I have nothing productive to say, so this is a good night for everyone to rewatch Bob Roberts:
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.
It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.
The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.
Let there be snark.
Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”
Let me file that under fuck it.
Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.
Books are my comfort food!
People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.
The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.
Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.
The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.
Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.
We are aware of all internet traditions.
Tick tock motherfuckers!
These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.
Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?
rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius
Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?
No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.
If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.
There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.
That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.
Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?
Elizabelle
Thank you for the link. Have never seen it.
SpaceUnit
I’ve never heard of this movie, but who the hell would name their kid Robert Roberts?
Please.
Phylllis
I think I might be in more of a Dave mood.
J. Arthur Crank
@SpaceUnit: I had a teacher named John Johnson.
Memory Pallas
Fake assassination attempt aside, the character is more like JD Vance than Donald Trump.
Joshua Todd
Amen, I thought of this film the moment I heard the news, Big John…
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@SpaceUnit:
I went to high school with a guy named Tom Collins.
That’s a no-shitter.
Mai Naem mobile
I remember watching this movie at the theater and left quite uncomfortable. Arlington Road is another Tim Robbins movie that left me the same way.
AddiePray
They filmed a scene at my high school (one suburb over from Bethel Park, where yesterday’s shooter was from), and then called some of us back to be extras for the scene at the end, where we learn Bugs Raplin’s fate. I’m one of those young conservative kids cheering.
I love telling people I was in a movie with Jack black, Alan rickman, John Cusack, Fred ward, Susan Sarandon, James spader, and Tim Robbins.
Chigail
This is exactly what my son recommended I watch tonight. And I think I will after I eat my Bastille Day quiche. Currently destressing with Ninja Warriors and an Aperol spritz.
MomSense
One of my childhood friends is in this movie. We grew up dancing together. She is in the beauty pageant scene.
Jacqueline Squid Onassis
@SpaceUnit: An incomplete list of real names of people I have known:
Randolph Randolph
Crystal Clear
Smoky Behr
Heidi Ho
Cleve Land
Citizen Alan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: That’s nothing. My student loan officer was Tequila Mockingbird. I swear I’m not making that up.
Eyeroller
@Citizen Alan: That’s a good one. Where I grew up there was a doctor named Safety First.
prostratedragon
Dear France, thanks for the lovely statue.
“La Marseillaise,” Jessye Norman, 1989 at Place de la Concorde.
Trivia Man
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: my elementary school classmate center as Mickey Morse. I had an unrequited crush on her for years but not because of the name.
Eyeroller
@Jacqueline Squid Onassis: I went to junior high (what we had back then) with a girl named Candy Cotton. She was a cheerleader and one of the popular girls. I assume she married and changed her last name.
SpaceUnit
These names, yeesh. Must be one of those white people things I just don’t get.
And I’m white.
M31
@Eyeroller: lol I hope she became a published scientist or academic and has lots of papers as Cotton, Candy et al.
Trivia Man
@Eyeroller: Aptonyms!
The USDA inspector at the Oscar Mayer plant was Mr. Carrion. I thought it was a joke but it was real.
Eyeroller
@M31: Well, it’s not impossible but….not likely.
Old School
I went to school with a Coral Rock.
Knew someone in college whose brother was named July August September October November. (He went by Jason.)
Trivia Man
In political races post-civil war it was common to, literally, “wave the bloody shirt” at rallies. Cant wait for the convention and “wave the bloody hat”
clay
I have had students whose first and middle names were November Rain and Indiana Jones. (They were both girls.)
NeenerNeener
I knew a guy named James James many years ago.
kalakal
I was at school with a Philip Death – his real name
Old Norman French De’Ath
mrmoshpotato
@Mai Naem mobile:
I remember just being pissed off at the ending of Arlington Road.
Anoniminous
Knew an Adolf Heidler. He was born in 1936 in Germany and yes he was named for The Leader.
tam1MI
There was a professor at the college O went to called Richard Face.
Eyeroller
@kalakal: There is a fairly well-known physicist named D’Eath (he puts the apostrophe after the D) in something related to my area of research at the time.
Edit: Yes, British, at Cambridge.
SpaceUnit
Years ago there was a girl that lived in my apartment building who danced at a strip club. She went by the name Cherry Habanero.
Her real name was Janet. I never saw her dance. Thought it was a good name though.
Jackie
@J. Arthur Crank: I went to school with a Dave Davidson AND a Pete Peterson.
Kristine
@J. Arthur Crank: I had a grade school classmate named John Johnson.
And the family we rented a house from when I was a kid—the son’s name was Tommy Thomas.
Martin
I’ve read at least 100,000 college applications. So many names. But we never poked fun at people’s names – the email addresses they choose, however…
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Phylllis:
“Dave’s not here.”
Raoul Paste
I just saw President Biden address the shooting
And now here come the worthless talking heads
Joy in FL
In a 7th grade class I taught years (decades) ago, there was a student named Noah and in the same class, a student named Jesus. I asked him if he pronounced it Hay-sus, assuming he would say yes, but he said no. Regular pronunciation.
Another year, there was a girl whose last name was Davenport and a boy whose last name was Couch in the same class.
Names are so interesting. I enjoyed reading the other ones people have shared in this thread.
DarbysMom
Early 70s, I babysat 4 kids named ‘Apple’, ‘Cherry’, ‘Berry’, and ‘Peaches’.
Why?…Just why??
Miss Bianca
@AddiePray: oh, hey, nothing productive to add to this comment except that I love your nym. That book was one of my fave raves as a yoot.
ETA: Plus, cool story! (Meant unironically)
Chet Murthy
@Joshua Todd: Ditto here. Esp. that final scene.
Sid
@Mai Naem mobile: Arlington Road was one of the most frightening films I’ve ever seen. Freaked me out as much as an adult as the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers did when I was a 10 year old kid watching it on the Saturday afternoon science fiction show on the local UHF station.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@AddiePray:
Long ago my wife and I were in a crowd at the front of a Queensryche concert. During the concert they said that they would be using video from it for their new music video “Is there anybody listening”.
They used about three seconds, if that, but we’re there…lol!
Ksmiami
Keep Calm and Biden on… There’s no way I want the incendiary fascist orange pig back in office. He’s bad for America and the world. That hasn’t changed.
lowtechcyclist
I had one student named April May. Another girl in one of my classes had the last name of Firesheets.
Kristine
@kalakal:
Like Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey. (fictional, but still)
SiubhanDuinne
Listening to Joe. He is pitch-perfect, both in substance and delivery.
And it occurs to me that people who criticise him for using a teleprompter might just as well criticise someone with myopia for wearing glasses … criticise someone who’s a bit deaf for using a hearing aid … criticise someone who stepped wrong and twisted their ankle for wearing a boot or using crutches.
You get the idea. Whether the “disability” (air quotes because most of these are very common afflictions) is temporary, progressive, or profound and permanent, there is often some technology available to make coping a bit easier.
I love it when Joe delivers a well-written speech using a teleprompter. Why the RWNJs think that’s so disqualifying I truly cannot fathom.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kristine:
PDBW. Yup yup yup.
geg6
@Martin:
For real! 😆
A girl I went to high school with was named Candy Cain.
Jackie
TCFG’s VP choice… or red herring?
Ugh
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Jacqueline Squid Onassis:
I got one:
Hill Hill
zhena gogolia
@Jackie: Oh, great, so they’re going to double down on evil. I had hoped for Burgum, who seems like a Pence-style zero. Vance will help with the insurrection. He won’t be calling Dan Quayle.
geg6
@lowtechcyclist:
I just had an incoming freshman come through summer orientation and her name is Cashmere. I know it’s soft and all, but I would not name my child after a type of wool.
Eyeroller
Perhaps I should not bring up The Topic but Jake Tapper is claiming
A senior House Democrat tells Axios: “We’ve all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency.”
AOC responded
If you’re a “senior Democrat” that feels this way, you should absolutely retire and make space for true leadership that refuses to resign themselves to fascism.
This kind of leadership is functionally useless to the American people. Retire.
I am so tired of sniveling, yellow-bellied Democrats. These are the people who have been dribbling out their lack of confidence in Biden for the past 2+ weeks. They made Jeffries go to Biden with their “concerns.” Also why are they dishing to Axios.
AOC is the kind of Democrat we need.
Jackie
@SiubhanDuinne:
TCFG uses them ALL the time. Rumor has it, one almost killed him.
JMG
@DarbysMom: Were they all girls?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@tam1MI:
I just remembered an obit my wife found years ago:
Harold Balz (wifey corrected me!)
Poor guy…
dexwood
I had a landlord named Dusty Rhoades and knew a kid named Jolly Rogers.
Bill Arnold
@Trivia Man:
The scholar named “Et Al” has 15402 citations.
Their h-index is only 37 though.
Jackie
@zhena gogolia:
Neither will MVP Harris.
Roberto el oso
Drove thru Rice University campus after returning some library books. The drive was slowed down even more than the usual 20 mph because of crowds of what looked like tourists taking pictures of the hurricane damage. Got to hear ‘La Marseillaise’ booming from Rice Memorial Stadium, as they had the French Consular staff in attendance for a Bastille Day celebration.
Kristine
@SiubhanDuinne: Wimsey was one of my “Spock crushes*,” so the names stuck with me.
*fictional character crushes, in case it wasn’t obvious
hitchhiker
I’m still pissed off at all those fawning reviewers of JD Vance’s stupid, self-serving book. He happened to publish right when every yahoo in media was rending their garments and wondering how, oh how could they have not seen the thug supporters out there in the hinterlands.
Oh, thank jeebus, here’s an educated escapee from rural Ohio to help us understand!
Except it was Vance, a dishonest & pretentious creep. I can’t even.
lowtechcyclist
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
“Ever meet a fellow by the name of Hill?“
SiubhanDuinne
@Jacqueline Squid Onassis:
I knew a pair of twins named Ivory and Ovary.
ArchTeryx
@hitchhiker: Like I said in the previous dead thread, anyone that didn’t think Vance was completely evil didn’t read any part of Hillbilly Elegy.
Lyrebird
@geg6: I agree, though I would more likely name kids after a fiber than after a virtue. Most of the people I know named Joy are the biggest cynics, and who could name their child “Honor” or “Chastity”? Lovely names and all, but that’s putting a lot on the kid.
SiubhanDuinne
@lowtechcyclist:
Oh, hill yiss.
Kristine
@hitchhiker: Thing is, he would be so grossly unqualified for the Veep position. I mean, jeez.
geg6
@hitchhiker:
I used to love Amy Adams and Glen Close but my respect for them dropped a lot seeing them take parts in the streaming movie made from that shitty book.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kristine:
I’m something of a Dorothy L. Sayers/Lord Peter Wimsey fanatic, so I totally applaud your crush!
Lyrebird
Thank you for putting that here for some of us less in the loop people.
And hear, hear to Rep. Ocasio-Cortez!
They need to be out there standing with Joey Jobs not feeding the press trolls. And POTUS probably can’t actively campaign for a few days while the other guy recuperates, bc he (POTUS) is honorable and busy.
eversor
@Jackie:
Hey now. Talking smack about Vance is anti Christian bigotry. And he actually does believe in all the patriarchy and all that which fashionable people ignore because it sounds bad at brunch. So he’s the real Christian deal!
geg6
@Lyrebird:
I like old fashioned names like Sarah and Claire or ethnic names like Michelle or Angelina. I like the names my niece chose for her kids: Amora, Holden and Ronan. A fiber name is way the hell out for me.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jackie:
You are right, of course. But isn’t it the case that you’d have the identical reaction to anyone TCFFG might choose? They’re all dreadful.
lowtechcyclist
@eversor:
I’m starting to like these even better than the pie/pastry/candy pix.
Steeplejack
@prostratedragon:
Thanks for the statue, indeed.
eversor
@lowtechcyclist:
#notallchristians is just as stupid as #notallwhitemen
We have a Christian issue and are in a religious civil war. Either you are against Christianity completely or you are helping project 2025.
You just outed yourself as pro 2025. I blame Dobbs and each death on you now.
Trivia Man
@Kristine: Our former gov is tommy Thompson
Eyeroller
@lowtechcyclist: Is that what you get from the “witticisms” pie filter? Because it’s funny but it’s not correct since the Sun isn’t a sphere :-) so its projection on the sky isn’t a circle. (It is a flattened spheroid.)
Trivia Man
@DarbysMom: Mmmm, pie
realbtl
My friend and I are 77 and 76, names Barney and Winniford (Winnie). I think we’re in the wrong century.
zhena gogolia
@Eyeroller: Yes, she is.
Jay
I always thought that every Company and Org needed a Hellen Hunt on staff.
That way, almost all the employee’s could respond to the stupid with, “sorry, I can’t help you, you have to go to Hellen Hunt for that.”
moonbat
@SpaceUnit:
I knew a kids once named Emery Emery Emery. Parents can be cruel.
Trivia Man
@geg6: My chinese language students had interesting names they selected. Some of the memorable ones … Plastic, Mercury, Docile.
In one class i had 2 charleys. So i gave them a second name… Charlie Brown and Charlie Watts. Two years later my friend came home from teaching a new class. “I have a student named charlie watts!” Apparently he really dug the second name.
AliceBlue
One of my college classmates was named Winter Holliday
Used to have a neighbor named Bright Wright.
Eric S.
@Martin: The company I work for has a large customer base and I come across all kinds of names. We don’t make fun of them but was an an occasional Name Of the Week nomination. My favorite of all time is simple, See Thor.
moonbat
I had a student once named Princess Ransom. I almost died of name envy.
Trivia Man
@Kristine: Unqualified? Hates the right people, penis-american, white, presents as ‘smart’, proven suckup willing to disavow every past insult to TCFG, TV ready, shorter and duller than TCFG. What’s not to love?
japa21
HS classmate: Reginald McNutt III
College classmate: Jack Hauff
Bridesmaid at our wedding: Holly Winter (and we were married in December)
wjca
Every time I encounter someone with one of these “cute” names, my immediate reaction is that the parents should arrested for child abuse.
Starfish
@Trivia Man: He also brings Peter Thiel money with him. Trump needs some sugar daddies to fund his nonsense.
Jay
@Trivia Man:
Not John Barron, only John Barron is qualified.
Harrison Wesley
Has Vance shaved off the beard? I’ve read that Trump hates beards.
Trivia Man
@Starfish: $$ is why my early pick was ND Gov, but no matter how rich he just had his own bank. JD brings Vampire Pete and HE brings other crackpot billionaires. Odds on favorite now I think.
eversor
@moonbat:
I had a butch lesbian French teacher who would give any nun a run for her money who’s name was Prudence.
The best teachers I ever had were all women. The worst teachers I ever had were all women. The dumbest teachers I had were all men. Except for that one crazy chemistry teacher who managed to make that fun by blowing shit up and starting fires. Which makes chemistry AWESOME!
eversor
@Trivia Man:
Fun fact. Vance didn’t give a flying fuck about Christianity till he ran for office. Then he converted into a Catholic with Rod Drehers help and won office.
Again. It’s Christianity.
Trivia Man
@Harrison Wesley: Saving that for the convention reveal!!! Imagine the amazement and SKY HIGH RATINGS when noted beard-haver JD Vance appears OUT OF NOWHERE WITH A CLEAN FACE!
By Gawd, is that the music from Barber of Saville I hear??
Jackie
@Trivia Man: I look forward to MVP Kamala wiping the floor with him during their debate.
Roberto el oso
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Queensryche were fantastic live!
Shana
We have a plumber here in NoVA named John C. Flood.
Harrison Wesley
@Trivia Man: Barber of Seville, Sweeney Todd, whatever…..
cain
@Eyeroller:
Exactly .. GTFO.
The next 3 years we need to start pushing these people to retire. Every house and senate person who asked Biden to step down needs a primary challenger.
Let them explain themselves.
Scout211
And in contrast, I had JD Vance from the beginning but I now think it will be Burgum. Burgum has plenty of money and he will never try to outshine Trump. Plus, Rupert Murdoch has been lobbying ”every day” to urge Trump to pick Burgum. (From a news story I read with anonymous sources). And the report stated that Murdoch was sometimes calling several times a day. He also told Trump that if he doesn’t pick Burgum, to pick anyone other than JD Vance.
Anonymous sources, they know everything. LOL
NotMax
@kalakal
Also too, British actor Charles De’Ath.
lowtechcyclist
@Eyeroller:
Yes, it was, at least in that particular case, and until I refresh the page.
Of course your proof isn’t correct either – many non-spherical objects can appear circular from the right vantage point. Coins, for instance.
(Hey, if you’re gonna nitpick… ;-)
Eunicecycle
A friend’s divorce attorney was Harry Butt.
Trivia Man
@Jackie: 100%. And it won’t even be close. He doesn’t do unhinged as well as others, he tries to couch things in logic and “cool intellectualism” but that is perfect for her skills. Bring. It. On.
lowtechcyclist
@Trivia Man:
“Yes, you’re next! You’re so next!”
Wait, that’s the Rabbit of Seville. Wouldn’t mind seeing JD get shaved by Bugs Bunny.
Harrison Wesley
Odd question for any yinzers out there: is it known which hospital Trump was taken to? I heard it was Allegheny General, which gave me a really weird feeling since that’s where I went for heart surgery in 2015.
Trivia Man
@Scout211: Very compelling reasons. Agree on the “won’t outshine” … quiet milquetoast has an attraction for toddler in chief, the JD schtick of I AM SMART will totally work on T and that makes him feel dumb. Can’t have that!
Con: Bergum has too much a Pence vibe from where I am sitting.
Princess
@Trivia Man: Insisting he shave is exactly the kind of dominance power move Trump loves.
Harrison Wesley
@Princess: And he has to do it publicly, kneeling in front of Trump while Your Favorite President is perched on his golden toilet.
Kristine
@Trivia Man: Idk what I was thinking (hits side of head V-8 commercial style). I was thinking of useless things like foreign policy experience and the like. Silly of me.
SomeRandomGuy
@dexwood: Dusty Rhoades is the name of a famous wrestler – that made it more common than the mere pun would accomplish, I imagine.
Random thought: is it really strange that I could see a young Republican, realizing that HE must be the patriot who waters the tree of liberty, hopefully including the blood of the dictator-to-be? Like, “if the RPUSA won’t reject Trump, someone has to do something!”
I retain the faint hope that Trump causes the Republican Party to implode before this November. If I were a former-Republican, I would be fanning that hope and feeding it all the fuel I could, because it’s clear, with him, there will be no return to sanity, and without him, well… most people ain’t that cray-cray. So, if he choked on his next KFC order, and I were a young Republican, I would be horrified, but exceedingly grateful. (I’d have to be awfully young. That SCROTUS decision is like a loud+toxic fart that should clear the room, but we’re paralyzed by the sheer stench that feels like the physical force of dirt pressing down on the corpse of Democracy. With it, I can only hypothetically imagine staying Republican as a young man.)
Origuy
I worked with a guy named Nicholas Nicholas Nicholas, and yes, he was of Greek ancestry.
I also worked with a guy named Woodrow Wilson Rehling and he did go by Wood.
Parents do strange things.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Jay:
I used to use a bs email addy of [email protected] when I needed to fill a space.
@Roberto el oso:
Damn straight.
opiejeanne
I met a woman whose married name was Truly Boring. Her maiden name was Truly Golden. She said her husband was not actually boring at all.
went to school with a Penny Money, knew a college teacher named Harry Kreuper and pronounced his last name as Creeper.
Captain C
There was an usher named George George at the church we went to when I was a kid.
My grandparents knew a couple last name of Leer who named their daughter Shanda (possibly spelled Chanda).
opiejeanne
@Captain C: There was an older couple at my church who were raising their identical twin granddaughters because the parents of these girls had died of overdoses. The girls’ names were Bambi and Angel. I don’t know why the grandparents didn’t give them new first names that didn’t make them sound like a double centerfold.
billcoop4
A guy two years behind me had the family name of Fallis.
He was Richard Fallis.
Junior.
BC
divF
@Eyeroller:
@kalakal:
@NotMax:
Also, Castle De’ath, an Avengers episode from 1965 (Diana Rigg – sigh).
LanceThruster
Right now it’s being debated if it’s defensible to take glee at someone else’s misfortune. I can hold competing views. An attitude of a generic, “I wish them well in as much as I don’t wish them any specific harm” and also acknowledge that I’d not be experiencing any particular anguish over powerful individuals merging with the infinite when they’ve already been directly responsible for the unjustifiable deaths of countless others, or on record that that is part of the actions they hope to take. That happens and I’m thinking we sure dodged a bullet. No empathy for those who themselves show none. C’mon man, give me a break!
It’s as simple as that. Don’t condone the methods nor the crime committed against them, but at the same time they will not be missed by me. The problem with our government to a great extent is just how thoroughly they’re insulated from the consequences of their actions and the death destruction and misery they inflict so callously on others. Aged warmongers are mourned when they give up the ghost, but *they* had a good run and actual justice would require they face their countless victims, so many of whom had their lives cut tragically and unbearably short because of their misfortune to be in the wrong place on the bloody chessboard as these fiends vie for power.
All their foreign policy speeches should be an admission that, “We contend that having others die in horrible brutal ways in great numbers destroying everything near and dear to them is a good thing because [reasons].”
Fuggum. Seriously.
LanceThruster
But Tim Robbins was a Berner!?! That makes him the lowest form of human scum! All our problems are largely due to him and his ilk. You, my friend are far too forgiving.
Good day.
I said good day!
LanceThruster
They’re not wrong.
LanceThruster
Like a Big Boy.
Matt McIrvin
The thing about Bob Roberts is, it’s got a basically conspiracist view of the world: the satire of cornpone fascism and the way it feeds off politics-as-entertainment is great, but the assassination attempt really is a staged false flag in that, and there’s the strange B-plot where the reporter starts earnestly lecturing to the audience about how the CIA runs the global drug trade, an idea which regardless of its merits has little to do with the rest of the movie.
I get the impression that Tim Robbins got off the train to crazytown that Susan Sarandon stayed on–even in 2016 he was urging support for Hillary Clinton, and I see that yesterday he was denouncing people likening the Trump shooting to the fake assassination in Bob Roberts. But I think the film would be hard for me to watch now.