Busy day today again- yesterday I had a bunch of stuff going on and had a bunch of work done on my car. Needed new brakes and rotors on the front, and I needed a new starter. First time I have changed the rotors on the front and the Honda has 160k on it, and I have never had to replace a starter on another car before, so I don’t know how to feel about replacing it but I am ok with the brakes. Still cost way too much, over a grand, but I had to throw it on a credit card so it was free, right? I fucking hate late stage capitalism.
At any rate, they fixed those two problems but the center console with the stereo, backup camera, and all that bullshit didn’t work, and Gerald had already left (he was my ride), so I had to drive it home and come back this morning to drop it off. They “fixed it,” but now my passenger airbag and my check engine light are on, so I am going to have to break down and take it to the dealer and have them fuck with it. No way in hell I make it out of there under 500 bucks. This has been such a superb car I hope I am not in the stage where it’s fix something every six months until you have to replace it. Not fucking now, please. I need four-five more years out of you.
In other news, the college kids are back in town, and I got to watch the men’s and women’s teams practice while I was cutting the field on the other side of the road. They are all so young looking. And all college freshman look like kids, but small college kids always seem somehow even younger looking than the kids you see at big universities. At any rate, it was gratifying watching them use the fields I spend so much of my time cutting over the summer. Met the women’s coach, Olivia, and she was very kind and even sent a couple of the girls over to my field to move the nets so I could do a proper cut. Helps keeps the bugs down and the goalkeeper appreciates that, and it just looks better.
Finished the fields and then cut the historic society, and as I was putting the finishing touches on, the sky just opened up and a torrential downpour came down for fifteen minutes and then stopped like the rain in the ‘nam during Forrest Gump, so that kinda killed my plans to cut another field. Went and got the car, got showered up, and made some dinner.
Tonight I am having a big plate of fresh tomatoes with buffalo mozz, olive oil, and fresh basil. Not sure what else, but I have some cherries and a cantaloupe so those are gonna take a beating, too. I should write a book on how to get and stay fat using only healthy options.
The big news of the day is our dimwitted failson president getting pants by Putin, something that Betty and Adam both touched on and I am sure Adam will again, but it was as bad as you think it was. The loose documents in the hotel is just *chef kiss*- just a big gold F on the report card.
Putin got legitimized, Trump got rolled:
On the flight to Alaska, President Trump declared that if he did not secure a cease-fire in Ukraine during talks with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, “I’m not going to be happy,” and there would be “severe consequences.”
Just hours later, he got back on Air Force One and departed Alaska without the cease-fire he deemed so critical. Yet he had imposed no consequences, and had pronounced himself so happy with how things went with Mr. Putin that he said “the meeting was a 10.”
Even in the annals of Mr. Trump’s erratic presidency, the Anchorage meeting with Mr. Putin now stands out as a reversal of historic proportions. Mr. Trump abandoned the main goal he brought to his subarctic summit and, as he revealed on Saturday, would no longer even pursue an immediate cease-fire. Instead, he bowed to Mr. Putin’s preferred approach of negotiating a broader peace agreement requiring Ukraine to give up territory.
The net effect was to give Mr. Putin a free pass to continue his war against his neighbor indefinitely without further penalty, pending time-consuming negotiations for a more sweeping deal that appears elusive at best. Instead of a halt to the slaughter — “I’m in this to stop the killing,” Mr. Trump had said on the way to Alaska — the president left Anchorage with pictures of him and Mr. Putin joshing on a red carpet and in the presidential limousine known as the Beast.
He’s just so fucking weak, owned, and stupid, and even the WSJ opinion page blazed him, and the foreign press was equally brutal:
Russia jubilant after Trump summit as Putin reportedly demands Donetsk and Luhansk
Russia’s reaction to Donald Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska has been nothing short of jubilant, with Moscow celebrating the fact that the Russian leader met his US counterpart without making concessions and now faces no sanctions despite rejecting Trump’s ceasefire demands.
“The meeting proved that negotiations are possible without preconditions,” wrote the former president Dmitry Medvedev on Telegram. He added that the summit showed that talks could continue as Russia wages war in Ukraine.
Trump entered the high-stakes summit warning “I won’t be happy if I walk away without some form of a ceasefire,” and threatening “severe consequences” if Moscow refused to cooperate.
But after a three-hour meeting with the Russian side that yielded no tangible results, Trump shelved his threats and instead said the meeting was “extremely productive”, even as Putin clung to his maximalist demands for ending the war and announced no concessions on the battlefield, where Russian forces are consolidating key gains in eastern Ukraine.
Putin on Friday demanded Ukraine withdraw from Donetsk and Luhansk as a condition for ending the war, but offered Trump a freeze along the remaining frontline, two sources with direct knowledge of the talks said.
Although Luhansk is almost entirely under Russian control, Ukraine still holds key parts of Donetsk, including the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk and heavily fortified positions whose defence has cost tens of thousands of lives.
None of ANY of this should be a surprise to anyone who has been barely awake since 2016, and your only excuses for not expecting exactly this to happen are that you are either a complete fucking idiot or in the MAGA cult.
Of course he got rolled. I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but we are dealing with an administration that is filled with people who didn’t read the book before writing the book report and giving a presentation. They are idiots. They think they can get along with wit and charm and daddy’s money, and mainly they have. But in the real world, not the fictional safe spaces they have created in their heads and in the media, they can’t actually bend reality. At some point the bullshit and the bluster run into a wall, and in this case, they have an abject moron as the head of state, they fired all the professionals for being woke or not fluffing Trump enough, and are left with a bunch of people who didn’t do the readings, never have, so don’t understand pretty much anything. Meanwhile this has been Putin’s entire focus since he was plotting to kill me and my friends in West Germany.
Everything with these guys is bullshit and bluster. It’s why they are all so eager to seem tough on people who can’t defend themselves and why they hurt and attack marginalized communities. Because deep down they know they are weak and soft and not the person they pretend to be on tv. All this fake macho bullshit and all the military paraphernalia and the cosplay when we all fucking know that you could pick a random buck sergeant, even a nerdy one, out of any combat arms unit in the army or marines, and they would absolutely body Sebastian Gorka or Stephen Miller and not even flinch.
They’re cowards and frauds.
And now they are going to fuck over Ukraine.
Don’t call them nazis:
Trump’s Amerikka.
Off to have dinner and watch spooks.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Back in my final semester of grad school and I was teaching an undergrad class of mostly freshman, they looked like kids to me then and the age difference was far less than now.
Jackie
JC, did you catch the news your Gov Morrisey is sending WV NG troops to DC?
politico.com/news/2025/08/16/national-guard-dc-trump-00512677
Suzanne
My previous CR-V started getting expensive at around 190K miles. I bet you’ll get this 4-5 more years, John.
Jeffro
isn’t it weird how the orange dementia patient is always right, always knows best, always comes away a winner? so strange! why in real life, that almost never happens…
…it’s almost like he’s in his own hype-laden dream world, or something.
Like if “high on his own supply” was made flabby, stinky flesh.
Professor Bigfoot
@Jackie: This is one of the things that makes the Blogfather the Blogfather— for a middle aged white man from West (bah Gawd!) Virginia (where they went 70/30 Trump last November) yet does the work of listening to other voices and being honest with himself.
I admire that dude, I really do. I think he misses the mark on occasion, but that man does the work; and I say that with ALL sincerity.
Lapassionara
@Suzanne: Yeah. I’m thinking a good Honda will last 200,000 miles, and possibly more.
gene108
Right-wing media has successfully bent reality for them for the past 45+ years, starting with shit like making Ollie North into some kind of patriotic hero for breaking the law.
Right-media has made reality into a purely subjective endeavor, with the “both sides” MSM rewarding the bullshit by not calling it out.
There’s no way to save this country without annihilating Fox News, The Daily Wire, Turning Points USA, The Heritage Foundation, etc. The fascists will just regroup and be more fanatical than we can imagine.
Also, the #1 wealthiest countries throughout the history of recorded civilization have never maintained their top status indefinitely. They all take a step down and get replaced by other counties. Republican policies will accelerate when this will happen to the U.S.
Edit: Americans are not mentally prepared to no longer be number one. The shock will have horrifying consequences.
Professor Bigfoot
Sitting on the front porch, watching the neighborhood die down; kids yelling up the block, doggo barking around the block, the occasional noisome bugger on two or four wheel chugging up the street, the neighbor’s boombox, the cicadas buzzing in the trees.
Not as quiet and peaceful as out in the soulless suburbs, but I’d still rather be here than there.
Jay
Professor Bigfoot
@gene108: “Behold my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
Yep, it’s pretty inevitable… but it didn’t have to be this way.
We coulda been the “elder statesnation” of the democratic world, We coulda been somebody, instead of a bum which is what we are.
gene108
Is anyone else besides me amazed at how we can automatically know people’s relative ages to us immediately when we see them?
This constantly updates automatically as we get older. It’s very important, because a lot of our social interaction is based on how old we perceive another person to be.
mrmoshpotato
The orange shitstain was definitely immediately reminded of just how much he is Putin’s bitch.
Jay
Professor Bigfoot
@Jay: I’d bet my very last dime that Kamala Devi Harris wouldn’t be revoking medical visas from Gaza.
japa21
It occurs to me that if Trump really wanted to win the Nobel Peace Prize and end the conflict, he would let it be known that Ukraine will be given everything it needs to defend itself and take the war to Russia. And then he would follow through on it immediately.
Jay
Steve LaBonne
@Lapassionara: My ’09 Fit was going strong at 250k (admittedly almost all highway miles, I had an insane commute back then) when I traded it in 2017. Air conditioner ($1,000) was the only significant repair, ever.
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Dump caved to a tantrum from the crazy dumbass who chained herself to one door of the Twitter headquarters?
Jesus Fucking Himself!
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: You left the “l” off “Devil”. – MAGA
mrmoshpotato
@japa21: But then Dump would have to stop being Putin’s bitch.
frosty
@Professor Bigfoot: Sounds great! A little like my street. You’d have to substitute the loud 4-wheelers with a VFD siren though.
No boomboxes. How about the local cops occasionally speeding past the house? We live a half block from the regional PD station.
Jay
@mrmoshpotato:
Laura Loomer is one of the people calling the shots in the White Supremacy House.
Tony Jay
Sadly, the challenges of our time require that good people get strong and stay strong, because the bad people are so shamefully weak. Cowards and creeps who want their piece of the pie, and yours too, but don’t want to work for it or earn it or do anything to deserve it.
Putting power in the hands of people like that was a terrible mistake, and though the alternative was (oh, the horror) bowing down before a Vagina of Colour, I still say it was an easily avoidable one. Call me hopelessly old fashioned, but in my Hierarchy of Vices I always put ‘being a corrupt, spiteful little racist shitstain with the moral compass of a pre-loved fleshlight’ higher than ‘being dusky and sans penis’. It’s how I was raised.
Professor Bigfoot
All the v-twin cruiser bikes are loud…but some of these guys seem to cultivate loud.
Like how in the world do you hear ANYTHING at the end of a ride, bro? ;)
japa21
@mrmoshpotato: But he might consider it worth it.
Professor Bigfoot
@frosty: I’m two blocks from one of the two major hospitals in the city— ambulance sirens are a regular thing.
But the flip side— I was only two blocks away from the hospital when I had my heart attack. ;)
MagdaInBlack
Thunder storms in Chi NW suburbs and holy cow that last boom was so close it made me jump.
Baud
@Jay:
Aww. Whose supervisor is black?
mrmoshpotato
@Jay:
That is a statement about how fucking insane shit currently is. Wow.
Craig
@Professor Bigfoot: there’s a couple of guys that have full fairing bikes with loud ass stereos that like to share their music with me and my neighbors. Not together of course, so we get twice the love. Why is it that the people who love sharing their music loudly with others(I’m looking at you Bluetooth speaker asshole) always have the worst taste in music?
Craig
@Baud: likely. Tragifunny that the Masked Goon thinks he’s a clever smart guy.
frosty
@Professor Bigfoot: After the hearing loss they don’t know they’re not hearing anything. Except maybe the ringing from tinnitus.
We have a couple of those on my street too.
frosty
@Professor Bigfoot: The Volunteer Fire Department siren is nothing like an ambulance. It’s on a big pole at the PD. Do you remember air raid sirens at noon once a week? It’s one of those.
It went off twice the first night we moved in and we lay there thinking “Oh shit what have we done?”
That turned out to be a relatively rare event.
Nukular Biskits
@Suzanne:
190K?
That’s just breaking in.
My F-150 has nearly double that.
Jay
@Professor Bigfoot:
“Header” pipes are designed to that when exhaust gases from one cylinder arrives at the “collector” pipe, it creates a vacuum for the next cylinder’s exhaust, “sucking” out exhaust gasses rather than have the piston “push” them out as much.
Short headers increase rpm efficiency, long headers increase torque efficiency, both increase fuel efficiency and power, (torque or HP) by up to 20%.
On motorcycles, the “collector” pipe also acts as a muffler. The baffles in the muffler, if it is poorly designed, create “back pressure”, which reduces the efficiency of the header system. Also, if poorly designed, the muffler increases noise significantly, by being less restrictive and noisier. A proper designed baffle system does not increase noise while reducing or eliminating back pressure.
So, it’s possible to have an exhaust system that increases torque or horsepower, with out increasing noise, but they costs and require some technical knowledge to choose or make the right system.
Unfortunately, back in the 70’s, in response to the whole “drivers don’t see motorcycles” fact, a response was maybe if they can’t see you, they can hear you, and so, cheap loud pipes became more and more of a “thing”, to the point that Harley riders and other “twins” riders, adopted it like rolling coal.
A bunch of “car” enthusiasts have adopted the same sort of thing with their “resonator” muffler systems and over fueling for the staccato back firing when they take their foot off the gas.
It just basically stupidity, ignorance and cheapness on display.
Nukular Biskits
@Professor Bigfoot:
Hey, Prof.
Did you see my posts on Bluesky, and earlier here, about something Adam brought to my attention?
Nukular Biskits
@gene108:
Bring back the Fairness Doctrine.
Professor Bigfoot
@frosty: Aaaahhh, yeah, the worst we get is the air raid siren which gets tested the first Monday of every month at noon.
(what’s a tornado but a raider in the air?)
Nukular Biskits
@lamh47:
John Cole teaches?
Somehow, I missed that.
Jay
@Craig:
“Baggers” not full fairing. Some Harley’s are “baggers”, many Ducati’s are “full fairing”.
Full fairings are for efficiency and handling at high speeds. “Baggers” are for , well, I really don’t know, the bags are pretty weak ass and the windshield fairing sucks in a crosswind, behind a semi, and all it really does is slow the bike down and keep bugs out of your “pillion riders” face and mouth.
Nukular Biskits
@Professor Bigfoot:
I’ve owned and ridden motorcycles since I was probably 14. I’ve NEVER understood the need of some folks to have their bikes loud. And, after years of riding, I’ve never bought into the “loud pipes save lives” bullshit. My response to that is, “The driver will probably ask, ‘What was that loud noise right before I heard the k-thump, k-thump’?”
My current bike is loud, but that wasn’t my choice: The previous owner installed “Cobra pipes” and to go back to the OEM pipes requires rejetting the carbs (yeah, it’s an older bike).
So … I wear my noise-canceling earbuds when I ride.
Jay
@Nukular Biskits:
The “Fairness Doctrine” only ever covered “Broadcast” coverage, (radio and TV). It never covered cable or internet.
Nukular Biskits
@Jay:
Understood and agreed.
It should be updated and reinstated, IMHO.
Omnes Omnibus
To get by on wit and charm, one needs to have wit and charm.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I wouldn’t know. :-)
Craig
@Jay: they are for loud ass stereos. These guys never get over 50mph, mainly 20mph blasting shitty music.
Nukular Biskits
@WaterGirl:
Check your email when you get a chance … but give me a few minutes to grab a beer and then write it.
Professor Bigfoot
@Jay: Yeah, it does seem to be the same dudes who like to “roll coal,” doesn’t it?
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Professional assassins do need some degree of secrecy about their lives.
TONYG
In addition to all of his other repulsive characteristics, Donald Trump is very, very weak — physically, cognitively, emotionally and morally. The fact that his cult views this weakling as a “strong leader” is just more evidence of how broken our society is.
Craig
@Jay: exactly. How’s the fairness doctrine going to cover ‘ My Racist Ass Podcast’? Toothpaste is outta the tube.
Professor Bigfoot
@Nukular Biskits: I hadn’t ‘til I saw this comment; and you’ve seen my reply.
He was President of the United States, and a whole lot of US policy hasn’t always made a damn bit of sense regardless of who was in the Oval.
mrmoshpotato
@MagdaInBlack: Did the sky fall on Monday and Tuesday?
Nukular Biskits
@Professor Bigfoot:
Actually, wasn’t referring to the thread about Russia’s invasion of Crimea but something else Adam had brought to my attention, something that so nails a lot of what I’ve been seeing (and grew up around) here in the South.
Having said that, concur with your replies about Crimea.
Nukular Biskits
@Craig:
“Fairness” would dictate I get to punch in his nuts the racist bro doing the podcast.
MagdaInBlack
@mrmoshpotato: Yes, brief sky falling. Nothing like you got.
Jay
@Craig:
Meanwhile, one could be cruising on a GoldWing, or a BMW, in comfort, on a bike that handles, with smooth power, listening to what ever you want, on your Bluetooth headphones built into your IMSA full face helmet, rolling up thosands of miles with nary numb hands, a sore ass or lower back pain.
Professor Bigfoot
@Nukular Biskits: Ooh, having also grown up in the South I GOTTA go find that thread.
Nukular Biskits
@Jay:
What’s a bike ride if your ass isn’t numb? ;>)
mrmoshpotato
@MagdaInBlack: Glad to hear. I got basement flooding on Tuesday.
Nukular Biskits
@Professor Bigfoot:
I’ll DM you, if that’s okay.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Professor Bigfoot: Four decades of conservatist propaganda, along with decades of despising and devaluing education and belittling the educated and lauding the very people who were busy creating this mess.
Look at every televsngelist and Xtianjst poseur. Look at every conservatist “scholar”. Look even at the useful idiots on the left who questioned medical and scholarly authorities, not because of real investigation and scholarship but because of fashionable quackery. And look at pop culture that glorified the lone gunman, the warrior, who dismissed and lamponed the scientists and public servants.
Enough people were swayed by all these things, who allowed people with an antidemocratic agenda to persuade them by affirming their deepest bigotries, their biases, and who were persuaded not to disregard their best interests when voting but to disavow them completely as something unXtian and un-American.
Successful nations with less overtly abusive public services were dismissed as Communist or Socialist failed experiments; foreign tourism was discouraged not to keep US tourist dollars at home but to blind a whole population to what the rest of the world already knew about how government could work and how much quality of life could be improved with just a little effort.
The machine is massive. It has many moving parts. And all, for a multitude of reasons, most of which boil down to keeping a few white men rich and everyone else afraid, working to destroy democracy and to return the US to a more illiberal model that never existed outside their own propaganda.
Jay
@Nukular Biskits:
I still have my 1978 Suzuki 550, “John Player Special”, but a long time ago, it was bored out to 650cc’s*, full Yoshimura kit, (liners, pistons, head, valves, cams, exhaust), converted forks, dual disk front end conversion, rear disk break conversion, upgraded shocks, tires, K&N air cleaners, lowbars, clip on rearsets, electric start tossed, weight reduced, “Superbike” seat.
Ran it out many a time from BC to Nova Scotia with nary any numbness.
*In BC, the insurance difference between under 550cc’s and over 550cc’s is double, but Suzuki used the same block, gearcase, etc for the 450, 550 and 650, so an upgrade wasn’t hard.
Nukular Biskits
@Jay:
My current bike I’ve had since late 2005, when a lot of my coworkers were doing “horsetrading” after Katrina is a 1997 Suzuki VS800.
Bought it for $2700 w/ only 5K miles on it. It currently has around 55K now.
I had to replace the seat as the OEM seat was awful. Other than that, the windshield (which is mandatory on bikes, as far as I’m concerned … I’ll tell you the story of a motorcycle and a wasp one day) and a luggage rack (which typically only holds my lunch bag) and the aforementioned Cobra pipes, it’s all OEM.
And it’s a beast to get started when it’s cold.
Craig
@Jay: yup. I just go out for a ride around the Santa Cruz Mountains on my trusty 71 CB 750 most weeks. I don’t really like listening to music when I ride.
Citizen Dave
I skipped reading the technical reasons, but I’ve always wondered how the Harley community came to fetishize what sounds like a variety of loud farts emanating from the exhaust.
Give me the F1 V 10 era.
MagdaInBlack
@mrmoshpotato: When I lived in Melrose Park, my “garden” apartment flooded. Twice. Thus I am now 3rd floor condo.
My deepest sympathy on your flooding.
Craig
@Nukular Biskits: I have a story about a bee. I’ve always got my jacket zipped right now.
Kayla Rudbek
Mr. Rudbek and I had to go pick up engine coolant for the Honda, so we had the experience of biking home with it (auto supplies brought home on a bike, not an overly common thing to do). Of course we had to go uphill with these two large containers of liquid, and we wound up crossing the DC beltway on a bike path that we normally don’t use unless it’s very early on a Sunday with no traffic.
I also had my (early) birthday presents so those were two very dense/ heavy knitting books. I’m glad I bought one of them in paperback to slightly decrease the weight (hopefully at least one of my nephews will have children who will appreciate these books too so I hope the paperback one lasts. And hopefully they will be in a position to appreciate them instead of roaming around Northern Virginia on horseback because of the collapse of civilization).
Kayla Rudbek
@Professor Bigfoot: Harley-Davidson trademarked their engine sound as I recall (their general counsel came to my law school and gave at least one talk). And then it was H-D’s big anniversary when I was in law school, and the professors had to close the classroom windows because the motorcycles were so loud.
Kayla Rudbek
@Professor Bigfoot: yeah, because anyone sensible riding a motorcycle or a bicycle is listening for the cars and so will not be blasting a stereo (some cyclists do blast music while out on the bike trail which is very annoying. Mostly young men and occasionally young women doing that).
Kayla Rudbek
@Citizen Dave: if I recall correctly, that sound is trademarked by H-D
Ksmiami
@Nukular Biskits: we will call it denazification and it’s beyond overdue
Marc
@Kayla Rudbek: We get a lot of custom car and motorcycle summer cruising around Lake Merritt (which has No Cruising signs :), each with their own loud sound systems. We also get some old black guys with custom sound systems built into their bicycles, you go to that kind of trouble, you’ll have a proper sound track. All part of the scene, except the dirt bike gangs. May they all pop their damn wheelies just the tiniest bit too high.
Craig
@Marc: hey, those are the same guys at my house. They just roll over to your place from West Oakland, or vice versa.
Miss Bianca
Late to the thread, but just going to drop this nugget stolen from one of the panelists at the Colorado Press Association conference this weekend:
“DIPLOMACY IS NOT REALITY TV.”