Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

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

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

… gradually, and then suddenly.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

So many bastards, so little time.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Republicans in disarray!

The revolution will be supervised.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Travel Broadens *Some* Minds

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Travel Broadens *Some* Minds

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Zelenskyy was a performer before he was a politician, and you can tell he knows the drill when a fan comes looking for a selfie & maybe an autograph. Paisley’s body language says Been there, dude — you have my sympathy!

Elsewhere:



Pundit brain:‘Three whole days over there, and he *still* didn’t resolve a 400-year history of blood & grievance. Why do we even let Biden into the White House?’

… [H]is long-awaited speech in Belfast on Wednesday is unlikely to provide the game-changing moment that ends the region’s political paralysis, which is now a serious headache for the British government and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. His trip, so far, has also captured the at times awkward diplomatic relationship between the US and UK under his administration. His affinity to Ireland, and skepticism about the UK’s approach to Northern Ireland, is central to that.

Northern Ireland has been without a government since February 2022, when the Democratic Unionist Party boycotted it in protest at post-Brexit trading rules it says align the region with the European Union and weaken its place in the UK. Sunak has spent political capital on resolving the dispute, reaching a deal with the EU to ease the Brexit impact and trying to persuade unionists the economic benefits of having a foot in the bloc’s single market are worthy of compromise.

Those efforts form the backdrop to Biden’s visit to mark 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement ended decades of violence known as “The Troubles.” As in 1998, US involvement could prove useful in trying to end the current deadlock, and Biden’s promise that “scores of major American corporations” want to invest echoed Bill Clinton’s intervention in the 1990s…

Throw off the British yoke and join us, young ones! (Not serious. But.)

Lest we forget…

Reader Interactions

163Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Interesting. In American English, that sign would probably say “come home.”  I was confused at first.

  6. 6.

    Anyway

    Joe Manchin — what a tool! d00d, nobody cares about your state/college cap … Poor Zelenskyy having to grin and bear it

    ETA. And Brad Paisley looks ridiculous wearing that massive hat indoors. I know I know it’s his “uniform” still looks ridic.

  8. 8.

    Princess

    The new 5th circuit court ruling on mifepristone (allowing it temporarily but in a more restricted way) is in some ways a worse ruling for women than the Amarillo ruling. It was easy to see the Amarillo judge was out of line but our woman-hating SCOTUS could so easily align with the 5th circuit and set a precedent allowing ignorant judges to rule on medical safety in the name of eroding women’s rights.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    @Baud:

    Nevermind. It was a anti-Joe sign, so Go makes sense.

    The Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA), officially known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA; Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann) and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland,

  10. 10.

    lowtechcyclist

    It’s hard to communicate just how deeply invested in your success people across the United States are.

    Yeah, the average American thinks about Northern Ireland basically never.

  12. 12.

    Anyway

    @Suzanne:

    Provo Joe? Uhhhhh, he’s not LDS.

    Uh uh, entirely different connotation across the pond  ( NI Ireland in particular)

  13. 13.

    Princess

    Provo stands for the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Not every referent is American, you know.

  15. 15.

    Suzanne

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Yeah, the average American thinks about Northern Ireland basically never. 

    Hey, sometimes Sunday Bloody Sundaaaaaaaaaaaay and Zom-BEH BEH BEH come on the radio. Then I think about it.

  16. 16.

    Kay

    @Princess:

    Barred distribution by mail, so anti choicers got what they wanted. They can control women all over the country and not just in the states where they’re in power. Huge win for anti choicers/the far Right.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Here’s a brief history of Trump profiting from, promoting and denying promoting his Irish golf resort during his presidency ??

    trump lining his pockets at taxpayer’s expense, another day ending in Y.

  18. 18.

    Sanjeevs

    Rupert Murdoch divorced his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, by email, telling her “we have certainly had some good times, but I have much to do”, according to a report on the 92-year-old billionaire.
    “Jerry, sadly I’ve decided to call an end to our marriage,” Murdoch’s email allegedly began. “We have certainly had some good times, but I have much to do … My New York lawyer will be contacting yours immediately.”
     

    “On the first day of Lent in February, Hall told friends she made an effigy of Murdoch, tied dental floss around its neck, and burned it on the grill,” the article claims.

     

    The Vanity Fair article goes into detail on Murdoch’s ailing health, suggesting Hall had to nurse him extensively after he broke his back in a fall on a yacht in January 2018, leaving him close to death.
    According to the article, the billionaire was evacuated from the yacht on to the French territory of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, only to discover there was no hospital open. “Murdoch had to spend the night on a gurney under a tent in the parking lot” until a special medical team could be flown in.
    It is also claimed that when doctors examined an X-ray of Murdoch’s back they asked him about a number of previously broken vertebrae, which Murdoch suggested dated from an occasion when his third wife, Wendi Deng, “pushed him into a piano during a fight”.

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/apr/13/rupert-murdoch-reportedly-divorced-jerry-hall-by-email

    His funeral should be fun with all his wives and kids spitting into the coffin.

  22. 22.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Northern Ireland has been without a government since February 2022, when the Democratic Unionist Party boycotted it in protest at post-Brexit trading rules it says align the region with the European Union and weaken its place in the UK

    Ah, explains the snit the British press at been throwing at Biden; it’s Biden’s fault the Tories done fucked up with Brexit.

  23. 23.

    Kay

    I loved Ireland- I thought it was beautiful. The place it most reminded me of, visually, is Iceland. I also thought Irish people were acerbic and funny – there’s an edge, which I did not expect but appreciated.

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    @Princess: I’m not a lawyer, but that was my take too. Bottom line: wingnut judges are still overruling clinical experts’ consensus on safe distribution to sharply curtail use.

  25. 25.

    Suzanne

    @Sanjeevs:

    “On the first day of Lent in February, Hall told friends she made an effigy of Murdoch, tied dental floss around its neck, and burned it on the grill,” the article claims. 

    LMAO. That’s pretty hilarious.

    In related news, ex-Mr.-Suzanne (Spawn the Elder’s dad) is getting remarried — again — this weekend. Spawn is in Phoenix for the festivities. He gives it eighteen months before New Lady kicks him to the curb. It’s kind of funny watching serial monogamists at work.

  26. 26.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Also, I don’t anyone linked to it, but here is the Washington Post’s article on the Intelligence Leak

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/12/discord-leaked-documents/

    This has to be possibly the dumbest leak in US history; some jackass posts a bunch of docs from his job to some private discord server to win arguments, thinks he can get away with it because the server is invite only and he trusts his gamertard friends, sure enough the gamertards spreads it all over the internet,,…

  27. 27.

    Lapassionara

    @Kay: I missed this news. I’m hoping this was not a ruling on the full appeal, only a temporary ruling on the scope of the injunction. Still, ugh.

  28. 28.

    p.a.

    US networks should run Derry Girls as a documentary so Americans will understand what the signs mean.

    Are Ulster’s Protestant hardliners reproducing at replacement level, or is their demography approaching our Republican Party’s, with the young revolted by its politics as here in the US.  (This is not meant to imply exoneration for violence by the other side, although centuries of “boot in the face” policy is explanatory…)

  30. 30.

    Jeffro

    @Sanjeevs:[Murdoch’s] funeral should be fun with all his wives and kids spitting into the coffin.

    My hope is that Murdoch’s funeral and subsequent spit-fest distracts the media long enough for me to slip in and um divest myself of a 12-pack of Bud Light on trumpov’s final resting place.

    Who am I kidding?  The line will be shorter that day, but the line will still be there.

  31. 31.

    Sanjeevs

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Sunak got a meeting over a cup of tea with Biden in Belfast. Most previous PMs got a full State visit with pictures at Downing St etc.

    So yeah it really shows what a massive fuckup Brexit was, which the British are increasingly waking up to.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    @Lapassionara:

    Reining in the drug’s availability while keeping it on the market is likely to dramatically diminish its usefulness to patients seeking to terminate pregnancies in Republican-led states where severe restrictions on abortion kicked in or were passed after the Supreme Court overturned the federal constitutional right to abortion last June. The decision will also significantly hamper access for people living in blue states that have sought to maintain broad access to the pills — both for their own residents and for the surge of patients traveling across state lines to terminate their pregnancies.

    More Right wing nuttiness. They also barred “non physicians” from prescribing the drug, which falls under “scope of practice” so they’re WAY the hell out of their lane there, too. Next they’ll tell us which specific providers we are permitted to use. Women will only be allowed to use Catholic hospitals.
    Anyone who thinks courts are going to stop this is crazy. They WILL control every woman in the country. They aren’t going to stop until they push us back 100 years rather than the 50 they have already achieved.

  33. 33.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    How the Right has thrown out standing scares me the most. Anyone can get any order at any time. No one is safe from them.

  35. 35.

    James E Powell

    @Sanjeevs:

    Not defending Murdoch but his marriages are business relationships not romances. There are no angels in that world.

    And Jerry Hall? Brian Ferry to Mick Jagger to  . . . Rupert Murdoch? How did that happen?

  37. 37.

    Betty Cracker

    Reposting comment from the overnight thread on WaPo’s article on the intel leaker, including gift link. Dumbest shit ever!

    WaPo has an exclusive on the recent intel document leaks, and wow. The Post doesn’t have the perpetrator’s name, but if the story they’re getting from a teenage gamer who was a member of a Discord server run by the perpetrator is accurate (and it rings true), the leaker is a 20-something, fascism-curious dickhead who works on a military base and leaked the docs to impress the teenagers on the server. It almost sounds like he was creating his own mini-Q cult:

    The man behind a massive leak of U.S. government secrets that has exposed spying on allies, revealed the grim prospects for Ukraine’s war with Russia and ignited diplomatic fires for the White House is a young, charismatic gun enthusiast who shared highly classified documents with a group of far-flung acquaintances searching for companionship amid the isolation of the pandemic.

    United by their mutual love of guns, military gear and God, the group of roughly two dozen — mostly men and boys — formed an invitation-only clubhouse in 2020 on Discord, an online platform popular with gamers. But they paid little attention last year when the man some call “OG” posted a message laden with strange acronyms and jargon. The words were unfamiliar, and few people read the long note, one of the members explained. But he revered OG, the elder leader of their tiny tribe, who claimed to know secrets that the government withheld from ordinary people.

    If WaPo was able to track a kid from the group down and get him to talk (though he refused to reveal the perp’s name), maybe the Pentagon and/or DOJ has figured out who the leaker is. Could be he’s already in custody

    ETA: Gift link to article.

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: The state Senate primary in your district got some attention on the Blue Virginia blog. They posted a debate between Creigh Deeds and Sally Hudson. My friend Joan liked it. She’s a big Hudson fan.

  40. 40.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think maybe centrists are starting to get it:

    Matthew Yglesias
    @mattyglesias

    ·37m

    If things take this direction then I think some brave providers are going to need to do civil disobedience with regard to pills in the mail and the rest of us have to be ready to support them with money and whatever else they need.

     

    I’ll really be thrilled if pundits drop the “relax ladies! It’ll be FINE” posture. Womem in blue states were always at risk in this and they were always going to be harmed with a hard Right turn on womens rights. It shouldn’t just be shrill feminazis sounding the alarm.

    The NYTimes is focusing on Cornell and “safe spaces” this week. Not kidding. That’s what’s important to our elite punditry – the “cancel culture” panic.

  41. 41.

    Soprano2

    This crap with the abortion pills is a lesson and a cautionary tale – once the Comstock Laws were invalidated by the courts, Congress should have repealed them in their entirety. Thinking “Oh, those laws are old, they’ll never come back” is a mistake, because it’s entirely possible that this Supreme Court will uphold the idea that these pills cannot be legally distributed through the mail, all because of a law that was passed in 1873 but never repealed.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @Soprano2:

    It’s a nice thought, but cleaning up federal statutes in advance of problems is never going to be high on anyone’s agenda.

  45. 45.

    Sanjeevs

    @p.a.: The most recent census showed the Nationalist (Irish identifying) now outnumber the Unionists.

    Also Brexit split the Unionist  vote so they lost the First Minister post    – this is the real reason they won’t join Stormont. It doesn’t really matter since there is power sharing but they can’t stomach not being in charge in NI for the first time ever.

    The DUP supporting Brexit was incredibly dumb. Even once the Nationalists became a majority there would have been no great move towards a United Ireland since it would just risk the Troubles restarting but being outside the EU gives the idea of reunification a real impetus

  46. 46.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: Maybe, but look at the harm this is going to cause. I think there should be a group or panel that looks at old laws and suggests ones for repeal every year, just to clean things up. Should be easy, even in this world.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    I have to read more on the limits on using non physicians, but that’s just breathtaking to me. A couple of far Right judges can now tell women – just women- which providers they may use. They’re deliberately limiting womens access to medical care, especially poor and rural women. The geography matters too. Distances. It’s harder to get women in Texas or Florida to a state that still allows women modern standard of care medicine than it is women in Ohio or Indiana.

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: I think Bellingcat was the first to track the kid down but I might be wrong. At any rate, the kid told them he didn’t know who OG is, but he texted/conversed with him a day or 2 ago and OG is scared and doesn’t know what to do now that the cat is out of the bag.

  50. 50.

    sdhays

    @Sanjeevs: I remember being shocked (I know, I know) at how many people in Northern Ireland voted for Brexit. IIRC, N. Ireland narrowly voted Remain, but it should have been 100%. The N. Ireland issue ALONE should have been enough to shutdown Brexit for anyone in the British Isles who had lived through (or knew about) The Troubles.

    Too many people were high on their own supply believing that they could “leave” the EU and basically nothing they wanted to keep would change.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    If NY Dems want those House seats they lost back they should hit the Republicans in them with this now, hard. Make them defend these rulings. But it can’t be 6 months from now. They can’t dither. They have their issue, they just have to drive it home. Any Republican in a blue state or swing seat should get hit with it, immediately.

  57. 57.

    Sanjeevs

    @sdhays: I think a lot of Unionists wanted the border back and thought Brexit would bring it.

    But industries like agriculture, construction etc near the border work on an all Ireland basis so many Unionists split as it would have been economically devastating for them

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @sdhays:

    I didn’t follow it but the ridiculousness of such small countries “believing” they didn’t need trade alliances or imports is just amazingly delusional. It seems like just the size of these places should have shut the dumb idea down. The land mass and population. They didn’t have to get into the rest. It was unworkable just on that basis.

  59. 59.

    Geminid

    @Kay: I think the DCCC is already hitting Jen Kiggans (VA-2) on this issue. Blue Virginia reported an ad someone ran against her, and I think it was the DCCC.

  61. 61.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: The WaPo story interviewed one kid pretty extensively (that’s their “exclusive” angle, I think) and says he does know who OG is but won’t tell. The article is worth reading imo because it sheds light on the nature and character of that group and its leader. They are/were gun nuts who said lots of racist and antisemitic shit. But stupidity looks like the defining trait.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    Good. I think they have the ability to cement the idea that Republicans want total bans nationally which will stick no matter if they walk it back it or not, but they have a window to do that. They can’t wait. Eventually the dopes on the Right are going to figure out how to lie more believably about this.

  64. 64.

    Anyway

    @Kay:

    Barred distribution by mail, so anti choicers got what they wanted. They can control women all over the country and not just in the states where they’re in power. Huge win for anti choicers/the far Right.

    Very sad. We have to win so much and so DEEP and one RWer can swoop in and take our hard-won gains away. Sisyphus, I feel your pain.

  65. 65.

    Sanjeevs

    @Betty Cracker: How does a 20 something guy get access to such sensitive information. What possible need to know could such a low level person have

    If this is true then after Snowden it’s really negligent.

  67. 67.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: I think the moron thought his fellow morons wouldn’t spread the pics. Once it got out he started telling them to delete everything.

  70. 70.

    sdhays

    @Kay: I get the sense that the UK is still delusional over its loss of its empire. A bunch of people there think the UK is on the level of the EU or the US just like pre-WWII when “the sun never sets on the British Empire”, when it just isn’t anymore.

    They still punch above their weight because of London banking, but Brexit damaged that too (and, ironically, the desire to avoid EU banking regulations was a major reason Brexit got pushed so hard by certain elites).

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    My youngest lives in a college house with 5 other young men. He’s politically aware and so is his GF, so they knew (broadly and…fuzzily) what the latest far Right court order meant when I spoke to them but they told me the other people in the house thought Republicans banned birth control. That’s what we can jump on. Make them the “would ban birth control” Party. It’s hard to undo impressions once they break thru to 5 young normies.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    @sdhays:

    over its loss of its empire

    That was my (mostly uninformed) guess too. Nothing worse than when your threat to leave and then leaving doesn’t matter that much to those who remain. Ouch.

  74. 74.

    snoey

    @OzarkHillbilly: The Guardian had a story about this the other day that said that the War Thunder game forum regularly gets posts from users who want their simulated weapons systems to be more realistic as shown in the attached classified documents.

  77. 77.

    sdhays

    @sdhays: Just to add, in case that seems harsh towards the UK, there are plenty of delusions to go around. We’ve definitely seen incredibly destructive delusions about how powerful the US is in recent history.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    Glenn Greenwald
    @ggreenwald
    ·37m
    That the “Democracy-Dies-in-Darkness™” WashPost now does the job of the US Security State by hunting down its leakers and doing everything to expose their identity really says everything about the real function and ideology of these media corporations.

    Such a clown. Note the Trumpian capitalization- Security State.

    I read that Elon wants to “move on” from the Twitter Files. It’s gotten too embarrassing, I guess. Congrats to all the dumbos who thought it was a ground breaking expose- HUGE! The combination of covid and Black Lives Matter seems to have permanently broken a large portion of the paid punditry.

  79. 79.

    HeleninEire

    @lowtechcyclist: I once told someone that Belfast and Dublin were in two different countries and it blew their mind!

    It was my mother’s (born in Belfast) pet peeve. If she said this once she said it a thousand times:

    “Northern Ireland IS NOT the north of Ireland”

  83. 83.

    montanareddog

    @HeleninEire:

     

    “Northern Ireland IS NOT the north of Ireland”

    To be pedantic, it is the north of Ireland; it is not the north of the Republic of Ireland.

    But I sure get your mother’s point.

  85. 85.

    Betty Cracker

    @sdhays: There was a line of dialogue in The Good Place that captured that sentiment so well, paraphrasing, “Let’s just hope our early successes make up for the embarrassing mess we’ve become, like Facebook or America.”

  86. 86.

    sab

    @Kay: They pretty much gave up a lot of their trade ties with Commonwealth countries when the joined the EU. Fifty years later it’s hard to pick up where they left off.

  87. 87.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    The whole “leak/information wants to be free” theory was not well thought out, IMO. Why would I trust wikileaks and Glenn Greenwald? I didn’t trust them, which turned out to be a good call. I dont know why their supposedly super savvy skepticism doesn’t apply to their own writers and orgs. It doesn’t make any sense as a theory.

    Our public intellectuals are low quality. I hate to say it, but it’s true. We need new blood in there or something. Open up immigration again. Get some immigrants who are not Andrew Sullivan. Their theories are childishly stupid.

  89. 89.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Our public intellectuals are low quality

    If you’re an intellectual, and you’re not getting paid by billionaires, you’re not getting paid.

  91. 91.

    Anyway

    @Suzanne:

    Hey, sometimes Sunday Bloody Sundaaaaaaaaaaaay and Zom-BEH BEH BEH come on the radio. Then I think about it.

    Thanks for the earworm. RIP Dolores….

  93. 93.

    Gin & Tonic

    Big if true:

    The USA did not issue visas to the delegation of Russia, which chairs the UN Security Council

    The Americans also refused permission for the arrival of the special plane of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov.
    /1 pic.twitter.com/EocW4B5hXp
    — Lew Anno Suport #Ukraine 24/2-22 (@anno1540) April 13, 2023

  95. 95.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I actually thought about it when I read (the real) critical race theory. Whether they agree with it or not  (and they don’t, LOUDLY and CONSTANTLY) it’s much higher, more difficult thinking than what they’re doing. I feel like quality slipped, like at the Tesla plant. They take these theories out for a spin and the steering wheel falls off. “Information wants to be free”. Eye roll. It’s all cheap junk.

  96. 96.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    That’s a large part of why I became a normie. Not enough quality content out there, and you have to wade through a lot of crap to find it.

  97. 97.

    Michael Bersin

    @Kay:

    Mark Alford (r) is a former Kansas City Faux News affiliate morning newsreader who won a crowded primary to replace Vicky Hartzler (r) who managed to lose in the crowded republican U.S. Senate primary. We used to say about Vicky: “It couldn’t be worse.”

    It is worse.

    On Saturday (April 15) Alford (r) will headline a local republican fundraiser with MTG. Yes, that MTG.

  99. 99.

    HeleninEire

    @montanareddog: Yeah. Even though mom was born in Belfast, I was born (in America) an Irish citizen because the rule is if your parent is born “on the Island of Ireland,” automatic citizenship.

  100. 100.

    Kay

    My son and his wife purchased property in Michigan yesterday, so I think they’re moving back from Denmark. He won’t commit but he’s probably just being a jerk and not saying.  I’m thrilled because I’ll be able to see the baby. My son thinks the US education system is superior to that of Denmark which I know flies in the face of a lot of liberal belief, so I thought it was interesting. He wants their daughter to go to school here. He thinks Danish schools (K- to high school) aren’t rigorous enough and they’re weak in math and science.

  104. 104.

    Kristine

    A very quick googlecheck didn’t provide an answer, so hoping someone here knows if 3rd party shippers like FedEx and UPS count as “mail?”

  107. 107.

    Betty Cracker

    @Michael Bersin: Sometimes I wonder if the fact that a deranged and thumpingly dumb person like Greene has become a mainstream figure in the GOP will damage the party’s brand among people who don’t pay much attention. Maybe not because if you’re not attentive, you could miss her change in status from embarrassing loon who was babbling about Jewish space lasers to nationwide fundraiser and GOP speaker’s vote whipper. We’ll see.

  108. 108.

    Uncle Cosmo

    A bog-standard Oyrish riddle:

    Q: How many Oyrishmen does it take to change a lightbulb?

    The bog-standard answer is 11, but there are two different explanations. The bog-standard one:

    One to remove the old bulb and hold the new one in the socket while the other ten drink until the room spins.

    But the one I prefer:

    One to insert and screw in the new bulb while the other 10 stand around reminiscing on how beeyootiful the old bulb was.

    I have no Oyrish in me** but after a couple of decades late in the prior millennium hanging with the Order of Ancient Hibernians and others who do, having learned more about their culture than nearly all of them, I am of the opinion that this is by far the more appropriate.

    ** Other than the blarney I was born with, and the Harp and Jameson I occasionally permit to traverse my alimentary canal.

  109. 109.

    Lapassionara

    @Kay: thanks. I’m encouraging my grandchildren to leave the US. We will not recover from this for decades, if ever.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Outside Grand Rapids. They bought land so they’d have to build but his wife is “horsey”, she rides, so this gives her room for a horse. He can work remotely so he’s very flexible. They’ll be about 2 hours from us when we’re Michigan, which is more and more where we are.

    There was land adjoining his for sale so I suggested I buy it and he didn’t respond.

    That would be a “no” :)

  111. 111.

    Matt McIrvin

    @sdhays: London is still a fantastic city but in ways that make little-England Brexiteers’ heads explode. Multicultural, international, cosmopolitan.

  112. 112.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: It’s a popular notion on the right to have ALL LAWS automatically sunset so they have to pass them all over again every few years. That is absurd but cases like this make it intuitively appealing.

  116. 116.

    geg6

    @Baud:

    Don’t worry about it.  Seems that there are lots of non-Irish people in this thread who don’t know these things.  That tweet is correct in that Joe probably wanted his pic with that billboard.  I sure would if it was me.

  119. 119.

    geg6

    @Sanjeevs: ​
     
    I read somewhere (Daily Beast maybe?) that he had cameras all over the house that she got in the divorce and kept them on, streaming back everything she was doing to FOX security people. She finally contacted her old love, Mick Jagger, who sent his own security people over to disconnect it all.

    Rich people are really weird.

  120. 120.

    WaterGirl

    @Gin & Tonic: I assume PNG is persona non grata, but what are the implications for doing that.  Do those 15 Russians have to leave the embassy now?

    Why those 15 in particular, do we know?

  122. 122.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: That’s fair, because many of them definitely want to ban or severely restrict access to birth control. It’s their next target. They’ll say that chemical forms of birth control and the IUD cause abortions, so the states where abortion is banned or restricted can also ban or restrict these forms of birth control. They’re probably writing the cases up already. They are determined to seize control of young women’s sex lives, because they want to push everyone back to the times before birth control pills, where everyone was always afraid sex would lead to pregnancy.

  124. 124.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @geg6: In my experience all people are weird. Rich people are just more able to indulge their weirdness.

  126. 126.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @lowtechcyclist: Yeah, the average American thinks about Northern Ireland basically never.

    I admit I’ve thought of Northern Ireland a couple of times when in Dublin, wondering if I should broaden my horizons and check out Belfast.

    I know nothing about it, so that’s as far as the thought goes.

  128. 128.

    geg6

    @Sanjeevs: ​
     
    From what I read about one of the guys talking is that they thought he was quite a bit older than most of the rest of the guys.

  129. 129.

    Gin & Tonic

    @WaterGirl: Generally those people have around 48 hours to leave the country. Their “activities were incompatible with diplomatic status.” I.e. they were spies.

  132. 132.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Baud: Don’t know.

    Odd, isn’t it, that the russians solved the Tatarsky hit in 24 hours, but are mystified about these beheadings?

  133. 133.

    Soprano2

    @Matt McIrvin: Well that’s super dumb. I just think when you have outdated laws like the Comstock Act invalidated by a court it would be a good idea to repeal them altogether so they can’t ever come back.

  134. 134.

    WaterGirl

    @Gin & Tonic: I appreciate the explanation, thank you.

    edit: Aren’t they all spies at the embassies?  Or at least mostly spies?  (just my impression from books and movies, likely not the most reliable source for important information!)

  136. 136.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay:

    Our public intellectuals are low quality. I hate to say it, but it’s true. We need new blood in there or something. Open up immigration again. Get some immigrants who are not Andrew Sullivan. Their theories are childishly stupid.

    I think mostly because the people who are called ‘public intellectuals’ are to the right of center.  I’m trying to think of anyone left of center that that title’s been affixed to, and I can’t come up with anyone.  I don’t think even Krugman has been called that more than once in a blue moon.

    And right-of-center thought is increasingly indefensible.  A few years ago, that Jordan Peterson guy was the hot new ‘public intellectual.’  And on the right side of the political spectrum, of course.  And he’s just as stupid as the rest of those clowns, because there’s nothing intellectually salvageable over there anymore.

  137. 137.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Suzanne:

    Hey, sometimes Sunday Bloody Sundaaaaaaaaaaaay and Zom-BEH BEH BEH come on the radio. Then I think about it.

    Good point.  I stopped listening to ‘Classic Rock’ a decade or so ago because they pretty much wore out the smallish collection of songs that are in their playlists, so that didn’t occur to me.

  140. 140.

    OverTwistWillie

    Belfast was the home of the Titanic and Game Thrones. So there’s that.

    That Provo Joe sign is like running across a Rax Roast Beef. I thought they went out of business twenty-five years ago….

    Joe is certainly more engaged than what has come out of number 10 post-Brexit in regards to Irish policy. Belfast? Never heard of it….

  142. 142.

    Ksmiami

    @Lapassionara: I actually think the pharmaceutical lobby will have more impact at the Supreme Court and this junk decision will get struck but I’m relying on Robert’s loyalty to big money;)

  143. 143.

    Jay C

    @OverTwistWillie:

    Yeah: I can’t imagine many Americans seeing that sign, and not immediately thinking of the town in Utah (and that mainly for skiing). I took me a minute to figure out what they were referring to, and (besides it being crank BS), also thought it was many decades out of date….

  144. 144.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ksmiami:

    I actually think the pharmaceutical lobby will have more impact at the Supreme Court and this junk decision will get struck but I’m relying on Robert’s loyalty to big money;)

    The problem is, Roberts would be only the fourth vote against this abomination.  Can he persuade one of the Fascist Five to defect?  That’s a tall order.

  145. 145.

    Lapassionara

    @Ksmiami: I’m hoping that will be the case. However, I am pretty sure all that the Fifth Circuit has considered so far is the scope of the injunction. In the normal course of things, the Justice Department has to appeal the merits of the order to the Fifth Circuit before it can take the appeal to the Supreme Court. This takes a lot of time.

    On the other hand, there is now a conflicting District Court ruling from the Eastern District of Washington, so the talking heads have said this means the two cases go straight to the SC. I am not sure what that means, in terms of time. Likely months.

    In the meantime, this modified injunction governs the conduct of manufacturers, etc. So maddening.

  146. 146.

    Geminid

    @Lapassionara: My (very) general knowledge is that the Supreme Court hears matters involving conflicting decisions by Circuit Courts of Appeals, not federal trial courts.

  148. 148.

    Captain C

    @Kay:

    I dont know why their supposedly super savvy skepticism doesn’t apply to their own writers and orgs.

    If they point out their own copious volumes of bullshit, then no one will subscribe to their Substack and they might actually have to get a job and work for a living.

  149. 149.

    Captain C

    @sdhays: This plus they still have a few (probably working and deliverable) nukes, so at least the BREXIT voters think they still can throw their weight around the world.

  151. 151.

    Jackie

    I just heard on MSNBC that Schumer will address the Senate next week re temporarily replacing DiFi’s spot on the Judiciary Committee.

    Unfortunately it will require a 60 majority vote. Sigh…

  152. 152.

    Ksmiami

    @Lapassionara: I think the DOJ:Administration is going to file an emergency appeal and Robert’s and Kavanaugh will reduce scope of decision in favor of Pharmaceutical companies and to save the GOP from themselves. Of course, there’s a small chance they go all the way, but you know, we can start defunding their corrupt asses too.

  153. 153.

    Kay

    @Ksmiami:

    They’ll do a one-off Bush v Gore decision where the prescription drugs women use may be monitored and perhaps barred by any judge.

  155. 155.

    Gravenstone

    @Suzanne: Pretty sure they mean “Provo” as slang for the Irish Republican Army. Whoever hung the banner is calling Biden a terrorist.

  157. 157.

    Gravenstone

    @Kay: Glenn, making secure documents public to bring some perceived injustice to light (while highly subjective and still generally fucking stupid) is one thing. Sharing them out of school to impress a bunch of morons of your acquaintance, one of whom then secondarily leaks them is so far beyond stupid and completely indefensible. So kindly shut your fucking gob!

  158. 158.

    JAFD

    Was 87 F at EWR at 1 PM. Predicted high of 90. Good thing, ’cause workmen came at 8 this morn, to replace my windows, so was comfortable even with nothing between my table and The World.

    For a while there I thought guy in photo was Ian Paisley (Northern Irish Protestant fanatic), not being that knowledgable on country music, trying to puzzle out connection …
    Stay healthy and happy, everyone.

  159. 159.

    Miss Bianca

    @Suzanne: I think about Northern Ireland a lot, but mostly because of a connection with the Belfast Circus. My friend who directed it for a while is coming to my theater in May to do a show about her time there.

  162. 162.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: I just heard the second one pop up on Apple Music because they put up a channel celebrating the anniversary of REM’s “Murmur” and after the album was over it was “music like this” which was all ye Olde Alternative Dad Rock…

  163. 163.

    Denali5

    @Kay,

    I wish my son would buy property here and come back from Hungry. Then I think about what it is like here, and I think no. But Hungary and the US are becoming more and more estranged. It is so complicated my head hurts

Comments are closed.