Watch the "@AmericanaFest 22nd Annual Honors" on @acltv! You can stream the "Americana 22nd Annual Honors" online at https://t.co/c4c8BwCK8z beginning Sunday, November 26 at 9am CT. pic.twitter.com/NcamrQzq5U
— Bonnie Raitt (@TheBonnieRaitt) November 25, 2023
Here’s a pleasant hour’s listening, from Austin City Limits — Ms. Raitt was given a Lifetime Achievement Award. (When I clicked on the embedded link, it took me straight to my local PBS station & started streaming.)
USA! USA! https://t.co/qdB33vd1o6
— B-21 Mothra (@TonyMoonbeam) November 26, 2023
The debate over Ukraine aid was already complicated. Then it became tangled up in US border security https://t.co/JnUpFnuSdR
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 25, 2023
Excellent, if rather depressing, summary of the current state of affairs — “The debate over Ukraine aid was already complicated. Then it became tangled up in US border security”. (For ‘border security’, of course, read ‘Repub electoral politics’):
… President Joe Biden’s nearly $106 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other needs sits idle in Congress, neither approved nor rejected, but subjected to new political demands from Republicans who are insisting on U.S.-Mexico border policy changes to halt the flow of migrants…
When Congress returns this coming week from the holiday break, Biden’s request will be a top item on the to-do list, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Failure risks delaying U.S. military aid to Kyiv and Israel, along with humanitarian assistance for Gaza, in the midst of two wars, potentially undermining America’s global standing…
What just a year ago was overwhelming support for Ukraine’s young democracy as it reaches for an alliance with the West to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion has devolved into another partisan fight in the United States.
Members of Congress overwhelmingly support Ukraine, embracing Zelenskyy as they did when he arrived on a surprise visit last December to a hero’s welcome. But the continued delivery of U.S. military and government aid is losing favor with a hard-right wing of Republican lawmakers and with some Americans…
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has said the “best way” to ensure GOP support for Ukraine is for Biden and Democrats to accept border policy changes that would limit the flow of migrants across the border with Mexico.
“It’s connected,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.
To that end, a core group of senators, Republicans and Democrats, have been meeting privately to come up with a border policy solution that both parties could support, unlocking GOP votes for the Ukraine aid.
On the table are asylum law changes pushed by the Republicans that would make it more difficult for migrants to enter the United States, even if they claim they are in danger, and reduce their release on parole while awaiting judicial proceedings. Republicans also want to resume construction of the border wall.
Democrats call these essentially nonstarters, and the border security talks are going slowly. Those who have worked on immigration-related issues for years see a political disaster in the making for all sides — Ukraine included…
Overall, half the $113 billion Congress has approved for Ukraine since the war began in February 2022 has gone to the Defense Department, according to the Congressional Research Service. The dollars are being spent to build Ukraine’s armed forces, largely by providing U.S. military weapons and equipment, and replenish U.S. stockpiles.
Much of the rest goes to emergency and humanitarian aid and to support the government of Ukraine through the World Bank.
National security experts have watched the Ukrainian forces repurpose outdated American equipment that was headed for decommissioning and use it to obliterate aspects of the Russian armed forces. McConnell has noted that much of the spending stays in the U.S., flowing to defense production in states across the nation…
At least the AP (mostly) acknowledges where the problem is — with the GOP Death Cultists, not ‘Congress’ or ‘legislators’!
I personally agree with the following message:
immigrants make america great you bitch ass fuckhead go move to Europe if you want homogeneity. you're following the wrong civic religion for America
— knife-wielding hemophiliac (@NickTagliaferro) November 25, 2023
NotMax
Been a while since we <a href="https://youtu.be/g2jb9U7fXH0?t=52"visited Eric Idle.
;)
NotMax
Sigh. Fix.
Been a while since we visited Eric Idle.
;)
Baud
Romney making mouth noises again.
NotMax
Meanwhile, chez NotMax, signed up for Roku’s offer of a 3 month free trial of Apple TV+. Have wanted to watch For All Mankind for a while now. Strangely, no audio for any of its programs through my soundbar, have to switch to the crappy TV speakers. Same when trying to watch via their own web site on the computer rather than the TV, no audio whatsoever. Phoned customer service. After maybe an hour of back and forth once I was connected with living humans (original one and a higher-up) it boiled down to “We dunno; it’s not our problem.” Sufficient tsuris to cancel when the free period is up. Only streaming channel I’ve ever encountered with such an annoying oddity.
BretH
So continued aid to Ukraine is supported on both sides, and directly benefits states in increased spending and is draining the military might of a major adversary of the US and is blocked by a few radical lawmakers.
I HATE ZEALOTS..
NotMax
@Baud
All the backbone of a garden slug.
OzarkHillbilly
US-Canada border explosion may have been a medical or mechanical episode, cops say
My theory? Having had a few drinks while losing too much money at the roulette table, he got into an argument with his wife and decided to show her who was boss by driving their Bentley at over 100 mph on unfamiliar streets. I’ve seen too many guys do exactly that when their GFs/wives just won’t “STFU.”
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: I immediately thought “unintended acceleration” myself.
😔
On the Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, Border stuff – I’m not surprised that it’s taking a while. All the bomb throwers want their pound of flesh, and are still looking for their amulet to make Biden roll back his agenda. Something will pass at the last minute and it will be pretty good (but not perfect), as usual, is my expectation.
We’ll see.
Slava Ukraini!!
Cheers,
Scott.
artem1s
Do they call out the new Speaker by name? I thought the media’s new darling had all this under control? Black Friday spending will be great news for those who will still have a job when the government shuts down. Not sure it will be so great for their 401Ks though. I guess their only solace will be laughing and pointing when Johnson inevitably slinks off into obscurity like his predecessors.
Poor RMoney! I guess no one at Third Way or No Party or Know Nothings or whatever they are calling themselves has begged him to step in and save the country. I’m sure he’d totally vote for himself. I guess that acceptance speech will just have to go unused for one more election cycle.
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: I was thinking mechanical failure, but road rage does sound more plausible. Is there a vehicle equivalent of tech support’s PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair)?
Betty Cracker
@Baud: That tells me Romney objects to Trump primarily on aesthetic grounds. If he were the statesman he imagines himself to be, he would reject all candidates who won’t unambiguously denounce Trump, his lies about the 2020 election and the attempted coup.
TeezySkeezy
@Betty Cracker: and denounce gutting the federal government to the point of non functionality.
Kay
Immigration polling hasn’t changed that much over 20 years. It goes up some and down some, but opposition was higher around 2005-6 than it is now.
That may have been because it was in the news constantly – Bush’s big push for immigration reform was in 2006-7.
Media have not has as much success turning it into a wedge issue as they have some other issues, although not for lack of trying (caravans, etc). Could always still happen I guess.
artem1s
@Ken: My first thought it was a combo of road rage and 2nd amendment freaks and so just HAD to carry their full arsenal with them everywhere in the glove box/trunk. If it had been the OH/KY border and they slammed into a bridge abutment and exploded, I’d have assumed fireworks. Is buying fireworks in Canada and bringing them back into NY state a thing?
MomSense
@NotMax:
Before you cancel, watch Slow Horses.
Frankensteinbeck
@artem1s:
Since it is literally entirely on him, and a bill written by Democrats would sail through a vote in both chambers. He only has to let it be voted on.
Betty Cracker
@TeezySkeezy: Well, he is a Republican.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MomSense: Also Ted Lasso
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: There may also be a pragmatic basis for Romney’s objection to Trump: a belief that Trump is bad for the Republican Party.
A lot of his GOP Senate colleagues would agree that Trump is bad for the party in the long run, and probably for the medium term as well.
Congressional Republicans think differently about the short term, though. That would be the 2024 election. They don’t see how they can win key Senate and House races next year without Trump’s voters. But Romney is retiring, and does not care so much about the Party’s short term prospects.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I suppose it’ll be interesting to see what he does once the nominations are officially set. He could be holding out hope that a non-Trump somehow gets the GOP nomination.
NotMax
@MomSense
Got until February 25th, plenty of time to fit that in. Not much else found that piques my interest.
Dagaetch
@NotMax: sound bars are notorious for being fickle about their inputs. Have you tried starting the show, then going into the show options (not the TV) and changing the audio feed to a different one? Apple might be defaulting to a fancy multi channel one that the sound bar doesn’t like.
Timill
@Ken: Steering Wheel Thrombosis: a bloody clot behind the wheel.
NotMax
@Dagaetch
No option for audio tweaking showing anyplace..Apple support tried to talk me through that but just plain isn’t there. Gut feeling that is an Apple device specific setting.
If I turn the soundbar off and restart it does play as it should but only for one episode at a time. As soon as move to next episode, silence again.
OzarkHillbilly
Maybe they just hate you.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
They’ll have to take a number and get in line like anybody else.
:)
BellyCat
Apple Health app detects Couch Streaming Captivity Syndrome , shuts off sound bar to force one to get up once every hour. Devious!
OzarkHillbilly
Treading on Adam’s territory: ‘I had my chance to die – but I made my choice’: meet the young Ukrainian soldier fighting for amputee visibility
A good read.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Seems to me they cut in front of everyone else.
JML
Typical terrible reporting: aid to Ukraine wasn’t complicated at all: everyone supported it excepting for a a chunk of GOP lunatics in the House. Because the GOP lets the lunatics run the asylum, they can’t get fuck and all done. Because they allow people who are fine with setting fire to anything if it gets them what they want to call the shots, they will try to get through blackmail what they can never get through winning elections.
It’s not complicated. The GOP are the problem. The GOP is always the problem, but the media is too cowardly (or too controlled by right-wingers) to say it up front, to say it early and often, and show the world that the only reason our politics are broken is because the GOP are a party of idiots, thieves, and looneys.
Happy Sunday? /rant
zhena gogolia
My morning rant? I finally got to the place in Barbie where America Ferrera gives her “moving” monologue, which is supposed to bring me to tears. But in embracing all the facets of womanhood, it somehow overlooks women who don’t have children. It made me cry all right — with anger.
And unpopular opinion, but I do think the movie stereotypes men in an offensive way.
I loved the Colin Firth cameo, though, and in general I’m enjoying it. Just completely uncharmed by the supposedly great monologue.
Barbara
@Ken: I can’t think of too many mechanical failures that would cause a vehicle to speed up to 100 MPH. Most mechanical failures have the opposite effect. It’s a 2022 vehicle, so a recent purchase. Maybe he just wanted to see what it could do. Normally people would do that on a highway.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@zhena gogolia: I thought the monologue was too on the nose. It was fine, but the movie had already made those points.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: I think it, like many other movies, are best seen without expectations. I consciously tried to avoid commentary before seeing it, and I told myself while watching that I wasn’t the primary audience.
Still, I thought it was a great film. I’m glad you see the good parts even though parts annoyed you.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott: Yes, I wish I hadn’t heard so much about that monologue — it was disappointing! (Agree with DAW)
Barbara
@zhena gogolia: My whole childhood was spent in the shadow of being Barbie and I had more than enough a long time ago, and have zero interest in the movie. The reviewers I trust most haven’t led me to revisit my decision.
frosty
@MomSense: I was going to pass on Slow Horses because I’m reading all the books but the Grauniad had a rave review of it so maybe I’ll reconsider.
It would require getting out of my recliner, turning on the TV, and figuring out how to find the right streaming service with our three remotes though.
sdhays
He’s stupid and a liar and a Republican (but I repeat myself) so he probably can’t count, but according to George Santos, he’s going to be kicked out of Congress next week.
Something to look forward to!
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: When I was hearing it, I was reminded of the president’s speech in Independence Day. There were other parts of the film that were obvious homages to earlier famous movies, maybe that was another reason to include it. I liked that the director had the freedom (and took it) to have the character explicitly say those things – I can’t think of a comparable speech by a woman in any other popular film. I imagine that little girls and young women mostly enjoyed hearing it, but dunno.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
lol. So true.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: Thank you for that.
An American friend who has lived in Kyiv for years says one of the most noticeable changes in the city is the number of amputees you see around town.
Baud
@Kay:
Is that referring to a specific article (in the NYT, probably)?
Cuz Trump was elected good three years before the pandemic.
jonas
@OzarkHillbilly: The local news in Buffalo reports that the couple were well-regarded, pillars-of-the-community types — the family ran a chain of hardware stores in the area. Nobody is saying it could have been anything but a horrible medical or mechanical issue of some kind that sent the car out of control.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin, y’all!
A little rainy here on the Coast today.
BellyCat
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks for the link. Powerful story. Optimism in the face of great adversity.
jonas
@Gin & Tonic: Ugh. Reminds me of accounts of post-WWI Britain.
Chief Oshkosh
@NotMax: This happens with our Samung TV/soundbar occasionally, and when it does, it happens over several days. Haven’t been able to determine the cause yet. In any event, we found two solutions, using one or the other fixes it. First, using remote control that came with the TV, go to Settings, Sound, and set output to Soundbar. If that doesn’t work, cycle the power to the soundbar using the remote control that came with the soundbar, and then set the soundbar to your favorite type (adaptive, surround, etc). Using any sort of second-party remote control, even if from the same manufacturer, does not work.
Hope this works for you.
Jackie
It’s being reported Hamas will release one American today; fingers crossed it’s true and that it’s the 4 yr old little girl.
RedDirtGirl
@NotMax: After looking at the fine print on yesterday’s link about Black Friday’s streaming services’ sales, I realized they were all for their “with ads” services. Can’t really get my head around paying for streaming services that include ads.
Xavier
Let me guess, Republican hardliners want something on the southern border, but they won’t say what.
Steeplejack
@frosty:
The horror!
OzarkHillbilly
@Xavier: I suspect Greg Abbott has given them some ideas.
Betty Cracker
@Barbara: Bentley issued a recall a couple of years back for a mechanical issue in the vehicle model involved in the Buffalo crash that could cause the accelerator to get stuck. But according to the article I saw, the recall was issued in the U.K. and Australia, not the U.S.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Steeplejack
Cold and gray this morning here in Threadkill Lane. Currently 39° and not going up much higher. I was awake very early, read for a bit and decided to see if I could get a little more sleep. To my surprise, I did get a few hours, and now I’m easing into the day with coffee and an apple-cranberry tart. No plans to speak of.
Still kicking myself that I didn’t take more leftovers from the T-day feast. I had the last of mine last night. Everything was good!
Kay
@Baud:
It’s referring to Elon Musk becoming a Nazi, which is of course being lovingly recounted by the NYT.
I myself think the Nazi turn by many middle aged white men is due to three factors- BLM, Me Too and Covid. They just weren’t strong, grounded people, there were outside pressures – changes- that rattled them and they broke. It’s good. We now know who can’t be counted on in a pinch and which group are actually most resistant to change. The middle aged white bro demo are the stodgiest, most conventional group out there.
I DO think there should be more stories about ordinarily resilient people – “although my restaurant business suffered during the pandemic, I sensibly applied early for the federal Restaurant Revitalization grant and stayed open- now it’s fine” :)
Too much focus on the ninnies who panic at every challenge, IMO.
OzarkHillbilly
But it is all just so unfair!
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly:
I once dated a guy who at times when he was driving threatened to take us both out. Sounds like this guy did that. Luckily I finally wised up, his poor wife didn’t.
OzarkHillbilly
Medicinal leeches poised for comeback in Scottish Highlands
It’s not what you think it is.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
I remember the big monologue only vaguely, but I made a point of not reading anything about the movie beforehand. I saw the trailer and was primed enough. So I wasn’t expecting a transformational scene and wasn’t disappointed when I didn’t get one.
I took the male stereotype stuff as a funny reversal of “this is the kind of stuff women have to put up with.” And I liked the “we’re not trying to be ‘fair’ here” subtext.
I didn’t expect it to be a groundbreaking masterpiece, and it wasn’t, but I liked it a lot. And at least you got Colin Firth.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
You’re not getting a second “good morning” from me. I already gave downstairs!
Baud
@Kay:
It seems like, when a Dem is in charge, the media and social media love to feature stories where people are complaining about the “system,” no matter who they are or whether they’re right or left.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Steeplejack:
Only three?
Baud
@Kay:
Also happened after 9/11.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
Kids these days don’t know what it was like having to get up and walk to the TV to change the channel and adjust the antenna.
artem1s
Wow, that’s a gut punch. Maybe someday the MSM and GOP will get a clue by four when it comes to Putin. Post these words over scenes from Red Dawn on Tiktok and see if Red staters can grasp what the young people in Ukraine are going through. The Armchair warriors who so glorify the mythology of upstanding heartland youth saving the country from imaginary foreign invaders should see how easily Russia discards their wounded vets. How dedicated this artist/journalist is to amplifying and raising up Ukraine’s and telling their stories so they aren’t ignored and discarded after this war is over.
Betty Cracker
There was a gruesome homicide on Thanksgiving morning in my town. Someone called the cops about a “potential murder” at a house, and the deputies found a bloody butcher knife and “drag marks” in the yard. They busted into the house and found a 70-something man with a possibly self-inflicted gunshot wound (he later died at the hospital). Then they discovered the dismembered body of a man stuffed into the trunk of his own car on the property. No word on a motive yet.
Our local elected sheriff, a horrible hyper-partisan Republican who formerly served as an aid to Rick Scott and is controversial for posting Trump-like political insults on his Facebook page, said, “It is truly unfortunate that our suspect will never be prosecuted for this brutal crime.”
What a weird thing to say!
rikyrah
Restaurants out here scamming 😡😡
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8fhmCKs/
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Gruesome, as you say, but I’m also somewhat impressed with the physical fitness of the 70-something murderer.
sab
@Betty Cracker: Not really. Missed opportunity for publicity for sherriff.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: & @Baud: Yep — certain members of the same demographic that fell to pieces after 9/11 predictably shattered in response to social pressures over the past few years too. Maybe they’re too emotionally fragile to be trusted with important jobs.
frosty
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Oops, I forgot the surround sound. And the little clicker to change … inputs from different devices?
Life got complicated when we cut the cable to avoid paying for Fox News. I don’t sit down and “see what’s on” but have to decide what to watch in advance. Apparently, the rest of the country is doing that too, based on the article I read that said Disney’s revenue from non-streaming content is crashing.
Kay
I attended a funeral in CT over Thanksgiving so did not celebrate the holiday (it’s fine) but I did have a chance to plan a trip to Yosemite in April. We’re staying in the park which cost more than I wanted to pay but worth it, I think – paying for location and all that.
Our last trip was to the national seashore at Padre Island. I was not crazy about Corpus Christi and Padre was nice but the weather reminds me of New Orleans, which is my least favorite weather. I just love California so I think Yosemite will suit us better.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I think when you’re at the top of the socioeconomic heap, you feel like you have more to lose and see threats everywhere.
Baud
@Kay:
Yosemite is amazing. The worst part about it is the crowds.
Torrey
@Baud:
“walk to the tv and adjust the antenna”
That’s all? You had it easy. We had to get up, walk to the tv, adjust the antenna, find out that didn’t work, go to the kitchen, get a piece of aluminum foil and spend 10 minutes trying to attach it to the antenna in exactly the right way to get the picture. As long as the person who did the adjusting didn’t move more than 5 feet away from the tv.
WaterGirl
@Barbara: what if the car was set on cruise control, at a high rate of speed?
Baud
@Torrey:
Pfft. I had to walk uphill both ways between the couch and the TV.
BeautifulPlumage
@Baud:
@Torrey:
What, no vice grips in place of the channel change knob? You guys had it easy.
eclare
@Kay:
Have a great time in Yosemite! I went there around 2004 and loved it. We also stayed in the park.
WaterGirl
@jonas:
And we all know that the “well-regarded, pillars-of-the-community types” are never alcoholics, they are never addicted to drugs, they never beat their wives, they never abuse their young daughters.
The right color of skin + the financial level = a membership in the good old boys club.
See also, William Barr and the Rape-y beer-loving Supreme Court Justice.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Another Scott:
There have been two incidents like that due to medical issues in our immediate area that I know of, and probably others I didn’t know about.
One was a guy who crashed through the front of an appliance store while suffering a fatal heart attack.
Another happened while we were sitting in the diner. A car passing by accelerated and somehow managed to leap over one car in the parking lot and land on top of another. The woman who had been driving said her father in the passenger seat had had some kind of medical incident that resulted in him grabbing the steering wheel and also in some way caused the acceleration.
There are certain spots in that parking lot my wife will not let me park in any more.
There’s also the elderly lady who took out the brick wall at the Y, dumping rubble into the pool area. But that was more the standard kind of confusion thing you hear about in elderly drivers.
And as I type that I think, “I just turned 66. Technically I’m an elderly driver.”
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Went there about 10 (?) years ago. It was a bucket list thing for a coworker and I thought it would be fun.
We finally got a weekend off, left San Diego at 0300, drove up and hiked our asses off until dark (the Runkeeper app on my phone says the change in elevation between start & end of our hike was over 2000 ft. I don’t remember the overall distance). Got up early the next morning and did some light hiking until about noon and then headed south back to San Diego.
The valley floor was absolutely packed with people. A park ranger told me that the valley comprises only a small part of the overall park but 90%-95% of the visitors never leave it until they leave the park.
Kay
@eclare:
Thanks! What I most enjoy about hiking in the West is the “new” (to me) trees and plants, so obviously the giant sequoias are a big part of the appeal. I’m very familiar with everything in the east (including the south) but I have to look everything up in the west.
OzarkHillbilly
@eclare: It definitely happens and a lot more often than anybody knows. Toxic masculinity kills.
WaterGirl
@RedDirtGirl:
If it’s free, I can understand ads. Totally agree that if I’m paying, there should be no ads. I won’t pay for something with ads.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: And never watch it in B&W or know the Chief with the obnoxious noise at the end of broadcasting for the day.
Kay
@Nukular Biskits:
Good to know. I’ll make sure and get out of the valley for some period.
Our last CA trip we went to Point Reyes which is the prettiest place in the continental US, as far as I’m concerned.
kalakal
@Baud: TV? Luxury! We used to dream of…
Jackie
@BeautifulPlumage: This is bringing back childhood memories! We kids always had the chore of antenna adjusting and slooowly inching away hoping “that last adjustment would hold.”
And, yes, the pliers kept nearby used to change channels when the knob broke from too fast turning 😂
matt
The consequences I deal with on a daily basis: taco trucks, landscaping crews.
John S.
@Kay:
Ain’t it the truth?
My wife and I are constantly looking up trees, plants, birds, flowers, etc. because everything here on the west coast is so different and unfamiliar.
Of course that also adds to the wonder and natural beauty of everything we see, so it’s a nice bonus. Especially after 40 years living east of the Mississippi River.
Kay
@John S.:
My husband isn’t a plant person but we’ve been married a long time so he knows some trees. He always remembers sycamores. “There’s a sycamore!” – ok, 7 year old boy :)
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
Speaking of Rick Scott, did you see his dreadful ad during the Florida-Florida State game? (I’m sure you did—see the game, I mean, and condolences, by the way.) It was a quick recitation of every right-wing myth about what’s wrong in America, with the solution to “cowboy up and fight like hell to turn this country around.”
. . . Just checked and saw that the ad has been out for a month. Here it is in all its glory (on Nitter, not Twitter). Rage-inducing! And what a complete maroon he is.
trollhattan
Border security? Ask a Finn about border security.
trollhattan
@Steeplejack:
Rick Scott’s main jerb is making Marco Rubio seem like a good idea.
OzarkHillbilly
@matt: The consequences I deal with daily (or at least weekly): Armadillos, skunks, and armed to the teeth RWNJs.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
“We done took the shooted guy outside and shot him ourselves, just to make sure he was really shot. Respekt mah autoratah!”
Another Scott
@trollhattan:
Obligatory Captcha from USEmbassy-Prague
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: That’s great.
Steeplejack
@trollhattan:
I was choking with rage after seeing that ad! It was so unexpected in the middle of a football game, it’s not an election year (for Scott), and then the content was awful, even by current GQP standards. And delivered by a sanctimonious prick in a weird shirt/sweater combo that looked like an effete ascot. He wouldn’t know “the American value of hard work” if it bit him in the ass. And I’d love to read his detailed 5,000-word position paper on how exactly to implement his “cowboy up” initiative. Grr!
Jackie
The third batch of hostages has been released. Seventeen with no word of any Americans.
John S.
@Kay:
My wife is the same way about birds. She gets really excited every time we see Steller Jays or Flickers. We just didn’t have anything like that in FL.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: The monologue was my least favorite part of the movie. It was too long and I agree that it was too “mom” centric. And I’m a mom.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: Well, the media must be doing SOME kind of job on people because my Thanksgiving was made briefly but spectacularly hideous by a neighbor ranting about OPEN BORDERS and 10,000 ILLEGALS A DAY CROSSING THEM and how they are getting all the tender mercies of the munificent US social safety net such as free medical care which is somehow being denied to native-borns.
She’s getting this shit from *somewhere*, and where if not media, social or otherwise?
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack: We’ve been seeing the Navy Hat Nosferatu ad for weeks, and yes, it’s definitely a rage-inducing recitation of every dumb wingnut talking point, ever. It’s especially ironic that Naples’ own Voldemort invokes Reagan, who would be drummed out of today’s GOP for being a pro-amnesty squish. It also made me recall how Scott temporarily adopted a rescue dog as a campaign prop, named it Reagan and then gave it back after he won the election in 2010.
Villago Delenda Est
The GQp cannot hide their open embrace of fascism anymore.
mrmoshpotato
Adding this to library.
Jackie
@Steeplejack: Scott’s up for re-election next year, so it must have been his unofficial launch. Hopefully his garbage turned off a lot of Floridians – including Independents/Non-affiliated.
Betty Cracker
@Jackie: The 4-year-old American was released, according to USA Today.
Kathleen
@Baud: In the snow?
Jackie
@Betty Cracker: Oh that’s WONDERFUL news! Thanks! Nothing yet from CNN or the alphabet news sources.
Villago Delenda Est
@artem1s: The GQp wishes it could dispose of those unpleasant living reminders of the human costs of war as easily as Stalin did. Or Trump would do.
Villago Delenda Est
@Steeplejack: Rick Scott, if he was not already typecast as Lex Luthor, Voldemort, or BatBoy, would make for a fine Thanos.
Kay
@Miss Bianca:
Looking at Pew, 1995 was also banner anti immigrant year.
I thought this was interesting. From 2020 so maybe slightly different now with the influx from Central America, but if you asked most Americans “where do most immigrants come from?” I bet they would say Mexico rather than Asia. Of course not an apples to apples because “Asia” is not a country (much, much larger and of course “Asian” as a category is huge) but still:
My constant complaint about media is a lack of context and that holds true with immigration too. Immigration is slightly less popular with the public than it was in 2020 but more popular than it was in 1995. But that’s too boring to report.
Fewer Mexican immigrants (true) would actualy be an interesting story because it’s partly due to US immigration policy but it’s partly due to Mexicans choosing not to come (better conditions in their home areas) or returning to Mexico voluntarily.
trollhattan
@Kay: If* we have a decent to wet winter, the various waterfalls will be chugging at or near capacity in April and the Merced River will run high. Also,because the high country will still be snowed in the critter count in the valley will be high–deer especially and the occasional Yosemite bear, who wants your pic-a-nik basket now, please.
*What about that El Nino feller I keep hearing about? One never knows–might be extremely wet, could be grievously dry, depending.
Betty Cracker
@Jackie: Poor baby — both her parents were murdered in the attack. I hope she and her brothers can find some peace after that awful trauma. I was also so glad to read that Emily Hand, the 9-year-old with dual Irish and Israeli citizenship was released yesterday. I felt so awful for her dad.
Kay
@Miss Bianca:
If you came up in the 1970s there are more immigrants in the US but we haven’t yet reached the 1890’s peak :)
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: You know, these people are stupid. Because they’re going to get a reputation that will be very hard to shake.
Nukular Biskits
@Kay:
Of course this sounds a bit cliche’, but plan, plan, plan.
We wanted to get away from the madding crowds so we planned accordingly. What we did NOT take into account is the elebenty bazillion other people who were going to the park that same day (traffic was horrible).
Also, some of the roads and/or trails may be closed due to snow/ice, depending on when you go. We were there in mid-April and they had just opened the road for Glacier Point (which was our light hike before we left).
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay: I love that New York, a city that was the center of 19th Century immigration into this country (ZOMG the Irish and the Italians, oh my!) has a xenophobe asshole as mayor now with no damn sense of history and also should know better than to give a pass to native born criminals.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: Thanks for that info – it was truly shocking to me to hear all that coming from this particular party (whom I love, btw, but day-um – does she have some deep-seated irrational fears about mythical dusky hordes, whether they are coming from Denver or Mexico, coming to fuck up her life! It’s hard to take sometimes. Never mind that we are surrounded by good old boy gun-totin’ yahoos who are FAR more likely to be the ones fucking up her life – or mine. But that’s a little too close to home for her to acknowledge, methinks.)
Villago Delenda Est
@Nukular Biskits: Nobody goes to Point Reyes anymore; it’s too crowded!
Kay
@trollhattan:
I’m afraid of bears so there won’t be any offering them food or anything stupid. I saw a huge one in Pennsylvania once. I spotted him far enough off that I was abe to quietly skedaddle. I won’t mind cold weather hiking at all, but wet snow gets to be a drag. “Cold’ is much better than “cold and wet”.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Miss Bianca:
Thought bubble: Oh how I wish I could have any of them instead of you for a neighbor…
Jackie
@Betty Cracker: That poor father. First being told Emily was dead… I saw their reunion yesterday and it brought tears to my eyes. As did the reunions of the other youngsters with their fathers.
eclare
@Kay:
Oh I’ve been there too! Gorgeous scenery and a wonderful lighthouse. And I don’t usually like oysters, but the ones we had there (bbq’d) were delicious.
UncleEbeneezer
@Steeplejack: That monologue hit me in my soul because my wife and almost everyone in the theater burst into applause finally hearing a movie make such a statement about the sexist double-standards and impossible, contradictory expectations that society expects of every girl/woman. I can’t think of any scene or monologue that was so brutally honest, in a mainstream movie. I’ve heard these sentiments from so many women over the years, privately and/or in feminist safe spaces. It was ground-breaking, imo, to put them on full blast in a Billion Dollar Mega-hit that also managed to be so much fun and have so much diversity and even a message about how Patriarchy also screws men over too. We watch a lot of movies and tv shows that criticize Patriarchy and many of these points are made here and there but rarely if ever tied together so well in such a walloping gut-punch that even men could feel it.
Kay
@eclare:
Yum. One nice thing about Corpus Christi was the food – really good Mexican and BBQ. At a BBQ place we sat next to two men who were loudly discussing how the banks would soon fail under Biden- one was the lecturing expert and the other was the nodding (poor) person who is his friend. My husband is a normie and it even got his attention – “are they trashing Janet Yellen?” Yes, they were. I felt right at home.
Miss Bianca
@UncleEbeneezer: Yes, I thought Barbie was a creamy and delicious blend of fun and funny and wicked satirical karate chop at The Patriarchy – and I loved, loved, LOVED how over-the-top triggered a bunch of white manbaby snowflakes got over it!
Soprano2
@jonas: You don’t know what goes on between people when no one else is around, though.
Geminid
@Jackie: The BBC had a story about the fiance of one of the Thai farmorkers released yesterday. She had been told that he was one of the 32 Thai citizens murdered on October 7. Then she saw video of him in a carload of Thai captives crossing the Gaza border.
Soprano2
@frosty: I don’t like that I can’t just turn on the TV and watch it. I have to navigate to the app and sign in, then go to live and pick the channel. I still haven’t figured out how to watch the live channel that’s playing without navigating to it on the grid and picking it. I’m glad hubby doesn’t want to watch TV when I’m not here, because he could never figure this out on his own.
Sister Golden Bear
@Kay: As has been said, the vast majority of visitors never leave the Yosemite valley floor, so if you tire of the maddening crowds, I’d recommend a drive up to the high country, e.g. Tuolumne Meadows and Tioga Pass.
If you have time, it’s worth going over the pass to see the unworldly Mono Lake, as well as Mammoth, which is about a half-hour south of where the Tioga Pass road meeting Highway 395. The Eastern Sierras are different than the western side, and there’s a number nice, relatively short, hikes in the area. Bill in Glendale has posted a number of photos from there. If you decide to do so, I can give you plenty of recommendations.
Kay
Thanks! You’ve given me names as starting points – I’ll look into each. We should have plenty of time to do in-valley touristy stuff and get out of the valley for a day or day and a half.
Soprano2
@Kay: Those are all things that they feel threaten their spot at the top of the social pyramid. I think they especially hate Me Too, because it tells them they can’t sexually harass women anymore, and they think that’s highly unfair. I often say that the U.S. elected a black man as president and it broke some people’s brains; I haven’t changed that assessment any. ETA I saw that a friend posted a highly offensive, racist meme of our current WH press secretary on FB the other day, and almost said something about it, then thought “what’s the point, he’ll just say I can’t take a joke” so I said nothing. Before TFG I think a lot of these people would have hesitated to do something like that, but not anymore.
Sister Golden Bear
@zhena gogolia: FWIW, I don’t have children myself, and I didn’t mind the monologue failed to mention women without children, since the context was rooted in the character’s life experience.
As far as its treatment of men, I took it as 1) a pointed reversal of the way women are stereotyped, and a mocking of toxic masculinity — along the lines that it made some pointed jokes about Mattel; and 2) using it as a way to show the way women are discriminated against, especially in a way that men could put themselves into the Kens’ shoes.
Your mileage obviously varied.
wjca
@Kay:
Nominated!
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay: And some of these clowns are veterans. Who strike me as not being much help in a firefight.
RevRick
@Kay: In the first two decades of the 20th century, 15 million people emigrated to America. In that time period the total population grew from 76 million to 106 million. The immigration laws of the mid 1920s was designed to halt immigration from the sh1thole nations of Eastern and Southern Europe, peoples alleged to be of inferior intelligence and morals and deemed unassimilatable.
evodevo
@Barbara:
I’m thinking stroke, heart attack or suicide (lost the mortgage at the casino?) ; no one will know now, with the principles gone…
Sister Golden Bear
@Kay: Another factor to consider in your visit is the sun, which affects when the best time to see certain things are. E.g. if you go to Glacier Point (fantastic views) in the morning, Half Dome is to the NE and you’ll be looking into the sun. So better to visit in the afternoon, same with the Tunnel View vista point (also fantastic views) which on the way to Glacier Point.
The Olmstead Point vista point, on the way to Tioga Pass, will give you better views early/mid morning, when the sun is behind you in the east, although it also has amazing sunset views.
wjca
Well, he’s right about the free medical care. Happily (for him), there’s an easy fix: DON’T lock them up when the arrive. Because that’s where they get the free medical care. Just parole them and turn them loose, like we used to do. Presto! No more free medical care.
Somehow, I’m guessing he won’t embrace this solution….
Marc
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Our house is on the downhill side of a relatively steep street. It’s just steep enough to cause some drivers to get confused about the brake and accelerator when they try to park or pull out of the space. Then we’ll hear their engine racing and the tires screeching, and once in a while a bang when they hit the car in front or behind, or our stone wall. Several times I’ve gone outside, asked if they need help, and move their car myself. Had there been no stone wall, three cars would have hit the side of our house. Luckily they’ve never managed to hit our gas meter which is just beyond the end of the wall.
I can imagine this is what would happen if one got the accelerator and brake momentarily mixed up in a 600+ HP car like that Bentley.
Brachiator
It was a different world. There were, for example, only 42 states in 1890. A few other tidbits about the early 1890s.
I couldn’t find a good figure for 1890, but for 1880, we can get an idea of the urban vs rural division in America.
In both eras, immigrants struggled to make a good life.
Sister Golden Bear
@Kay: Doh! I forgot you’ll be visiting in April, which means the Tioga Pass will probably certainly be closed because of snow — some years it doesn’t open until June. Not sure how much of the high country will be open either. It can get dozens of feet of snow during the winter up there.
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
I still have not seen either Barbie or Oppenheimer. But both are on my watch list.
evodevo
@Torrey: bunch of lazy whippersnappers…you need to have lived in hill country in KY in the Fifties/Sixties before cable…your antenna was 300 feet up a wooded hillside attached to a tree, with that infamous “ladder wire” running down the hill to the house. Even the tiniest twig or leaf shorted it out, and it was MY job, as the agile 10 yr old, to climb the hill and clear the line when it went out (which was every other day, it seemed like). Even then, the reception was iffy, and we had 3 channels – wasn’t even PBS before the mid-Sixties in our town…
Baud
@Brachiator:
I’ve heard the same thing said about Oppenheimer.
Brachiator
@Baud:
Yes, I am really anticipating the creamy and delicious parts of Oppenheimer.
I hear it’s a blast.
Miss Bianca
@wjca: ’twas a she, actually…but otherwise, point taken.
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator:
@Baud: Oh, groan. You two!
NotMax
@evodevo
Technicality, but PBS began programming in 1970. Prior to that such channels operated under the NET (National Educational Television) umbrella
Ruckus
@TeezySkeezy:
How could he do that?
Isn’t that the complete concept of rethuglican politics?
eclare
Regarding the post title, I can’t hear the phrase “Gird your loins” without thinking of Stanley Tucci in The Devil Wears Prada. I love that movie, and Stanley said he improvised that line.
https://youtu.be/2PjZAeiU7uM?si=JynevWaxiwXpY9O-
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@NotMax: Ah, UHF stations, as immortalized in the Weird Al film “UHF”
Ruckus
@Ken:
I believe that PEBKAC is more often the cause than any other….
Subsole
@Miss Bianca:
A lot of wingnut shit gets circulated in church. Especially if it’s one of those little Charismatic splinter churches.
We had a pastor go off on a political rant at my grandfather’s funeral, for example.
Folks who don’t go to the wrong church don’t get how deep and fetid a reservoir of hate these places have become.
Lapassionara
@evodevo: There should be capable people investigating all aspects of this accident, given its notoriety. Accident reconstruction engineers will help figure out the car’s contribution and human factors experts will work on the human angle. Unless someone with an ax to grind gets involved, I think we will find out what happened, to some degree of certainty.
teezyskeezy
@Ruckus: Arguably what the Project 2025 scum is planning is going to be even more extreme and destructive than what mainstream Republicans have endorsed pre-Trump.
Uncle Cosmo
Time for a true story from over 40 years ago:
Early one summer evening, as I was reading in bed in my first apartment in SW Baltimore, there came from down the hall to the living room a vroom vroom CRAAASH!
I looked up and there was a beam of bright light across the living room end of the hall. I pulled on jeans and went out to investigate…
(NB My apartment was on the ground floor of the apartment development, with a small wrought-iron-&-plastic-panel patio accessed through the sliding doors of the living room. The buildings circled a rise of land which had been leveled off to accommodate the parking lot, which sat about 4′ higher than the level of my patio.)
…and discovered the light came from a pair of automobile headlights about 6″ on the far side of those glass doors, and the CRAAASH! was the sound of that auto flattening the patio fence on its way there.
A tall young man knocked on the window and asked to borrow my phone. He spoke intermittently for about a minute & then handed it to me: He wants to talk to you.
“He” was the young man’s father, who assured me that he would come by shortly to remove the car from my patio and would set things right with the complex management.
As we waited I asked the young fellow what had happened. He was parked in the lot, showing off his new car (a used Chevy Monza IIRC) to his girlfriend, and the foot he meant to put on the brake slipped off and hit the gas pedal.* The car vroomed, jumped the curb & sped down the slope directly at my sliding doors ~25 feet away. By the time he stomped the brake it had crashed through (and flattened) the wrought iron railing.
A few minutes later his father arrived with five other fellows – 6 of the largest men I’ve ever seen, before or since** – and they proceeded to pick the car up and carry it (not push it, carry it) back up the slope and set it down on the asphalt lot. And Dad was as good as his word; a few days later the railing was repaired and the folks in the management office told me it had been taken care of.
– – – – –
So I wonder if in a fit of anger or aggravation the driver at the border crossing might just have stomped on the wrong pedal and slammed into the proverbial immovable object before he could correct his fatal error. Stranger things have happened, not many and not often, but still..
* Or he might’ve thought that was the brake pedal, who can say?
** If they’d told me they were the starting offensive line for the Colts (NB still the Baltimore Colts, damn it to hell) I would’ve believed them. Yeah, that large.
evodevo
@NotMax:
Our version, KET, wasn’t founded till 1968
Martin
So, our thanksgiving travel plans terminated with my daughter and I transporting a covid-positive Ms Martin across the state. I think the odds of my daughter and I having ducked Covid end right here, but we shall see. We took what precautions are possible sharing a space with a Covid+ person in a Prius for 8 hours, which all felt wholly inadequate.
JoyceH
@Subsole:
Just the other day it occurred to me that I loathe 21st century Christianity. And my dad was a minister!
Subsole
@Martin:
Ugh. Sorry to hear it. Hope she and you are safe and come through it well.
NotMax
@evodevo
Wasn’t doubting when your station began transmission, just noting that if it was during the 1960s it wouldn’t have been PBS.
Miss Bianca
@Subsole: I’m not sure she’s a regular church-goer, although there are plenty of wingnut churches in our area…she wouldn’t tell me where she was getting this stuff from when I asked, just that she gets her news “from a variety of sources”…
Sigh. I didn’t single out Fox News, just said she might want to consider taking a media break for a while..
ETA: And then she asked me if I thought she was being brainwashed, and I said, “Yeah, I do.” Also that while we all were susceptible to getting caught in info bubbles, me included, that some info bubbles prepared people for real emergencies, and some for manufactured ones. Or something. I think I may have mentioned that there was wine involved…
Villago Delenda Est
@Uncle Cosmo: No, the driver was DEFINITELY a Hamas terrorist trying to cross into Canada and wreak havoc at Horseshoe Falls by detonating a small nuclear device procured from Ukrainian stockpiles. I have it on the authority of Rafael Cruz and everyone at Faux Noise.
NotMax
@Miss Bianca
Ah, the Sarah Palin gambit.
//
Miss Bianca
@Villago Delenda Est: Oh, so the Hamas terrorists are coming from the Canadian border, not the Mexican border? Well, thank God we got *that* straightened out – I was getting hella confused!
Nukular Biskits
@Subsole:
Which is one of the many reasons I stopped attending years ago.
And it’s long been a pet peeve of mine when pastors take advantage of the captive audience at a funeral to proselytize and badger them into “coming to Jesus”.
Villago Delenda Est
@NotMax: I just startled a kitten when I read your post.
NotMax
@Villago Delenda Est
So the theory he was possessed by the ghost of Hugo Chavez has been discredited?
;)
Uncle Cosmo
During my first European trip in 1980 I encountered older men in public places missing arms or legs. Not in great numbers, but enough to be noticeable >35 years after the fact. And I played zwanzig Fragen auf deutsch in a Viennese wine cellar with a sixtyish native sitting across from me who could only reply with gestures. I managed to piece out that a bullet in the neck on the Eastern Front had destroyed his vocal chords.
Subsole
@JoyceH: It has been some time since I stepped foot in a church. That looks unlikely to change. Mostly because the Churches seem utterly unwilling to defend themselves from the problem.
A continuing refrain with me when it comes to the pillars of conservatism: they didn’t have to win. They just had to try. They just needed to fight.
Looking back, the Great 9/11 Mass Mental Fracture was bitterly ironic; they are exactly what they mocked the French for being.
What denomination did he preach for? When did you come to your current feelings on Christianity?
Ruckus
@Barbara:
When I was an early teen I worked on making Barbie doll molds, a mold being the tool that makes a plastic part. I machined the cavities for Barbie’s torso. These were not the original molds but were far higher production rate ones to replace the originals. I’ve met Elliot and Ruth Handler, one of the founders and his wife who were in my dad’s shop to discuss projects. We made a number of molds for Mattel over the years for different toys.
Jackie
This is pointless: TIFG will only claim faster counting means more rigged votes didn’t get found or got counted multiple times 🙄
Uncle Cosmo
Hey folks, somehow in #174 above my nym got edited to “A” – can one of the FPers restore it to Uncle Cosmo-ness for me & fish it out of the moderation waiting room? Thanky kindly.
zhena gogolia
@Subsole: So if all the people who think like us stop going to church, who is supposed to do the fighting?
Uncle Cosmo
Hey folks, somehow in #174 above my nym got edited to “A” – can one of the FPers restore it to Uncle Cosmo-ness for me & fish it out of the moderation waiting room? (And delete the now-superfluous #177 which suffered the same fate?) Thanky kindly.
Subsole
@Miss Bianca:
Yeah. That was a much better response than I would manage.
Another big normie-to-fash recruitment pipeline is the crunchy-granola New Age movement.
They spout a LOT of conspiracy woo to discredit modern medicine and make their own product look aesthetically superior. It feeds from there into The Great American Rat King of Microwaved Mental Puke, as personified by Roey Jogan and Austin’s own Alex the Mouth. If they can sell you some brainworm conspiracy theory about Big Pharma, then why not Wuhan Biolabs, or Election Denial? All the conspiracy theories tie together, and reinforce each other. Almost by design. And all with the purpose of eroding Americans’ belief in the concept of fact-based reality.
Very, very hard to gaze into that hellmouth for long and not despair.
evodevo
@NotMax: Yeah…sounds familiar…the wingnut I torment on FB claims he doesn’t watch Fox, but gets his info from “a variety of sources” too. LOL…I bet that includes his preacher, NewsMax, ONAN, and who knows what other unhinged online sites…
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s only unfair because they have zero idea what to do (or they always do the wrong thing in any response) so they pout and cry like little babies. What is unfair is that they have aged into adulthood but are totally unprepared to actually BE adults.
Martin
@Jackie: It’s not pointless. But the dynamics are not obvious.
Faster counting reduces the opportunities for bad actors to intervene, because they won’t know *where* to intervene. Florida 2000 was the perfect example of this. If the election had been counted quickly and states not called until all the counts were in, the GOP wouldn’t have known where to focus their energy. But because of the slow count, they could move their people to Florida and specifically to two counties. Remember, the Florida ballots *never* got recounted because GOP lawyers threw so many objections to everything that they couldn’t complete it. Basically, USSC intervened and said ‘yeah, we’re going to call it without a complete recount’.
Speed is important to removing opportunities for bad actors. Once the count is set, it gets MUCH harder to fuck up the process. How much time did Republicans have to organize between Nov 3 and Jan 6?
Trump is going to say every process is rigged. You can’t make what people claim your measure. What matters is what opportunities are created from a slower process – and we’ve seen many examples of how slower processes allow courts and individuals to organize and intervene. Humans get better at a lot of things, but our ability to make decisions faster isn’t one of them. Take away time, and you get rid of a lot of problems.
Frankensteinbeck
@JoyceH:
Shhhh! Do not summon It!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Frankensteinbeck: Betlegeuse, Betlegeuse, Betlegeuse
Subsole
@zhena gogolia: Pastors, for a start. The actual clergy. The vast and well-compensated administrative apparatus that keeps demanding I cough 10% of my take home into that pretty little gold-plated, velvet-bottomed bowl they shove under my nose twice a week (more if there’s a holiday).
I mean good Lord what is that money for if not to stand up to this??
There is no verse in the Bible that says they need to invite some crank to hawk their latest trans-bashing book as a guest speaker.
There is no verse telling them to endorse a party that is built on cruelty to immigrants and callousness toward the poor. Quite the opposite, actually.
The Assorted Churches could also perhaps spend a little less time screeching about gays and transes and slutty abortion-sluts, and a little more time responding to the revelation it has been running a series of pederasty-mills.
And I mean actually responding, punitively. Not just popping smoke and shuffling the rapist to a new diocese or different parish. Or blaming the victim for being a temptation.
Past a certain point, the institution needs to defend itself.
Just like the cops. You can’t cry about a couple bad apples making you look bad if you consistently bend over for the bad apples.
Chetan Murthy
@Frankensteinbeck: Aaaahhhahahahaahah, it’s like everybody knows! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetle<mmmmph>!
Frankensteinbeck
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
I think that summons M_C.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Frankensteinbeck: Master Chief?
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: What I recalled–and those numbers agree–is that the US public went super hard xenophobic on 9/11 and has basically spent the subsequent decades slowly recovering from that. And I think part of what went on with Trumpism is that some people were nostalgic for the post-9/11 period when everyone agreed with them about hating on immigrants.
Frankensteinbeck
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Matoko-chan. Or possibly Makoto-chan. I was never sure. That Which Says Cudlip.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Frankensteinbeck: I am completely unfamiliar with this Makoto chan. I shall endeavor to educate myself.
Frankensteinbeck
@Matt McIrvin:
It was also the first time in a long while that conservatives could be completely open with their racism. They could call Islam inherently evil and not a religion, say mosques in America were terrorist training centers, say shit about Shariah Law taking over, and do it on national television and be treated like that’s legitimate discourse.
They have been lusting for more of that, and it’s definitely one of the factors in why they picked Trump.
EDIT – @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
A strange and persistent commenter back in the Obama days who had a similar wacked-out anti-Christian obsession that eventually got genocidal enough to be banned. Habits included calling people ‘cudlip’, declaring that Islam is immune to proselytization, and worshipping how Assange would change how governments worked forever because no information could be secret.
Subsole
@Frankensteinbeck:
Escher?
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
Ground Zero Mosque!
Geminid
@Subsole: I don’t go to church, but a couple of women who do have a good news site exposing corruption, abuse and grifting within evangelical churches. It’s named Wartburg Watch (wartburgwatch.com), after the castle where a German prince stashed Martin Luther for a couple years. They see Patriarchy as an underlying problem in abuses within the evangelical movement.
These woman are themselves devout believers, and they really have the grifters’ number. There are some good discussions in the comment sections that follow the articles.
Chris Johnson
@Marc: I think this is what happened in Subaru acceleration incidents. People try to hit the brake, get the accelerator, and stand on it in the belief that they’re on the brake, and then won’t let off. It’s a shame you can’t tell them ‘the OTHER brake’.
Not impossible that this is what happened with the Bentley. Hit ‘the brake’, RAAARRRR, and then the hapless panicking person dares not stop flooring ‘the brake’ because it’s panic and instinct and their body thinks they have to press the brake even harder and then maybe it’ll help.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Frankensteinbeck: Hmm, I was here in the Obama days but dont’t remember that commenter. My favorite troll to hate on back then was all about hating on immigrants and had a nym that was a man’s and a woman’s name together. Maybe “Frank and Helen.”
Realworldrj
Successfully calling 13 of the last zero recessions. This must be a hall of fame headline by now
Bloomberg Economics
Forecast for US Recession Within Year Hits 100% in Blow to Biden
Josh Wingrove
October 17, 2022 at 10:02 AM EDT
A US recession is effectively certain in the next 12 months in new Bloomberg Economics model projections, a blow to President Joe Biden’s economic messaging ahead of the November midterms.
Frankensteinbeck
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Yes, I remember you. You’ve been through a few nyms similar to each other. I don’t know how you could have been here without remembering the trash fire that was M_C, but you know, life is like that. Things you think people couldn’t possibly not know, they don’t know.
WaterGirl
@Uncle Cosmo: done!
Martin
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: My good buddy Master Chief.
Baud
@Realworldrj:
Media to economy: Why… won’t…you…die?!!!
Frankensteinbeck
@Martin:
I think you were looking for Doom Horizons.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Frankensteinbeck: Perhaps, in those days, I was more tolerant of anti-religious bigotry. I hope not, though. Maybe I was lucky and this individual passed me by.
JoyceH
@Subsole: Dad was a Methodist minister. So was his brother and his uncle and Methodist ministers going back generations. Dad’s dad was a farmer because “somebody’s got to feed all these ministers!”
And Dad would never tell anyone who he voted for. Because the church is for everyone. If someone asked him how he voted, he would say “by Australian ballot”, the old-fashioned term for the secret ballot.
Ruckus
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Wait another 8-10 yrs and ask yourself “OK what now?”
There are people that are old at 50 and people that are not, in their 80s. Most of us start to see that in our early 70s. There is a woman in the complex that is 97. Five years ago you would never guess that she was in her 90s. Now you’d think she has to be over 100. We all age/deteriorate at different speeds and starting at different ages. But we all do, unless we go out in an immediate way. I live in a large seniors apt complex – have to be over 55 to rent. I see people decline and deteriorate here all the time. We all do this differently and at different rates. I’ve watched my grand parents (3 of them anyway), watched my parents and friends parents and while we go at different times and rates it is much more similar than different, other than how long before we start down that last road. Some make it into 3 digits, I had a cousin who never made a year. And his mom who didn’t make it into her mid 40s. Medicine has come a very long way in my lifetime and many things now can be lived with or fixed that couldn’t in my lifetime. Education has gone the other way, it should be a lot cheaper but that would allow more people to actually get out of the lower income levels, giving us a more equitable economy and lessoning the effect of the uber rich to control as much so they can hold it over everyone else. We can and should do better. Those uber shits would still be wealthy but maybe not AS wealthy and many more would be able to live better lives.
Dan B
@artem1s: Bentley has been sued for uncontrolled acceleration problems.
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck: Those numbers Kay linked to are interesting though–what I hadn’t remembered is that anti-immigrant sentiment was even worse back in the early 1990s. And it had seemingly been getting worse for decades up to that point, though there weren’t many data points that far back so it’s hard to know the detailed evolution. Basically nobody ever said “there should be more immigration” until pretty recently.
StringOnAStick
@Miss Bianca: Completely agree. I loved it when the crowd we were in applauded the monologue. Every guy in our group completely got it, though I had to explain the joke about Barbie being thrilled for her first appointment to see a gynacologist.
Gvg
@Martin: active duty veterans ballots from overseas get counted if they are postmarked by the Election Day and come straggling in. Those will always delay final counts and it’s politically unpopular to change that. Granted it should only matter to smaller margin races in areas with a lot of registered active duty perhaps around bases but still, you cannot quite eliminate late ballots.
Martin
@Gvg: yeah, you can’t end all of it, but you can close up as much of it as you can.
Ruckus
@frosty:
I cut cable and over air TV a long time ago, about 1995. I watch on line programing, Netflix mainly. I see the news online if I want, I email if necessary, my immediate family is all gone, have one cousin within 300 miles, the next closest is about 1500 miles, some are over 3,000. I don’t miss the commercials and the bullshit one iota. I really do not like being mis informed, have my emotions be attempted to coerced in a direction by bullshit on commercial TV and I really, really, really do not like 1/2 hr of commercials for every hr of broadcast anything. When I moved where I now live I bought one of those flat, wall mounted antennas because I’m line of sight of Mt. Wilson, which is where all the LA commercial TV stations broadcast from. Had it 2 days, took it down and threw it away. It worked, which was the problem, as I found out I had far less interest in broadcast TV than when I watched it the last time before that, almost 30+ yrs ago.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: I LOVED the way the film made the point that it’s not just girls/women who are harmed by restrictive boxes of rigid gender norms. I can’t think of any Hollywood mega-hit movie that has ever really dared to go there and done so, so effectively. And repurposing Tyler Durden’s famous speech from Fight Club was just, an absolute chef’s kiss…