Looks like human beings aren’t the only creatures who believe camouflage renders them invisible: This little guy was hiding in plain sight on a beer can huggie yesterday!
We’re having weird weather in my neck of the woods. A line of squalls is heading our way, and after it moves through, the temperature is supposed to plunge into the 70s/50s for a couple of days. Then, after another front comes through, it’s going to drop to the 60s/40s.
But for now, it’s in the 80s with absurdly high humidity. It’s muggy as hell! But I refuse to shut the windows and turn on the A/C because the minute I do, it’ll start raining and turn colder. I hate being jerked around by the weather!
Anyhoo. Open thread.
The Moar You Know
I was born and have lived all my life in a place that never experiences snow. Never saw snowflakes until I was in my thirties.
IT’S THE BEST
donnah
Our family is taking advantage of the off season to visit Myrtle Beach, SC. My husband, my three sons, and I are enjoying the mild, cool weather and the absence of the usual crowds here. We’re on the fourteenth floor overlooking the beach and having a wonderful time.
Games like Splendor, Sheriff of Nottingham, Five Tribes, and Nevermore are filling the hours. We love tabletop games and there’s something for everyone.
Joe Falco
Nothing but rainy weather the past few days in NW Georgia. It’s pretty much needed with all the forest fires that’s started here and nearby after it being so dry for so long.
Major Major Major Major
Well, did he get eaten, or did he get to warm up in the sun? You’re just enabling bad camouflage behavior by not eating it.
Corner Stone
Speaking of normalizing Trump. After canceling Thanksgiving I am now being pressured to go forward with our “normal” Christmas routine of tree getting, decorating and then later a full meal and gift opening.
The Trump offender says I should “just get over it” and I’m “ruining it for everyone over politics”. The ex hates anything that even slightly suggests family things are *not* more important than everything else, a factor that was not insignificant in our no longer being married.
So I asked the kid how he wanted to celebrate Xmas and think about what was important to him and we’d do that. I guess it’s a copout on my part because he knows how strongly I feel about this but he also likes seeing people and being around people that love him.
This fucking year.
gogol's wife
Reposted from below: The Western Mass. PBS station showed the “Hamilton’s America” documentary Saturday night as a fund-raiser. I watched it three times when it first appeared (before the election). Watching it after the election was a different experience. Mainly, I could not allow Paul Ryan’s face on my TV without screaming obscenities at it. And when Dubya appeared, I thought, “Yeah, finally I miss you” (h/t Bill Maher).
jk
h/t http://thehill.com/homenews/media/308923-after-blowback-nyt-public-editor-walks-back-criticism-of-reporters
gogol's wife
@Corner Stone:
“just get over it” like they “got over” Obama
gogol's wife
@jk:
She is THE WORST
The Moar You Know
@jk: People who should never be allowed anywhere near a newspaper for a thousand, Alex.
Это курам на смех
“Drop to the 60s.” Brrrrrrrrr!
That said, when Portland’s winter temps fall to the low 30s (our highs are usually warmer), people bundle up like they are crossing the Arctic Circle.
cosima
@jk: Are tweets supposed to be straight news reporting? I thought that was for the actual publication (paper/online/etc). I look hearing about her appearance on the Maddow show. For balance.
Iowa Old Lady
@Corner Stone: Is the celebration usually held at your house? Why can’t someone else do it, the kid go, and you and the kid celebrate at a different time?
To me, the only thing that matters beyond your wishes is what’s OK with the kid. Everyone else needs to get over it.
low-tech cyclist
@The Moar You Know:
Indeed.
And I don’t see the problem with reporters expressing opinions in their tweets, as long as they report the news straight up. It’s not like a tweet from a reporter comes with a header that says, “this is news, factual and unbiased.” If someone complains, the editor should simply say, “OK, show me the bias in this reporter’s news reporting.”
Mnemosyne
A notice for the day commenters that a new poll is up for the Weekend Movie Club: screwball comedies with Cary Grant.
Yes, I know Bringing Up Baby is not an option. I don’t like Bringing Up Baby, and you can’t make me watch it. So there. ?
Corner Stone
@Iowa Old Lady: It’s a multi part event. The tree decorating is at my house and then on Xmas Eve we (my relatives) do the meal and gifts at my house. Kid then goes to other grandma’s for Xmas day. So he’ll have his normal Xmas day with cousins. It’s the no gathering for tree decorating and then no meal that’s the problem. Luckily for me, my mom wrung the last ability I had for being guilt shamed out of me at about age 12. But I have to balance what’s good for the kid and also not put it all on him.
I honestly don’t know when, if ever, I will be ready to be in the same room with the Trump offender again.
Felanius Kootea
The Nigerian-American community is super-conflicted about Trump’s appointment of Nigerian-American billionaire, Adebayo Ogunlesi (he bought London’s Gatwick airport in 2006 and was head of global investment at Credit Suisse First Boston) to his cabinet as a member of his Economic Advisory Team. I don’t understand how someone goes from clerking for Thurgood Marshall to “Making America Great Again” with Donald Trump, but then I have never understood sociopathic greed.
JPL
@jk: What consequence did she have? As far as I know she still has her job.
Lizzy L
34 degrees in San Pablo CA (across the bay from SF) at 6 am today. Chilly, for us. It’s about ten degrees warmer now. The weather website says we’re heading into some rainy weather starting tomorrow night, so the temps will go up but it will feel clammy and cold anyway. But rain is GOOD. I am not complaining. And if rain on the coast means that it’s snowing in the Sierras, it’s wonderful.
Brachiator
Great photo. Makes me want a mug with a chameleon handle.
Gindy51
@Corner Stone: Then don’t be. The kid needs to mature a little and realize that what happens outside the family sometimes affects what is inside the family. I would not do ANYTHING you are not comfortable with. Your kid will be fine doing this on his own, might be good for him actually. You do what makes YOU comfortable, life is too fucking short to be lived any other way esp now a days…
jk
@cosima: @JPL:
The NY Times had many low points during this campaign that have been well documented here and elsewhere, but I can think of few things more nauseating than having its Public Editor grovel at the feet of lowlife dirtbag Tucker Carlson by throwing several of NY Times reporters under the bus.
“Are tweets supposed to be straight news reporting? I thought that was for the actual publication (paper/online/etc).”
Either Liz Spayd is a self-hating NY Times employee or she’s just a moron.
PaulWartenberg2016
@Mnemosyne:
Arsenic and Old Lace wasn’t that bad. They just should have cast Boris Karloff for reals. :(
schrodinger's cat
@jk:
I am voting for all of the above.
PaulWartenberg2016
Trump is now trying to kill off Boeing’s contract to supply Air Force One planes, so he can get the government to lease out HIS Trump airline planes at millions of dollars he’ll gladly pocket.
I hope to God Boeing sues the shit out of him.
I hate myself for rooting for a massive corporate company to win a legal battle.
DAMN YOU, AMERICA, THIS IS WHAT YOU’VE BROUGHT ME TO!
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: I would have jumped up 4 feet if I had seen that on my beer can.
debit
@Gindy51: Agreed, one hundred percent.
debit
@Mnemosyne: You don’t like Bringing up Baby? I’m pretty sure that makes you history’s greatest monster.
Mnemosyne
@PaulWartenberg2016:
They couldn’t, because his contract for the Broadway run prohibited him from making a movie version until that run was over, and it was an enormous hit. It’s too bad, because he was actually a pretty deft comic actor, as he showed later in his career.
On the other hand, Karloff protected America as an air raid warden in NYC while he was doing the show, so maybe the Nazis were too scared to attack while he was on the job? ?
prufrock
Betty, I’m forty-five years old and have lived in Pinellas County (with the exception of the Marine Corps and college) my entire life. I don’t ever remember having weather like this in December when I was a kid. Do you?
It worries me greatly.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Hmm. “Holiday” is one of my personal canon “all time all time” films. So, I voted for “His Girl Friday.”
And her I recall an insightful Pauline Kael essay in which she pointed out that Cary Grant, despite his male beauty, is almost never the one who pursues the woman he ends up with. HGF bucks the trend.
cosima
@jk: I probably should have added the snark sign (I think there’s one) to mine.
Tucker/F*cker Carlson was on the Palin bandwagon, so he automatically gets put in the d-bag column for me. That he has his own show is astonishing. That a NYT editor would go on that show to discuss balanced/factual reporting is the height of irony.
I’m over trying to figure out what is driving the shite-show NYT reporting, how they imagine they will benefit from kowtowing to T&*^%p. I’ve added it to the mountain of despair that I feel over all things political.
Lizzy L
@PaulWartenberg2016:
Is this not also a conflict of interest? Asking for my uncle, Sam. You may have met him. Tall guy. long white beard, wears funny clothes.
Aleta
Snow here! It’s great how the light increases again when there’s snow on the ground, because of reflection everywhere.
Major Major Major Major
@Lizzy L: It’s so cold here (SF/Palo Alto)! Two jackets and a hat!
?
Mnemosyne
@debit:
Yeah, I knew that would bring my credentials as the Insufferable Movie Snob into question. It’s weird, because I like all of the elements, including Howard Hawks, but I just find it too episodic and disjointed.
Though Omnes did make me realize yesterday that the ocelot in “Archer” is probably a tribute to the leopard in Bringing Up Baby.
schrodinger's cat
@debit: I have to back up my fellow snob, I don’t like it much either.
Steve in the ATL
@cosima: orders from Pinch and family perhaps? Though surely they would despise a tacky striver from Queens.
Original Lee
And, just as expected, the GOP is falling into line behind Lord Tangerine Smallhands. House Republicans have removed the Buy America provisions for steel purchases from the water infrastructure bill. So greedy – only the steel being paid for by state infrastructure or drinking water revolving funds had to be Made in America – everything else could come from China or other big dumpers. Why am I not surprised the steel jobs that are still here are getting flushed down the drain?
germy
Over at LGM, they just described the Cheeto Benito has having “the attention span of a dog at a squirrel farm.”
Hillary Rettig
@Corner Stone: “Having a family is like getting a life sentence for a crime you never committed,” – Richard Pryor
Major Major Major Major
@Original Lee: Shocked, gambling, etc.
SenyorDave
Here is actual fake news in the making. This was the headline:
Judge Nap: Obama’s First Political Scandal May Also Be His Last
This was from Yahoo, courtesy of Fox News Insider. If you go to the website, the story is about Judicial Watch, one of the original Clinton hate groups, is filing a lawsuit against the Department of Justice seeking access to FBI interviews related to the bureau’s criminal investigation of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
There is no evidence at all about a scandal, juts JD making the request, but this is how Fox can manufacture a scandal.
Rupert Murdoch cannot die fast or painfully enough for me.
Jeffro
@schrodinger’s cat:
Exactly – lizards, blech!!
In other news: Flynn Jr is busy threatening people who are trolling him on Twitter. Some of them are quite funny. About half of them are reporting him to the FBI’s Twitter account as well. Good times!
hovercraft
@PaulWartenberg2016:
Hey man what’s the problem, he’s just doing exactly what Obama did.
See he’s doing it because of cost overruns, he’s looking out for the little guy, just like Obama was, if he can lease his own plane to us and cash in, that’s just happenstance.
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: Two jackets, for low 30s? wimp.
Lizzy L
@Original Lee:
Would you indentify where you got this info from? I checked The Hill and WaPo, they don’t have it.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I haven’t watched “Holiday” in a few years, so I’ll probably re-watch it as well at some point. I also have the Pre-Code version, so I may do a compare/contrast on my OG blog and put a link at SC’s place.
I find it interesting that the story is pretty open about being a choice between sex and romance, and I’m wondering if that’s a carry-over from the previous version or something that Cukor worked it.
Hillary Rettig
@The Moar You Know: My freshman year lab partner came from Puerto Rico. We were down in a basement labbing it up, but when he heard it was snowing (first snow of the year) he dropped everything and ran outside. His joy was wonderful to witness.
Then there was the young woman from Georgia? who busted out a gigantic parka *in September.* (We were in Ithaca not Fairbanks.) She was small, so it looked like the coat was was walking on its own, with feet.
Betty Cracker
@prufrock: The weird thing is how consistently warm it has been the last couple of months. I remember the occasional warm spell in December, where it would get up to the mid-80s, and even a wimp like me could go swimming in an unheated pool without freezing my ass off. But it was unusual enough that it stood out.
Jeffro
@Jeffro: Oh and btw Flynn Jr’s transition team email has been shut down now (to help cover Pence’s lies)
SenyorDave
@Original Lee: You would think the Democrats could make some hay about this, the hypocritical aspect, etc. BUt I forgot, Democrats don’t do things like this.
Bostondreams
@PaulWartenberg2016:
Not sure this could even happen. The cost of retrofitting his crap is likely nearly as expensive as building the new ones. Lots of electronics and the like would need to be added.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: I sent you an email, did you get it?
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
I didn’t check my email this morning — I’ll go take a look.
Jeffro
Btw on the heels of that Texas elector saying he won’t vote for Trump, here is another piece of the puzzle towards making that happen: not just legal backing but a forum for 37+ electors to get together and throw the election to either the House or Hillz herself.
Drip…drip…drip…
Major Major Major Major
@schrodinger’s cat: Hoodie and a light peacoat, I don’t know if it’s really “two jackets” to be fair.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: Are you the host or just a guest? If I were the host, I would pointedly not invite the person in question, if I were a guest, I would ignore the said person completely, if it is a big party that should be pretty easy, right?
hovercraft
@Lizzy L:
And from the WSJ Paywall.
Bill’s ‘Buy America’ Provision Sets Up Potential Clash for GOP, Donald Trump
Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican lawmakers raise objections over requiring U.S. iron and steel in water infrastructure projects
Brown Slams Leadership For Stripping Buy America From Water Infrastructure Bill
Senator: Washington leadership is choosing China and Russia over Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: Layering is smart, two jackets for 35F sounded like overkill. You should try silk long underwear. Eliminates the need for bulky layers.
BTW women of BJ, do Uniqlo’s heat tech tights really work? I don’t like wearing pants all the time and I am thinking of giving them a try.
Lizzy L
@hovercraft: According to Martin Longman aka Booman at Washington Monthly and also Josh Marshall at TPM, The Chicago Tribune published an article in which the head of Boeing criticized Trump’s protectionist policies and attitudes towards China. Boeing does a lot of business with China. 22 minutes later, Trump tweets that he wants to cancel the Boeing order for Air Force One. The number in the tweet, 4 billion, appears to be fantasy. The plane costs about $800 million. Oh, and Boeing stock dropped after the tweet.
http://washingtonmonthly.com/2016/12/06/trump-attacks-air-force-one-boeing-stocks-plummet/
rikyrah
@jk:
Phuck her.
rikyrah
@Lizzy L:
Uh huh
Uh huh
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
I seem to recall that the pre-Code version is more about the relationship between the sisters (Ann Harding and Mary Astor) than their love for Johnny Case (a rather bland Robert Ames).
I always thought it cool that both versions of the film got Oscar nominations.
rikyrah
@hovercraft:
This is who they are.
Does not shock me in the least.
rikyrah
@PaulWartenberg2016:
This is unphucking believable
Major Major Major Major
@schrodinger’s cat: I don’t care for long underwear. I have a thing about folds getting on my skin. I even wear my socks inside-out.
hovercraft
@Jeffro:
What transition e-mail, he is no longer part of the transition, if he ever was. After all he was never involved, is no longer involved, was only helping his dad with scheduling, wait who, we know of no person of that name.
There are no facts, we are well beyond truthiness here, we are in the Twilight Zone /hall of mirrors.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
I have not heard of those tights, and now I want to try some. I have fleece-lined tights and leggings that work pretty well, but it only gets down into the 30s at night around here.
ruckus
@Это курам на смех:
I’ve crossed the artic circle a number of times and it really wasn’t all that cold. Not all that much fun in late November but still not as cold as one might imagine.
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: Silk is different, try it before you knock it. Its not itchy like most other thermals are.
MomSense
How are we all going to cope with the deluge of bullshit and corruption of a trump admnistration?
This is madness.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Its a Japanese company recommended by a friend who just graduated from college. They have some of their stuff on sale now.
trollhattan
@Bostondreams:
Even that wouldn’t begin to approach what the current AF1 has, much less the next generation. If Donny would pay attention to his security briefers, he’d already know how easy it would be for one “bad guy” with a shooty-downy device to take out a pedestrian commercial airliner. Or perhaps he could phone Vlad and have a quick chat about Malaysian Air 17. And I’m sure Trump Eins can mid-air refuel.
God, he’s a moron.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: I’m struggling with similar estrangements, though not currently pinned to a specific event, so I’m not facing the time pressure you are. People who are urging us to “get over it” are fundamentally misunderstanding the meaning and consequences of electing Trump, IMO. It’s personal. The elevation of that buffoon says my daughter and I are second-class citizens, and anyone who helped make that happen can fuck right the hell off, even if he happens to be my dad, even if she is my auntie. I’ll “get over it” when I’m goddamn well good and ready, on my timetable, which might be “never.” The injurer does not get to dictate the healing schedule to the injured.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodinger’s cat: It’s not itchiness, it’s the movement and the folds. I like coarser fabrics (jeans, inside-out socks) that offer friction. I’m from Colorado, I know how to keep warm.
L Boom
Since this is an open thread, I just wanted to mention something I posted about the other day: the mother of a friend and former student of my wife’s ran into some very serious medical problems and is facing a mountain of medical debt due to a few weeks in the hospital and her son having to quit his job to take care of her. Here’s a link to her GoFundMe page, just in case anyone has a little extra to chip in. The situation is looking fairly dire, so any help would be much appreciated by some very good folks.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
There’s a Uniqlo store one town over in Glendale. For some reason, that mall gets a lot of “debut” stores — it was also the site of one of the first Apple Stores in the US.
Of course, this is the time of year where I don’t dare to walk through the mall’s doors until the crowds die down around 8:30 or 9.
hovercraft
@Bostondreams:
It’s the PEOTUS now, it can do anything it wants. You cannot expect it to ride around in a plane without all that plush white leather and gold fittings, and if the plane doesn’t have his name emblazoned across it, how will the world remember who it is? Free advertising every time it travels, “that’s this thing that’s fucking golden,” to quote another grifter, Blagojevich.
Jeffro
@Lizzy L:
Speaking of fantasy…I wonder if America’s business owners big and small can figure this out in the next, oh, 12 days or so: YOU’RE NEXT
Trump truly is chaos incarnate. Elected by a minority of a minority, with only two agendas: self-enrichment (both financially and attention-wise) and advancing Russian interests.
Electoral College, can you hear me now? Hillz, Harry, PBO, let’s hear it: time for some prime-time truth-telling before ball drops here.
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: You can just try the top layer, at 30F long underwear seems unnecessary.
Lizzy L
@hovercraft: Thanks. And fuck them. Fuck them all.
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: No more advice, then! Feel free to ignore #81.
Jeffro
@hovercraft: Shall we go in on a big batch of “IT’S GETTING A BIT ORWELLIAN FOR MY TASTE” t-shirts, perhaps with an upside-down American flag in the background? We’ll make some serious bucks on ’em.
Keith G
@Corner Stone: Find a way to uncover some enjoyment. That’s an order.
Hell, I’m still pissing myself due to post-surgical (paid for by Obamacare) incontinence and I have no idea when my energy levels will return to anything near normal, but I still seem happier than some folks here. We’re all going to die. And not many year afterwards, we will be a dim memory if not completely forgotten, so maybe it’s good idea to put this morose shit aside and try to enjoy today.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Mnemosyne: How about Arsenic and Old Lace?
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Yeah, you’re pretty much the opposite of me. I frequently find cashmere to be too itchy, though since I get a skin reaction to mohair, I might be mildly allergic to goats.
(Probably not, but it’s still funny to see people’s faces when I say I’m allergic to goats.)
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Goats smell funny and they are mean.
hovercraft
@Lizzy L:
Something to look forward to, government by pique. The WWC was piqued by our smugness, now we get to watch the “leader” of the free world govern that way. Who ever said that stability was important to the world? The media and the deplorables wanted excitement and now that’s what they are going to get, buckle up world.
Corner Stone
@Lizzy L:
I haven’t seen any cable news source dispute the number. Where did it come from? How does he know this number? Why don’t we have a source to fact check the actual costs and deliverables involved?
If I am Boeing I get some hard pipe hitting lawyers to show up in Trump Tower and tell that sad sack that China has a 200 plane order with BA and if he fucks that up some shit is going to go down.
Because if they don’t do it now, they will never get another chance. UTX scammed Trump but that was a different grift. If this gets by then all bets are off who he fucks with next.
Corner Stone
Like I said in a previous thread:
Free Markets! Free Markets! Invisible Hand! Invisible Hand! We don’t want to be in the business of picking winners and losers!
Repeat daily for 8 years.
Fast forward to today: “We have a mafia boss extorting specific companies and putting people in place for a national bust out.”
GOP:…
…
GOP: Genius! He’s a businessman! He’s a dealmaker!
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: The important thing is we both like my cat.
@schrodinger’s cat: Thank you though! :)
Lizzy L
@hovercraft: Yes, this.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Meh. I feel the absence of Boris Karloff like a giant hole at the center of that movie. Plus it’s a little too dark for my current post-election mood.
Strangely, until I saw a stage production, I didn’t realize that a big part of Cary Grant’s mania in that movie is that he hasn’t been able to have sex with his new wife yet (in the play, they don’t even bother with that fig leaf and just state outright that he and his girlfriend are looking for a private spot to get it on). The censors must have really cracked down and insisted that the director downplay that element as much as possible since it was well-known from the play.
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat: It’s at my house although I don’t do much of the work of “hosting”. It’s a small gathering of usually 5 or 6. For reasons, I can’t not invite the Trump offender and still have the thing.
Lizzy L
@Corner Stone: From Washington Monthly:
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Betty Cracker:
Quoted because it needs to be said again,
Sometimes fear and panic are appropriate reactions. Trump is the Vogon Constructor Fleet, and all the towels on Earth aren’t going to help much.
GregB
National Socialism for Red State companies and economic sabotage for Blue State companies.
Major Major Major Major
@Lizzy L: @Lizzy L: Ooohhhhhhhhh this is bad.
I knew this was bad, don’t nobody lecture me about it being bad. Just saying, this is bad.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: Be cold and polite. No smiles, stiff upper lip. That’s what I would do anyway. If they insist on a confrontation, don’t hold back.
As you can tell, I have lots of practice dealing with annoying relatives by marriage.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
The larger problem, for me anyway, is that I was not shy about how deeply visceral this was for me and what it meant to ever even utter pro-Trump thoughts. Vote however you want, but this is what’s going to happen when you tell me you support him, for any fucking reason. That’s personal and it was unfathomable to watch the progression of bile and anger and just nutbaggery develop over the course of the campaign. You have a fucking Master’s degree! How the fuck can you believe that shit to be true? How can Trump admitting he sexually assaults people somehow be equivalent to HRC being married to WJC?
That was the kind of shit that developed over the last few months of election season and it’s just nuts.
Bobby D
You picked the wrong coast, Crackah!
Over here on the left coast, a little fog this morning, already burned off, low humidity, sunny skies, 40s/60s.
Wine country rolling hills are beautifully colored now, santa anas come through on the regular giving us 70s or even 80s and dry in Oct-Dec. Our hottest month is usually October, oddly enough. And many places (homes, office blgs, hotels) don’t have AC at all, my office building doesn’t, base lodging doesn’t, and while I have a single window unit at home I haven’t turned it on in about 3 years and even then only for a couple of days. Drastic difference here vs. my prior home in the Mojave desert where it would be over 100F about 100 days a year and gets snow and low 20s in the winter.
Clean air, diverse and well educated population, arts, music, food, wine, and weed, we’ve got it all. Now that the nestlings are gone, you might look at getting outta that swamp full of crazy people (I grew up in the south, GA and FL, and fled like a scalded dog after college). Water’s a little cold in the Pacific, but it keeps us from being a redneck Riviera ala Panama City Beach or Daytona.
Это курам на смех
Comparing AF1 to Trump’s plane is like comparing the world’s most advanced supercar to an AMC Pacer. Any talk of “retrofitting” his plane is total nonsense.
Corner Stone
Ok, something just exploded in my neighborhood, and it wasn’t my brain. My whole house just got hit by a shockwave and a loud noise. Hope it was a transformer (not the alien kind. Although that may be our best option at this point).
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat:
But oh so tasty…
Это курам на смех
@Lizzy L: People are going to get really really tired trying to fact-check every utterance that escapes his pie hole. Eventually they will give up trying.
Another Scott
@Это курам на смех: Few things feel colder than being in the low 30s with high humidity. Some argue that it has to do with changes in the insulating properties of clothing, but all I know is that I nearly froze to death as a kid in Georgia waiting for the school bus in December, yet didn’t have much trouble at all staying warm walking to school in Chicago when it was -20F.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
mai naem mobile
@Corner Stone: where do you live
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
Liberal Fantasy Theater isn’t going to touch Trump, but Bigass Giant Corporations can. Boeing, Apple, Microsoft…hell, Walmart are at risk if he acts on even a few of his many, many campaign promises. Maybe mister Goldman Sachs can grab him by the First Scrotum and set him straight, before he send the economy into the crapper. Ain’t nobody in Congress going to do it, right Paulie?
Original Lee
@Lizzy L: I got it from Bloomberg. Also House Democrats are tweeting about it.
trollhattan
@mai naem mobile:
Boomtown.
SiubhanDuinne
@Это курам на смех:
Pretty sure that’s the plan.
SFAW
@Lizzy L:
I believe his news source is the establishment what won the Nobel Peace Prize for Journamalism, the “Making Shit Up” Network.
His equally-reliable back-up news source is “The Voices In His Head” — said voices sounding uncannily like that of Tommy Flanagan … yeah, that’s the ticket.
mai naem mobile
@Это курам на смех: I have no doubt this AF1 is some kind of scam/grifting on the part of Lil Hands. Maybe the Boeing CEO didn’t give h enough of a bribe for the Inauguration or whatever.
Corner Stone
@mai naem mobile: The Greater Houston Metro Area. It’s not a target environment and the Houston Ship Channel is many miles away. A refinery exploded when I was young and my mom’s house is much closer to the channel and we felt the blast waves from about 12 miles away. I thought someone had rammed a car into our garage.
There are no sirens and no smoke trails on a clear sunny day so probably not natural gas. My power is still on but my best guess is still an electric transformer somewhere nearby.
Way too large to be firearm of any handheld sort.
SFAW
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Bullshit. The Vogons were competent. (Well, if you ignore the poetry thing.)
schrodinger's cat
@Another Scott: True, damp cold is the worst.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
This needs to be said again and again.
Here, I’ll get things started.
Rinse, repeat, ad inf.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne: I imagine a cage full of dead canary fact checkers.
SFAW
@Это курам на смех:
The Gremlin, on the other hand …
Lizzy L
@Original Lee: Thank you.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
As long as you are okay.
?I/ think Optimus Prime and Bumblebee would bring some much needed thoughtfulness to the cabinet if they were willing to tolerate working exclusively with decepticons.
Pogonip
@Corner Stone: I would say go ahead, unless you plan to let Trump live rent-free in your head for up to 8 years.
I think family is definitely more important than politics, and it’s an interesting mental exercise to try to look at it the other way around. I have one of those conservative relatives, and even he would never have cancelled a holiday over Obama (though he’d have probably bored everyone silly bitching about him).
germy
@MomSense:
What I find frustrating is this: I’ll read a story here or on LawyersGunsMoney (for example about “replacing” air force one) and all these facts are featured, about how he’ll make millions billing the gov for his own private plane, and then I’ll see the same story on my local media (either the TV local news or their website or national TV news) and they’ll report the same story, but minus all the facts about the grift.
And they make it seem like impeccable logic: “Cutting back all that wasteful gubmint spending!” without all the background I learned on Balloon-Juice or LGM.
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
You did say Texas….
My employer at the time lost a dozen in the 2005 BP Texas City refinery explosion, but that’s outside Houston (America’s Chemical Capital!). As is the BP norm, shabby management, maintenance and lack of following protocols caused an eminently preventable tragedy. Now where have we heard that before?
FlipYrWhig
@hovercraft: But remember, the White Working Class thinks Democrats don’t do enough for working people. Meanwhile Republicans just straight-up pillage and plunder and they go, hey, whatchagonnado, at least by voting for Republicans someone I’ll never meet has to be more uncomfortable peeing. SMH.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Sadly, I can say from experience what the reply will be: I didn’t injure you, you injured me by putting that Mooslim Kenyan into the White House who ruined the whole country, so really you’re the one who owes me an apology!
Basically, the election validated all of their most hateful, petty feelings, and they’re going to thrash around demanding that the rest of us validate their feelings, too.
That’s why we can’t be quiet or let any of this shit go. White supremacists think that silence equals consent, so it’s our DUTY to loudly and publicly oppose them at every turn.
Pogonip
@Corner Stone: We had a house explode here a few years ago when some untrained person a landlord hired cheap was backhoe-ing and hit a gas line. ‘The backhoe-er was killed and a little boy was badly burned. ‘Tis also the season for unmaintained furnaces to explode.
hovercraft
@SiubhanDuinne: @Это курам на смех:
Per Josh Marshall
Shiny Object
This worked during the campaign, the media needs to wise up and stop fixating on the shiny objects, and focus on the stuff they are trying to slip by them.
I’m sure they will catch on, sometime in the spring of 2021.
ETA: correction
Corner Stone
@trollhattan: I was wondering if VDE* had started his march to the sea and neglected to tell us.
*Villago Delenda Est was once an artillery officer I believe.
SatanicPanic
@trollhattan: Won’t this be a sad irony for the left? Oh well, I’ll take help from wherever.
Botsplainer
@trollhattan:
To tell you the truth, I’d be OK with him choosing to fly places in Trump One with his Trump pilot and no security upgrades.
Just sayin’….
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
My (step)mom was raised WWC and still holds a whole lot of racist beliefs, so I was a little surprised to see that she seems really freaked out by Trump’s election. I think he reminds her of one too many bad stepdads and abusive ex-husbands.
GregB
@hovercraft:
I realized that when I saw the Brady Bunch style deca-graphic of Trump’s Sec. State choices.
This is going to be the Three Card Monte Presidency.
Corner Stone
@Pogonip:
I can’t agree with this for a number of reasons. But mainly, if it was Jeb! or Kasich or Romney or even God forbid Cruz. I would’ve gritted my teeth and hated it but that would be that. IMO, there simply can be no argument made about the way conservatives, GOP or RWNJ hated Obama and what Trump is or represents.
Cacti
@mai naem mobile:
Nothing that complicated.
I think Conald just wants some bitchin’ taxpayer-funded upgrades to his personal jet.
Always pick the stupidest/most venal reason.
Mnemosyne
@GregB:
And the MSM is going to spend the next 4 years insisting they totally know where the queen is no matter how many times they get it wrong.
ETA: From Wikipedia: “In a true Monte scam, the mark will never win a single bet, as it is not necessary. There are too many ways for a well-run mob to attract the marks, suck them in, and convince them to put money down.”
Pogonip
@hovercraft: I wonder how the heck Paul Ryan stays in office?
PsiFighter37
Apparently Trump just finished a meeting with the SoftBank CEO about investing in the U.S. I can’t believe this is how the country is going to operate – basically anyone who gets a face-to-face meeting with Trump will get shitloads of favors.
What a clown show. And this is supposed to be the opposite of ‘crony capitalism’?!
D58826
@Bostondreams: According to one article today it is a 747 or nothing. All the gear won’t fit in a 757. Besides the new planes won’t be ready till 2024.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: That’s encouraging, sort of.
PsiFighter37
@D58826: The 757 isn’t even a plane that Boeing makes anymore. This whole thing is Trump getting more goodies for his plane and getting paid to fly it around.
raven
@PsiFighter37: It’s called a sit-down wit a wise guy.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
Here’s my (non-expert) assumption given my internet diagnosis of Trump as someone with Narcisssitic Personality Disorder: he’s going to spend a whole lot of time playing “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better” with the specter of Obama’s administration. He’s going to “do the same things Obama did,” but bigger and better and with more gold plating on them to prove that he’s better than Obama.
And when he fucks those things up, he will become even more enraged and double down.
Shell
I guess cause its not in the screwball category, but cant help bleating “What, no ‘Mr. Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse?'”
Mnemosyne
@Shell:
That just seemed cruel to our bloghost.
?
PsiFighter37
@raven: SoftBank also owns Sprint, which was prevented by the current FTC from merging with T-Mobile. Guarantee that gets approved in January after the 20th…
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@PsiFighter37:
Retrofitting security related things to put on Trump One is bound to go great.
I also think they should be rushed. Resolving engineering based problems ahead of time for safety or reliability is something only pussy cucks do.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@PsiFighter37:
Retrofitting security related things to put on Trump One is bound to go great.
I also think they should be rushed. Resolving engineering based problems ahead of time for safety or reliability is something only pu55y cucks do.
pluky
@Hillary Rettig: Oh boy. If she thought Ithaca was cold in September, January when the hawk was screeching down Cayuga then up the hill must have sent her screaming back to Georgia!
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Mnemosyne:
No. Just no. And Omnes did no such thing.
hovercraft
@Pogonip:
Duh with the help of the media.
He is the golden boy of the GOP, the serious one with the big ideas. Never mind those are the same ideas the GOP has been flogging forever, cut entitlements, privatize what’s left and give the rich big tax cuts. Villagers all believe that to be a serious policy wonk, you must believe in these principles, that’s why Ryan is a grown up, whereas Obama was too liberal and partisan, and refused to compromise with the ever so reasonable John Boehner who was forever pushing the Ryan budget.
The media portrays him as the most serious “thinker” in DC, and if only there were more people like him, and or willing to follow his lead, all of our problems would be solved. So his constituents believe in this nonsense too, even when he ran with RMoney, after the 47% line, and Ryan himself saying most people don’t pay their fair share, they still voted for him overwhelmingly for his seat.
germy
post truth:
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@PsiFighter37:
I’m going to have to stop trolling Twitler under my real name. I’m undoubtedly going to start suffering pushback at some point.
MomSense
@germy:
When I got in my car stupid MSNBC was on and Welker was saying that der trump canceled the Boeing contract because of 4 billion in cost overruns. I wanted to scream. No such thing happened. They just repeat the lies uncritically.
JMG
Boeing CEO was subject of article in which he expressed worries over Trump’s China and trade policies, since Boeing lives off exports and China buys airplanes. Trump saw article. Tweet about AF1 was result. That simple.
SenyorDave
@Corner Stone: IMO, there simply can be no argument made about the way conservatives, GOP or RWNJ hated Obama and what Trump is or represents.
Totally agree, I tried to frame argument this way for a Trumpkin at work and almost ended in a shouting match.
Obama – intelligent, thoughtful, very decent guy who clearly thinks things out and tends to surround himself with people who think things out
Trump – obnoxious, belittling bully who doesn’t ever think before he reacts, openly disdains knowledge
What is it about Obama that many Republicans loathe? Can’t quite put my finger on it, what is different?
When co-worker defended birtherism and said it had no racial element, I told him point blank that birthers and those who defend birthers are bigots.
germy
@Mnemosyne: I started my career entering the world just when Reagan took power. Now I’m entering my dotage under herr drumpf.
They got me coming and going.
I worry about my twenty-something offspring who I see struggle every day trying to find their place in the world. I was really hoping HRC would win, and they could continue their education debt-free. Now, I don’t know. I wake up at 3:30 a.m. with anxiety in my chest. I worry about my wife’s healthcare. I worry about Social Security. I worry about unnecessary war.
Thanks to everyone here keeping me distracted.
hovercraft
Brokers Bill Secret Service Protection As Nifty New ‘Amenity’ At Trump Tower
TPM
Your tax dollars hard at work, making money for the ruling syndicate.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft: Ryan is a policy wonk, dontchaknow? He’s a wonk’s wonk. If ever you needed a wonk to wonk he would be your wonkiest wonk.
germy
@MomSense:
That’s what’s killing me. And I lack the time and the energy to challenge them; it’s a tsunami of bullshit. I literally can feel myself shutting down.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack (tablet):
Hello, ditsy rich girl keeps a wildcat as a pet? That idea didn’t come out of nowhere.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@germy:
You’re living my very same life. Begun career under Reagan, worry about 20-somethings, waking at 3:30 am….
Corner Stone
@hovercraft:
WTH is an “Aminity”? Is that anything like an Amity? Like Amity Schlaes or AmityVille Horror? All terrifying in their own right.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: It’s something that makes you feel like Idi Amin.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
Our decision not to have children is looking smarter every day.
Another Scott
@Cacti: The speed of Donnie’s reaction to the Boeing CEO (~22 min as mentioned above) makes it seem to me more like a personal pique thing. And remember his “someone screws me, I screw them back 10x as hard!” mantra.
Donnie can’t stand criticism, especially from his (perceived) betters. (The fact that just about anyone you could pick off the street is better than Donnie doesn’t enter into his thinking, of course.) So, Donnie lashes out, and in the process hopes to make others think twice about criticizing him.
I see that Boeing’s stock is back up where it was before this all happened, as one would expect…
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Mnemosyne:
Honey West had an ocelot.
MomSense
@germy:
Yup I’m waking up at 3:00 with anxiety. There are a lot of us. One of the knitting designers I follow on IG said she is waking up in tears every day because her sister and her children are scared and have already been taunted and teased because they are Muslim. This is a woman who never discusses politics but she is feeling such fear and despair.
germy
@Mnemosyne:
It hurts me to see my offspring struggle. One had a job at a media center. The sort of job that thirty or forty years ago would have been unionized and highly paid. They kept him part-time, no benefits, with a “rotating” schedule. He was never around on xmas or thanksgiving because they had him working.
They let him go suddenly last year. The wealthy family that owns the media company needed more money, apparently. A bunch of layoffs, and now he’s working two part time jobs, hoping to find something in his professional field.
I’ll be 62 when herr T&!%p leaves office (if he decides to) and I bitterly resent it. And who knows who my party will nominate in 2020. Andrew fucking Cuomo?
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Corner Stone:
As an aside, you’d think a broker listing an upscale property with that price tag at that commission level would proof their ad copy a little better.
Guess hiring competent proofreaders cuts into the hookers and blow cashbox.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: Good thing he’s not a girl. Girl wonks are cold, insincere and boring.
germy
@MomSense: I have a big 1970s digital clock next to our bed with a big, glowing time display. Almost every night I wake up suddenly, see the time 3:30 and I can feel a wave of anxiety rush up to my chest. In the early hours, I run over every outrageous thing the cheeto said at his rallies.
Counting sheep doesn’t help.
hovercraft
@pluky:
I was born in Milwaukee, spent my earliest years in Ottawa, but them mu parents had the good sense to move back to Africa. My older sister then made a terrible decision and elected to go to college in Buffalo, my parents in their infinite wisdom decreed that I should attend the same school as we only had each other here. The blizzard of 1985 put paid to that brief experiment.
That was more than enough for me, that summer when I went home on vacation, I packed everything I owned, and transferred to the much warmer climes of a wet and dreary London.
I realize that there have been much worse storms than that in recent years, but back then it was just too much of a shock to my system.
Josie
@Corner Stone: It sounds like you have already made up your mind about what you can put up with. I would feel the same as you do. What you have to figure out is another way for your son to enjoy the holiday celebration. Could you and he decorate your tree, and ask one of the other 5 or 6 people to host the stuff that normally happens at your place. Then he could go if he wishes and you would not have to. I am lucky, since the other grandmother, who is a Trump voter, along with her husband, has made a strict rule of no politics during holiday dinners, etc. I hope you can find a workable solution. Family dynamics can be tricky.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@MomSense:
I agonize over my youngest daughter, for whom everything was looking so goddamned bright.
Merit doesn’t matter. Hard work doesn’t matter.
It only matters to be born wealthy – everybody else can work themselves unto death, their concerns meaningless.
You want an environment where people within the military and intelligence services are motivated to sell out and turn traitor for money? If I was running PRC intelligence in the US, I’d be jumping with glee.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: Yep. The two situations aren’t comparable. I invited Uncle Tater over and included broccoli on the menu, even though I realize he doesn’t like it. He invites me over and serves anthrax. But hey, I should just get over being poisoned — it’s the same thing!
Corner Stone
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Pretty sure one of his kids does it. Maybe Barron since he’s so good at the cyber, believe me. But maybe not the speeling just yet.
Pogonip
@hovercraft: They’re assigned to protect Trump and family. Not anyone else. Anyone who moves in there is a fool.
prufrock
@Betty Cracker: You share the same memories I do. And it’s not just this year. Maybe it’s just confirmation bias, but I remember cold Halloween nights trick-or-treating. I haven’t seen one of those in at least a decade.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: Sounds like one of the side characters in a Jack Higgins novel that always gets someone killed because they fall for her lifeless charms and complete lack of sexual affect.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Pogonip:
As I ask spouse (who is in a position to know), “who actually seeks to go stay at a Trump property, much less buy a piece?”
She’s never had an inquiry, even though they’re in her network, nor has she ever steered anyone that way. She thinks the decor is tacky and that they’re overpriced for the amenity level. We figured that only assholes actually want to go to those.
Another Scott
@germy: Noooo! You mean Ben – I stabbed a kid but a belt buckle broke the knife – Carson (or his people) has trouble remembering the truth about his background? Unpossible!!1
(sheesh)
Cheers,
Scott.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
Haven’t you watched Divergent, it’s one of the factions, duh!
Just you wait and see America, soon we will all be harmoniously singing hail to the hairpiece, may he rule us all forever.
Pogonip
NBC news has a story up about another elector defecting.
Mnemosyne
So here’s my Deep Thought before I leave for lunch:
One of the biggest problems with this now being a “post-truth” environment is that when we tell people all the outrageous shit that Trump and other Republicans are doing, they won’t believe us because, hey, everyone knows that politicians lie and the media just repeats the lies. Trump can charge the government $3 million a year for his Secret Service protection because the news is a bunch of lies and, anyway, they read on Breitbart that Obama pocketed $5 million for his Secret Service support, so Trump is actually saving the government money!
I’m guessing that, pretty soon, the fact that the former Republican Speaker of the House was prosecuted for molesting young teenage boys will go down the memory hole, and if anyone brings it up, it will be dismissed as one of those “media lies” like Pizzagate. Which was totally true, by the way, but the media refused to cover it.
Pogonip
@prufrock: I remember one where my mom made me wear my winter coat. I was disgruntled because it covered my costume.
Betty Cracker
@prufrock: Yep. I stopped carving jack-o-lanterns ahead of time because they rot in the heat. Now I carve them on Halloween or not at all.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Corner Stone:
Judging by that photo I saw of Barron and Melanoma a couple of days ago, I’m not convinced that he has to be any good at cyber – mommy seems to have that aspect of his life covered…
schrodinger's cat
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:She can consider grad school in other anglophone countries, Australia, Canada etc.
Jeffro
@Pogonip: YES! Two down, 36 to go! ETA wait…this might be the one we were already talking about…we’ll see…
Hey, when Trump’s son-in-law’s paper prints an op-ed asking the FBI to crack down on anti-Trump protestors, maybe it’s obvious that this gang cannot be sworn into power. This is America, not some banana republic. Well okay, it’s kind of a banana republic, but it’s OUR banana republic…
Ajabu
@Botsplainer:
Works for me, too!
I don’t think we’d have to rent his plane for very long…
Gravenstone
@Brachiator: A quick Google search shows that such things exist. Search, buy, be merry(ish).
Corner Stone
@Pogonip:
Scene in Trump Tower:
KAC: Shit! NBC reporting another EC defector!
Kushner: Grab it! Grab it! Grab it! Grab his fucking phone!
Trump: Another what did a whosit now?
KAC, Kush and Ivanka: Noooothinnnggg. Now where’s that SNL skit replay button?
hovercraft
Conway Considering Leading Outside Group In Support Of Trump Agenda
I’m sure the Mercer’s are already on board to give the shitgibbon an even more republican senate come 2018. Yay.
Bobby D
@Another Scott: Tell it! I grew up in the southeast, and went on to live in the arctic during winter for several years. The coldest I’ve ever felt was in the Appalachians, exactly as you describe…low 30s and humid with a breeze. Could not get warm, finally made an emergency camp, trailside, and put up the tent crawled in the sleeping bag and started brewing. My fingers would barely function enough to light the stove and I really thought I was in trouble. I’ve had some pretty big adventures in my climbing career, and almost bought the farm more than once in that context, but a simple little weekend solo backpacking getaway in those little “mountains” (come on, they’re “hills” at best), was the one that almost got me.
As for AF1…I have a few stories. I worked at a military base for many years that was the defacto landing/staging location for the AF1 backup plane when POTUS was in our region. My house literally bordered the base, and I could sit on my front porch and look at the AF1 backup plane sitting about 200yds from my door. Never been in the thing, but stood right next to it on the airfield it many times.
Gravenstone
@PaulWartenberg2016: Someone pointed out in John’s Twitter feed that Shitgibbon’s twatter happened after a report that Boeing was questioning the POS PEOTUS and his trade policy wrt China. So it’s as likely to be a brushback to them and their corporate bottom line as anything else.
And there’s no feasible way he can use his own aircraft in lieu of AF1. It doesn’t have the requisite comm and defense packages, and retrofitting them isn’t really feasible since it would have to be stripped to the airframe (if not partially replaced outright).
Miss Bianca
@Original Lee: Oh, wait – wasn’t this the guy who was going to Make America Great Again by Bringing Jobs Home or some such horseshit?
Oh, why do I even bother to snark…
Gravenstone
@Hillary Rettig: Several years ago I was attending a fire fighting course in Marinette, WI in November. During one of the days of training it decided to snow, much to the delight of several members of the class who were from Dubai and involved in the oil industry. It was clearly their first exposure to the hateful stuff, so it was fun to see.
raven
@germy:
I’m so tired of being tired
Sure as night will follow day
Most things I worry about
Never happen anyway
hovercraft
Is the Trump/Bannon Infrastructure Plan Off the Table?
by Nancy LeTourneau
December 6, 2016 1:37 PM
Scamp Dog
@Corner Stone: It’s Omnes that’s a former artillery officer; I don’t think I’ve ever seen VDE mention his/her current or former lines of work.
raven
@Gravenstone: I hitched from the Sault to Chicago after taking my sis up there to join her boyfriend who split the draft. I got a ride from a biker and, after stopping at every bar in the UP, I took off walking and hitching. It was August and I almost froze to death. Lucky a UPS guy picked me up and took me to Marinette-Menonomee.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Jeffro:
There’s something I don’t like about the guy who wrote the piece (besides the subject).
He’s claiming a shitload of credentials and is a real renaissance man, by way of HIS telling it. Thing is, the tone doesn’t match the claimed credentials, his stock photos on the web don’t appear to reflect his claimed age, and there are major gaps in the resume, with jobs that don’t seem to make sense to me as they appear on his timeline.
Here he’s described at UT-Austin:
His Creaters Syndicate profile:
According to his own bio on his own website, it looks like he’s a warrior’s warrior.
Maybe Adam can confirm if this asshole is real or not.
raven
@Scamp Dog: He’s a dogface too,
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Mnemosyne:
Hello, Hepburn’s character receives the leopard from her brother in South America and is supposed to pass it on to her aunt. It’s not her pet. Anyway, the trope of rich people having exotic pets is clichéd enough that you don’t have to draw tenuous connections to explain its appearance.
raven
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Well the Big Red One wasn’t in Germany after the Bam but I guess it doesn’t really say that.
Doug R
@D58826: You’d think it would fit in a 777 although a 787 would send a wonderful efficiency message.
He’s probably trying to wrangle an Airbus 380 with upper and lower separated decks, that’s just his style.
Corner Stone
@Scamp Dog: I’m not looking to cast asparagus on anyone but I do believe I have seen VDE speak of being an artillery officer, I think “Redleg”. I could be wrong though.
Betty Cracker
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: I think Bay used to be a front pager at Little Green Footballs before Johnson saw the light.
Iowa Old Lady
The planes Boeing was working on weren’t to be delivered until 2024, so Trump wouldn’t have flown in them anyway. The timing sounds like he looking for revenge because they criticized him–using fake figures of course.
Major Major Major Major
I think Friedersdorf wrote a good piece about the importance of making an assertive, positive case for liberalism rather than leaning too heavily on stigma. There, I said it.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
Mary G
@hovercraft: That sounds horrible. My mom signed a one year contract with the University of Wyoming right out of college. She said it was the longest year of her life. (She was from Texas.) The minute the job was up she moved to Honolulu for a job she had lined up months earlier.
hovercraft
@Doug R:
But, but, but,……….. Make America Great Again, what happened ? Oh, I guess he was just joshing.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack (tablet):
My version is funnier.
QED.
Anonymous
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: He’s an adjunct professor at UT, which is a tell. Probably making $10/hour. All those organizations at the end take anybody who pays the membership fee. I smell resume inflation the same as you, and that column is straight out of Joe McCarthy. Including OMG Communists in Texas! It’s a disgrace.
Another Scott
@hovercraft: Also too:
Donnie giving UTC more money from the Treasury is certain to make things all better for people in Indiana and in the rest of the USA. Bigly!
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Mary G
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: He’s an adjunct professor at UT, which is a tell. Probably making $10/hour. All those organizations at the end take anybody who pays the membership fee. I smell resume inflation the same as you, and that column is straight out of Joe McCarthy. Including OMG Communists in Texas! It’s a disgrace.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@hovercraft:
Conway is not getting a
seat at the tableplace at the trough because she’s not related to Trump and she doesn’t have a penis, so she’s got to get her grift on with a quickness.Betty Cracker
@hovercraft: My husband is from Buffalo. He left when he turned 18 and will only visit in the summer.
Mary G
@Major Major Major Major: Brave man!
hovercraft
@Iowa Old Lady:
I will so miss Obama and his master trollers.
Millard Filmore
@SenyorDave:
Obama was born in the USA because the appropriate state authority *said* he was born in the USA. Nothing else is of any importance.
Major Major Major Major
@Mary G: One must make an assertive case for one’s beliefs! :P
I do think it’s a good piece though. It reminds me of myself a bit before and after grad school (library and information science). I can articulate the case for free speech and against government intelligence practices much better now than I could before and I can just shred “if you have nothing to hide…” types in a way I couldn’t before in an argument. Rather than just having a sense that these things were right or wrong, and knowing some of the rote arguments. Understanding a problem is always better than just knowing the answer.
bemused
@hovercraft:
Love the Ernest digs but might be a bit too subtle for thin-skinned trump to catch unless someone explains it to him.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
The aunt is played by the wonderful May Robson. Any time I come across her in a film, cannot help but think about the world altering changes she had seen by the time the movie was made. Born before the civil war; Lincoln was shot five days before her 7th birthday. Her last film appearance was after the U.S. has entered WW2.
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: I’d say “government by shit-fit”, myself…
trollhattan
@Doug R:
Nyet, Antonov An-225!
Can a Vlad hook a brother up?
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Mary G:
The guy doesn’t write like any PhD that I’ve ever read – particularly one with a credential from an Ivy.
The whole thing is disorganized and disjointed, and includes some really awful constructions that violate general principles of writing that a professional author would avoid out maintaining discipline.
I do stuff like that, too, but I’m just a dumb ass street lawyer who does mostly divorces. Nobody expects much greatness from my prose.
SenyorDave
@hovercraft: I will so miss Obama and his master trollers.
One of my favorite moments of the campaign:
“You’re telling me that the candidate who snorted his way through the first two debates is accusing the other candidate of taking drugs? That’s a curious development in the campaign,” Earnest said.
trollhattan
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
Look around you, good sir, are you not surrounded by discerning
weirdosadults right here who demand great prose at all times? We do have standards, you know.Bobby D
“Bay is a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff School and the US Army War College”
BFD, I’m a grad of the Air Command & Staff College and the Air War College (USAF equivs of the above). These are basic professional military ed credentials, essential for both AD and Civs, as we cannot promote to GS-14 or GS-15 in my org without it. It’s not some grand accomplishment, it’s a basic professional requirement that everyone at higher management/leadership levels must attain.
Another Scott
@Bobby D: “What do you call the person who finishes last in his class at medical school?”
“Doctor.”
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
He’ll be almost 80.
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
Charlie Ruggles is really good in it too. But I don’t like it much.
Major Major Major Major
@germy: Yeah, I saw that and… uh… I mean, if he wants to, I guess.
Another Scott
@germy: Hey, 3rd time’s the charm, amirite?
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who is anxious for MSNBC to ask Webb and Gilmore and Chafee and Fiorina if they’re going to run in 2020, also too.)
NotMax
@Doug R
The current 747s in use have three decks.
trollhattan
@germy:
If he still has his Joe mojo he can be useful poking hot forks at Trump–he’s a lot better at that stuff than Bernie could ever hope to be. As it is, I hope he stumps for key candidates in ’18.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Bobby D:
His timelines look really hinky to me, even factoring service as a reserve officer. His submitted bio pics look out of whack for his age, too.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@germy:
Shit, he may as well.
There are no personal imbroglios that any pol ever will have to worry about anymore, as we’re in the age of the post character Presidency.
Major Major Major Major
@trollhattan: I don’t want Bernie to be the nominee either…
SiubhanDuinne
Is anybody besides me watching our POTUS give what is probably his final foreign policy speech? He’s at MacDill. I missed the first 10-15 minutes, but what I’ve heard sounds like good, solid stuff, as you would expect. I’ll find a transcript later and read the whole thing.
I will miss this man so very much.
Corner Stone
@SiubhanDuinne:
Why will you miss him? He’s not going anywhere any time soon, is he?
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: He’s sub-tweeting the shit out of Trump, from what I gather from the excerpts I’ve seen…
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
No one better.
hovercraft
@Mary G: @Betty Cracker:
Obviously your Mom and husband are both smart people, they don’t return unless have to.
Bobby D
Isn’t MacDill just up the road from you Betty? Give POTUS a wave for us!
randy khan
@PsiFighter37:
Small correction: The Sprint-T-Mobile deal never even got announced, and it was the Antitrust Division and the FCC that told Softbank to forget about it.
In standard antitrust analysis, there’s actually a not-terrible argument that a Sprint-TMo deal should be allowed, given the dominance of AT&T and Verizon. There’s also a not-terrible argument that it should be forbidden because of how the market breaks down – basically, Sprint and TMo are the companies that serve the low-cost end of the market, and Verizon and AT&T serve the high-cost end, so a merger would be bad for the low-end customers.
Yutsano
@schrodinger’s cat:
Isn’t Germany offering English grad school education also?
Botsplainer
Fuck, I give up. Posted a list of Kentucky’s electors without comment – figured people could figure out how to talk to them.
Turns out that the oldest on the list (born 1929) is the oldest cousin of a really close friend of mine, and we go back to high school.
Goddamn it.
Scamp Dog
@Corner Stone: Well, I like asparagus, so it’s OK.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone: @Betty Cracker:
I put a link to the video in the thread upstairs.
Adam L Silverman
@Bobby D: Yes and no. As the former Cultural Advisor at US Army War College, I can say that the attendance at the Senior Leader Colleges (USAWC, Air War College/AWC, Naval War College/USNWC, National War College/NWC, and the Eisenhower School formerly the Industrial College of the Armed Forces) is selective. While the resident courses have about 300 O5s and O6s per year – the vast majority from the service that runs the specific SLC and with National and Eisenhower being balanced, the attendance of DOD, Department of the Army, Department of the Navy, Department of the Air Force, and/or civilians from other US government agencies in attendance is quite small. Usually one to two per seminar. So each service, and then each component (Reserve, Guard) within that service determines who goes. On the civilian side, depending on the Federal agency it can be much less organized/structured and much more hit and miss. And for many Federal civilians there is no SLC attendance requirement to make GS 14 or 15.
The Distance Ed programs at the SLCs take far more personnel and are less selective, but they also do not get JPME II certification despite the quality of the programs. This then requires everyone who needs JPME II to do the JPME II specific qualifying course. And, of course, there’s also the service members that get routed into the Service Chief’s Fellowship programs instead of attending an SLC. So its not quite as cut and dried as you’ve described.
Adam L Silverman
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Never heard of him. But 1) I was assigned to US Army War College from US Army Training and Doctrine Command’s Army Culture and Foreign Language Directorate from 2010 to 2014. He retired in 03, was recalled in 04 for a year deployment to Iraq, so he likely attended sometime in the early to mid 80s provided he did a full 30 years or Reserve component equivalent. Since it appears he attended before my time, I do not know him. 2) Based on the way selectees for the Senior Leader Colleges are done, he should have been in attendance sometime after his 22 year of service. Occasionally someone will get routed sooner (I knew a US Army Reserve O5 that was sent way early – before his O5 level/Battalion level command) and when this guy attended we often had folks attending way late out of sequence. They’d get continuously pulled by general officers that wanted them to work for them. This was stopped by the Chief of Staff of the Army in 2011 as we were eating our seed corn. Folks would arrive too late in their careers, finish the course, and retire within 2 years as there was no where left for them to go. 3) From his bio it is unclear if he attended the resident or the distance course. Both have undergone a lot of change over time and both are very good courses.
Botsplainer
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m curious about any method of verification, particularly the claimed PhD.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
Adam L Silverman
@Botsplainer: My guess is he had to provide a transcript to UT Austin even for an adjunct position. So he likely has one. And remember, universities love it when military folks do advanced degrees. They’re either being paid for directly by the services because that officer or senior NCO needs the degree for their ongoing military service or they’re using GI Bill funding. Either way it frees up other funding at the university to cover other graduate student (and other non academic related) expenses. So the bar can sometimes be set lower, even if its just the inherent bias that “this person is bringing us free money/freeing up other money – lets not spoil it”.
Adam L Silverman
@Botsplainer: check the alumni rolls for that university for that graduating class.
bmaccnm
@schrodinger’s cat: But they taste really good.
J R in WV
@SiubhanDuinne:
No, no no. Everyone must assume by default that everything that he says is false.
Drumpf: “What a beautiful day this morning!”
Response: Check for current rain/sleet/tornado!!
J R in WV
@Gravenstone:
The first time I went to college, in 1968, one of my fellow freshmen was from California, and had never actually seen it snow. We enjoyed watching him cavort outside in a pair of gym short. For a while.
Then he got wet… the next day he went to town looking for winter coat, etc. His dad was a successful cult leader, to afford the small private college.
Then I got drafted… Thanks Nixon.
Fuck LBJ AND Nixon!!!!