Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

How stupid are these people?

Consistently wrong since 2002

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

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

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

So many bastards, so little time.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

White supremacy is terrorism.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

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Saturday Night Open Thread

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Welp, here we are. Another Saturday night. Not even two weeks until the election. And it sure as fuck feels like we are the rebel alliance just fucking fighting for our lives and I dunno if this is the battle of hoth or the battle of Yavin. And I need to be clear, it’s not that I think Kamala and all of us are going to lose. I honestly think we have a good chance and might even win big.

It’s that the fear of him winning is so overwhelming that it knocks any positive thoughts right out of my soul.

As a palate cleanser, here is a picture of my trees doing their thing:

Saturday Night Open Thread 23

Soon the leaves will all be gone and so will I, off to Arizona.

***

It was a lovely day, today. I see there are some mild repercussions going down at the WaPo, and it’s hard to imagine what can excuse the cowardice. I really wish I knew the answer to fixing our media problem, but I suppose I would start by not letting billionaires own them.

Still working my way through C.B. Strike, and after that I need a new show- something Like CB Strike, Line of Duty, Jack Irish. Any suggestions?

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War for Ukraine Day 976: Odesa Under Attack

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Screen shot of new artwork by NEIVANMADE. The background is black. In the bottom foreground are grey Ukrainian homes and apartment buildings being bombarded by red Russian missiles with the Special Military Operation "Z" symbol on them. Above the missiles, written in red is the word "Ruzzians". Below the buildings being attacked is the statement "Turns Homes Into Graves".

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Two quick housekeeping notes. First, Rosie is continuing to slowly do better. Though she is milking it a bit regarding her food. Tonight she got a freshly cooked hamburger. Last night she got a freshly cooked chicken breast. Thank you all for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.

Second, despite a nap yesterday, and about ten hours of sleep overnight, I’m still fried. I’m trying not to nod off as I type this, so I’m just going to run through the basics again so I can rack out. I’ll get to that other stuff tomorrow night.

Russian opened up on Odesa with a ballistic missile earlier today.

Here’s a partial butcher’s bill from Russia’s genocidal attack on Ukrainian civilians and civilian facilities last night:

It you’re wondering why Ukraine needs to retake their Russian occupied territories, it is not just to restore Ukraine’s legitimate, internationally recognized borders. It is also to push Russia’s military back as far as possible to deny the Russians the ability to attack Ukraine from closer range.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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Heartening Read: Will Leich, ‘Made in America’

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Will Leich is a good and *sensible* man. This is from his (free to subscribe!) newsletter:

… [After the Biden / Trump debate] Everyone looked at Kamala Harris—in many ways for the first time. We knew who she was, of course, she was the Vice President, but those terrified by Trump, those flabbergasted by his political comeback, those desperate to keep him out of the White House and keep the Republic standing, had to look at her in entirely new, profoundly urgent way. She was no longer a person, or a politician: She was the last chance—the final stand.
 
Can you imagine that sort of pressure? An entire nation—a nation that had been skeptical of you for years—looking at you to save them? How would you handle it? Would you crumple? I think I would crumple. I think most people would.

It has been four months since that debate, and three months since Harris officially became the Democratic nominee for President. Because Covid-19 may have semi-permanently broken our understanding of time and its passing, it seems like longer than that. But in three months, with the entire planet staring at her, Harris not only risen to meet that moment, she has shown the precise qualities we should want in a President. She is better than we thought she was. She is the exact right person for the moment. She was standing in the right place, at the right time. But what she did next is what matters. I believe it to be one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen a public figure do. She went from being a Vice President with a mostly underwater approval rating to not just uniting her own party in a way it hadn’t been even under Biden but passing nearly every single test thrown at her under unfathomable pressure. And I think it’s why she’s going to be the next President of the United States…

I don’t want to turn this into hagiography: Harris has some stances I don’t agree with, which is what is supposed to happen because she is not a cult leader to be blindly followed, and I do not think she has been perfect, because she is a human being and no human beings are perfect. But I think, independent of the loathsomeness and imminent danger of her opponent, she will be a terrific President, during a time when we will very much need one…

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Distract-o-rama (Open Thread)

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I’m as twitchy as an angry cat’s tail today because Bill is visiting our flooded house by boat to check on things, and I dread hearing bad news upon his return, such as “oops, we didn’t jack the piano up enough and now it’s ruined.” Oh well. Not a thing in the world I can do about it, so I plan to practice self-care.

Got a jump on that yesterday evening when we visited a local tavern, where we had a fairly long and remarkably civil conversation with a Trump voter. It was the joint’s proprietor. He introduced the subject by telling us he’s waiting for the outcome of the election to decide whether to invest further in his establishment because he thinks Republicans are “better for business.”

I played dumb and asked questions, hoping he’d hear the contradictions in his answers. For example, when he complained about onerous regulations governing things like parking lot easements and RV hookups, I asked about the origin of the rules that were pissing him off. The county authorities put those regulations on the books. I asked if there were any Democrats on the commission. (The answer is no.) And so on.

I wasn’t under any illusions about converting a Trumper, and I didn’t. But following the Socratic method kept the conversation polite, and, more importantly, kept us from getting ejected and barred from the only pub in this neighborhood.

***

TV is a good distraction in these tumultuous times. I’m watching the Great British Baking Show and rooting for Slovakian immigrant Nelly because she is hilarious. I’m also binge-watching past seasons of BBQ Showdown. It’s fascinating in a trainwreck sense because the showrunners spring terrible surprises on contestants, like requiring them to incorporate raccoon meat into their dishes. Sweet tap-dancing Christ!

Netflix will roll out a new season of The Diplomat on October 31. We loved season 1, which ended with a cliffhanger. Hopefully Netflix will dump all the episodes on the platform at once rather than doling them out piecemeal.

Apple TV’s “Shrinking” is another show I’m enjoying. It’s about a grieving therapist (played by sexy beast Jason Segel) who goes rogue with his patients by getting involved in their lives. Harrison Ford plays Segel’s disapproving fellow therapist and mentor.

Sportsball on TV is another great distraction. Yesterday’s World Series opening game was amaze-balls! I don’t like either team but hate the Yankees above all others, so I loved that walk-off grand slam in the 10th.

Anyone got recs for other distractions to keep election/natural disaster jitters at bay? Open thread.

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Authors In Our Midst – Richard Roberts – Skip School, Make Dragons

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If you would like your talent featured in Authors in Our Midst or Artists in Our Midst, send me an email message.  Don’t be shy!  I have no more Artists or Authors posts in the queue, so please don’t hesitate to  get in touch if you would like to be featured.

Let’s give a warm welcome back to Richard Roberts, who has a new book available for pre-order.

Let’s talk genres!

by Richard Roberts

It’s a topic on my mind, with my book Skip School, Make Dragons in preorder on Amazon.

I have two settings as a writer.”I will write this and somebody else can figure out the genre. “Those books are usually pretty dark. The other is “I can have fun with this genre.”

Because it turns out, I do love genres. They have expectations! Tropes! Things that I love, which usually don’t make a lot of sense or are inherently goofy. Superhero comics have all kinds of wacky weapons, right? It’s fun to put the glue gun in and make it actually make more sense than a regular bullet gun.

And so a lot of the time I say “I want to try this genre and see what I can wring out of it. “Skip School, Make Dragons is one of those. I wanted to try science fantasy. Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic, and more importantly, any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science.

So I went “Okay, let’s have a world where magic was arranged by ex-scientists. “My main character is a bioengineer! Yes, she uses a magical soul forge. You know, those fancy cages that float inside each other in layers with a glowing crystal in the middle. That’s the kind of thing you get in science fantasy. And what else are ex-scientists going to want?  Well, they’ll do their best to recreate smart phones, and if magic won’t do telecommunications, you can put a list of practical spells for average people.

And of course it’s not science fantasy without something like a dungeon. There have to be places with monsters in them to adventure. So I said “What if, when technology stopped and magic started, all the big cities came alive, burrowed into the ground, and now pop up occasionally to spit out fake dungeons like an architectural LLM, complete with the weird mistakes?”

I could go on and on and on, but this is long enough. What genres do you love, and why? Writers, why do you work with your genre, and are there tropes you treasure and make sure to put in?

If you’re interested in pre-ordering the book, click here.

 

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Shout It Out

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Credit where due: Per the Washington Post, “Harris attacks Trump at abortion rights rally in deep-red Texas” [gift link]:

Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Texas for a boisterous rally Friday where she ripped into former president Donald Trump over his opposition to abortion rights, seizing on an issue that has boosted Democratic victories in recent elections.

Harris, who was joined by pop superstar Beyoncé, focused on the state’s restrictive abortion laws to warn voters that as president, Trump would seek to end abortion across the country.

“The impact of Trump abortion bans has been devastating,” she said. “We see the horrific reality that women face every single day. … The stories are vivid. They are difficult to hear, and they are difficult to tell.”

Beyoncé did not perform at the rally, but she officially endorsed Harris in brief four-minute remarks. The pop star has long supported Democratic candidates and causes but has only sparingly made appearances on their behalf. Harris aides were eager to find a way for Harris to appear with Beyoncé, who subtly signaled her support for Harris’s candidacy by giving permission to the campaign to use her song, “Freedom,” as Harris’s walkout song in the summer.

“I’m not here as a celebrity. I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé told the crowd. “A mother who cares deeply about the world my children, and all of our children, live in. A world where we have the freedom to control our bodies.”

She added, “It’s time for America to sing a new song.”

The Harris campaign’s decision to hold a rally in deep-red Texas was unorthodox, given that the vice president has little chance of winning the state, but the Harris team had been looking for ways to make a splash beyond simply taking another trip to a battleground. And in doing so, they drew their biggest crowd of the cycle — roughly 30,000 people, officials said.

Harris’s appearance was also a way to elevate the issue of abortion rights in unfriendly territory. Texas was the first state to adopt a “heartbeat bill” outlawing abortions as early as six weeks, and it has become a symbol of hard-hitting antiabortion activism.

“Texas, you are ground zero in the fight for reproductive freedom,” Harris told the crowd…

Harris also criticized Ken Paxton, Texas’s Republican attorney general, for his recent lawsuit against a federal rule that shields the medical records of women who cross state lines to seek an abortion.

“On the one hand, Donald Trump won’t let anyone see his medical records … and on the other hand, they want to get their hands on yours.” Harris said. “Simply put, they are out of their minds.”

The enthusiastic crowd, in a city that rarely draws rallies by presidential candidates, repeatedly roared its approval. Some had arrived in the morning to begin lining up even though the rally began about 7:30 p.m., waiting hours in the hot Houston sun…

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Cold Grey Dawn Open Thread: When the Rubles Dry Up…

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October 7th:

October 24th…

October 23rd, Tucker Carlson, having a public breakdown at Charlie Kirk’s TP-USA gala:

Less widely known ‘influencer’ Tim Pool, just identified as one of the American grifters taking money from Russia:

Russia money stopped eh

[image or embed]

— Shiv Ramdas (@nameshiv.bsky.social) October 22, 2024 at 8:30 PM

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