I’m glad that Betty linked that piece about Elon and his “harem.” I read it yesterday and m ant to mention it last night, but it’s like everything these days, it’s weird to the point of surreal. All of these people are just so fucking weird and it’s all just out there in the open. Just a massive display of the id of the various species of the maga cult: the divorced dad/contractor contingent, the christofacists, the beta male masking as Alpha broligarch’s, the old money guys, and the weirdo libertarian vegan anti-vaxx natural birth raw milk nutfucks. Every day we get some disjointed collaboration of headlines with one proclaiming HSS secretary microwaved mel gibson is going to end all childhood vaccines and a competing headline saying cryptoweirdo reborn rhodesian is nancing about telling everyone we need more babies and none of the fuckers puts together that increasing vaccine rates and providing neonatal and child care is one fucking way to get more babies, but in the end what is the point because with all of these revanchist reconstructionist cunts everything in the end boils down to whiteness and race.
Woah, the intent of this post was to say something positive for dinner. Let’s start over. A while ago I was tired of staring at the keyboard so I got up, took my shirt off. and joined steve on the patio for a sit in the sun. Joelle says we are lizarding. Regardless, it feels really good.
I was watching some clip on tiktok and heard music I had not heard in a long time and it turns out that the kids have discovered Gary Numan. I love that. Amusingly enough, the song they are all nuts over isn’t even Cars. Crazy to think the Pleasure principle is almost 46 years old.
I holler at you later.
lowtechcyclist
You left out misogyny, but other than that, right on target.
lowtechcyclist
You left out misogyny, but other than that, right on target.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Wow, the “C Word” and not from somebody in the UK or Australia!
Regarding kids “rediscovering” music from back in the day, spend some time on YouTube looking at School of Rock videos. There are some magnificent performances in there that often rival the originals.
From a technical standpoint, one of the best is a group doing Pink Floyd’s ‘Dogs’ off of Animals. Seventeen and a half minutes and they did it just as good as the Floyd would have in 1977:
youtube.com/watch?v=QOBRSkPi-TM
different-church-lady
YOU SAID THIS WAS GOING TO BE POSITIVE!!!
Steve LaBonne
The news is not helping with my desire to drink less.
different-church-lady
Read up on the people surrounding Hitler and it will all seem… familiar.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Some good news: (Dorothy A. Windsor posted): Judge Boasberg finds probable cause to hold Trump officials in contempt over alien act deportations
Guardian link
schrodingers_cat
I finished this yesterday. It will be 5 years since I rediscovered the joy in artistic expression. Added bonus it is super relaxing,
Sister Golden Bear
@Steve LaBonne:
The Onion has you covered: Man Going To Take Edge Off With Decades-Long Slide Into Alcoholism
Baud
Kids are more into trains.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@different-church-lady: Kaiser William III says hold my beer Adolf
RaflW
The same people who were performatively squidgy about Kamala being mamala to Doug Emhof’s kids – a wholesome blending of family/parenting that should be welcomed! – will publicly not care at all, or even praise, Elon making babies with multiple women not his wife.
I don’t give a rip about children born outside marriage, surely, but Elon’s “mission” here is serially very creepy.
But right wing Christianity is fine with whatever the patriarchal leaders declare they are into. It’s a cult, not a religion.
New Deal democrat
And now, a diversion from the doom … A food fight breaks out in Bluesky over the merits of soul food vs. British food. Since many of you refuse to click on links, here is the exchange:
Tressie McMillam Cottom: [with photo] “Red beans in rice in Mississippi should be regulated. Nobody needs to be able to eat this well without some oversight.”
The Greenwichian: “And some of you bitch about British food! That looks like my morning round of mucking out the cats!”
Cottom: “No British person should ever, a single day on god’s green earth, disparage anybody’s food. Literally ever. Never seen a seasoning you wouldn’t steal for but never use. Please sit down with your peas and mash and chew silently.”
bsky.app/profile/tressiemcphd.bsky.social/post/3lmxbxlhbf22d
Steve LaBonne
@New Deal democrat: Red beans and rice with andouille sausage is one of the finest things one can eat.
different-church-lady
@New Deal democrat: As the joke goes, it’s easy to eat well in Brittan: just have breakfast three times a day.
M31
saw a MAGA bumper sticker the other day that had TRUMP VANCE MUSK RFK as the text
the 4 horsemen of the weirdo stupid fuckhead apolcalypse
Hegseth seems quaint and kind of old fashioned in comparison, doesn’t he?
too bad it’s not fiction, might have an enjoyable side to it
schrodingers_cat
@New Deal democrat: I don’t know how representative London is of the UK in general but the food there was pretty great. From fast food joints, to supermarkets, to pubs, to upscale dining. The produce, bread and baked goods were so much better too. That was my experience during the week I spent in London.
Long time readers know that I am no fan of the British.
M31
@New Deal democrat: McMillam Cottom is such a gem
bbleh
Lizarding is wonderful. It is going down to NEAR FREEZING in Philadelphia tonight, the (pretty cold) wind is blowing like crazy, and I am REALLY OVER IT. Def up for some lizarding action here real soon.
PS remember to wear yr sunscreen!
lowtechcyclist
This year, Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, Springsteen’s Born to Run, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail are all 50 years old.
Craig
Gary Numan is a killer guitar player. Those Tubeway Army are chock full of sick guitar riffs. Glad the kids are digging it. Down In The Park is one scary song
Jay
@different-church-lady:
“British” food is not very “British” anymore.
yougov.co.uk/ratings/consumer/popularity/dishes/all
Mcat
@schrodingers_cat: That is so beautiful! Wow! Good on you for sure.
lowtechcyclist
@Steve LaBonne:
Seconded!
Chief Oshkosh
@New Deal democrat:
If you don’t like peas and mash, UR doin’ it rwong!
hells littlest angel
Kids discovering notorious Margaret Thatcher supporter Gary Numan does not fill me with joy.
JCJ
@lowtechcyclist: Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody ” is 50 years old this year as well
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: So cool!
Jay
@schrodingers_cat:
Went to Britain in the mid 70’s. After sampling various “local” cuisines and pub food, pretty much all horrid, I settled on my standard fare, takeaway fish and chips, or Pub/Restaurant fish, chips and beans, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Went back in the early 90’s and even in Scotland, the food had majorly changed, with even Pubs making a decent green curry.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@New Deal democrat:
“British food” is an oxymoron.
That being said, over the last 35+ years, things have improved substantially in terms of world cuisine available. The best Indian food I’ve ever had was in Greenwich.
When we were passing thru London a couple of years back enroute to hiking Hadrian’s Wall, we had some fantastic Italian, and this from living and working and traveling extensively in Italy for almost 40 years now.
satby
@schrodingers_cat: beautiful! Makes me miss my Twitter account, but I finally deleted it a couple of months ago.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: Kamala Harris’s parenthood was non-genetic, and that for the right made her a barren being, a walking uterus that was nonfunctional. It’s all about sperm and eugenics for these freaks.
satby
British food has some very good desserts at least. My favorites are sticky toffee pudding and millionaire shortbread. Cornish pasties are good too.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: I ate wonderfully the last time I was in London. It was Indian food, Chinese food, Filipino food, Japanese food, Italian food, even a half-decent attempt at Mexican food… and, yeah, an English breakfast one time.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: …and that picture looks LIKE some of the components of a fine English breakfast, so I’m not sure what the complaint is.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Matt McIrvin: toast done on one side?
Jeffro
I think this is why the MAGAts – rich or poor, Musk or J6er – are all so bonkers. For one reason or another, nature, nurture, or both, they can’t succeed in normal society and just have to hurt others.
And rather than reflect, much less change…they double down on that malice, and double down again.
Trivia Man
As mom moves out of her house after 40 years, going through lots of papers. Found a nice ketter from Ike. Grandma was blind and listened to a lot of books on records. She enjoyed his autobiography and wrote to thank him for putting it on record. He was very pleased to hear she enjoyed it and that the records were getting used.
BC in Illinois
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
As someone nowhere near the age of kid, the music that I have apparently rediscovered is The Court of the Crimson King (1969). I first heard it while a Hospital Corpsman at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda. I can still picture the room, where someone played it, very loud.
I think it means something that I have played “Epitaph” at least four times in the last three days. Very loud.
Matt McIrvin
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Beans and sausage were definitely both involved.
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: A lot of them are successful by any of the standard material metrics. Elon Musk is literally the richest man in the world and has his own rocket ships and had sex with beautiful movie stars and rock stars and currently possesses nigh-ultimate power! By some standards, nobody in human history has ever been more successful than he is. But he’s still got what seems like this gnawing, anxious resentment that he’s not loved. By everybody. Even though nobody is loved by everybody. But he expects it to just happen as a reward for all the horrible things he does.
MagdaInBlack
@Matt McIrvin: Same resentment as trump, seems to me
Eta: here’s the thing: all that money, he could be anything he wanted. Seems odd he would choose asshole, doesn’t it?
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
He’s not loved by me!
Leto
@satby: that is very true. My Mary Berry cookbook has those pages flagged, as they’re well used.
cmorenc
I recall the quaint days when we all thought Mitt Romney becoming President would have been an existential disaster, for reasons beyond just that he would have had to beat incumbent Obama in 2012.
frosty
@bbleh: I am REALLY OVER IT TOO!! Heading south helped but our Snowbird trailer trip was so cold I needed a down comforter for the whole two months except for five nights. I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: Same. London is a great food town, and a lot of that is that, like most great international cities, it’s a sample of the whole world
At one point we were dismayed at the long lines for Din Tai Fung and instead opted for a hot pot place in the general vicinity. It was great… and then we found out the proprietors had a location in Boston!
schrodingers_cat
@Mcat: Thanks!
Jeffro
@Matt McIrvin:
@MagdaInBlack:
all the money and sex in the world can’t fill the holes in those two walking trainwrecks
schrodingers_cat
@satby: I am on still on Twitter, Magdi Jacobs started following me recently. She is one of my faves. I am there for Indian news and Black Twitter.
Leto
@bbleh: same; I’m done with the damn wind that hasn’t gone away these past 3-4 weeks, at least. At least on Saturday it’ll be almost 80 for us, both in Philly and here in Reading. Ofc it’s going to rain late in the afternoon and into the morning.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
As much as it’s a cliche, that goes to show money really doesn’t always buy happiness. This is a guy who could afford the best therapy in the world and yet, AFAICT, chooses not to because he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with him and nobody around him will dare tell him either
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Thanks!
eclare
@different-church-lady:
I don’t want baked beans on toast for breakfast.
BQuimby
MAGA GOP Rep Trashed Over Thumbs Up Photo-Op At El Salvador Prison
What a piece of shit.
eclare
@Steve LaBonne:
Agreed!
Boudin is good, too.
Jay
For those interested in the subject of needy Billionaires,
lexisantamaria.substack.com/p/billionaires-shouldnt-exist
cain
I’d like to provide pronouns for these people (weird/asshole)
BellaPea
I never ceased to be amazed at the hypocrisy exhibited by the Christian right. First, they fall all over themselves supporting Dump, who cheated on all three wives and is accused of sexual assault, business fraud, and other various serious misdeeds. Now they take up maniac Musk, who has no religious affiliation, worships himself, and has a harem of former wives and mistresses and continues to sire numerous children, most of whom are illegitimate. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, considering their first serious political crush was Reagan, who was a former movie star and the first divorced president. Sheesh.
Leto
@eclare: British people don’t like biscuits and gravy so it’s an even trade.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@BQuimby:
Piece of shit is right.
Oh now it’s “secure our homeland”, now that God-Emperor Trump is in charge and the Border is Secured TM, I suppose
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@schrodingers_cat:
Awesome work on that!
ThresherK
Well, “harem” is in the post and thread twice. I’m gonna leave this here for your amusement.
It’s NSFW but for anime fans it’s pretty mid-range.
Glory b
@schrodingers_cat: Wow, the stars are mesmerizing!
Leto
@BellaPea: from the person Jay posted at #56:
Exposing Mike Johnson’s Holy House of Hypocrisy
The rest is worth the read.
Sister Golden Bear
Regarding Musk’s harem, I’m also convinced Musk’s obsession with Neurolink is because he expects that when he’s close to death he’ll decant his consciousness, a la “Get Out” into the of one (or more) of his Mini Mes, who’ve been bred specifically to be body donors. I doubt Musk sees his children as anything more than “non-player characters” who are his property to do with as he wishes (see his body armor four-year-old).
prostratedragon
Must-see from JMarsh:
prostratedragon
@schrodingers_cat: Nice!
NotMax
@Leto
The British (AFAIK) do like Gordon Ramsey, which is a big ol’ serving of BLECH in my book.
Moving on, still a clever T-shirt.
//
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Golden Bear: Or the way he resents his trans daughter disclaiming the gender he specifically paid for her to have. He wants his money back!
Bupalos
@lowtechcyclist: It would unfortunately clash with “a c-word.”
Personally I think what people are missing (and this is a lesson from history… if you actually soak yourself in diverse histories I think it becomes much less likely to miss in this way) is that the things that are happening now- that you see now- and try to describe now… you will always try to describe them in terms that are distorted by the past. And you won’t understand them very well, because you’ll always see them as the thing you saw before. Plato had a thing about big and little letters that was actually maybe a meditation on this phenomenon.
Elon Musk isn’t trying to create “white babies.” It’s significantly worse than that.
UncleEbeneezer
According to police warrant the culprit tried to murder Gov Shapiro claims he did so “because of what he (Shapiro) wants to do to Palestinians.”
This is what “Globalize The Intifada” means in reality and why no one especially not anyone who claims to be progressive, should ever defend that shit. It means desecrating Auschwitz memorials and using violence to try and intimidate Jews out of public life.
Bupalos
@Bupalos: I think you get sent to moderation for quoting the original post here…. so….
@lowtechcyclist: It would unfortunately clash with “a c-word.”
Personally I think what people are missing (and this is a lesson from history… if you actually soak yourself in diverse histories I think it becomes much less likely to miss in this way) is that the things that are happening now- that you see now- and try to describe now… you will always try to describe them in terms that are distorted by the past. And you won’t understand them very well, because you’ll always see them as the thing you saw before. Plato had a thing about big and little letters that was actually maybe a meditation on this phenomenon.
Elon Musk isn’t trying to create “white babies.” It’s significantly worse than that. Thinking we understand this as a rote extension of 20th century patterns is how we fail to understand it. Telling yourself this is just like what you’ve seen before, repeating itself, is how you digest it more comfortably.
Glory b
Something positive?
I’m positive that David Hogg’s scheme to create a PAC &use it to raise $20 million to challenge incumbents he doesn’t like as old, ineffective leaders, by primarying them with his selected candidates is a BAD ONE.
He’s joining with Maxwell Frost’s former campaign manager in this effort.
I see, right now is exactly the time to take our eyes off the Republicans and pause for a self inflicted blood bath.
He says that everyone should be ready to hear and ignore things we might hear about him, that they are efforts to unfairly smear him before this effort (it seems that he may have filched the DNC donor & mailing lists to use in funding his PAC).
He says that he respects Ken Martin, but they have different ideas about the best way forward.
Something Something, German socialists and communists in 1933, something Something.
coin operated
I recently found some videos of Gary Numan with the Skaparis Orchestra. In some of the vids, his daughter Persia is providing backing vocals. Enjoying some of the reimagined songs with an orchestra behind him.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
What’s wrong with Gordon Ramsay? The character he plays on American TV is just a character
Bupalos
@Glory b: Kind feels like the Democratic Party is in for the same kind of meltdown and realignment that the R’s got out of the way in 2016.
Jay
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/16/doge-musk-vera-non-profit
Martin
@ThresherK: God, I’d forgotten all about that channel. But then we were just noting that we’d pretty much forgotten all about the LA fires which, I want to note, were this year.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
A review of the English breakfast at one of his places in London.
Short version: not flattering.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Sister Golden Bear:
I guess Musk isn’t very concerned (or too stupid to realize) that a mind transfer/upload would run into the “Is it really you or just a copy of you” problem
jimmiraybob
Used to be a name for the solicitation of women for sex work. Tryin’ to think. Still thinkin’. It’ll come to me ………………………
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
Damn, that’s disheartening to hear that he’s not practicing what he preaches at his own restaurants.
It was bad enough when he put his name and face on frozen food of all things, when that’s something’s he always been against
ThresherK
@Jay: It took me four times through the headline before I stopped seeing
Doge tried to embed staffers in criminal non-profit
prostratedragon
@BQuimby:
Father Martin:
More about Bishop Barron and Riley Moore, from National Catholic Reporter. Moore invited Barron to celebrate a mass for GOP congresspeople and be his guest at SotU back in March.
ColoradoGuy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): A science-fiction “mind transfer” would almost certainly destroy the organic original, no matter what technology it used. There are trillions of nanoscale connections that are extremely delicate, and quantum states may well be involved, which would make them unscannable.
What gives the game away is there is still no way to regenerate spinal cord injuries, which is a far simpler problem. After decades of research, surgical intervention and interface devices are still orders of magnitude larger than the neurons involved, and worse, the connections damage the neurons over time, leading to electrical failure and inflammation.
All of the “bionic” happy horseshit is just that. Interfacing with living systems is still decades away, because we just don’t understand enough, and can’t work at the nanoscales required.
Musk and his billionaire pals will die just like the rest of us, unscanned and unmourned.
Harrison Wesley
@ThresherK: Only Dipshit and Swino would be dumb enough to come up with a criminal nonprofit.
zhena gogolia
@prostratedragon:
In the replies:
True, but I didn’t need this to demonstrate it! I think that’s kind of the point of the whole story.
Jay
nitter.poast.org/MonicaLMarks/status/1912625504554746325#m
Booger
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Hey! We did Hadrian’s Wall too! It was one of my all time favorite trips.
Jay
hntrbrk.com/yemen-civil-war/
NotMax
FYI.
Sen. van Hollen to be on, live from El Salvador, on Maddow’s show.
Professor Bigfoot
Dolly Parton comes close… but of course, she does apply a completely different approach from the soutpiel.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@ColoradoGuy:
I don’t disagree. If any of it’s even possible, it’s still several decades away, too far out of reach for the likes of Musk, thank goodness, though the idea of an immortal dictator is a scary thought all of it’s own
Matt McIrvin
@Professor Bigfoot: Erik Loomis doesn’t love her.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@schrodingers_cat: wow, really nice! I especially admire how the hands are so well done. Good job!
NotMax
@Professor Bigfoot
“Everybody hates me because I’m so universally liked.”
– Peter De Vries
:)
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@New Deal democrat: I just read a description of how they make “mushy peas” to go with fish and chips, and OMG disgusting. Apparently the Brits also have “chip butties”, which are French fry sandwiches. No comment.
Matt McIrvin
@ColoradoGuy: There was a lot of 1970s-80s science fiction that took the “brain as computer” analogy so literally that it imagined you could just download its software onto a tape or something.
But you can do that with a computer because it’s specifically built for that. It’s the von Neumann architecture, with its program stored in memory just like any generic data. Brains never had any call for that; they just evolved to be part of a survival-and-reproduction machine. Offsite backup of the soul wasn’t part of the plan.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
And of course, there’s always somebody ready to defend the indefensible, from the replies:
Jesus Christ, over fucking speeding tickets.
It gets worse, when somebody replies to them with this:
They reply with this:
Jesus Christ
Matt McIrvin
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): I’ve had Lebanese roll-ups that included French fries as part of the contents, and I have to say it’s not a bad idea. Using nothing else, though, that might be a bit monotonous.
Gloria DryGarden
Lizard ing. Love it. Also cats basking in sun.
im searching for an alternative to “
cunt$” as a negative epithet. I have one. All the straight men have had peasant visits to the warm valley of pleasure, the sacred birthplace of man. What about pricks, since we’re mostly referring to men? At least it’s not connecting to woman hating. I know it’s become common parlance. Then again, pricks, same argument, the staff of pleasure. It IS after dark, this is just anatomy, not x rated, except in your memory.assholes? Too sibilant. Oh dear. Mothaphuckers? Terrible negative connotations in black American history.
danger mongers? Rat fuckers? Maybe that might not fit. Then again, fucking, same argument. Shitheads..
This comment is awaiting moderation. Not sure why.
edit: That word is not allowable on Balloon Juice, in spite of the fact that the blogfather used it. ~WG
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m almost afraid to ask why, but why doesn’t Loomis like Parton?
Jeffro
one under-the-radar effect that all this deportation/ICE insanity is going to have on our economy, starting oh right about now?
both tourism to America AND our ‘exporting’ of US higher education (in the form of international students coming here) are cratering, and it’ll take forever* to build it back
*forever, unless we both commit to and then execute on a number of course corrections that simply aren’t going to happen even if/when the Dems win the midterms. and by ‘aren’t going to happen’, I mean at a minimum impeaching and removing trumpov from office.
Sorry MAGAts! All that foreign money ain’t coming to your resorts, your attractions, your seasonal employment, your college towns and big cities. And that’s on top of tariffs thoroughly screwing over small businesses across the country and our farmers
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
Oh goody, Gulf War III, the sequel nobody asked for!
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Never read the comments. People enjoy being anonymous and vile on the web.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
See also: Primanti’s.
;)
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He likes her music well enough (he’s a country fan), but occasionally emits these dark mutterings about how liberals haven’t looked enough into some moral grayness in her dealings. But I don’t know any specifics because I haven’t bothered to investigate further and I also know that to Loomis every being in the universe has feet of clay.
Jay
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
Carbs, carbs and some fat. Just what a factory worker needs.
Gloria DryGarden
I do hope if I fail the moderation on my comment #101, that I will receive an email to explain. I must not know about whatever rule I broke.
can one not critique another’s word choices, if one feels insulted? Do I need a green card first?
yup, my comment got failed, and deleted. Well then
i had a delicious dinner, but never mind.
frosty
@Jay: Now, that’s a setup for a Baud reply!
frosty
@NotMax: I was thinking Primanti’s as soon as I read that. Because who wouldn’t want french fries on their salad?
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: The United States is a net exporter of services, and with many countries that matches or exceeds our trade deficit in goods.
Trump and the American right HATE that for reasons that I think are more aesthetic/psychosexual than anything else. These aren’t manly industries, the contemplation of which would make some Heritage Foundation dweeb feel like a macho man. They want smokestacks, not universities or Hollywood!
I don’t think the techbros really signed on to this, and what’s going to happen with that fascinates me.
NotMax
@frosty
::whisper:: Psst. Don’t order the banana split. Pass it on.
//
Matt McIrvin
@ColoradoGuy: Note also, this is yet another example of how the science fiction and futurism of the 1970s and 1980s, specifically, is the basis of Elon Musk’s entire worldview. I recognize it all because I read the same stuff at the same age. If I’d been the heir to a South African emerald fortune and had grown up with the resulting trust-fund sociopathy I could have been him.
Old School
Maybe Elon can take a rocket to K2-18b.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
You’re definitely on to something. Fox News hosts recently praised Trump’s tariffs as “manly” and that they would address our so-called “masculinity crisis”
Matt McIrvin
I do think we’re gonna see an explosion of scams intended to convince you that an LLM trained to talk just like you, or like one of your loved ones, IS in fact an “upload” of a person’s soul.
Believe it or not, the Max Headroom TV show of the 1980s had an episode about this. Max himself was supposed to have been a glitchy and deranged partial upload of the protagonist, made when he was gravely injured and presumably capturing only the most ADHD aspects of his personality. But these scammers were selling low-grade chatbots intended to vaguely resemble the deceased (the intrepid reporter describes them as resembling Teddy Ruxpin).
MFA
NUMAN! Saw the Pleasure Principle tour stop in Pittsburgh in ‘78 o’79. Brilliant techno-synth pop. Good times, as they say.
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They associate assembly lines, mining and smokestack industry with the mid-20th-century world of families supported by a male breadwinner who worked with his hands. Service and knowledge-worker jobs, they think of as things women can do (though there’s been a concerted effort to keep women out of a lot of them).
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
Huh. Well, I’m sure she’s not perfect, nobody really is
MFA
@MFA: correction: Feb. ‘80 @ the Stanley. Sigh.
Chetan Murthy
@schrodingers_cat: I visited Edinburgh in 1991 to decide whether I would go there for my postdoc. It was during a conference, and they really pushed out the boat. Guided tour of Mary King’s Close. Fancy meals with haggis and scotch and all. I also had dinner with the grad students one night, at a local Indian resto. Then I took a train down to Paris for a week at INRIA (French CS lab). Had lunch every day in their cafeteria, just daily fare.
When I got home, I chose Paris, and explained it thus: “I cannot imagine being able to eat Indian food for two years straight.” During that week at INRIA, I had skatewing, andouillette sausage, rabbit, and that’s just what I -remember-. Oh, and the first night, the guy who was my shepherd took me to a resto on the street Victor Hugo used to live on, and I had escargot with beurre and tarragon. By contrast, even on the train down from E-burg, the coffee and croissants were inedible. Just inedible.
“food in Britain” got better since then, but I suspect it’s mostly b/c of immigrants bringing their food and skills. And Little Englander Brexiters want ’em all to go back where they came from.
Jay
@Matt McIrvin:
One of the Faux Talking Heads said that sitting in front of a screen all day was emasculating and turned you into a woman, or gay.
The female Blond Faux Bimbo, commented “isn’t that what you do?”.
Chetan Murthy
@New Deal democrat: When Prof. Cottom is right, she’s right. The local cuisine of the American South is wonderful stuff (and there are several different cuisines too!)
Matt McIrvin
@Chetan Murthy: I’ve wanted to go back to France for a long time but it’s a difficult sell because my family doesn’t like French cuisine. Too much that might be gross or unidentifiable! My kid particularly.
Now that said kid is off at school, my wife is talking about a trip to Paris, but I’m feeling a bit leery about traveling internationally at all, lest CBP scoop me up for being very publicly un-Trumpual on the way back in. Probably I look enough like a cornfed white grandpa that I’m invisible to them, I dunno. I know how cops see me: comic relief. It’s a superpower of sorts.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: I hope it’s clear that my statement about Indian food was really a judgment of all the Scottish/English food I had in my time in Edinburgh. I like Indian food, it’s great stuff.
Jackie
Today has just been a shitload of horrific news upon more horrific news for American democracy.
I truly despair for our country, and just don’t know how much more of what FFOTUS is doing to America with the help of compliant, kissing the ring Republicans I can take.
Every headline makes me cry and curse in frustration, and I’m just so grateful my dad passed away during FFOTUS’ first term, because as a WWII Veteran, he’d be watching what all he fought for go down the drain. I fear we’re quickly becoming a fascist country – if not already there.
Sorry for venting; but today just got to me.
Sister Golden Bear
@Leto:
This ex-pat Brit decided they’re nice after discovering it didn’t involve what we call cookies. He’s a rather droll YouTuber who focused on differences between life in the UK and the States.
Gin & Tonic
@Chetan Murthy: One of the (very) few things I miss about my years of gainful employment is that we had a contract that required me to go to New Orleans every year.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: He wants to be envied by all. Not loved. He’s not, of course, and that’s what knaws at him.
Chetan Murthy
@Matt McIrvin: Heh, yeah, my nephews are ….. novelty-phobic when it comes to food. So I make fig+prosciutto+goat-cheese+arugula pizza for my sister, Hawaiian for me, and the boys? They want cheese pizza with not even pepperoni. And they say they’ll hurl if I try to feed ’em anything interesting. My sister figures they’ll figure out interesting food when they’re in high school and hanging with their buds at the food court. Sure hope so *grin*.
You should go! Just get a burner phone+laptop (chromebook) and set up an identity you can use while traveling. Install any apps and stuff you need onto the burner, set up backup with your provider, etc. Then before you travel, practice factory-resetting and reinstalling it (and your laptop), make sure you have all your security keys on a printout, etc. Then “add” your real email account so you can access it while traveling. Of course, you forward anything you need while traveling (hotel, flight, etc), from your real account to your burner account. Then right before you board your return flight, you can factory-reset it (and your laptop) and let CBP image the lot. Image. The. Lot.
I mean, if they’re detaining citizens at customs, I think we’ll be hearing about it. And they won’t be able to detain you to access your devices, b/c you’ll be giving them that access — wide-open.
I think the EFF has instructions about this stuff too.
Gloria DryGarden
@MagdaInBlack: it does seem an odd choice, out of all one might be.
Paul in KY
@ColoradoGuy: I don’t think Musk really thinks he could do that. If he does, he’s way more bonkers than I have ever thought.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
I know, I know. It’s a flaw of mine.
@Matt McIrvin:
They also conveniently forget about the role unions and labor laws played to give those workers the power to get a big slice of that pie. And that it eventually became necessary for both parents to work to support a family starting in the 70s or so, thanks to wage stagnation.
I have an uncle, related by marriage, that nearly took my head off with a weed wacker a few years back because I dared look at where he had been weed wacking at my grandmother’s house (a wooden, painted ramp). Guy actually had the audacity to tell me I didn’t know any “hard work”, as if I’ve never used a fucking weed wacker before lmao. He was union management at American Standard and now he’s a MAGAt
Sister Golden Bear
@Matt McIrvin: Dolly probably also likes ketchup.
geg6
@NotMax:
Mmmm, a pastrami Primanti’s. Just had one last Saturday.
Chetan Murthy
I have to say: if I were a parent of a foreign student in America, I’d be begging them to abandon and come back home (or change to some hospitable country). @Jay: reminded me of this horrible incident:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Yoshihiro_Hattori
A few decades ago there was a somewhat-similar incident involving a Turkish exchange student, but I can’t seem to find it online.
i wouldn’t want my child in America at a time like this.
Aussie Sheila
@Jay:
Same here. Arrived in London 1973. Stayed one week. Simply couldn’t stomach the food, lack of daylight and the execrable coffee. We left and using our student Eurail passes fled to southern Europe, where the warmth of the sun and the food and coffee cheered me up no end. Back to France and thence to Heathrow to catch the plane to Thailand. It took me until 1993 before I could stand to go back to visit the UK.
Food and coffee much improved in those twenty years.
But not the weather of course.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
Back in the day, I would spend 3 weeks in Milwaukee running a Tech Sub, a week in YVR doing paperwork. working 6am to 10pm to do my job in Milwaukee, and my other job in Vancouver.
At first, the food sucked. Partly time constraints, partly that Milwaukee is still the most segregated city in the US.
One of the “treat” meals, was coworkers would take you out to “The Barn” on a Friday. The beer was weak, and every plate had a porkchop, a steak, a brat, a chicken breast, a baked potato and a from the freezer, 2 tbsp’s boiled mixed vedge.
The first nice change, was they moved me from Hotels/Motels to the condo, so I could shop and cook for myself.
Second nice thing, I discovered the Lakefront area, where the rich lived, and rather than shopping in a store that was 1/6th produce, 1/3rd meat and the rest processed, high end shops that flew 4 different types of pears in, French cheese, local small producer Wisconsin cheese, not the orange bricks passing as cheddar.
3rd nice thing. Drove out to those places “white people” aren’t supposed to go. Found Hmong food, Indian food, Mexican food, Soul food, Vietnamese food. All too often, only “white guy” there.
When they would ask, (they got to know me and stopped asking), about the spice level, I would reply “kitchen style”. They were at first ??????. I would then explain, how you do it at home or in the kitchen for staff.
Matt McIrvin
@Chetan Murthy: Ohhhh, smartphones are one thing but I don’t travel with a laptop unless someone forces me to. Pleasure travel is the time to not do that.
For the past several years, we’ve been able to afford to travel internationally, like, A LOT, and had great times in England and Spain and Canada and Japan and Singapore. So not being able to do it for a while wouldn’t be too bad a deal, but, you know, Paris. It’s kind of special. I remember the place.
Chetan Murthy
I haven’t been back since I left in July 1994. I hear it’s all different now. Should go soon. [and not come back]
Jay
@Aussie Sheila:
I live in Vancouver BC, and before that The Interior. British weather is lovely to me.
Nephew by friends, Martin, did a year at Cambridge. Had a “Bank Holiday”, went north. Massive flooding the next day and for quite a while. Road and rail were out, so he walked back to where they were running. Waded three rivers. His classmates were WTF?
His response was “Uncle Jay” taught me what I needed to know when just a kid.
geg6
@frosty:
Primanti’s is famous for their sandwiches, not salads (though they do have them). Fresh Mancini’s fresh baked bread, vinegar coleslaw, hand cut fries, provolone cheese and meat or other protein of your choice. We Yinzers also have fries on our grilled steak or chicken salads. That’s not specific to Primanti’s at all and is usually referred to as a Pittsburgh salad. It is a dish of uncertain provenance but the most common is that it was invented at a place called Jerry’s Curb Service, right here in Beaver County back in the early 1950s. Jerry’s is still in business and thriving. It’s a real old fashioned drive-in with carhops and the whole shebang.
Chetan Murthy
Well, I view my Chromebook as more of an entertainment device: it’s much nicer than a phone for playing videos. I can load it up with MP4s (in the Linux partition) and play ’em either in the web browser, or with a Linux video player. But sure, smartphones work!
Doc Sardonic
@Chetan Murthy: Once girls get involved their dietary quirks will disappear relatively quickly. A number of years ago, before he out kicked his coverage and married a wonderful woman, one of my nephews briefly went vegan. When told that he had gone vegan, my question was is there a girl involved, answer yes there was.
Aussie Sheila
@Jay:
Great story re your nephew. I can stand ‘cold’, because I can wrap up against it. But I simply can’t stand days of gloom, drizzle and lack of ‘sun in the sky’. It drives me crazy.
Chetan Murthy
@Doc Sardonic: Aaaaahahahahahaha! Too funny! Though, one sister has a BF who’s a more committed vegan than she is by a country mile. He’s ….. wow committed.
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yeah, the ideal of the American conservative is the family and racial dynamics of the 1950s, with the economics of the 1890s or maybe the 1850s. The things that actually propelled the prosperity of post-WWII America, they conveniently ignore.
Those were also the days when big corporations funded giant scientific research wings because they were looking at more than their stock price and quarterly earnings numbers.
schrodingers_cat
@Chetan Murthy: IIRC London voted against Brexit.
Chetan Murthy
@schrodingers_cat: yyep, and London is an amazingly multicultural place. I remember talk of London seceding from Britain, or somehow having a special deal with the EU. Nothing came of it alas.
Matt McIrvin
@Chetan Murthy: Mind you, that same kid is pretty adventurous when it comes to East Asian food, particularly if she’s doing the cooking. It’s all about control.
geg6
@Sister Golden Bear:
Sadly enough, Lawrence is now a US citizen. He had bad timing. But I believe he maintains a dual citizenship.
Matt McIrvin
@Chetan Murthy: When I’m on the road, my phone is first and foremost a camera. Though my primary dumb-vacation-photo distribution medium was Facebook, and I’ve gone cold turkey on that. Mastodon has, well, a different audience. Been thinking about maybe getting a Pixelfed account.
I could carry a camera, but when phonecams got good enough the convenience of it was too much.
Aussie Sheila
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, London voted overwhelmingly against Brexit. As one would expect. My god Putin scored with that referendum. Big time. What a cluster fuck. Biggest ‘own goal’ in UK history. Even bigger than the Suez Canal miscalculation.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@UncleEbeneezer: that’s in the police warrant now.
The suspect’s actual criminal record appears to be mostly domestic violence: abcnews.go.com/US/cody-allen-balmer-suspect-accused-arson-attack-gov/story?id=120811181
Chetan Murthy
@Matt McIrvin: Heh, you make me think. I have a standard-issue Gmail account. Been wondering if I should actually pay for storage, in case I wanna take pics while traveling. [yeah yeah, book a flight first, ya pansy — I haven’t even -flown- since 2016]
Chetan Murthy
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: Boy howdy, that’s ….. such a tell. These domestic terrorists always seem to start by terrorizing their female relations.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
@MagdaInBlack:
Some people just believe that they are not the top of the heap but stand out far, far more than that.
Here he is, the world’s richest man and it’s not enough, not even close. My experience working in professional sports is that many who have some skill or specialty believe that puts them far above everyone else in every other way as well. And then they always seem to step on a tender part of their body – with golf spikes on, trying to act like they are better than everyone else. And they really, really are not better, not in any way, shape or form, and often in some really public ways – far, far, worse than anyone anywhere near being a normal human. We all have faults, we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t. But when you show every other human your’s loudly and in public, it really, really isn’t in any way positive.
Just the exact opposite.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
@schrodingers_cat:
Some of the guys on the watch forums I lurk on think you can’t walk out of your house in London without being stabbed by 20 muggers lol
Aussie Sheila
@Chetan Murthy:
Their female relatives and animals and pets. Cruelty to animals is a dead giveaway for sociopathy. As is domestic violence of course.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@geg6: I’m at my sister’s in Zelionople now. Taking my spawn to her 1st big league game tomorrow at PNC Park. Super excited. I usually stop at Primanti’s in the Strip District but not tomorrow.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: love this story
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Jay: rivers used to have places where you and your animals could wade them, after all, what does “Oxford” actually mean?
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
I’ve had artists in both my immediate and extended family and have a number of my favorite paintings are what they gave me. I’ve visited art museums in many states and countries in this world and have seem some amazing stuff.
Your’s is one of those.
Thank you for sharing them!
VFX Lurker
Gorgeous. Thank you for sharing that.
Martin
@Jay: Yeah, growing up in NYC a good rule of thumb is that if the restaurant wasn’t opened to cater to you, it’s probably where you want to eat. Applies equally well in California. If you’re the only English speaker in the place, you’re in the right place.
Scout211
Apologies if this has already been discussed.
Mike Lindell cried crocodile tears today in court, claiming he can’t pay the $50k he owes Smartmatic
His list of financial hardships at the link. But I’ll translate for you:
Whine, whine, boohoo, poor me, waaaaaaaah!!!
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yeah, well, we have a Supreme Court justice who can’t imagine riding the NY subway without a gun, and defended a court ruling on that misconception.
Ruckus
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
A good part of my family heritage is from Italy and some of my relatives made better Italian than any food I ate when actually in Italy. Food in Italy wasn’t bad though. Now Italian food in the USN was – I’m pretty sure not actual food. Nor that from any other country. It had only two good points, it didn’t make me sick out of either end. And on board ship, with constant movement, sometimes rather a lot of constant movement, that is high praise.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Our illustrious “Border Czar” Tom Holman on Sen Van Hollen’s visit to the torture prison where Abrego Garcia is being held:
He keeps referring to Garcia as a terrorist and an MS-13 gang member but where is their evidence? The only thing disgusting here is this fascist piece of shit Homan for blatantly lying about an innocent man kidnapped by ICE, denied due process, that they’ve admitted was taken by mistake, and who’s life is in danger every second he spends in that gulag. Oh and that “illegal alien” he says was released back in to the community in Maryland? Was convicted on Monday earlier this week
Aussie Sheila
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
If García is ever released he should sue Homan for both ‘kidnapping’ and slander. And even if the demented crim grants Homan et al pardons, I don’t think they are immunised against civil suits.
Chetan Murthy
The thing that chills my bones is that these poor immigrants are imprisoned there, and they can’t get out. I mean, Venezuela is suing to get their people out, IIUC, and …. no dice. They’re stuck there. This is a fucking gulag.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: Cars is a fun song to play on the guitar. Yes, I am aware that there is no guitar in the song, but sometimes it’s it’s fun to play keyboard riffs on a guitar.
Sister Golden Bear
This is exactly why the MAGAts want to ban trans people having ID that matches their true selves.
Trans woman allegedly turned away from hotel because “people like you can’t stay here”
Aussie Sheila
@Chetan Murthy:
It’s a concentration camp and a gulag. No conviction before a Court and no definable term of incarceration. It’s fucking unbelievable.
NotMax
@Aussie Sheila
Also slavery, as for all intents and purposes they’ve been transported and sold to another country.
Which also raises further questions no one seems to be asking. Namely, where did the money paid El Salvador come from and under what statute or legal framework is such a transfer of funds being made?
Chetan Murthy
@NotMax: We used to pay allies (and even frenemies like Syria) to take our prisoners and either hold them (IIRC Poland, maybe Bosnia?) or interrogate ’em (Syria). I’m sure the rails were there before Trump took office the first time.
Kayla Rudbek
@eclare: I never want baked beans at all. Far too sweet and mushy for my tastes. I also disliked most mayo-based potato salad even before the egg allergy as also being too sweet (German potato salad with a vinegar dressing is far better)
Aussie Sheila
@NotMax:
@Chetan Murthy:
Yes, a lot of chickens are coming home to roost. But in the meantime there needs to be an absolute uproar about this. I note the Building Trades Union of which García is a member have called for his return.
But where is the AFL/CIO?
The lies and slander against this man from the highest reaches of the US government is an absolute fucking disgrace. Closely followed by the silence of those who know better.
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
Mostly under the auspices of the CIA? Whether in concert with the DoD or one step removed.
AFAIK that agency has not yet been shown to have their fingers in this pie.
Professor Bigfoot
@Matt McIrvin: Well, obviously Erik Loomis hates America. 😉
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Their story keeps changing: Albrego Garcia was deported accidentally but, oops, we don’t have the authority to bring him back, then they realized that looked bad and suddenly he was an MS-13 member and a dangerous terrorist. It’s what you say when you’ve got nothing.
terraformer
really, really late to this party, but John, that’s some Betty Cracker-level names and descriptors in this righteous post. Well done