Steamy weekend, plus fog.

Nope, sorry, not feeling better, although based on the fact I woke up Saturday morning with the feeling of having a hot poker stabbed into my ear, I’m fairly sure of my self-diagnosis. It so happens I had an unopened package of cipro otic solution from a previous false alarm, still unexpired. So I’m self-medicating until I can see the doctor.

And two sentences of another person’s medical woes should do it, so let’s move on.

Man, has summer arrived with a vengeance. A week ago, long sleeves, and now, an extended period in the 90s. (It’s especially fun with a hot-lava post-nasal drip, let me just say.) Fortunately, the inaugural Grosse Pointe Pride parade was wrapped before noon:

I walked, yes. Why not? It was the safest, most family-friendly Pride march you’ve ever seen — not a dyke on a bike or a leather daddy in sight. Everyone behaved themselves, and even the cops were friendly. A trio of high school-age MAGAs showed up with their Trump flag, but they kept to themselves and didn’t draw attention to themselves.

What I noticed most? Teenage girls never, EVER tire of taking photos of themselves. Especially when they have rainbows painted on their cheeks.

So, with much of the weekend spent lying in bed, hoping the pressure didn’t blow my eardrums clean outta my head, a little bit of bloggage, most of it outdated.

A rather blunt-spoken account of working with Roget Ailes. Spoiler alert: He was not a nice person, not even a little bit.

The Guardian is reporting that our president’s state visit to the U.K. has been indefinitely postponed. Why?

The US president said he did not want to come if there were large-scale protests and his remarks in effect put the visit on hold for some time.

For some time? For ever, at this rate. Maybe the Queen decided against loaning him her golden carriage.

Now starts the slow process of catching up. And the wonders of antibiotics. (Fingers crossed.)

Posted at 9:08 pm in Current events |
 

55 responses to “Steamy weekend, plus fog.”

  1. coozledad said on June 11, 2017 at 9:37 pm

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yaqAd4XXDM

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  2. Sherri said on June 11, 2017 at 9:54 pm

    I had a brief MAGA encounter today: https://sherrivotes.org/2017/06/11/a-case-study-in-empathy/

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  3. coozledad said on June 11, 2017 at 10:08 pm

    Sherri: as though I needed more reasons for paranoia.

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  4. Sherri said on June 11, 2017 at 10:15 pm

    I wasn’t frightened or intimidated by our young trumpers; I wasn’t even annoyed enough to bother to flip them off. I’m sure they thought they were incredibly funny; I thought they were like little boys making fart noises, best ignored.

    But I live in an area where they are outnumbered, and in a city where had they actually harassed me, the cops would have backed me up.

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  5. alex said on June 11, 2017 at 10:36 pm

    Went to the Pridefest in Indy this weekend. Never saw such bad planning as this thing. They moved it to a different park and instead of a voluntary donation they now charge $5. That didn’t get my hackles up. What got me royally pissed off were the long and molasses-slow lines to get in to the damn event. First you wait for a half hour plus to buy your ticket. Then instead of entering at the point of purchase, you go wait in another long line for another half hour or so in order to enter. On top of that you have bazillions of people who can’t figure out this illogical arrangement and are just plain in the way. What a mess.

    Today sucked too. I got an e-mail from one of my bosses that he needed something done urgently, so on my way back into town I stopped at the office and e-mailed documents to myself at home so I could work on things there. At home, I discover that my Apple word processing stuff was messing things up. So I order Microsoft Office for Mac online thinking that it would be easy. Shit took forever to download then wouldn’t allow me to activate it. I spent three plus hours on the phone with some guy in India who had access to my screen and couldn’t make it work. I started getting a splitting headache. My computer was operating so slowly that it was basically worthless. So I deleted that shit and demanded a refund. And lost a day of work.

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  6. brian stouder said on June 11, 2017 at 10:50 pm

    Marvelous photo, indeed!

    We’re recovering from the Big Big weekend; Saturday commencement ceremony for our graduating Wayne High School senior, followed immediately by our (Pam and Shelby and I) trip to Bloomington and the beginning of her college career (literally from the parking lot of the Memorial Coliseum to her dormitory at IU; we had the vehicle already packed)

    We had a bite to eat about 50 miles south on I-69, and then onward (through a major construction-related jam) to beautiful southern Indiana. The weather co-operated, so there’s that. By the time we had her there and set up, and motored all the way home again, it was just this side of mid-night….and I’m finding my emotional response to this to be more pronounced than I was braced for (but it’s all good)

    Onward and upward we go

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  7. Sherri said on June 11, 2017 at 11:00 pm

    Pens win!

    What a hockey game!

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  8. Joe Kobiela said on June 11, 2017 at 11:02 pm

    Congrats to the Pens,
    Back to back championships, best tradition in sports, the handshake line after the series.
    Maybe next year Basset.
    Pilot Joe

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  9. beb said on June 12, 2017 at 4:05 am

    It’s fur o’clock in the morning and it’s too hot to sleep. I go to work in another two and a half hours, which should be fun.

    I gather that Saturday was Anti-Sharia Law day. How did that become a thing? States, I’m told, have passed laws forbidding the use of foreign laws. A) I thought that was already the case. and B) Does that mean we throw out English Common Law because it’s “foreign”?

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  10. David C. said on June 12, 2017 at 6:38 am

    Has anyone ever set off their car’s alarm during actual alarm?

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  11. adrianne said on June 12, 2017 at 6:39 am

    Brian, good luck to your young graduate!

    And in theater of the absurd-related news: Two corporate sponsors have pulled their money from the Public Theater after complaints from the right about the depiction of Julius Caesar as a blond character with funny hair.

    Best commentary I’ve seen so far, from Christopher Hayes: THE ENTIRE GODDAMN PLAY IS ABOUT ASSASSINATION BEING A TOTAL DISASTER!

    THE PATH TO RUIN!!!

    Read a book for the love of God.

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  12. Suzanne said on June 12, 2017 at 7:48 am

    Alex, I feel your computer pain. I have had my hotmail & gmail accounts running through Outlook on my laptop for years. One stop email! A year or so ago, hotmail stopped showing up in Outlook, but I rarely use that email so I didn’t worry too much. Now, Gmail shows up, I get new emails, but I can’t send out an email. It tells me I don’t have permission to access that folder & to contact my administrator. I AM the administrator! Nobody uses that computer but me. I have no clue what changed or how to fix it.
    I love my smart phone and tablet, but mostly, computers just annoy me. I just want them to work and so often,they don’t.

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  13. basset said on June 12, 2017 at 8:17 am

    Hockey… good for our city to get the recognition and business/tax revenue, otherwise I don’t care. As I’ve said, nothing to do with me.

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  14. nancy said on June 12, 2017 at 9:04 am

    I haven’t used MSWord in years, and do everything with Google Docs, exporting to .docx format when someone demands it. That may be a naive answer, but man, it works for me.

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  15. Connie said on June 12, 2017 at 9:07 am

    Previous comments included a Washington Post best summer books article. I will add my recommendation to the “Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley”, and I will seriously UN recomment the Lehane book, with which I was seriously disappointed. Hard to believe it was from the same author as “Shutter Island” and “Mystic River.”

    My latest summer recommendation, a big time mystery whodunnit: Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz. I particularly like novels with two story lines, of which the best in my opinion is “Swan thieves by Kostova.”

    So, summer reading recommendations from your friendly on list librarian. Not your only librarian here, either!

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  16. Suzanne said on June 12, 2017 at 9:20 am

    I recently read Lincoln in the Bardo. I’m still processing it as it’s very different from anything I’ve ever read. Worthwhile to read, and I enjoyed it, but I’m still trying to figure out how to think about it.

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  17. Sherri said on June 12, 2017 at 9:51 am

    Brian, congrats and good luck to Shelby on her new adventure. And of course you had an emotional response to it; she’s your baby girl, and she doesn’t stop being that just because she’s now ready to go out into the world!

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  18. Icarus said on June 12, 2017 at 10:03 am

    Suzanne @ 12….IIRC Microsoft switched hotmail to the Outlook.com domain. You losing your emails might have been the final cutover.

    My Gmail story. There is a known issue with gmail (google considers it a feature not a bug) where the local-part does not discriminate periods. So for instance Nancy.Nall = NancyNall @ gmail.

    Over the years I’ve periodically received emails for another person with my name. Apparently my Other Self is a Jewish Lawyer with a wife named Lindsey, a baby named Starlow (?) and they drive a variety of Hondas. I think they split time between California and the East Coast.

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  19. basset said on June 12, 2017 at 10:23 am

    And the Queen’s speech will be delayed because…

    “One of the reasons for the delay is also believed to be because the speech has to be written on goat’s skin parchment paper, which takes a few days to dry – and the Tory negotiations with the DUP mean it cannot be ready in time.”
    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-40243782

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  20. basset said on June 12, 2017 at 10:33 am

    And there’s more…

    http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35569281

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  21. Jeff Borden said on June 12, 2017 at 10:41 am

    Another reason why the Orange King may be having second thoughts about Britain is a burgeoning campaign calling for bystanders to moon him whenever his motorcade or procession passes by. They’re calling it “Rump for Trump.”

    Chicago activists did this last February, mooning his skyscraper in Chicago. Several hundred people participated. BTW, for those interested, Neil Steinberg in today’s Sun-Times explores what the reign of the Orange King means to the Trump brand. It varies from city to city –his D.C. hotel apparently is thriving– but in Chicago, condos in his building are going unsold and tenants are demanding lower rates because the tower here is no longer a “prestige” address.

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  22. Suzanne said on June 12, 2017 at 10:48 am

    Jeff, if my memory serves me (which is generally does not), NYC is having the same issue with Trump properties as in Chicago. People bailing out; not wanting the stink on themselves.

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  23. coozledad said on June 12, 2017 at 10:58 am

    While Ivanka gripes about the “viciousness” of DC, and Oliver Stone kisses Putin’s ass:
    https://twitter.com/emmaladyrose/status/874237325252980737

    The cops leering at these kids? Extremely creepy.

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  24. brian stouder said on June 12, 2017 at 11:09 am

    Still chuckling over Basset’s excerpt about the tardy Queen’s speech –

    the speech has to be written on goat’s skin parchment paper, which takes a few days to dry

    This sounds very much like a royal upgrade of the old standard – “the dog ate my homework”!

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  25. Bitter Scribe said on June 12, 2017 at 11:25 am

    At this rate, the only places Trump will visit will be countries where street protests are illegal.

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  26. Julie Robinson said on June 12, 2017 at 11:32 am

    Nancy, I hope your meds have kicked in by now. I’ve had a punctured eardrum and I was pretty sure my head was going to explode. God Bless antibiotics.

    Congrats to Shelby, Brian. I hope her dorm has AC.

    We went to a wedding this weekend at the One True that left me confused and puzzled. When the priest said we were singing #492 we opened the hymnal only to find a different hymn. Then I saw there was another hymnal and we found it there. It went like that the whole service. There were four different books in the pew rack and we never had any idea which one they were using. Other parts of the service weren’t even announced and we were just lost.

    Now I’m a high-church Lutheran liturgy geek, so I recognized the words of the liturgy, and I know to look in the back of the hymnal for the index of first lines, but it didn’t help me all that much. Looking around I would say half the people there were in a similar boat.

    I thought they were interested in evangelizing? Or are they still counting on big families to grow their church? Does that still happen?

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  27. alex said on June 12, 2017 at 11:34 am

    Thanks for the hint regarding google docs. I’ll have to try that. My computer has Pages, which doesn’t translate well back and fort with MS Word.

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  28. brian stouder said on June 12, 2017 at 11:37 am

    btw – here’s a ‘2017’ update, which immediately evoked a combination chin-drop/chuckle from me.

    On our Saturday road-trip down-state, Pammy had some app (or whatever) on her i-phone going, and occasionally she’d say ‘there’s a speed cop a mile ahead’…and invariably, there it was. (Additionally, it would indicate if there was anyone off to the side changing a tire [or whatever[])

    Am I cranky old man, or is that an example of thing which CANNOT be good?

    For one thing, if a person is driving alone – that’s a major distraction, I’d say…..but, indeed, I’m gettin’ old

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  29. Julie Robinson said on June 12, 2017 at 12:10 pm

    Re Adrianne at #11: Delta Airlines may have pulled their funding from the current Julius Caesar production, but they had no problem supporting a similar production in 2012, when the Caesar character strongly resembled Obama: http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Delta-Sponsored-2012-Guthrie-Theater-Season-Which-Featured-Obama-Inspired-Julius-Caesar-20170612

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  30. Dave said on June 12, 2017 at 12:14 pm

    Waze, Brian, Google maps will sometimes report the same information, I’ve discovered. You’re right, it can be a huge distraction.

    Unfortunately, there’s a lot of things happening which cannot be good.

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  31. Jakash said on June 12, 2017 at 12:29 pm

    Congrats and good luck to you all, Brian. (Uh, that’s re: the graduation and sending your daughter off to college, not avoiding speed traps…)

    Tip of the cap to Dorothy, Sherri and any other Penguins fans.

    The game was on at the place we were last night, and I paid little attention, but would have probably noticed if somebody had scored. Then we picked up some groceries and when we got home, I thought “Hell, this is one of the few freaking things still on free TV, I might as well see what’s going on while I make some tea…” Scoreless with 5 minutes to go at that point. I thought “Cool — even *I* am willing to watch for 5 minutes.” Now to the point of this boring anecdote (too late, I know.) I had the sound muted. I’d watched a couple minutes, the tea kettle started whistling, I got up and, in the time it took to pour water into 2 mugs and return — Penguins score and I’d missed it. I got to see a dozen replays, of course, but I feel like there’s a message there for me — 58 minutes with no goals, but the winner comes during the 30 seconds when I walk away! ; )

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  32. Icarus said on June 12, 2017 at 12:35 pm

    “Am I cranky old man, or is that an example of thing which CANNOT be good?”

    don’t worry, future cars will have these apps integrated into the onboard computer

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  33. Bruce Fields said on June 12, 2017 at 2:11 pm

    For what it’s worth, last time I woke up with a splitting earache I went to a local urgent care clinic and the doctor said “take pain medication and wait a few days, and fill this antibiotic prescription if it doesn’t get better”. I waited, took the antibiotics, it got a little better but not much. I got diarrhea, yay. I saw my regular doctor, he thought it probably wasn’t infected and just needed time to for the eustachian tube to unblock and recommended pseudoephedrine to speed the process. I found that mainly just gave me bad sleep. My ear gradually got better over a couple weeks (it didn’t hurt most of that time, but my hearing was weird).

    I don’t know what the moral of that story is.

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  34. Jolene said on June 12, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    ICYMI, here is a clip of the opening of a Trump cabinet meeting held this AM. First, he spent a few minutes lying about what a better-than-most-others president he has been. Then, they went around the table with each cabinet member saying how wonderful he has been in each of their respective domains. Really one of the most awful displays of vanity and sycophancy I have ever seen.

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  35. brian stouder said on June 12, 2017 at 2:38 pm

    Dorothy – here’s hoping for the best, for your daughter!

    Charlie Savage of the NYT is a Fort Wayne boy – so it is possible for real people to land within “the media elite”

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  36. Judybusy said on June 12, 2017 at 2:41 pm

    Oh, Dorothy, that would be so cool! Fingers crossed.

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  37. nancy said on June 12, 2017 at 2:43 pm

    Man, I had to turn off the cabinet meeting after about the third butt-smooch. Has there ever been a more unctuous phony than Mike Pence? I mean, ever?

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  38. Sherri said on June 12, 2017 at 2:56 pm

    For some reason, I can’t imagine why, the term lèse-majesté is on my mind today.

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  39. Jeff Borden said on June 12, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    Pence was well on his way to well-deserved obscurity before accepting what must’ve at the time looked like a suicide mission as the running mate of the Orange King. Now, he stands a real chance of becoming president if (a) our petulant, loony leader quits or (b) is impeached. ‘Murica, Fuck Yeah!

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  40. Deborah said on June 12, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    Boy, lots of people to congratulate. Brian good on you for raising a young woman so eager to get out in the world. Dorothy, fingers crossed for your daughter on her possible job offer.

    And comiseration to Nancy on the ear pain and to Sherri on the MAGA empathy gap.

    I can’t tell you how fabulous it is in Abiquiu, taking it easy, not too hot. Went to a farmers market this morning and got cherries, peas, carrots and radishes. We’re trying to get back to healthy eating. Saw a big old bull snake near the cabin the other day, those snakes are our friends. Have been sleeping on the roof deck every night, the full moon was challenging but before the moonrise the stars were cool.

    I’m rereading Fitzgerald’s “This side of Paradise”, mainly because it was $5 in paperback at the B&N in Chicago, I could carry it in my bag without weighing it down (I am still not supposed to lift more than 10 lbs).

    Keep the reading recommendations coming. I think I’ll read the “Handmaids Tale” next, then who knows?

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  41. 4dbirds said on June 12, 2017 at 3:04 pm

    Fingers crossed Dorothy.

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  42. Judybusy said on June 12, 2017 at 3:08 pm

    Deborah, I read a really charming, smart book called “All Roads Lead to Austen,” about an English professor who used a sabbatical to travel through Mexico, Central and South America facilitating book groups with different Austen titles. It took an acaemic year and she learned Spanish to do it. Completely unrelated to the current world mess, but still a thoughtful book on how various people see Austen and her characters. I also enjoyed “Who Thought this was a Good Idea,” by Alyssa Mastromonaco who worked in the Obama White House. Lots of wonderful anecdotes and some refelection of what it was like having a powerful position as a very young woman.

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  43. brian stouder said on June 12, 2017 at 3:17 pm

    Maybe Warren G Harding….or Lincoln’s predecessor, Buchanan (‘course, who WOULDN’T look bad, leaving the nation on the brink national self-destruction, and being succeeded by the greatest president we ever had, or probably ever WILL have?)

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  44. brian stouder said on June 12, 2017 at 3:21 pm

    That was to answer Nance at 38…and I shoulda just said Andy Johnson and stopped there, as he was VP for Abe (a little better parallel….)

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  45. Julie Robinson said on June 12, 2017 at 3:44 pm

    Suzanne, was it you that coined Pence as My Pants? Well, an impersonator who calls himself Mike Hot-Pence is raising money for lefty causes: http://www.idsnews.com/article/2017/06/mike-pence-impersonator-raises-for-planned-parenthood?_h=d529699c-8b5c-4e56-809a-c7dc6dfcfd0f. If you guessed he wears shorts you’d have been right.

    Dorothy, I hope your daughter gets that job!

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  46. Danny said on June 12, 2017 at 4:33 pm

    Hmmm. My Pants has always seemed a bit of a reach to me. But if his last name was Hock or or Hunt, we could have endless fun.

    There used be be a VP at my company named Mike Hock… and he went by that name, not “Michael.” One time he was giving us a presentation in the auditorium to announce some new corporate strategy or other and he reached for some a very strange mixed-metaphor that went like this:

    “… And if you are not excited about this presentation, then your wood is wet!”

    Well, I am sitting third row and suddenly got this vision of Matt Foley, motivational speaker (Chris Farley character form SNL) and almost burst out laughing because imagine, Mike Hock, giving that metaphor. I barely contained myself by thinking very serious thoughts about losing my job and such.

    Anyway, next morning at coffee I waited for everyone to take a sip from their cups and asked them if they were indeed excited about the presentation or if their wood was wet. I think I almost got a few to squirt coffee out their noses.

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  47. brian stouder said on June 12, 2017 at 4:54 pm

    OK – your Mr Hock story got me laughing!

    Now if his assistant had the last name “Happy” – then Mike Hock might hand-off to Mr Happy…

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  48. Deborah said on June 12, 2017 at 5:52 pm

    If Trump gets convicted and has to resign then Pence will have to pardon him like Ford did for Nixon. Pence will never get elected in 2020. Ford was appointed by Nixon when Agnew resigned in 73, so Ford was never elected. When you think back about all of that, if you’re old enough that is, it was all quite scandalous.

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  49. David C. said on June 12, 2017 at 5:58 pm

    The cabinet meeting sounded better in the original Russian.

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  50. Sherri said on June 12, 2017 at 6:11 pm

    The Space Needle is getting a makeover: http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/space-needle-to-get-its-biggest-renovation-ever-glass-floor-opened-views-more-elevators/

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  51. coozledad said on June 12, 2017 at 6:53 pm

    Republicans have now officially given the most blow jobs in the White House. And they all swallow.

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  52. Sherri said on June 12, 2017 at 8:25 pm

    https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/senate-intelligence-committees-post-show-discussion-of-hamlet

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  53. Julie Robinson said on June 12, 2017 at 8:30 pm

    Our son is singing at the Pulse commemoration tonight. We’re watching a livestream and waiting for something other than politicians yacking.

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  54. coozledad said on June 12, 2017 at 8:31 pm

    If Trump fires Mueller, it’s admission of guilt. David Simon is right: our only option will be to pick up a brick.

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  55. Suzanne said on June 12, 2017 at 9:36 pm

    It was me that brought you the name My Pants for the former gov, now VP. I got it from the comments of some online something in which a man talked about his elderly mother who, while watching some political coverage, wondered why they kept mentioning My Pants.

    This possible firing of Mueller and the bizarre cabinet meeting has me more terrified than I’ve been for the past few weeks. I have no hope whatsoever that the GOP Congress will do a damn thing about either.

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