(Pat Oliphant via GoComics.com)
__
According to Liz Colville at Wonkette, looks like Willard has gone full Palin:
… While in Virginia on Friday, Romney said that while America may be “the land of opportunity for every single person,” when it comes down to it there is not quiiiiiiite enough opportunity to go around, and education is great, but a person should really only get “as much education as they can afford and with their time they’re able to get,” which is a weird, as well as an evil, sentence.
Via Think Progress, here’s the extent of Romney’s remarks. There was a video, but it doesn’t appear to be working…
I think this is a land of opportunity for every single person, every single citizen of this great nation. And I want to make sure that we keep America a place of opportunity, where everyone has a fair shot. They get as much education as they can afford and with their time they’re able to get and if they have a willingness to work hard and the right values, they ought to be able to provide for their family and have a shot of realizing their dreams.
Education — it just makes the rubes your kids all snotty and know-it-all, and the next thing you know they want to leave Real Heartland America(tm) and maybe even vote Democrat!
H-E-double-hockey-sticks, in pursuit of his fancy-schmancy MBA degree, Our Mitt left the Pleasant Pennisula* for Stanford, France, and Harvard. As a result, he was reduced to running for governor of Taxachusetts rather than Deseret, and look what that got him — snotty New York Times writers being all “snarky” about “Romneycare”:
Congratulations to Mitt Romney! His signature contribution to American life, devising a health plan that became a model for the only major Western democracy without medical care for nearly all of its citizens, has been upheld. If Romney accomplishes nothing else in life, he will go down in history as the man who first proved, in the laboratory of Massachusetts, where he once governed, that an individual mandate could work.
Jeers to Mitt Romney! As the presumptive Republican nominee for president, he stood in front of the Capitol just after the Supreme Court ruling on Thursday and promised to fight in the coming campaign against one big idea — his own.
Now Romney has no choice but to run against himself. It was Rick Santorum who put it in blunt political terms during the Republican primary. Romney, he said, “is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama” because he is the intellectual godfather of the most consequential act of the Obama presidency….
To please a Republican Party that waves its gnarled fists at progress, Romney promises, crosses his heart and swears on his mother’s grave that he will repeal Obamacare on Day 1 of his presidency.
Except that, hedge, hedge, he wants the law’s most popular features — preventing insurance companies from dumping people who get sick or denying care to those with pre-existing conditions — to remain on the books.
All of this just reinforces Romney’s worst character flaw — the weasel factor…
*Michigan state motto: If you seek a pleasant pennisula, look around you. Many native Michiganders swear the part that not’s on the official shield continues: … and then move to Florida, cuz this ain’t it.
***********
Apart from Willard’s ongoing issue with ‘the tribute Vice pays to Virtue’, what’s on the agenda for this steamy summer weekend?
Steve
My grandparents moved from Michigan to Florida. They soon moved back. Michigan not only offers the better peninsula, it offers two of them.
R-Jud
My sister’s getting married today, and she very wisely put all the Wingnut relatives at one table so they can sulk together.
Should be a gorgeous day, but hot as balls here in the Poconos. Especially for those of us in the fancy-schmancy getups.
JPL
@R-Jud: How is Bean doing?
Anne Laurie
@Steve: I grew up in New York, where the state motto is Excelsior, which is another name for the sawdust/torn newsprint/packing pellets used to protect breakables. The nun who taught my third-grade class in parochial school was the first, but not the last, native New Yorker to explain to us that the *real* state motto was a little more explicit, but you can’t put Bullshit on official documents. (Well, of course you can, but you’re not supposed to use the word itself.)
c u n d gulag
Mitt’s handlers must have told him, that in his 1864 campaign, when asked about the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln replied, “No, that was meant for the slaves in the White House, and the District of Columbia! It was a LOCAL program, and NOT a national one. And that’s why we’re fighting this here War Between the States – FOR the 10th Amendment rights of states. Don’t’ let the Lame Stream Fourth Estate fool you. McClellan is the one who wants to free the slaves across the nation.”
And the reporters of the time, like in modern days, took Lincoln at his word, and then looked at what the Confederates were fighting for, and wrote, “See – both side do it!”
OY!
Frankensteinbeck
‘They get as much education as they can afford and with their time they’re able to get and if they have a willingness to work hard and the right values, they ought to be able to provide for their family and have a shot of realizing their dreams.’
Does anybody else read this as ‘Know your place, peasants’? The man truly believes income inequality is a good thing, that it’s just and correct that rich people get to stamp onto their children the credentials of elite schools the merely well off bust their ass to get to, and poor people should get poor people educations, and so on.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just misinterpreting as he went off on one of his desperate babbling improvisations.
Mister Harvest
You know, in a perfectly reasonable BothSidesDoIt(tm) world (Surgeon General’s warning: this world does not exist), the statement is reasonable enough: Get enough education to do what you want to do with life. But one would have to have RocksInTheHead(tm) not to read this as, “How much education do you need to work in one of my salt mines, anyway?”
JPL
The heat wave has hit the GA area. I know most of you think of the area as Hotlanta but it is not normally this hot. Yesterday was 103 and today it’s suppose to be 105. Last year we had several weeks above 90 so this looks like the new normal.
I’m thinking of adding some citrus trees to my yard.
Mustang Bobby
I’ve lived in both Michigan and Florida (I’m in Florida now), and both have their strong points. They have striking similarities; parts of the state are progressive and multi-cultural, and parts have folks who are so wing-nutty that they look on the Klan as being liberal race-mixers.
Oh, and both elected idiots for governor in the last go-round.
JPL
@Frankensteinbeck: Mitt has no idea what public colleges cost. His entire campaign is built on the gilded age.
chopper
well, i think i’m going to have to make the appointment to have my dog put down this week. that fucking blows.
JPL
@chopper: That is the toughest decision a human has to make and I wish I could say something that would help. That really sucks.
geg6
@chopper:
Man, that’s terrible. Just went through that ourselves in January. So sorry, but you can’t let your faithful companion suffer. Be thinking of you.
As for me, I am starting a week’s vacation. YAY! Not going anywhere, but I have a birthday BBQ to go to on Sunday. Also will be spending the start of the week at my sister’s helping her prepare for my niece’s high school graduation party. She’s going off to college at Youngstown State in pre-dental. So proud of her! She started out in life in an abusive and neglectful home and was adopted by sis and her hubby at 18 months. Her little arms had cigarette burn scars. She is a sweet and beautiful young woman and the scars have faded to invisible, as have the attendant emotional ones. Just a good story all the way around.
Calouste
@Frankensteinbeck:
To the rich, Harvard is not an institute of higher education, it is a finishing school.
Craig
Mitt’s in favor of us getting all the education we can afford? So what does that mean, exactly–that he wants to dismantle public education, but isn’t actually in favor of a law against us learning to read?
russ
This man is incapable of using words as a conduit for his thoughts because he has no values, only a life spent with having all the money he wants and what that allows him to do and why not run for president, he’s got the money to do it. He’s a lost soul with good hair, pretty wife, some kids and money, lots of it.
schrodinger's cat
Mitt sounds like the brahmins of yore, who tried to keep the masses unlettered so that they could preserve their primacy in the social structure.
Tern
Besides the obvious “as much education as they can afford”, this part “and if they have a willingness to work hard and the right values, they ought to be able to provide for their family and have a shot of realizing their dreams.” drives me absolutely crazy. So, all the people that have lost their homes, jobs, are stuck in low paying jobs (or 2), apparently don’t have the right values or aren’t working hard! It’s not the fault of the 1% at all. The rest of us just don’t live right.
Tern
Besides the obvious “as much education as they can afford”, this part “and if they have a willingness to work hard and the right values, they ought to be able to provide for their family and have a shot of realizing their dreams.” drives me absolutely crazy. So, all the people that have lost their homes, jobs, are stuck in low paying jobs (or 2), apparently don’t have the right values or aren’t working hard! It’s not the fault of the 1% at all. The rest of us just don’t live right.
jeffreyw
I was looking forward to a crawfish boil today but the host called to cancel because of the heat wave. It made it to 110, briefly, here. It was 100 at 10AM and peaked at 1:30PM. Right now it’s 95 and dry, dry dry – no rain for 2 months. Fucking Al Gore.
russ
This am turn on tv to local CBS/WCAX and see “Secret War on Guns” with Wayne LaPierre telling me Barack is coming for our guns and donate $$ so he and the NRA can fight in this secret war. Maybe Issa is priming the pump for Wayne’s war.
Kane
Notice that Romney is not promising more opportunity, rather he wants to keep America a place of opportunity. That’s the status quo talking. It’s not, in his mind, a question of whether the system is failing people to realize their dreams, instead it’s a question of whether people have a willingness to work hard and have the right values.
Bobby Thomson
@JPL: Bean? I used to date a Bean.
Doesn’t sound like the same one, though.
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck:
Quoting Sir Mittens:
Well, it’s like health care. All the health care you can afford. If you can’t afford what you need to get well, tough toenails. You should have thought of that when you selected your parents, serf.
This guy is one of the ones screaming “Put me on a tumbrel!”
Villago Delenda Est
@c u n d gulag:
This is brilliant, quite frankly. It illustrates the abject stupidity of our MSM.
Linda Featheringill
Blessedly cool in NE Ohio this morning. About time, too. I guess the heat has moved on.
Cermet
@JPL: Is that all?! Here many hundreds of miles well north! of you in Maryland we had 106F yesterday. Of course we once again had thunderstorms last night that took power off for almost half a million; of course, clear and sunny right as the heat index climbs rapidy. Of course I lost power while it is clear and sunny!
I have decided to rewire the generator to handle the 220v to run the AC rather than the normal 120 I currently am using. Rather simple just to add a 220 plug and excit the dual feed strips in the pannel – no way with 100% humdity and 106F I’m gonna want to endure that – lucky if power is back tonight.
The modern world – twenty years ago this almost never happened and when it did, power would be back in no time. Progress and the free market! I see why we need less education – so fake news will then make sense. Mitt the twit is real does have a plan to finish the middle class.
General Stuck
Come to Texas, and if you ain’t one already, we’ll make you a blithering idiot!!
The scary thing is that this doesn’t surprise me a bit.
arguingwithsignposts
I realize that Mitt Rmoney was the nominal head of the state of Taxachussetts, but how much credit does he really get for devising the Mass HC plan? Seems like there are a lot of legislators involved in that thing as well. Same with Obama. Yes, his name’s on the bill, but without Pelosi, Reid, and a lot of other dems, it wouldn’t have gotten done (as much as some people on this board hate it).
Female on the Beach
That is so fucked up on so many levels. We have already been doing the work and pay for your own education, re-education, etc. for years now!
The point being it is NOT working and people are killing themselves trying to pull it off and going without health insurance, many trying to raise kids at the same time barely living on the edge while trying to improve their chances of acheiving something better when those opportunites simply do not exist like they did in the 90’s. they’re finally figuring out but only after they’re tapped out financially.
“education they can afford” – where do they get it, Mitt? They can’t get it same place and way you did. even if they can afford it, they still have to pay for the remaining cost of just existing on this fucking planet.
“on their own time” – yeah, that’s not working either. but you wouldn’t know anything about that, Mitt.
average Americans have believed this bullshit, as if everything hinges on their abilities and strength to advance themselves with no help whatsoever whatsoever from anyone because that’s the American way! meanwhile Wall Street made out like bandits.
Know what? it’s killing them, psychologically, physically and financially. I have known many women who worked FT or PT, with kids and trying to put themselves through school in hopes of achieving something better. I personally canNOT imagine the stress of doing that.
We were sold this bill of goods back in the 90’s. I DOESN’T WORK. I don’t resent your having money so much as I resent you trying to shove these suicidal “values” that you know nothing about down our throats so you can wring the last little bit of life and money out of us and reduce us to serfdom.
FUCK YOU.
JPL
@Cermet: That is a dangerous situation. Hopefully the area’s power is restored quickly. A friend’s dad is without power in Alexandria but fortunately, he was leaving today to fly to Atlanta. He’s 85 so a house without a.c. would be hard on him.
Female on the Beach
@jeffreyw: 105 here, what a bastard.
Female on the Beach
@Tern: Yep! I think you said it better and a lot shorter than me. But we have believed this up until the very moment the bottom dropped out. Except for teabaggers who believe “liberty” is the sacred right to die without health care.
YellowJournalism
This guy really does make Bush look like the education president by comparison. Yikes.
mellowjohn
i’d hate like hell to diagram that sentence!
JPL
@Bobby Thomson: It’s R-jud’s little girl who is growing up to be quite a beauty…
cathyx
I love it when someone born into wealth tells me that this country will offer me so much opportunity to get ahead and provide for my family by getting as much education as I can afford with the time I have to do it, if I just work hard and have the right values.
Really? Working minimum wage jobs around the clock to pay for tuition and provide for my family is not a possibility. And no Mitt, I can’t borrow money from my parents because they don’t have any.
Mitt can not put himself in the average American’s place to even imagine what it’s like.
greennotGreen
“All the education you can afford.”
I work in biomedical research. So, the brilliant student who came in here on scholarships, probably went to undergrad on scholarships, too, that student’s getting the education they can afford, right? But the guy next to him, the one who just missed the cutoff for the scholarship, that’s just tough luck? If we limit education to those who can “afford” it, is our next great breakthrough in treating disease going to come from Paris Hilton?
Charles Drew who pioneered the storage of human blood was the son of a carpet layer. The writer D.H. Lawrence was the son of a coal miner. Brilliance is where you find it, and it doesn’t always follow bloodlines.
Elmo
Went to the store at 0600 to stock up on water, cheese, ice, and stuff I can cook on the grill. They say it’ll be days before we in NoVA get power back on.
The worst part is not being able to shower. I’m a bit of a clean freak, and I feel massively funky right now. Ick.
Barry
@R-Jud: “My sister’s getting married today, and she very wisely put all the Wingnut relatives at one table so they can sulk together.”
Congratulations!
And the more so since your sister is wise :)
Barry
@JPL: “Mitt has no idea what public colleges cost.”
Actually, he does – they cost about the same as his horse masseur.
General Stuck
— Sarah Palin, in an interview on Fox News.
You heard it here first.
YellowJournalism
@General Stuck: You misunderstood. She was trying to demonstrate the concept of projection. She did it beautifully.
shortstop
I don’t think Mitt is telling people to know their place or that education gives the rubes pesky independence–though of course his party thinks those things. I think the references to as much education and time as one can afford are explicit warnings that he will not support student loan
reform or any effort to mitigate the superinflation of higher ed costs.
If you can afford to pay for a degree out of pocket or by borrowing massive sums, taking four or more years away from full-time labor to do so, that’s fine, but the government isn’t going to help you do it. And if you can’t get there on your own, we’ll insult your work ethic and values to let you know it’s your own fault.
Kirbster
I take “as much education as they can afford” to mean that under a Romney administration, there will be no more federal student loans, and if the available vouchers for private primary and secondary schools aren’t enough to cover tuition to the for-profit private academies, your kids will just have to settle for the impoverished-due-to-the-vouchers public schools for some sort of rudimentary education.
shortstop
Sorry, chopper. I know how tough it is. Thinking about you.
General Stuck
I don’t think Romney endorsing the Prince/Pauper plan for education, is going to win him the love of indie voters, nor the all important soccer mom types raising their spawn in the countries suburban wastelands. Obama is going to have some kickass quotation montages for ads to define this archaic asswipe.
Redshift
I can’t wait for one of Mitt’s brilliant spokesbeings to publicly “explain” that he just means that the cause of the student loan crisis is students buying an education they couldn’t afford, just like the financial crisis was caused by banks being forced to make loans to
brownpoor people.Seriously, is there anyway to read this other than “you should get an education to get ahead, but if you can’t afford it, you’re out of luck”?
America is the land of equal opportunity, but some opportunities are more equal than others.
shortstop
@Kirbster: Exactly. He is laying out his position that the government has no place in helping citizens achieve other than the most basic of schooling–and not even that, if community public education resources can be directed toward private profiteers.
Always remember that Mitt never insults simply to insult! The insult always supports real financial injury!
cathyx
The way I see it, the people who are going to vote for Romney have never been to college, have never wanted to go to college, or have no intention of going to college. So this speech doesn’t affect them.
jrg
In other words, he’s promising the mooks free shit.
When, lord, when do Dems start calling Republicans out on this free lunch horseshit?
Nothing like being at the beach, but unable to go outside because it’s too hot, BTW. Algore is fat and his son’s a pothead, so I think I’m going to go burn some tires.
Half this country is fucking retarded. Window-licking, talking-to-bugs retarded.
shortstop
@cathyx: Well, those guys make up the chorus of voters. The ones directing the show can afford the cost of private elementary schools and top-flight higher ed without help, and have no problem manipulating the GOP masses. Those who use their education for evil, in other words.
maya
I thought that on Day 1 of his presidency he was going to give himself a permanent tax cut. How much will that extra day of taxes set him back?
Ben Cisco
Gonna hit 105 here in the Queen City today. In freaking JUNE.
You have to be either brain damaged or a NeoConfederate not to see something wrong with that.
Jay C
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’m gonna go with this interpretation, meself: “stupid” over “evil” in this case: it was probably meant to be just standard America-Is-The-Land-Of-Opportunity boilerplate; but as usual, emanating from the mouth of Willard Mitt Romney, it comes out as simultaneously clueless and condescending. Geez, he reminds of both Presidents Bush: Bush the Elder without the patrician veneer, and Dubya without the malapropisms. And no, that’s not a hint that he’s “Presidential”…..
redshirt
I work for a super high tech company in Boston and we’re hiring like crazy and sometime in the past few weeks a car has shown up covered in wingnut bumper stickers. I’ve been slyly trying to find out who it is so I can ensure they get inferior service.
Funniest sticker: A taxpayer voting for Obama is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.
I’m like: Don’t you have that precisely opposite, fool?
I”m becoming quite radicalized of late – I’m ready for hand to hand combat with every wingnut I come across.
Oh, the joy I had sticking it to my Father with the Supreme Court vote. He was mute. Delicious silence!
Mino
@General Stuck: In Texas, libertarianism is code for racism and we want to be sure it endures into the next generation.
Just wait till we privatize all K-12. Dems will have to home school instead of Republicans.
Valdivia
still hot as hell in DC, going up to 100 (I suspect it will be hotter than that though based on how hot it already is). I am one of the lucky ones and still have power here in the district.
Mitt is just a despicable asshole.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay C: I have stopped going with stupid over evil WRT anyone in the GOP. I willm however, accept an explanation of stupid and evil (see e.g., Louis Gohmert).
kay
@Jay C:
But that’s the thing. Words refect thoughts and opinions.
Change every “they” in the second part of that speech to “we”. NOW it sounds more like a standard “land of opportunity” speech.
Why does Mitt Romney so consistently speak like this? Who the hell are “they” and why are “they” apart from his “I” and his “we”?
He has been running for President for years. He can’t remember to say “we” because that isn’t how he views the world.
jake the snake
FYWP!!!
Pikers, it hit 110 in Bowling Green, KY Friday and may be hotter today. As Pappy would have said, “Hot as the hinges of Hades.”
WereBear
Actually, I think he expresses exactly his innermost thoughts, as liberally quoted in the post… and that’s why his handlers don’t want to let him out.
Valdivia
@kay:
thanks for pointing this out. Remember how the wingnuts would do a word count of all of Obama’s speeches and they kept being outraged about his use of the word ‘I’. But he also uses the word we a lot. Now Romney is always deflecting, his sentences have no inclusiveness ever.
tamiedjr
@kay: Wow! I went back and reread that quote, noting all the uses of we/they. It gave me a chill. The slant is master/slave all the way!
lamh35
Reporter Joe Williams leaving Politico
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/06/joe-williams-to-leave-politico-127794.html
On behalf of AA and proponents of diversity in workplace…fuck Politico
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh35: On behalf of people who are interested in having the truth reported … fuck Politico. Not a replacement for yours, but an addition.
Mouse-Bear
From Fark’s Caturday post:
Man being sent on multi-year deployment needs to re-home his cats.
SiubhanDuinne
@jake the snake:
Ha! My grandmother used to say “hotter than the hinges of Hades” all the time. I use it occasionally, and just get blank looks in return.
Maude
@Omnes Omnibus:
What you said.
Cap'n Magic
Coming to America now: brainwave-controlled animatronic cat ears.
lamh35
@Omnes Omnibus: great minds think alike. That was ginna be the 2nd half of my comment but didn’t have time to edit it. i.e. …WORD!!!!
Southern Beale
WTF?
Kay
@tamiedjr:
It just so sticks out to me.
You got your “I” (Mitt Romney) and then you got your “we” ( Mitt Romney leading some unidentified larger group-Romney will ‘make sure’ this group does something or other) then….THEY. That’s US, I think. You and me.
Myyyy goodness. That’s more than a tin ear. Romney is one of those people who benefits from the good faith assumption that he doesn’t mean what he says.
Kristine
@chopper: I am so sorry. You have to do what’s best, but it is never, ever easy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Southern Beale: That Mitt, he is a special one, isn’t he?
Southern Beale
Husband speaks wingnut and interpreted Mittster’s comment this way: “The country needs ditch-diggers, too.”
Jesus god.
RaflW
@Tern:
That really is the more nasty of the core messages. All of it smacks of the religious view that god favors the virtuous with earthly rewards and that suffering is a sign of individual sinfulness.
Somehow the works of mercy called for in Matthew 25:36 have gone entirely out the window in this new christianist-reactionary century.
I’m sure every generation has had its selective readings of the Bible. But the “christian” right has wholesale abandoned mercy and love for one’s neighbor, as far as I can tell.
Ruckus
@greennotGreen:
Brilliance is where you find it, and it doesn’t always follow bloodlines.
I’d say it frequently doesn’t follow bloodlines. I’m sure there are examples to prove me wrong but all the ones I can think show bloodlines by themselves have little to no involvement.
Kay
@Valdivia:
Obama does a really clever thing, rhetorically. He always, always includes himself among the well-off. That’s true. Obama IS well-off, and if he didn’t say it, a lot of the crowd would be thinking it. He says “I want people like me to pay our fair share in taxes”.
I understand why Republicans like Romney can’t do this, but one would think they could come up with something better than this defensive, cranky, “I am not going to APOLOGIZE for my success!” Yeah, well, no one asked you to. Why so touchy?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I think that is quite clever as well. In addition to the fact that people will see him as well-off anyway so he may as well admit it, he is not going after a rhetorical “other” when he suggests raising taxes on the wealthy.
Roy G.
“It’s easy to afford college, my friends – just sell some of your General Motors stock.”
JoyfulA
@geg6: Your story about your niece made me cry with gratitude for good people. Give your sister an extra hug for me.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I keep telling people it is always
D. All of the Above.
Always. It’s always insane, evil and stupid.
catclub
@Mouse-Bear: We have three cats.
Only one could honestly be described as suitable for adoption.
We love them and would never voluntarily give them up, but they just are not really that good.
Hence, I wonder how honest his descriptions are.
scav
Oh, that “Have the Right Values” bit is more of a snorter than appears at first. There are layers including from the benign “Values of hard work” to to aforementioned “Values that it pleases the Mighty Lord to whimsically award” to “Offer of ‘Success’only valid to ‘Mercans with certain ‘Values’.”
russell
america – the land of all the opportunity you can afford.
that’s a truly inspiring vision.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay:
Because his “success” is based on picking the right parents, and also on theft on a massive scale.
Cap'n Magic
@russell: Now THAT would make a great poster.
JoyfulA
@Mouse-Bear: I passed this on to DH, but I don’t think he’s out of his grief cycle for cat loss yet.
Valdivia
@Kay:
I love when Obama does that, I think it stresses the positive aspects of his American Dream story (look anyone can make it) while also focusing on how that is not at odds with giving a little more towards the greater good of society.
That Romney line is what people in his party told him to do in the mold of Trump. Obnoxious way to deal with the fact Romney has nothing else.
catclub
Did anyone notice that Francois Hollande is a competent leader of France and Sarkozy was not.
It sure sounded that way from the reports on the Eurozone meeting. Hollande takes a month to do what Sarkozy could not ( did not want to?) do in 3 years – something constructive for stimulus and financial stability in Europe.
jeffreyw
Thread needs moar breakfast porn.
shortstop
@Kay: Yeah, we’ve talked about this here before. It’s really a very smart move, quickly acknowledging his wealth and defanging it as an issue, then moving on to clearly show that he understands how the non-wealthy live and what they face. Ted Kennedy was always very good at this, too.
The GOP likes to say that pointing out others’ wealth is class warfare (which is really shooting the messenger), but the fact is that Americans do not resent the wealthy. We totally resent wealthy people who refuse to acknowledge what not being wealthy means and who pretend that economic struggles are wholly a result of moral failures and poor work habits, while wealth is always a result of effort and skill.
Mouse-Bear
@JoyfulA:
Thanks.
Some friends of a friend of mine found a kitten in a dumpster and taken him home to be fostered. However, they didn’t want him to go to the SPCA and were asking their friends if they knew anyone who wanted a cat.
Well, my friend knew I was still mourning the loss of Kiku-san (she’d been put to sleep just the week before) but decided to ask me if I wanted another cat. I looked at a picture of him and then went to visit and… came home with Tanuki. (Yeah, yeah, that was obviously going to happen!)
Were Hypatia not Hypatia, Tanuki would be the best-loved cat EVAR in the history of everything. He didn’t replace Kiku-san but he did fill the hole in my heart.
burnspbesq
At 8:40 a.m. In Da OC, it’s 63 degrees. It might make it to 80. With no humidity to speak of.
I love New Jersey, but there are days when I don’t miss it all that much.
22over7
jeffreyw, that picture is a thing of beauty. Spouse has promised me breakfast burritos tomorrow: sausage, eggs, cheese, potatoes, and green chile, all melty and wrapped up in a fresh tortilla. Nom.
It’s going to hit 102 here in the great southwest, but it’s always that hot this time of year, so my heartfelt sympathies to all those who are going to have a bad day. Look in on your elders, make sure the animals have shade and water, and drink lotsa lotsa liquid today.
gelfling545
@greennotGreen:
As it clearly did not in the Romney family.
Valdivia
@shortstop:
their favorite move (they do it with Warren and others) is to say it’s hypocritical if you have money and call on taxes to be raised on yourself. They really have no grasp of language anymore do they?
@burnspbesq: 80? what is that again? ;)
jeffreyw
@22over7:
I’m going to insist on pictures. Breakfast burritos are my favorite breakfast ever.
burnspbesq
If you are a vinyl person, and a Joni Mitchell fan, you should check out the new remastered versions of her early-70s records. “Court & Spark” is excellent, and “The Hissing of Summer Lawns” is just staggeringly good. I haven’t heard “Blue” or “Ladies of the Canyon” yet, but the word in vinyl-junkie/audiophile circles is that they are also teh awesome.
burnspbesq
@Valdivia:
The overnight low in DC?
*ducks*
scav
@catclub: Who you going to be frightened of: An pan-European Elite with philospohical roots intertwined with GWB’s and hated by masses of his own people (don’t forget the French detail here) or an oh-so-seeming-marshmallowey man that might just be floating on cresting wave of mob á la française? (especially when the marshmallow man has been known to carry a hidden blade).
aangus
Heh.
State of emergency declared in West Virginia after powerful storms
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2012/06/30/state-emergency-declared-in-west-virginia-after-powerful-storms/#ixzz1zIDIEL2L
danielx
Another storm at 4 am on top of the one at 4 pm yesterday…an inch of rain altogether which is more than we’ve gotten in the past two months. Not hard, since in June we got .05 inches of rain. Farmers are queuing up to see who can apply for disaster aid first.
But at least it’s only 78 degrees at noon, although it’s scheduled to hit 100 tomorrow…again. I used to think it was sucky weather when it hit the upper 80s. Now that would be positively fall-like…Michigan beaches are sounding good right now.
22over7
Seriously, has anyone heard from Cole?
scav
@22over7: Du calm. Next Post is already him.
WereBear
@Mouse-Bear: Tweeted to cat people… you never know.
Amir Khalid
@jeffreyw:
There’s pork in the sossiges on that there delectable looking platter, isn’t there? A thousand and one curses (just kidding) upon you, you tempter.
Roger Moore
@JPL:
The last time I heard they’re not officially for sale, not that it would keep Mitt from trying.
shortstop
@Amir Khalid: You and I can switch those out for beans and it will be perfecto.
@Roger Moore: Inconvenient presence of universities in state charters makes “states’ rights” people have a sad.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@JPL: My son and his girlfriend live in Falls Church and their power has been off since 10.30p last night. He says if the power doesn’t come on by day’s end, they’re going to a hotel til it does. Sounds brutal.
shortstop
Yay, lunchtime at a neighborhood bar with sidewalk seating and excellent food! I’ve been up since six and I’m starting to get hongray.
jeffreyw
@Amir Khalid: Calling them pork flavored garlic links is closer to correct.
Mouse-Bear
@WereBear:
Thank you. :)
One of the comments on Fark was that someone should take all four and “hold” them for him, which is absolutely what I would do if I had a large house and a garden. But, um, I don’t. Also, thousands of miles away. So. Not especially helpful.
Origuy
@Cap’n Magic:
The Fanime convention was here in San Jose a few weeks ago. The Tech museum down the street from the convention center cleverly got a bunch in to sell to kids with their parents’ money burning holes in their pockets.
Charlie Dodgson
For decades, the conservative line has always been that economic inequality didn’t matter so long as there was equality of opportunity. Now Mitt’s shrugging off equality of opportunity. Next turn of the ratchet?
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
On the bright side, Bristol Palin’s reality-show project has gotten bounced to a later time-slot in favor of repeating some reality dance show. (Don’t know if someone’s mentioned this yet — hope I’m not repeating.)
Yutsano
@jeffreyw: Just as haram, unfortunately.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@SiubhanDuinne: In my family it was the plainer “hotter than the hinges of hell,” which I use regularly, especially of late.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
“May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your waterbed”
Terry
@greennotGreen: This is why MITx.
Poopyman
Here in bucolic Southern MD it’s more bucolic than usual with all of the power outages. Mrs. p is off to a hotel in the Big City (Waldorf) to telecommute while I wait ings out here at home. The iPad is still cranking and I’ve got cell coverage, so I guess this is roughing it. Dunno what I’ll do when it breaks 100 though – it’s only 90 now and feeling a tad muggy.
I don’t think anyone mentioned how weird the lightning was during the storm. Literally constant cloud to cloud, then as the storm passed we got more frequent cloud to ground. Never saw so much lightning before.
Oh, and it turns out there are only a handful of houses in this zip code with outages, probably just this street. Means way low on the priority list. Loverly.
Valdivia
@burnspbesq:
have been looking for something to throw in your direction but the heat made me very lethargic! ;)
Elmo
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
Ya. I live near Middleburg VA and my power has been out since 9 last night. Supposed to be out for days. There’s a 200 year old oak at the end of my road, down across all the power lines. I live out in horse country so we’re low priority.
protected static
@chopper: We did that this week. Totally sucks. Will your vet come to your house? Ours did, and our old girl was a lot less distressed than she otherwise would have been.
JustAnotherBob
@Elmo:
“The worst part is not being able to shower.”
Heat up about a gallon of water on the grill.
Take said gallon and a plastic cup/whatever to the shower.
Pour about a half cup of water over your head and shampoo.
Rise the shampoo off with a cup of water. The top of your body will now be wet enough to soap down.
Soap and rinse. Continue until you get to the soles of your feet.
Take the remaining half gallon and give yourself a nice final rinse. (Took baths that way for years while living on a sail boat.)
OTOH, if you’re in one of the heat wave areas, grab a bar of soap and get under the hose….
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
I think I have all of those on original vinyl.
The Sailor
@mellowjohn: “i’d hate like hell to diagram that sentence!”
Oh that’s easy: “Fuck you, I’ve got mine.”