Do you also meet with the Russian ambassador?
When the President does it its not treason. It's humanitarianism.
Sense police chastise local blogger.
McConnell as close to being honest as he gets-"STOP IT! YOU'RE ENDANGERING THE TAX CUTS!"
He's also out with the farcical Merrick Garland for FBI Director recommendation.
I read the Washington Post story and I read General McMasters response, which tends to refute the story, rebut the story. I think we could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so that we can focus on our agenda, which is deregulations, tax reform, repealing and replacing Obamacare.
Is there something so horrible a Republican Congress wouldn't endorse it if they thought it would get them some tax cuts?
I mean, of course there isn't. The question should have been "Is there something so horrible a Republican Congress will see that endorsing it hurts their ability to make tax cuts?"
Like Trump I'm guessing, I'm mostly curious who is doing all the leaking.
What about Russian undressing?
What? In order to piss on the bed?
Turns out the Constitution *is* a suicide pact.
"Do what I want or I kill both of us" can be an effective negotiation strategy.
14: But only as a dominance thing, not a sex thing.
Yggles on Twitter: They put McMaster & Tillerson out to deny the story last night, then Trump confirms it this morning.
13: Maybe it is Trump. He calls up reporters to yell at them for not telling about how great he is , and then he blurts stuff out and then says, "That's off the record!" and they go along, so he'll keep calling them.
20: I'm pretty sure Trump hates his allies more than his adversaries. Stopped clocks and all.
It's like with Sauron and orcs, except Trump can't even find a contractor to build a cave-fortress to stuff them in.
I've seen both Egypt and Jordan floated as possible sources for the intel, but both reports seemed speculative and I assume it would prominently reported if the country were to become known.
22: "Who wants to be my Baghdad Bob today?"
24: look at Trump's public schedule for today. It's Jordan.
It's getting so ridiculous I'm almost coming around to the Producers thesis again. Not really though.
Poor Jill Hennessy. I still can't see why they canceled that.
29: Look for large blocks of bets going short on time in office.
29: Clicked back to Twitter and at the top of my feed:
Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur
41s
Springtime 🌳☀️ @ United States Capitol instagram.com/p/BUKKIkjFc92/
Look for large beetles shaping and rolling away balls of shit.
What kind of pictorial bullshit is 32?
32: Those emojis don't render for me, on clickthrough. Are they pertinent?
I'm assuming Stormcrow is actually literate and just lazily pasted from some preschooler. But I won't let that stop me imprecating.
Go to the instagram and all is revealed.
They used to call me "Sleazy D"
I forgot the live mic so easily
Now they call me "Treasy D"
Sharin' info with the KGB
Yes, quickly grabbed from Twitter and pasted with the level of care appropriate for a stupid "Springtime for Hitler and Germany" joke. They were a tree and a sun for those who are curious.
It wasn't that their spying
Helped me win the election
It wasn't that their peeing
Gave me an erection
At voting booth today I signed the sheet to potentially be an election worker. It's a paid position. Profit!
You know who else didn't have a sense of humor?
NYTime says it was Israel.
And from the article:
General McMaster [during his wraithing ceremony] added that the president, who he said was unaware of the source of the information, made a spur-of-the-moment decision to tell the Russians what he knew.
Say what you will about "spur-of-the-moment" at least its an ethos action plan.
McMaster has to work extra hard to defend Trump, because he's the leaker.
(Trying out different storylines)
Seems like an attempted dig that McMaster described the disclossure as "wholly appropriate to that conversation". If the entire conversation was equally ridiculous/alarming...
Just reread the OP and I finally figured out that heebie was admitting to being the leaker.
Single poll, and PPP is a left-leaning shop, but this has a lot of juicy results: , especially 11-point Dem margin in generic Congressional ballot, up from 6 points last month, and Trump approval among Republicans down to 76%. Also growing support among GOP for independent Russia investigation (37%), and, positively for rule-of-law, only 36% of GOP think it is the job of the FBI director to be loyal to the President.
Also some baffling Civil War alt-hist questions. "Think Andrew Jackson would have stopped the Civil War from happening if he was alive then": overall 16% yes, 43% no, among GOP 19%/38%. Then the same question but about Donald Trump: overall 20%/53%, GOP 35%/31%.
If only Rebecca West were alive to write The New, New Meaning of Treason.
"Think Andrew Jackson would have stopped the Civil War from happening if he was alive then"
Why stop there? They should ask people if Andrew Jackson would have stood up to Hitler at Munich.
If Andrew Jackson had been riding in that car in Dallas in '63, he wouldn't have been assassinated. Man was bulletproof.
Since Trump is right now meeting Erdoğan, I expect to hear that he's offered Turkey all of Cyprus in exchange for the rights to open a golf resort.
Cyprus, and Gulen's head, as a friendly gesture.
And these so-called extradition laws won't get in the way of his strong, decisive leadership.
Weird local history fact: Gulen isn't even the first loser of a foreign power struggle to hang out in the region.
But Erdogan has to keep his hands off the Russian money-laundering banks there.
I guess I think it's a good question to ask whether Jackson would have prevented the Civil War had he been elected in 1856. Buchanan is often ranked near or at the bottom of the presidents for his weakness and his vices correspond to Jackson's virtues.
Maybe? If he did, it would have delayed the freeing of the slaves, maybe for a long time.
Also some baffling Civil War alt-hist questions. "Think Andrew Jackson would have stopped the Civil War from happening if he was alive then"
WhoTF gave them good money to ask people that?
54 - 58 all suffer from using an overly-rational model of Trump's thought process.
My model only needs to assume Erdoğan is rational.
So after Trump is out of office he's just going to move to Moscow and tell them everything in exchange for a lot of money and living in a country where people like him, right?
All of his happiest marriages have been to women of Slavic origin.
62 is truth. Cyprus's only hope is that annexation would unacceptably affront Putin's neo-Orthodox chauvinism.
63: I have kept forgetting all this time to link to Thurber's "The Greatest Man the World." (And via Google i see that the LA Times beat me to it.)
Looking back on it now, from the vantage point of 1950, one can only marvel that it hadn't happened long before it did. The United States of America had been, ever since Kitty Hawk, blindly constructing the elaborate petard by which, sooner or later, it must be hoist.
63: It's been so long since we've had a traitor ex-President (Tyler; Pierce wasn't well liked during the war, either) that I even forgot it could be a possibility.
46: touché. Is that worse than if it were Jordan?
Gulen isn't even the first loser of a foreign power struggle to hang out in the region.
Does it count as "hang out" if you live in New York and just drove out there briefly to find a discreet JP to provide a marriage license?
68: Definitely, at least for the poor shmuck in the ISIS leadership who's about to be outed as a mole.
Israel does fit the "previously expressed concern about Trump admin info security" part of the story.
69: We Pennamites'll take what we can get.
71: Yes*. And seems to be getting some comments in Israeli press along with concerns on how McMaster referred to the location of the Western Wall. And apparently he will no longer be speaking at Masada per NYT's Peter Baker: Trump speech at Masada is called off, due to logistical and weather challenges. Instead, he'll deliver it at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. But *will* be giving a speech on Islam.
It's nice to have these stable packets of the world n to visit as dry runs for the real challenging diplomacy to come.
57: Lon Nol was practically a neighbor when I lived in California. Then he died. Then I moved.
In private, three administration officials conceded that they could not publicly articulate their most compelling -- and honest -- defense of the president: that Mr. Trump, a hasty and indifferent reader of printed briefing materials, simply did not possess the interest or knowledge of the granular details of intelligence gathering to leak specific sources and methods of intelligence gathering that would do harm to United States allies.
So it's all good. Turn the fucker loose on the Middle East. And my God, what will the NATO meeting actually be like?
57: Napoleon's brother went to New Jersey, not far from there.
The speech on Islam will be one for the ages.
76 is a form of wishful thinking (on the part of the administration members) that should get called out more often in this day and age. No, ffs, his stupidity and incuriosity is not going to protect us. Stop.
He's visiting Saudi, Israel, and the Vatican in succession. I foresee the first ever unified front among the Abrahamic faiths.
76.quote makes it sound like they're being more honest (because it denigrates their boss) but it's still complete bullshit: nobody ever suggested he revealed specific sources/methods to the Russians, just the obtained information, with too much specificity.
My guess is that the speech on Islam will be super boring and basically a repetition of Obama's general line, but with the words "radical Islamic terrorism" spoken. You know, a religion hijacked by terrorists etc.
Dana Houle @DanaHoule
3h
This is mentioned in Revelations
AFP news agency @AFP
#BREAKING Trump to give speech on Islam in Saudi Arabia: White House
I mean, it's Trump so maybe he declares that America will liberate Mecca for Christ or what have you but my guess is that this speech has been written by someone in DoD and that the Bannon crowd has been kept far away from it.
82: Best that can be hoped for is a teleprompter speech. And on that day he will truly become a world leader.
I'm thinking he's going to say that the Sunnis are right, and that Shiism is a grave heresy that must be fought wherever it appears.
That seems about right. Ali accepted the succession of what's his name as the first caliph.
Has anybody tried to sit them down and explain it carefully?
Trump is a 70yo obese man who refuses to exercise, with a family history of dementia and early signs of his own. I don't think we have to worry much about him remembering many secrets to reveal post-presidency, if he makes it that far.
Exercising saps his finite life force; lay off, will ya?
86: Complete with a red (Sunni)/blue (Shia) colored map of the Middle East showing who controls what area.
"Here, you can have this, it's the final map of religious control. "It's pretty good, right? The red is obviously the good Muslims except for ISIS. I hate ISIS more than anybody, I'm a tremendous ISIS hater. Why we announced when we were going into Mosul we'll never know. A tremendous mistake.
The Shia had a tremendous opportunity because the Electoral College, as I said, is so skewed to them. It's a very, very hard thing for the Sunni to win."
..and turns out they forget to color Israel a different color.
Trump is a 70yo obese man who refuses to exercise
That kind of thing is never reliable enough to kill the right people. Jesse Helms gave up smoking at the age of 71, retired at 81, died at 86. And Trump supposedly doesn't smoke or drink.
I suspect it doesn't kill the right people because the kind of people who go through life obliviously and deliberately causing damage to the social and political fabric don't experience cardiac stress the way people who aren't shithead do.
Our continued dominance by old folks continues: the only people PPP could think to challenge Trump (74 in 2020, already the oldest president in history) are 77, 78, 70, 69, and 52 years old in 2020. All except Cory Booker would have been the oldest president in history before Trump.
Canada's Senate has a maximum age of 75. Can we adopt that at least?
Oh look Trump explicitly asked Comey to close the investigation into Flynn, after sending Sessions and Pence out of the room because he knew they'd tell him to STFU, and Comey documented it contemporaneously. I forget, is committing treason with the Russians an attempt to distract from obstruction of justice, or is it the other way around?
Maybe Trump thinks he can skate on the obstruction charge if he just makes it completely public that yes he is working for the Russians- that's the opposite of obstruction, he's saving them the time and money of investigating it.
Looks like Comey's got a lot of bombshells he can keep dribbling out to the media indefinitely.
A fuller palace-article on the "besieged White House" with him describing all his aides as incompetent and telling other people "he knew he needed to make big changes but did not know which direction to go in, or whom to select". I'm genuinely wondering if at this point literally everyone he's calling in as replacements is begging off.
Michael Che's SNL skit about the Lester Holt interview really resonates. Are we there yet? No? Nothing matters?
That's three impeachable offenses in the past week. It makes you wonder what its going to take for Pence to give House Republicans the green light.
I feel like Che should have paused longer after "Is this all over?" A great joke with poor timing.
I guess we'll see if nothing matters, but I suspect not. They'll subpoena the Comey letter, and things will fall apart.
and Comey documented it contemporaneously.
AND its probably on tape.
But when they force Trump out, that won't be the end of things, right? After that, the NY A.G. office still investigates the Trump family holdings and puts them all in prison, right?
The only thing that can save us is Trump losing interest in correctly spelling the nuclear codes.
the NY A.G. office still investigates the Trump family holdings and puts them all in prison, right?
Unless Pence pulls a Gerald Ford.
The pardon power is only for federal crimes. Even there there's an exception for "cases of impeachment"
In private, three administration officials conceded that they could not publicly articulate their most compelling -- and honest -- defense of the president: that Mr. Trump, a hasty and indifferent reader of printed briefing materials, simply did not possess the interest or knowledge of the granular details of intelligence gathering to leak specific sources and methods of intelligence gathering that would do harm to United States allies.
This whole paragraph, and the "hasty and indifferent reader" part in particular, sounds like the narrator of The Secret History describing Bunny Corcoran becoming the President.
Jon Cooper on twit: "White House sources say Trump is cursing up a storm - ranting and raving. Yelling at staffers & using the "F" word. He's losing it tonight."
So who does he bomb this week? Old standby Syria, since Putin can green light it? North Korea to get a new boogeyman in the game? France or Australia because who the fuck knows what the plaques in his brain are going to spit out next?
"hasty and indifferent reader"
Back in the day, they didn't give a shit about euphemisms for the remedial classes.
Yemen. He wants to be on good terms with the Saudis for his visit.
He could bomb Israel to punish them for letting the Russians get their hands on classified information.
My favorite theory I read, in that I hope it's true: Israeli intelligence took seriously the warning about not sharing intel with the US because Trump would give it to Russia who'd give it to Iran and Syria who'd give it to Hezbollah. So they planted false intel and Trump did a bang up job of being the fuckup everyone expected him to be.
I know it's unlikely because Bibi but it would make a good spy novel.
Those are better. My Robert Ludlum fixation isn't helping.
Wow - Douthat now calling for removal via the 25th Amendment (or at least consideration thereof).
The 25th Amendment thing would allow Republicans to just rip the band-aid off and be rid of him. Impeachment would be months of hearings that would split the party and piss off the base.
"The Spy Who Came in from Mar-el-Lago"
"Stinker, Failer, Short-Fingered Spy"
Twenty-fifthing him would still be very bad and dangerous for them, and risk splitting the party. Of course impeachment would be worse for the reasons you give.
Who are the Trump loyalists in the Cabinet? Anyone besides Sessions?
Mnuchin, maybe? I can't think of any others.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), when asked about the news by a POLITICO reporter, looked her in the eye, gave her the middle finger and walked away.
Like all House members, he is up for reelection in November 2018.
Source. I'm afraid I can't award Rep. Issa partial credit for lack of equivocation, but I will kick in a point for brevity.
I guess removal the traditional way requires two-thirds of the Senate but only a majority of the House, whereas 25th-amendment removal requires two-thirds of both houses, the vice-president, and a majority of cabinet officers.
127: So Democrats can potentially block either? Interesting...
I just re-watched Downfall. Timely.
||
And in other news, Manning is out.
|>
Unless people are joking, the Republican candidate for a city council seat here will be a guy named "Cletus".
Naming kids is tricky because you never know what the Simpsons will do to the name after you've picked it.
132 is great news.
134 Could be after the Simpsons, how old is he?
Everybody here is either old or a hipster. Except maybe dalriata.
Who are the Trump loyalists in the Cabinet? Anyone besides Sessions?
I suppose this is the upside of all of Trump's nepotism. All his diehard allies are not official cabinet members and so don't fall within the 25th Amendment.
Flynn and Sessions were the two primary political allies. Sessions is going to be a continuing (and probably growing) problem. I also look for attempts to abuse the pardon power.*
*As Newt counseled last December:
"In the case of the president, he has a broad ability to organize the White House the way he wants to. He also has, frankly, the power of the pardon," Gingrich told WAMU's Diane Rehm on Monday morning. "It is a totally open power, and he could simply say, 'Look, I want them to be my advisers. I pardon them if anyone finds them to have behaved against the rules. Period.' Technically, under the Constitution, he has that level of authority."
I wonder if that doesn't make Chuck Colson sad.
The bodyguard is probably the closest ally overall. Trump is apparently pissed at Kushner who apparently pushed for firing Comey but did not adequately help Trump understand the backlash. (Regardless of the issue, do Trump supporters not tire of the "blame everyone but me" part of his spiel. Just so pathetic.)
Also apparently the NSC trick to get Trump to actually read stuff is to insert his name in each paragraph.
A lot of glad hearts among the WH staff today as they come to work and prepare to send him on his excellent adventure abroad.
Just like Hansel and Gretel's stepmom.
139: Yes. And brings to mind, the concluding sentence of John Rogers' great "L33t Justice" post.
I cannot help but think that as Nixon walked to the chopper, somewhere in the darkened hallways of the White House Dick Cheney shook his head, spit, and whispered: "Pussy."
It reminds me of the end of "Why Not Me?" where the recently resigned Franklen mentions that he just forgot to pardon is staffers and cabinet.
And am I right, that on a normal news day, that a thuggish security detail of the thug leader of state who had visited the president violently wading into a demonstration with extreme prejudice would be a big story? (Although I am misreading who was who and what actually happened (there is video) the WaPo and NYT stories are somewhat misleading.
143: That book was genius. A campaign based solely on reducing high ATM fees might have gotten alot of traction in 2016.
My favorite part is when he tells the actress hired for his campaign ad that the part requires nudity.
Or when he takes a dump and asks his campaign staffers to go look. I'm guessing Trump has done that.
147: Mine as well.
Tried to save shit but question mark shape started to deteriorate by lunchtime
(I believe this is the third time I've quoted that line in comments here.)
136: Being a hipster is like one of those logic puzzles where it's a quality impossible to identify in yourself, so you have to wait in a room with n other strangers until you get a clue like "There are three hipsters in this room". Also, "There is a hipster in Somerville who waxes the mustache of every man who does not wax his own."
That said, I do own a turntable and a cigarette case and I make my own high end bubble tea, so I am gathering evidence.
Or when he takes a dump and asks his campaign staffers to go look. I'm guessing Trump has done that.
Its gotten worse since he started referring to taking a dump as "Winning the Electoral College."
Wikipedia says that Cletus the slack-jawed yokel first appeared in the Simpsons' fifth season, in 1994. A political candidate could theoretically be younger than that but probably isn't.
A potentially positive development in the Trump-Comey saga is that I have not seen any credible news outfit even bothering to given the WH denial any credence whatsoever. (And even the Repubs are on to different talking points that spin it rather than deny it.)
Everybody here is either old or a hipster.
136, 149: The sad bit is when you realise that not only does the intersection of the Venn diagram have inhabitants, but that you're one of them.
This is the time of year when I contemplate buying a nice hat to keep skin cancer at bay and then decline because I don't want to look like a hipster.
|| Four inches of snow on the ground and still falling. Spring!
|>
Don't fight it, Moby. It happens to everyone.
155: It's suppose to be 90 here today. Don't mock me.
150- "See, this part down here looks like Florida, and I left off California on purpose, and look at all the red parts which I won... Wait, you're saying that's not healthy?"
High of 94 here today. We haven't yet reached the weather where I need to shower between biking to work and changing into business casual, but it's close.
OT: Pennsylvania men are unmarrigable even when they have an actual job.
I just re-watched Downfall. Timely.
Another thing I blame Trump for: those Downfall parody videos just aren't as funny as they used to be.
Oh, this going to be great.
Both speeches were being drafted by Trump's policy adviser Stephen Miller, who helped write Trump's convention and inaugural addresses, with input from the large collection of advisers who are helping to plan the trip: son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, McMaster and deputy national security adviser Dina Powell.Miller is the dead-eyed goon they briefly put on TV back in February to defend the travel ban. Anti-Islam has been hi shtick going back to college days.
which, to be fair, weren't actually that long ago
163 - Yes, if true that obviously makes 82 far too hopeful.
Is there a nuanced way to argue that Islam should be avoided except for when it runs politically repressive governments? I'm guessing that's a hard speech to write.
154: I gave up the battle against hats last year. It's not so bad if you get outdoorsy one instead of a hipster one. Anyway, I don't think hipster hats are all that good for keeping the sun off.
96: my working theory is that Trump does not want to be president. It's hard work and people criticize him, which are two things he hates. He didn't expect to win the election, the campaign was just a vehicle for self-aggrandizement and an opportunity to accelerate growth of his petty grift in right-wing circles. He realizes he can't be successful. His goal now is extracating himself from office without admitting defeat or losing face, and without going to jail. He is looking for a "scandal" that pushes him from office in a way that allows him to maintain the fiction (at least with his base) that it's all a liberal media conspiracy fabricated to bring him down--"they've been trying to destroy me with lies since day 1". The unfortunate reality is that there is probably no scandal that allows the clean extraction he's looking for, with some plausible deniability (NB: this is a very low bar for Trump) and no ongoing legal entanglements.
I might take one of my dad's hats. He has some straw Fedora-looking ones.
168 seems ridiculously optimistic. I think he assumes he would be a great president without too much work or great amounts of criticism if only certain people weren't standing in his way deliberately blocking his greatness. He will try to remove those people, not leave office.
I don't think 170 and 168 are inconsistent. I also agree that 168 is more optimism than reality, although I don't think 168 is actually optimistic.
It is true that even if 168 is right, there will be a great deal of political disruption and damage to America.
168: I'm totally with you for the first three sentences, but you lost me hard from "He realises he can't be successful". Does that really sound like a Donald Trump thought?
One time I wore a straw fedora on a visit to my parents and as I walked to their front door some delinquents yelled something unintelligible at me from a passing car, which caused my dad to gently take me aside and explain that it was probably the hat.
I could imagine subconscious self-sabotage. But Tony Schwartz in his latest, despite having "self-sabotage" in the title, chalks it up to a fundamentally flawed personality via upbringing. "He reacts rather than reflects, and damn the consequences."
173: deep down he must realize this. Unless he's further down the path of actual dementia than I realize (which he may be).
He's never shown any capacity for acknowledging his own failings. Or indeed any introspection at all.
177: not in public, no. He's a salesman. That's not uncommon.
172: It is true that even if 168 is right, there will be a great deal of political disruption and damage to America.
Yes, in part because as Jeet Heer observes: Here's the key reality Americans have to face: a nation that can elect Donald Trump can't be trusted. That's changing how world sees USA.
Also how we see us.
I am so tired of thinking I need to think about what is going on in one fucked up old guy's head.
I'm not a Putin fan or defender, but I absolutely think Putin is savvier than Trump.
Further to 168, Trump doesn't seem to find at all interesting the details of any outcomes he might effect. He apparently doesn't even properly read the one-page bullet-pointed summaries he's given. As someone said recently, he'd probably be happier as a ceremonial head of state than as POTUS.
182.last: What a beautiful office...have you seen this office?"
On the other hand, he'd probably miss the opportunities for cruelty and vain displays of dominance.
177: not in public, no. He's a salesman. That's not uncommon.
Or in private. I mean, obviously we don't know what's actually going on inside his head, but the picture from his public pronouncements, things he's had to swear to under oath, his ostensibly off-mike comments, and what everyone who deals with him who says off the record is pretty damn consistent. To the extent he even acknowledges his presidency is not going swimmingly (politically), he blames it on other people. I totally grant he's not happy being president.
I can almost picture Trump giving a farewell speech along these lines, "You know what? Fuck it! I quit. I was going to make us into winners, but since you all are so committed to losing, I'm out of here. I don't need the hassle. I have a great life! Bye-bye!"
That's not going to happen. It would put him in a class with only himself and Nixon. I think he's obviously deluded, but not deluded enough to avoid seeing that as a tremendous failure.
I asked Tillerson: Putin is offering transcripts of Lavrov meeting. Were Russians bugging Oval Office? T: I wld have no way of knowing that."
I'm still more frightened and anxious over this crisis than amused, but it is a goddamn masterclass in incompetence.
The positive spin on Trump: He's doing more to undermine the idea of white males as more competent than other races/genders than every multicultural educator who existed.
186, 187: yeah, I have to believe that Trump would quit to avoid giving the entire nation the richly earned satisfaction of telling him he's fired. Which is too bad, because it would be a satisfaction like no other outside the gates of Paradise.
I have pretty much stopped forming expectations of any kind about the future. Rain of frogs? Atlantis reemerges from the Mediterranean? Trump challenges The Rock to a wrestling match and then rips off the latex mask and reveals he's Andy Kaufman? Could be anything.
189: I had a similar thought--will Trump's obvious incompetence cause society finally to question the myth of meritocracy in our wealthy business class? (Spoiler: no.)
192: If the 2008 recession didn't do that, Trump won't be able to either.
Because young people eat avocados.
My last comment on this man: there's a long enough pattern of Trump failing at things, fucking them up, getting into trouble, etc. that we should have abundant evidence of how he handles it if we want to look. As far as patterns go, I've said several times that I have an unshakeable expectation that this year will be 2001 over again, only worse. I don't remember if there were things I wanted to do differently if I ever had a do-over of 2001; I could look through my files...
2001 over again, only worse.
Sentient computers locking us out of the space capsule, but this time we can't get back in and unplug them?
Instead of "HAL" the computer says "ZOOKF" and looks nicer.
I seem to have missed some meme about avocados. What's the problem with avocados?
The problem with avocados is that millennials are apparently spending so much money on them that they cannot buy a house.
200: Some luminary wrote an editorial arguing that millennials could afford health insurance and home mortgages if only they didn't feel entitled to spread avocado on their toast.
The problem with avocados is that millennials are apparently spending so much money on them that they cannot buy a house.
That totally sounds like something Millennials would do. They think they are so cool what with all the hanging out on roof decks, Instagramming their avocado parties. GET OFF MY LAWN!!!!!
It's like they never even heard of brown bread and drippings.
Sentient computers locking us out of the space capsule, but this time we can't get back in and unplug them?
We know Trump can't read, but can he lipread?
In my day, if we wanted toast, we spread it with margarine. AS GOD INTENDED.
Didn't it involve some juxtaposition of the price of avocado toast at a San Francisco/Manhattan/LA cafe and the price of a house... elsewhere? Assuming that we're all saving our money living in the big city (where the jobs are) to buy a fixer in Des Moines to raise a family, I guess. Fucking tradeoffs.
Oh, one of those. They happen every so often. How much is a median avocado in America? A dollar? The ex-minister whose department was recently shown to be habitually telling people they were fit to work a month before they died has recently gone on record that it's possible to live on £7 a day. Wankers all.
We didn't even have a toaster. We just spread margarine on stale bread and sent to money we would have spent on a toaster to rich people who create jobs.
207: If you move to Des Moines, we can have the long-sought Omaha meet-up.
If Millennials would just get JOBS, they wouldn't have the luxury of waiting around for that 10 minute ripeness window between the time when an avocado is to solid to spread and the time when it becomes too rotten to eat.
211: It is true that café grade avocado toast is made from uncannily consistently ripe avocados, under conditions that no one has ever replicated at home.
168 et seq: A friend's theory is that Trump will resign 'for health reasons'. The friend's hope is that he won't do so until after the 2018 midterm elections.
I admit I pooh-poohed this a couple of days ago, but now I begin to try it on for size: it allows him to exit while continuing to maintain that he's been the victim of a relentless witchhunt (on the part of the Democrats who can't get over their resentment over the election!), but he of course has always kept the best interest of the country in mind, and this hoohaw has become a distraction, blah blah.
For example (to various points above), most presidents giving commencement addresses don't explicitly talk about how they have been treated worse than any politician in history.
He never fails to deliver, does he? It must be hard, looking at the prospect of having to act more deranged and obnoxious every day for the next 3 an three quarter years.
The friend's hope is that he won't do so until after the 2018 midterm elections.
Blargh, I'm already waiting until 2019 to quit my job. It would be nice not to spend that entire time also waiting for the other shoe to drop with the executive branch, purely from a selfish perspective.
Maybe we should have a "what tedious process are you waiting out?" thread. Stormcrow and my mom are both counting the days until retirement. I am also waiting for my credit union's online banking site to work again.
213.1: I can't see him admitting to having any health issues. That would be genuinely humiliating for him.
...at which point I might stop procrastinating, having opened this laptop three hours ago to check some financial details and, finding my accounts unavailable, wandered over to Unfogged instead.
Back in Tanzania we used to go this this place where they served a dish called "avocado prawns". They hollowed out an avocado, and then mixed the avocado pieces with prawns and thousand island dressing, and then stuffed it all back into the avocado. Fuck me, that was delicious.
291 does sound good. Maybe a different sauce? I guess I have trouble picturing Thousand Island Dressing as part of Tanzanian cuisine.
216, 218: While ostensibly working on a grant proposal yesterday, I ended up reading an online article titled "The influence of Scooby Doo on the modern slasher movie", which might not be the Final Frontier of procrastination, but must be pretty close.
!!! That is very close. I think the frontier might be having that article open in one tab, and in the other tab googling someone you had a crush on 20 years ago.
a "what tedious process are you waiting out?" thread
Parenthood threads already tend to be fairly frequent here.
On image search with "- nude" included.
Next time I wonder what the fuck I'm doing with my life, I'll remember 222 and answer, with sincere happiness, "Not academia."
222 sounds entertaining. I emailed it to my work email to look at tomorrow morning at my increasingly intolerable job.
(Still waiting and on pins and needle btw....)
216: Maybe we should have a "what tedious process are you waiting out?" thread.
Not a bad idea. I, for example, am considering selling a lake property up in New Hampshire (maybe will offer a guest post about this), the proximate cause being that the property valuation went up by a third or more at the end of 2016, so property taxes were projected to be something like $9500/year. That's no good.
Now I discover that the rate has actually gone down, so the property taxes are a (mere) $7500/year. Hrm. That's almost doable, sort of. BUT. Is the market going to tank? Is it really best to get out now?
223 lk is spying on me at work!
Is being on pins and needles better or worse than being on tenterhooks?
I think it's all the same really.
It depends on orientation and density.
The Trump news has certainly been diverting. And encouraging. For the first time I dare to imagine he won't last another 6 months.
Tedious process:
Hand-cleaning supposedly machine-readable data received from a client. As usual, when some provides data in the form of a spreadsheet, it's very much fucking not machine-readable.
Still trying to decide how/if we claw back the money/time.
234 is very right. Everything should be in SAS export format.
234: Stab-delimited text! Empathy.
People should use an easy to remember delimiter. Let me be the first to suggest using the letter 'e'. You just need to remember to not use 'e' in the fields.
It's the usual stuff. Little comments and asides in columns that should contain numbers. Formatting for identifiers changing half way through. Inconsistent encoding of Unicode. Identifiers that resolve to local data files in N ways (where N is an ever increasing bastard number). etc etc
I, for example, am considering selling a lake property up in New Hampshire
Property taxes on New Hampshire lake properties are the worst. Mines at $4500. Tolerable due to the lack of income tax, but it pretty much cancels out any gain from appreciation of the property. Which is frustrating, because I'd like to break even some day.
I recommend XML following a custom schema, with each leaf node containing a single attribute with a line of CSV text. Each field in the CSV should be an escaped JSON object. Surely some machine will be able to read some of that.
For the first time I dare to imagine he won't last another 6 months.
He's lasted longer than I expected. I had April 15 in the pool.
True story. There are some people I work with who I respect and like very much but who are the worst with data. They defined a system with two measures for a single feature and decided to represent that in the dataset by X.X with one measure scored on each side of the decimal Except for .5, which means something entire different from and not even ordinally related to the other decimals.
242: These are horrible people. Absolutely horrible. There's no reason to have an encoding like that unless they're doing math on it somehow.
You could look at it that way, but you could also look at it that they pay me to deal with it and have been doing so for 11 years now.
And that if they wanted to pay somebody else to do it, that person would have to learn the metaphorical minefield before they could be effective.
244: I do wonder how much of my employability is my ability or willingness to work with poorly designed systems.
Anyway, like a child raised in a household with a domestic slave, I'm not enmeshed with the evil. I've been making other people use it instead of reforming it.
Tedious process - waiting for the buyers of our condo to have their loan finally approved, and then for the actual closing, which will be the end of a long series of tedious processes played out over the past half-year or so.
I'm am currently spending the last month in my job before I get to move back to my lake house in New Hampshire. The tedious process I am avoiding is finding another job.
What's the over/under on the media having another "he became the President" moment in the next few weeks, just to keep spinning out a narrative?
Well, if he delivers the speech in Saudi without including an altar call that could be one.
234 et al: I've worked with data where "/" is often an escape character.
And generally for a normal person the overseas trip would be a great time to change the narrative - just shuttle from photo op to photo op with minimal off-script moments and minimal access to the press. Maybe they'll actually pull it off.
239: Property taxes on New Hampshire lake properties are the worst.
Spike, if you have any insight into selling up there, I'd love to hear it. Off-blog, presumably.
233: For the first time I dare to imagine he won't last another 6 months.
241: He's lasted longer than I expected. I had April 15 in the pool.
I can imagine too, but not thinking it is going to happen. Greg Sargent had an interview with Adam Schiff this AM (Schiff has been very good) where Schiff lays out why he does not think Repubs will get on board.
"The more practical question is whether there is bipartisan recognition that the seriousness of that conduct warrants removal," Schiff told me. He added that you could have "a sizable part of the country feel this is an effort to nullify the election by other means. That's probably the most fundamental question of whether you're meeting the standard of High Crimes and Misdemeanors."For anything where Trump helps it happen by positive action would hinge entirely on how well the actual monetary grift is going.
Sheriff Clarke apparently in at some level at DHS (I think as high as he can be without needing Senate Confirmation).
And Joe Lieberman among the latest candidates for FBI.
So...
I suppose my tedious process I'm waiting out is writing my dissertation, except it really involves more writing and less waiting, if I'm going to finish it. The good news is I got possibly the best job on campus available to an ABD student. (Pays decent for grad school, comes with health insurance, looks good on the CV). The bad news is I won't know until Oct at the earliest if my husband will be living in Chicago with me, and my lease on my tiny studio is up Aug 31. If he's not living with me, I'll stay in my tiny studio. If he is, I'd want to move to a larger apartment. To complicate it I just bought tickets to be in Europe for all of July and August, so moving by Aug 31 would be pretty complicated.
This isn't really relevant to anything, but I thought, if I can't complain about things here, where can I complain?
And in full millennial stereotype, I spent money on 2(!) avocados last week, instead of saving those dollars for a house. I made guacamole instead of putting them on toast, so maybe it's a sign I'm an older millennial?
And being fully profligate, I can't even remember if they were 79 cents each or 99 cents each.
spreadsheet
If there are text fields, and their content looks sufficiently similar to dates to one of MS's paperclips, silent conversion to standard date format is likely.
https://thedailywtf.com/articles/XML_0x3f_
Spike, if you have any insight into selling up there, I'd love to hear it.
Alas, I have only bought, so I don't really have much insight on selling. I don't think property prices have moved much since our purchase - it may be highly dependent on your specific lake.
Do you have your place posted on AirBnB or VRBO? We haven't done that yet, but that is part of the long term plan for taking the edge off the tax bill.
259. There's a 1-br unit for sale in my mom's building, two actually, on right next to her and one above her. She's extremely concerned about the character of any new neighbors. You could maybe swing something temporary to live there. She is basically kind, sometimes irritating, and has a bunch of possibly lovable quirks that could make for hilarious blog material. Reasonably priced, W Rogers park.
And Joe Lieberman among the latest candidates for FBI.
Shut up, that is totally not true. It cannot be.
No. I refuse.
NO. SHUT UP.
The article wasn't about millennials buying whole avocados at the grocery to make avocado toast at home. That's not all that terribly expensive on a per calorie basis. The article was about millennials buying avocado toast at restaurants, with the associated markup.
266: Although even with the markup I doubt that avocado toast costs as much as a house.
Certainly, restaurant dining is a privilege that should be limited to those aged 35 or older.
267: Yeah. Also, it was written in Australia, where avocados are a bit more expensive. Still, the author started his business empire with a five-figure loan (or gift?) from a relative.
Also, if these people just stopped buying lattes they would be millionaires by now.
266 wasn't intended as a defense of the article, which was preposterous and offensive.
If you skipped a four dollar latte--or some other senseless, undeserving hedonistic pleasure worth four dollars--every single day, you could afford a $50k downpayment in a mere 34 years.
As far as I know, the Avocado Latte does not yet exist. Someone needs to get on it.
I will humbly submit a link.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/business/avocado-toast-millennials.html
Yes, you would surely save money by choosing to make your own avocado toast at home (perhaps with some cucumber soup).
I would save MY LIFE by doing that. Sounds like the most comforting comfort food imaginable. Thanks, NYT, in around 113 years I'll forgive your other sins.
273: Agh! Too late! It looks like the Japanese got there first. Googling brings up a Japanese doughnut chain that apparently sells an iced avocado latte.
Disruptive innovation is hard.
I bought an avocado today at the grocery market. They were on sale for $2 a piece.
Now you're two dollars further from buying a house.
What if, for every avocado you eat, you plant the pits, until you have an avocado farm? I bet sandwich shops would even give you their avocado pits for free.
We always used to sprout the pits by sticking 3 toothpicks in and hanging over a glass of water that just covered the bottom. However, not living in California or Mexico, we never planted them outside because they wouldn't make it through the winter.
On topic, I guess. Because treason.
Forrest Whitaker in space makes sense.
6PM Eastern, just the time for the next bombshells. Small compared to the past week, but:
1. Rosenstein appoints Robert Mueller as Russia special counsel (not truly an independent prosecutor, note)
2. Recording emerges of Majority Leader McCarthy saying to other House Republicans he thinks Putin pays both Rohrabacher and Trump, there's laughter, then Ryan says "NO LEAKS!"
(Recording is from June 2016, I should have said. And "it is difficult to tell from the recording the extent to which the remarks were meant to be taken literally".)
Peter Cushing and the Uncanny Valley.
Parker Posey and dead people and a special counsel.
I've got a couple of coupons for free avocados from the latest Safeway giveaway game. They expire at the end of the month. Of course, as a founding member of ISLAR (International Society for Letting Avocados Rot) during my grad school days, I have my doubts about whether I would be able to use them before they went bad. (This was a running joke in one of my grad student households, where we kept buying an avocado during grocery shopping to have available, only to have to pitch it later when it had gone bad without being used.)
On further review, that wasn't Parker Posey.
A sandwich: Avocados, puree of Trump's dump described in 150/159, slices of tomatoes bought in January in Nova Scotia, and thousand island Russian dressing, on open-faced slices of toast.
I'm sorry. She really looked like Parker Posey.
On a ten point scale where ten is Parker Posey, this woman was at least a nine.
Whoever wrote this watched the news a bunch in 2002/3 or so.
I once took an exercise class with Parker Posey. It was an aerobics class taught by Richard Simmons. This might be the most LA comment I have ever written.
Richard Simmons and Luke Skywalker are both missing.
Peter Cushing really looks creepy.
I mean, he always looked creepy but not-Cushing is creepier.
Apparently they are paying Jimmy Smits by the second.
The Imperial Data Center is very tropical. I guess because software engineers in fiction don't like wearing long pants either.
It's now like the U.S. Marines landing on a Japanese island.
Parts of this are kind of too obviously video game levels.
Surprisingly, the John Birch Society doesn't seem to have strong opinions on Donald Trump's truck with the Rooshians. There was this nice piece however, about how Gramsci's dream of a communist utopia can be best realized through promoting gender fluidity and multiple gender identities:
https://insidejbs.org/2017/04/14/gramscis-plan/
So, this whole Trump administration is collapsing way faster than I thought it would. I'm mildly surprised.
I don't trust my sense of how this will play out. I'm waiting to see the rats actually jump.
I don't trust my political sense or my ability to identity Parker Posey.
I'm waiting to see the rats actually jump.
Which rat do you think will jump first? Maybe Bannon?
Maybe, but only if his liver goes first.
I might practice identifying Parker Posey first. I could make flashcards.
I'm getting a little bit sick of the essays by Very Serious People, who want you to know that it is Too Early To Talk About Impeachment. It's not to early to start organizing, dumbasses. That way when it *is* time for everyone to talk of impeachment, it goes the way you want it to. Sigh.
Up the wooden hills to Bedfordshire
I just reread the thread linked in 324. Wow, was that ever a different time.
Moby, now that you've seen the movie you can read this after action analysis.
||
I didn't get the position.
FML I'm stuck here.
|>
Aw, damn. Sorry to hear that, Barry.
Time to start working on a fake identity and sourcing a dead body for the car "accident".
Thanks all. I feel crushed and trapped. Dizzy, both light and heavy headed at the same time, like I'm drunk without drinking.
I don't know that I'll ever get another opportunity so well-suited to me that will get me the hell out of here. Unfortunately it seems I have a very particular set of skills. Too particular.
At least I'm flying to see Chani tomorrow for the weekend. We're even going to make a day trip to the city where the job would have been.
I'm thinking a March on Bedminster.
I'm sure you can get avocado toast in Bedminster. But why march when you can stroll?
So, this whole Trump administration is collapsing way faster than I thought it would. I'm mildly surprised.
Is this an unalloyed Good Thing? If Trump and his parasites are disposed of before the mid terms, Pence will be able to assure the base that it's morning again in America or some such, and ask them for a vote of confidence and generally smile and smile and be a villain, and we'll be back to square -1.
Pence is deeply implicated though. If Trump goes he may well go too. Say hello to President Ryan.
OK, I'll put 338 on repeat for all of them until the Presidential Succession Act, 1947, as amended runs out of named officials. Do we want this thing settled before the mid terms?
We're even going to make a day trip to the city where the job would have been.
Don't do it!
341 Why not? Maybe I would be too melancholy over it? There are some art exhibitions we were going to see. I did say to keep it tentative depending on how I feel. Maybe we'll just go see the new Alien movie instead.
Right. All its nice qualities will make you sad. Go dancing with a new city.
Unfortunately it seems I have a very particular set of skills. Too particular.
They said this? Like you are over qualified in some dimension? Weird.
That line works if you hear it as Liam Neeson. Sorry about the job Barry.
326: Interesting, but I was watching Lost in Space.
346. Ha! (There's a Lost in Space movie?!)
Yes. I saw it in the theater. Starring Joey from Friends and a bunch of people who should have known better.
344 No, they didn't but who they went with has wider and longer experience and I'm afraid I am so niche now that there will be little opportunity for me to get something else. I'm stuck here and this place has become crazytown.
Like you are over qualified in some dimension?
...laydeez
If it makes you feel better. Roger Ailes is dead.
That should have been a comma in the middle.
Anyway, I guess that for some people life without sexual harassment isn't worth living.
Which prompts the question, has Ailes ever been photographed elsewhere during a Soundgarden show?
Older white guy known for sexual crudity and operating in a closed, secretive space where he has largely unchecked power dies from the stress of having his actions moved to a sphere were all is known and criticized. Hmmm.
Dammit Moby, I wanted to gross everyone out by typing NMM to Roger Ailes.
I really didn't want that mental image.
Well, I can always find novel ways to disgust people. Who will you miss masturbating to less, Ailes or Scalia?
Ailes. I'm going to read Herpy.net to clear my head.
351 It does! So does some of the other encouraging news.
Time for some good beer I've been hoarding.
358 that grossed me out all the same Buttercup.
Parker Posey references upthread also immensely cheering.
What's this show with the Posey look-alike then?
Just scrolled up and read 327. I'm so sorry to hear that. If unfogged were in charge of hiring, you'd have been the top choice.
Just scrolled up and read 327. I'm so sorry to hear that. If unfogged were in charge of hiring, you'd have been the top choice.
Pwned, I see. Should have had my diet coke this morning.
I hope he was at least lucid enough towards the end to see that this is the beginning of the end for Trump.
363.last: It was Rogue One. I thought the protagonist's mom was played by Parker Posey.
369 Maybe for the other thread.
And thanks everyone again. Tonight drink, tomorrow Chani.
366. Has everybody seen this masterpiece in Kotsko's comments elsewhere?
Ugh, I'm sorry Barry. Reading the thread backwards.
Re: the lake house thing upthread.
263: Do you have your place posted on AirBnB or VRBO?
Spike, sorry, I'm just now seeing this (and it'll probably be lost in the Trump post/commentary). The place is already being rented -- just for less than what it would take to cover the taxes. And we can't really ask the renters for more, for various reasons. Time to cash out.
That's a real bummer, Barry.
this place has become crazytown.
Is it any consolation that that holds stateside, too?
Well, you wouldn't be the first to sell an NH lakehouse because of taxes. A friend of mine had a family place on Winnipesaukee that had been in the family for decades. But the taxes got so high they had to sell and get a place not directly on the water.
There certainly seems to be an ongoing evolution of the NH lakehouse scene from "rustic summer camps for the middle class" to "expensive playthings for rich folks".
382: Just like health care and retirement.
382: As explored in What About Bob.
Why has there not been a hit Broadway musical about the strange career of white supremacist Revilo P. Oliver? What a nut!
I have pretty much stopped forming expectations of any kind about the future. Rain of frogs? ... Could be anything.
Rain of fish. No mention of frogs.
Back on the NH lake thing again.
382: A friend of mine had a family place on Winnipesaukee that had been in the family for decades. [...] There certainly seems to be an ongoing evolution of the NH lakehouse scene from "rustic summer camps for the middle class" to "expensive playthings for rich folks".
That's pretty much what's going on here. My family's place, which I've inherited, was built by my grandfather back when it was the first (only) cottage on its cove. On Sunapee. I'm still struggling with the knowledge that I'm going to cry when we let it go. I still can't believe I'm going to do it. I spent so much time there as a kid, visiting my grandparents for Christmas, skating on the lake in winter, 4th of July barbecues, reading upstairs before bed, snug as a bug, while the rain pattered down on the roof. My grandmother was such a terrific woman: she was a hippie, an artist. I remember every incarnation of that place, from Grammy trying to teach me to play the ukulele (I know) or the harmonica (not so much here), to speed boat rides with my uncle when he was a strapping, daring 20-year-old taking his young niece out for a ride, just the two of us. Son of a bitch.
I doubt very much I'll be inclined to look elsewhere in the area -- can't afford it anyway.
At any rate, I was shocked when the new property valuations came out at the end of last year, raising the valuation and therefore taxes by a third. While my brother and I have considered renting it out full-throttle, to seasonal tourists, the cost of a property manager to handle all that is prohibitive.
Anyway. The rest of my family, extended family, is going to be upset. Last we discussed the disposition of the property, at my mom's memorial service, I'd (sunnily, I now realize) said I of course intended to keep it in the family. Oops.
Why not ask them all to take a week, paying for it, thus gaining the benefits of renting it and avoiding the cost of a property manager?
Is there a richer family member you could sell it to, or offer to sell it to? Even if it doesn't stay in the family, making the effort might make people feel better about losing it.
Or what Moby said, which sounds even nicer.
My office is too fucking close to where they recorded Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. Sometimes I can't help it.
My mom's family has had the arrangement in 389 going for 16 years now. Everyone plays along to keep the property, although some use it (way) more than others. I am deeply sentimental about lake houses too.
They probably got the idea from me.
389, 390: No way my extended family is in a position to pay to stay at the house, much less to buy it.
This is the lake house that was last "rented" (before the current renters, whom I trust and are serving simultaneously as caretakers) to one of my nephews. Who fucking trashed the place, the asshole, while also failing to pay rent for the last 6 months (putting us in the hole at the time), all while his parents, my aunt and uncle, claimed that his tenure was going just swimmingly. There's no trust there any more, is the mildest thing I can think to say.
I've been drafting a letter to the current renters -- our neighbors, actually -- as we speak. Their lease is up at end of August. I doubt they'd want to swap out their place for ours, though it's about the same size and valuation, and doubt very much they'd be in the market to take on two places, but I'll mention it. Maybe they have interested friends.
Mostly I need to discern how they feel about us putting the place on the market before their lease term is up. As it stands, it's partially furnished. We can't take our stuff out while they still rent/lease over the summer, I don't think.
How about you or your brother marrying into money then?
My family has a summer house in coastal New England, with the added complication of joint ownership/management by three siblings in store.
My family has the same, except that it's a corn field with no buildings on the land and it's in Nebraska.
It's on the water, if you count irrigation systems.
Oh yeah, I misunderstood. The deal is that the extended family has an LLC which owns the property; each sibling donates 1/6th of the property taxes.
396 gets it about right.
When the time comes, I'll relay information about the Sunapee lake house to you all, in case anyone is interested. It's charming, I can tell you that.
This is encouraging me to encourage my uncle to sell my grandmother's house and be done with it.
15 years ago I would have been happy to have it in the family forever. But (a) it's 300 yards from the beach and probably within 3 feet of sea level and global warming may be an issue and (b) my uncle lives three hours away from it, and when he dies or can't take care of it any more, I'll be the closest person to it at eight hours away, and it's not in great shape now, and (c) even if maintenance or taxes weren't a concern, I have never worked at a job where I got enough paid leave to make week-long trips to the beach for the fun of it.
My sister thought for a while that she'd live there. Her husband works/has worked for a building contractor and they fixed up their current house a lot themselves; maybe they could have done something with it. But now they're expecting a kid, so them going there looks less likely. The ants in the house would eat a newborn.
To capture a newborn to appease the ants with?
Many day later, as he finally finished the book, Colonel JP Stormcrow said to himself, "Thanks for the mental image... asshole!"
(c) even if maintenance or taxes weren't a concern, I have never worked at a job where I got enough paid leave to make week-long trips to the beach for the fun of it.
I know, this shit is way beyond the dream of homeownership. I'd be better off setting up a tiny fountain near my desk with a couple of bonsai pines. A seagull mobile. A robot crab programmed to run across my desk at random intervals and scare the shit out of me.
Join my Stochastic Crab Kickstarter.
Basically just a real fan of nature is my role here, how I see it.
