As usual, another lovely day here in Tempe. Absolutely nothing eventful has happened in days, just the way I like things. I did manage to spill a drink in my keyboard and ended up having to run to Best Buy on a weekend a few days before Christmas, and that experience was as awful as you can imagine it would be. The good people of Arizona clearly need a block of instruction on 4 way stops without stop lights and I think my next vehicle needs a blood pressure cuff installed in the driver’s seat.
Since we have not gone out or are going out for quite some time and because Frye’s had a sale on standing rib at 7.99 a lb, I picked up a big bonein standing rib. I’m going to use my dad’s herb coating to season it, and we are going to have prime rib with horseradish, some potatoes with herbs, and something else and a nice salad for Christmas. And hot roast beef sandwiches the next day. Then I’ll make a vegetable beef soup. I’m excited.
In other news, I see that Donald Trump is not covetous of… the Panama Canal:
It's going to be a rough four years.
— Joyce White Vance (@joycewhitevance.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 7:46 PM
How long before he tries to trade the Panama Canal to China in exchange for Taiwan. It would be the perfect Donald Trump thing to do- give away something that is not his in return for something else that is not his but to which he feels entitled. Add to it that this would be detrimental to the US- we gain nothing from “owning” the Panama Canal and would lose a huge strategic and industrial and regional ally in Taiwan, would be disgraced in front of the entire world, and all of our allies will know that we will fuck them over at a moment’s notice, which, to be honest, is something they should fucking know by now, anyway. And it will suck all the oxygen out of the room because that’s all anyone will talk about on the cable news because you can have an endless supply of pundits and pols and experts on to babble about, all while they are looting us and selling off the post office and who knows what else.
Feh.
Urza
I came to terms with whats coming by realizing that the stupidity that brought us this is also what is likely to save us from the worst of it and they aren’t even trying not to look stupid until they take over. America will no longer be trusted by the world after our voters were this stupid and the world will have to decide what that means. I’m finding that most people have not even realized there was a lesson, let alone internalized it, from literally all of our media about heroes and our nations propaganda for generations.
Gin & Tonic
I wonder who wrote that. You know it wasn’t Trump.
Steve LaBonne
@Gin & Tonic: Trump couldn’t find it on a map.
sentient ai from the future
finance statistics people live and die by volatility measures.
i am at a complete loss of where i should put my retirement assets.
the day after the election i completely liquidated my solar/renewable US based assets, and that has borne out because even though a couple of them have peaked above my sale price, all of them have consistently lost in share price over time
Starfish (she/her)
There should be a maximum age on Congresspeople and Presidents, and these folks are entitled cowards for not setting that age. Here is a story about that time when Kay Granger was in a memory care unit and not voting on issues important to voters in her district.
Kayla Rudbek
I want to be out of the Crazy Years, hopefully without having to go through the religious dictatorship taking over the USA first.
I am still warming up here after a very cold bike ride for Solstice. At least we did stop at Potomac Yard for tea and magazine reading, and I had Mr. Rudbek go to Target to get some handwarming packets to put into my heavyweight winter gloves so I wouldn’t have frozen hands on the ride home. I forget the brand name, but these gloves were specifically designed to use the hand warmer packet to send heat into the fingers. And I even had to use the neoprene booties over my bike shoes to keep my feet warm.
rikyrah
Sitting?
SITTING????
DA PHUQ 😳 😳 😡
Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) posted at 6:30 PM on Sat, Dec 21, 2024:
Dallas Express reports that sitting 81-year-old congresswoman Kay Granger is secretly residing in a memory care and assisted living facility.
Granger hasn’t cast any votes since July, isn’t answering phone calls and vacated her physical office sometime before Thanksgiving. https://t.co/lKPikce2L7
(https://x.com/kenklippenstein/status/1870627853752291402?t=4qFb4QzH9xzgV1UWnyy7
OQ&s=03)
Juju
@Gin & Tonic: I was just about to make the same comment. There are no all caps. I wonder who wrote the post, as well.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic:
Plagiarized from Conservopedia?
KatKapCC
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t know, it does have his Random and Unnecessary capitalizations.
mrmoshpotato
Can things get stupider? Apparently, yes!
Matt McIrvin
@Kayla Rudbek: If Heinlein were alive today he’d be supporting Trump and insisting Kamala Harris was the Nehemiah Scudder. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
Barbara
@KatKapCC: I am torn — there is a big scary word, injudicious, but it seems to be used incorrectly. Then again, why would his minions be more literate than he is. However, his repeated references to the US Navy suggests someone looked at a budget line item showing payment from the Navy to Panama and went berserk.
ETA: The current canal is the second canal, recently built without USG assistance. The original canal still operates but cannot handle the largest ships.
RevRick
MrsRev and I watched Home Alone again for the third time and it was just as hilarious as the first time. The physical comedy of Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern had me laughing hysterically and wincing.
NotMax
Where are the sitting rib roasts of yesteryear?
:)
.
I have used Chef Jonh’s method in the past for standing ribs to great success.
Renie
I wonder what brought this nonsense about the canal to arise in his dementia ridden brain. I agree he did not write that post. Usual crap to hide something else they are doing.
lgerard
@Omnes Omnibus:
I am amazed to learn that wonderful resource still exists! I have not heard it mentioned in at least a decade.
(not surprisingly trump’s facts are completely wrong)
NotMax
@NotMax
Oh, probably should mention my oven tops out at 450. Which is okay, I just add an extra minute before shutting it off.
Melancholy Jaques
Before the Iranian revolution and subsequent hostage crisis, the Panama Canal “giveaway” was central to Ronald Reagan’s campaign.
Kayla Rudbek
@Matt McIrvin: I would say that there would be a 50/50 chance of Heinlein still being a Republican if he were alive today. On the one hand, he was thoroughly anti communist (after having flirted with socialism as a young adult). On the other hand, he also hated the religious right, and he did write a great short story (in Expanded Universe if I recall correctly) where the first Black woman president gets into office and proceeds to be quite the heroine and reformer. I think he’d be a Tom Nichols-type Republican.
NotMax
@Melancholy Jaques
Welfare moochers piloting ships full of T-bone steaks though the canal.
//
Chetan Murthy
@Kayla Rudbek: All of the below is based on reading from the 80s and 90s. I could be misremembering.
It’s been a loooong time since I read any of Heinlein’s work (early 80s). But the last stuff I read was …. pretty …. well, maybe I shouldn’t say misogynistic, but still pretty not-exactly-decent-toward-women. I’m thinking specifically of _Glory Road_ (after which I stopped reading him). I fear he might be a right-winger via the path of aggrieved male-hood. But I could be wildly wrong.
On the subject of writers, I remember reading _East of Eden_ and thinking to myself: “this is a far cry from the John Steinbeck of _In Dubious Battle_ (where he pretty much lionized communist labor organizers)”. At the time it seemed to me he’d traveled quite a journey in his life, from quite overt leftist sympathies, to pretty conservative ones.
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
Anyone who introduced “grok” into the zeitgeist can’t be all bad.
;)
Kayla Rudbek
@Chetan Murthy: yeah, Heinlein was problematic about women and sex, although I think he was better than Asimov or Clarke in terms of having more women characters, and that the smart, competent women could also be good-looking.
Dahlia
@Renie: Phil Scott on Bluesky speculates that the posts were ghost written by Elon Musk. Popehat reposted his comment.
KatKapCC
@Kayla Rudbek:
I’ve never read Heinlein — were those women allowed to know they were good-looking, or was it the “you don’t even know how beautiful you are” garbage?
NotMax
What the blasted hell?
8 p.m.: Fireworks, including aerials, being set off in the neighborhood.
Torrey
@Barbara:
I wonder if the writer meant “injurious,” which would fit the sense of the sentence better.
KatKapCC
@NotMax: Solstice celebrations are getting weird…
Jay
Three times in my life, I have been high centered on snow.
1st time, driving my Dad to work, (my brother had crashed my Dad’s Van, badly).
I had a Pinto, modded out. It was my daily driver, and I raced it at Westwood Racetrack on the weekends in SCCA Modified Stock. Shortest route to my Dad’s job was down Galardi Way, a steep hill.
Problem was, 8 inches of fresh snow. Pinto had 2 inches of ground clearance, air dam and side skirts.
About 100 yards into the hill, I felt the tires lose all contact with the ground. My Pinto was now, just a toboggan. Luckily, the bottom of the road was flat, before the intersection, loaded with slush, and the tires made enough contact for me to stop. I drove home the flatter way.
2nd time, Royal Oak, Rabbit Convertible, same thing, but with much more unintended drifting.
3rd time, Edith Lake Road. The road had not been plowed, not a big deal, Toyota Hilux, 4×4, lifted, 36″ tires. Problem started at Edith Lake itself. Around Edith Lake, the snow tends to drift. The first drifts weren’t bad, I could just drive through them, but they got bigger and bigger as I drove along the lake.
I was supposed to be doing a Chandelier install at a Charity House, (the ones they raffle off), so eventually, I had to take a “run” at the drifts to get through. 3/4’s down the lake, I took a “run” at a 6 foot drift, and didn’t make it. The tires were suspended on 8″ of snow and the truck on 24″ of snow. No forward, no back.
It only took me 4 hours to shovel the snow out from under the truck, under the tires, and clear a path to drive home.
Good thing because the drift at the end of the lake was a good 12 feet tall.
Downpuppy
Trump is still sore about losing the tower he was mismanaging in Panama City. We had to go through the first floor to catch a boat in 2017. It was a huge, empty waste of space with the ugliest statue ever forged.
JWR
Last Thursday’s Amanpour & Co was one of those must see TV episodes for me. As far as the child separation thing, I can only hope the internal KKKrazy keeps Trump and company from fully implementing that atrocity, again! But it’s gonna happen, again.
Ten Bears
Having a bit of a problem with drought these days, not enough water to pass the ships through. Seems the correlation between rising sea levels and less rainfall is notable in its’ asymmetry. These day’s The Canal is worth just about squat
My bet is he’s going to invade Greenland. There’s what, 47 people there?
Martin
I said in the previous thread that I think this is just Trump doing what would have been a routine diplomatic call to China regarding them staying out of the Panama port operations (currently managed by a Hong Kong company) and turning it into a performance for voters. It makes him look big and tough over something that would normally not be made public at all, because he knows the media has lost any ability to contextualize a story in a responsible way for the public, so he can set the narrative and nobody can say he’s stupid and have it be believed.
sab
@Ten Bears: Population of Greenland is 56,000+ people, a small city. Not nothing.
sab
@JWR: This was the documentary NBC refused to show before the election because they so much wanted a Trump interview.
bjacques
@Martin: pity we couldn’t benefit from that media incompetence. We almost did for awhile there, with “weird”.
sab
Echo, our super-timid cat rescue from satby, jumped up on the bed and briefly rubbed noses with the Ponyo the Pitbull. Ponyo has been hoping for contact all summer.
Echo was wary. Ponyo was gentle and very still. Echo moved on slowly (i.e.didn’t bolt in a panic) Good sign.
Bad sign is Ponyo has two new skin bumps. She has had mast cell tumors and I think these are those, back again. Damn.
satby
@sab: Hoping it’s a false alarm for your sweet Ponyo!
Ben Cisco
@sab: Cowardly fucksticks.
Haven’t watched a minute since the election.
Starve the beast.
sab
@sab: We have seven cats, two satby rescues and our various others, mostly rescues.
Ponyo loves them all, and most of them will nap with her, especially on cold days. They like to cuddle with the big warm dog.
Satby’s guys are still learning the dog might be safe.
thruppence
I used to love the surreal absurdity of Lewis Carroll and other authors. Now real life is so catastrophically stupid, I don’t know even know how to think about it. The whole world has been through horrific things, but I can’t even imagine when life has been so astoundingly incomprehensibly stupid, and ordinary people think it just fine. I feel sorry for people with kids to raise in this century.
sab
@Ben Cisco: Fuck NBC, ABC and CBS. But for those with cable, MSNBC at night and on weekend mornings has always been good and still is. Boycotting them is shooting ourselves in the foot or worse. We say we want better media but then we don’t support it. Also too, Comcast (owns NBC) is cutting off MSNBC soon.
NBC the parent company, not MSNBC the funding subsidiary, blocked airing Separation.
sab
@satby: Hoping the same. The new guys are doing well. Solomon has set himself up a little harem in the basement with all the girl cats who aren’t his sister.
We laugh that he runs the condo association (cat condos is the politically correct word for doghouses for cats.)
His sister lives upstairs under my bed except when she emerges. She is also a real sweety. She finally got up her nerve to meet my husband ( she is afraid of large loud men) and things went okay but not lifechanging.
I am worried sick about Ponyo. Best hope is more surgery. Worst expectation is cancer finally gets her.
TBone
It is good to remember that The Narrative is a construct made up and spread on like thick peanut butter by the financial predators of the MSM. Look at the “quality” of advertising now, it’s a good reminder what they think they’re dealing with and who is really paying to keep us “attentive.” Real life, reality, is not even close to what they’re selling.
satby
@Ben Cisco: @sab: Big media companies are not our allies. As if we didn’t have enough proof, the news about Sesame Street’s impending end after Warner/HBO cancelled it’s deal with Sesame Street Workshop confirms it. Common good, who needs it?
(Supporters can donate here)
TBone
Finally found a helper for Josey, a vet who lives only four minutes away. She will be here later today. One of the vets I reached out to yesterday, affiliated with Bucknell, is out of town for the holidays so she gave me her name. I don’t know why they keep such low profiles and only work by word of mouth, but I’m very grateful to have lucked into this lady who’s been so near this whole time, unbeknownst. Josey really needs her today.
TBone
@sab: hugs
sab
@satby: Yikes!!
Warner HBO cancelled Sesame Street.?!
My sister’s first husband (Chinese) learned English watching Sesame Street. My baby sister and all my nieces and nephews and stepchildren learned how to read watching Sesame Street.
What is wrong with these media execs?
TBone
@NotMax: because real life distracted us, we didn’t get to order our Xmas prime rib roast in advance this year and instead had to buy what the local butcher had left in stock – a boneless prime roast. So this will be an adventure since I’ve only ever used Ina Garten’s Sunday Roast recipe (roasting instructions) for bone in. I’m sure it will be fine (crossing fingers and toes).
So thank you for sharing!
Jay
@sab:
Best wishes for Ponyo.
I am a suck for Pitbull’s and Ponyo is stunning.
sab
@Jay: I need to get a camera. She is also very cute. Big cow eyes and weird ears.
TBone
I have old photos of the 1960s Panama Canal taken by Dad when he was a marine stationed there. These weren’t very interesting to me when I was younger but interest is a changeable thing. Haha.
sab
@Jay: Why are you even awake. 3 am your time ?
Thinking of you and T.
Jay
@sab:
T naps, then wakes, needs somebody to be a gofor, needs somebody to monitor her meds, etc.
24/7 so I just nap.
Gvg
@Kayla Rudbek: He was pretty anti authoritarian big government, was atheist and non conformist on sexual rules. I don’t think he would have been in either party but he would have hated the Christian right. Heinlan was originally very good at writing stories that appealed to juvenile males that made some good points in fairly short stories. We could use several writers like that now, or better let, a few years back in time.
Shalimar
@sab: I for one am not boycotting MSNBC. That is what I would watch if I had the stomach to keep up with daily news. But it all makes me nauseous right now and I have no idea how long it will take for that to change. I assume their numbers are down more because there a millions of people like me than millions boycotting.
TBone
@TBone: I stood at the top of the stairs last night and listened to hubby say his goodbyes to Josey. I don’t know how I finally got such a sweetheart to stay in my life after all those years. He is taking this very hard. I expect I’ll be melting into a puddle later today, I’ve had to be strong all this time for hubby and Josey.
If I’m not here that’s why.
sab
@TBone: My dad was a doctor in Korea. He took lots of slides, which vanished later. We know now it was when my mom went to California for her firstborn having the next firstborn.
Dad, being alone in the house for the first time ever, hired a a scrapper to clean out the attic. Took all of our stuff to the dump. Some of it was even his stuff.
Years later we realized he was on the spectrum. But none of us ever forgave him. We always called it the Purge. My mom still loved him but never forgave him. Her mother’s stuff: gone. Her grandmother’s stuff: gone. Me My favorite books: gone.
My oldest sister’s really crappy painting from some stupid couse she took out west. Still there. Daddy’s favorite child. Rest of us, our childhood memories gone.
TBone
@sab: I’m SO sorry – I truly know how that feels! My SIL got rid of all the photos in the “life books” that my Mom had lovingly made, so I have none of the baby/childhood/young adult family photos. When WG put up the childhood Xmas photos posts, that fact came home to bite my ass hard.
Nevertheless, memories persist, at least. We must forgive because that’s the gift you give to yourself.
Jay
@TBone:
So sorry TBone, it is so hard to say goodbye.
sab
@TBone: We had been wondering about Dad’s Korea slides, until we realized he had hired the purge that destroyed them.
Decades later, and Dad died last spring, I am still very angry. Angrier to more I think about it What a stupid selfish thing to do. You are pissed that your wife takes two weeks out of your marriage to help your oldest child with your firstborn grandchild? So you wipe out all our stuff? Autism speaks. He needed Mom to be normal.
TBone
@Jay: Listening to my beloved hubby almost broke me last night. But I still have a few miles to go before I can rest (melt) today. We do not know what time this will happen but I hope it’s early today because Josey really needs relief now. Depends on when she can get a babysitter today. It was a “nick of time” situation, and I’m really thankful that I started looking for help in advance and not “day of” as if I still lived in civilization and had a wide range of choices. It is like a secret here, they do not really advertise.
This is gonna suck BUT we must do the adulting. I really hate adulting and have successfully avoided it more and more since retirement.
Big girls don’t cry when they are the primary cornerstone in the foundation, holding up the rest of the weight so we can cross the finish line.
Thank you for your kind words.
TBone
@sab: we cannot know what’s in others’ hearts each moment. That’s why why, like Atticus Finch explained to Scout, we have to try to walk around in one another’s shoes for a while …
When, if, you are able to let go of that anger it is a gift to your own heart to drop off that load at the recycling center.
Easier said than done, of course!
TBone
Some gentle “get by” music by Bonnie Raitt
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ztkpEJOJGDI
TBone
@Jay: if anyone here knows, you know. How hard you have it almost makes me ashamed to vent here in public.
But vent I must and I am very grateful to you and all the jackals.
We can hold on to that, the listening, for each other.
Baud
Isn’t Noriega still sitting in federal prison? Maybe Trump will pardon him and declare him the rightful ruler of Panama (in exchange for a little something something).
All the anti-imperialists will cheer the move.
Jay
@Baud:
Regular supply of nose candy for Junior?
BretH
Stayed up way too late last night with wife and our two adult kids watching Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained as the proper introduction of Tarantino to the youngest. A perfect solstice night and it makes me remember that the memories we create together are as important as the ones we have stored in the attic.
NotMax
@BretH
Gotta link it.
Do it all, have a ball
Saturday night, Saturday night
;)
BellyCat
@TBone: Sending hugs to your family and Josey.
Geminid
@Shalimar: Rep. Jasmine Crocket will be on MSNBC’s Sunday Show today.
Senator Raphael Warnock will appear on NBC’s Meet the Press. Former Southern Baptist Convention official Russell Moore will be on the panel for that one. I hope Moore and Warnock get to converse.
And for all you Fetterman fans, Big John will be on ABC’s This Week.
NeenerNeener
@sab: So my father isn’t the only one who got rid of things that weren’t his when left to his own devices? It used to drive my mother nuts when she’d come back from visiting my older sister and notice things were missing. And after she died, when he moved in with me he did the same to me. We always just chalked it up to Dad growing up during The Depression and being forced to “travel light”, as it were.
Liminal Owl
@Matt McIrvin: Disagree. Heinlein would be a Never-Trumper and supporting Liz Cheney.
Liminal Owl
@TBone: *hug* if welcome. I’m so sorry you’re losing sweetheart Josey.
Liminal Owl
@NeenerNeener: Nope. My mother did that too. My favorite coat (buckskin jacket with fringe—I was 12, OK? and it was a gift from my best buddy, who had worn i) and my high school class notes after I left, and whatever else. Also, when I was 6, my beloved Steiff turtle.
And there are almost no pictures of me in the family albums that my brother inherited.
Professor Bigfoot
@NeenerNeener: It’s a sure way to compensate for something like my own tendency to hoard shit.
Anyone interested in a couple of boxes of obsolete electronics, cables & suchlike? Accessories for an OLD iPad?
How about my THREE CPAP machines– the new one that hasn’t been deployed yet (Black Friday sale!), the one currently in use, the previous one in its box in the attic JUST IN CASE… (actually, I think I probably have one or two more somewhere up there)
Professor Bigfoot
@Liminal Owl: My wife’s mom was like that. To this day she laments the stuff her mom tossed. Her brother still grieves the toys and sportsball cards she tossed, too.
Bless her memory, that woman was absolutely NOT a hoarder.
Unlike me.
gene108
I’ve done 24 hr. blood pressure monitoring. You wear a cough and a small machine that triggers the cough every half hour during the day and every one hour while “sleeping”.
It is incredibly distracting to have the cough go off while driving. First and foremost range of movement with the arm that’s coughed becomes reduced. You can’t really move your arm from one position or the cough can’t get a reading and will keep trying until it gets one.
Seriously, trust me and never use a blood pressure cough while driving. Not even worth joking about.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Trump is babbling about the Panama Canal this morning. He does know that Panama is a sovereign nation, right?
Starfish (she/her)
@rikyrah: Good morning, and jinx. We were both getting worked up over the same thing yesterday evening. Kay Granger was around FOREVER, but you know she wasn’t anywhere talking to the press or her constituents. I hate it when staffers go on with a representative or senator in that type of condition.
TBone
@BellyCat: received and returned! Thank you
TBone
@Liminal Owl: very welcome indeed. Thank you for all of your kind words.
Geminid
Turkiye-based Clash Report has plenty of Syria stories from yesterday. The new Syrian leader, Ahmad Al-Sharaa had a busy day, including an important meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. Another important meeting:
This was a blast from the past. I remember reading about Walid Jumblatt over 40 years ago, back when he led the Druze militia during Lebanon’s Civil War. Jumblatt still looks like a skinny David Crosby, except that his mustache is gray and his long hair is thinner.
This post was accompanied by a picture of Jumblatt and company standing on a red carpet at the far end of a huge shiny room. Syria’s Presidential Palace has a very impressive entrance hall.
Only it’s not the Presidential Palace anymore. Later in the day, Clash Report posted this:
And in the “All’s Well That Ends Well” department, Clash Report posted this news item:
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Whatever you say, Darth. ;-)
TBone
Something that really helps me put anger into perspective.
It is just stuff. Granted we have the sentimental attachments, but in the long run, it’s not what you’re going to miss the most when it’s gone. I have been losing stuff my entire life and Mom actually trained me to do it as gracefully as possible (it’s never easy). When I was wee, Mom would give me Xmas & birthday presents that she wanted for her students in her classroom. After I stopped playing with or had already read something, it would disappear. Then when I visited her classroom one day, I found all my old stuff! The jig was up!
Thanks, Mom. It really helped.
Scout211
Good morning, jackals! On this three-days-before-Christmas morning, you might enjoy Drew Magary’s new column in sfgate this morning. It made me LOL.
It’s an ode (of sorts) to gingerbread houses.
A snippet:
Closing paragraph:
CliosFanBoy
Sigh. OK, a few necessary corrections for the Donald.
1. Most of the laborers at the Canal were either Panamanian or imported from Haiti and the DR.
2. We never “owned” the canal. We rented it.
3. The Senate approved the Treaty returning the canal to Panama when the lease expired. We did not “sell it” for $1.00
4. The treaty returning the canal saved us a war that would have shut down the canal. The intel community warned Carter that the Panamanian military had orders to attack and disable the canal immediately if the Senate rejected the treaty.
TBone
@Scout211: hahahaha!
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
@TBone:
My thoughts are with you both, and with Ponyo and Josey, today.
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: Hank you!
Leto
@Geminid: that’s a pretty epic fuck up, but tracks with how the Navy has been progressing (regressing) with training the past decade.
Geminid
@rikyrah: It’s pretty wild how no one noticed.
A lot of people are saying this proves how worthless our Representatives are, but I have a different take, that people were too fixated on other national political news during the period July-November to notice Granger’s absence. Congress did very little this summer and fall, so Granger is only now being missed.
Starfish (she/her)
@Matt McIrvin: He would have a Jordan Peterson cult-like following. He would consider starting a fake religion because it worked for that other science fiction writer, but I think ultimately he would rule that out.
lowtechcyclist
My wife and the kiddo and I are in BWI, which is surprisingly uncrowded, more like a normal day than the last weekend day before Christmas. Our flight’s been delayed anyway, but that’s life.
We’re talking with the couple across from us, and when we got the text about the delay, he says, “that’s unacceptable.” Whatever, dude – what alternative do you have but to accept it? Gonna stalk out of the airport, rather than go home to Tampa? I don’t think so.
The fun part is we were going to stay with my BIL, and he’d been sick for a couple of days, and finally went to urgent care last night and tested positive for Covid. Fortunately, his house is big enough so he can self-quarantine and we can stay out of each other’s way. But I still will see if a local hotel with suites has any availability. It’s less us I’m worried about than my FIL, who is 83 and not in good health. A case of Covid could kill him, and I want to make sure we don’t pass BIL’s case of Covid over to him.
In other entertainment, on Thursday night the kiddo hit a mailbox with his passenger-side mirror, both of which will need replacing. He did not stop at the time and tell the homeowners he’d hit their mailbox, so we had to explain to him the next day that one has to deal with these things when they happen, rather than driving off and dealing with it later (or not). And then explained to him that he was going to go to their house, knock on the door, apologize for hitting the mailbox, apologize for not stopping and telling them about it at the time, and offer to pay to replace the mailbox.
So we drove over together, parked around the corner but within sight of their door, and he walked up and talked with them while I sat in the car. He says they took him up on his offer to pay for the mailbox, and will be in touch.
He very much did not want to have to talk with them, but taking responsibility for one’s actions is an essential part of adulting. He’s 17 and driving, and legal adulthood is just months off, so there was no way I was going to let him off the hook on this one.
He’ll also have to pay for the mirror, which will be more expensive than the mailbox.
Geminid
@Leto: The Houthis have been shooting drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles at Navy ships for months now, but that’s no excuse. I supect some Gettysburg officer’s next posting will be inventorying parts in a big Norfolk Naval Base warehouse.
There was similar incident in the Red Sea last Winter. Officers on a German Navy frigate decided they needed to intercept an American Reaper drone they believed was a threat. When their first missile missile missed they fired another one and missed the Reaper again!
Torrey
@TBone: So very sorry. Like many here, I have had this experience (nine times, for me), and I know we are all feeling for you, your partner, and Josey right now. You are good people, and Josey is a very lucky cat. Even today. Perhaps especially today.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Urza:
I know this is an old thread, but have you seen the state of the rest of the world lately? It’s not 2004 anymore
Josie
@Scout211:
I beg to differ with Drew. My family makes homemade gingerbread to build our houses. We have done so since my oldest was about five years old. (He was born in 1976) We have made houses, churches with steeples, and Santa’s sleigh, all from delicious homemade gingerbread. To the delight of many kindergarten children, my sons took them to school for admiring, breaking down, and eating.
There go two miscreants
@Baud: I had to go to Wikipedia to check, but Noriega died in 2017, in Panama City.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: I’m sorry. I’m glad you found a helper, and sorry you and yours are dealing with this.
Wapiti
echoing @CliosFanBoy:
from a quick google search, during the US construction of the canal, about 5,600 of 56,000 laborers died over eight years. The workers were mostly contracted from the Caribbean. (My source emphasized Jamaica and Barbados)
So the lie that 38 thousand Americans died apparently came out of thin air; from the miasma of falsehood surrounding Trump.
Leto
@Geminid: yeah, that type of mishap is a guaranteed deal jockey position. Honestly that’s how you get a “Not Recommended” for promotion, which means you should’ve already had your resume up-to-date and your bags packed. I also know the Navy has had some really bad training related incidents over the past decade here, which has highlighted more fundamental issues at play. Hope they get it resolved.
frosty
@TBone: Good news about the vet. What a relief it must be.
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): One thing I’ve learned on Turkish Twitter is that a lot of Turks don’t trust the US and never have. Ahe more I learn about our two countries’ relationship in the Cold War and this century, the more I understand why.
Fortunately, most Turks seem to see this as a problem with American governments, and not the American people.
JaneE
I wonder if they finally resolved the dispute over Trump’s Panama hotel/condo complex. Not in his favor. It was a typical Trump move, sell condos but the owners have no rights to do anything but pay the bills, including bills for the Trump owned hotel (and casino? don’t remember but it may have a casino on the property as well). The majority of the owners fired Trump management but they would not give up possession of the property. Owners went to court and a Panamanian judge ordered them to transfer control to the owners – and then had to go in with police to throw them out bodily. The actual dispute about control was still going through the courts. The condo contracts (many to US ex-pats) had a few clauses that would not have been legal in any part of the US. And who reads the fine print anyway.
Years before the police standoff at the complex, a magazine that came with the LA Times had a big write up on the condo owners complaints about getting assessed for new hall carpets (which they needed) and the money going to put new carpets in the Trump owned part of the property. Turned out the owners had no voting rights for the condo association, just Trump and his management company. If they wanted new carpets in the condo part, it was another assessment with no guarantees as to what it would be used for, or pay for new carpets on their own.
And now Nicaragua is talking about their own canal, because Panama doesn’t have the water to float the boats with all the drought now. Probably with a lot of Chinese money, because they use the canal almost as much as we do. Drought is the problem in Panama and that is probably because of climate change. Maybe they should just give the canal back to Trump and let him figure out how to get enough water.
It’s going to be an interesting 4 years.
TBone
@frosty: it is, Josey is finally at rest, his little lungs and heart were really struggling today. He went in as much comfort as possible.
The in home vet is a lovely, young-ish girl and if I never need her again, she’ll be here, only 4 minutes from my house.
Miss Bianca
@sab: Rooting for no injuries for Ponyo the Pitbull. I love hearing about her and her desire to be Cat Momma to All.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: Not sure what to say. I’m sorry and I am glad you were able to make it easy for him.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: it’s all gonna be okay, you said it exactly perfect already.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: US hawks have been having feverish dreams about the PRC blocking the Panama Canal in the event of war, or putting ballistic missiles in the ports to launch at CONUS, ever since one of the terminals servicing traffic through the Canal. Never mind that the PRC can just sink one of its numerous merchant vessels in the Canal to block it, & the port operations can always be seized by the Panamanian authorities, under pressure from the US, in the event of great power war.
Somehow, the paranoia filtered to Trump & he thinks the PRC actually owns the Canal itself.
WTFGhost
@TBone: Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry, and yet so relieved, and wishing Josey had a few more hours, days, weeks, months, with you.