Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

All hail the time of the bunny!

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

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

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

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Not all heroes wear capes.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Friday Evening Open Thread: Afterglow

Friday Evening Open Thread: Afterglow

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Friday Evening Open Thread: Afterglow

(Clay Bennett via GoComics.com)

Been a long week, I’m gonna bask a little this weekend!

(me, a savvy politics knower) very solid speech, i like positivity, some of the air went out of the room during the trump attacks, i give it an A-
(me, a californian) that’s how we do it on the west coast, bitches, i will die for kamala harris, fuck all of you. next president, deal with it.

— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) Aug 22, 2024 at 11:19 PM

Reader Interactions

228Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Trump has taken Republicans so far off the deep end as to leave the American mainstream wide open

    QFT.

  3. 3.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    My only disagreement with Harwood’s characterization is Trump taking them off the deep end.  Yeah, I’m echoing Driftglass in this, basically that the derangement that characterizes the modern GQP is the result of Trump, no, it’s the natural and predictable end-state of where the GOP has been heading for over 50 years.

    Three pillars of the modern GOP: Rapacious Greed, Dogmatic Contempt for Government and White Supremacy.  That party never went away, it’s just that the base is completely reprogrammable.  This is who they always wanted to be and Trump simply showed them there was power in being fascist assholes.

    Hopefully the differences in each party are stark to those beyond the basic 27% Crazification Factor, the additional 13% unrepentant racists and 5% totally uninformed people who vote w/o really knowing wtf they’re voting for.

  5. 5.

    BR

    @ssdd:

    I can’t bear to look at any of the polling trackers. Just going to run through the tape. Speaking of which, my order of 1000 postcards should arrive any day now.

  6. 6.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I hope the DNC planned ahead and got a visa for that ball that Kamala hit out of the park, because it’s going to land in South America.

  7. 7.

    Ishiyama

    Sometime during the week I saw a video segment about four women who have been closely assisting Kamala Harris for years. One was Barbara Lee, who started her political life working for Shirley Chisholm. The four of them were Jesse Jackson operatives in 1984 & 88. Minyon Moore was the chair of this year’s convention. These women have been working for decades to be where they are now: at the center of power.

  9. 9.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Could everyone please presume that any expressions of confidence expressed in this thread are premised on the idea that hard work is necessary, the result is not a foregone conclusion, and the commenter rejects the broccoli mandate?

  10. 10.

    trollhattan

    Next to Trump as president, hell on earth to me would be finding myself at this concert, which SeatGeek seems obliged to pitch, regardless..

    Def Leppard and Journey with Steve Miller BandWed, Aug 28Oracle Park — San Francisco, CA

    Anyhoo, today might be the first since May the temp stayed in the 70s. Hints of fall, people, and the eventual halt of fire season. Speaking of, this douche pleaded not guilty today while the fire he started remains 61% contained after a full month.

    A man accused of igniting California’s fourth-largest blaze in its history, the Park Fire, pleaded not guilty Thursday during his arraignment on a charge of arson as prosecutors allege he lit a car on fire near popular swimming spots and pushed it down a 60-foot embankment.
    Ronnie Dean Stout II pleaded not guilty in Butte Superior Court to arson of an inhabited structure or property. He also denied enhancements of arson with special circumstances and three enhancements related to prior strike convictions, according to court records. Prosecutors say the burning car started a blaze that’s destroyed homes and prompted widespread evacuation orders starting last month.
    The Park Fire has burned 429,460 acres and is 61% contained as of Thursday morning after it started July 24 in Upper Bidwell Park east of Chico, according to Cal Fire. All evacuations have been lifted where the fire spread in Tehama, Plumas, Shasta and Butte counties, Cal Fire said.
    Stout, according to prosecutors, has two prior convictions under California’s “Three Strikes” law. If convicted of arson, he could be sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He was convicted in 2001 of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 in Butte County, where he was sentenced to serve a year in jail.
    In 2002, he was convicted in Kern County of robbery and assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury. The latter resulted in a 20-year prison sentence, according to Ramsey and Kern Superior Court documents. While on parole after his Kern County conviction, Stout was convicted of a DUI after he drove under the influence near Upper Bidwell Park, Ramsey said.https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article291337800.html#storylink=cpy

    Sounds like a peach. Oh, it was mom’s car.​

  11. 11.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Omnes Omnibus: Could everyone please presume that any expressions of confidence expressed in this thread are premised on the idea that hard work is necessary, the result is not a foregone conclusion, and the commenter rejects the broccoli mandate?

    100 percent. Landslides don’t just happen. People need to be convinced it’s worth it to run up the score and win the smaller local games.

    ETA: What is the broccoli mandate tho? 🥦

  12. 12.

    Suzanne

    I watched the speech twice today. God, she’s fantastic.

    And, as I noted in the morning thread: Republicans are the people who leave their dog’s shit on the sidewalk. Trump is the worst of them all. But maybe Vance?

  16. 16.

    JWR

    @ssdd:

    58/41 Harris to start.

    Yes! That’s what I’m talkin’ about! Not only that, but a new Emerson New Mexico poll has Harris up 10 points, 52% to Trump’s 42%. Can you imagine what might happen on November 5 if this keeps up? It might redefine the meaning of the word “Landslide”. Maybe a 9.0 shaker on the San Andreas fault.

  17. 17.

    SatanicPanic

    @The Audacity of Krope: it was a really dumb interpretation of Michelle Obama’s nutrition for kids work in the White House that Antonin Scalia brought up during a SCOTUS hearing, I believe on the ACA. Dumbass Scalia was quoting some internet moron. Probably Jim Hoft.

    EDIT- in other words, the right was claiming Obama was going to make everyone eat broccoli by force or something. It was really fucking stupid.

  18. 18.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @SatanicPanic: That tracks. Dumb interpretations thrive in many corners of our politics.

    ETA: I recall a time in an Xbox live match where another young man expressed love for a simple tomato sandwich with mayonnaise. We had fun, that’s one of my favorite sandwiches.

    Another dude objected stating in Ohio we aren’t vegetarians. I duly let him know that doesn’t prevent someone from enjoying a vegetarian meal. I often eat meat, myself.

    He simply demurred.

  21. 21.

    Urza

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: I keep trying to explain this to people but almost no one pays enough attention to now, let alone history that they were alive for.  It might not be obvious in 1858 at the early days of the party, but it had the seeds then, especially when part of it was formed out of the Know Nothing party and the rest was about corporations in the North.

  22. 22.

    dmsilev

    And, since Open Thread, allow me to rant about my day today, and in particular construction workers. In especial particular, construction workers who either fail to measure the depth of pre-existing underground pipes or who measured the depth but then screwed up the depth of the horizontal bore that they were drilling to run electrical conduits to a new building. Result: Boring head clipped main chilled water pipe, half of campus lost cooling and a campus walkway became a watering hole surrounded by a mud flat. All of my equipment screamed in horror and went into emergency shutdown mode. At least I had mostly finished the high-field stress test of the 14 Tesla magnet that I had been running earlier in the morning. Much running around to safe all of the gear ensued.

    Time to restoration is “indefinite” according to Facilities, because they have to dig down through the mud to reach the (15 feet below grade) pipes, cut out the damaged section and patch it, and then bring things back on line. Bloody fucking hell.

  25. 25.

    japa21

    @Omnes Omnibus:  New here aren’t you?

    Just to add.  I am supremely confident of a blow-out win come November, including a trifecta at the Federal level and many major gains at the state level.  This confidence is premised on the conditions you set out.

  28. 28.

    Trivia Man

    Speculation: the RFK clown show was their brainstorm to one up the biden bombshell after the RNC convention.

    Take That!!! Everyone will ignore HER and talk about MEMEMEME all day!!!

    And now *I* am the one shaking up the race!

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:
    @Sure Lurkalot:

    Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

    You guys are right, the gop lemmings were playing pattycakes w/ fascism for years. But you’d have to be delusional to think another garden variety gop pol could have pulled them over the edge. Lindsey? DeSantis? Walker? Lake? Vance???* The Koch brothers could have thrown billions at any other gop (think Thiel) and it would have been $ down the rat hole.

    Which of course is what it is now. MOTUs? My ass.

    *neither hotfoot Hawley, nor lickspittle Schmitt could ever have done it. Hence they’ve hooked their wagons to trump’s horse. Maybe there is a gop pol in another state who might have his pull, but I ain’t seen them.

  31. 31.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @japa21: I am just trying to avoid the fight last night about pessimism and any citations of “hope is not a plan.”  I also want Suki Waterhouse’s phone number.

    As I once heard a 1SG say to a soldier who said he wanted something, “How’s it feel to want?”

  32. 32.

    Frank Wilhoit

    @OzarkHillbilly: Harwood is an idiot, and his idiocy is two:

    1.  The Republican Party has taken itself where it is found today; Trump is the biggest fungus on the log but there are plenty of other, smaller ones that are even more poisonous
    2. There is no mainstream; if there were, nothing would be as it is.
  38. 38.

    hrprogressive

    What’s truly wild to me is that, by and large, the Dems of the last 20 years or so have spent all their time practically begging for “bipartisanship” like it was a fucking drug, to their own electoral and legislative dismay.

    But since The Switch to Harris and especially after the tapping of Walz, it’s like, *finally*, the right people got the memo:

    85-90% of what the Democratic Party stands for and wants to achieve is massively popular, mainstream, right where most “normal” Americans are, and it’s really fucking Weird that The GOP has become the Party of children’s genital inspections, dying of covid to own the libs, and an obsession with a Fascist Cult Leader.

    It still bothers me the country has had to come to the brink of a Complete Fascist Takeover and destruction of the Republic to get there, but as Kamala noted last night, we do have a fleeting opportunity to move past all that, and save the Republic.

    The patriotism on display from Harris/Walz and their surrogates is the kind of patriotism and pride in country I, and a lot of others, can finally get behind.

    I am truly astonished, in the best ways possible.

    I didn’t think this was something the Democratic Party could pull off.

    I have never, ever, been happier to be wrong.

  40. 40.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @dmsilev: ​ allow me to rant about my day today, and in particular construction workers.

    Hey now, you’re treading on dangerous ground here.

    eta

    construction workers who either fail to measure the depth of pre-existing underground pipes or who measured the depth but then screwed up the depth of the horizontal bore that they were drilling to run electrical conduits to a new building.

    For the record those records and the machines that are suppose to corroborate them are always off. Usually just a few inches, sometimes a foot or more. No, I don’t know why, never had to work with that stuff. I built up, not down.

  41. 41.

    dmsilev

    @Kristine: Thanks. It’s been a no-fun day, to say the least. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get a temp workaround in place which will let us limp along with a few systems running until the main piping is fixed, but not clear yet whether that will be feasible.

  42. 42.

    Jeffro

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:My only disagreement with Harwood’s characterization is Trump taking them off the deep end.  Yeah, I’m echoing Driftglass in this, basically that the derangement that characterizes the modern GQP is the result of Trump, no, it’s the natural and predictable end-state of where the GOP has been heading for over 50 years.

    I hear you.  I kind of think both are true.

    The GOP was headed this way ever since Gingrich.

    trump took them way, waaaay over the rails and into the ravine.

  43. 43.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Jeffro: The GOP was headed this way ever since Gingrich.

    Goldwater, if my understanding of history is reasonable. And the strain of thought goes back through Dixiecrats, Confederates, Royalists, et c.

  44. 44.

    dmsilev

    @OzarkHillbilly: I focus my ire on people who fuck up the job they’re supposed to be doing. Which was the case for today. The construction guys who know what they’re doing, them I get along with just fine.

  45. 45.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @ssdd: As I recall, in 2016 the simulator said just before the election that Hillary had something over a 90% chance to win.

    Keep fighting.

    Edit: To be clear, I like hearing stats like this. Hell, just before coming here I went Googling for meaningless post-convention polls to enjoy.

    But we know what happened in 2016 with so much of the media putting their thumb on the scale. We need to make that margin as big as possible.

  46. 46.

    Mike E

    @KatKapCC: a favorite of mine is florets with some neutral oil, red pepper flakes salt & pepper roasted cut-side down on a sheet tray until slightly charred but still a little crunchy.

  48. 48.

    Trivia Man

    @The Audacity of Krope: i read that brussel sprouts have dramatically changed in taste over the last 50 years. Bred to be less bitter i think. So anyone who thinks they don’t like them… try again. Same with cilantro. Many people grow out of the soapy taste (like me!) and it isnt foul anymore.

     

    Also, same with jalapeños. Standard jalapeño is much milder now because there are so many hotter choices now. IMHO it is obvious – grocery store jalapeño are frequently little more than bell pepper hotness.

  56. 56.

    trollhattan

    @dmsilev:

    Not the typical Area Man with Backhoe story but pretty dang startling. Sorry about that.

    We had an airport shutdown a couple months back because fiber optic comms lines were clipped outside the airport property. Unclear if it was “oops” or intentional. Either way, that’ll shut air ops down right quick and NOT simple to fix.

  61. 61.

    cmorenc

    @JoyceH: Dukakis may have had a 17 pt lead coming out of the 1988 convention, but the Rs went second (b/c Reagan was the incumbent) and Dukakis was a good man, but he had the telegenic charm of a grey cinder block.  And Bush/Atwater were masters of presenting pork-rind eating faux folksiness while letting their minions run deceptive Willie Horton ads.  And Bernard Shaw asking a nasty gotcha question that is sort of spawned by the Willy Horton meme pushed by team Bush.  “if Kitty Dukakis was raped, would you favor the death penalty?” That Dukakis wasn’t quick enough on his feet to parry well.

  62. 62.

    Splitting Image

    @The Audacity of Krope:

    Goldwater, if my understanding of history is reasonable. And the strain of thought goes back through Dixiecrats, Confederates, Royalists, et c.

    The Gilded Age plutocrats, the McCarthyites, and the John Birch fringe had already been Republican for a long time, but Goldwater added the old Dixiecrats to the coalition and the overlap between them and the Southern Baptists eventually brought them into the party as well.

    But yeah, if we all wanted to put the blame on one single person, Goldwater ’64 would be my pick. Nixon would be my second choice. Reagan simply reaped the benefits of their work.

  63. 63.

    KatKapCC

    @Mike E: I am the cliche white person who cannot take any heat at all, so red pepper is a no go for me. One time, I ate a tortilla chip on which a tiny chunk of jalapeno had been lightly resting, but which I had brushed off. My mouth was aflame for like ten minutes.

  64. 64.

    Jeffro

    @The Audacity of Krope: we can go back however far people want to go (back to the Civil War, at least).

    For me, they started sounded and acting unhinged – as a party, not just one person like Goldwater – from Gingrich onwards.

  65. 65.

    HeleninEire

    I am a little bit in love with “not an art thief” I followed him on Twitter and then he left but I figured out how to read him on Bluesky.

    Very happy.

    Also Popehat and Darth.

  66. 66.

    Scout211

    First on Fox : A dozen Republican White House lawyers who served in the administrations of then-Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush are endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in her race against GOP nominee former President Donald Trump.

    We endorse Kamala Harris and support her election as President because we believe that returning former President Trump to office would threaten American democracy and undermine the rule of law in our country,” the lawyers wrote in a letter that the signatories shared first with Fox News Digital.

    Media:  That’s gotta hurt.

    MAGA: Reagan? Who dat?

  69. 69.

    agorabum

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: Hardwood is right when it comes to marketing.  2000 was “compassionate conservatism.”  2008 was McCain pushing honor and strength (but the Palinite radicalism bubbling up as a coalition partner).  With McCain correcting his voters and telling them Obama was a decent man.  Romney was “I’m a better economic manager; the big-government / liberal response to the Great Recession didn’t work.  I’m a super-smart businessman.”

    Even 2016 Trump was “I’m not like the DC elite; I know how to fix things and I’ll make great deals; I’ll get you something better than Obamacare.”  vs “I will pardon insurrectionists and rain retribution down on my enemies, and we will ban abortion”

  70. 70.

    Jeffro

    Alexandra Petri, channeling RFK Jr’s brain worm re: the endorsement of trump today:

    Ultimately, this came down to values. I say now what I have said this whole campaign: I am a parasite and I do not have the country’s best interests at heart. So it is clear to me now that I have no choice but to drop out of the race and support Donald Trump.

    As a creature who seeks only to gorge myself willy-nilly on whatever life offers without concern for what devastation I leave in my wake, I have long admired Donald Trump’s way of doing things.

    I’m dead.

  74. 74.

    dmsilev

    @OzarkHillbilly: Maybe, but you’re supposed to at least spot-check that the drawings of “where’s the underground stuff” match what’s actually in the ground….

    Right now I don’t know where the screw-up was. Either they didn’t dig down to check where the pipes actually were, or they checked and the crew doing the boring got the depth wrong. We kind of need to know, just to figure out how to minimize the chance of a recurrence. I’m not aware of any actual damage to lab gear or server rooms or anything like that, but counting up the cost of all the downtime, it’s going to be a lot.

  75. 75.

    Geminid

    @The Audacity of Krope: The American  Party, aka “Know Nothings,” were a force in the 2850s. The party dissolved itself in 1860 and most of its adherents jouned the new Republican Party and voted for Abe Lincoln.

    These Nativists never left the Republican Party. Their anti-Catholic and anti-worker ideology remained a key component of Republican politics and was reinforced by the Isolationist movement of the 2920s and 30s.

    These were the Taft Republicans that Dwight Eisenhower defeated in 1952. Barry Goldwater represented this Republican strain in 1964, and his defeat seemed to vindicate the Eisenhower wing.

    Then, in the aftermath of the 1965 Civil Reights Act, the accession of the Southern Democrats to the Republican Party changed the party’s balance of power. The Know Nothings had a natural ally now, and they and Southrn conservatives drove the party rightwards, away from the Center.

  80. 80.

    geg6

    @Trivia Man:

    Cilantro is my worst thing.  But I have worked myself up to tolerating a very tiny bit because it does enhance salsa, which I can make spicy and flavorful enough to mask it.  But I only use about a quarter of what anyone else would use.  Use more than that, I might as well be eating a bar of soap.

  85. 85.

    M31

    @OzarkHillbilly: the guys who fucked up the job, may have done it years ago.

    worked in a place that was being renovated — original building was 1860s, and the plans that detailed where the gas lines were were completely wrong, lol, huge old blueprints spread out on a table, and the building manager was losing his shit every day lol since a lot of walls were being torn out, etc. and those gas lines were somewhere don’t you know

    no one got killed, fortunately

  86. 86.

    Splitting Image

    @matt:

    @ssdd: I like the Harris 527-11 timeline one.

    I’m curious about what that map could possibly look like. Alabama has 9 votes, so the model must be giving it to Harris. All bets are off at that point.

    Maybe the model had Trump winning West Virginia, Utah, and the red Nebraska district? That would come to 11.

    Realistically, I think that a massive landslide tops out at around 430 votes. Even that is putting a few states in the Democratic column (South Carolina, for example) that I won’t be holding my breath for.

    All the Democrats can do is juice their own turnout as high as it will go. If they do this and a lot of dispirited Trumpers stay home, the sky is the limit.

  87. 87.

    geg6

    @Splitting Image:

    Well before that actually.  Give a listen to Rachel Maddow’s Ultra podcast.  Both seasons are excellent histories telling two different but connected stories about the traitors and racists who have always found protection and a home in the conservative movement and GOP here in the WWII and post-war era.  I’m not a fan of her on tv but she was born to do this sort of work through podcasting.  Really well done and I learned a lot I didn’t know.  Which surprised me because I’ve read a lot about those eras.

  90. 90.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: That should have read, “The Know Nothings  were a power in the 1850s”, not “2850s.”

    There still may be Know Nothings around in the 2850s though. That’s been a common type throughout history.

  95. 95.

    M31

    lol now reading that the Trump campaign has figured out that they can only win if they get Pennsylvania, so they’re putting Vance there for the duration

    not sure it that’s going to result in more votes, though

    and the image of him being swatted around the state by Gritty and a bunch of Philly hoodlums, I mean, fine upstanding citizens, is pretty great

    he’s already pissed off the cheesesteak purists and people who know how donuts work

    next I guess he’ll start asking for pretzels with no salt but with extra mayonnaise or something

  96. 96.

    Bupalos

    @prostratedragon: we really aren’t “fortunate.”

    we’ve made our own luck. Or more specifically, people like Pelosi and Harris have made our “luck.”

    the reality is we’ve got some absolute fucking warriors on our side, and calling it luck is wrong. We’ve barely created the space for them to do their thing. And they’re putting it out there, and we’re lifting them up.

    Personally I feel like Kamala is laying out one of the all-time examples of effort here. We’re low-key watching Michael Jordan will himself into the shape he needed to be. It’s that kind of thing. She is working HARD every second and improving by the hour. Every time you see her she’s sharper and hungrier than you have a right to expect.

    that’s your “luck.” Send her a donation because she’s earned that and it isn’t “luck.” You owe that woman.

  100. 100.

    Bupalos

    @M31: I’m feeling good about Sherrod and considering moving my weekend ops 52 miles east into PA.

    Grove City here I come.

  101. 101.

    Prescott Cactus

    @dmsilev:

    Since I have a card in my pocket, I’m curious.  Do you know if they were these construction workers AFL-CIO union construction workers

    Regardless, sorry for your pain.

  103. 103.

    TBone

    @Darkrose: that’s fine and dandy too, but sometimes I need the good, old school peasant food.  It’s a simple classic.  Only the best, big, ripe, grown-in-your-backyard tomato will do for the classic tomato sandwich.  Helps if it’s still warm from the sun…

  104. 104.

    Suzanne

    @dmsilev:

    In especial particular, construction workers who either fail to measure the depth of pre-existing underground pipes or who measured the depth but then screwed up the depth of the horizontal bore that they were drilling to run electrical conduits to a new building. 

    Yeah.
    To echo what Ozark wrote above…. Record drawings are seldom that precise, all those different subsurface mapping tools they use like GPR aren’t that precise….. it sucks. I feel like contractors-find-underground-utilities-in-a-really-bad-way is a pretty common story, IME. Sorry you had to deal with that.

  105. 105.

    lowtechcyclist

    @ssdd: ​
     

    Just a note, the 538 simulator is back online as of today. 58/41 Harris to start.

    JFTR, that’s not voters favoring Harris by 58-41 in the 538 polling average. That means 538 gives Harris a 58% chance of winning if the election were held now.

    A reminder: on the morning of Election Day 2016, 538 gave Trump a 32% chance of winning, IIRC, and you know how that turned out. Here 538 is giving him a 41% chance. So this isn’t something to be excited about, or to find comfort in. It says we’ve got work to do, to drive his chances down to zero.

  106. 106.

    BR

    @rikyrah: ​

    Walz should nominate Jesse Ventura Wrestler in Chief to do stunts on the Naval Observatory lawn for the media’s entertainment if they’re bored.

  107. 107.

    dmsilev

    @M31:

    lol now reading that the Trump campaign has figured out that they can only win if they get Pennsylvania, so they’re putting Vance there for the duration

    not sure it that’s going to result in more votes, though

    It’s a threat. “Vote for us, or the JD Vance visits will continue”.

  108. 108.

    Anoniminous

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: ​
     
    Classic case of the Map not being the Territory. Clinton did win the popular vote which is what those fools were using as a metric. Problem: the US President is elected by Electoral Votes and Trump eked out a win by minute wins in Michigan, Pennsylvania, etc.

  111. 111.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Hey! We’re trying to keep a nice neighborhood out here. All that space junk you Earthlings keep leaving is bad enough without your MAGA people.

  112. 112.

    TF79

    @lowtechcyclist: It’s a forecast, not an “if the election was held today” model.* The fact it’s a forecast is why the error bands are so large and in some simulations you get things like Harris winning 511 EVs (basically flipping heads ten times in a row in whatever idiosyncratic shock term they have included in the model). This far out the model will trend towards more “50-50 anything” goes almost by construction. (though your more general point is spot on)

     

    *Our forecast starts out with a slight lead for Harris, reflecting her current edge in polls but uncertainty about how the rest of the election could impact the state of the race. With 75 days to go, we think anything from a clear Trump victory to a clear Harris win is possible (while a close win either way is most likely).

  114. 114.

    pat

    I see men and women covered with tattoos and I can not imagine how they selected a scene or a picture that would be on their limbs forever….  I look at the wrinkles on my old arms and try to imagine what those tattoos will look like in another 30 or 40 years.

    Also, my dentist complained once to me that he saw young men with bad teeth and tattoos that cost a lot more than a simple dental checkup.

  116. 116.

    japa21

    @lowtechcyclist: But trends do matter.  A week or so ago, it was Harris 51/49.  A week before the election in 2016, Trump’s chances were, IIRC, much worse than the 30% area.

  117. 117.

    sixthdoctor

    The Soundgarden lyric “I’m looking California and feeling Minnesota” went through my head and it hit me. They knew the key to the presidency back in 1991!

  118. 118.

    Origuy

    Back in 2020, I submitted an On The Road about Butte County and Upper Bidwell Park. Except for the Sierra Nevada Brewery, I think all of the places pictured have been affected by this fire and some in previous years.

  119. 119.

    Prescott Cactus

    @dmsilev:  If the in house guys are union pretty decent chance the hired hands are too.

    Hard to believe they didn’t dig foot and stick Lidar or some such detection device, dig a foot, rise, lather, repeat.

  120. 120.

    RandomMonster

    @Suzanne: Republicans are the people who leave their dog’s shit on the sidewalk. Trump is the worst of them all. But maybe Vance?

    Vance is what was left on the sidewalk.

  121. 121.

    frosty

    @geg6: I’m not a fan of podcasts but fortunately she put her research of the pre-WWII fascists and the handful of now-completely-unknown patriots who stopped them into a book: Prequel. Well researched and well written.

  124. 124.

    Sally

    @KatKapCC: Broccoli and Brussels sprouts, roasted in olive oil, chilli, garlic, black pepper, and perhaps some flaked or slivered almonds. Yum.

  125. 125.

    Baud

    YouTube algorithm showed me a headline from NBC Montana

    “Harris tries to paint herself as a moderate: Harris tries to take centrist tack as opponents paint her as extreme”

    They are drowning in propaganda in red country.

  127. 127.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @TBone: great tomato deserves a great sandwich.  White bread, mayo, salt and pepper.  Those are the only acceptable ingredients where I’m from.  Mmmmmm!

    Agree. The salt and pepper, too, is de rigeur. Must be present. Though I always love to play around. The talk of cilantro on this thread is giving me new ideas.

    @Trivia Man: read that brussel sprouts have dramatically changed in taste over the last 50 years. Bred to be less bitter i think.

    I could totally see that.  I’ve always liked them, but I’m a fan of some good bitter. They just absorb and take on some flavor from their cooking cohort very well as well. Same reason I’m a fan of cooked greens broadly.

  133. 133.

    Anoniminous

    @David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch: ​
     
    He never had a chance to win. My guess is he was supposed to take votes from Biden but ended-up taking votes from Trump. Then Biden dropped, Harris took up the mantle, and he became expendable and was so expended.

  134. 134.

    eemom

    k, if y’all are gonna talk Dukakis….I’m so old I remember when Broccoli was a Poppy Bush joke.

    @KatKapCC:

    I LOVE broccoli. (And hate brussels sprouts.)

  137. 137.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Going by Trump’s meltdown on Fox during Harris acceptance speech I think she’s achieved the coveted double tap with it were she both inspired her voters and caused an episode in her opponent.  Not to mention blubbering like a heart broken teen on national TV over what some woman is saying is a major violation of Man Law.

  138. 138.

    JMG

    Michael Dukakis was a fine, intelligent man and excellent Governor of Massachusetts. He was also unbelievably provincial and unfamiliar with the world outside Route 128 (the Boston Beltway). He never had a chance in that election.

  139. 139.

    Jay

    @TBone:

    @Darkrose:

    @TBone:

    #1. Lightly toasted Whole Wheat and Birdseed Peasant Bread, 1/2 inch sliced, buttered,  thin mayo, warm Heritage tomato of the Beefsteak variety, salt and  freshly ground, slightly coarse, black pepper, layer of naturally smoked, thick sliced bacon, still warm, quarter inch to half an inch of spinach or romaine, a touch more mayo, then the top bread.

    #2. Lightly toasted Whole Wheat and Birdseed Peasant Bread, rubbed with garlic, lightly buttered, coated with microplaned parmesan or asiago, under the broiler until the cheese just melts, top with a mix of chopped Heritage tomato, ( a drier strain like a Rosa or a Roma), chopped red onion, fresh finely chopped basil, light amount of oregano, a touch of the same salt and black pepper, and a splash of balsamic vinigar,

    #3. Caprese Salad

    #4. Eat it like an apple, reseasoning it with salt and black pepper as you go.

  140. 140.

    p.a.

    @The Audacity of Krope:

    @TBone: great tomato deserves a great sandwich.  White bread, mayo, salt and pepper.  Those are the only acceptable ingredients where I’m from.  Mmmmmm!

    Agree. The salt and pepper, too, is de rigeur. Must be present. Though I always love to play around. The talk of cilantro on this thread is giving me new ideas.

     

     

    Fresh basil, light shake of cayenne.  I got $#i+ on a local fbook page for “sangwich* lovers” for using Cains mayo (regional brand) not Hellmans- which to me is too greasy/fatty resulting in covering the flavor of the actual sandwich contents.  Dukes is here but not everywhere.  And use a crusty white or multi bread or bun, not the plastic-wrapped junk from megamarts.
    * local snark on ethnic pronunciations.

  141. 141.

    lowtechcyclist

    @japa21: ​
     

    But trends do matter. A week or so ago, it was Harris 51/49. A week before the election in 2016, Trump’s chances were, IIRC, much worse than the 30% area.

    True, but my point was that the way it was presented didn’t really distinguish it from a poll where Harris was leading Dump by 58-41. I wanted to make sure the distinction was clear. End of story.

  142. 142.

    eemom

    wrt the shitsack kennedy, a couple of weeks ago in downtown DC I saw a little army of buses painted: “RFK JR IS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN BEAT TRUMP!”

    New paint job to read….?

  143. 143.

    Soprano2

    @dmsilev: Ugh, I’m so sorry. Boring is the devil’s work. I can’t tell you how many times we find one of our mains or manholes has been bored into, or how many calls we get from homeowners whose sewer service lines have been bored through. I honestly don’t think they measure anything. We’ve started making whoever did the boring fix our mains if we can.

  147. 147.

    lowtechcyclist

    @eemom:

    I LOVE broccoli. (And hate brussels sprouts.)

    Ditto.  Mom inflicted Brussels sprouts on us when we were kids.  I’ve forgiven her, but AFAIAC the only reason to call Brussels sprouts a food is that they’d be killer weapons in a food fight.

  149. 149.

    Soprano2

    @trollhattan: We found a defect in a sewer main that ran under an airport runway. No way we could dig that up. The contractor spent months drilling a path to it under the runway. That’s one reason we do pre-acceptance TV inspections of new sewer pipes now.

  151. 151.

    Weapon X

    @Kayla Rudbek:  for me it’s just bacon and Duke’s mayo(and bread of course).  I used to do Miracle Whip and was roundly criticized for it. Duke’s compliments the bacon and tomato in a way the other mayos don’t.

  152. 152.

    SW

    @The Audacity of Krope: Yes it is from the post Civil War years.  All the traitors and white supremacists in the South became Democrats.  When FDR a Democrat beat Hoover he needed the “solid south” to enact the sweeping changes of the New Deal.  That uneasy alliance persisted until the passage of the Civil Rights Act and support of the movement from Democratic Party leadership.  That presented an opportunity for Nixon’s Southern Strategy with the defection of racist southern politicians to the Republican Party.  They were always from their founding the party of capital but it was the backlash from the Civil Rights movement that added the racists to the mix.

  153. 153.

    craigie

    @HumboldtBlue:

    This is the best bit:

    Likely rubbing salt in the wound for Trump was the reported top market for Harris’ speech on day four: West Palm Beach, Florida, which is next door to his estate at Mar-a-Lago.

  154. 154.

    prostratedragon

    @Trivia Man:  Pretty sure broccoli has also changed. At least, I used to like it more than I do now because it too often seems tasteless compared to spinach, asparagus,  even kale.

  156. 156.

    p.a.

    @rikyrah: I worked for a guy, I would hold my hands behind my back and listen while he pontificated on… whatever.., counting the “I”s with my fingers.

  159. 159.

    Scout211

    @prostratedragon: At least, I used to like it more than I do now because it too often seems tasteless compared to spinach, asparagus,  even kale.

    I was surprised by how much better broccoli tastes fresh picked from the garden. It makes sense that it would be more flavorful than store-bought, but it surprised me because it always looks so fresh in the produce section.

    Salad greens also taste so much better fresh picked from the garden, especially arugula. It loses its peppery flavor fairly quickly.

  161. 161.

    TF79

    @eemom: The folks still saying they’d vote for Kennedy at this point are the true rando/incoherent/nutso voters. They might provide some small net gain to Trump, but they seem just as likely to wander off to some other third party or blow themselves up lighting their farts on fire.

  163. 163.

    Another Scott

    @dmsilev: :-(

    Infrastructure is great when it works properly, and hell when it doesn’t.  And once it starts not working properly, it often is like a slow train moving across a bridge that is out.  :-(

    [ insert too many long, boring stories of disasters and near disasters ]

    I actually fixed one of our air cooled recirculating chillers today that had been acting up for a few months (24.3C process water for a 20.0C setpoint).  Turned out a connector for the wiring for the temperature sensor was crudded up by water and copper oxide and stuff dripping on it from condensation (on a cold copper freon line) inside the cabinet.  I disconnected and reconnected the connector, power cycled the chiller, and it quickly started working properly again.  I then tied up the connector so it can’t sit in cruddy condensate water again.  :-/

    It’s always something…

    (We have to use a bunch of air-cooled chillers because our facility chilled water return lines apparently are constricted as we can’t get enough return flow (supposedly the strainers have been cleaned, but…)…  [ sigh ] )

    Hang in there!  Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  165. 165.

    frosty

    @geg6: That describes my neighborhood too. They send us out to registered Democrats to make sure they know where and how to vote and to remind them of the down-ballot candidates.

    No, wait! I do that myself because the fucken Presidential campaigns don’t have any lit for us to hang out for the other candidates.

    Grrr.

  167. 167.

    Bill Arnold

    @Bupalos:
    This book is worth a look. It’s mostly about organizing one’s life so that personal good luck is more probable, but can be applied at larger scales.
    The Luck Factor: Changing Your Luck, Changing Your Life – The Four Essential Principles (Richard Wiseman, 2003)
    From a goodreads comment:

    1. Maximize your lucky opportunities
    a. Build and maintain a network of luck (people)
    b. Relax about life
    c. Open yourself to new experience
    2. Listen to your Intuition
    a. Pay attention to your gut feelings
    b. Boost your intuition (meditation)
    3. Expect good luck
    a. Expect it in the future
    b. Persevere to reach goals
    c. Expect interactions with others to be lucky (same as 3a, I think)
    4. Turn your bad luck to good
    a. Look at any positive side of good fortune
    b. This optimistically (it will work out in the end)
    c. Don’t be worried and anxious over misfortune
    d. Take action to prevent more bad luck

    Note: 2,a,b are especially important. (This is something I know, including through extensive personal experimentation.)

  172. 172.

    geg6

    @Bupalos:

    As I said, good luck.  You’re gonna need it.  Do you actually know anything at all about Grove City?  The college that refuses to comply with Title IV funding requirements because they want to be able to discriminate based on religion?
    Slippery Rock would be more fertile ground.  Bigger and more diverse student body.  You might want to consider a slight change of plan.

  173. 173.

    Ken

    @Sally:  Broccoli and Brussels sprouts, roasted in olive oil, chilli, garlic, black pepper, and perhaps some flaked or slivered almonds. Yum.

    Though in fairness, you could replace “Broccoli and Brussels sprouts” with pretty much any vegetable, and yum.

    This, as I may have mentioned before, is my main issue with lobster, which I find rather flavorless. Oh, people say, it’s great once you dip it in the melted garlic butter. Yes, I reply, so is dry bread.

  174. 174.

    Lyrebird

    @M31: he’s already pissed off the cheesesteak purists and people who know how donuts work

    Snort!  yeah I’m not sure JV can sell his brand of fakeness to many Pennsylvanians.

    To be fair, though, I thought he was trying to bond with the cheesesteak vendor by finding common ground, hating on Swiss cheese, but I certainly didn’t read every detail.

    Thank you also for letting us know that the mystery gas line situation ended okay.

  175. 175.

    BR

    Too good to verify from social media:

    My mom told me JD Vance drove around town offering people donuts and no one wanted one

  176. 176.

    CliosFanboy

    Bread, miracle whip, bacon, Tomato, more bacon, more bacon again, miracle whip and bread.

    Not everything tastes better fresh from the garden. The chipmunks still taste pretty gamey.

  177. 177.

    laura

    We did a runner, and so missed the live cast of the convention. I used my “super power (insomnia)” to keep abreast of the goings on- and yet; with no input from me other than showing him the youtube of Lil Jon kicking off the roll call; my sweet normie spouse is beside himself with optimism. Note he is a dour Swede and so this is an unexpected full body experience. I’m cautiously optimistic because he is All In.

  179. 179.

    Gvg

    @Omnes Omnibus: Commenter above you mentions 4 women who have been working 50 years to be where they are now, helping Kamala. So, the rest of us need to do our share.

  182. 182.

    Jay

    @CliosFanboy:

    Using a salt or vinegar solution soak, overnight in the fridge will get rid of the gamey taste in the chipmunks,

    So will live trapping them and rearing them on a strictly grain diet for two weeks before harvest.

  183. 183.

    Scout211

    I know someone posted a photo of JD Vance’s recent haircut disaster but  Esquire has a whole analysis.

    I was able to read the article and see the photos without a subscription  but YMMV.

    Man, the hits just keep coming with J.D. Vance, don’t they? It’s hard to anticipate what each day will bring—or what will come out of his mouth—but one thing we can count on: It’s going to be weird. A recent campaign stop at a Georgia donut shop was no exception. While the whole thing played out like a scene straight out of Veep (is Vance a real life Jonah Ryan?), we couldn’t help but notice something very specific. X user Rob DenBleyker noticed it, too. Something looked very off about Vance’s hair.

    It’s almost definitely not intentional. But the unstyled shelf of hair atop his dome, with no gradation to the rest of his hair, is not a great look for anyone and most certainly not a Vice Presidential nominee. So what exactly is happening to Vance’s coiff? We called up a few hairstylists to find out.

    “It looks like someone just plopped a toupee on top of his head,” said Kevin Baker, a hairstylist at Material Salon in Tampa, FL, who went on to note that it seems like Vance went to an unskilled barber. Taking that idea further, another barber we spoke to (who wanted to remain anonymous) said it looked like either a DIY cut or a rush job—or both. “That’s someone who thought ‘something is better than nothing,’ which is obviously incorrect,” they said.

    . . .

    Vance is also a good reminder to always make sure you apply product to the back of your head when styling your hair. In fact, many hairstylists we’ve talked to over the years advise to actually start in the back and work forward when applying things like pomades and gels. It not only helps to ensure you don’t put too much up front, but also that your whole head is covered. Remember, just because you can’t see the back of your head, doesn’t mean everyone else can’t.

    In fact, that’s a good reminder for the hair cut, too. “Always ask to see the back,” advises Baker. And while Vance’s policies certainly want to take us back (in time), it’s clear that in this case, he forgot about his back.

  184. 184.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Anoniminous: No, these simulators were attempting to predict the electoral vote using aggregated state polls.

    The problem was that there was a systematic polling miss in Clinton’s favor in all of the states of the Great Lakes region–the turnout models all the pollsters were using were just wrong in those states, because Trump turned out a lot of people who had previously had low propensity to vote. So the state polling was way overestimating how well Hillary Clinton would do there.

    By the 2020 cycle, those models had been adjusted to take Trump’s novel effect on turnout into account.

    We can hope they’re wrong in the other direction this year, because people have gotten sick of Trump and Harris is the exciting phenomenon all of a sudden. But we can’t count on it.

  185. 185.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Lyrebird: I think there was a black salt packet in the vegan hard boiled egg substitute that they sell at Whole Foods (I forget the exact brand). Those are expensive though so I don’t get them very often. I should try real eggs again and see if they make me sick, I suppose. Between my food allergies and the diabetes, I’m going to have to learn how to cook air before I’m done with my life.

  187. 187.

    BR

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Yeah, I’m going into this election assuming that there’s maybe still a 1% polling error in Trump’s favor — smaller than in the past but non-zero — and that we need 1% on top of that in the swing states to avoid being within the recount threshold.

  188. 188.

    BR

    @laura: ​

    Thank you for sharing that. I love hearing reports of how normies are reacting.

    My normie spouse is disengaged and not particularly excited but willing to help write postcards.

  190. 190.

    Lyrebird

    @Kayla Rudbek: Good wishes for finding what’s easy and doesn’t make things worse!

    FWIW if you can eat tofu, one trick I found that went over well with friends who can’t eat eggs and wanted something like egg salad was to use half extra firm and half “medium”, well pressed, to have a texture contrast, both grainy and smooth.  And of course some Dijon mustard ;-)

  191. 191.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Kayla Rudbek: there’s a miso mayo, I’m not sure if it has egg, but it’s tasty.
    There are tofu mayo recipes, homemade, not sure how it is; I’m not a big tofu fan.

    food allergies take so much work.

    btw, on going to the same yarn store as someone important, well, it’s a surprisingly small world. She might even have some cool recipes for non mayo, since she’s a known foodie, and seems accessible. You never know.

    eta capers have a nice tang to them, might make a good addition to your “sandwich spread”

  193. 193.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    @Ken: fun fact: lobsters used to be so common in Massachusetts that they were poor man’s meat, like the oysters people dredged out of pre-industrial harbors. Boston has still a petition circulated by 19th century prisoners asking for less lobster.
    Like caviar, lobster was recreated as a luxury food by 1920’s railways looking for a way to serve fresh or new luxury foods in cross-country trains.  Lobsters could be kept alive in tanks, thus insuring their freshness, and caviar was of course well preserved by salt.

  194. 194.

    Anotherlurker

    @Lyrebird: mixing Mancini fried peppers with extra firm tofu makes a very serviceable substitute for a classic pepper and egg sandwich.

  195. 195.

    Scout211

    @sixthdoctor: Beyoncé was successful. I think Foo Fighters will be, too.

    Former President  Donald Trump’s campaign has taken down a video featuring a Beyoncé song after reports the singer’s camp wasn’t too about happy the use of “Freedom.”

    According to Billboard and Rolling Stone, the singer’s record label and music publisher sent a cease-and-desist notice to Trump’s presidential campaign over its use of the song without approval.

    The Trump campaign must be just trying to see what they can get away with. It seemed like Cheung was trolling the Harris campaign when he used “Freedom” in that Twitter video of Trump.  Idiots.

  200. 200.

    Lyrebird

    @KatKapCC: Cool list.  Love  how

    …Celine Dion’s management team and Sony Music Canada issued a statement following the unauthorized use of “My Heart Will Go On” at a Trump political rally in Montana in August 2024, saying that “[…] Celine Dion does not endorse this or any similar use. …And really, THAT song?”.[17]

  201. 201.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: This is a repeat of an old common assertion about Barack Obama, and it was false then–the blog Language Log refuted it with statistics. So when I saw that I immediately thought they’d be on it. And they are:

    https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=65578

    Their conclusion is that Donald Trump, in fact, does not use first-person pronouns unusually frequently in his speeches, any more than Obama did. It’s just that it’s easy to prime people to notice the use of “I” in a political speech, at which point the number almost always seems extremely large.

    His speeches are wildly long, though.

  202. 202.

    NotMax

    @Anotherlurker

    Tofu is serviceable as a substitute for spackle. Mixing anything with it intended for consumption violates several tenets of the Geneva Conventions.
    ;)

  203. 203.

    SiubhanDuinne

    May I just say for the record (and because this is an open thread): Peggy Noonan can go fuck herself with the rustiest farm implements on the Atlantic Seaboard.

  205. 205.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Darkrose: if you grow a holy communion tomato, like Cherokee purple, or Berkeley tie dye, or black Krim, or great white, you just take a knife and friend w you to the garden, pick a ripe one, and -don’t even bother going back to the house, or making a sandwich- use your knife to cut wedges, and eat plain, by itself, to appreciate the entire bouquet of flavors. Must be shared to double the joy of such splendid deliciousness. It really feels like a holy moment of communion w my friend, both of us tasting, and moaning from how delicious.

  206. 206.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @NotMax: lol. (ROFLMAO)

    I manage to eat tofu a few times a year, when other food has run out..

    expert chefs have ways to make tofu absorb flavor and acquire more pleasing textures. They really do.

    Larson has a fabulous cartoon about some wild tigers who are bringing home the wild tofudebeest they’ve caught. You can imagine their displeased expressions, bleh!

    eta, so very sorry for the folks who can’t taste cilantro. It’s genetic, and if you can’t taste it, it’s just soapy and yuck. I feel this way about olives, although no one has said it’s genetic. I can’t taste anything good in them, and all kinds of olives taste exactly the same. I pick them out, and beg someone to take them. I’m told each kind has a different  flavor, I’m missing that ability, so I have to take people’s word for it. Bleh

  208. 208.

    tam1MI

    @lowtechcyclist:A reminder: on the morning of Election Day 2016, 538 gave Trump a 32% chance of winning, IIRC, and you know how that turned out.

    That is roughly 1 in 3 odds.  Anybody who plays roleplaying games can tell you how easy it is to get a success on 1 in 3 odds on a dice roll.

  209. 209.

    HumboldtBlue

    I wouldn’t know Star Trek from Star Wars and that’s OK, because role models come in all shapes and sizes and levels of geekiness and nerdness (I was band/chorus/theater dork) as AOC explains.

  210. 210.

    KatKapCC

    @Matt McIrvin: It’s the context of the Is that matters. Saying “I believe we can do this” is very different from saying “I am the only one who can do this”, for example.

  211. 211.

    KatKapCC

    @NotMax: Hey now! Tofu can be wonderful if prepared well, and goes with so many things. I often find that people who say they hate it have either 1) never actually had it, or 2) only had one kind, prepared one way.

    Had a firm tofu and veggie stir fry with black bean sauce last night, and it was excellent.

  213. 213.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @tam1MI:

    As a roleplaying game player, I understood what happened in the debate.  Sometimes you roll a 1 and the other guy rolls a 20.  Random chance happens.  You can have your worst night ever while he has his best.

  215. 215.

    Anotherlurker

    @NotMax: LOL!

    I dated a woman who’s a vegetarian so I had to figure out thing to make for her to eat.  I found tofu to be very serviceable in this regard.  I find it takes on flavor from from other foods. It also makes a good vegan stuffed pepper.

    I developed a taste for it, I guess.

  218. 218.

    tam1MI

    @Frankensteinbeck:As a roleplaying game player, I understood what happened in the debate.  Sometimes you roll a 1 and the other guy rolls a 20.  Random chance happens.  You can have your worst night ever while he has his best.

    My beef with the last Biden-Trump debate is that it was one where Biden was rolling 9s and 10s while Trump was rolling 1s, but the DM (Damned Media ;) ) decided to declare that Biden catastrophically failed at everything while Trump sailed through with no difficulties.

  219. 219.

    BethanyAnne

    Freezing tofu, then thawing and crumbling it add a cool texture to it. I was vegetarian for a decade or so, and learned to use it a few ways. I saw a neat veggie recipe last week I want to try. General Tso’s chickpeas. I think I would really like that, and it’s cool to have shelf stable substitutes ready.

  220. 220.

    RaflW

    DJT at tonight’s rally (from this article about Foo Fighters pissed he used their song): “He is a great person. I’ve known him for so long. For the past 16 months. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.”

    Mash potato brains.

  221. 221.

    Darkrose

    @pat: I only have two tattoos. I gave a lot of thought to what I wanted and where I wanted them. There are some more that I want for the fandom I’ve been in for almost 11 years; at this point, even if I leave the fandom, it’s been a major part of my life. Yeah, it might get a little saggy, but it’s for me, not for anyone else.

  222. 222.

    Lyrebird

    @HumboldtBlue: Tim and Gwen Walz are treasures.

    Not only are they caring and genuine, not descriptors that come to mind for JV, they are also working in a competently-run campaign.  There are probably people with awesome governing skills who are not good at small talk, but fascist fluffing aside, what does it say about Vance’s competence to do that [video shoot] without first finding out whether that donut shop wanted to be featured??  Obvs because he’s a misogynistic racist creep, I want him to stay incompetent, I just wanna give some credit…  when JRB has visited local ice cream parlors, taco shops, etc., I am prettttty sure he has someone do a little homework first.  MVP’s rainbow jacket might have been a serendipitous find, but her visit to that shop was not done without some homework being done.

  223. 223.

    KatKapCC

    @Anotherlurker:

    I find it takes on flavor from from other foods.

    It definitely does. It doesn’t have a super strong flavor on its own, usually, and it will nicely absorb whatever sauce or oils or whatnot it’s cooked in/with. And it adds nice filling substance to meatless dishes. Dang, now I’m getting nostalgic for this Japanese restaurant I used to go to when I would visit a friend at UCSC a decade or so ago. They made a vegetarian sukiyaki that was phenomenal.

  226. 226.

    TBone

    @coin operated: nope. 😆

    It’s not optional – an old fashioned, East coast tomato sandwich is made on white bread for a reason – the TOMATO is the star of this show.

    It’s not a BLT, it’s not a salad with mozz, it doesn’t have fancy spices, drizzles of expensive oil or vinegar or any bells and whistles at all.  It’s poor people food.  We had Wonder Bread or Stroehmans.  Hellman’s mayo.  Salt and pepper.  No frills!  None necessary!

    Everyone is free to make their own sandwich their own way, of course!  But it’s not the classic unless it has no frills.  Really, it’s all about the juicy, ripe tomato!  A nice, thick slice!

  228. 228.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    @dmsilev:

    My limited experience is that the fuck-ups often occur because the site boss, who not only was told where and how to have his crew dig, but often was part of the decision process, explains it to the crew, and then takes off for his midmorning Dunkin’. The crew, many of whom have no clue as to what the boss just said (the technicals are not in their background and they were figuring the guy standing next to them was understanding it all) then go do the best they can. Hilarity ensues, with everyone being lucky if no one gets hurt.

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