Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

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

ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

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

A consequence of cucumbers

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

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

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

“But what about the lurkers?”

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / On The Road After Dark / Ghost of Holidays Past / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: President Biden Is A Good Man

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: President Biden Is A Good Man

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USA Today, “President Biden thanks Army vet for bravery in helping disarm Club Q gunman”:

President Joe Biden on Tuesday called the Army veteran who disarmed the Club Q gunman, thanking him for his bravery and his instinct to act.

Richard Fierro’s actions at the Colorado Springs nightclub may have saved dozens of lives, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

She devoted a portion of her daily briefing to recognizing the victims of the shooting, saying their lives were cut short by a senseless act of violence…

Fierro, 45, had been at the club with his daughter Kassy, her boyfriend and several other friends to see a drag show and celebrate a birthday.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Fierro told reporters Monday night. “I just ran over there, got him.”

Raymond Greene, his daughter’s boyfriend, was killed in the shooting. Kassy broke her knee during the violence.

Authorities credit Fierro and another man, Thomas James, with stopping the slaughter before it got any worse.

During his call, Biden offered his support to Fierro and his wife and talked with them about what it’s like to grieve, according to Jean-Pierre.

“Richard and Thomas are heroes,” she said. “And we are so grateful for their action.”

Our Failed Major Media, demonstrating why they weren’t invited to the wedding:

Reader Interactions

233Comments

  2. 2.

    JMG

    I commend the press secretary for having the discipline not to respond to questions about the wedding by saying, “who would want you assholes at a happy special occasion?”

  5. 5.

    matt

    This wedding fake-scandal thing really makes the case for leaders having pits full of alligators at their disposal.

  6. 6.

    NorthLeft

    Who was the dick that could not understand the clear answer that he was given that the wedding was a private family event? AND THERE WAS NO MEDIA PRESENCE!

    I commend KJP for not saying “JFC, DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND ENGLISH?”

  7. 7.

    artem1s

    obviously the Bidens are lying about this. They didn’t want the media to know Joe wore a tan suit to the wedding and they served brown mustard at the reception.  /s

    Jeebus people. Go crash a wedding at MAR if you are so bored with your life that you can’t find anything to do on a Saturday except harass the First Family.

  9. 9.

    Betty Cracker

    Our closest neighbor (thankfully not super close) fired up a buzz saw at 7:01 AM. It doesn’t bother me because I’m an early riser, and I like the guy. But I can picture him watching the second hand on his watch waiting for the magic second when it’s okay to start! There’s another swamp dweller upriver who rents his shack out on Airbnb. If there are renters, I bet THEY are pissed!

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    That one guy there keeps worrying away at KJP about the wedding like he’s on to some big political scandal. Someone should slap him upside the head and remind him: he and other media were kept out because it was a private family event, the bridal couple didn’t want them there, and they are not owed any reason or apology for being excluded.

  14. 14.

    NorthLeft

    I watched the video of the press briefing a couple more times and did not see any eye rolling, face palming, or head shaking among the other people around the dick asking his stupid question, with his moronic follow up. Nor did I hear any sighs, groaning, or giggling, which leads me to believe that all of those parasites thought this was a valid and important line of questioning.

    That group is completely broken. Future briefings should be held outside during rain storms or blizzards only. KJP gets a weather proof kiosk for her protection.

  16. 16.

    TS

    Do these folks ever remember

    trump locked them up in pens – and gave up white house press conferences? Maybe if Biden did the same they would worship every word he said?

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    biden’s insistence on reaching out to normal people and letting them know that it’s okay to grieve and that he understands grief is something that very few presidents have ever done well

    As I recall, early in his presidency TFG made a point of trampling on a bereaved family’s pain when he visited the relatives of a soldier killed in action.

  22. 22.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I think is is a bad tactic, though if the intent is to tear Biden down. Normies are likely to take Biden’s side in this matter. Some normies might dislike Biden, but nobody likes the media.

  23. 23.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Baud: Anyone who think that this nothingburger is a ‘scandal’, is a person who was already predisposed to vote Republican anyway.

  24. 24.

    eclare

    @Amir Khalid:   He also visited people in a hospital after the El Paso Wal-mart shooting and posed with a grin and a thumbs up.  Like he was opening a new hotel.

    So who is your prediction to win the WC?

  31. 31.

    Lady WereBear

    I never lose sight of the fact that we wouldn’t have President Biden if we hadn’t elected President Obama.

    They are still working together for the country. That’s why I’m a Democrat, since I was fourteen. When my civics teacher was delighted in my interest and lent me a book, and I started figuring it all out.

    Fortunately, while we all saw this coming, it wasn’t all at once. Or working brains explode and the Morlocks take over.

  32. 32.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    So I gave one of the assistant managers(who’s 6 years younger than I) a little quiz.  Finish the sentence…”With God as my witness, I thought…”.  He didn’t know, but when I told him it was from WKRP, he said he loved that show and started talking about other episodes.  Kids these days.

  34. 34.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @NorthLeft:

    I think they should announce that half of the press credentials be given to public high school and state/municipal public college newspaper reporters, who will be called on for questions. Say bluntly – “we’ll see who uses their time and questions more usefully”.

  35. 35.

    Amir Khalid

    @eclare:

    I’m not following this tainted tournament, sorry. So I don’t really care who wins.

    A note to everyone: whatever you may think of this World Cup, or even of football, it’s confusing to call it the WC. That abbreviation is commonly understood to mean “water closet”.

  37. 37.

    lowtechcyclist

    @NorthLeft:

    That group is completely broken. Future briefings should be held outside during rain storms or blizzards only. KJP gets a weather proof kiosk for her protection.

    Tempting!

    At the very least, they should have a Stupid Question Allowance.  Maybe three.  Third stupid, pointless, or inane question, and you lose your White House press credential.

    “Sir/Ma’am, you’re wasting our time by asking a question like this one.  It’s not remotely worthy of an answer.  You’ve just used up one question of your Stupid Question Allowance.  Next question.”

  41. 41.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    The people who are going to be influenced by this aren’t going to pay attention to the details.  It’ll just be “they all lie” to them.

    Exactly. This is why bothsidesing is so toxic.

  42. 42.

    Geminid

    @Baud: But I think those will be Republicans. I may be interested in what Republicans think, but it’s been a while since I thought that was very important. There just aren’t enough of them to win elections by themselves except in very red states.

    What Independents think, on the hand is important to me. That’s why I was cheered by a Morning Consult poll (featured in today’s Politico Playbook) that showed Senator Warnock leading Herschel Walker among Georgia Independents by over 10 points.

  45. 45.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Amir Khalid:

    A note to everyone: whatever you may think of this World Cup, or even of football, it’s confusing to call it the WC. That abbreviation is commonly understood to mean “water closet”.

    No, that’s why it’s *not* confusing. ;-)

  50. 50.

    kalakal

    Any day now Alito will be delivering the SCOTUS opinion  that the right to gatecrash weddings is enshrined in the Constitution.

  54. 54.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA: Our local Walmart has the entire WKRP series for sale in a DVD package. $59.99. It was hard to resist, like I had to pull myself out of the aisle hard, but I managed. I’ll wait until it hits $29.99. If it ever does.

    Please oh please of please oh please…

  56. 56.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I was talking to my Atlanta friend about this race. One of us predicted that Senator Warnock would win by over 5 points, and the other agreed. Of course, we both are amateur analysts.

    This morning’s Politico Playbook has an extended (for them) discussion of the Georgia Senate runoff. They link to the .orning Consult poll, unfortunately in pdf form. I think it is more accessible by other methods.

  57. 57.

    JMG

    Someone on Twitter pointed out something I should have thought of myself. The reason the White House reporters are mad about the wedding is that they were going to use it as an occasion to shout questions at Hunter Biden. On his daughter’s wedding day. This is their idea of intrepid investigative reporting. On their own, I doubt if any of ’em could cover a high school swim meet properly.

  59. 59.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @OzarkHillbilly: Be patient. The price on DVDs will go down because DVDs are going the way of VCRs and cassette tapes. Best Buy is downsizing their DVD section. Redbox kiosks are disappearing.

  62. 62.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Amir Khalid:

    (Rolls eyes.) I knew someone would think this was a clever reply.

    Seriously, who here was going to be confused by this?  You walked into this one by being needlessly pedantic.

  64. 64.

    Lady WereBear

    @eclare: Deservedly so, in the fiction category.

    Watching VP candidate Sarah Palin interviewed on film via Keith Olbermann’s show while being totally oblivious to the turkey button man at work behind her while snarky comments appear on the chyron…

    Priceless.

  68. 68.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    This manager has a nickname for me, Wildfire.  After I was working at the store about 3 or 4 months, I didn’t interact much with the managers, since I’m a bit shy.  One day I’m looking for something in plumbing and this manager is looking though bins of plumbing stuff that our customers messed up.  They were playing 70’s music on the store PA and Donna Summer’s ‘MacArthur Park’ was playing.  The ASM(assistant store manager) says as I’m walking by, “This song sucks”.  I say, “Paul, it could be worse, it could be ‘Wonderful Christmastime”, he says, “It’s not Christmas yet”.  I say, this is true, how about “Wildfire”.  Later that afternoon, I pass him in the main aisle, “Wildfire” is on the PA, I just say to him, Wildfire.  Ever since then when he’s in a good mood, he calls me Wildfire.

  73. 73.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    @eclare: They all play music, it’s usually blends into the background, UNLESS YOU WORK THERE.  Gawd, the current playlist is dreadful, the 80’s stuff is sometimes good, but it’s mixed in with new stuff that sucks donkey balls.

  76. 76.

    kalakal

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA: As a student in the late 70s, early 80s I worked as a barman in a pub in Leeds. They had a jukebox and the same 3 songs were constantly on every sodding night. I have an abiding hatred for Freebird, All right now, and Don’t you want me

  82. 82.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    @Ohio Mom: I usually pop in late at night, I work 3pm-12am, so when I read the treads in the morning, they’re usually quite dead, so no point in commenting.

    I have today and tomorrow off(T-day is a paid holiday, so I work 5 days and get paid for 6).  I’m excited about the delivery of my new camera today, so that’s why I’m up(also, I worked 1pm-10pm today).

  84. 84.

    Montanareddog

    @kalakal:

     

    We should have a “dirges that were inexplicably-popular  on jukeboxes” thread, and petition the Orange Apron to put them on the playlist. I can start off with:

    1. What’s up – 4 non-blondes
    2. Winds of change – scorpions
    3. Come on Eileen – Dexy’s
  85. 85.

    kalakal

    @eclare: You have my deepest sympathy.

    Other songs I remember over the years being on nonstop were Vienna, Lady in Red, and Love is all around. The UK has a dreadful habit of taking a song and playing it everywhere non stop for months.

    As for Christmas if I ever hear Slade again…

  88. 88.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    @kalakal: “Lady in Red” is on the playlist, look, that’s the good stuff.  If I hear this dude sing how “lo-o-o-nely” he is, I’ll just start cutting myself on my break(I live a block away and come home for my breaks and lunch)

    Or the guy who seems to singing about “American Pie”.

  90. 90.

    Montanareddog

    @kalakal:

    Love is all around is not a bad song but I 100% have to add the other 2 to Bill’s playlist

    1. What’s up – 4 non-blondes
    2. Winds of change – scorpions
    3. Come on Eileen – Dexy’s
    4. Vienna – Ultravox
    5. The lady in red – Chris de Backpfeifengesicht
  91. 91.

    Mousebumples

    @OzarkHillbilly: fair warning – most (all?) sets sold in the US have different music tracks since they didn’t secure the music rights for DVD when making the show. (not a surprise but this is a show where song selection may be more pivotal)

  92. 92.

    kalakal

    @Montanareddog: good choices all, some of them are good songs, its the constant repetitio

    espesc Dexys.

    Anything by Frankie goes to Hollywood

    Red Red Wine – UB40

    spring to mind.

    I’m beginning to realise how much of my life I’ve spent in pubs

    some of them are good songs, its the constant repetition

  93. 93.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Amir Khalid:

    That one guy there keeps worrying away at KJP about the wedding like he’s on to some big political scandal. Someone should slap him upside the head and remind him: he and other media were kept out because it was a private family event, the bridal couple didn’t want them there, and they are not owed any reason or apology for being excluded. 

    Sorry.  Too wordy.  See my edits. :)

  95. 95.

    Tony Jay

    @kalakal:

    It’s not Christmas in the UK until Slade are on all day.

    Also, too –

    All I Want For Christmas

    Last Christmas

    Little Drummer Boy

    Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)

    I could go on. And on and on and on and on and on..

    ETA – You’re dissing Frankie Goes To Hollywood? Two Tribes? Relax? The Power of Love? (from the year of about eight songs called The Power of Love?) Fie on you, sirrah!

  98. 98.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    The 80’s stuff they now have on the playlist isn’t dreadful, well some is(there was a Starship song last night, not “We Built this City”), but most of the new stuff is either depressing, or has be autotuned so it doesn’t sound like a human is singing.  Remember I listen to this 8-10 hours a day.  Thank gawd we can’t hear this crap out in the delivery area( we also can’t hear store pages out there, “Deliveries, call 451”).  Nope can’t hear it, so I won’t call, I know you need me to drag something out from here, BUT I CAN’T HEAR YOU.

  99. 99.

    Tony Jay

    @kalakal:

    Ha! Point. Roy Wood scared the shit out of me when I was a kid, but not as much as Mick Ronson, who had a look that crossed Jimmy Saville with Gary Glitter in the most unsettling way.

    Lennon. Imagine. Yeah. I get it.

    Greg Lake should have had his fingers and toes broken for that. And now it’s stuck in my head.

  100. 100.

    sab

    @Tony Jay: Here in American flyover  country my nice  MAGA neighbors (the nice ones who don’t actually think but parrot their Southern Baptist preacher)  already have their xmas lights up. Before Turkey Day! For non-American jackals that is shocking, and we have had a lot to be shocked about in the last few years.

  103. 103.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    @Tony Jay: We were spared Christmas music last year, I’m not sure how that happened.  I guess I’ll find out Friday if that will be the case this year, then again “Wonderful Christmastime” would be an improvement over some of this stuff.

    I should note, that until recently, they didn’t have the 80’s stuff mixed in, it was all post y2k stuff.  It is actually better now.

  106. 106.

    Layer8Problem

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA:

    I say, “Paul, it could be worse, it could be ‘Wonderful Christmastime”, he says, “It’s not Christmas yet”.

    You remind me, the sooner I get the replacement earphones for my Android, the sooner I ensure my sanity while shopping during the upcoming peril-fraught holiday season.

  108. 108.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    @Tony Jay: Even with the 70’s playlist, they never had “imagine” on it, they did have “Instant Karma” and “Whatever Gets You Though The Night”.  For McCartney, “Goodnight Tonight”(really, that’s the best you could find from 70’s McCartney?), Harrison we’d get “My Sweet Lord” and “What is Life”, I’ve even heard “It Don’t Come Easy” and “Photograph” from Ringo.

    The current playlist from the 80’s does get “Handle Me With Care” from the Traveling Wilburys.

  109. 109.

    Soprano2

    That question about the wedding and the follow-up was INSANE. I wish she had asked him if his feelings were hurt because he wasn’t invited! Plus, he was British – do we know which publication he works for?

    I checked the “Morning Edition” playlist for most of the days since the election after the last time I checked, and miraculously Americans are no longer concerned about inflation every single day on their program! Hard to believe there could be such a quick turnaround, but there it is. All I saw was a couple of stories about the price of turkeys (which really doesn’t have much to do with inflation) and a story about cheaper substitutes for Thanksgiving staples (because they’re obsessing about how the food for this one meal that we have one time a year is more expensive than it was last year).

  113. 113.

    Ken

    @matt: What have you got against alligators?  Noble beasts that don’t deserve having reporters, especially WHPC reporters, dropped on their heads.

  114. 114.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    @Layer8Problem: We’re not allowed to wear earbuds, since we have heavy machinery running though the aisles, but that doesn’t apply to our customers.  One day I was helping a reach driver go though the store(spoting) and a customer was wearing earbuds and didn’t notice that a 4 ton machine was coming towards him, til I got up in his face yelling “FORKLIFT”.

  119. 119.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    @Amir Khalid: If November is a  prelude, I won’t make it though December(the last two days were brutal with folk not showing up).  The good thing about Christmas music, even if it is bad, it will go away in a month(unless they keep it around for Armenian Christmas, then it’d be a bit longer).

  120. 120.

    Ken

    @Amir Khalid: An update on the post-election sitch in Malaysia: still nothing. Nada. Nichts. Bupkes.

    Are there any constitutional provisions if a governing coalition can’t be formed? Does the Agong just start picking people and saying “you have a week, then it’s the next one’s turn”?

  121. 121.

    🐾BillinGlendaleCA

    @sab: Customers, I have stories.  Just one from last night, we closed two aisles to drop a pallet from overhead.  The gates on the aisle are closed and I’m standing at the end of the aisle with my apron on.  Customer opens the gate and is looking at sandpaper, I start yelling for him to get out of the aisle, I run over, tell him to get out of the aisle, tell the driver on the other aisle to stop.  Customer says he will just be quick.  Gates mean the aisle is closed so a pallet falling 30 feet from overhead doesn’t kill you.

  122. 122.

    mrmoshpotato

    @sab: How dare they have a private family event in the White House when they are forced to live there.

    This is infinitely worse than Dump sucking Soviet schlong since at least 1987!

  123. 123.

    Layer8Problem

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA:  A very good policy.  I live in a fairly urbany area and crossing the streets can be perilous enough without the distraction.  When I was running I tried using earphones once, then never again.

  125. 125.

    Suzanne

    @kalakal:

    some of them are good songs, its the constant repetition 

    I have declared a 10-year moratorium on certain songs for this reason. Most especially “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen.

  126. 126.

    Tony G

    @Amir Khalid: Have “journalists” always been this bad?  I suspect not.  I’m old enough to remember the Pentagon Papers era, when at least some journalists reported on important stories with some degree of integrity.

  131. 131.

    mrmoshpotato

    @kalakal:

    For some reason I’ve never heard 21st Century Schizoid Man on a store playlist 

    Haha!  Blast 2112 throughout the store.

  134. 134.

    Ken

    @mrmoshpotato:  Cause of death: Being an entitled dumbass.

    No, I’m pretty sure it was that palette of faux marble bathroom vanities that fell on his head.

    (Repurposed from an old joke. Carl Denham: “Twas beauty killed the beast.” Bystander: “No, I’m pretty sure it was being shot and falling off a 1200-foot building.”)

  135. 135.

    lowtechcyclist

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA:

    They were playing 70’s music on the store PA and Donna Summer’s ‘MacArthur Park’ was playing.  The ASM(assistant store manager) says as I’m walking by, “This song sucks”.  I say, “Paul, it could be worse, it could be ‘Wonderful Christmastime”, he says, “It’s not Christmas yet”.

    I’ve never actually been subjected to Donna Summer’s cover of “MacArthur Park.”  Should I ask how it compares with Richard Harris’ 1968 original, dubbed by Dave Barry as the Worst Song Ever?

    When I was out in L.A. for my aunt’s memorial service a few years back, I was staying in an AirBnB not that far from MacArthur Park, which I stopped by just to say I’d been there. (It’s not too far from the intersection of Pico and Alvarado, which only has interest if you’re a Firesign Theatre fan. Which I am, so I stopped there too.)

  139. 139.

    Suzanne

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Should I ask how it compares with Richard Harris’ 1968 original, dubbed by Dave Barry as the Worst Song Ever? 

    He wrote that prior to the release of “My Humps”.

  143. 143.

    Soprano2

    @Tony G: No, but I suspect the White House press corps has always been like this. I think they’re super-bored because there are no scandals or crazy tweets by the president for them to report on, so they’re mad because they were denied access to a place where they could try to question Hunter Biden.

  146. 146.

    sab

    @kalakal: Our ACME is a much beloved local grocery chain, so that joke don’t work.

    ETA Outside competitors periodically move in to undercut and take over, and fail.

    ETA the only successful competition comes in and overprices. Don’t know how that works, but it does. Hats off to Giant Eagle.

  148. 148.

    jonas

    @Amir Khalid: ​
      It was a special forces operator killed in Africa, iirc. He told the grieving widow that her late husband “knew what he was signing up for.” I think that’s also the case where then-COS John Kelley, who had lost his own son in Iraq, smeared a Congresswoman who had been in on the call to cover up for Trump’s assholery.

  149. 149.

    Soprano2

    I just shared an alert on FB about our local animal rescue having the trailer they use for mobile adoptions stolen last weekend. They have pics of the vehicle that did it, got a license plate but can’t see the people’s faces because they were wearing those cold weather face masks. How low can you be, stealing from a charity like that? Makes me so angry, it’ll cost them tens of thousands of dollars to replace that trailer. It’s crazy, who is dumb enough to steal a trailer with “CARE Animal Rescue” painted all over it?

  150. 150.

    Suzanne

    @Soprano2: I think the press corps is just salty because they want to be seen at social events. Even more than a left/right bias, they have a bias toward wanting to be seen as important society people, and they want to be seen at galas and Around Town. They got into this job because they thought it would be FUN and instead, by not being invited to things, they are reminded that they are, in fact, only there on business and that no one genuinely likes them.

  153. 153.

    Ken

    @kalakal: “Rule 2: No outside force can harm the coyote – only his own ineptitude or the failure of the Acme products.”

    From Chuck Jones’s rules for the Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons (you can find the full list online).

  156. 156.

    jonas

    @JMG: ​
     

    The reason the White House reporters are mad about the wedding is that they were going to use it as an occasion to shout questions at Hunter Biden.

    It hadn’t occurred to me until now, but you’re absolutely right. Fucking assholes.

  158. 158.

    J R in WV

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA: ​
     

    He’s … a RWNJ and gun nut.

    My younger brother is also a RWNJ gun nut. He has a gun safe that has to have a fork lift to move it. Full of guns and ammo… loves living in TX, retired to a development outside San Antonio when he could live anywhere in the world…

  161. 161.

    kalakal

    @Ken: When I was about 35 I found out that Coyotes can run much faster than Roadrunners. I was devastated, my entire childhood was built on a lie

  162. 162.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @lowtechcyclist: ​No, that’s why it’s *not* confusing. ;-)

    It’s where the footy teams of the nations go to take their quadrennial Whirled Crap…

    Meanwhile those of us who hold that WC = BS are forced to navigate our way around threads for every fucking game, oh, ‘scuse me, match…grrr…

  164. 164.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: How low can you be, stealing from a charity like that?

    Thieves are always low, they steal from anyone at anytime. The more vulnerable, the better.

  165. 165.

    jonas

    @Suzanne: I remember some years back reporters would shoot squidclouds of butthurt everywhere when Biden and/or Obama would occasionally slip away to do something like visit injured vets at Walter Reed and it wouldn’t be on POTUS’s official daily schedule and so a pool reporter wouldn’t be there.

    Legit question: Did a *single* WH reporter ever demand to know what Trump was up to during his hours and hours everyday of “executive time” (= lazing around the residence watching Fox and shitposting on Twitter)?

  166. 166.

    Anyway

    “Playing the refs” worked so well that MSM is/are shit-scared of being perceived as going easy on the Dems or being liberal. They have internalized the RW assault and have no sense of proportion anymore.

  167. 167.

    sab

    It’s almost 10 o’clock and I am still in bed Nooking on balloon_juice because I don’t want to face the day. I hate turkey day. Too much work. Thirty people congragate, but one person does the work.

    Ask your worker how you can help.

    ETA I know turkey day is tomorrow. Lots of prep today. All the pies and the dressing.

  168. 168.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Uncle Cosmo: And yet those of us who have no interest in gardening have managed to navigate around the Sunday Morning Gardening Threads for year.  This must be terrible for you.  However do you cope?

  169. 169.

    delphinium

    @mrmoshpotato: ​
    That is actually one of my favorite Christmas songs-although I prefer the more traditional versions : ).
    Speaking of covers and Lennon-this is a decent version of Imagine by A Perfect Circle.

  170. 170.

    Another Scott

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA: Speaking of earbuds, bone conduction headsets work amazingly well, but are sensitive to placement, so might not be good for walking around. So, it’s possible to have good sound quality and still hear ambient noise.

    It will probably take Apple coming out with their version that costs 3x as much for them to become more popular. :-/

    Stay safe!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  171. 171.

    Mimi

    @sab: No lights up here in my ‘hood, but the Official City Xmas Tree* is up and lit downtown, and the Kristkindlemarket at Wrigley Field is open. The one downtown probably is too, I just haven’t seen it.  They used to not start that stuff until the day after Thanksgiving.

    I also haven’t seen the Official City Menorah either, but it goes up when The Tree does.

  172. 172.

    Matt McIrvin

    @lowtechcyclist: I always liked They Might Be Giants’ riff on it in “It’s Not My Birthday”: “When this gray world crumbles like a cake / I’ll be hangin’ from the hope / That I’ll never have that recipe again…”

  173. 173.

    Miss Bianca

    @lowtechcyclist: Oohh, man…and suddenly I’m transported straight screaming back to the spring of 1980, when Donna Summer’s cover of “MacArthur Park” vied with “Beast of Burden” to be the top song in rotation on the AM radio in my bestie’s car as we went cruising the mean streets of Grosse Pointe (and Detroit, too, to be fair).

  174. 174.

    Betty Cracker

    I can now confess that instead of taking my fake Christmas tree down last year (a chore I find depressing), I stashed it in my home office. My husband has bugged me about it for 11 months, but in a week or so, I will triumphantly restore it to its seasonal location, and BOOM — decking the halls will take maybe an additional 10 minutes instead of two hours-plus.

  178. 178.

    zhena gogolia

    Hey, the first paper I just read was really good! Celebrating by reading comments on BJ before I go on to the next.

  179. 179.

    Citizen Alan

    @OzarkHillbilly:  Does it have the right background music? That is an oddly relevant question when it comes to WKRP. At one point they were selling DVDs but had lost the licensing rights for any actual rock and roll songs that appeared in the original episodes and so replaced them with generic rock music crap. Which was a problem because there were several episodes where the song playing in the background was plot relevant.

  180. 180.

    mali muso

    Happy 6th birthday to my little widget!  Of course she was out of bed at the crack of dawn (something she never manages on a school day) to open a present or two.  Poor thing always has her big day mashed up with Thanksgiving, so I do try to make it special for her.  Serendipitously, she really loves pumpkin pie.

  181. 181.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Suzanne:

    a little early for this, but a song Leonard would have found amusing (if not played too often!): Leonard Cohen Christmas  

    https://vimeo.com/189841930

    “I’m spending Xmas eve with Leonard Cohen/the poet laureate of all the lonesome & the listless/it’s  gonna be a Leonard Cohen Xmas”

    @kalakal:

  183. 183.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: There are mean streets in Grosse Pointe all right…ok, they may be Mean Girl streets, but still…

    @Geminid: Eminent local journalist, ha, you keed! But more seriously, I don’t really have much of an impression of her yet. I’m only barely acquainted with her track record as a state legislator. Right now, I’m just in “she’s a Democrat, and she’s not Aryan Poster Boy Erik Aalund, so we’re all good here for now” mode.

  185. 185.

    mali muso

    @Geminid: Thanks! She is currently in fuzzy socks watching cartoons.  lol.  But it does look like a nice day outside, so we may venture forth soon.

  186. 186.

    Layer8Problem

    @Another Scott: I actually considered those for running for just that reason. If I ever get back to running, lazy sod . . .

    And once upon a time I was actually pondering the use of those throat microphone things the fighter pilots use to keep ambient noise out for phone calls while doing remote work in noisy places like colocation cages and, um, restaurants . . . ok fine, working in bars!

  187. 187.

    BlueGuitarist

    @mali muso:

    such a great age!

    AA Milne, Now We Are Six

    When I was one,

    I had just begun.
    When I was two,
    I was nearly new.
    When I was three,
    I was hardly me.
    When I was four,
    I was not much more.
    When I was five,
    I was just alive.
    But now I am six,
    I’m as clever as clever.
    So I think I’ll be six now
    for ever and ever.

  190. 190.

    Mike in NC

    Stepped out of the shower this morning and the wife told me there was yet another mass shooting, this one at a Walmart in Chesapeake, VA. Six dead so far and four wounded. Disgruntled ex-employee yada yada yada.

    No doubt the Republicans under Speaker Matt Gaetz will debate lowering the age for buying an assault rifle to 15 years old versus 10 years old. Great times ahead, America!

  193. 193.

    Geminid

    @Miss Bianca: I hope she’s a good one. Watergirl finally has a Democratic Rep also and she looks good.

    Illinois 13th CD Rep. Nikki Budzinki’s  Wikipedia biography is interesting. She worked in the Biden administration as OMB chief of staff before leaving to run for Congress. Before that Budzinski worked on J.B. Pritzger’s 2018 campaign, and when he won she was put in charge of his transition team. Other jobs have helped give Budzinski a lot of political and governmental experience for someone who never ran for office before.

  194. 194.

    Betty Cracker

    @delphinium: By turns hopeful and not so much. I’m using some of the techniques people recommended in the thread on the topic with mixed results. We have an appointment with a DVM who is board certified in behavioral issues in early December, and I’m hoping she can help us sort this out and/or provide more clarity. Thanks for asking!

  199. 199.

    Dadadadadadada

    @Amir Khalid: He called the widow of a KIA soldier, repeated some “condolences” that some staffer was whispering in his ear in real time, and then dismissed the whole tragedy with a flippant “He knew what he was getting into,” iirc.

  201. 201.

    Old School

    @Citizen Alan:

    Does it have the right background music? That is an oddly relevant question when it comes to WKRP.

    The Shout Factory release is probably as close as it will ever get.

    Their post notes that some songs are still missing:

    As fans of the show ourselves, we tried our best to clear all the songs that made it memorable, but in a few cases, it was simply impossible to get the rights. We were able to include the vast majority of the music, though, with the aim of presenting the best possible release of WKRP on DVD.

  202. 202.

    Citizen Alan

    @lowtechcyclist:  I remember when Dave Barry wrote that article and at the time I disagreed about MacArthurPark. This was because I had never heard either the Richard Harris or the Donna Summer version of McArthur park. I only knew the Maynard Ferguson instrumental version, and it really does have a beautiful melody when there are no insipid lyrics about green cakes in the rain to get in the way.

  204. 204.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @kalakal: Ashley Parker couldn’t even get nominated for a coveted Silver Sow, still less a Buckeye Newshawk Award.

    And I bet her office has walls.

  206. 206.

    trollhattan

    @Amir Khalid: Not one of them could have named a single Biden grandchild as of a week ago. Not a one.

    How many think there’s just one Biden child (what was his name, again)?

  211. 211.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @trollhattan: one of John Kelly’s belated leaks, IIRC. In real time, Kelly used his own dead son as a bulwark to defend trump (and attack the Kahn family, and pro-choice politics, and probably a few other things) in the Stg Johnson matter, in one of the sickest episodes of the whole shitshow

  212. 212.

    Lady WereBear

    @lowtechcyclist:  Should I ask how it compares with Richard Harris’ 1968 original, dubbed by Dave Barry as the Worst Song Ever?

     
    I must admit I love singing along with that song. I can sing as well as a Broadway star.
    I put a lot of emotion in the cake line. That’s the funnest part.

  218. 218.

    Soprano2

    @sab: True paint is cheap, but they modified it inside with glass fronted cages. They take it to mobile adoption events. I can’t imagine anyone wants that except a puppy mill. People have come forward with sightings of it, and the vehicle has distinctive wheels, so they are hopeful they’ll eventually catch the thieves.

  222. 222.

    James E Powell

    @Baud:

    If you pretend there’s a scandal, the normies will think there’s a scandal.  That’s the point of all this

    True, sadly. Back in the 90s I would ask right-wingers, what did the Clintons do wrong in Whitewater?

  223. 223.

    Skepticat

    @lowtechcyclist: At the very least, they should have a Stupid Question Allowance. Maybe three. Third stupid, pointless, or inane question, and you lose your White House press credential.

    YES! (And loss of their jobs, if not their heads.)

    I’m so old that I remember when there were real journalists and I wouldn’t be embarrassed to say I have a degree in actual journalism.

  225. 225.

    Steeplejack

    @Another Scott, @Layer8Problem:

    I bought a pair of the basic Shokz OpenMove “headphones” a year ago, on the recommendation of commenter PST, and I like them a lot. They’re very light, the sound quality is great, there’s nothing sticking in your ears, and you can hear the ambient noise around you. Also, the battery lasts a hella long time. You don’t need the fancy model with the stick microphone; people can hear me talking fine on phone calls with the basic model.

    The only caveat is that a friend who also has a pair says that they’re not good on airplanes, because that ambient noise interferes a lot more. She solved that problem by using her earplugs to block out the airplane noise.

  226. 226.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Citizen Alan: Another show where that became a huge problem was SCTV. When they made the show they blithely stole 100% of the copyrighted music used in sketches. That became a huge impediment to reruns and home video releases. For a long time the only episodes being shown in the syndication package were really early ones that were, frankly, not that great, and I think it was because there was almost no music in them.

    When Shout! Factory put out their DVD set they went to herculean lengths to secure as many of the music rights as they could, but there were some music-centric sketches that just had to go missing, like “Stairways to Heaven” (a K-Tel-like promo for an album consisting entirely of ridiculous “Stairway to Heaven” covers) and some of the Shmenge Brothers bits.

  228. 228.

    JustRuss

    @Lady WereBear:There were two reasons I never even tried to work retail. One was that it was chaotic shifts with horrible holidays. The other was music.

    Yeah, I worked retail in highschool and college.  Christmas was hell, the same damn songs every day for a month.  And I was only part-time, don’t know how the full timers endured that.

  229. 229.

    tam1MI

    @kalakal: As a student in the late 70s, early 80s I worked as a barman in a pub in Leeds. They had a jukebox and the same 3 songs were constantly on every sodding night. I have an abiding hatred for Freebird, All right now, and Don’t you want me

    My college pizza place had a jukebox that was the same way, except for me to this day I unreservedly love SHAKE IT UP. UNDER PRESSURE, and THIS BEAT GOES ON/SWITCHIN’ TO GLIDE.

  230. 230.

    Citizen Alan

    @kalakal: On the other hand, road runners are a lot more badass than coyotes, IMO. They eat rattlesnakes which they kill by pecking them to death before the snake has a chance to strike.

  231. 231.

    tam1MI

    @Layer8Problem: Dear sweet god, if I never hear “Come on Eileen” or “Red Red Wine” again it’ll be too soon.

    CAN I GET AN AMEN?!?!

    And you can add the execrable RELAX to that list.

  232. 232.

    Citizen Alan

    @Omnes Omnibus: Well, I’m pretty sure the gardening posts are only once or twice a week, and WC posts have come several times a day. That said, I don’t mind either of them because I, for one, have a functioning scroll button. :)

  233. 233.

    Citizen Alan

    @Betty Cracker: I have a friend who just picks up his tree and moves it into the garage the day after New Years and leaves it there until the following Thanksgiving. I think he puts a tarp over it so it won’t get infested with spiders or anything, but he hasn’t changed his tree decorations significantly in years.

    Also, this will probably be the first year since 1992 that I will not be doing any decorating for Christmas. I’m still at my late mother’s house. All my old Christmas decorations went with my house when I sold it, and all her old decorations are up in the attic. And I am expecting zero guests for Christmas (or any other reason) unless I invite the guy who comes to read the gas meter in to look at a Christmas tree. It’s a little sad because even when I was up in Queens last year, I threw up some cheap decorations and a small plastic tree.

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