worships his nonexistent sagacity and heroism — would be high-grade balm for that butt-hurt, I’m thinking. Irresistible even.

  110. 110.

    MobiusKlein

    @MisterDancer: Ip address can be used as one bit of info to doxx someone.

    You know their home city and service provider. Maybe they post from their phone at work too, so you know that and cell provider too.

    Use logs to see your schedule, and it is stalker heaven.

  112. 112.

    germy shoemangler

    Herschel Walker: “I’m a country boy. I’m not that smart. He’s a preacher. (Warnock) is smart and wears these nice suits. So, he is going to show up and embarrass me at the debate Oct. 14th, and I’m just waiting to show up and I will do my best.” #GASenhttps://t.co/CtMHIqg1h6

    — Matt Holt (@mattholt33) September 19, 2022

    “I’m a dummy vote for me”

  113. 113.

    James E Powell

    @Baud:

    In a Trump v DeSantis campaign, the political press , led by the FTFNYT, will portray DeSantis as the 21st century Nelson Rockefeller.

  114. 114.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: OMG, I almost spit coffee all over my computer screen when I read your comment about them being convinced DeSantis is actually a lizard person. Isn’t that the plot of “V”? LOL

  115. 115.

    Geminid

    @germy shoemangler: DeSantis has to win this fall if he’s going to be in any debates in 2024. trump knows this and I think he’ll try to stick a spoke in DeSantis’ wheel. I don’t know how successful he’ll be.

  116. 116.

    A Man for All Seaonings (formerly Geeno)

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: ​
      George IV (1820-1830) ran up absurd amounts of personal debt, and eventually got shut down by Parliament. That’s when the monarchy lost the last bit of it’s power that had been slowly eroding since the Stewart Restoration.
    He also had to agree to let Parliament administer and collect rents from royal lands from which the royalty would be paid a stipend. This was a great deal for Parliament as the royal family owned (and still does) a significant part of Great Britain. The fees and rents collected have always been more than (often way more) than the stipends paid out.

  118. 118.

    Brit in Chicago

    @PST: Thanks! I’m glad I’m not alone in this.

    I agree with your theory about why “impacted” started to be so over-used (even for things which have their effects very gradually): people were nervous about getting the “affected”/”effected” distinction wrong.

  119. 119.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Brit in Chicago: ​“effected”/”affected”, sigh. Oh well, “impacted” would have been worse. /pedantry

    What drives me nuts is that “effect vs affect” isn’t rocket science – it may not even be bottle-rocket science. Just ask yourself if you need a noun or a verb.

    If you want a noun, you almost always want effect. (“Affect” as noun is an obscure term mostly used in psychology.)

    If you want a verb, you almost always want affect. (“Effect” as verb is an obscure term mostly used in bureaucracy-speak.)

    Here’s a handy guide from Merriam-Webster (scroll down to “Frequently Asked Questions”). Yinz should print this guidance out and keep it in your wallets for reference.

    (You’re all very welcome! :^D)​

  124. 124.

    cain

    @germy shoemangler: They keep giving and giving till they bankrupt themselves. Those campaigns even do auto-withdraw or some other shady tactic. How the fuck do you stick to a side like that, I don’t know.

  125. 125.

    Ken

    @Uncle Cosmo: Here’s a handy guide from Merriam-Webster

    Pfui. Merriam-Webster is the dictionary that Nero Wolfe burns in the first chapter of Gambit, because they allowed infer as a synonym for imply, and contact as a verb. And you expect us to trust them? Pfui, I say again.

  127. 127.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Geminid: ​Well, I say, anyone who’s too lazy and/or stupid to learn the very simple distinction between “affect” and “effect” deserves to be mocked as an imbecile. So there. :^p

  128. 128.

    Ruckus

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:

    There are a few people in the US who do not eat whatever it is that comes across the counter at a McDs. I’m one of them, after getting food poisoning twice at 2 different outlets in 2 different states over a 3 month period when I worked in pro sports and traveled extensively.

  130. 130.

    Betty Cracker

    @James E Powell: The Beltway press was definitely doing their level best to portray DeSantis as a reasonable alternative to Trump, but the need to out-MAGA the other MAGA pretenders and Trump himself may drive DeSantis to further kookery and cruelty, which could torpedo that narrative with people who weren’t already on board. We’ll see.

  132. 132.

    Cameron

    @germy shoemangler: WTF?  When did he turn into The Little Engine That Could

    ETA: I’m reminded of Muhammad Ali’s comment, “I said I was the greatest; I never said I was the smartest.”  And I think he had a lot more on the ball than Mr. Walker.

  136. 136.

    Eyeroller

    @Another Scott: Now we’re seeing verbs nouned.  “Fail” seems to be muscling out the perfectly cromulent noun “failure” and now we have “cope” instead of “cope with it” or something.

  138. 138.

    Geminid

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I think that in the Declaration of Independence the colonials loaded their criticisms onto the King’s head because they hoped sympathetic forces in Parliament might assist them. They knew Parliament called the shots, though.

    George III did support and was identified with the Government’s policy of vigorously prosecuting the war in America. I read that when news of the the British army’s surrender at Yorktown reached London, the royal yacht was docked at a handy point on the Thames in case the King might have to flee the city.

  143. 143.

    germy shoemangler

    @satby:

    I remember that vaguely.  I just remember the “I can do things with your IP address” threat.

    I don’t know how much of that threat was bullshit.  He was an IT guy hired to fix this site so I assumed his threats had some validity.  But who knows?

  144. 144.

    SFAW

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: ​
     

    For those of you watching the funeral, did world leaders really arrive on a bus? I assume Biden didn’t. Obviously he didn’t fly commercial.

    Something something trans-Atlantic bus routes something mumble

  145. 145.

    SFAW

    @satby: ​
     
    Every so often I have wondered what happened to him. My vague (and possibly incorrect) recollection is that he effed-up the site redesign/”fix”, then (shortly thereafter) was not seen again. I had guessed that he was embarrassed by it, and thus stayed away. Mystery solved.

  147. 147.

    Brachiator

    @Soprano2:

    NPR broadcast Queen Elizabeth’s funeral live this morning, which was nice. What wasn’t nice – every time they started some kind of music, the “anchors” started babbling over it. I appreciated them telling me who was speaking and what was being sung, but I could have done without the running commentary. I switched to streaming on my phone!

    I dipped in and out of the coverage on BBC America. No commentary at all. On the NNC News site there was a detailed order of the funeral, listing the participants, speakers, titles of prayers and music to be played, etc.

    I have avoided most US based commentary. Even some UK YouTube commentary clips criticizing the proceedings have been more illuminating.

  148. 148.

    Ken

    @SFAW: he effed-up the site redesign/”fix”, then (shortly thereafter) was not seen again.  I had guessed that he was embarrassed by it, and thus stayed away. Mystery solved.

    … Yes. Yes!  That’s obviously the solution. No need to bring in irrelevancies, like WaterGirl buying two tons of quicklime and putting a concrete patio in her backyard around the same time.

  151. 151.

    Montanareddog

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Careful! You are stepping in a minefield there. Westminster Cathedral is Roman Catholic, the seat of the Catholic Primate of England. I doubt very much the funeral of the Head of the Anglican Church would feature a Catholic choir. It must have been Westminster Abbey.

  152. 152.

    Brachiator

    @Ken:

     

    There was a recent one where a law professor argued that then-Prince Charles in his role as Duke of Whatever could (theoretically) set off nuclear weapons without government authorization. This was because the Duke of Whatever had some ancient right to make use of arms without the monarch’s permission, and Parliament’s (theoretical) authority derives from that of the monarch. Everyone basically said “very cute, but not really”.

    Charles doesn’t have access to the nuclear codes and no one would ever give them to him.

    Even though the UK does not have a written constitution, they have had hundreds of years to develop and define the delicate balance of power which allows the monarch to stay in place without power. The same is true of the other constitutional monarchies in Denmark and elsewhere.

    In all of the recent proclamations of Charles becoming king of the various realms of the UK and the Commonwealth, all of them very carefully note that he does not govern or have any control over Parliament.

    It is a very precise and elegant dance.

    ETA. At the same time, it has been interesting to see how many men and women wore some of their previous uniforms while attending the viewing of the Queen. What the Queen represented as the symbol of the nation meant more than any actual power she may have had.

  154. 154.

    PST

    @Ken: I realize that you are having a bit of arch fun here, not being a crank, but I still want to put in a good word for “contact” as a verb. As we find ever more ways to reach out to people and institutions, it is helpful to have one short word with which you can say, “Get in touch with so-and-so; I don’t care how.” A couple of generations ago “write” would almost always have sufficed. If you wanted a telegram sent or an expensive long-distance telephone call placed, you would say so.

  158. 158.

    VOR

    @Soprano2: My understanding is the US did bring the presidential limo (aka “the Beast”) and I’m sure it was cleared with the UK. There are probably only going to be 3 people at that funeral with operational control of nuclear weapons: Biden, UK PM Truss, and French President Macron. IIRC India sent their President, not PM Modi. I don’t know about Pakistan. Putin did not attend for Russia. Xi Jinping of China did not attend. So there is a serious case for Biden’s requirements being higher than other heads of state.

  159. 159.

    justinb

    • For those of you that read my post last night about my son, here’s an update. Having him on an IV drip has helped measurably. He’s no longer dehydrated, and his color is back. He still hasn’t stopped vomiting, but the doctors say there’s nothing of immediate emergency concern, and that having the IV is the right thing. There’s another family meeting with the main doctor this afternoon to try and figure out next steps. Breathe. Thank you all.
  161. 161.

    SFAW

    @O. Felix Culpa: ​
     

    Hitler and his followers were also dismissed by many as buffoons, and the rest, as the kids say, is history.

    “Nach Trump, nichts” is the updated version.

  162. 162.

    SFAW

    @James E Powell:

    the political press , led by the FTFNYT, will portray DeSantis as the 21st century Nelson Rockefeller.

    I’m wondering if Megan Marshack is available to “visit” DeathSantis.

  164. 164.

    El Muneco

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Not even my favorite bit of pedantry regarding the word “loose”.

    In a fantasy universe where gunpowder has not been invented, the proper command to give archers is “Loose!”  However, given modern audiences, movies will often take the low road and have the commander give the order more appropriate to riflemen, namely “Fire!”  Pedants _will_ remark on this when it happens.

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