I think one of the funniest political tv shows ever was, of course, Veep, and I love the line when she says “with our corn tweet we were hoist by our own retard.” It’s so fucking wrong and inappropriate yet you know EXACTLY what she means. At any rate, I am loving this shit:
As Republicans rush to understand what the procedure entails and the ripple effects from the Alabama ruling, conservative leaders warn that a failure to quickly reach a consensus will open up candidates to more attacks from Democrats, who are eager to recycle playbooks from recent electoral successes and paint Republicans as extreme and out of touch with most Americans.
“My best advice for Republicans, if they don’t want to deal with Democrats doing unfair attacks, is to come up with a reasonable policy,” said Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, a right-leaning think tank. “They should come up with what they actually believe and support and stand for, and it should be popular and in line with where the American people want to go.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee on Friday released talking points instructing Republicans to voice support for the procedure, a process millions of people who might oppose abortion support and that some, like former Vice President Mike Pence, have used. But they’ve eschewed the thornier details amid private disagreements among those in the anti-abortion movement about whether viable but unimplanted embryos count as life — and, by extension, whether destroying them is tantamount to abortion.
Don’t get me wrong, this is an awful decision and terrible for everyone. But this shitshow will at least be entertaining to watch until the media bail them out. But right now, the entire Republican party right now is “In Vitro? In Vitro who? Never heard of her. Are you talking to me on a cellular phone?”
Gotta love it.
In other news, the Air Canada Chatbot lawsuit thing is quite a hoot. For those who have not heard or read about it, apparently a guy’s mother died, so he was trying to buy tickets from Air Canada to go home. He didn’t have time to wait for an approval from them, so he went to their website, used the chatbox, and asked if in their bereavement policy it was allowed to buy the tickets ahead of time and request a refund later. Unbeknownst to the man, he was not actually talking to an employee at Air Canada, but an AI chatbot. And that AI chatbot had just created that policy out of the ether. Which just goes to show you that artificial intelligence has more common sense and empathy than the MA’s and corporate lawyers at a major corporation.
At any rate, the obvious happened. The guy said “Ok that seems reasonable” and went and purchased his tickets. Later on, he tried to get reimbursed, and living Air Canada employees told him to go get fucked that that was not their policy. So he sued, and the Air Canada lawyers actually argued in court that technically the AI chatbot on their website is not an Air Canada employee so technically we are not liable and don’t owe him a refund.
At which point, everyone on the tribunal said “get the fuck out of here with that bullshit” and found them liable:
The British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal rejected that argument, ruling that Air Canada had to pay Moffatt $812.02 (£642.64) in damages and tribunal fees. “It should be obvious to Air Canada that it is responsible for all the information on its website,” read tribunal member Christopher Rivers’ written response. “It makes no difference whether the information comes from a static page or a chatbot.” The BBC reached out to Air Canada for additional comment and will update this article if and when we receive a response.
Gabor Lukacs, president of the Air Passenger Rights consumer advocacy group based in Nova Scotia, told BBC Travel that the case is being considered a landmark one that potentially sets a precedent for airline and travel companies that are increasingly relying on AI and chatbots for customer interactions: Yes, companies are liable for what their tech says and does.
That last line ought to scare the fuck out of Elon Musk.
I feel like a broken record, but it was another beautiful day here. Broke up the workday with some nice long walks, just sucking in all the sun I can. No big plans, prolly gonna watch some tv and get ready for catfest.
OH! Mom is not taking the tie-dye overalls well. I posted a picture of me in them in the family text chat and her initial response was “I don’t understand.” Later on she asked “Are you really wearing them?” I think she may disown me or just pretend I don’t exist like Gary’s mom in Weird Science.
Wait till she sees the tattoo.
War for Ukraine Day 730: The Ukrainians Continue to Fight as a Grim Milestone Fast Approaches
Poe Larity
I’m having a senior solipsist moment. Yesterday, Paul Giamatti did a Criterion Collection Closet Picks video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANxxsFUojco
His first pick is an obscure horror movie, Carnival of Souls, which he saw at 4 with his baby-sitter. Never seen it.
Tonight, the local old movies broadcast channel is showing it.
Josie
Talk about burying the lede. Do we get to see the tattoo?
Baud
That’s precious.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: then they would be democrats!
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
The worst thing that ever happened to Former Guy was winning the presidency. I’m thinking now that the worst thing that ever happened to the Republican Party was getting their wish at long last and overruling Roe v. Wade.
SpaceUnit
Love ya man, but if I saw you coming toward me on the sidewalk wearing those overalls and riding a tricycle I would immediately cross the street.
dmsilev
The problem, to put it mildly, is that the positions that they actually believe and support and stand for are exactly the positions which are not popular and not in line with where the American people want to go.
karen marie
I’m sorry, how are the attacks “unfair” if the policies – by their own admission – are not reasonable?
These motherfuckers are trying to make me stroke out.
Devore
https://opendoor.asu.edu/
in addition to cat fest, ASU has their annual open door tomorrow afternoon
Hoppie
Please, PLEASE don’t keep telling folks how nice it is down in the Pacific/Southwest. WE ARE FULL UP. Go the F away people, thank you and very much.
zhena gogolia
@karen marie: inorite
Poe Larity
I put “Amish-Holi Halloween outfit” into chatgpt and you came out.
Suzanne
@dmsilev:
Republicans have never been able to grasp that they aren’t popular.
dmsilev
Also, in the incredibly unlikely event that anyone here needs more reasons to hate Republicans and everything that they represent, this story in the Post will tip the balance:
An ectopic pregnancy put her life at risk. A Texas hospital refused to treat her.
It’ll take a while to read the whole thing, both because it’s long and because you’ll probably have to pause now and then to punch a hole in the nearest wall, but please do so. Everyone predicted that this was going to be one of the side effects of SCOTUS killing Roe, and sure enough it is happening.
dmsilev
@Suzanne: Some of them do grasp that and simply don’t care.
Suzanne
They’re all beautiful days in February. But you’re leaving before it gets hot, aka, taking the coward’s way out.
Joelle
@Poe Larity: I was just watching it and oblivious to my engagement in the broadcast Cole came storming in and started logging on to Peacock. And then preceded to have a meltdown bellowing at the AI bot. Then got transferred to a very sweet but very clueless live person with a completely indecipherable accent. This was far more entertaining than Carnival of Souls so I’m settling in with a cocktail to watch the show.
Old School
So you do plan on wearing the overalls in public?
NotMax
Not ready for prime time.
“Over conservative” the new term for FUBAR?
HumboldtBlue
Trump: These lights are so bright in my eyes I can’t see people… I can only see the Black ones. I can’t see any white ones. That’s how far I’ve come. That’s a long way isn’t it?
This motherfucker has been reduced to a mumbling, bumbling bag of gas. He increasingly displays increasing levels of severe mental diminution, and you don’t hear a word from the media about it.
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
As long as he didn’t look at his notes, it’s all good.
zhena gogolia
@Poe Larity: 😂
schrodingers_cat
@SpaceUnit: OMG yes. Mr. Cole is quite a character.
schrodingers_cat
@Poe Larity: Perfect description.
HumboldtBlue
@Poe Larity:
Hahahahahaha
Villago Delenda Est
I am totally in favor of Elno having the fuck scared out of him.
zhena gogolia
@HumboldtBlue: Hmm. That clip shows him completely in control, doing his racist thing. I wouldn’t classify that with mixing up Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi or saying our country is under a death penalty.
raven
Tough couple of days in Athens. A female student (at Augusta University School of Nursing here in Athens) Laken Hope Riley was found dead at the university intramural field. Jose Antonio Ibarra was arrested for murder today and it’s unclear if he is an illegal immigrant but “many” are assuming he is. We also had a male student commit suicide in his dorm Wednesday night.
John Cole
@Josie: There is no tattoo I wrote that in the off chance mom reads the website.
HumboldtBlue
@zhena gogolia:
Yeah, I feel ya, there just have been so many videos of his rambling it all melds together.
John Cole
@SpaceUnit:
The tie-dye overalls are working as intended so well that not only do they work in person, but digitally.
Omnes Omnibus
@John Cole: So you’re not really ready to tell your mom about the tat yet?
John Cole
@Suzanne:
Says the yinzer.
Josie
@John Cole:
Lol. It would serve you right if she turned up with a tattoo. If you were my son, I would be so tempted. Luckily, my boys know me too well and would never give me the excuse.
Villago Delenda Est
@John Cole: You wear overalls like that in Oregon and you’re going to be assumed to be an Oregon Country Fairgoer.
Starfish
I am team Mom Come on those overalls.
I can’t believe that Joelle is not going to pretend she does not know you at the cat event. I mean, there is no way she can actually lose you if you are wearing those overalls.
different-church-lady
This is what they actually believe.
Oops.
Jinchi
Hopefully, they misheard and they were advised to “go flee the state”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Starfish: She’s got a side bet going with someone that she can show up with a more absurd specimen than they can.*
*Just my theory, but you have to admit that it does explain a lot.
SpaceUnit
@John Cole:
Too funny. You should complete the look by decorating your hat with dozens of novelty pins and buttons.
You’ll never be bothered by humans again.
Joelle
Update: He got it on Peacock and I congratulated him and he seemed satisfied with that and handed me back the remote and I put it back on carnival 🎡 of souls and that movie creeps the shit outta me! Jeezus! Back to 🦚
Princess
Seems to me Republicans are doing a great job of painting themselves as extreme and out of touch with most Americans without any help needed from the Dems at all.
IVF is used most, because of cost, by people with really good insurance and by wealthy people. That’s more of their voters than ours. How many Republican voters looked at their kids today and thought “if the GOP had its way earlier, you wouldn’t have been born.” Smooth guys, real smooth.
Villago Delenda Est
@SpaceUnit: Flair!
different-church-lady
@NotMax: So nobody bothered asking him, “Why the fuck are you doing any of this anyway,” eh?
dexwood
@SpaceUnit: Not me. I’d greet him with a smile and ask if I could take a picture.
Cole, the Southwest seems to agree with you.
Jeffro
could we maybe sneak someone in at the RNC who can talk them into installing an AI chatbot?
it seems like the possibilities would be endless, in addition to being hysterical.
“Why yes, Mr. Smith. One would think that a ‘conservative’ party would want to butt out of women’s private medical decisions. I will adjust our party platform accordingly…”
“That’s a good point, Ms. Adams. A party that espouses ‘America First’ probably shouldn’t be parroting Russian propaganda OR accepting laundered Russian campaign donations. I will forward those funds to the U.S. Treasury immediately…”
wjca
Aaaand, we have a winner!
Mr. Bemused Senior
C’mon, you both know better than this. Why is there voter suppression, election denial, corruption of the judiciary? They know perfectly well that in a fair fight they lose.
NotMax
@Poe Larity
Many things but obscure not among them.
SpaceUnit
@dexwood:
You’ve clearly the braver soul.
Suzanne
@John Cole: It was a beautiful Pittsburgh spring day. Went running in short sleeves at 5 PM. My allergies are already activating. That climate change shit is real.
Ohio Mom
When I saw the overalls photo, I had two immediate thoughts. One was, “Wasn’t Cole a Deadhead in his youth, and is all this tie dye a reflection of that?”, and the other was, “I remember when none of us knew what Cole looked like — I have a vague memory of a small selfie when Cole outed himself. He is definitely over whatever shyness he had.”
Anyway, the overalls made me chuckle, I got a kick out of them. Love really is liberating. It really does allow us to be our best and most authentic selves.
Suzanne
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Conservatives have fooled themselves into thinking they’re cool and aspirational. They’re deeply confused to the point of hostility when they find out that we think they’re gross.
I told a realtor that I was maybe going to work with (in Denver) that I didn’t want to live around lots of Republicans. She was very confused. LOL.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Suzanne: OK, I grant you people can convince themselves of almost anything. But the ones who are running campaigns? They know.
Poe Larity
@Princess: I have a friend, his wife is full Louisiana Royalty Wingnut IVF doctor.
They had to bring in a new partner because she and the even nuttier partner didn’t want to serve teh same-sex crowd.
I’m wondering what their dinner conversation is tonight.
RaflW
“come up with a reasonable policy”
Hahhahahhah. Gasp.
HAHahahahah.
I don’t know how one becomes president of the American Principles Project with such a ludicrous misunderstanding of the entire political party one purports to support, but that Terry guy has the job, so … good f’ing luck, dude.
NotMax
Popped into the DMV this afternoon to renew the annual vehicle registration. Cost jumped nearly a hundred bucks over last year!
waspuppet
@karen marie: They can never, ever not complain. That’s the first step in everything they say and do. Usually the only step, but always the first.
Ohio Mom
@NotMax: Even in this age of the price of just about everything creeping up, that is a big jump. Ouch.
RaflW
@Hoppie: I’ve been to Phoenix in late June. Do not fret. I may come visit my friends in Ahwatukee very couple of years for a long (not summer) weekend, but its just too damn hot much of the time.
Now, Santa Fe, New Mexico? Hmmmmm. (Way expensive, tho.)
Jackie
@dmsilev: I posted this earlier in a dead thread, but I think it’s worth reposting:
125 House GQP members back “Life at Conception”:
TIFG started this GQP nightmare – and it IS a nightmare for him, and he’s fully aware of it. 125 of HIS disciples are ignoring his demands to fix this.
His three SCOTUS picks started all of this. The genie is out of the bottle and is not going back in.
Sister Golden Bear
Just like the weather report in L.A. Story.
dmsilev
@Jackie: Yep. That’s what they actually believe. And they increasingly feel they don’t have to hide or obfuscate it either.
Harrison Wesley
@Poe Larity: Greatist cheapo horror pic ever made.
satby
@Villago Delenda Est: I have very happy, though hazy, memories of the Oregon County Fair. Especially a naked fire brigade.
glc
@HumboldtBlue:
That was special. Worse than the bleach I would say, but I’m gradually getting used to having a pig in the garden.
cmorenc
@dmsilev:
Because their overall plan is gain sufficient antidemocratic control of government institutions (including courts) that there is no effective way to challenge or dislodge them. Kind of like what’s happened in Hungary under Orban. The ones who actually think they can succeed at this really don’t care that a majority of the citizenry isn’t on-board with many of their RW policies, although some in their camp do care about the unpopularity of those policies, but mainly because they realize that achievement of their ultimate goal may fail unless they can polish their policy turds with prettier framing that’s less repugnant to the electorate (so long as that still matters while they are still vulnerable to being voted out).
Villago Delenda Est
@Joelle: Target of opportunity, right there.
BlueGuitarist
@Jackie: Thanks for posting that!
1 cosponsor is in a district Biden carried: Michelle steel CA-45.
3 cosponsors in districts Trump carried by less than 5 points:
Scott Perry PA-10
Bill Huizenga MI-04
Ashley Hinson IA-02
Odie Hugh Manatee
@John Cole:
Sure buddy… gotcha. You bet. Uh huh… 😉
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Is this because of the new(ish) car, or is it a bump for the same car?
The doughty Kia keeps plugging away. Took it in for annual maintenance yesterday, and it’s running like a top. I did have to pay for a new battery, but that wasn’t entirely unexpected. The old battery was old.
I drove less than 3,000 miles last year. That was a bit of a surprise, even with my shut-in lifestyle. But no trips to Rehoboth Beach or to Philadelhia. Each of those is 300-plus miles.
Peke Daddy
@SpaceUnit: I’d just smile and think, “Ain’t that America.”
Steeplejack
@Harrison Wesley:
Agreed, but Night of the Living Dead is also pretty cheapo and pretty great.
Dan B
@HumboldtBlue: The only way to get the MSM to report about TIFG’s mental decline is if he starts to demand that journos and the media start paying him to attend his rallies or he will raise their taxes. The decline is obvious but it’s not enough to scare corporate media yet.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Year over year bump for the same vehicle.
Dan B
@satby: Just what I was thinking when it was proposed that Cole is an Oregon Country Fair type. Naked is for more than just mopping!
Jackie
@raven: That’s horrible! Hope they find the murderer – no matter who!☹️
SectionH
@Mr. Bemused Senior: YES. That was y exact reaction.
John Cole
@Villago Delenda Est: I just checked out the event I would definitely go to that.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
March 21st will mark two years since was first handed the keys by the dealer. Haven’t yet put 1000 miles total on it. Will probably be just under that amount of mileage by then.
moonbat
It’s like all the Repubs who have forever been in favor of taking away the rights of all females to make decisions about their reproductive health took it for granted that once the laws were passed/court rulings were passed down we’d go straight to Gilead with everyone just accepting that that’s the way things are now.
They never expected PUSHBACK in an ELECTION year!
Just the fact that they expected women to have “gotten over” Dobbs by now I find gobsmackingly stupid.
Idiots.
SectionH
@SectionH: Sorry sb “my exact” (bother!)
danielx
Been pointed out earlier but I feel I must reminisce as us olds are driven to do when provoked.
Back in prehistory when I attended high school, at an all male Jesuit institution no less, the faculty included a lot of old line Jesuits who were monsters. Cruel and abusive, and I was immune to a lot of it because I wasn’t Catholic*. But still a bunch of malicious monstrous motherfuckers.
However, one thing the miserable bastards did for/to me was to instill a respect for logical thinking and logical consistency. The lack of which pisses me off to this very day and hour. Which is why I needed a chain hoist to get my jaw off the floor after reading this shit:
Logic-wise, if these statements were a life jacket you’d drown in a kiddie pool with two inches of water. To wit: if Republicans do not currently have reasonable policies, how can Democratic attacks on such policies be unfair? Surely the reasonable response would be to come up with policies Democrats wont unfairly attack? Unless all Democratic attacks are unfair by definition, not that wingnut media is in any way concerned with the whole fairness thing or the truthiness thing.
But the following sentence is even better, since it appears this Schilling mook has been in a coma for a decade at least. “They” have already come up with what they actually believe and support and stand for. They testify to it every day, loudly and publicly. And it ain’t popular, and it ain’t where most of the American people want to go, which is not Gilead. (Promoting the idea of doing away with recreational sex, I ask you.) Which is why Republican cultists attack on two fronts. Short term, if election results count, the more people vote, the worse Republicans do. So the only logical course for them is to restrict voting and citizen participation as much as possible and to diminish in particular the concept of direct democracy. Hence those shitbags in various state legislatures attempting to restrict ballot initiatives in addition to throwing up as many roadblocks to voting as possible.
But long term, they don’t give a fuck about democracy because it won’t give them what they want as fast as they want. Hence the pronouncements of assholes like Jack Posobiec, whom a significant number of people take seriously and not in a good way.
Yeah, fuck these guys and all that, but it does make you tired. It’s like every so often the devil, or evil, or mass psychosis, gets into a large enough group of people and you end up with Ruanda, or the former Yugoslavia, or any number of other places since the turn of the century, to set an arbitrary date. And that’s what these people, for whom I can’t come up with an obscene enough description, seem to want.
Okay, end rant. Edit: I’m tuckered, this took a while.
Omnes Omnibus
I don’t know if people remember that Valdivia has a thing about Eurovision and has live Tweeted it for a few years. It tends not to be my thing. She just sent me Ireland’s entry for this year. I hope this thing wins.
danielx
@Villago Delenda Est:
That does look like a blast.
NotMax
@danielx
Beetlejuice braggadocio. Belief if they say it out loud often enough it will ::poof:: magically (and universally) manifest.
HumboldtBlue
Beyoncé is No. 1 on the country music charts, and she’s some Irish boys dancin’.
way2blue
John. In the photo you look like a house painter who can’t decide which color to paint a room. And is a bit sloppy when slapping the paint on the walls. Cleans the brushes wherever there’s a blank spot on his overalls…
danielx
@way2blue:
That is in fact a habit for any number of painters. One thing about being a painter, you never have to worry about what to wear.
Yarrow
@SpaceUnit: What sort of sheltered life have you led that you’d be so afraid of Cole in those overalls that you’d cross the street to get away from him? Do you also cross the street when you see kittens or bunnies?
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
Needs moar French (un)dressing.
;)
NotMax
@Yarrow
Kittens?. In a New York minute.
Bunnies, not so much.
Redshift
@karen marie:
Pretty much my whole adult life, Republicans have whined that accurately describing what they believe or what they say is unfair.
Redshift
So far what they seem to have come up with is to say they support the wingnut court decision and say they support fertility treatments and when told those are in direct conflict and asked which they support more, they say lalalalala, I can’t hear you!
SpaceUnit
@Yarrow:
Actually, my apprehension stems from an unsheltered life.
wjca
I think we might be reading this wrong. Perhaps what he is saying that what they believe, etc. should be popular. Not that what they believe should change, just that it out to be popular. It absolutely isn’t, but he thinks it should be.
Admit it. That’s ridiculous, but no more than the way it’s being read here. Nor than some of the other things they say (and, apparently, believe).
HumboldtBlue
@NotMax:
One towel, two men.
The French, eh?
Geoduck
The star of Carnival of Souls, Candace Hilligoss, made the flick, took her paycheck and moved on with her life. It wasn’t until decades later that she learned anyone even still remembered it.
wjca
National treasure Alexandra Petri analyzes the latest insanity out of Alabama:
Congratulations! Alabama court says that embryo is as good as a live child.
(WaPo, so if anyone has a gift link, feel free to add it.)
Redshift
@wjca:
Here ya go!
https://wapo.st/3T7dUlM
prostratedragon
“Moving Through Time”
Cathie from Canada
Here in Canada, we say the Air Canada logo is “We’re not happy until you’re not happy!”
The Lodger
@Poe Larity: That sounds true, man.
Bupalos
Yuck. This whole phoenix thing is yuck. Like a scene from Body Snatchers.
Ken
For those who missed it in an earlier thread, Justice Engoron filed the judgment in the Trump fraud trial today. Link to the document which is schadenfreudelicious reading, especially if you like the phrase “the amount of X, plus 9% interest amounting to the sum of Y” with very large values of X and Y.
Paragraph 14 is also nice: “an independent Director of Compliance shall be installed at the Trump Organization, at defendants’ expense….”
NotMax
“Tricked” as a conclusion is working quintuple overtime. From 60 Minutes:
Trump fake elector in Wisconsin describes how he says he was tricked.
Pete Downunder
@Cathie from Canada: They stole that motto from United.
karen marie
Jimmy Kimmel is smoking. The second half he has a man in the street bit from South Carolina in which Trump voters are asked about a statement of Trump’s but told it was Biden. Then they’re told it was an error and reasked the same questions, this time attributed to Trump.
They didn’t have releases from the people who got mad at being made to feel foolish. Perhaps a few of those people might realize who is actually making them look foolish.
MagdaInBlack
@karen marie: Oooof. I could not get past the guy in the purple sweater and I am already in awe at how they can switch midstream with out even batting an eye.
karen marie
@NotMax: I watched it, and I bought it. The story he tells sounds plausible to me. And the January 6th committee believes he was lied to. I am delighted to see examples like him. He’s figuring out who made him look foolish and derailed his life. He sounds like a vote for Biden at this point.
karen marie
@MagdaInBlack: Crazy, innit?
MagdaInBlack
@karen marie: Ok, the last one was the best. Not even a flicker of recognition. How do you deal with brains like that?
NotMax
@karen marie
One does not become the titular head of a state party by being a naif and not picking up a rudimentary understanding of election protocol and law (or at the very least being in contact with someone who does).
“Gawrsh, they sure hornswoggled me” doesn’t cut it.
Good on him for coming forth but that doesn’t wash away how dirty were his hands.
NotMax
@karen marie – @NotMax
I’d be more accepting if had seen even the faintest flicker of remorse, of taking responsibility for his actions.
Barry
@Poe Larity: “I’m wondering what their dinner conversation is tonight.”
Shirley Exemption (‘surely they won’t…’)
Sanity Clause (‘there must be something in there, or it’d be crazy…’)
Louisiana Leopards won’t eat *our* faces………
Quadrillipede
I admire the sentiment, but in my experience at least, this doesn’t comport with how how modern conservatives expect to be able to behave in public.