the broccoli goblin pic.twitter.com/zv2rjQt3mw
— Tweets of Cats (@TweetsOfCats) July 3, 2023
— Michael Hiltzik (@hiltzikm) July 7, 2023
For old time's sake.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) July 10, 2023
Today I was asked why I don't join in blocking traffic to demand more climate action, knowing what I know.
I just don't feel like I could compete with this:pic.twitter.com/0yDMUp4fGD
— Leon Simons (@LeonSimons8) July 11, 2023
It’s gonna be really funny when these guys make it to 65 with zero retirement saving because they though the world would have ended by then https://t.co/6sLEz36Z3o
— Gas Stove Prayer Warrior (@canderaid) July 11, 2023
The context takes too long to explain, but lately I often think of the moment where my father, dealing with some fuckery in the midst of a large social event, sighed with a perfect mix of frustration and exhaustion and said: "this is *not* … how grown … men … talk." pic.twitter.com/dOGIx0UWSx
— John Rogers (@jonrog1) July 10, 2023
I think I speak for everyone here when I say its way past time for Ego to get started building his own submersible.
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) July 6, 2023
I tried to make an entire conservative comedy special in 30 minutes and honestly it was even easier than I thought: pic.twitter.com/fFPdwzTh61
— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) July 6, 2023
Jeffro
could it be…frist?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I like the idea of planting the submersible idea in whatever passes for Musk’s brain. And telling him that HE is the man to make carbon fiber work.
Eunicecycle
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: and of course he would be the best person in the world to test drive (dive?) it.
Sanjeevs
NYT usual headline writer must have been replaced by AI or something.
Ken
Thirty minutes? I’d say every washed-up conservative comedian’s routine can be done in thirty seconds. “No one laughs at the jokes I’ve been re-telling for thirty years, and I can’t think of any new material.”
Though that might be a little too much self-reflection for conservatives.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Yesterday, the Obama bros were speculating about who would have to do the actual dick measuring. One asked if it would be a prisoner job.
Jeffro
I don’t know where to start, but either the complete and obvious melting down of Musk/Twitter (as seen above) or that Comer “whistleblower” inserting an agent into the trump 2016 campaign seems good.
Is this “Individual-1” the same “Individual-1” as the previous “Individual-1”? Who knows? FSM, what a slime pit trumpworld is
Also before I forget: Geminid, you mentioned a while back about Bristol, VA being the nearest ‘outpost’ for women in 5-6 southern states to obtain abortion services. The Richmond Times-Dispatch had an article on Sunday about that very thing. It is kind of wild that on the VA side of Bristol, women can access health care (for now)…while on the TN side of the same town, they cannot. Make it a rallying cry, Ds!
Jerzy Russian
After the dick measuring contest, it is off to a round of penis fencing. There probably should be a pissing contest in there also. They are going to need referees, judges, etc., so the organization should start soon, if it hasn’t started already.
Baud
The first and last videos are cute.
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
I whole heartedly approve of the broccoli goblin
Kay
@Sanjeevs:
Bidenomics is genuinely good. They’ve spent the last two years vehemently denying it but it keeps chugging along making fools out of them.
It’s a shame they depressed people for so long with this ludicrously negative and inaccurate depiction of an economy that was obviously working out for most people. When it actually does slow or stumble, and it will, eventually, people are going to think the world is ending because a good economy was portrayed as bad.
Baud
@Kay:
Agree 100%. But frankly, a lot of people on our side seem receptive to being depressed. I can’t fault our adversaries too much for taking advantage of it. They are evil, after all.
Another Scott
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Nah, too conventional.
He’d make it out of stainless steel and shape it like a cube and use rocket engines to get down to the bottom faster.
Who needs “experts” and their “conventional thinking”. Hardcore disruption, baby!!1
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
H.E.Wolf
@Jeffro:
I dunno. Do you diagnose people’s medical symptoms (a) remotely and (b) incorrectly?
Yes, I know it’s a venerable online joke… however, for me, “frist” will always call this to mind:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Frist
[scroll down to “Schiavo Case” – if I recall my blog lore, this is one of the reasons our blogmaster began to look askance at Republicans]
Jerzy Russian
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Perhaps a combination of carbon fiber and titanium weights could do the trick?
Edmund dantes
As to Trump telling his fans to sit out every future election if Bedminster is searched, don’t you dare threaten me with a good time!!!
Kristine
When I first read those Musk tweets, I had the same thought as John Rogers’ dad.
As for Trump’s threat, baby thumbs up. I’d even cheer him on.
Kay
@Baud:
It’s always been tough for Democrats because they have to acknowlege the group that aren’t doing well (and there is always a group that aren’t doing well).
I joke that every Democrat has to temper good economic news with “I know people are hurting…” :)
Republicans don’t have this problem. They don’t even look at the numbers. It’s always super de dooper. Remember how long the Bush II administration DENIED that his economy was crashing? One or another of them would come out and be all pissy and snippily deny it was happening.
But this doesn’t excuse economists and business and financial reporters. They gave people an inaccurate view of the economy, and that probably affected the behavior of the people who believed them- opportunity cost. It has been a good time to make some money, change jobs, take some risk. People should have been told that. Some people seem to have gotten it despite this fucking propoganda campaign because small business formation is WAY up. Good.
Dorothy A. Winsor
John Green is going after Johnson and Johnson for using tactics to overprice TB meds. I expect he’s been thinking about health issues because his brother, Hank, is in chemo. Hank’s been live-tweeting his treatment.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Assuming you’re referring to Democrats when you say “people on our side,” is it possible you worry about them too much? Democrats seem pretty solid lately. It’s the unaffiliated normies who keep me up nights.
Elizabelle
The Halfway Post is satire.
Kay
@Baud:
I think Biden could get around the Democratic “I know people are hurting” requirement by focusing on the genuinely interesting (because new) stuff- the AA employment rate (very good – they want it the same as the white rate and it’s narrowed) and the rise of the lowest wage tier of workers.
He should be proud of that.
fancycwabs
Yaccarino suddenly very upset about the contests she’s expected to judge as Twitter CEO.
Quiltingfool
I have a walk out basement, with French doors. The cat enjoys sitting in front of the doors, it’s her big screen kitty tv. My long arm quilting machine is in the basement, so on quilting days, I work at the machine, Sassy watches the backyard. I was fiddling with a quilt when out of the corner of my eye I caught movement at the door – it was our local groundhog peeking in the window! Sassy was thrilled!
First time this has happened, so I wondered if the poor thing was needing water (why a groundhog would look in a house I have no idea). We’re in a severe drought here in central Missouri and our little pond is dried up. So I put a couple of containers with water in the front and back yard.
We might get rain this week. I just hope it rains HERE instead of swooping to the south or far north of us, as it has for the last month or so. Not that I’m not glad that someone in Missouri or northern Arkansas is getting some rain.
Burnspbesq
@Edmund dantes:
Fuck probable cause, just do it!
oatler
@Another Scott:
Let this not turn into, as Linda Belcher would say, a peeing race.
eclare
@Quiltingfool:
Good luck with the rain!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
On our side = Dems and others who are receptive to voting for Dems. I’m excluding dedicated GOP voters.
Dems are the best (but not necessarily the most powerful) they’ve ever been IMHO. But I think it’s unlikely that 2024 will be a blowout in our favor. So turnout at the margins will matter, and that’s where I see the potential for negativity to harm our prospects. I definitely think there are some people out there deliberately pushing negative outlooks for the purpose of depressing turnout (although I suspect most mainstream media stories aren’t written with that specific intent).
Kay
@Baud:
Also, I agree that sometimes Dem or liberals advocates exaggerate to push a position, which has always been a problem because “normies” pick that up and don’t recognize it as partly bluster to get attention- advocacy- but in THIS case it was mainstream Dems who pushed the “bad economy” theme.
Larry Summers was probably the biggest doom and gloomer and media listen to him and promote everything he says. I think it was entirely defensive and ego-driven in Summers case- he perceives any positive depiction of the Biden economy as a negative comparison to the Obama economy. He needs to stop making everything about his stupid career.
Baud
@Kay: The notion that we were going to flash cut from the way the economy was structured to the way the economy should be structured, without any transition costs, is ludicrous to me. If people don’t have the patience to go over the hump, nothing will ever change for the better.
Geminid
@Jeffro: I am tempted to subscribe digitally to the R T-D for its coverage of the upcoming legislative elections. I may just pick up paper copies though; I like reading newspapers, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch covers Virginia news well and has a good sports section.
geg6
@Baud:
I think it was on GOS, but I saw a YouGov poll that showed Biden up by 6 over either Cheetolini or DeSatan. It made my day even if it’s ridiculously far out and Biden’s approvals are still not very good, even in that poll. Seems they aren’t in love with Biden but they hate Dump and Pudding Boy. I’ll take it.
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: They get laughs from their target audience by saying that those OTHER people think this joke is offensive. More laughs than the actual joke gets.
This is now the essence of right-wing comedy all the way down to rodeo clowns–has been for years.
Baud
@geg6: Good polls are better than bad polls, but 2020 was tighter than the polls indicated. The past isn’t necessarily predictive, but I always take polls with a grain of salt.
SFAW
@Ken:
You’re over-thinking it. The sum and total of RWMF “humor” is: “Liberals fucking SUCK! We hates them!” followed by an incoherent howl/scream/babble. That’s it.
Oh, they may use a few extra words to show they grad-ee-yated high school, but that’s all just window dressing.
MattF
@Elizabelle: [sigh]
Baud
@Kay: I agree. My critique isn’t confined to liberals or lefties.
NotMax
@Jerzy Russian
Two schlongs don’t make a fight.
//
Steeplejack
Blast from the past: My brother, currently on vacation in England, just sent me a couple of photographs of the house on Lynwood Road in Ealing where we lived from 1957-60. (He was born in 1959 and so remembers none of it.) It has changed a lot. The front “garden” has been bricked over to make a parking spot, and there is some odd “foyer”-like structure in front of the door.
And he sent a picture of his two kids playing in the park where I played 65 years ago! I told him to get a picture of the Montpelier Primary School, where I started my education as a proper British schoolboy, uniform and all.
Baud
@SFAW: Within a decade, right-wing comedy will simply be some dude saying the N- and C-words repeatedly while making weird faces.
Kay
@Baud:
I think economic populists took the doom and gloom too far, out into the realm of “untrue”
When Tim Ryan came here to campaign and stump speech with this kind of “no one is working and our lunchbuckets are EMPTY” we had a meeting with him after and told him the local economy was (actually) booming :)
It was this zany disconnect, which is amusing because they do it to guard against accusations of “being out of touch”. The solution, as always, is just to tell people the truth. Avoid whatever narrative is going around.
Geminid
@Baud: As a general observation, I think the most significant information I get from polls is trend, especially poll over poll by a reliable survey outfit.
Omnes Omnibus
Milan Kundera died yesterday at 94.
Kay
@geg6:
I think the Biden campaign has good pollsters- good information. Remember how they were so confident of Pennsylvania although it looked really tight for a while? That to me was a measure of how good they were. They just weren’t worried and that proved true.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: The most amazing stat to me is that the black-white gap in labor force participation is GONE (though if you break it down by gender as well it gets more complicated).
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
I had a friend who drove me nuts because he professed to be a big Kundera fan but always referred to The Incredible Lightness of Being.
Baud
@Kay: I think there’s this weird fear that, if you acknowledge that some things are ok, Dem politicians won’t try to address problems that do exist.
Kay
@Baud:
Sherrod, in contrast, came out to take a picture at the opening of a new line in a (union) manufacturing facility here. Front page of the local paper. Sherrod smiling.
In hindsight it just didn’t make any sense for Tim Ryan to trash the Biden economy. I have yet to see this approach be successful. I think it’s because it’s defensive- it’s an attempt to preempt criticism. That just never works, in politics or anywhere else.
Steeplejack
Must-see TV: Ten new episodes of Bluey just dropped on Disney+.
snoey
@Burnspbesq: If “excessive nervous agitation” is plenty good enough for a roadside search …
eclare
@Steeplejack:
Oh wow! So sweet.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Right. There’s a lot of genuinely interesting stuff. REAL. Has happened. Instead we get (shitty) predictions that don’t pan out.
People do pick it up though. They didn’t speed up retirement plans because they believed Larry Summers that the world was ending. They saw something real that made them comfortable doing that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud:
It shows up in the way our side approaches election. The suggestions that we must always act as though we are behind. The fear-based fundraising emails. Etc. There is a fear of over-confidence leading people to stay home which isn’t without cause. OTOH, there is also a desire to be on a winning team, and, when we are actually up, we should take advantage of it.
NotMax
@Kay
Whoever came up with “the dismal science” deserves a cookie.
;)
Baud
@Kay: People like to try to force Dems into pithily articulated, binary choices: either everything is perfect or everything is rotten. Our candidates need to learn how to respond to that without sounding wishy-washy or a dry policy paper that was written by committee. I don’t think it’s that easy.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Just in general, it’s contrary to liberal moral attitudes to be a happy-talk cheerleader and insist that our side can do no wrong. So we bend over backwards to NOT do that. The right exploits that tendency in a thousand ways. We extend automatic charity to them BECAUSE we disagree with them and that is what a reasonable person tries to do. But they see that as a confession of weakness and don’t repay it at all.
Furthermore, our further left mostly regards the moderate left as its real enemy, since they’re deeply concerned with authenticity and commitment and are less irritated by forthright enemies than by fair-weather friends.
Kay
@Steeplejack:
I just saw it for the first time. I love it. My grandaughter does too, although she talks thru the ENTIRE episode :)
We’ve talked before about how you get ahead of what you actually know as a kid with pronunciation of words you read but did not hear. There’s another version of this for kids too young to read. She was telling me about “forests” and she was wrong, not what “forests” are at all. She must have seen this on my face because she stopped telling me and inserted “what’s a forest?” Just abandons her whole (bad) explanation. I admire that! Adults should do it.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I agree with the right that it is a confession of weakness when we lower our quality standards simply to prove that we are open to criticism.
Feathers
@Kay: This is baked into “Christian” vs “Leftist” thought. Christian theory, from Aristotle via Plato, is that imperfections causing suffering during our life on Earth do not matter because we will achieve perfection when we reach heaven. Marxist theory throws all that out the window, saying that if there is suffering here on Earth, any comfort you take from what is good is a dangerous delusion. Both have some wisdom. Both can be taken to extreme. But it does lead to doomsaying on our side.
See, studying literary theory is good for something!
Jeffro
snooze media still has some work to do: Inflation Is Easing, So The Fed Is Weighing How Much More to Slow the Economy
(and maybe the Fed has some rethinking to do, to? maybe just leave well enough alone and let Americans enjoy their wage/job gains fer Pete’s sake?)
and rent hikes won’t be “solved” by raising interest rates, Fed.
Baud
@Feathers: Very interesting.
Captain C
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
“Hey Elon, I bet that cuck Zuck that you could make a Titanic-worthy submersible out of duck tape, aquarium glass, desk fans, and trash can lids, all by yourself. He says you can’t.”
Captain C
@Ken: They think they’re Sam Kinison, but they’re actually Dice on a boring day.
catclub
@oatler:
I think the pissing contest should be pissing onto an electric fence.
NotMax
@Captain C
“Working on self-driving whales as we speak.”
//
Kay
@Feathers:
Thanks. Good to know where it came from. My daughter is sort of recently politically aware- she’s always voted, always been liberal but she just had other interests outside politics. But since Trump she really plugged in. So she’s telling me how bad things are and it’s just not true for her. She moved where she wanted to move, has the job she wanted, bought a house not just in the (expensive, eastern) town she wanted but the neighborhood (and benefitted from super low interest rates) – she’s doing okay! Her family has had a good run the last years. I think it was probably not good for her to spend more time around politically active liberals. They’re depressing the hell out of her. She should go back to Normieville. She’s pregnant with her 2nd and has a 3 year old so I forsee less time to spend reading economic doomers :)
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊 😊
Layer8Problem
@Steeplejack: There goes my afternoon.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Baud
@Captain C:
The plot of Titanic II sounds awful.
Jimmiraybob
“…way past time for Ego to get started building his own submersible.”
Submersibles are like sooooooo 2023. A great visionary like Ego looks to the future. That is why I would like to pitch the future of adventure tourism “Sungate!” I have designed a foolproof craft to explore the surface of the sun. I mean, really, who hasn’t wanted to do this! I just need a startup of $12 Billion dollars. And no, we will not use carbon fiber for the hull. … unless we need the cost savings. Did I mention fool proof?
jeffreyw
@NotMax:
Maybe not a good fight…
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Thomas Carlyle (1849):
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack: @Kay: My eldest NOLA granddaughter loves it. She taught me to hate it by playing it ad nauseum.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
Bluey is pure gold! I started watching it with my niece and nephew, and pretty soon I was watching it by myself. It’s very funny—no mean jokes—and the life lessons are very lightly applied, which is a mercy. Plus I love the slight Aussie accents.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Too much of a good thing?
I think it’s smart to make shows for very young children that adults also like- because we’re watching with them. Cartoons in general are much better than they were when I was a kid. They’re layered, with character development.
scav
@Feathers: I don’t think Aristotle or Plato were expecting much balancing action in heaven — the Greeks didn’t seem to have that kind of afterlife, at least for the majority. Only the really really bad were singled out for pushing stones about or the exceptionally whatever for hobnobbing with gods. Vast bulk were shades, wandering around bored and gathering around pools of blood to enable them to speak to any passing hero looking for hints. Individuals may have hoped for a better outcome, but I have the impression it was far less hard-wired.
Mousebumples
@Kay: Congratulations on your upcoming additional grandchild! (and best of luck to your daughter)
Bluey is on my list to show my 3 (almost 4!) year old, but she’s super interested in Doc Mcstuffins right now. Wants a Doc backpack for 4K, wants to be Doc for Halloween, etc. And I love that Doc’s family is Black – great to see non-White representation in these childhood characters!
Steeplejack
@Kay:
I saw misled somewhere the other day and immediately thought of our previous conversations—and poor zhena gogolia and the marty-red J.F.K.
geg6
@Baud:
Oh, I agree. But I’m taking my optimism where I can find it these days.
Kay
@Steeplejack:
Exactly. I couldn’t nail that down but it’s true. We also watched Frozen and it just hits you over the head with Life Lesson! First of Three that will be presented! Come on. She’s smarter than that.
My daughter tried to read her the (Danish) fairly tale that inspired Frozen but she had no interest. I don’t do any work like that with her- I just hang with her and chat. So much more fun than being a parent.
Captain C
@Baud: Thankfully it’s only a short, not a full-length feature.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Good morning! 🙏
Steeplejack
@Layer8Problem:
Well, an hour, anyway—seven-minute episodes. I’m queuein’ ’em up right after lunch. But I’ll probably get sucked into other episodes, too. I don’t think I’ve seen nearly all of them.
Omnes Omnibus
@Captain C: Reminiscent of this.
Kay
@Mousebumples:
They have good stuff to watch now. Cartoons in my day were junk food or toy commercials. Just no attempt to hide that- they fed us garbage.
They’re having another girl and their current girl has named the upcoming- “Adrias”. It’s such a made up princess name I lol’ed when she told me. Adrias belts out a Disney ballad.
OzarkHillbilly
I don’t think it was ever a fit for me. Normally, that would just leave me disinterested but having it played for hours on end… It grates now.
Different strokes and all that.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
Yes! SpongeBob SquarePants was my previous favorite. Also very layered.
scav
@scav: NB, arguing with self. Plato may have gotten into any number of theories, I’m more familiar with big standard Greek conceptions as reflected in myth and stories where everyone jumped to the underworld for a brief chat while dashing about on adventures.
Mousebumples
@Kay: Haha, that’s amazing! My daughter still largely names her toys after what they are or their coloring (eg Woof for a dog, Blue for a blue teddy bear) so we didn’t give her much input on naming her now 1 year old brother. Though she usually just calls him Brother, lol.
Cartoons were a little better in the 80s and 90s, but still not amazing like now. I think Ghostwriter was the first TV show (PBS) that I looooved. Kinda dated now that cell phones and texting are ubiquitous, but I’m still going to try to have my kids watch it with me when they’re starting to read.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
Ah, the golden grandma zone! I get a little of that as the old-ish uncle. No pressure to guide young lives. Just maintain basic law and order when required.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Maybe you can work in some Roadrunner cartoons for relief. The kid might start running around going “Meep Meep!”
Captain C
@Omnes Omnibus: A classic!
Anyway
@Steeplejack:
Did you have a British accent? and say Mummy and Daddy?
Gin & Tonic
Change in tone from Vilnius today:
Dorothy A. Winsor
Aaron Rupar is live tweeting the congressional hearing with Christopher Wray:
Ksmiami
@Kay: good article in the Atlantic basically saying that Summers wasn’t just wrong, he was fucking wrong and could have hurt millions of people. Seriously- he needs just shut up.
OzarkHillbilly
‘Unprecedented’: Nasa releases image of star-forming region
It’s a pretty damned impressive photo, that’s for sure.
Steeplejack
@Anyway:
I didn’t say “Mummy” and “Daddy,” but I did acquire a British accent, which proved problematic when I came back to fourth grade in Illinois. But I quickly adapted, like a chameleon.
Steeplejack
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Nitter-ized thread for non-subscribers who want to follow along.
Brachiator
@NotMax:
Excellent retort to the most ridiculous non news story in history.
Or is that ri-Dick-ulous?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Steeplejack: Thanks. I tried to remember how to do that but couldn’t.
Steeplejack
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Thank you for the starter link. I have gotten rusty on Twitter during the drought.
Jinchi
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Doesn’t Musk already have a sub? He bragged about sending it to save kids trapped in a cave.
… Man that sounds even stupider when you type it out.
Anyway
@Ksmiami:
Journalists should stop going to him for quotes or inviting him on their teevee shows. He’s not at all relevant.
Kathleen
@Kay: I think he was a horrible candidate. He had potential but he failed miserably in getting voters fired up enough to vote. His idea of outreach to Black voters via advertising was buying time on Black radio stations to run wall to wall spots which were cliched (“He works for us”) with no explanation of how he stood on voting rights.
OTOH Greg Landsman, who beat Chabot in OH#1, lambasted Chabot for “trying to steal your vote” and “taking away your rights” in his ads. Greg also had a history of working with the Black community (he was a teacher and City Councilman who proposed a free pre-school program).
Gravenstone
@Burnspbesq: Yeah, that’s a textbook case of “oh baby, threaten me with a good time!”.
trollhattan
Did he say this or is it satire–I cannot tell. Has both “we find your proposal acceptable” and “oh, don’t throw me in the briar patch” vibes, like he’s planted ten-thousand mines around the golf course.
Baud
@trollhattan:
Satire.
Jackie
CNN is covering the House Judiciary Committee’s Wray testimony.
eta I’m watching on 30 min time delay.
Burnspbesq
@Steeplejack:
Rocky and Bullwinkle were the last good cartoons.
My lawn, get off.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@trollhattan: It’s increasingly hard to distinguish between satire and reality. I don’t know how the Onion stays in business.
I guess there’s continuity from when Tina Fey was able to just quote Sarah Palin rather than create something preposterous
Burnspbesq
If you have access to Krugman’s columns, the most recent is especially good.
UncleEbeneezer
@trollhattan: Willie Wonka* voice: Stop…don’t…
*the real WW, not the misogynist, domestic abuser freak
Geminid
Probably good news for the economy, reported today by industry news site Oil Price:
Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries have been trying to raise global oil prices through production cuts, but it has not worked so far.
The UAE have maintained production. I wonder if their economists are telling them that higher prices will accelerate the shift to renewable energy. I am starting to see analysts refer to the prospect of “stranded assets” as a possible outcome for Gulf State oil reserves.
Baud
@Geminid:
Coincidentally, there’s also a glut of “I did that” Biden stickers.
RobertB
@Kathleen: My daughter wasn’t convinced Ryan was a Democrat. “You’re sure?” she’d ask me.
Geminid
@Baud: I bought gas in Stanardsville the other day for $3.29/gal, possibly the lowest price in two years.
In the long run I’d like to see gas prices rise 10% year over year. But for now. I want to see minimal increases between today and November, 2024.
Geminid
@RobertB: Politico reported on an Ohioan who heard Ryan’s ads and wondered if the Republican primary hadn’t happened yet.
Kathleen
@RobertB: I agree. I did go back and check results in Hamilton County in 2022 Senate race. Regardless of how the rest of the state goes, Hamilton County usually goes Blue and sure enough Ryan did trounce Vance here in Cincinnati area. And Vance lives here! So I’ll give Ryan that but not much else.
Kathleen
@Geminid: I know! I didn’t want to criticize him during the campaign but now I don’t care. I think if he had run a smarter campaign by engaging Black voters he might have pulled it out.
Feathers
@scav: You’re right. The Greek version was that it doesn’t matter if the perfect leaf doesn’t exist on earth, it can exist in your mind. Augustine transplanted it into Christianity, with human perfection and heaven as substitutions.
Just realized typing this that I said Aristotle instead of Augustine in my original comment. Ugh.
Geminid
@Kathleen: My take was that this race was not winnable for Ryan even with with better tactics and strategy. But you were there on the ground so I take what you say seriously.
Regardless, better campaign themes would not have left Democrats frustrated the way the ones he used did, and that is an important consideration.
And I don’t think a forthright assertion of Democratic strengths would have driven away gettable Independents. Some of them also want something to vote for.
ColoradoGuy
I was in Seattle a couple of weeks ago and was shocked to see $5.09/gallon for regular. Here in Colorado it’s $3.39/gallon, and that’s not shopping around for the lowest price.
Of course, CO has its own local sources of oil & gas and a Denver-based refinery, so prices are lower. But they have refineries in Seattle, too, so what gives?
Soprano2
@Quiltingfool: I hope it rains here, too. We got one last Friday where the south half of the city got up to 4″ of rain, while the north half got almost nothing. We got about 1/3″.
Soprano2
@Baud: If you acknowledge good stuff it’s always “But what about Group “x”, they’re not doing well, why are you talking about how good things are?” as if you can never talk about things being good unless they’re good for absolutely everyone.
Kay
@Geminid:
I thought it was a good campaign but I was just desperate to win. Sab and others who thought it was too far Right were correct. I was persuaded by pundits and I always forget general pundits don’t understand the D base, or care to understand it.
Too sad sacky too, honestly. It was like he was afraid to say anything was going well. I was at a UAW event where he was saying no one has a middle class life anymore and it just isn’t true in that room. They were all working overtime!
Soprano2
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I don’t know what you do when upwards of 30% of the population lives in a make-believe world like that. I had a conservative on FB tell me that the recording of TFG saying he was showing classified documents to people was a hoax!! He said it had been proven that it was a hoax. All I say to that guy is that it’s a strange, made-up world he lives in. He thinks I live in a make-believe world.
Soprano2
@Geminid: The Obama Boys talked about the Republican presidential race on their newest podcast, and they said that’s a weakness of many of these candidates – they don’t give people anything to vote for, just “vote for me because I’m not TFG” even though all of their positions are pretty much the same as his, and that this was a terrible message.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Soprano2:
The crazy part of this is that they could attack Trump easily on his weakest point – character. Every reluctant Trump voter I’ve ever heard criticize Trump said they don’t like the tweeting, the multiple wives, the cheating, etc. A full frontal attack on Trump’s character – promising to keep his policies while living a ‘Godly’ instead of sinful life – would legitimately make a dent. Its easy! Just rip him to shreds and then pray for him while asking God to be merciful because of all the ‘good’ he has done.
jonas
@Jeffro: The whole Whistleblowergate thing is hilarious. The guy Comer was counting on to reveal the Bidens’ China corruption was…actually trying to sell Trump people on China corruption. But who’s keeping track, amirite? It’s like if Alexander Vindman turned out to 1. not have any credible information that Trump tried to extort Ukraine by withholding US military aid and 2. was himself involved in a scheme to make Ukraine do things in return for military aid.
Assuming that every accusation is a confession has never failed with these people.
jonas
@Soprano2: The only two candidates not taking that tack are Christie and Hutchinson, neither of whom have a snowflake’s chance in hell of being the nominee.
How the others think they can differentiate themselves from Trump by continually kissing up to Trump and promising to be just like him, but even Trumpier is…well, interesting. Trump will run while facing multiple federal and state indictments, he will win the nomination, and 40% of the country will vote for him. I thought they’d be done with him by now, but apparently not. I don’t think he can win with that, just like he couldn’t in ’20, but it doesn’t say anything good about our country that we’re even here.
No One You Know
@Baud: “Problems solved now, according to our values” and “problems to solve later, according to our values–and here are the benchmarks so we can see what that depends on” might work.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Speaking as a Millenial, it would be nice to be able to achieve stability now. Retirement is a myth, like home ownership
ETA: Even if I had the financial flexibility to save for retirement, I wouldn’t be. All these plans are structured around stock investment. I’m not participating in any capitalism I don’t have to.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I would have a hard time resisting a broccoli goblin. That kitty is ridiculously cute.
Ruckus
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Retirement is a myth
I’m living a myth?
Now of course I retired at 72 yrs young, not 65…
Do you mean retiring and living the high life, or retiring and not having to listen to an alarm clock at least 5 or 6 days a week?
There is quite the difference.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Ruckus: Would you prefer “retirement is under threat of extinction?”
Kathleen
@Geminid: Good points!
Chris T.
@ColoradoGuy:
Local suppliers took advantage of a short term disruption to jack up the profit margin from $.04/gal to $.80/gal. They are blaming it on the new CO2 markets here, but that’s a lie, it’s pure profit. There’s a pipeline out so cheaper markets can’t get supply in.
(This all puts the Seattle price more or less equal to the California price, at this point. The west coast uses a more expensive, less-smog-forming blend of inputs.)