I get until 6pm instead of noon before the world ends.
Still in shock from it all. Started drinking. It's past 2 am here now. Going to bed.
There's always hope left for we apocalyptophiles. Meteor strike. Alien invasion. Zombie Outbreak.
It wouldn't be as bad without Repub control of all levels of gov't, and that feels like it has been slowly creeping on my whole life. I wish this was a getoffamylawn delusion of an old crank, but it's not, is it?
CPB, NEA, and NEH are like gone. Small thing, but kinda defined for me whatever was valuable in America. So much else more important.
Won't get it back. Could be good again, but it will be different.
Looked them up
Corporation for Public Broadcasting 1965
National Endowment for the Arts 1965
National Endowment for Humanities 1967
They talk FDR and Reagan, but Lyndon was also a transformative president.
Imagine growing up in a time when those programs and dozens more were being born. Food stamps. OSHA. EPA. Fair Housing. Head Start. All around 1964-69. National Trails System.
Okay okay, Obama best President since, after forty years of the bar being lowered.
"Two or three years ago it was just another snake cult."
I still can't quite believe it. I keep having flashbacks to the summer of 2015, when a friend of mine (feisty, feminist, and Brooklyn Jewish) was freaking out at the prospect of a Trump presidency. "Relax," I said, "Donald Trump will never be president. The Trump circus will fold its tent by October [2015!], maybe November by the latest."
I will never make another political prediction again.
7: Christ I hate the prosperity gospel with a fucking passion. It strikes directly at the heart of what I used to believe when I was a christian. My parents gave up everything to live a life of service, as commanded by Jesus. Unambiguously commanded, BTW. And here are these cunts asking old ladies on social security to go into debt to pay the hanger fees on their pastor's private jet and telling them that their immiseration is due to their lack of faith. Fuck them all in the ass with a cactus. Joel Osteen is the anti-Christ. Smarmy smirking greasy little fuckhead. God wants you to be rich is the fucking opposite of the message of the gospels. It's no wonder these pricks love the old testament so much. I shit on the prayer of Jabez.
7. Norman Vincent Peale? Man, that's a blast from the past. I was too young, but wasn't he considered fairly mainstream at the time? Since then, the Prosperity Gospel seems to have been take over entirely by grifters, Joel Osteen one of the poster children. (The one with the best name was Creflo S. Dollar: gotta admit that. I think he went to jail.)
Has anyone else read Kate Bowler's Blessed? Chunks of it are very dry -- the genealogy of various wings of the movement -- but it was interesting nonetheless.
I mostly just try to work that "snake cult" line into conversation as often as I can.
Let's entertain each other -- lurkers, please chime in! -- by telling stories about the most incompetent organizations we have ever encountered, as employees or bystanders or innocent victims. Get creative with the presidentiality. (Inspiration here is the tweets pictured here, which are also here.)
I'm going to be on an airplane Sunday. Do you think the FAA will last that long?
the most incompetent organizations we have ever encountered, as employees or bystanders or innocent victims
Well. I have a current "Case" open with Amazon to change the title of a book they have listed on their site whose title shows as "The Sytle of something-or-other" (should be "The Style of", obvs.). I clicked on "fix incorrect information" or whatever the button is called, and they've informed me every couple of days, over the past 3 weeks now, so far, that they're working on it. Now they've referred it to their catalogue department. Now they thank me for my patience while they research the issue. Now they've referred it to their technical department. They appreciate the importance of this issue while they investigate ... [whether "sytle" is a word.] They're worried because I haven't provided an authoritative third-party URL, like to the manufacturer, to prove what I say.
Mind, I do this from time to time for my own amusement.
15 That would probably have to be my current organization. No, definitely my current organization, so I'd better not right now.
Just got up, gonna laze about in bed and despair.
We are so fucked.
Think I'll start drinking around noon.
What time EST will Trump touch a bible (probably for the first and last time of his life)?
15 That tweet storm is great btw
I'm not sure anyone else is awake, but I'm finishing a bunch of extremely tedious stuff for work, so feel free to despair vocally and I can commiserate.
I saw somewhere that "at noon he will become president." I'm probably doomed to wake up freakishly early and ruminate about it until the morning alarm, thereby losing my west coast advantage in unconsciousness.
I just read that odd book about the Norman Conquest, an interesting world to consider of lost causes and institutional transformation, but also full of grisly enough details to kind of give me the fantods. I wouldn't say I scare that easily, but that's probably false bravado.
I need to finish this work before Trump becomes president, but I can't promise that it will change anything if I do.
Not too bad, actually. Earlier this evening I went to my neighborhood community council meeting, which was interesting. Getting involved.
Still feeling the same background level of unease and disbelief that I've felt ever since the election, of course, but it's not feeling any worse now than before.
I'm much more stoic than I would have expected. It's strange: like a reaction to a much more immediate hostile presence, to whom you don't want to show fear or anger or sorrow, or even much gleeful mockery. Medication probably plays a role, but even so, it's pretty unprecedented.
I guess that makes it sound like I'm normally flipping my shit 24/7. I'm probably somewhere in the normal range of human excitability.
I'm still up as well.
My guy was not on the last plane out of GTMO, and instead was denied clemency today. Yesterday, I guess. The decision is the worst miscarriage of justice I've ever been involved in. You sure miss the rule of law when you don't have it.
All week a number of my colleagues in the GTMO bar have been sending their 'my last guy is out, it's been an honor serving with you all, best of luck' emails.
We had some serious reversals in 2005 and 2006, but those were bearable, because we thought we could win in the courts (and we did) and because I hadn't spent another decade getting to know the guy.
Fuck. I'm so sorry. Words fail me.
And I guess we all still believed in the rule of law back then.
Here's a thought: how long will it be before Pence is gone? He's absolutely sure that he's going to be running the country while Trump does rallies and parades. But that isn't the way Trump works; he's hands-off until he feels the need to assert himself, then he micromanages. And Pence, unlike all the Republicans in Congress, is someone that he can fire. That's what he likes doing, that's what his supporters want him to do, that's what he thinks a leader should do: fire his apprentices. What happens the first time Pence and Trump come into conflict?
I'm more worried about him firing Mattis.
34: I didn't know that. So there's no way for a president to get rid of a vice-president, whatever happens? Huh.
He could still presumably demand his resignation, though. Same thing. Even if he can't actually have security escort Pence out of the building.
37 Yeah, it's a separated elected office. I suppose he could be impeached?
Worried about Mattis too.
It's a constitutionally enumerated office, he can no more fire Pence than he can fire Ryan or a SCOTUS justice. Only Congress can remove any of those. I mean, sure he could make Pence's life hell or permanently send him to the Siberian gulag northern Idaho but he still holds the office.
(On second thought that strikeover may not be necessary.)
Ah, thanks.
I wonder if Trump knows that? Having subordinates he can't fire will be a new experience.
I'm not sure what a President could do unilaterally to make a Vice-President's life unpleasant (short of having his twitter followers take him out). The official residence is assigned by statute. Maybe take away his staff? Though that could be assigned by statute as well -- if Congress allocates money for something, the President can't refuse to spend it.
41: It seems likely he doesn't, doesn't it?
Maybe take away his staff?
Worked for Saruman!
44: You realize that the UK is probably the Shire in this analogy, right? You'll have to drive him out after he ruins everything.
10 makes me wonder if we're the same person. My parents went ahead with the "sell what you have and give the money to the poor" thing pretty literally early in their marriage.
Sorry, that was me.
46: we're still working out how to deal with our prime minister, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, who seems intent on selling off virtually everything in Bag End.
The VP has no real duties beyond sometimes showing up in the Senate, which is required by the constitution. He doesn't really need anything to perform his duties.
A whole host of flawed Middle-earth analogies. Some a little too on the nose such as the role of the Palantir.
Pence will have the extra duty of monitoring all of the gay dance parties thrown in his honor.
10, 46: I'm not even Christian and still periodically feel bad I'm not adhering closely to that goal. When Lee and I were looking for a church where we could bring kids, no megachurches and absolutely no prosperity gospel was about all I asked.
46: If we're the same person would you go to the gym for me today? I'm really not feeling it.
I believe there's a considerable precedent of Presidents making a sport of humiliating their VPs. Johnson and Humphrey, and Eisenhower and Nixon, are the instances that I'm aware of.
42 I'm not sure what a President could do unilaterally to make a Vice-President's life unpleasant
The worst thing you can do is make him stay Vice President; the job is not worth a bucket of warm spit.
You know what the best thing you can do is?
Really enjoyed the story that Trump wanted "a parade of tanks and missile launchers" at the inauguration, only to be told "a) that would look weird and b) this city is built on a swamp; they'd sink into the ground".
I suppose I could go wander over to the nearby US embassy and mill around the lawn out front being angry. But probably that would get me in trouble with my employer.
Your employer prefers striding with purpose.
My godmother was telling me that her church was looking at supporting a sanctuary church (I.e. One that will protect immigrants at risk of being deported). I'm wondering if that wouldn't be more useful than working with the local dems.
If you want to be useful, you should move to North Dakota and work with those Democrats.
Plus, February is the best time to see North Dakota.
I'm sure that both of the North Dakota Democrats would be grateful for the help.
60: I think it wouldn't be. Abuses of immigrants are symptoms, not the cause.
"Go fix white people" might be a tall order.
I'm in downtown DC this morning, and so far, it's a ghost town. Nobody with any sense wants to have anything to do with this shitshow. The seats in my subway car weren't even half-full, and normally it's standing room only.
Like lk in 28, for the last month or so I had been resigned and stoic. Today I am frightened and filled with hate. A tourist cut me off on a sidewalk today and she was very deferentially apologetic about it. I wanted to tell her to go fuck herself. If she'd been wearing any Trump paraphernalia, I might have done it.
The phrase "Fear and Loathing" keeps popping into my head.
The seats in my subway car weren't even half-full
Don't thin-shame.
Electoral politics isn't the only way to work for change. Its also important to protect potential victims of the new regime.
64 Disagree. It's a good thing to do. For fellow human beings in need and as a form of political resistance.
The seats in my subway car weren't even half-full, and normally it's standing room only.
That's hilarious. I remember the morning of Obama's first inauguration, waiting for multiple trains to pass so there would be enough room for my sister and I to cram ourselves in.
69: Comity, but I don't think it's the most useful thing lefties can do.
It's way down on my list of complaints about modern life, but kids putting too many hops in the beer is certainly a problem.
THE OPACITY OF AUDITS.
I don't understand how you can drink more than two or three of those really hopped beers.
Can I just say that I hate everybody and everything. That is all.
73: I think it's important for different lefties to be doing different things, from each according to her abilities. There's a lot that needs to be done.
Is "hating everybody and everything" something that needs done? Because I can do that.
Me, I have to be at children's hospital for a bit this afternoon. Maybe I should make mental wagers about which patients will lose healthcare first. (I think my children are pretty secure since it was written into their adoption agreements, so I'm assuming currently poor children will suffer before they do. Gag.)
This seems to be more or less on topic. I think I have a hernia. Just a protuberance , bump in my groin area. Doesn't hurt but the effort I've been putting into ignoring it may be why I'm so tired all the time. Anybody have experience with this kind of thing?
Maybe a doctor would be a better place to start?
79: Comity again. My fear is that too many lefties will put their energies into charitable work because it's easier, or more tasteful, or more satisfying, and the Democratic party will just keep on sleepwalking.
80: It is useless and counterproductive, but from each according to their abilities.
We are timing things to be in our car during the culmination of the 20-year soft coup. Listening to a book on tape about Benedict Arnold (something we had already started).
Pence's only actual job is breaking ties in the Senate. Other than that he's an errand boy. It won't even occur to Trump to fire him. Rick Perry strikes me as the most obvious high level guy put in so he can be fired.
Rick Perry has way better executive hair than Pence.
This essay reflects my mood. (Essay is better than the attention-grabbing headline.)
83: So old-fashioned!
Actually, I made a dr's appointment for Monday.
I suppose I just posted that to make sure I didn't fall behind my quota of oversharing on Unfogged.
34, 37, etc - Trump can't fire Pence, but he can make it known to his administration (probably via twitter) that Mr. Pence is not to be consulted on any decisions ever, and then fire anyone who is discovered to have talked to him.
75 I agree. I hate overhopped IPAs. Overhopped beers and Trump But not necessarily in that order.
The oil-pipeline issue starts up again, doesn't it? That is still going to be a good place to be active.
82: Does it go away if you lie on your back?
If you lie on your back in front of the bulldozers, yes, maybe.
93: I don't know, and I think that might not be an appropriate thing to try out at work.
What does it mean if it does ?
If you have shitty insurance, it means the only covered treatment will be a note telling your to lie on your back.
If you have good insurance, the note will be laminated.
I ... don't remember exactly. It's "reducible" which is good. (I got a hernia the last time a Republican was installed in the White House.)
As I understand it, hernia surgery is safe and effective and almost never results in accidental castration even though the slicing is right next to your balls.
People of the United States, your attention, please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Sanity Maintenance Council. As you will no doubt be aware, the protocol for quarantining bad craziness and stupidity requires the annihilation of hopeless planets and countries. Regrettably, your country has now passed the irrevocable craziness threshold. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you.
There's no point in acting surprised about it. All the protocols have been on display at Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now. ... What do you mean you' voted *FOR* him. Oh, for heaven's sake, Americans, it's only four light years away, you know. I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that's your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.
I don't know, apathetic bloody country , I've no sympathy at all.
There was a terrible ghastly silence.
There was a terrible ghastly noise.
There was a terrible ghastly silence.
I'm pretty sure most Vogons are Trump supporters. It won't be the worst thing to come from the new administration but I'm not looking forward to the Poet Laureate.
102: That bit used to be funny/horrifying but now I'm like 'fair enough'. Maybe it's time to read book 5 again and see if it's less of a horrible ending. In other rereadings, I've had an urge to reread Handmaid's Tale (and I've been encouraging my husband to read it for the first time) but I'm not sure I have the distance needed.
This morning I'm going to stock up on the good coffee and bread and try to come up with a slogan for a sign. Ideas for feminist scientist appropriate? It's my first protest and I'm kind of terrified.
He's got his staff trying to find the guy who wrote "There once was a man from Nantucket."
I don't understand how you can drink more than two or three of those really hopped beers.
Ideally you shouldn't have to, because the appropriate use of hops is to mask a high alcohol content. Instead, you get ultra-hoppy IPA's with 4.5% or whatever. Whats the point?
I don't "have to." I just really very much want to.
Trump may actually be a Vogon. I bet he could write some absolutely terrible poetry. Maybe we will hear some in his speech today.
It was for the sake of this day that he had first decided to run for the Presidency*, a decision which had sent waves of astonishment throughout the Imperial Galaxy--Zaphod Beeblebrox? President? Not the Zaphod Beeblebrox? Not the President? Many had seen it as a clinching proof that the whole of known creation had finally gone bananas.
*The President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it.
It is said that his birth was marked by earthquakes, tidal waves, tornadoes, firestorms, the explosion of three neighbouring stars ... However, the only person by whom this is said is Beeblebrox himself, and there are several possible theories to explain this.
I don't "have to." I just really very much want to.
I guess that's what "Session IPAs" are supposed to be for. Not really my favorite style, though.
Agreed. Too much getting up to piss.
Ideas for feminist scientist appropriate?
FUCK YOU TRUMP!
If Trump does nothing but steal a prototype I'll be a happy camper.
It would be a good night for La Fin du Monde, but there's no way I can go out tonight.
115: work has actually begun on the spaceship "Heart of Gold", but we're several years away from a prototype.
It's the name that SF fan Elon Musk picked for his first Interplanetary Transport. He already has the "Of Course I Still Love You" and the "Just Read The Instructions".
Kanye, presumably.
I take it you didn't see this particularly shrill dog whistle then.
>The venue we have for entertainment is filled out, it's perfect, it's going to be typically and traditionally American, and Kanye is a great guy but we just haven't asked him to perform.
115: work has actually begun on the spaceship "Heart of Gold", but we're several years away from a prototype.
If you have to pick a Firefly episode to name a spaceship after, it's probably better than Out Of Gas.
Horrible thought: there's a plaque on the Moon signed "Richard Nixon", attached to the Apollo 11 descent stage. It's not impossible that there could be one on Mars in the near future signed "Donald Trump".
Being a properly manly president, Trump will of course ride the first interplanetary launch himself. And accidents still happen, despite everyone's best efforts.
I liked Handmaid's Tale the first time around (especially the beginng where the title character's ATM card stops working, such a small beginning.) But I remember understanding that a lot of my guy friends found it over the top and unbelievable. In the fall I was up for a part in the recent remake, and it feels nowhere near as far away as it did in the early 90s. I'm sorry I didn't get the job because it must have been an unusual set, hordes of shrouded women with little makeup on all thinking about this stuff.
121 Bushwhacked or The Train Job would be more apropos.
122 It would probably be the only good thing he's ever done. I'll suffer the plaque.
I thought you said "plague". Nevermind.
especially the beginng where the title character's ATM card stops working, such a small beginning
The modern version could have her husband being alerted of her misbehaviour by a special mobile phone app. Wait, that already exists in the UAE.
Off topic, amusing email preview edition:
A personal-records document got emailed round recently, attached to an email that read "Please make sure that everyone in your team fills this in with blood group, allergies, medication taken etc." Unfortunately the preview truncated this message so that it read "Please make sure that everyone in your team fills this in with blood".
Hard core.
I'm taking out my frustrations by getting into flame wars with Trumpists on Reddit. It's particularly satisfying to tear into the ones who were Bernie supporters before he lost the primary and switched.
it feels nowhere near as far away as it did in the early 90s
Yeah, there was a time when Network was an over-the-top satire. We're moving into Idiocracy territory now.
I for one love ridiculously hoppy beers. But I have a preference for ridiculously strong flavors of all sorts--super sharp cheese, carolina reaper hot sauce, giant fruit bomb pinot noirs, ultra strong black coffee, and so on.
Thank you. Writing this comment gave me 30 seconds of not being filled with haterage.
the ones who were Bernie supporters before he lost the primary and switched.
I hadn't realised those were actually a thing. I thought it was some journo trying to start a meme. Do their mothers make sure they use blunt scissors?
I'm slowly coming around to the view that it's OK for different people to prefer different kinds of beer.
129 Are there many of those? I'm a Bernie supporter. Hardcore. Fuck them all with a flamethrower.
131. With you on all those except beer. I like the taste of malt mixed with my hops, as was traditional for 500 years.
130 We're gonna be beyond Idiocracy territory in the space of a few months.
134: Yeah, I think that type of 'Bernie supporter' is more accurately described as a 'Hillary hater.' Bernie was necessarily going to be stuck with Democrats who couldn't abide a woman in power.
34: Hence the Bush (or Cheney) era campaign to impeach Dick Cheney, on the grounds that impeaching George Bush would be nice but getting rid of him without first disposing of Cheney wouldn't work.
Martin O'Malley doesn't remember who you are either.
138: "They'd never assassinate me, James, to put you on the throne", as Charles II is said to have remarked.
A quick search doesn't come up with a reference, but I believe Nixon once (jokingly?) said that his selection of Agnew was insurance against assassination.
124: I was one of those guys, and I was just thinking yesterday that I was way too sure back then.
141 sounds right but I can't remember if I read it somewhere or just made it up for the Nixoniad.
Don't worry, ajay, we're all post-truth now.
141: The joke I remember was that he chose Ford as insurance against impeachment.
I remember the Nixon thing too, but thought it was about Agnew, pre-Ford.
Found it in Agnew's obituary, NYT, per Ehrlichman.
Didn't work though, because Agnew went down first.
In Nixon's defense, lots of better people were surprised by how big of a shithead Agnew was.
||
Barry: Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, yes or no?
|>
I'm at C/met P/ng P/ng P/zza, and we have some free seats if anyone wants to join us [posted at 11:50am, Friday)
Kids today haven't even seen classic films.
151: screening or re-enactment?
"I am Barry S. Freed! And I am Mossy Character Esq.! And we are... WYLD STALLYNZ!"
An appropriate day Philip Guston's Nixon?
http://www.ubu.com/historical/guston/nixon/nixon_01.html
154 is great. I'm drunk and crying here.
How the fuck is this happening?
154 is great. I'm drunk and crying here.
How the fuck is this happening?
151 Also Alex W/int/er was part of a crowd I hung with way back in the day.
Better be good, Barry. It will involve waking up on a Saturday.
159 He's Bill, or Ted. I forget which.
160 S'alright. I have off.
I mean Bill and Ted will involve waking up on a Saturday. I drink and cry whenever.
I have off too, hence my concern. Hope you feel better soon Barry.
My guy was not on the last plane out of GTMO, and instead was denied clemency today. Yesterday, I guess. The decision is the worst miscarriage of justice I've ever been involved in.
Uggh, sorry to hear that.
Also for people in DC, I'll be participating in some of these events at the Friends Meeting in Dupont Circle: http://quakersdc.org/sites/default/files/schedule.pdf
Did we ever solidify into a DC meetup? Will be hitting the road in an hour.
Oh, man, Charley, that's awful. What category is he in? Awaiting trial still, or 'we're holding you forever just 'cause?'
||
I like this description of Obama's pop culture stardom and how it contrasts with Clinton or Trump.
It might seem hard to believe now, but when Obama appeared on Jay Leno's Tonight Show early in his presidency in 2009, it was the first ever appearance from a sitting president on a late-night talk show. And he followed it up with appearances on every major late-night show that aired during his administration. Throw in Michelle Obama's appearances on a host of other programs, and the Obamas' casual domination of pop culture seems either calculated or effortless depending on the color of the lenses you choose to wear. (It doesn't hurt that both halves of the couple are natural-born joke tellers, a skill that few presidents or first ladies possess.)
...
Look at other presidents when they would intersect with pop culture, and you can see the flop sweat. Clinton was better at it than Bush, but only in the sense that there was something weirdly charming about Clinton when he was trying too hard. Watch his famous 1992 appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show, and you can see how much effort he's investing to make everybody love him. (Whenever Bush crossed over into pop culture, he usually seemed like he was terrified he might forget his lines.)
...
It's ironic that for as much as conservatives lament the left's supposed love of celebrity, the two presidents who have actual show business backgrounds are both Republicans: Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. This strikes many on the left, including me, as bizarre -- a kind of projection onto the left of the thing many on the right apparently want (a celebrity president). But looking at Trump's rise actually explains why this sort of candidate is so compelling to Republican voters.
...
In a way, Trump and Obama's TV personas perfectly exemplify their approaches to politics. Obama uses his wit as a tool. He can take it, and dish it out, and that makes him feel at home. But above all, he has to keep smiling. A lifetime of being a black man in America has made him understand that, if nothing else. You can only commandeer the stage if you don't seem too threatening.
Trump, however, is a boulder. You can land punch after punch after punch on him, and nothing will happen, until he abruptly rolls forward a couple of seconds later and crushes you. Donald Trump has been the butt of the joke -- from late-night comedians, from regular people, from presidents even -- for decades now, and even after an election he won, he's spent an inordinate amount of time on Twitter trying to get people to stop making fun of him. Maybe all those years of grinning and bearing snipes and snide remarks were preparation for rolling forward, just a few inches.
|>
Good luck to all in or heading into D.C. I'm heading the other direction as part of my continuing series of missions to the white people.
So, obviously, spending a bit of time playing with NUKEMAP today FOR SOME REASON.
Colleague: [looking at simulation of 50 MT surface detonation] Ah, so my house [points at rural England] would be wrecked by the 500 psi overpressure?
Me: Let's see... ah, no. That's the fallout plume.
Him: Oh, so it'd be OK! It wouldn't hurt my house price!
Me: Well, it'd be a bit radioactive.
Him: But in ten thousand years I could still flip it?
Me: Let me point to where the Land Registry offices are.
[Points at large red circle denoting immense nuclear fireball covering most of London]
Him: Ah.
Me: Could be tricky putting the sale through.
Him: Their records have all been transferred to the cloud!
I bet a well-designed cob house could take a great deal of overpressure.
No results for "transferred to the mushroom cloud". I am sad.
Damn it, ajay, I have so many better things to do this morning than hunt down the best mushroom cloud "software as a service" pun. DAMN IT. Nothing is coming to me. Surface... something...
I will say, there have been various moments during the past 8 years in which I felt like the mix that I did for the Obama inauguration was prescient, and this is one of them (thinking of tracks 10 and 11 which anticipate the possibility of a racist backlash).
At the time I felt like it was an interesting mix, but one that lacked coherence. But, in retrospect, it feels like a good attempt at capturing the messiness of American politics.
For those not able to be out protesting today and in need of staving off utter despair at least temporarily, radio 3 is broadcasting Angela Hewitt playing the French Suites at 1730 GMT, http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3.
171 is wonderful though personally I prefer the air burst to maximize immediate casualties.
i've been nuking Davos this week.
"American Carnage" would be a good name for a band.
Are we trying to figure out where to nuke to take out the most Trump voters? I think it must be Dallas, but you'll have to accept some collateral damage.
That's grotesque, fm. He only won by 70000 Pennsylvanians. Nuke Pittsburgh.
Its tempting to nuke Dallas, but you might be better off nuking someplace in a swing state. Maybe Waukesha?
181: Yglesias
"You wouldn't know it from the average longform exploration of "Trump Country," but Trump got more votes in Los Angeles County than he got in West Virginia." ...MY
Was going to stay away today, but y'all are talking about nuking very very blue Dallas (county 458k Clinton, 262k Trump) majority minority, killing hundreds of thousands of African-Americans, Latinx, and LGBTQ Democrats, I had to object. Who are you?
After all I've read today, I am surprised that I remembered where that line was.
Over at CT the first comment on Inauguration was "Tragedy" I tried to counter with "Failure" but I think they have essentially banned me. Thinking Dallas is your problem is exemplary of where the failure lies.
182: Then he'd have won Pennsylvania by 180,000 votes.
I do have to apologize to the hypothetical victims and any Trump voters,though I do not apologize for joking about nuclear war, which is hilarious. I used to be a kind person, by and large,and this shit is sucking it out of me.
Its tempting to nuke Dallas, but you might be better off nuking someplace in a swing state. Maybe Waukesha?
Dallas went for Clinton. So let's not be assholes.
Doing a little research, I will grant Manhattan, at a glorious 10 to 1, but you might give a thought to Nassau or Suffolk counties, either of which would get more Trump voters than Dallas. Or Tarrant county (Fort Worth) which went Red.
Watch for current winds in either case, please.
The speech sounded better in the original "who cares about the Germans"
"But Dallas ain't a woman to help you get your feet on the ground."
I never knew if that was a certain type of woman which Dallas was not or if all women were supposed to help you keep your feet on the ground.
187: Apologies are for the politically correct. We're done with that now.
192: Hey, no heavier-than-air shaming.
Your best bets would probably be Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Fort Worth, or Colorado Springs, right?
185: I was going to link that Yglesias piece, which I thought had some sharp bits, but it had too much stupid shit, like the part you quoted.
On the same topic -- optimism -- I thought Josh Marshall did better here.
Optimism is not primarily a prediction but an ethic, a philosophy, a way of confronting the world.
A friend in DC says "riots on 12th and K".
Part of my reason is that I hope everyone is half-lit by now, with full sparkly illumination to follow, and of course I am sober, cause pot is gone. Have a woman friend going to DC Georgetown to grab some kind of diploma in May, but I doubt Sessions will be able to restrain himself, so not confidant.
I need somewhere pretty to take the dogs. I get to dogsit in May.
198: Already a bunch of vids up. A solid occasion for some black cops to get a chance to pepper spray white people.
God, it's the black bloc dumbasses again, isn't it?
At least they smashed a Bank of America window. Those fucks.
194:I don't give a shit about politically correct. I do give a shit about not being an asshole, and I was acting like an asshole. It still is an interesting exercise in applied physics and political science. The R/D casualty differential is why we can't take the house.
You're usually very good at not being an asshole, especially by local standards.
Is tear gas naturally pink-purple or is that a dye they added to make it easier to see?
Are there any estimates on the size of the women's march? I've been looking around for information, but the only protest coverage seems to be focusing on clashes with the police.
Given the rural/urban split even nukes couldn't help the Dems win Congress. Contagion might be a better bet.
208: That's added. Easier to see the stream and also often as a way to mark the target.
This nuke discussion is reminding me of the secession one. It's not really about geographic separation, guys.
210: Hmm. Maybe a smallpox outbreak to cull the antivaxxers. Bonus: You'd get the Jill Stein voters, too.
I think most younger people in the U.S. are not vaccinated for small pox. At my school, they stopped the year before I was to get it.
That's a good point. We want something that targets the elderly.
Yes, Maricopa county, AZ and Tarrant county, TX were the only ones of the 50 largest counties to go majority Trump.
In other news, looking at absolute numbers instead of percentages is fucking stupid.
I was in one of the last cohorts to get a smallpox vaccination. My brother (3.5 years younger) didn't.
214: Damn. Constructive actions on public policy are always more complex than one expects.
215: Time, but that might be too slow-acting.
Let me be the first to suggest cutting Medicare by 40%.
For fuck's sake, how does he get a green card and the Mexican meat packer gets deported.
209: Never mind. I somehow missed that it was happening on the day after the inauguration, I thought it was today.
With modern gene editing techniques I guess it's maybe imaginable to engineer a virus that selectively targets certain groups or families. Probably all you can do is increase their likelihood for cancer, though.
I'm pretty sure Trump's coal-mine plan is about as lethal as we're going to get.
thousands of African-Americans, Latinx, and LGBTQ Democrats
Sorry, you've hit one of my bug-bears. I'm down with most politically correct phraseology, but please don't use the work "Latinx." It comes from a well-meaning place, but its a very poorly constructed word that breaks phonetic rules of both English and Spanish. Just look at the word and honestly try to explain why its not pronounced "La-TINKS."
There are good, inclusive motivations for not using "Latino" or "Latina," but, if you are trying to avoid those, just use the word "Latin."
People were using Latin@ for a couple of years, which I love, but which only works in writing and can't be pronounced.
Do people really use "Latin" in that sense? It sounds very old-fashioned to me.
Do people really use "Latin" in that sense? It sounds very old-fashioned to me.
The Latin people I spend time with do. But they are actually Latin Americans, rather than American Latins.
Since the best-case scenario is that America goes back to the politics of the Watergate era, we should maybe as Charo who Hispanic people self-identify.
Did you know that the guy who painted the famous Great Gatsby cover was the brother of Charo's first husband? Using Wikipedia to be sure I spell names correctly is teaching me a bunch of stuff.
That could be been even more informative, but I already closed the tab before seeing how to spell "Xavier Cugaut".
Except Charo is from Spain so she falls into the category of Hispanic but not Latin.
I count Spain, France, Italy, and Romania as "Latin."
Where do you put the Hispanic population of the Phillipines?
Are Brazilians Hispanic?
The ones who support Trump are Pig Latins.
I think they call themselves "Romoi".
241.1: Latin Asia.
241.2: Yes, except for the escaped Nazi war criminals and such.
This is hard. Can we just go back to "Latina/o"?
Tia Carrere is what, Latin Asian American?
I don't remember the 90s that well.
Actually, no. I think Moby is wrong about Latin Asia and so Tia Carerre would be a Hispanic Asian American.
To be fair to me, "Latin Asia" is something I just thought of now. It need some work.
There are entire university departments devoted to figuring this stuff out.
Ethnic identity or pointless bickering to pass the time?
I wonder if I get paid time off for "National Patriotism Day"?
If you open your heart to patriotism all these problems with names will disappear and you know that all these people are simply Americans, unless they're scum-sucking foreigners.
183/84: I'm going to vote Waukesha over Janesville as a target. Janesville has suffered enough. Also, generally unleashing a number of the plagues of Egypt on the Fox Valley.
(To calibrate, I also hold the unsavory opinion that UW-Madison should self-privatize a la Michigan if it's a choice between that and going down with the ship of state. But I think that ship has already, uh... sailed... down.)
So. Does this feel real for anyone else yet?
Is this a bad time for a joke about implants?
Anyway, I'm still deep into avoidance behavior. See above.
So. Does this feel real for anyone else yet?
I've been doing avoidance/acceptance* for months now, but I'll admit there was a distinct hiccup today.
*that is, not denial, but letting it seep in slowly, rather than dealing directly
263: Yes. I was just informed my health insurance has been cancelled. They apparently weren't planning on telling me, leaving me to find out when my medication coverage was declined. I have no idea if there's any correlation with Trump, but the insurance company knows damn well I have a preexisting condition and I wouldn't be surprised if they are playing a game to see if they can ditch me long enough for Trump to make it legal. My next step involves lawyers. Nasty lawyers. One last phone call Monday and the next is to someone who can put the fear of God (or more importantly losing money) in these assholes. Right now I'm going cold turkey on one of my psych meds so if I post anything crazier than usual you know why. If anyone knows a lawyer in the DC area who knows the ins and outs of health insurance and wakes up every morning desperately missing the taste of their enemies blood on their lips let me know. I want a vicious relentless asshole in my corner.
267: Was this COBRA through work?
On the plus side, my son came home from school today and asked me if I knew that Trump paid people to pee on him. It's good to be reassured you have the kids in a school that is in the bubble.
268:, No, Obamacare, through the exchange. The exchange claims I have insurance. Anthem BCBS told me they were going to send cards and I waited and waited but nothing. I called and they told me they cancelled it. No reason given. "I'll have to talk to my supervisor." They promised to get back to me by the end of business today and did not. That's the second time they've done this - I called on Tuesday, they promised to get back to me by Wednesday. Thursday I followed up (no call from them, natch) and they promised to get back to me on Friday (today). One last call and it's lawyer time.
That is probably their business model. Fuck up (or just flat out break the law) and figure a certain percentage of people will go to another company.
BCBS in MA is considered one of the better insurers, but elsewhere it seems like the pits.
167: Did we ever solidify into a DC meetup?
Don't think so. Sorry, I am enmeshed in vague plans to meet various extended family members* and meatspace friends. We do plan on at least hitting the Holocaust Museum on Sunday and LoC Map Room Monday AM.
"Liveblogging": You can sure get a shitload of inauguration gear very cheaply tonight (maybe it is always that way after the event; I have no prior data).
*One group of which were the ones I was trying to get of seeing at my first Unfogged meetup (some place in Brooklyn), and then ran into them walking down Atlantic Ave. on my way to the meetup...
Just checked into our hotel in Arlington. I'm thinking this weekend will be hectic enough that a meetup probably isn't the best idea.
If the psych medication happens to be Wellbutrin, I randomly have a small surplus. If not... now might not be the best time to start.
In other liveblogging distractive book listening news, Benedict Arnold and Gates about to get into with each other at Saratoga.
276: Abilify. I have Wellbutrin through the end of the month, and it's the one I'm most scared of going off, so if I can't get this sorted in a week or so I may have to take you up on that.
Absolutely, drop me a line. What a nightmare.
Looks like the executive orders are coming out. Some gibberish about easing the burden of Obamacare, plus a regulatory freeze?
30: I'm sorry, Charley. Since Mr. JPJ also did some GTMO work, I think I have some sense of the work you must have put into this case, and of the stunned sense of disbelief/betrayal that you are now experiencing.
168 -- Not waiting for trial. Never charged, because they don't think any crime was committed.
I just sent him an Arabic translation of Moby Dick. That'll pass a little time.
Last month, he asked for a box of chocolates so he and the remaining guys could celebrate the birth of my grandchild.
One last phone call Monday and the next is to someone who can put the fear of God (or more importantly losing money) in these assholes.
Call your state insurance regulator. When I worked for a health insurance company, we lived in fear of them.
284: Good suggestion. I want to bring the pain to these assholes.
283: an Arabic translation of Moby Dick
Hey, you found one! You'll have to let me know how you did that; I'd come up empty.
Last month, he asked for a box of chocolates so he and the remaining guys could celebrate the birth of my grandchild.
Aw geez. I've been resolutely stoic all day, because I'll be damned if that orange Twitler will ever see a tear fall from my eye.
So that's not tears that I'm crying, of course. Just maybe a little something that got caught in my eye.
FWIW, Togolosh, I have cold turkeyed on psych meds in the past and it can be rough. If you have access to any supply whatsoever I encourage you to get some pill cutters and try to taper down instead of just going full stop. Don't hesitate to shout if a few bucks to cover an out-of-pocket purchase will help while you fight the good fight. I can kick in a few bucks and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
288: It's good to know you've got my back but I don't think it's going to come to that. I can afford to spend a few bucks out of pocket and if absolute worst comes to worst I have a line on Canadian meds that are actually affordable. I suspect I'll have this sorted in a week or so, but in the mean time I'm pissed as hell.
On the plus side, my mom's green card came through before Trump decided that geriatric English ladies are a threat to the safety of the Republic. I was genuinely worried that Trump's INS would make life difficult.
BCBS in MA is considered one of the better insurers, but elsewhere it seems like the pits.
Its highly dependent on the quality of your regional BCBS franchisee.
Can I talk for a moment about something that is scary ? Warning I am drunk , I know this woman tangentially, and know other people who know her very well. Think whatever you want to think about her tweet, which was certainly ill advised. But my first thought when I heard this story is that at least one of her employers, the burlesque troop, is not the type of organization that seems to me usually inclined to fire someone for a exprsssing a sentiment like that. So their statement in the article seemed very odd. Then I learned that all the other members of the organization have personally been receiving death threats ever since this tweet went viral. And threats aimed at their children. Through twitter, but not only through twitter. Some by email. Some by phone--at least one woman on her home phone. Some coming from people in close physical proximity (nearby towns, etc). They put out that statement because they weee legitimately terrified. And why is there a similar statement in the article denouncing her by her former employer, where she hasn't even worked for nearly a year? Exact same reason. Because fucking crazy people googled her and some online info still had her name associated with the former employer, and then people there started receiving personal death threats. And so while she's being held in jail and questioned by the secret service, for what was pretty obviously a joke (if inappropriate), psychos are making very real threats against everyone in her life and no one is doing anything about it. These people are fucking nuts and they are running an aggressive game of mass intimidation. This is not ok.
Very few typos for drunk.
I've been thinking about the save problem. You've got their side with a pack wearing the functional equivalent of Klan hoods circling an individual they can isolate and who is more vulnerable because they have known family members and such.
I'm not sure people appreciate what a serious mistake it is to give this kind of power to these kind of people.
The hidden downside of violent, arrogant, paranoid men with low impulse control and absurdly high levels of narcissism.
292: I am so buying some guns. Lotta friends are talking about getting their conceal-carry license too.
No joke, I had to miss a dose of Lexapro this week because of insurance shifting out from under me and that was no fun at all. CharleyCarp's advice about tapering is the right advice for the powerless, but I certainly like the idea of nasty lawyers making the fuckers bleed.
Chopper's advice, I mean. I may not be entirely undrunk.
I'm drinking my Christmas present, which is Canada's finest.
Leaving aside the violence, how come urple knows burlesque performers and I don't?
What, your smoke-filled bar doesn't do burlesque shows?
It doesn't have any live entertainment.
When I had a duo "band" in Portland OR, we played a bar that sometimes had arty burlesque shows. Like there was a reverse stripper who started out mostly nude and assembled stylish clothing for herself out of duct tape and garbage bags over the course of the performance. This is all reputed; unfortunately I wasn't there that night.
Is Pittsburgh not butlesquey? I always assume things are basically the same there, here, and in urpleville. I certainly know a few burlesque performers. I took one class and learned to remove elbow-length gloves with my teeth, but even the me of a decade ago wasn't going to do anything that required wearing heels.
I think this probably says more about Moby than about Pittsburgh.
a reverse stripper who started out mostly nude and assembled stylish clothing for herself out of duct tape and garbage bags
Hmph. When we do this in Minneapolis, we call it performance art.
One person shot on UW Seattle campus amid protests against a Milo Yiannopoulos talk. No other info.
Did Dennis Kucinich get extra-odd over the last 8 years? He just tweeted a laudatory response to Trump's speech, and looking back at his TL he's apparently been assangeing it up about Russian-interference claims being fake.
Good morning, I guess, it's 9:30 AM here and I'm hungover.
Heard he's already repealing parts of the ACA.
313: No, mostly symbolic, could have some effect but nothing like what's contemplated legislatively.
It's 9:32 PM here and I'm drinking scotch. He issued a vague executive order to halt some regulatory processes without much detail. Only Congress can repeal the ACA.
Dammit, Minivet. That'll teach me to drink on a Friday night.
And apparently Unfogged timestamp time is off a few minutes from both my phone and computer.
315.last of course, I knew that too.
Cheers teo and Minivet and whoever else is lurking.
I went with vodka because of the symbolism.
267 That's fucking awful togolosh. I hope you find that vicious asshole lawyer.
My wife was doing some research last night and apparently through her we can get Italian citizenship relatively easily* so we might do that to keep options open as far as EU access for work, university. Assuming there still is an EU in a few years.
*About as much effort and cost as it took to get our current visas.
So, a national day of patriotism?
"When we are sad, we drink vodka and cry. When we are happy, we drink vodka and cry."
311: Did Dennis Kucinich get extra-odd over the last 8 years? He just tweeted a laudatory response to Trump's speech
You might check this guy out. Commenters are also informative
I don't follow Kucinich, but the economic far left I follow are fed up enough to hope Trumpism is useful for destroying the Wall Street/neoliberal/Obama-Clinton left wing of the Democratic Party. If they had won, we might compromise, but losing they can't protect anybody or anything except their own bank accounts.
There was a commenter over at LGM who told that crowd "Choose."
Ahh, whatever. If you want to know our positions and feelings, read some Jacobin, Counterpunch, New Inquiry instead of Vox, NYT, Wapo, Slate
My local Starbucks is full of women wearing pink pussy hats. Also cops.
Have some Chris Hedges on the Women's March
Politics is a game of fear. Those who do not have the ability to make power elites afraid do not succeed. All of the movements that opened up the democratic space in America--the abolitionists, the suffragists, the labor movement, the communists, the socialists, the anarchists and the civil rights movement--developed a critical mass and militancy that forced the centers of power to respond. The platitudes about justice, equality and democracy are just that. Only when power becomes worried about its survival does it react. Appealing to its better nature is useless. It doesn't have one.
The state, he said, has learned how to manipulate familiar protest rituals and render them impotent. He dismisses as meaningless political theater the kind of boutique activism in which demonstrators coordinate and even choreograph protests with the police. Activists spend a few hours, maybe a night, in jail and then assume they have credentials as dissidents. Gecan called these "fake arrests." "Everyone looks like they've had an action," he said. "They haven't."
He called the choreographed protests sterile re-enactments of the protests of the 1960s. Genuine protest, he said, has to defy the rules. It cannot be predicable. It has to disrupt power. It has to surprise those in authority. And these kinds of protests are greeted with anger by the state.
Whoever asks me to choose, I'm choosing the other side.
The UW shooting is looking increasingly ugly. Apparently protesters were throwing rocks at people waiting to see Milo Wossname the fascist provocateur right before it happened.
321: "Hug Whitey Day" was the original idea, but a sex offender had used it on a sign for his frotteurism spree.
Anyone seen any good pics of the crowd size at the Women's March in DC? I want to savor the extent of Trump's humiliation.
I am disappointed he isn't bringing back National Brotherhood Week. We've got the song already and everything.
Apparently protesters were throwing rocks at people waiting to see Milo Wossname the fascist provocateur right before it happened.
This is why even low-level violence is a bad idea for protesters. That shit escalates. And we aren't going to win if it comes down to a shooting match.
It's not like blocking access to the talk would somehow be seen as non-violent but blocking access and throwing rocks is a bridge too far. Anything that's effective is going to be seen as "violent" by the type of guy who would fire a shot at a guy who was urging protestors to be peaceful.
If the early reports are right, I don't see how a Seattle jury would Zimmerman the shooter.
Is there any kind of a DC March meetup or contingent? Sorry if this is the wrong thread and I'm not sure I can make it, I'm with my wife's coworkers at the moment, but I might as well check.
302: my wife runs an aerial arts studio (Lyra, silks, trapeze, that sort of thing) and a lot of them train there. Which means I also get drug to their shows and also see them in other social settings.
It's not like blocking access to the talk would somehow be seen as non-violent but blocking access and throwing rocks is a bridge too far.
The difference between blocking access and throwing rocks is that a rock to the head could really hurt someone. A shooting in a context where people are throwing rocks can be argued as a justified act of self defense in a way that shooting in the context of "damned hippies won't get out of my way" cannot.
Although, in this case, I haven't seen much coverage of the Seattle thing. Is there a good link?
335: I thought she was a psychologist. Interesting. Do they also spike your drinks?
Pole and lyra in particular are what I think they tend to train on.
337: she is a psychologist in theory but she has scaled back her hours on that (usually no more than one day/week) since she opened the aerial studio.
I feel like I'm missing a joke in the question but no, I don't think they spike my drinks?
292: I am so buying some guns.
Talk is cheap!
336: I suspect "damned hippies won't get out my way" will work in much of the country where a gun is seen as a reasonable reply to a rock thrown by another person.
For example.
340: So are guns, unless you're fancy.
335: Crazy, I know lots of aerial arts folx here too! Actually, it's more through the fire arts crowd that I know both burlesque performers and aerialists. So probably no direct friends in common.
I was just about to post the link in 341. Good thing I previewed. That would have been humiliating.
I was just about to post the link in 341. Good thing I previewed. That would have been humiliating.
Anyway, I suspect that the intersection of protests that a Trumpist would find non-violent and protests that would be effective at impeding anything Trump wants to do is a null set.
340: I know, but everyone who's likely to drive me to the gun shop is at the protests right now. I've got a bonus coming up in about a month too.
344: I'll get out of your head now. I was just trying to see if you really mean "drug" or "dragged" in 335.
What's the preferred rust inhibitor for long-term subterranean firearm storage nowadays? Do people still use Cosmoline?
Insurance update! Anthem BCBS has cancelled my insurance because I am outside the coverage area. The exchange says it's impossible to sign up for a plan that's outside the coverage area - the zip code is one of the things used to select plans, so this is Anthem's fuckup. I cancelled the insurance on the exchange and got new insurance but it does not start until March 1st. The exchange lady said that Anthem BCBS is on the hook for covering me in the meantime since it's their fuckup accepting me in the first place. She also filed a report with the state insurance commissioner. I'll be filing a similar report on Monday, and hiring a lawyer to harass Anthem until the cover my meds in the gap between coverages. I'm putting meds on a credit card in the mean time and anticipating getting reimbursed.
Fuck everything about our stupid sociopathic insurance system. Fuck everyone who doesn't grasp that social insurance is a legitimate function of government. Fuck Trump, Anthem BCBS, and fuck Paul Ryan especially. Fuck fuck fuck.
OTOH the Women's march has topped Trump's inaugural crowd by a clear margin. I wish I could have been there but my back is acting up and I can't risk aggravating it until I have health insurance. Pink Pussy Hat Power to all who made it there! Fuck fascist fuckers.
Wait, is "drug" really incorrect? I did not know that. My hillbilly is showing.
Wait, is "drug" really incorrect? I did not know that. My hillbilly is showing.
I don't know if it is incorrect or not, but I read that as "I also get to drug their shows" not "I also get drug to their shows".
I suspect 337 means I wasn't the only one who had that as their first thought.
Wait, is "drug" really incorrect? I did not know that. My hillbilly is showing. Screw you, I am a descriptionist not a prescriptionist!
FTFY
"What's the preferred rust inhibitor for long-term subterranean firearm storage nowadays"
Definition of an optimist: someone who expects his guns to be unused long enough to rust.
351: Are you living in a cave? Cosmoline can be hell to clean off. Use Eezox or Breakfree CLP.
355 I read it as "I also get drugs to their shows" like urple has a sideline in dealing.
Anyway, I suspect that the intersection of protests that a Trumpist would find non-violent and protests that would be effective at impeding anything Trump wants to do is a null set.
Well, who cares what the Trumpists think is non-violent? But we should have standards for ourselves, and we aren't going to be able to keep the peace if they aren't maintained.
361 was me. Maybe I should click that "Remember personal info" box.
Are you living in a cave?
Why not start now before the 2019 Trump-crash comes and all the good caves are taken?
361: I think it matters very much if one side is using anonymous death threats as standard procedure and the other side gets all worried if a few kids out of thousands throw rocks.
At the march. Huge numbers of people. The difference from yesterday, when I was also in town, is hilarious.
I think it matters very much if one side is using anonymous death threats as standard procedure and the other side gets all worried if a few kids out of thousands throw rocks. .
Well, we can't control what the other side does. Its unacceptable to make death threats, but they do a lot of unacceptable things. But our side also doing unacceptable things is just going to escalate the level of unacceptableness all around.
If a few kids out of thousands are pushing that level of escalation by throwing rocks, those kids need to be reigned in so their passion can be put to a more constructive use.
In theory. In practice I'm pretty sure the guy who sucked punched Richard Spencer is doing good work.
"Over 1000" in Vienna which is pretty small but not too bad for all things considered. Felt good to be there.
I''m in favor of the Nazi puncher and opposed to the rock throwers. I don't have a well developed ethical theory to explain this, however.
The rock throwers were throwing at people going to see Milo Whatever. It's basically Nazis all around, unless "Gay Nazi" is a lesser offense. (Paging Ernst Röhm)
For togolosh, Barry and anyone else unable to hit the streets today, or heck everyone, your enjoyment of the pink-hued photos will be enhanced by reading this http://www.yarnharlot.ca/2017/01/rainbow-boy/
and then scroll down to the comment from marilynr and savor all the ensuing pink hats being knitted in her name. There are ready made hats out there today, sure, but there truly was a nationwide run on pink yarn and I can tell from the photos a good proportion of those hats were hand knit. So much about mobilizing resistance starts with cultivating widespread personal identification and commitment. Take heart!
I'm not saying it's a good idea to throw rocks. I'm saying that with that crowd I don't believe for a minute that guy legitimately felt threatened by the rocks. And the reports I've seen said the guy who got shot was not throwing rocks but standing between the other protestors and the Nazis trying to calm things down.
those kids need to be reigned in
Democracy is dead!
The best line from 372 is "The tabloids indicate Clinton, her husband and her daughter may be indicted for criminal behavior."
Yes, my reliable source for political news: the tabloids!
And I can report that the Yarn Harlot aka Stephanie Pearl McPhee is yowza sexy. She has this voice .... wow the woman has "it."
Apparently the march here is quite well attended. STP cops saying 45k-60k which would dwarf any demo I've seen here, even the 2/15/2003 protest, which was huge.
377 According to Wikipedia she's also an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant!
Soviet Tank Commander/Lactation Consultant I think I've seen your match made in heaven.
Yarn is for the bourgeois.
380 What? Those tanks are cold, especially in the Russian winter.
Weaving is for the masses.
Also factually incorrect. As les Tricoteuses can attest. Yesteday's Phrygian cap is today's pussy hat.
They just needed good factory jobs.
When we went to the museums at Unfoggedycon, I got this really awesome book about Russian textiles in the bazaars of Central Asia. It's so great. The designs are mind-blowing.
https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Textiles-Printed-Bazaars-Central/dp/0810993813
https://twitter.com/NLKostuum/status/822764037595398145
That look suspiciously like German.
352: Insurance update!
So glad to hear it, togolosh. I was puzzled as to how this could happen, concerned that it augured things to come, like, now (rather than a year or several from now). But if it's a fuckup on their part, it looks like there's a remedy, and it doesn't necessarily have to do with an ACA roll-back. Trump's much-reported executive order on the ACA apparently has few teeth. At the moment.
Some of his other actions taken are worse; it's not as though I wave it away.
Despite their weakness for overdesigned AFVs, you have to admit the Germans have a healthy respect for mammaries.
Yesteday's Phrygian cap is today's pussy hat.
Glad I wasn't the only one that with that thought.
I am trying hard to think of an explanation for this advert that isn't "join the Royal Marines and stalk and kill rednecks" bit it's difficult.
https://youtu.be/cWt7trGY_BU
I am trying hard to think of an explanation for this advert that isn't "join the Royal Marines and stalk and kill rednecks" bit it's difficult.
https://youtu.be/cWt7trGY_BU
Dear Opinionated Soviet Tank Commander/Lactation Consultant, I just want to point out that weaving is a more capital intensive mode of textile creation than two sticks and some string (but of course see, e.g., back strap looms). Whilst we wait for all capital to be vested in the workers, knitting will keep us warm for the fight.
Weaving makes a proletariat that is aware of class.
Was Trump's sister (the federal judge) at the inauguration? I saw no mention of it.
FFS, can Trump just drop trou so we can be done with all the efforts to overcompensate?
393: Yes, please send to Florida, a.s.a.p.
One of the first possibly encouraging news I've heard:CNN is running ads asking people to call their Senators and tell them to confirm Sessions.
395: Comrade Stalin would like to know why you think that capital in the Soviet Union isn't vested in the workers and whether or not you have Trotskist sympathies.
399: the Royal Marines are mountain and Arctic warfare specialists. In accordance with hundreds of years of British military tradition, this makes them the ideal troops to be deployed to Florida. (My own grandfather spent two years training in mountain and Arctic warfare and when his battalion first went into battle it was below sea level.)
392: He also wants to know why you have such a great familiarity with foreigners.
402: Is "amphibiousness" something commonly desired by young British people?
I guess that's why people in Goldfinger think you'll suffocate if you paint your whole body.
About 2,000 showed up for the Anchorage march, in heavy snow. I was there.
About a thousand here in Berlin. I was one of them.
Hooray Doug!
Heading out now, please accept my cheers Unfogeddy marchers...
120,000 is the current estimate for the Seattle march, and I don't know where they counted, because transit of all kinds was so full that people joined and left in the middle. Very low-key, mostly devoted to getting people committed to existing groups to do the real work.
Belatedly, CharleyCarp, I'm so sorry.
Frivolously, I am in the floor show for a Strauss concert tonight and (a) my dogs are already barking (b) I can't figure out a dance-secure, evening-formal pussyhat.
There's been a lot made of the difference between the Obama 2009 crowd and the Trump 2017 crowd, but there were a LOT more people out today in DC than in 2009. Really amazing.
We are an island people.
How many times did Churchill use the term "island" in his famous "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" speech? I'm pretty sure it was more ten. Probably "Island" should be capitalized, because Churchill.
Islands in the stream, that is what we are.
Five. And yes, almost definitely capitalised.
Eh, I'm pretty sure it was more than five.
My dad, who was no great booster of the British Empire, to say the least, had a genuine admiration of Churchill's Some Chicken, Some Neck! speech. Ottawa, 1942; and almost everyone in Canada had some sort of connection to "our boys" overseas.
When I was a kid my parents had an LP of Winston Churchill rereading his best WWII speeches. A fun listen. The guy really was a great orator.
421: I also just counted. I count seven; so I was mistaken/exaggerating when I said "more than ten."
The broader point, of course, is that Churchill was a highly objectionable Brit-Empire imperialist who nevertheless helped save us from the tyranny of the Nazis.
So, that Seattle shooting is looking more peculiar.
I guess the moral of the story is to be sure that the crossed-out part of your crossed-out swastika tattoo is visible not just in the light of the studio, but in other conditions.
Or maybe "Don't bring a gun to a protest".
A thing the pink hats did accomplish is to keep Trump folks from pretending overheads from today were from the inauguration.
Probably pointless, but the White House petition page is still up. I figure at least Trump's refusing to respond to petitions that get 100,000 signatures will force a story on the tax returns again.
428: Actually, that may not stop them. They are truly unhinged* and shameless. A bad combo.
*Or at least they work for an unhinged person.
When I was a kid my parents had an LP of Winston Churchill rereading his best WWII speeches.
So awesome. And yeah, he really was a great orator (his opposition to Irish and Indian independence notwithstanding).
When I was a kid, my parents had a scratchy 45 of Bobby Gimby's Canadian Centennial Song:
CA-NA-DA
(One little two little three Canadians)
We love thee
(Now we are twenty million)
CA-NA-DA
(Four little five little six little Provinces)
Proud and free
(Now we are ten and the Territories sea to sea)
North south east west
There'll be happy times,
Church Bells will ring, ring, ring
It's the hundredth anniversary of
Confederation
Ev'rybody sing together!
CA-NA-DA
(Un petit, deux petits, trois Canadiens)
Notre pays
(Maintenant, nous sommes vingt million)
CA-NA-DA
(Quatre petites, cinq petites, six petites provinces)
Longue vie
(Et nous sommes dix plus les Territoires; Longue vie)
Also, my parents had a Tom Lehrer album where he sang the "Vatican Rag." Edgy!
Jesus, 427 seconded. Although I kind of feel like if you go to a protest and shoot someone, getting released after you explain how it was a big mix up doesn't seem like normal cop behavior.
If they don't have any reason to think he's a flight risk, I don't think it's common to arrest somebody before an investigation when the issue is in doubt.
Anyway, how do you know the guy with the crossed-out swastika tattoo isn't a guy with a swastika tattoo who put on a temporary crossed-out tattoo to go undercover.
428 is a good point but yeah, 430 they're really shameless. Sean Spicer is the new Comical Ali/Baghdad Bob.
That press conference was pretty amazing.
Whatever psychological itch was being scratched there (Trump had to have told him to do it), it can't be good.
Although I kind of feel like if you go to a protest and shoot someone, getting released after you explain how it was a big mix up doesn't seem like normal cop behavior.
Its one of those special rules for white people.
I read he was Asian, but I haven't seen that reported again.
Yeah, 50-something Asian-American was a bit of a surprise. That initial reports may not have been accurate was not.
That was a wet and wonderful experience!
Went to first marches when was under five, with my mom. Completely ridiculously happy to continue the tradition and go with the kid today.
Selah, who's almost four and a half, woke up crying earlier this week because she didn't want to go to the march in case Trump showed up. I reassured her on that and talked her into trying, and then she came into my room before bedtime tonight on the verge of tears because she wanted to go back to the march again. I should probably have a conversation with the older girls about WHY they were given mock-pee to dump on the effigy (which Selah wouldn't approach because it was too much like a scary costume) but on the other hand maybe I'll just let that one go unless or until they ask.
"Because real urine is too expensive.
"This item isn't currently sold in stores."
"This item isn't currently sold in stores, laydeez."
May is National Watersports Month. I assume there will be a presidential proclamation.
Selah was also very upset that after I'd written my phone number on her arm, she never got the chance to get lost and find a police officer or someone in a pink kitten hat who looked like a grandma to ask the safe-seeming adult to call me. Come to think of it, that may be why she refused a bath and wanted to go back for another try.
Apparently about 50,000 in Phila. I know for sure there were 30,000 in the time I was there and I didn't get near the front. Mood was VERY relaxed and friendly, far more so than any antiwar or Black Lives Matter protest I've attended. Civil Affairs police in Philadelphia are a lot more chill than they were fifteen years ago, but the fact that the crowd was very white (probably 80%) probably unfortunately had something to do with today's very low-key vibe.
******
Charley, that is unutterably sad and infuriating. I'm so very sorry.
One of the organizers is now estimating the Anchorage march got more like 3,500 people than the 2,000 estimated earlier. Fairbanks may have gotten about 2,000 despite temperatures as low as -20. 38 people in Unalakleet and 10 in Adak. I haven't seen estimates for any of the other marches in the state, but there were a lot.
It looks like that article added a couple more pictures since the earlier version I had seen, with attendance estimates in the captions: 150-170 in Haines and "a couple dozen" in Barrow.
437 latest has Trump throwing Spicer under the bus. Day 2, people.
453 is great -20. Respect.
So is 449.
I already posted it on FB, but Ashley Judd's speech is worth putting here too.
the Royal Marines are mountain and Arctic warfare specialists
In keeping with the long-nurtured British ambition to seize Greenland?
Historically it's been the Danes fucking the Norwegians rather than vice versa.
457: well, we already failed to stop one dictator seizing Norway, so the idea is to train really hard and then (Inigo Montana voice) the next time we will no fail.
Now I feel bad we didn't round up the 10 Americans in our city to hold a march.
462: I figured. That, or preparation for the next Jacobite rising.
Charley, that's a dreadful story. I only have an email from 2007 for you. Mine from then still works of you want to tell me more
I'm in Prague right now, which makes it easier to still live in denial that a baby-fingered orange fascist has taken over the Whitehouse. I did wake up at 4 am on the day of the inauguration hyperventilating, just as I did the day after the election. I'm a little sad to miss out on the protests in the US (would have probably gone to DC had I been in the US), and I feel a bit guilty to not have gone to the Prague protest. Instead I went to Kutna Hora to see the awesomely macabre ossuary. In some ways staring at piles of bones arranged in Christian religious symbols feels like a fitting metaphor for our new administration.
That ossuary is deeply weird. The skulls arranged in hanging chains have a kind of Christmas in the Temple of Doom feel. And it's recent too - late 19th century. It's not some High M8ddle Ages weirdness. The guy who did it probably took a tram to work.
But, even amid the respectable commuters and clean orderly convenience, he could not shake from his mind the apprehension of older, darker uses lurking beneath the mechanical purposefulness of the bright dawning age of progress.
Yes. I've heard Eastern Europe is just like that.
It was awesome. The sequels decreasingly so.
Or my lamentable offspring.
You did better than some Austrians I could name.
I have yet to find an organisers' size estimate for the Washington march. Did they give up trying to count?
When I was a kid my parents had an LP of Winston Churchill rereading his best WWII speeches.
I don't know if it's true but I was told that all the recordings of Churchill's wartime speeches were made in studios after the event by actors, because in most cases they couldn't record them live and if they have the quality would have been terrible.
Or some political parties I can think of.
Although I kind of feel like if you go to a protest and shoot someone, getting released after you explain how it was a big mix up doesn't seem like normal cop behavior.
This is totally standard behavior if a cop is the shooter.
I am also feeling totally confused by 456. Is that a speech or jazz poetry?
Kapuscinski has this story about a woman in Zambia hearing one of those recordings and starting a cult around it, convinced it was the voice of god. Probably false, but good story.
Wonderful book on ossuaries by Denise Inge, "A Tour of Bones" from memory. She was herself dying when she wrote it. Highly recommended. Can't remember if the Czech one is there.
Could there possibly be a whole book worth of more interesting ones?
Monotheists have no imagination.
478: I always assumed that if I shot someone that they'd throw me in the hoosegow until arraignment, like on Law and Order. Incidentally, that circle/strikeout trick is a good one. My brother once had to represent a dude with a swastika facial tattoo at an immigration hearing, and that would have come in handy.
Is that a speech or jazz poetry?
Haven't watched it but read that she was reading a poem by some teenager.
It's better than "No Nazis on the first Tuesday of the month because of street cleaning."
I am unsurprised by my continuing relevance.
I went to a women's march in Norway. No invading Danes or Brits, though there were a suspiciously large number of Premier League jerseys.
I've been drinking beer and watching biathalon in sports pubs as part of the denial. Now in addition to Trump, I'm lamenting returning to a land where no one shows skiing on TV, much less in sports pubs, and where the beer is not good and ridiculously cheap. In Kutna Hora I watched the men's relay and drank a half litre of Radagast for about 85 cents. (In Prague we generally have to pay about a whole $1.40.)
Late to the thread as always but if getting fucked by Danes or Norwegians is still on the table, I'm, uh, available and a short flight away.
Do you know how to ski and shoot a rifle?
Things I never in life thought I would do:
Approach a pair of police and say, "It sure looks like there is a lot of smoke coming out of the back left tower of that building. Is that normal?" I did not add that there was orange light flickering up and down inside the smoke.
Why do I tell you this? Because the building in question was the seat of the German parliament.
That's right, two days after Trump is inaugurated, and I am literally asking cops if the Reichstag is on fire.
(I had spotted the weird light and smoke from all the way over at the Friedrichstrasse train station. There was nobody, but nobody, on those particular streets on a cold Sunday evening.)
They told me it wasn't a dumb question and there's a kitchen up there to serve the cafe under the dome. Sometimes the kitchen work produces a lot of smoke, they said.
If this is second time as farce, I'll take it.
It's Epic Movie-level farce. Not even close to Airplane! quality.
The first time as Airplane!-level farce, the second time as Epic Movie-level farce.