“Suspected” US drone? Looks like they got one the Haqqani network scum (or two?) if it was. See how thorough this story is – we don’t know what happened, or where.
Comments
277 responses to “We’re busy playing with our new toys links.”
Count Potato
“Have you ever been in a Turkish Egyptian prison?”
No, I can’t say I have.
The Other Kevin
Ever seen a grown man naked?
Count Potato
Yes, but there is no way Gladiator should have won Best Picture.
Also, I thought it was agreed I don’t get first gifs?
He was on the local “adult alternative” station the other day, talking about how he is against recreational marijuana use, and joking about how that won’t get him invited back on the air.
invisible finger
He must own a piece of a medical dispensary.
PieInTheSKy
You know for a moment there I thought the repeal of net neutrality final destroyed USistani interwebz, but it seems not yet. Another day …
The case revolves around 290 Tramadol tablets she took to Egypt for her lover
So she actually smuggled drugs into Egypt?
Also how many days supply is that? It doesn’t evenly divide by usual perscription periods and times/day metrics.
Count Potato
It’s a terrible drug anyway. So I wonder if it’s banned in Egypt because they think it might have recreation use, or because it wasn’t approved for medical use?
Atanarjuat
The first time I saw the article, it suggested the guy with the back pain had a wife in Egypt. Maybe he’s the persuasive type.
The president’s team claimed that he did not attend so that the artists could celebrate in peace rather than having a political distraction. But the president votes, as we all do, with his feet.
Trump is a chicken because he did not attend the Kennedy Center awards circle jerk.
———
During his eight years in office, President Barack Obama could be seen one minute on Broadway with Michelle Obama, at August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” or at “Hamilton,” and the cast of “Hamilton” could also be seen at the White House.
I remember the Obamas appearing on a video feed at the Tony Awards to introduce and exalt “Hamilton,” and thinking: We are living in the golden age of theater. An age in which a poet-politician was at home with the great Lin-Manuel Miranda, who was himself at home with the sonnet form in an acceptance speech. This cultural flowering and embrace of an artist by a ruler made me think of the synergy between Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare. If “Hamilton” represented a national renaissance and a broadening of our democracy, where are we now?
Why hast thou abandoned us, Obama?
This excrescence makes me think you are a fucking psycho, Lady. Seek professional help.
PieInTheSKy
. This cultural flowering and embrace of an artist by a ruler made me think of the synergy between Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare – who writes this pretentious crap ?
It is something that can only be indulged in once the necessities are met, and its production is discarded when more urgent matter arise. Artists, like their output, are decorations put on by a civilization, not some fundamental pillar of it.
I do think that artistic creations are gilded luxuries that require stability and wealth for them to be pursued.
However, I think the impulse of pure creation is a part of human behavior that has allowed and further allows us to create and invent and flourish.
Yes, a painting is strictly ornamental, but the ability to make something new is a fundamental, or *the* fundamental reason that we flourish as a species. An Archimedean Screw is also a piece of wild invention, and I freely admit that it’s discovery has been more important to our success, but the impulse to create is something that sets us apart.
Thumbs, long-distance running, and our brains. That’s all we got. And we’re pretty big.
An artistic whetstone helps keep us sharp, and I would argue regardless of the outcome’s final utility.
A Leap at the Wheel
Name one society in which artistic output stopped as a result of a famine, drought, or war. Every famine, drought, or war I can think of has inspired art, not reduced it. Art on cave walls was made when life was most certainly nasty brutish and short.
I can’t find it, but there was a frontier diary found of a family that starved to death. At the end, the mother told the starving daughter to draw pictures of apples with her to make the hunger pains less.
If there is work that can be done to address the shortage, that work will be done before decorating the walls. Distracting a child when things are dire is not a counter-example.
As for the tragedies inspiring art, you get the work after the problem has passed, or when there is no more that can be done.
As for historical societies, I wonder why you chose an impossible test. Most societies left no written record, and tools either get reused recycled or destroyed whereas decoration is more often deliberately preserved.
While of late we’ve begun to realize the error and look for the signs and detritus of actual life rather than the gilding, most of the record is of the art because that is what caught the eye of those with the luxury of surplus to turn to preserving the works of those who came before.
invisible finger
I understand the impulse of pure creation, but UCS is talking about about collaborative art which is actually a leisure business.
A Leap at the Wheel
No, I’m not saying show something that isn’t. I’m saying show a single example to back up your statement that art is a product of surplus. I don’t believe you. I think anywhere that humans have altered their environment, they have created art even under the harshest of circumstances.
You said something is so. I’m asking for a single example. I’m not asking you to prove a negative. I’m asking for one example where you assertion is demonstrated. That is the lowest bar for evidence.
In your most recent comment:
If there is work that can be done to address the shortage, that work will be done before decorating the walls.
I don’t believe you. Setting aside the fact that most walls incorporate art, what society has left evidence of walls and not art (that’s an even lower bar than I asked for above). There are many societies that we only know about because stone tools have been found, and we have not found art from them, as we have no reason to believe they incorporated ornamentation into their spear points. But for any that have left a substantial record, there is always art.
Distracting a child when things are dire is not a counter-example.
You may be operating under a different definition of art than me. What do you mean that this isn’t a counter example? Because drawing a picture is most certainly art as I understand it.
As for the tragedies inspiring art, you get the work after the problem has passed, or when there is no more that can be done
The Diary of Anne Frank was written in the middle of hiding from the Nazis. “An Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of Their Store” was painted in the middle of the potato famine. Americans trapped in chattle slavery, which must be the epitome of not having access to surplus, developed multiple genres of music.
While of late we’ve begun to realize the error and look for the signs and detritus of actual life rather than the gilding, most of the record is of the art because that is what caught the eye of those with the luxury of surplus to turn to preserving the works of those who came before.
Sure, early archaeologists were really bad about that. But for the last hundred years or so they’ve been more interested in the articles of life. And in recent, recorded history we have incidences of people starving, going through drought, political oppression, genocide, and war. They didn’t give up their artistic creation.
Yes, we are clearly operating under different definitions of art in this discussion.
My commentary is in the vein of responding to the original (non-glib) poster’s decrying of the organized arts being less of a priority under the new administration.
You give examples of where people who have nothing but surplus time turn around and create something – in some cases inadvertantly, in others to distract themselves.
As for civilizations that stopped creating art in times of crisis, I give you Mesoamerica. The whole Olmec/Maya/Aztec period division is separated by paucities of art where there were still people living there, but too focused on survival to do anything resembling the output of their forefathers.
So you can call the farmer carving a stick ‘art’, but you have to admit the volume and quality contracts in times of shortage, with all of the proliferation and coordinated effort being dependant on surpluses.
Artifex
Perhaps you might be right in the perfect socialist society, but I think we would all agree that’s fantasy. Things are never produced and distributed evenly. There is always surplus for the winners and never surplus for the losers.
Consider a fictional King Amen II: Amen will quite literally be one of the last to starve and have a surplus of grain as long as his state can take it by force of arms. Amen has food even when everyone else is near starving. What does Amen want then ? He wants cool things that display his status. Make him a mural or nice necklace and you can trade for enough grain to keep you going. Very functional to the artisan.
Status seeking and vanity are as old as the human race, thus art. If the artisan is not producing status items for the big fish, they are making things for themselves and others to try to appear as the big fish. Of course there are personal “maker” reasons as well, but don’t kid yourself, there are solid economic reasons for art based on human nature.
As interesting ,is that the art objects created say a lot about what the particular power group at the time valued. I take this to mean that the current power block is the west is mostly incoherent.
Why do we need Amen II, when we have Kim Jong Un instead?
You know what would be interesting? Findout out what type and volume of art the NorK peasants produce and consume, and then examine the output on a per capita basis. If there was any place that exemplified shortage, it’s there.
A Leap at the Wheel
Ok, if you are limiting your definition of art to the output of the parasitic class of incompetents with a closet full of black turtlenecks, an anhk necklace, and limited critical taste, then sure. Like all parasites, they can’t thrive unless their host is eating enough to cover them.
I just don’t consider that the sum total, or these days even the best forms, of art.
Even when you examine it on an individual level, artistic expression is the product of surplus, be it even something so basic as surplus time. Other tasks take precedence.
pan fried wylie
I havent gotten out my pastels in 3 months because I’ve been too busy with work and home improvements.
creech
I’m not certain but perhaps she would also praise the cultural flowering between QEI and the Tower’s headsman? Yeah, Trump needs to be more like QEI?
It’s nice of her to actually admit that she wants to be ruled by a monarch, though.
Also, last I heard, it’s the president’s job to manage the functions of the executive branch, not to be some kind of pop culture figure.
commodious spittoon
Yah, you think maybe launching a cultural crusade against the right generally, and falling into total hysterics over Trump specifically, might have something to do with Republicans opting out of your self-congratulatory culture events? That perhaps that drama queen at Hamilton set the stage for Trump shooting you idiots the bird instead?
Evan from Evansville
I will admit that I think Hamilton is a lot of fun. Washington on Your Side is a great song.
He was also very funny on the last season of Curb. He came across as an actually terrible human. That seems about right. I had a lot of fun with the new season. The line about Romanian Mountain Women makes me laugh every single time I think about it.
Merry Xmas to all. New Star Wars is one of the most tremendously bad things I have ever seen, which is how I spent the holiday. The fact that I’m somehow less of a failure than that abortion of a film actively made me feel better about my life. (Let’s ignore that it made a half billion dollars on opening day. It’s a dirt movie. And I’m better than dirt. Well. Most kinds of dirt. Not that fancy store-bought dirt. I–uh–can’t compete with that stuff.)
I wish to submit a report from a proggie SIL Christmas gathering: We (her and I) agreed that people should be left alone by the government. Progress, in the dictionary sense!
PieInTheSKy
this I assume depends on individual definitions of left alone
DEG
Yeah.
“It’s not right that other people judge me! The government needs to stop those bad thinkers so I can be left alone!”
Gradual
SLD, to be sure… I started with the thin end of the wedge by pointing out how most people want what they disapprove of to be restricted. Then I eased into a casual restatement of “Me today, you tomorrow.” I look forward to the next meeting!
The Late P Brooks
In dictatorships, the artists are often the first to go. Or maybe they are the third to go, after the press and the intellectuals. The refusal of the president to celebrate them is a chilling and clear departure from American values. Perhaps the Trumps didn’t want to compete with the Obamas, who at the 2016 Kennedy Center awards received the longest standing ovation of the evening.
Don’t worry, Honey. When Trump has the intellectuals rounded up, you’ll be safe.
The Other Kevin
The artists are the first to go? Maybe the first to go in head first and become useful idiots.
mexican sharpshooter
The refusal of the president to celebrate them is a chilling and clear departure from American values.
I have another theory…maybe he’s the type of guy that covers everything in gold, calls it class and genuinely doesn’t give a shit about “culture” or “the arts.”
invisible finger
The professional artists are the first to go when an economy collapses. Except for the ones that kiss the dictator’s ass and produce the necessary propaganda.
Over the last year, the social media platforms that dominate the web have made fools out of anyone who believed in their fundamental goodness. Neo-Nazis used Facebook groups to organize a hate rally in Charlottesville; Russian trolls used digital ads to drive a wedge through the American electorate. A man livestreamed a murder on Facebook, and the President of the United States used his Twitter account to spread misleading propaganda about Muslims, and levy threats against both the free press and private citizens.
But if there was one bright spot in all this darkness—one series of moments when the web actually did live up to the most optimistic expectations—it was that in the year 2017, women took back the very platforms that have been used to torment and troll them for so long, and built a new-wave women’s movement on top of them.
IntraveneousWoodChipper
I can’t even…That’s some weapons-grade derp right there…
No country is governed by a Capitalist party, although there is no shortage of capitalism on the planet. – that is because all non socialist/comminist parties are capitalist …
One reason is that the word “capitalism” was popularised by its critics. The most common usage is pejorative, denoting a system characterised by exploitation of workers by bosses. – I disagree just as many people use the word capitalism in a non pejorative way
Wealth is no longer in factories, pipelines or retail outlets. – oh there is plenty of wealth in that
anyhoo
commodious spittoon
Capitalism isn’t a system that can be imposed. It’s the default state of a liberated people. Feudalism is the default state of a shackled people. Communism is the attempt to deny either state and impose another, wholly artificial, and ultimately untenable system.
DEG
If you want to read a special kind of stupid, read this book. The authors think Capitalism started in 1492.
Capitalism started the moment two people had more of different somethings than they needed and decided to trade the extra.
DEG
I know that. The authors didn’t, and I ripped them for it in my review of the book. The book is in my “get rid of” pile.
mexican sharpshooter
I think they know that. Their problem is in their mind, the problem with capitalism at that very moment was Cro-Magnon 1 sold Cro-Magnon 2 his daughter.
westernsloper
Pics?
pan fried wylie
She looks just like her father, pass.
The Late P Brooks
Not sure if the end of Net Neutrality or the Tax Cut of Doom killed ’em.
Repealing net neutrality killed them. The tax cut means we cannot afford to send anybody out to collect the dead.
Monetize those corpses! People that brave the wastelands to collect and turn in the dead will receive extra rations of solyent green that they can then trade for goods and services.
“It definitely has picked up a little as ,” said Lynch, general manager of Rising S Co. on the outskirts of the rural city of Murchison. Lynch said some customers even half-jokingly say they’re trying to protect themselves from a “” or “Trumpnado.”
“There’s some people who maybe even voted for Donald Trump and may be worried some of the riots are going to get out of hand and there’s going to be social or civil unrest,” he said.
“Then you’ve got people who didn’t vote for him and are thinking that now that he’s president maybe he’s going to start a war. There’s definitely been some renewed interest from people since the election.”
— the act of stockpiling food and other essentials in a reinforced, often-underground shelter — used to be mostly associated with Libertarian-leaning Americans who feared their own government would turn on them.
But now that Trump has taken office, some centrists and left-leaning folks also are building bomb shelters under their homes and businesses, apparently fearing either civil strife or war with an external enemy.
mexican sharpshooter
used to be mostly associated with Libertarian-leaning Americans who feared their own government would turn on them.
*looks around nervously*
And?
pan fried wylie
Because the siege mentality probably wont work as well against social unrest as it would against nuclear explosions.
PieInTheSKy
And here is some sportz for y’all
For Harry Kane, the records continue to tumble and the reality was there was never any doubt. Another day; another hat-trick. It was the Tottenham Hotspur striker’s eighth of 2017 but the headline details were even more eye-catching.
Kane had Alan Shearer’s Premier League mark for a calendar year in his sights and he duly overhauled it. Shearer scored 36 times for Blackburn Rovers in 1995; Kane has finished the year with 39 and he did it from 36 matches. Shearer took 42.
Even better for Kane is that he now stands as Europe’s leading scorer from 2017 – ahead of Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, the player that he hopes to supplant one day as the best in the world. Messi has 54 goals from 63 appearances in all competitions. For Kane, it is 56 from 52.
“I think we all wish we were half the batter Steve Smith is at the moment because he’s seeing them like watermelons, but he makes the game look so easy,” said team vice-captain Warner, who scored his 21st Test century with 103 on Tuesday.
“He’s just a freak… I don’t know how he does what he does.
“He’s very mentally strong, we always talk about the way that he prepares. He likes batting time in the nets then out in the game he just seems to be hitting every ball out of the middle.
I’ve seen the same organization both issue a badge within days and take months to do so.
Would your badge provide some iota of amusement, or is your limited zone of activity part of the problem?
KibbledKristen
I can’t get a login to the network and web sites without a badge. So I’m just literally sitting here. Occasionally I’ll glance through the branding handbook or “how to” manuals
STEVE SMITH BIG FAN OF KOA – LIKE SHOPPING CENTER OF RAPE!
KibbledKristen
Now I’m listening to a colleague chat on the phone with a mutual friend. And I’m tagging the friend on Facebook with bits of the conversation I’m overhearing
Thanks to an uptick in social media use and a decrease in face-to-face interactions, new research finds that teenagers are now having sex later than ever. As a result, more people than ever are dealing with anxiety surrounding “late-in-life virginity.” And if you ask sex and relationship experts about it, they’ll tell you “virginity” as a concept is outdated.
“We really must speak more broadly about sex as a whole range of intimate possibilities, not just penetrative sex,” says Debra Campbell, couples therapist and author of Lovelands. “The idea of being a ‘virgin’ is really a bit outdated. It’s something that used to be important for the same socio-economic and religious reasons as marriage, but times have changed.”
r—ightttt….
The Other Kevin
Up next: It’s OK to define “having an STD” for yourself.
PieInTheSKy
The female orgasm has long been a mystery, and for years scientists didn’t care to spend time or resources trying to understand it. – it’s a myth. Like non fattening chocolate
TK
I had a really thoughtful and calm discussion going with my step dad and step sister about corporate taxes during Christmas yesterday, and then my biological sister came in and tried to end the conversation because we disagreed on whether the tax rate was considered high compared to the rest of the world.
My sister definitely is the most “prog” of all my family, so its not surprising that while the more conservative (me) and the more liberal (my step family) were having a productive conversation, its the prog that comes in and says “guys lets not talk about it, we’re obviously going to disagree, lets just end the discussion.” We were all taken aback- none of us felt like we were arguing… just having a discussion with certain points of disagreement (and some of agreement).
Fuckin’ progs, never want anyone to actually talk to each other.
The Other Kevin
We had some close friends visit us this weekend. They live in New Jersey, and were very butt hurt about the tax bill. We should keep an extra 2-3k next year, but they are going to get raped on taxes next year because they can’t deduct all their state and property taxes. I stayed out of the conversation, but it really hit home how much the rest of us are subsidizing the blue states. As much as I like those friends, I don’t feel a bit bad about their tax situation. I feel like in some way, a wrong has been righted.
The increase in the standard deduction was more than the entirety of my property taxes. I’ll have to check to see where it falls relative to my state taxes. In all, I don’t think it’s going to hurt me at all.
Nephilium
Same here. Only proggie tax talk I had to deal with was from my girlfriend’s aunt. She was bitching and complaining about how it was just going to help the rich, and she didn’t know anyone that was going to benefit from it. I then pointed out that I would be saving ~$2,000 in taxes next year, and her family knows that they can’t call me rich. Thankfully, the aunt was just parroting the talking points from the news, and didn’t know any of the actual details of the tax plan.
scooter glibby
My (prog) mom complained about losing their state income tax deduction in one breath & people not wanting to “pay their fair share” in the next.
Well clearly, it hinges on what she regards as ‘fair’.
TK
Yeah, my sister lives in New York and was complaining about that too. One of the more liberal people in my family actually brought up how the standard deduction increase will probably help her with that. Either way, I’m glad I’m not going to be subsidizing New York and California’s high taxes anymore.
Do these rates apply to the returns for 2017 (filed early 2018), or are we still on the old scale untile we file in early 2019?
Gustave Lytton
The second. I am disappoint.
westernsloper
Roger that. Fuckers should have made them retro.
Tundra
Once the sotto voce, ,NPR-approved talking points are exhausted, they have nothing left.
Hosnestly, do you expect them to come up with original thoughts?
Gordilocks
Very weird observation –
Drove home from The in-laws this morning, and the local community radio station is having a marathon of repeated segments, from earlier this year, of coverage on Charlottesville and ‘the alt-right’.
Hell of way to celebrate the holidays, isn’t it?
Gordilocks
My Uncle used our family Christmas Gathering to announce that I would be the new custodian of my grandfathers war medals and various related items. An honour, to be sure. I’m already the custodian of his Lee Enfield, and my cousin Jay of the Luger my grandpa seized from some Germanz he took prisoner while in Belgium.
I feel a contribution article about my grandpa’s service and his weapons coming up. Y’all interested?
PieInTheSKy
custodian ?
Gordilocks
As in, I will be in possession of these very important items until I pass them down to another appropriately interested and responsible heir.
MikeS
i.e., they are never to be sold
(I assume)
Gordilocks
Correct.
I have frequent short term memory and vocabulary failures. Perhaps custodian was not the most fitting term.
MikeS
No, I think custodian is a perfectly appropriate word.
MikeS
Absolultely
dbleagle
Of course.
DEG
Yes.
I like Lee-Enfields. What did he have?
My grandfather took a Luger off of a dead German officer sometime before Bastogne. My grandfather was wounded at Bastogne, I think near the end of the siege. On his trip to the hospital, the medics stole his boots and the Luger off of him.
commodious spittoon
Christ, what an assholes.
Gordilocks
The RCMP tried to take the Luger off my Uncle Bruce when he was hunting moose in the Yukon.
A Møøse once bit my sister… No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge…
DEG
The RCMP tried to take the Luger off my Uncle Bruce when he was hunting moose in the Yukon.
What assholes.
mexican sharpshooter
Yes. Sounds like your uncle is rather wise, taking care of such things while he’s still alive. My family would likely fight over them, as in fisticuffs.
A man bearing gifts visited an Ohio prison on Christmas Eve, but it wasn’t Santa Claus.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol reports that someone approached the Richland Correctional Institution around 9 a.m. Sunday and tried to throw four packages containing tobacco, cellphones and marijuana over the fence.
WEWS-TV in Cleveland reports troopers caught up with the man a short time later.
Playing Zelda on the Nintendo Switch – it’s like their version of Skyrim. Graphics are like a cartoon. Play is a bit difficult, even for me. A little bit more for my son.
Also the new winter tires I got installed were there just in time. Almost AWD drive-like traction but much better in the braking and steering department. Without ’em it would have been a very difficult drive to my folks house yesterday.
Gordilocks
I’m a firm believer in winter tires. They are literally the difference between life and death when certain situations occur on the road.
Tundra
Seconded. I always remind people that getting going is the easy part.
Yeah my dad, who should know better since he lived out on a dirt road that was a mile from a plowed street, doesn’t believe me. He gets by with just AWD. When I try to tell him that 4WD/AWD with winter tires is the best combination, he just handwaves the suggestion away. I guess for some people that extra expenditure it too much for ’em. Like how there were complaints from buyers of the Ford Focus ST that it came with summer performance tires, not all-seasons.
I would but my wife won’t give this car up. First time she’s been madly in love with one, so that’s a plus and a minus.
ie, she actually takes care of it unlike everything else we bought. But she won’t let it go, even though it’s getting a little long in the tooth.
And I’ve been eying a low-mileage CLS 500…
DEG
What did you get for winter tires?
I like my Nokians. I have a RWD car. In most wintery conditions I can almost drive like I do on bare pavement. In those conditions where I can’t, I still have an easier time than I’ve had with other winter tires.
Tundra
I’ve had great luck with Blizzaks.
DEG
I’ve never tried Blizzaks. For a while I relied on studded tires then I relied on X-Ice. The X-Ice were a step down in icy/snowy conditions from the studded tires but better on bare pavement than the studded tires while being worse than my summer tires. The Nokians and X-Ice are like night and day, with the Nokians being all around better.
Tundra
Great in snow, great on ice, good on pavement (obviously too soft to be great).
I was going to get Blizzaks since I had good luck with ’em in my BMW. But given my 17″ rims (I thought they were 18″ers) I ended up with Pirelli Sottozeros.
::remembers the day when 15″ rim were considered an upgrade over 14″::
TK
The new Zelda is a pretty fun game. I don’t think it was as mind blowing as everyone made it out to be though, it got kinda repetitive after awhile. I stopped playing about 15 hours in.
Obama’s executive afterlife so far is unique because his successor is unique, say close observers of the post-presidency.
Mark Updegrove, a former director of the LBJ presidential library and the author of Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House, said that Obama had demonstrated admirable reserve.
“You have to give him credit for his remarkable restraint given the repudiation that he has received at the hands of Donald Trump, whose agenda seems to be based on undoing everything that Obama did and not much more,” said Updegrove. “In so doing, President Obama has observed this unwritten rule among former presidents to let their successors find their way in the office.”
Ditto on my now-departed ’97 Mercury Mountaineer – the one with AWD and the old-school 5.0L V8
westernsloper
^ This
What is this talk of snow tires? Normal people keep all terrain mud and snow tires on year round as god intended. What if you want to go four wheeling in the summer and get into the muck? Sheesh.
PieInTheSKy
I have rikken tires on my opel astra but then again I don’t drive much.
Gustave Lytton
Which ones? Wrangler covers a good range of tires great to mediocre.
Scruffy Nerfherder
MIchelin LTX MS
Pricey, but reliable and relatively quiet. I’ve had bad experiences with Goodyear and BF Goodrich, but never with Michelin.
*dons beret, takes long drag on cigarette*
Count Potato
“My 8 year old trangender child said “mommy why is Trump deporting rocket scientists” then a bigot wearing a trump hat burst in and yelled “ye’haw make murica great again I hate muslums” I stood and said “Girl power bigot!” the room clapped.That room, grew up to be Anne Frank.”
Funny story: My step sister (quite a liberal) got my mom and step dad a subscription to a wine service that will send them 2 bottles every month over the year. They received the first bottle and opened it on Christmas day – the 1st bottle was TRUMP wine.
Pretty hilarious. My sister and step sister were almost in tears.
Scruffy Nerfherder
That is funny… really funny actually.
The Other Kevin
My mom and dad are die hard Dems. My siblings secretly hung a Trump ornament on their tree, and got them at Trump chia head as a present. Good times.
TK
That’s pretty funny. Are all the kids conservative-leaning or libertarian? Must drive your folks crazy.
I don’t get sitcoms. It’s almost always a contrivance that can be easily solved through communication and acting like an adult, but results in cringy ‘antics’ and shenanigans that make me embarassed for the characters.
mexican sharpshooter
You don’t think Alex P. Keaton being born to hippie parents is remotely funny?
We should set up some sort of cuss jar for every time UCS hates something, we can PayPal a quarter to its account.
trshmnstr
results in cringy ‘antics’ and shenanigans that make me embarassed for the characters.
Thank you! I think sitcoms can be well done, but they’re mostly formulaic, predictable and cringeworthy. People have to become cardboard cutouts to play for the joke, which is usually not all that funny.
mexican sharpshooter
Successful sitcoms really do follow a formula for the characters. The newer ones just incorporate two or more of the archetypes into a single character. For example:
M*A*S*H vs. Cheers
Hawkeye – Sam (main ‘likeable’)
RADAR – Woody (small towner)
Col. Potter – Coach (older/wiser)
Klinger – Frasier (same humorous problem, comes up every episode)
Winchester – Cliff (know it all)
The Other Kevin
I’m the only libertarian wacko. I have a brother and two sisters, and somehow they ended up Republican. They all love Trump. But I’m like a lot of us on Glibs – the guy keeps doing things to make me like him. Mom and dad grew up in the blue corner of the state, and they are straight up Dems. They have had some pretty headed discussions these last few holidays. And by headed discussions, I mean yelling and not making any intelligent points. I try to keep out of it.
The Late P Brooks
I like BF Goodrich all terrain TAs.
I had some on a 2wd pickup. They worked great, if there was ballast in the bed.
Pope Jimbo
So one more good reason to let the dog ride shotgun and put the wife in the back?
Rufus the Monocled
When I checked in there were seven comments. Now there are over 100.
DO ANY OF YOU WORK?!?!
PieInTheSKy
nope. that thar European socialism ya keep hearing about
Tundra
Easing into it, brother. Don’t want to pull anything.
Count Potato
Euphemism?
Tundra
Only the best for you people.
DEG
I have some stuff to do around the house. I’m procrastinating. I’m off work this week unless tech support gives me a call.
Strangely enough, there happens to be a lot of overlap with when I’m at work.
The Other Kevin
Me too. I usually stay off line on weekends and holidays, when I’m not sitting in front of a computer.
Sean
Not today. I’m at home fiddling with my new jail broken fire stick.
A Leap at the Wheel
Got through another holiday without a single political argument, even though just about everyone in my family has differing political opinions. Actually, no arguments of any kind.
What the fuck is wrong with people. Eat your seven different kinds of fish and watch the kids open the their presents. Why is that so hard.
commodious spittoon
Eat your seven different kinds of fish
Is this a thing? The only fish I think I’ve ever eaten on Christmas were the tins of sardines my folks bought as stocking-stuffers.
I don’t see why you need an excuse to eat tamales.
A Leap at the Wheel
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince people that they can only have tacos on Tuesdays.
mexican sharpshooter
The excuse is not so much in eating them, it’s convincing people to make them. Extremely work intensive, often requiring teams of women that don’t always get along.
I remember my first Mexican American Easter in TX. It was a wonderful bit of culture shock. BBQ, pintos, tamales, etc. I was used to Ham, kielbasa, pirogies, potato salad, and Cole slaw.
Timeloose
Family holiday food is great in the US. It’s all different, my Philippino coworkers are eating pork belly, pasta carbonara, and hotdogs with marshmallows.
TK
We usually don’t discuss politics in my family, but this year we did and it was fine until my sister went and made it super awkward. I should probably institute the “I don’t give a shit” response to family members when politics comes up.
westernsloper
No one needs seven different kinds of fish. Eat canned tuna you bourgeouis shitlord.
Count Potato
“Trump’s blatant racism: A Christmas surprise that’s no surprise
Haitians have AIDS; Nigerians should return to their “huts,” says the president. Will Republicans ever reject him?
Trump’s “Make America Great Again” was a signal that he would do everything in his power to protect, enforce and expand white power. Whiteness as an idea and practice is inseparable from violence towards and oppression of nonwhites. White Americans rallied to Trump’s flag because they understood his intent. Black and brown people understood Trump’s intent as well. This is why they — and too few white voters — tried to sound the alarm about Trump and his fascist racial authoritarian movement’s threat to democracy.”
Many of us came into 2017 expecting the worst. And in many ways, the worst is what we got.
Donald Trump has been every bit as horrible as one might have expected; he continues, day after day, to prove himself utterly unfit for office, morally and intellectually. And the Republican Party — including so-called moderates — turns out, if anything, to be even worse than one might have expected. At this point it’s evidently composed entirely of cynical apparatchiks, willing to sell out every principle — and every shred of their own dignity — as long as their donors get big tax cuts.
Meanwhile, conservative media have given up even the pretense of doing real reporting, and become blatant organs of ruling-party propaganda.
Yet I’m ending this year with a feeling of hope, because tens of millions of Americans have risen to the occasion. The U.S. may yet become another Turkey or Hungary — a state that preserves the forms of democracy but has become an authoritarian regime in practice. But it won’t happen as easily or as quickly as many of us had feared.
Did he just accuse Hundary of being Authoritarian? Isn’t Orban’s popularity due to him standing up against the Authoriarian EU?
Suthenboy
He lives in progressive upsy-downsy land.
kbolino
And why not pick out Belarus, which has been ruled by the same autocrat since the fall of the Soviet Union? Oh, right, that guy is pining for Soviet communism, which makes it a-okay.
AlmightyJB
I don’t think you have to worry about your government job Jesus.
“What I did, I would like to compare to what Jesus did when he went into the temple and overturned the tables of the moneychangers, who were exploiting the people financially in the name of religion. I feel like that’s what the GOP has done to the American people,” he told KPCC.
Strong works as a psychologist for the L.A. Department of Mental Health and said he realized he might be putting his job at risk. In fact, he said he was surprised he hadn’t been arrested. But, for him, the political is very personal.
Confirming what we already knew. For lefties, government is religion.
And psychologists are almost always fucked up themselves.
kbolino
And what has Mnuchin done that’s any different from what Democrats Lew and Geithner did?
The Late P Brooks
Which ones? Wrangler covers a good range of tires great to mediocre.
I’m not going out in the snow to look. They have a pretty open tread pattern, but the cornering grip is terrible. It pushes like crazy.
In 2wd, you can barely get the thing moving.
The Late P Brooks
How could no one link Krugabe’s latest hysterics?
Krugabe is just tedious and predictable; it’s not even entertaining, anymore.
westernsloper
“Jamiuddin stopped the car … for conversation on his cellular phone when the drone fired two missiles and killed him on the spot,”
Safety first. I wonder if it was the CIA who called him?
“Knock knock”
“Who is this?”
“Boom.”
“Boom? Boom wh-“
Nephilium
You can’t fool me. You’re a land shark!
commodious spittoon
When the upper-echelons of your top investigative bodies are all in the hole for one party, how can you possible construe your legal system as fair and just? Both institutions need immediate, wholesale purges. I wish Trump had been more on the ball with his appointments, because I think we’d be seeing a very different set of circumstances closing out his first year in office: for one thing, top agents and investigators tripping over each other to implicate their colleagues in the Clinton cover-up and the FBI’s campaign interference scandal. For another, revealing the left to be nothing better than Putin lackeys eager to heap disrepute on the American political system simply because they’re mad at Trump.
Way too much. I’ve been nursing an illness all weekend, family’s all out of town, and I’m off work.
It still seems unbelievable that network TV had enough demand for 22 (!) 45-minute (!!) episodes a season.
Count Potato
“White! Christmas!
The Hallmark Channel’s 21-movie fusillade in the War on Christmas is a ratings sensation. I’m watching it all to find out why.
At a rally in November 2015, Donald Trump heralded, “If I become president, we’re all going to be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again, that I can tell you.” Of all his empty guarantees, the president has perhaps fulfilled none better than a counterstrike in the War on Christmas, and no battalion has fired more rooty-toot artillery for him than the Hallmark Channel. In 2017, the network is premiering 21 original Christmas movies (up from 20 last year)—42 hours of sugary, sexist, preposterously plotted, plot hole–festooned, belligerently traditional, ecstatically Caucasian cheer. To observe the first holiday season under the Trump administration, I’m bearing witness to them all.”
She’s (I assume the author is a she) isn’t offended that she is in someway personally affected by this. She is offended by the fact that someone enjoys these (my wife, sigh). She is offended that other people she doesn’t know are saying Merry Christmas to each other out of her ear-shot.
“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” The clothing has changed. The family structure has changed. The religious authority has changed. But human nature hasn’t.
How much you want to bed she’s the kind of person that things libertarians and conservatives (the same thing to her) ‘just want the freedom to tell women what to do.’
commodious spittoon
I don’t buy lotto tickets, not because I have a better understanding of odds than people who do (as so many “tax on stupidity” arguers imply), but because I don’t buy into the fantasy of winning big. I don’t care for the Twilight movies or romance pulp for the same reason: it’s not my bag, baby. That’s all lottery players are doing, enjoying the brief respite from life that the drawing affords them. They’re not stupid because they don’t understand the astronomical odds against their winning–in fact, I’m sure they understand it on a more visceral level than anyone who claims otherwise. They’re intelligent consumers because they’re putting a couple dollars toward a fantasy, a form of escapism. How many of the “tax on stupidity” smart set pay far more than that for equally trivial diversions?
This Zachary (seriously? A dude wrote this hot garbage?) no doubt considers himself a member of the smart set, but fails to grasp what it is about Hallmark’s mass-produced holiday tripe that people seem to enjoy: it’s a mindless, mawkish diversion for people who aren’t obsessed with nailing down the provenance and implications of every thought that crosses their minds. People who, rather than living in penury writing blog posts for Slate, produce things of substance and value. People he’ll presumptively write off as parochial bigots after crawling up his own ass to deconstruct their viewing habits and justify his prejudices.
Speaking of investing in something with no payoff, I’ve been binging through The X-Files for a couple weeks. Chris Carter is the Nick Gillespie of wrapping up story arcs.
That’s why I skipped the arc episodes and watched the monster of the week ones.
If you don’t know where your arc is going, you might just not get anywhere.
commodious spittoon
I did the opposite because I wanted to catch up to the new series, but after watching 8 in its entirety I’m considering going back and watching all the MotW eps.
Also, I like Doggett. A whole lot. I don’t mind Reyes, but I think Doggett was a perfect addition to the series. And the arc of season 8 concerning mostly finding Mulder rather than the alien conspiracy was very compelling. Possibly my favorite season so far, after maybe 5. I like mindless, mawkish diversions, too.
trshmnstr
This Zachary (seriously? A dude wrote this hot garbage?) no doubt considers himself a member of the smart set, but fails to grasp what it is about Hallmark’s mass-produced holiday tripe that people seem to enjoy: it’s a mindless, mawkish diversion for people who aren’t obsessed with nailing down the provenance and implications of every thought that crosses their minds. People who, rather than living in penury writing blog posts for Slate, produce things of substance and value. People he’ll presumptively write off as parochial bigots after crawling up his own ass to deconstruct their viewing habits and justify his prejudices.
This. I’m watching some Hallmark-channel quality Christmas movies on Netflix with my wife, and it’s amazing to watch her enjoy them. I complain for a bit, but I sit down and watch. Why? Because despite it being poorly written and poorly acted tripe that usually involves asshole characters getting something better than they deserve, it’s simple, easy to digest, and whimsical. My wife likes it for the same reason that she occasionally likes going to Taco Bell, because sometimes you get a hankering for something that isn’t exactly good for you.
This article is yet another example of SJWs seeing zebra unicorns where there’s actually just a horse. Why are Hallmark-channel Christmas movies “sugary, sexist, preposterously plotted, plot hole–festooned, belligerently traditional, ecstatically Caucasian cheer”? Because the largely-white, largely-female audience wants that in their “junk food” movies. Nothing more, nothing less.
The Late P Brooks
I wonder if it was the CIA who called him?
“Hold still, for a minute.”
westernsloper
“You recently stayed at one of our resorts and have won a free stay at our new property…..”
The Late P Brooks
I haven’t poked my nose out of my burrow for days. I should un-bury the truck and fire it up, preferably without having to bring the battery charger into play.
Don’t you have a block heater? Just plug it in. What kind of northerner are you?!
Dr Mossy Lawn
My wife plugged the block heater in her F350 diesel the other day… and said that she shocked herself…
me?… that circuit is GFCI.. should have tripped… check the breaker.. doesn’t trip… *oops*..
I’ve replaced the breaker, but I need to get a lighted cord so I can be sure that it hasn’t tripped during handling. Wife with a sluggish diesel in the morning is not a happy wife.
My vehicle fits into the garage…
Suthenboy
She did what? She smuggled drugs into Egypt? Her mother says she is naive? That is probably the stupidest thing a person could do.
This woman is a victim of being brainwashed into a useful idiot by the people that were responsible for her growing into a wise, functioning adult.
The Egyptians are corrupt and uncivilized. They dont have the same ideas about justice that westerners do. They dont have the same ideas about women that westerners do. Congratulations, you just gave them the perfect pretense for extorting money and repeatedly fucking you on a daily basis for three years. Yeah, I know, I’m a racist.
We are all busy drinking cocoa and playing with our new toys
Or… y’know… going back to work. Wah wah.
Gilmore
“Suspected” US drone? Looks like they got one the Haqqani network scum (or two?) if it was. See how thorough this story is – we don’t know what happened, or where.
the faux-doubt about “how the attack happened” and the lack of clarity on which side of the border X was on …. is due partly to the political freakout in Pakistan whenever citizens discover their own government is drone-killing (or permitting/aiding in the drone-killing of) their Umma-bros in the FATA
there was a time for a while when the pakistanis vacillated between a) “insisting on doing it themselves” and claiming that they themselves conducted strikes against known militants… vs b) throwing up their hands and going, “hey it must have been the Americans, OVER THERE”… and definitely not the ones we’re hosting at an airbase here, no-sirree, we know nothing about those guys.
there will be rioting by the fundy-beardos regardless, of course.
westernsloper
fundy-beardos
*holds back of hand against chin and wiggles fingers*
I feel like this implies that your place of work and other business have shut down due to inclement weather.
I’ve never had a snow-day in my life in Montana. Had a couple in Tennessee, but I’ve yet to see schools or work places shut down here because it’s stupidly cold or snowy.*
I sort of figured Brooks lived off the land and didn’t have an employer.
commodious spittoon
Thus the aversion to threading–ever the rugged individualist, he’ll not rely on any man, not even for context?
dbleagle
The rural school our kids attended in Montana had outside lunch recess until if got below -25* and closed for the day when it went below -44* because the diesel fuel in the buses turned into jelly.
* in real nation that has walked on the moon degrees
Can full of Hershey’s kisses on th counter. See some gold colored wrappers in there with the silver red and green. Wondering all day why I never seem to manage to get one.
Turns out the gold ones were just silver ones reflecting the inside of the can.
I feel a bit silly, but not so embarassed as to not share the story.
RoadSplosives
Chicago Union Station’s Great Hall is beautifully decked out for Christmas. Makes for a nice wait. That and the little mobile cash bar in the corner.
dbleagle
If you have time Amtrak has (had the last time I went through) a private lounge just off the great hall in the old barber shop area. Wifi, beer, snacks and early boarding of your train.
RoadSplosives
Yeah, that must be the Legacy Club. It’s about 20 feet from us. But we have to board pretty somewhere other than the Great Hall, so we will spend the rest of our time in the Metropolitan Lounge down where the sleeper cars (yes, we are train snobs) board.
Thanks for the tip for future non sleeper train travel (as if).
RoadSplosives
Pretty somewhere? I think I was writing pretty far from here and modified it to somewhere other than.
Comments
277 responses to “We’re busy playing with our new toys links.”
“Have you ever been in a Turkish Egyptian prison?”
No, I can’t say I have.
Ever seen a grown man naked?
Yes, but there is no way Gladiator should have won Best Picture.
Also, I thought it was agreed I don’t get first gifs?
Don’t get or don’t want them?
Both?
If you don’t want them…let me know, I can see they get deleted, and you don’t ever get any.
I’d rather not get them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW-bFGzNMXw
Thanks 🙂
How about you folks who don’t want a “first” gif don’t post first? Problem solved.
*presses nipples against glass*
No, why do you ask?
Those links won’t post themselves. Get your galoshes on, and git to shovellin’
..but I am almost finished putting my new Lego Star Destroyer together!!!!!
But I was gonna go to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters!
*mutters something about nerds and walks away*
That Luke grew up to become a great Jedi after uttering THAT line with THAT tone amazes me to this day.
I thought he grew up to be the Joker.
Pics?
Whew, I’m not the only one dying to know if it’s the huge version.
also, still working on my bucket excavator from last spring.
Bonus: legos + kitten
Youtube was made for cat videos.
Or did they demonetize you already?
I’m new to making cat vids, but the rest of my content is in the same league, so, no idea.
I’m not dumb enough to try to sell something nobody would pay for.
Ah, Chicago’s mayor…leading the way to becoming the next Detroit! – A city that can blame white republicans for their problems?
Naturally.
He was on the local “adult alternative” station the other day, talking about how he is against recreational marijuana use, and joking about how that won’t get him invited back on the air.
He must own a piece of a medical dispensary.
You know for a moment there I thought the repeal of net neutrality final destroyed USistani interwebz, but it seems not yet. Another day …
So far the net still works, but the dead are piling up like firewood here. Not sure if the end of Net Neutrality or the Tax Cut of Doom killed ’em.
So she actually smuggled drugs into Egypt?
Also how many days supply is that? It doesn’t evenly divide by usual perscription periods and times/day metrics.
It’s a terrible drug anyway. So I wonder if it’s banned in Egypt because they think it might have recreation use, or because it wasn’t approved for medical use?
The first time I saw the article, it suggested the guy with the back pain had a wife in Egypt. Maybe he’s the persuasive type.
Euphemism?
You’ll put your eye out!
“Oh. My. God. I put my EYE OUT!!!”
Gets me every time.
1
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t
The president’s team claimed that he did not attend so that the artists could celebrate in peace rather than having a political distraction. But the president votes, as we all do, with his feet.
Trump is a chicken because he did not attend the Kennedy Center awards circle jerk.
———
During his eight years in office, President Barack Obama could be seen one minute on Broadway with Michelle Obama, at August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” or at “Hamilton,” and the cast of “Hamilton” could also be seen at the White House.
I remember the Obamas appearing on a video feed at the Tony Awards to introduce and exalt “Hamilton,” and thinking: We are living in the golden age of theater. An age in which a poet-politician was at home with the great Lin-Manuel Miranda, who was himself at home with the sonnet form in an acceptance speech. This cultural flowering and embrace of an artist by a ruler made me think of the synergy between Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare. If “Hamilton” represented a national renaissance and a broadening of our democracy, where are we now?
Why hast thou abandoned us, Obama?
This excrescence makes me think you are a fucking psycho, Lady. Seek professional help.
. This cultural flowering and embrace of an artist by a ruler made me think of the synergy between Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare – who writes this pretentious crap ?
People who have an overinflated opinion of the value of artists.
To elaborate – Art is a product of surplus.
It is something that can only be indulged in once the necessities are met, and its production is discarded when more urgent matter arise. Artists, like their output, are decorations put on by a civilization, not some fundamental pillar of it.
I disagree.
Okay, elaborate.
I mostly agree with you, UnCivil.
I do think that artistic creations are gilded luxuries that require stability and wealth for them to be pursued.
However, I think the impulse of pure creation is a part of human behavior that has allowed and further allows us to create and invent and flourish.
Yes, a painting is strictly ornamental, but the ability to make something new is a fundamental, or *the* fundamental reason that we flourish as a species. An Archimedean Screw is also a piece of wild invention, and I freely admit that it’s discovery has been more important to our success, but the impulse to create is something that sets us apart.
Thumbs, long-distance running, and our brains. That’s all we got. And we’re pretty big.
An artistic whetstone helps keep us sharp, and I would argue regardless of the outcome’s final utility.
Name one society in which artistic output stopped as a result of a famine, drought, or war. Every famine, drought, or war I can think of has inspired art, not reduced it. Art on cave walls was made when life was most certainly nasty brutish and short.
I can’t find it, but there was a frontier diary found of a family that starved to death. At the end, the mother told the starving daughter to draw pictures of apples with her to make the hunger pains less.
“Show something that isn’t”
If there is work that can be done to address the shortage, that work will be done before decorating the walls. Distracting a child when things are dire is not a counter-example.
As for the tragedies inspiring art, you get the work after the problem has passed, or when there is no more that can be done.
As for historical societies, I wonder why you chose an impossible test. Most societies left no written record, and tools either get reused recycled or destroyed whereas decoration is more often deliberately preserved.
While of late we’ve begun to realize the error and look for the signs and detritus of actual life rather than the gilding, most of the record is of the art because that is what caught the eye of those with the luxury of surplus to turn to preserving the works of those who came before.
I understand the impulse of pure creation, but UCS is talking about about collaborative art which is actually a leisure business.
No, I’m not saying show something that isn’t. I’m saying show a single example to back up your statement that art is a product of surplus. I don’t believe you. I think anywhere that humans have altered their environment, they have created art even under the harshest of circumstances.
You said something is so. I’m asking for a single example. I’m not asking you to prove a negative. I’m asking for one example where you assertion is demonstrated. That is the lowest bar for evidence.
In your most recent comment:
I don’t believe you. Setting aside the fact that most walls incorporate art, what society has left evidence of walls and not art (that’s an even lower bar than I asked for above). There are many societies that we only know about because stone tools have been found, and we have not found art from them, as we have no reason to believe they incorporated ornamentation into their spear points. But for any that have left a substantial record, there is always art.
You may be operating under a different definition of art than me. What do you mean that this isn’t a counter example? Because drawing a picture is most certainly art as I understand it.
The Diary of Anne Frank was written in the middle of hiding from the Nazis. “An Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of Their Store” was painted in the middle of the potato famine. Americans trapped in chattle slavery, which must be the epitome of not having access to surplus, developed multiple genres of music.
Sure, early archaeologists were really bad about that. But for the last hundred years or so they’ve been more interested in the articles of life. And in recent, recorded history we have incidences of people starving, going through drought, political oppression, genocide, and war. They didn’t give up their artistic creation.
Yes, we are clearly operating under different definitions of art in this discussion.
My commentary is in the vein of responding to the original (non-glib) poster’s decrying of the organized arts being less of a priority under the new administration.
You give examples of where people who have nothing but surplus time turn around and create something – in some cases inadvertantly, in others to distract themselves.
As for civilizations that stopped creating art in times of crisis, I give you Mesoamerica. The whole Olmec/Maya/Aztec period division is separated by paucities of art where there were still people living there, but too focused on survival to do anything resembling the output of their forefathers.
So you can call the farmer carving a stick ‘art’, but you have to admit the volume and quality contracts in times of shortage, with all of the proliferation and coordinated effort being dependant on surpluses.
Perhaps you might be right in the perfect socialist society, but I think we would all agree that’s fantasy. Things are never produced and distributed evenly. There is always surplus for the winners and never surplus for the losers.
Consider a fictional King Amen II: Amen will quite literally be one of the last to starve and have a surplus of grain as long as his state can take it by force of arms. Amen has food even when everyone else is near starving. What does Amen want then ? He wants cool things that display his status. Make him a mural or nice necklace and you can trade for enough grain to keep you going. Very functional to the artisan.
Status seeking and vanity are as old as the human race, thus art. If the artisan is not producing status items for the big fish, they are making things for themselves and others to try to appear as the big fish. Of course there are personal “maker” reasons as well, but don’t kid yourself, there are solid economic reasons for art based on human nature.
As interesting ,is that the art objects created say a lot about what the particular power group at the time valued. I take this to mean that the current power block is the west is mostly incoherent.
Why do we need Amen II, when we have Kim Jong Un instead?
You know what would be interesting? Findout out what type and volume of art the NorK peasants produce and consume, and then examine the output on a per capita basis. If there was any place that exemplified shortage, it’s there.
Ok, if you are limiting your definition of art to the output of the parasitic class of incompetents with a closet full of black turtlenecks, an anhk necklace, and limited critical taste, then sure. Like all parasites, they can’t thrive unless their host is eating enough to cover them.
I just don’t consider that the sum total, or these days even the best forms, of art.
Even when you examine it on an individual level, artistic expression is the product of surplus, be it even something so basic as surplus time. Other tasks take precedence.
I havent gotten out my pastels in 3 months because I’ve been too busy with work and home improvements.
I’m not certain but perhaps she would also praise the cultural flowering between QEI and the Tower’s headsman? Yeah, Trump needs to be more like QEI?
President ≠ Ruler, except of course in her mind.
It’s nice of her to actually admit that she wants to be ruled by a monarch, though.
Also, last I heard, it’s the president’s job to manage the functions of the executive branch, not to be some kind of pop culture figure.
Yah, you think maybe launching a cultural crusade against the right generally, and falling into total hysterics over Trump specifically, might have something to do with Republicans opting out of your self-congratulatory culture events? That perhaps that drama queen at Hamilton set the stage for Trump shooting you idiots the bird instead?
I will admit that I think Hamilton is a lot of fun. Washington on Your Side is a great song.
“SOUTHERN FUCKING MOTHERFUCKING DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICANS!”
He was also very funny on the last season of Curb. He came across as an actually terrible human. That seems about right. I had a lot of fun with the new season. The line about Romanian Mountain Women makes me laugh every single time I think about it.
Merry Xmas to all. New Star Wars is one of the most tremendously bad things I have ever seen, which is how I spent the holiday. The fact that I’m somehow less of a failure than that abortion of a film actively made me feel better about my life. (Let’s ignore that it made a half billion dollars on opening day. It’s a dirt movie. And I’m better than dirt. Well. Most kinds of dirt. Not that fancy store-bought dirt. I–uh–can’t compete with that stuff.)
Mountain Women
It was better than The Force Awakens, that’s about all I can say about it.
He was all for show. I bet you he never sets place in any of these places for the rest of his life. Same with his wife.
I bet you they don’t read a lick of any of the classics.
And given how race obsessed they are and the stupid things they’ve said over the years, I doubt they invested much time in Western classics.
Some tyrants worry about assassination. Others?
.Russia calls for answers after Chechen leader’s Instagram is blocked..
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/26/chechnya-ramzan-kadyrov-social-media-russia-instagram-facebook
ACT OF WAR!
I wish to submit a report from a proggie SIL Christmas gathering: We (her and I) agreed that people should be left alone by the government. Progress, in the dictionary sense!
this I assume depends on individual definitions of left alone
Yeah.
“It’s not right that other people judge me! The government needs to stop those bad thinkers so I can be left alone!”
SLD, to be sure… I started with the thin end of the wedge by pointing out how most people want what they disapprove of to be restricted. Then I eased into a casual restatement of “Me today, you tomorrow.” I look forward to the next meeting!
In dictatorships, the artists are often the first to go. Or maybe they are the third to go, after the press and the intellectuals. The refusal of the president to celebrate them is a chilling and clear departure from American values. Perhaps the Trumps didn’t want to compete with the Obamas, who at the 2016 Kennedy Center awards received the longest standing ovation of the evening.
Don’t worry, Honey. When Trump has the intellectuals rounded up, you’ll be safe.
The artists are the first to go? Maybe the first to go in head first and become useful idiots.
The refusal of the president to celebrate them is a chilling and clear departure from American values.
I have another theory…maybe he’s the type of guy that covers everything in gold, calls it class and genuinely doesn’t give a shit about “culture” or “the arts.”
The professional artists are the first to go when an economy collapses. Except for the ones that kiss the dictator’s ass and produce the necessary propaganda.
The Year Women Reclaimed the Web
I can’t even…That’s some weapons-grade derp right there…
The Guardian view on capitalism without capital
This should be good
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/26/the-guardian-view-on-capitalism-without-capital
No country is governed by a Capitalist party, although there is no shortage of capitalism on the planet. – that is because all non socialist/comminist parties are capitalist …
One reason is that the word “capitalism” was popularised by its critics. The most common usage is pejorative, denoting a system characterised by exploitation of workers by bosses. – I disagree just as many people use the word capitalism in a non pejorative way
Wealth is no longer in factories, pipelines or retail outlets. – oh there is plenty of wealth in that
anyhoo
Capitalism isn’t a system that can be imposed. It’s the default state of a liberated people. Feudalism is the default state of a shackled people. Communism is the attempt to deny either state and impose another, wholly artificial, and ultimately untenable system.
If you want to read a special kind of stupid, read this book. The authors think Capitalism started in 1492.
Capitalism started the moment two people had more of different somethings than they needed and decided to trade the extra.
I know that. The authors didn’t, and I ripped them for it in my review of the book. The book is in my “get rid of” pile.
I think they know that. Their problem is in their mind, the problem with capitalism at that very moment was Cro-Magnon 1 sold Cro-Magnon 2 his daughter.
Pics?
She looks just like her father, pass.
Not sure if the end of Net Neutrality or the Tax Cut of Doom killed ’em.
Repealing net neutrality killed them. The tax cut means we cannot afford to send anybody out to collect the dead.
they’re just resting
they’re getting better
Monetize those corpses! People that brave the wastelands to collect and turn in the dead will receive extra rations of solyent green that they can then trade for goods and services.
Bomb-shelter builder stays busy as prospects prep for ‘Trumpocalypse’
*looks around nervously*
And?
Because the siege mentality probably wont work as well against social unrest as it would against nuclear explosions.
And here is some sportz for y’all
For Harry Kane, the records continue to tumble and the reality was there was never any doubt. Another day; another hat-trick. It was the Tottenham Hotspur striker’s eighth of 2017 but the headline details were even more eye-catching.
Kane had Alan Shearer’s Premier League mark for a calendar year in his sights and he duly overhauled it. Shearer scored 36 times for Blackburn Rovers in 1995; Kane has finished the year with 39 and he did it from 36 matches. Shearer took 42.
Even better for Kane is that he now stands as Europe’s leading scorer from 2017 – ahead of Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, the player that he hopes to supplant one day as the best in the world. Messi has 54 goals from 63 appearances in all competitions. For Kane, it is 56 from 52.
some more sport news: David Warner and James Anderson marvel at ‘freakish’ Steve Smith
Cricket? What does a small, chirping insect have to do with sportzball?
STEVE SMITH HIT YOUR GOOGLY AND RAPE YOU WITH STICKY WICKET.
Sitting in the office, still sans badge. I don’t get bored very easily, but this is pushing my limits.
I’ve seen the same organization both issue a badge within days and take months to do so.
Would your badge provide some iota of amusement, or is your limited zone of activity part of the problem?
I can’t get a login to the network and web sites without a badge. So I’m just literally sitting here. Occasionally I’ll glance through the branding handbook or “how to” manuals
Wow, that sucks.
Hmmm. Hang out with us then!
You sure that’s wise? She just got this job…
I find that taking off my pants works every time.
Tape over the door latches.
Take some selfies and send them to the Chive. You might end up at the end of one of Q’s links.
Go around the office and remove the K’s from all the keyboards.
Do what my kids do, and build a little fort. Call it Kamp KK.
Just don’t abbreviate the fort name “KKK”.
That reminds me of the last time a group of us went camping at a KOA location. We had a cabin, and the cabin area had a sign up saying:
KOA
Kamping
Cabins
STEVE SMITH BIG FAN OF KOA – LIKE SHOPPING CENTER OF RAPE!
Now I’m listening to a colleague chat on the phone with a mutual friend. And I’m tagging the friend on Facebook with bits of the conversation I’m overhearing
YOU DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ BADGES!
The Best Sex Takeaways From 2017
r—ightttt….
Up next: It’s OK to define “having an STD” for yourself.
The female orgasm has long been a mystery, and for years scientists didn’t care to spend time or resources trying to understand it. – it’s a myth. Like non fattening chocolate
I had a really thoughtful and calm discussion going with my step dad and step sister about corporate taxes during Christmas yesterday, and then my biological sister came in and tried to end the conversation because we disagreed on whether the tax rate was considered high compared to the rest of the world.
My sister definitely is the most “prog” of all my family, so its not surprising that while the more conservative (me) and the more liberal (my step family) were having a productive conversation, its the prog that comes in and says “guys lets not talk about it, we’re obviously going to disagree, lets just end the discussion.” We were all taken aback- none of us felt like we were arguing… just having a discussion with certain points of disagreement (and some of agreement).
Fuckin’ progs, never want anyone to actually talk to each other.
We had some close friends visit us this weekend. They live in New Jersey, and were very butt hurt about the tax bill. We should keep an extra 2-3k next year, but they are going to get raped on taxes next year because they can’t deduct all their state and property taxes. I stayed out of the conversation, but it really hit home how much the rest of us are subsidizing the blue states. As much as I like those friends, I don’t feel a bit bad about their tax situation. I feel like in some way, a wrong has been righted.
The increase in the standard deduction was more than the entirety of my property taxes. I’ll have to check to see where it falls relative to my state taxes. In all, I don’t think it’s going to hurt me at all.
Same here. Only proggie tax talk I had to deal with was from my girlfriend’s aunt. She was bitching and complaining about how it was just going to help the rich, and she didn’t know anyone that was going to benefit from it. I then pointed out that I would be saving ~$2,000 in taxes next year, and her family knows that they can’t call me rich. Thankfully, the aunt was just parroting the talking points from the news, and didn’t know any of the actual details of the tax plan.
My (prog) mom complained about losing their state income tax deduction in one breath & people not wanting to “pay their fair share” in the next.
I said nothing.
Well clearly, it hinges on what she regards as ‘fair’.
Yeah, my sister lives in New York and was complaining about that too. One of the more liberal people in my family actually brought up how the standard deduction increase will probably help her with that. Either way, I’m glad I’m not going to be subsidizing New York and California’s high taxes anymore.
Do these rates apply to the returns for 2017 (filed early 2018), or are we still on the old scale untile we file in early 2019?
The second. I am disappoint.
Roger that. Fuckers should have made them retro.
Once the sotto voce, ,NPR-approved talking points are exhausted, they have nothing left.
Hosnestly, do you expect them to come up with original thoughts?
Very weird observation –
Drove home from The in-laws this morning, and the local community radio station is having a marathon of repeated segments, from earlier this year, of coverage on Charlottesville and ‘the alt-right’.
Hell of way to celebrate the holidays, isn’t it?
My Uncle used our family Christmas Gathering to announce that I would be the new custodian of my grandfathers war medals and various related items. An honour, to be sure. I’m already the custodian of his Lee Enfield, and my cousin Jay of the Luger my grandpa seized from some Germanz he took prisoner while in Belgium.
I feel a contribution article about my grandpa’s service and his weapons coming up. Y’all interested?
custodian ?
As in, I will be in possession of these very important items until I pass them down to another appropriately interested and responsible heir.
i.e., they are never to be sold
(I assume)
Correct.
I have frequent short term memory and vocabulary failures. Perhaps custodian was not the most fitting term.
No, I think custodian is a perfectly appropriate word.
Absolultely
Of course.
Yes.
I like Lee-Enfields. What did he have?
My grandfather took a Luger off of a dead German officer sometime before Bastogne. My grandfather was wounded at Bastogne, I think near the end of the siege. On his trip to the hospital, the medics stole his boots and the Luger off of him.
Christ, what an assholes.
The RCMP tried to take the Luger off my Uncle Bruce when he was hunting moose in the Yukon.
Stay tuned.
Euphemisms?
A Møøse once bit my sister… No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge…
The RCMP tried to take the Luger off my Uncle Bruce when he was hunting moose in the Yukon.
What assholes.
Yes. Sounds like your uncle is rather wise, taking care of such things while he’s still alive. My family would likely fight over them, as in fisticuffs.
Christmas Eve Package Drop at Ohio Prison Not From Santa
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5211817/Cash-Outside-pays-moms-65-000-mortgage.html
She’s a singer now?
Playing Zelda on the Nintendo Switch – it’s like their version of Skyrim. Graphics are like a cartoon. Play is a bit difficult, even for me. A little bit more for my son.
Also the new winter tires I got installed were there just in time. Almost AWD drive-like traction but much better in the braking and steering department. Without ’em it would have been a very difficult drive to my folks house yesterday.
I’m a firm believer in winter tires. They are literally the difference between life and death when certain situations occur on the road.
Seconded. I always remind people that getting going is the easy part.
Yeah my dad, who should know better since he lived out on a dirt road that was a mile from a plowed street, doesn’t believe me. He gets by with just AWD. When I try to tell him that 4WD/AWD with winter tires is the best combination, he just handwaves the suggestion away. I guess for some people that extra expenditure it too much for ’em. Like how there were complaints from buyers of the Ford Focus ST that it came with summer performance tires, not all-seasons.
Oh and it’s 8F outside… and the battery in my wife’s car decided to die.
I’m _really_ looking forward to replacing it today. /s
Just buy a new car.
I would but my wife won’t give this car up. First time she’s been madly in love with one, so that’s a plus and a minus.
ie, she actually takes care of it unlike everything else we bought. But she won’t let it go, even though it’s getting a little long in the tooth.
And I’ve been eying a low-mileage CLS 500…
What did you get for winter tires?
I like my Nokians. I have a RWD car. In most wintery conditions I can almost drive like I do on bare pavement. In those conditions where I can’t, I still have an easier time than I’ve had with other winter tires.
I’ve had great luck with Blizzaks.
I’ve never tried Blizzaks. For a while I relied on studded tires then I relied on X-Ice. The X-Ice were a step down in icy/snowy conditions from the studded tires but better on bare pavement than the studded tires while being worse than my summer tires. The Nokians and X-Ice are like night and day, with the Nokians being all around better.
Great in snow, great on ice, good on pavement (obviously too soft to be great).
Highly recommended.
I was going to get Blizzaks since I had good luck with ’em in my BMW. But given my 17″ rims (I thought they were 18″ers) I ended up with Pirelli Sottozeros.
17″ on the MINI that is.
::remembers the day when 15″ rim were considered an upgrade over 14″::
The new Zelda is a pretty fun game. I don’t think it was as mind blowing as everyone made it out to be though, it got kinda repetitive after awhile. I stopped playing about 15 hours in.
That’s a series where I could never get into any of the games. I tried several different generations of platforms, but it just never clicked.
Get out.
The URL says “angry link”, but that unfortunate image looks like Link just met STEVE SMITH.
XD I could see that.
I’m all of two hours in. Got that game AND a Switch from Mr. Riven for Christmas. <3 Haven’t had hardly any time to play, though.
Then you’ve got people who didn’t vote for him and are thinking that now that he’s president maybe he’s going to start a wa
“You know… morons.”
https://twitter.com/allahpundit/status/945648379593478144
Fair point, the President does have the authority.
Obama’s post-presidential life: what does his second act have in store?
Hopefully a fade into irrelevance as his ‘legacy’ is discarded and his tenure is left in the dust like a bad memory.
“given the repudiation that he has received at the hands of Donald Trump”
I’d say the repudiation is by the electorate that chose Trump.
https://twitter.com/nberlat/status/945472688583266304
Christ, what an asshole.
I’d say the whole concept of “solidarity” is a Marxist collectivist-based concept and has no bearing on my defense of the principle of free speech.
Focus your male gaze on some bathykolpian beauties.
https://archive.is/8FXsG
Plenty of fine choices here but you know the only proper option is (((5))).
I bet foreplay is only one hour of begging for her.
(((5))) is fine but the playful spirit of 3 is nice. Also, 41 should be shopping in a store which pays for heating.
I almost missed the Star of David on #5. #18 reminds me I go to the wrong gym and #22 that I go to the wrong diners.
Orgy.
Oh, this is an easy one.
28 runs away with it.
Damn these LP members get better looking every posting.
slim pickings for me… 28?
38…….oh my. I will even overlook the ink.
Also the new winter tires I got installed were there just in time.
Speaking of winter tires- I put a set of Goodyear Wranglers on my Explorer a while back. They suck.
You know the old saying, “Sometimes things are cheap for a reason”? It fits.
I like BF Goodrich all terrain TAs. Good for snow, off road and on road; they’re nice all around.
I had those on my Tahoe. Loved them.
Ditto on my now-departed ’97 Mercury Mountaineer – the one with AWD and the old-school 5.0L V8
^ This
What is this talk of snow tires? Normal people keep all terrain mud and snow tires on year round as god intended. What if you want to go four wheeling in the summer and get into the muck? Sheesh.
I have rikken tires on my opel astra but then again I don’t drive much.
Which ones? Wrangler covers a good range of tires great to mediocre.
MIchelin LTX MS
Pricey, but reliable and relatively quiet. I’ve had bad experiences with Goodyear and BF Goodrich, but never with Michelin.
*dons beret, takes long drag on cigarette*
“My 8 year old trangender child said “mommy why is Trump deporting rocket scientists” then a bigot wearing a trump hat burst in and yelled “ye’haw make murica great again I hate muslums” I stood and said “Girl power bigot!” the room clapped.That room, grew up to be Anne Frank.”
https://twitter.com/KateVsTheWorld/status/944760675909464064
That’s gold, Jerry.
Dave Chappelle made this joke over a decade ago.
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/414219-sex-political-correctness-relations/
Funny story: My step sister (quite a liberal) got my mom and step dad a subscription to a wine service that will send them 2 bottles every month over the year. They received the first bottle and opened it on Christmas day – the 1st bottle was TRUMP wine.
Pretty hilarious. My sister and step sister were almost in tears.
That is funny… really funny actually.
My mom and dad are die hard Dems. My siblings secretly hung a Trump ornament on their tree, and got them at Trump chia head as a present. Good times.
That’s pretty funny. Are all the kids conservative-leaning or libertarian? Must drive your folks crazy.
Funny enough that it was a sitcom?
I don’t get sitcoms. It’s almost always a contrivance that can be easily solved through communication and acting like an adult, but results in cringy ‘antics’ and shenanigans that make me embarassed for the characters.
You don’t think Alex P. Keaton being born to hippie parents is remotely funny?
We should set up some sort of cuss jar for every time UCS hates something, we can PayPal a quarter to its account.
results in cringy ‘antics’ and shenanigans that make me embarassed for the characters.
Thank you! I think sitcoms can be well done, but they’re mostly formulaic, predictable and cringeworthy. People have to become cardboard cutouts to play for the joke, which is usually not all that funny.
Successful sitcoms really do follow a formula for the characters. The newer ones just incorporate two or more of the archetypes into a single character. For example:
M*A*S*H vs. Cheers
Hawkeye – Sam (main ‘likeable’)
RADAR – Woody (small towner)
Col. Potter – Coach (older/wiser)
Klinger – Frasier (same humorous problem, comes up every episode)
Winchester – Cliff (know it all)
I’m the only libertarian wacko. I have a brother and two sisters, and somehow they ended up Republican. They all love Trump. But I’m like a lot of us on Glibs – the guy keeps doing things to make me like him. Mom and dad grew up in the blue corner of the state, and they are straight up Dems. They have had some pretty headed discussions these last few holidays. And by headed discussions, I mean yelling and not making any intelligent points. I try to keep out of it.
I like BF Goodrich all terrain TAs.
I had some on a 2wd pickup. They worked great, if there was ballast in the bed.
So one more good reason to let the dog ride shotgun and put the wife in the back?
When I checked in there were seven comments. Now there are over 100.
DO ANY OF YOU WORK?!?!
nope. that thar European socialism ya keep hearing about
Easing into it, brother. Don’t want to pull anything.
Euphemism?
Only the best for you people.
I have some stuff to do around the house. I’m procrastinating. I’m off work this week unless tech support gives me a call.
I only ever come here when I’m at work.
I only ever come here when I’m bored.
Strangely enough, there happens to be a lot of overlap with when I’m at work.
Me too. I usually stay off line on weekends and holidays, when I’m not sitting in front of a computer.
Not today. I’m at home fiddling with my new jail broken fire stick.
Got through another holiday without a single political argument, even though just about everyone in my family has differing political opinions. Actually, no arguments of any kind.
What the fuck is wrong with people. Eat your seven different kinds of fish and watch the kids open the their presents. Why is that so hard.
Eat your seven different kinds of fish
Is this a thing? The only fish I think I’ve ever eaten on Christmas were the tins of sardines my folks bought as stocking-stuffers.
I’ve had shrimp, shellfish are technically still fish, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_the_Seven_Fishes
Yum.
Yes, many Catholics celebrate Christmas Eve with fish and seafood dinners.
Fish and seafood on the eve, then kielbasa and meats on the day.
I have never heard of such a thing, but I typically eat tamales on Christmas Eve.
I don’t see why you need an excuse to eat tamales.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince people that they can only have tacos on Tuesdays.
The excuse is not so much in eating them, it’s convincing people to make them. Extremely work intensive, often requiring teams of women that don’t always get along.
Ah. Well, that is different.
I remember my first Mexican American Easter in TX. It was a wonderful bit of culture shock. BBQ, pintos, tamales, etc. I was used to Ham, kielbasa, pirogies, potato salad, and Cole slaw.
Family holiday food is great in the US. It’s all different, my Philippino coworkers are eating pork belly, pasta carbonara, and hotdogs with marshmallows.
We usually don’t discuss politics in my family, but this year we did and it was fine until my sister went and made it super awkward. I should probably institute the “I don’t give a shit” response to family members when politics comes up.
No one needs seven different kinds of fish. Eat canned tuna you bourgeouis shitlord.
“Trump’s blatant racism: A Christmas surprise that’s no surprise
Haitians have AIDS; Nigerians should return to their “huts,” says the president. Will Republicans ever reject him?
Trump’s “Make America Great Again” was a signal that he would do everything in his power to protect, enforce and expand white power. Whiteness as an idea and practice is inseparable from violence towards and oppression of nonwhites. White Americans rallied to Trump’s flag because they understood his intent. Black and brown people understood Trump’s intent as well. This is why they — and too few white voters — tried to sound the alarm about Trump and his fascist racial authoritarian movement’s threat to democracy.”
https://www.salon.com/2017/12/26/trumps-blatant-racism-a-christmas-surprise-thats-no-surprise/
TW: Salon
17″ on the MINI that is.
Real Minis have 10″ wheels, Pal
In the summer I see some of those old minis on the road around here.
They’re funny, I could fit one in my trunk.
Friend of my wife has an ’87 grey-market Austin Mini. It’s pretty sweet but too much of a death trap for me.
(last accident I had where I was t-boned by a car going 50+mph made me bless side air bags and the roll cage like structure).
How could no one link Krugabe’s latest hysterics?
What conservative media does he actually read? I’ve seen a mixed bag, but nothing like the 100% all in for Obama the left media did.
Suck it, Krugs. 2017 was the best year I’ve had in a really long time.
Good God, that is some nuclear grade projection right there.
Did he just accuse Hundary of being Authoritarian? Isn’t Orban’s popularity due to him standing up against the Authoriarian EU?
He lives in progressive upsy-downsy land.
And why not pick out Belarus, which has been ruled by the same autocrat since the fall of the Soviet Union? Oh, right, that guy is pining for Soviet communism, which makes it a-okay.
I don’t think you have to worry about your government job Jesus.
http://www.scpr.org/news/2017/12/25/79257/someone-sent-horse-poop-to-treasury-secretary-stev/
Confirming what we already knew. For lefties, government is religion.
And psychologists are almost always fucked up themselves.
And what has Mnuchin done that’s any different from what Democrats Lew and Geithner did?
Which ones? Wrangler covers a good range of tires great to mediocre.
I’m not going out in the snow to look. They have a pretty open tread pattern, but the cornering grip is terrible. It pushes like crazy.
In 2wd, you can barely get the thing moving.
How could no one link Krugabe’s latest hysterics?
Krugabe is just tedious and predictable; it’s not even entertaining, anymore.
Safety first. I wonder if it was the CIA who called him?
“Knock knock”
“Who is this?”
“Boom.”
“Boom? Boom wh-“
You can’t fool me. You’re a land shark!
When the upper-echelons of your top investigative bodies are all in the hole for one party, how can you possible construe your legal system as fair and just? Both institutions need immediate, wholesale purges. I wish Trump had been more on the ball with his appointments, because I think we’d be seeing a very different set of circumstances closing out his first year in office: for one thing, top agents and investigators tripping over each other to implicate their colleagues in the Clinton cover-up and the FBI’s campaign interference scandal. For another, revealing the left to be nothing better than Putin lackeys eager to heap disrepute on the American political system simply because they’re mad at Trump.
I have seen speculation that the president is biding his time so that the OIG can take them down without the sting looking like it’s political.
I Want to Believe™
Too much X-Files?
Way too much. I’ve been nursing an illness all weekend, family’s all out of town, and I’m off work.
It still seems unbelievable that network TV had enough demand for 22 (!) 45-minute (!!) episodes a season.
“White! Christmas!
The Hallmark Channel’s 21-movie fusillade in the War on Christmas is a ratings sensation. I’m watching it all to find out why.
At a rally in November 2015, Donald Trump heralded, “If I become president, we’re all going to be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again, that I can tell you.” Of all his empty guarantees, the president has perhaps fulfilled none better than a counterstrike in the War on Christmas, and no battalion has fired more rooty-toot artillery for him than the Hallmark Channel. In 2017, the network is premiering 21 original Christmas movies (up from 20 last year)—42 hours of sugary, sexist, preposterously plotted, plot hole–festooned, belligerently traditional, ecstatically Caucasian cheer. To observe the first holiday season under the Trump administration, I’m bearing witness to them all.”
https://slate.com/arts/2017/12/hallmarks-21-movie-christmas-countdown-reviewed.html
How brave.
I’m sure that was someone’s nickname in college.
She’s (I assume the author is a she) isn’t offended that she is in someway personally affected by this. She is offended by the fact that someone enjoys these (my wife, sigh). She is offended that other people she doesn’t know are saying Merry Christmas to each other out of her ear-shot.
“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” The clothing has changed. The family structure has changed. The religious authority has changed. But human nature hasn’t.
How much you want to bed she’s the kind of person that things libertarians and conservatives (the same thing to her) ‘just want the freedom to tell women what to do.’
I don’t buy lotto tickets, not because I have a better understanding of odds than people who do (as so many “tax on stupidity” arguers imply), but because I don’t buy into the fantasy of winning big. I don’t care for the Twilight movies or romance pulp for the same reason: it’s not my bag, baby. That’s all lottery players are doing, enjoying the brief respite from life that the drawing affords them. They’re not stupid because they don’t understand the astronomical odds against their winning–in fact, I’m sure they understand it on a more visceral level than anyone who claims otherwise. They’re intelligent consumers because they’re putting a couple dollars toward a fantasy, a form of escapism. How many of the “tax on stupidity” smart set pay far more than that for equally trivial diversions?
This Zachary (seriously? A dude wrote this hot garbage?) no doubt considers himself a member of the smart set, but fails to grasp what it is about Hallmark’s mass-produced holiday tripe that people seem to enjoy: it’s a mindless, mawkish diversion for people who aren’t obsessed with nailing down the provenance and implications of every thought that crosses their minds. People who, rather than living in penury writing blog posts for Slate, produce things of substance and value. People he’ll presumptively write off as parochial bigots after crawling up his own ass to deconstruct their viewing habits and justify his prejudices.
Well put.
Speaking of investing in something with no payoff, I’ve been binging through The X-Files for a couple weeks. Chris Carter is the Nick Gillespie of wrapping up story arcs.
That’s why I skipped the arc episodes and watched the monster of the week ones.
If you don’t know where your arc is going, you might just not get anywhere.
I did the opposite because I wanted to catch up to the new series, but after watching 8 in its entirety I’m considering going back and watching all the MotW eps.
Also, I like Doggett. A whole lot. I don’t mind Reyes, but I think Doggett was a perfect addition to the series. And the arc of season 8 concerning mostly finding Mulder rather than the alien conspiracy was very compelling. Possibly my favorite season so far, after maybe 5. I like mindless, mawkish diversions, too.
This Zachary (seriously? A dude wrote this hot garbage?) no doubt considers himself a member of the smart set, but fails to grasp what it is about Hallmark’s mass-produced holiday tripe that people seem to enjoy: it’s a mindless, mawkish diversion for people who aren’t obsessed with nailing down the provenance and implications of every thought that crosses their minds. People who, rather than living in penury writing blog posts for Slate, produce things of substance and value. People he’ll presumptively write off as parochial bigots after crawling up his own ass to deconstruct their viewing habits and justify his prejudices.
This. I’m watching some Hallmark-channel quality Christmas movies on Netflix with my wife, and it’s amazing to watch her enjoy them. I complain for a bit, but I sit down and watch. Why? Because despite it being poorly written and poorly acted tripe that usually involves asshole characters getting something better than they deserve, it’s simple, easy to digest, and whimsical. My wife likes it for the same reason that she occasionally likes going to Taco Bell, because sometimes you get a hankering for something that isn’t exactly good for you.
This article is yet another example of SJWs seeing zebra unicorns where there’s actually just a horse. Why are Hallmark-channel Christmas movies “sugary, sexist, preposterously plotted, plot hole–festooned, belligerently traditional, ecstatically Caucasian cheer”? Because the largely-white, largely-female audience wants that in their “junk food” movies. Nothing more, nothing less.
I wonder if it was the CIA who called him?
“Hold still, for a minute.”
“You recently stayed at one of our resorts and have won a free stay at our new property…..”
I haven’t poked my nose out of my burrow for days. I should un-bury the truck and fire it up, preferably without having to bring the battery charger into play.
Don’t you have a block heater? Just plug it in. What kind of northerner are you?!
My wife plugged the block heater in her F350 diesel the other day… and said that she shocked herself…
me?… that circuit is GFCI.. should have tripped… check the breaker.. doesn’t trip… *oops*..
I’ve replaced the breaker, but I need to get a lighted cord so I can be sure that it hasn’t tripped during handling. Wife with a sluggish diesel in the morning is not a happy wife.
My vehicle fits into the garage…
She did what? She smuggled drugs into Egypt? Her mother says she is naive? That is probably the stupidest thing a person could do.
This woman is a victim of being brainwashed into a useful idiot by the people that were responsible for her growing into a wise, functioning adult.
The Egyptians are corrupt and uncivilized. They dont have the same ideas about justice that westerners do. They dont have the same ideas about women that westerners do. Congratulations, you just gave them the perfect pretense for extorting money and repeatedly fucking you on a daily basis for three years. Yeah, I know, I’m a racist.
Or… y’know… going back to work. Wah wah.
the faux-doubt about “how the attack happened” and the lack of clarity on which side of the border X was on …. is due partly to the political freakout in Pakistan whenever citizens discover their own government is drone-killing (or permitting/aiding in the drone-killing of) their Umma-bros in the FATA
there was a time for a while when the pakistanis vacillated between a) “insisting on doing it themselves” and claiming that they themselves conducted strikes against known militants… vs b) throwing up their hands and going, “hey it must have been the Americans, OVER THERE”… and definitely not the ones we’re hosting at an airbase here, no-sirree, we know nothing about those guys.
there will be rioting by the fundy-beardos regardless, of course.
fundy-beardos
*holds back of hand against chin and wiggles fingers*
Yep
Don’t you have a block heater?
Block heaters are for sissies.
Sissies who want their cars to start!
By the time the car ices over, you’re supposed to have stockpiled sufficient supplies for the long freeze.
Retransmit please. Signal garbled. Have placed stockpile of long-pig in freezer. Please advise.
I feel like this implies that your place of work and other business have shut down due to inclement weather.
I’ve never had a snow-day in my life in Montana. Had a couple in Tennessee, but I’ve yet to see schools or work places shut down here because it’s stupidly cold or snowy.*
*Not a complaint.
I sort of figured Brooks lived off the land and didn’t have an employer.
Thus the aversion to threading–ever the rugged individualist, he’ll not rely on any man, not even for context?
The rural school our kids attended in Montana had outside lunch recess until if got below -25* and closed for the day when it went below -44* because the diesel fuel in the buses turned into jelly.
* in real nation that has walked on the moon degrees
Watching Tremors with my son… ah silly 90s horror-lite.
https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/945475213797584896
Awesome.
Can full of Hershey’s kisses on th counter. See some gold colored wrappers in there with the silver red and green. Wondering all day why I never seem to manage to get one.
Turns out the gold ones were just silver ones reflecting the inside of the can.
Do you feel othered?
I feel a bit silly, but not so embarassed as to not share the story.
Chicago Union Station’s Great Hall is beautifully decked out for Christmas. Makes for a nice wait. That and the little mobile cash bar in the corner.
If you have time Amtrak has (had the last time I went through) a private lounge just off the great hall in the old barber shop area. Wifi, beer, snacks and early boarding of your train.
Yeah, that must be the Legacy Club. It’s about 20 feet from us. But we have to board pretty somewhere other than the Great Hall, so we will spend the rest of our time in the Metropolitan Lounge down where the sleeper cars (yes, we are train snobs) board.
Thanks for the tip for future non sleeper train travel (as if).
Pretty somewhere? I think I was writing pretty far from here and modified it to somewhere other than.
Meh. Whatever.