Most of us will never be rich and powerful enough that when we say things like, “Why don’t we just nuke that hurricane?” our underlings will say, “Sir, we’ll look into that.” Most of us only get that reaction when we’re gumming our mushy peas in a nursing home.
But that’s the world we live in now:
President Trump has suggested multiple times to senior Homeland Security and national security officials that they explore using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes from hitting the United States, according to sources who have heard the president’s private remarks and been briefed on a National Security Council memorandum that recorded those comments.
Behind the scenes: During one hurricane briefing at the White House, Trump said, “I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?” according to one source who was there. “They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?” the source added, paraphrasing the president’s remarks.
And that’s just wha you need to hear early on a Sunday evening to make sure your weekend ties up in one long, stinky fart. Because that’s the way we live now.
Saturday, on the other hand:
With summer winding down, here’s a sampling of what Michelle and I have been listening to — some new, some old, some fast, some slow. Hope you enjoy. pic.twitter.com/BS5ri1lvxz
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 24, 2019
Before we discuss this, I have to make a request: If you’re going to say, “I don’t know any of these songs, and I feel old/resentful/whatever,” just save it. Probably hardly anyone knows all these songs; Alan suspects a consultant may have, shall we say, curated it. I don’t care. I listened to most of it on Saturday, and it bangs. I especially loved the Lizzo track, “Juice,” which I repeated three times before moving on to the Steely Dan.
If it takes the 44th president to introduce me to the music that it is, frankly, hard to find through conventional means, then thanks, Obama. I appreciate it.
The weather was perfect this weekend, and I needed it. How about you? I started reading “The Sheltering Sky” in preparation for our Morocco trip, but kept getting distracted by one thing or another — story of the contemporary reader’s life, eh?
basset said on August 25, 2019 at 9:48 pm
You want to listen to a different “The Sheltering Sky”… King Crimson, it’s on YouTube. Goes back to the early 80s, no Obama connection that I know of.
159 chars
Deborah said on August 25, 2019 at 9:53 pm
The Sheltering Sky is an excellent book, the movie isn’t bad either. I went through a serious Paul and Jane Bowles phase a while back, I think I’ve read everything they ever wrote. I yearned to go to Morocco too but when the troubles started in the Mideast that kind of fell away.
The weather has been hot and dry in Northern NM, we’re having a terrible monsoon season, but because the winter and spring were so wet we haven’t noticed as much as we thought.
We have less than 2 weeks in NM, then back to Chicago. I’m ready, I always miss the city after I’ve been here a while, and I’ve been here a long while. I will of course miss the mountains and the dryness, but will be back in mid October for a couple of weeks. We have lots of travel coming up after that, exciting but exhausting too.
798 chars
basset said on August 25, 2019 at 9:54 pm
My comment went to moderation, dunno why. Here’s what it said:
You want to listen to a different “The Sheltering Sky”… King Crimson, it’s on YouTube. Goes back to the early 80s, no Obama connection that I know of.
227 chars
Suzanne said on August 25, 2019 at 10:09 pm
And then there is this photo
https://twitter.com/mj_mouton/status/1165758974362345472?s=21
And the latest reports that tRump has put forth the notion that a nuclear bomb could stop a hurricane. In all seriousness.
217 chars
jcburns said on August 25, 2019 at 10:21 pm
Your everlasting summer
You can see it fading fast
[…]
The things that pass for knowledge
I can’t understand
114 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 25, 2019 at 10:57 pm
“How High the Moon” with Ella and not Les & Mary? I might have to stay unwoke on that one. Surprised to see “Old Town Road” as far down as #40.
147 chars
Sherri said on August 25, 2019 at 11:01 pm
I think I posted this Lizzie tiny desk concert before, but it’s still great: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/29/732097345/lizzo-tiny-desk-concert
144 chars
beb said on August 25, 2019 at 11:05 pm
The weather has been really nice. We went to the zoo today for a walk. Walking the zoo from one end to the other reminded me that I need to do more walking. I used to be able to walk from one end to the other and back and not gasp for breathe until near the end. The zoo looked wonderful. The new Red Panda exhibit is finished and looks great. The zoo ran a suspension bridge across the middle of the exhibit close to where the red pandas are likely to be. It’s a cool idea but maybe not for everyone. The bridge is very wobbly. The expanded Tiger exhibit is coming along and looks like it will be great when finished. Detroit’s zoo has always struck me as one of better zoos in America.
That man in the white house wants to nuke hurricanes? And Pelosi doesn’t want to impeach? The man is clearly insane.
805 chars
LAMary said on August 25, 2019 at 11:08 pm
Lizzo is amazing. She even looks amazing.
41 chars
LAMary said on August 25, 2019 at 11:34 pm
Forgive me. I love the photo of Melania looking at Trudeau. Even if it’s photoshopped.
87 chars
Dexter Friend said on August 26, 2019 at 3:21 am
The first thing I thought of as I visualized Trump wanting to nuke the hurricanes was the Chineses billionaire-owner of the factory in Dayton that I posted about the other day. He wanted to spend 30,000 dollars to build a temporary roof over an open area in case it rained on the opening day (big celebration with TV there)of the place, with the pols and such in attendance. The plant manager got all fidgety and somehow the owner did not get the roof…and the day was perfect; no rain came. Also he thought a fire retarding nozzle sticking out of a wall was ugly and he wanted it moved so it was unnoticeable. It would have cost thousands more as the wall had just been re-built and painted. Where I worked, a new plant manager came in and just tore up and moved everything around, painted every room, bought new modern machinery, spent millions, and we all knew what was coming…as soon as the paint was dry, the floors and aisles buffed to a shine, all machines up and running quality parts, the place was sold to Eaton Corporation. Then…Eaton tore it all up and did it their way. Power, in the hands of syphilitic-brained Trump with his nukes, or crazed bosses in factories, makes life just a fucking hell, right? I’ll tell yas something: retirement is sweet, once you get past the bump of no more weekly paychecks and learn to live on the cheap. It’s much better than working like a slave in a hot factory, but I concede that those with jobs where they create from scratch , on a keyboard or a potter’s wheel or just really love their jobs, must feel lucky and would be devastated if downsized for whatever reason.
1632 chars
ROGirl said on August 26, 2019 at 4:49 am
LAM, the Melania photo is real.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/a-g7-photo-of-melania-trump-justin-trudeau-and-president-trump-reminds-some-people-of-a-famous-meme/ar-AAGl9m7
182 chars
David C. said on August 26, 2019 at 6:05 am
Every year, NOAA gets letters from cranks and dipshits (AKA the current occupant and his fans) that they created a web page on why it’s a stupid idea to nuke them. https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html
208 chars
alex said on August 26, 2019 at 7:42 am
Hope he doesn’t get fixated on the idea like he did on his Wall.
Well, we’re about to return to the US today from lovely Canada. It was perfect weather for a vacation and the perfect place for one too. Niagara-on-the-Lake is a lovely place. Well-preserved early 19th-century housing. Meticulous gardens everywhere. Clean environs with no garbage on the ground. And very cosmopolitan.
A much-needed respite.
Saw an excellent production of Cyrano de Bergerac yesterday.
I can see why my parents enjoy making multiple trips here every summer. This could easily become a fave haunt for us as well. Would like to come back sometime and spend more time learning about the local history.
699 chars
Heather said on August 26, 2019 at 8:55 am
Ahh, Morocco! I was looking at an amazing tour there (I don’t normally do group tours but I wouldn’t go to Morocco on my own) for this fall and then I got laid off. Might still go to Turkey but it depends on how I’m feeling about future finances. On the other hand, the world is falling apart, so might as well spend my money now, right? Or maybe I’ll just go to northern CA and stay with a friend on the cheap. Sigh.
417 chars
Joe Kobiela said on August 26, 2019 at 9:12 am
Dexter,
I watched that doc on Dayton, the plant manager wanted the cover the chairman said no also he wanted the fire lever moved the plant manager told him it was OSHA that told him where it had to be, the plant manager was fired shortly after. Not a place I think I would want to work.
Pilot Joe
300 chars
basset said on August 26, 2019 at 9:52 am
reminds me of commencement planning at Vanderbilt a couple years ago, friend was in on it and told me that some senior administrator wanted two nearby construction cranes removed because they were “unsightly.” well, no…
226 chars
Julie Robinson said on August 26, 2019 at 9:54 am
The Shaw Festival is on my bucket list, as is another trip to the Stratford Festival. We thought about it as a 40th anniversary trip, to mirror our honeymoon, but I wasn’t at all excited about the shows this year. (Grease? Tired.) Then the NYC trip happened and the budget, she was blown.
I think the Melania/Justin photo was taken the moment before they cheek-kissed, but I love the meme!
It couldn’t have been a more perfect weekend for temps and humidity, and we took Mom to the newest jewel in the Fort, Promenade Park. It’s huge, with half a dozen areas of focus, set on the river, and embraced by thousands already. It also has a couple of issues for the mobility challenged, and I hope they’ll address those soon. With her walker, Mother couldn’t get everywhere without going the really long way around. But she gets too tired for that, so we contented ourselves with seeing what we could and people watching. If I had little ones I’d be there every day.
Hat tip to the reporter who caught Trump in a moment of honesty re: second thoughts. Oh please let one of them follow Andrew Luck’s footsteps.
1113 chars
Mark P said on August 26, 2019 at 10:21 am
I had been seeing the “nuke the hurricanes” thing at another web site and wondered why everyone was talking about it. I should have known.
At that web site people also often ask what Trump meant by something he said, or why he did something. I finally gave them a three-point answer to all questions about Trump.
First, he is a psychopath. And that’s not just me hating on him. You can find multiple sites with the 20-characteristic Hare Psychopathy Checklist. Each characteristic is graded from 0 (does not apply) to 2 (applies completely). If you go down the list and grade Trump honestly, he easily gets 15, almost certainly 16and possibly more. I can’t answer some because I don’t know the facts — for example, was he a juvenile delinquent? But grading honestly gets him at least 30 points. A grade of 30 or more qualifies for a diagnosis of psychopathy. So, yes, he is a psychopath.
The second point is that he is extremely ignorant. He knows almost nothing about almost everything.
Point three is that he is stupid.
So if you want to know why Trump does something, just look at those three points and pick the one that applies: psychopathic, ignorant, stupid.
1181 chars
Icarus said on August 26, 2019 at 10:35 am
I’ve been working on projects around the house all year (and last year) in order to put the house on the market. We made the decision to wait until Spring to list. By then we should have better answers about my job uncertainty (if they don’t ax me by Oct, they *never* will) and where we want to live.
If a miracle that allows us to stay in Chicago doesn’t occur, we ship the kids off to grandparents in the Memphis area and stag the house for selling. With the money we save on Daycare we should be able to not only buy a nice home but put a sizable down payment so that we pay it off quickly.
Meanwhile, we are both going to explore some lateral job moves that might allow us to stay here. I’d love a setup like our Deborah has where we have homes in both places so we get a good school system on the cheap but also the amenities of a blue city.
861 chars
Bitter Scribe said on August 26, 2019 at 11:10 am
I’m sure Trump’s sycophants will claim that he was just kidding. Or he should be taken seriously but not literally. Or something.
129 chars
Bitter Scribe said on August 26, 2019 at 12:22 pm
Now Trump is denying he said anything about nukes and hurricanes, calling it more Fake News. This led Mrs. Betty Bowers (that’s what she calls herself on Twitter) to tweet, “I didn’t believe it until he denied it.”
214 chars
Scout said on August 26, 2019 at 12:48 pm
LAMary, this is for you: https://twitter.com/ScoutVotesBlue/status/1165851750823120896
And this is for everyone who needs a good laugh:
https://twitter.com/TylerHuckabee/status/1164607230416740352
That play list is amazing. Someone already re-created it on Spotify. I lost the details of who, but I’ll bet it’s easy to find.
Mark P @18 – Mental health professionals seem to be growing more alarmed by the obvious displays of dementia, drug abuse, psychosis and are starting to speak out more. While it is agreed among them all that while typically a diagnosis from a distance is not ethical, the constancy of the public display of Shitler’s unfitness is becoming too apparent to ignore.
696 chars
Mark P said on August 26, 2019 at 2:51 pm
Scout — I’m not a professional and obviously have not had a chance to examine Trump in person, so I based my judgment on what anyone can see or hear about Trump. Even so, I’m confident of some of the points on the psychopathy scale. For example, pathological lying is one. Sexual promiscuity is another. Anyone who has sex with a porn actress when his wife is home with his newborn son qualifies there. Another is grandiose (exaggeratedly high) estimation of self. Check! How about shallow affect (superficial emotional responsiveness). If you doubt that one, just look at his idiotic, grinning, thumbs-up photo with the baby of the couple murdered in El Paso.
The checklist appears in a lot of places. Here is one: http://www.minddisorders.com/Flu-Inv/Hare-Psychopathy-Checklist.html
Rating Trump like this is armchair psychology, of course, but it’s so damned consistent with his behavior.
As for ignorant and stupid, well, he speaks for himself.
958 chars
Deborah said on August 26, 2019 at 5:04 pm
Icarus, I hate to break it to you but my husband and I could in no way have afforded to have a couple of places to live when we each had young children. Our children are in their 40s now. So perspective.
We are negotiating now with our landlady to buy the Santa Fe apartment. We are in the very early stages of the process and it could go every-which-way. Our landlady is in a position now where she seriously needs to think about her future. It’s a modest place, nothing special (except what we’ve done to improve it). Our goal is to give LB a solid place to live from here on out, given her health condition etc. I think I can safely reveal this here, but I don’t want to jinx it.
I love the Melania/Trudeau meme.
727 chars
Julie Robinson said on August 26, 2019 at 5:12 pm
We’d love to be snow birds after we retire but we won’t be able to keep two places. And I don’t know if I’d want the upkeep. Paying someone to cut grass, plow snow, and watch out for emergencies? Nope, staying with friends or a hotel will work better.
252 chars
Deborah said on August 26, 2019 at 5:58 pm
Julie, we have the benefit of our place in Chicago being in a co-op high rise, so we have no responsibility for mowing or plowing, except to pay our monthly assessment for that kind of thing. We only have to think about writing that message nthly check, and come to think of it, my husband probably set it up to be paid automatically out of our checking account (thank goodness he does all of the financial stuff). We technically have three places, the apartment in Santa Fe, the cabin in Abiquiu and the place in Chicago. The square footage for all 3 barely adds up to 2,000 SF, so there’s that. Small is beautiful. LB takes care of the Santa Fe place (mostly). Our cabin doesn’t need a lot of upkeep (so far) and our Chicago place is recently renovated except for the kitchen. So for now it’s all good.
810 chars
David C. said on August 26, 2019 at 6:00 pm
We used to go to the Shaw Festival every other year. We probably haven’t been back in fifteen years though. Niagara-on-the-Lake is a pretty little town. The only thing I don’t recommend is the Prince of Wales burger at the Prince of Wales hotel. I burped that damned thing up for three days.
291 chars
Deborah said on August 26, 2019 at 6:08 pm
Make that “monthly check”. I tried to edit it but bad Abiquiu cell service wouldn’t let me.
97 chars
Deborah said on August 26, 2019 at 7:26 pm
It’s 94° with humidity at 11% here in Abiquiu at 5:20pm, the low tonight will be 58°. Quite a temp swing.
109 chars
LAMary said on August 26, 2019 at 9:27 pm
Thank you, all my fellow meme fans. I’m glad I’m not alone.
59 chars
LAMary said on August 26, 2019 at 9:36 pm
I’ve Got You Under My Skin recorded by Frank Sinatra and arranged by Nelson Riddle knocks me out. I was in some pottery outlet store about 20 years ago. There were maybe six other shoppers. That song came on and everyone was getting into it. The brass in the middle is like cold water in your face. Sinatra and Riddle: two fine Jersey boys.
340 chars
Ann said on August 26, 2019 at 11:58 pm
Morocco? How lovely. I haven’t done much international travel but I miraculously made it to Morocco (a free trip from a client). Just wonderful. I’m sure you’ll do all the highlights, but my favorites were the medina in Fes and the Hassan II mosque in Casablanca. But everything was fabulous and the French influence means you get great cheese and bread along with all those wonderful tagines.
399 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 27, 2019 at 8:26 am
My birthday present to my wife was finding a fellow to convert a never playable videotape from our wedding reception 34 years ago to DVD; the tape itself was mostly fine. Shocking how many in the video are now dead (not just the elderly ones, but most of those of course), and even more shocking was how . . . well, cheap the reception was. I remembered the cake and the dances and the not getting to eat the food parts, but wow, we didn’t spend much! And then I think about the last twenty-seven wedding receptions I’ve been to. Yikes.
But he also converted a bunch of tapes we had from our last rounds doing live pledge breaks for West Virginia Public Television. So much schtick, so much fun, and that flicker I could see in my eye as the floor director signals after a two minute segment “give me another minute” and I pick up something from the premiums table and riff . . . and Joyce was startled at how good she was. She wouldn’t say that, but I can. She was a last minute sub after two college seniors in communications totally froze at the red light, and fled the studio; she pulled on a jacket we had in the back seat, I took our baby, and she rocked it live (to be fair, she’d been teaching college classes for five years at that point, but it’s not quite the same).
Anyhow, if you have those 20-30+ year old VHS tapes in a box somewhere, it’s really worth it to get them DVD’d. The film does start to delaminate and break down, especially if it’s not kept in cool and dark; we had more fun watching a couple hours of that than we did at most of the last few movies we’ve watched.
1597 chars
LAMary said on August 27, 2019 at 9:09 am
I did one pledge break on my local PBS station in Denver. I donated a Siamese kitten from my cat’s litter and I went on the air with an adorable blue eyed Siamese Kitten that went for 50 bucks. I think I was ok. The kitten sold herself really. I was a college student at the time and relatively fearless.
304 chars
Deborah said on August 27, 2019 at 9:56 am
I can’t imagine winging it live on TV, that terrifies me just thinking about it.
So we’re going to France again in December. Of course it depends on Uncle J’s health. After that we’ll be spending Christmas in California to see my husband’s granddaughter who is having a bit of a rough time of it because of her mom (who moved to another state). Then back to NM in January and somehow we end up back in Chicago in February which is my least favorite month to be in Chicago.
485 chars
Julie Robinson said on August 27, 2019 at 10:51 am
Despite years of performing experience, my one on-air experience was a massive freeze up. I was the summer receptionist at the radio station where my dad worked, and got pulled in for the home ec call in show. As I recall, the topic of the day was carpet stains, and at 19 I both knew nothing about carpet stains and showed nothing of my dad’s epic gift of gab. Fortunately the DJ was used to vamping, and the second week I was pointedly not asked back. Hah! It was a relief.
Our travel news is not as exciting as Deborah’s, but we are heading back to Orlando on Thursday and hoping Mr. Dorian decides not to visit after all.
Mary, we had a Siamese who was indeed most adorable, as well as the dumbest cat ever. Not sure that we paid for her as all our other cats either came from the farm, or were dropped off near our country home by that despicable breed, the “they’ll fend for themselves, it’s kinder than taking them to the shelter” owners.
Country home, that sounds grand, doesn’t it? What I meant was our modest ranch out on a country road.
1056 chars
Sherri said on August 27, 2019 at 12:20 pm
Before my MIL passed away, I got all the old 8mm camcorder tapes of my daughter as a baby and toddler copied onto a hard drive and then up into the cloud where she could easily watch them on her laptop. Now we’ve inherited boxes of slides that we need to do the same with, but at least the slides will hold up. It’s just more convenient to view them digitally since we don’t have a slide projector.
404 chars
Julie Robinson said on August 27, 2019 at 12:50 pm
Sherri, the slides won’t hold up either. Anything with an emulsion, either negatives or slides, is subject to deterioration over time, exposure to heat/cold, dust, etc. We had over 500 of my mom’s converted, and also all the old 8mm tapes. They can be edited for color correction and the like, and now as she continues to find more I’ve been scanning them at home. All very time consuming, but oh the wonderful stories they’re eliciting.
437 chars
Deborah said on August 27, 2019 at 12:53 pm
Somehow the subject of bedbugs is trending on the internet. The Donald’s Doral Resort in Miami was hit with a lawsuit by a guy who was bitten to pieces in either 2016 or 17. If Trump hadn’t mentioned holding the next G7 at his resort, none of this would have surfaced. And then of course Trump tweets that it’s not true (it is), making it worse. There’s something else floating around the internet about some right winger being called a bedbug and flying off the handle about that insult but I’m not clear on what that’s all about.
543 chars
Sherri said on August 27, 2019 at 12:59 pm
The NYTimes offices have bedbugs, which generated many jokes on Twitter, among them a joke by a professor that “The bedbugs are a metaphor. The bedbugs are Bret Stephens.”
Bret Stephens, who has wrung many columns out of the idea that colleges and universities have become hostile to free speech and full of snowflakes wanting safe spaces, emailed the professor and cc’ed his provost taking offense at being called a bedbug, and now has deactivated his Twitter account in a huff.
I think the NYTimes should fire Stephens for his lack of intellectual integrity, but I think they never should have hired him in the first place because of his lack of intellectual integrity.
683 chars
Jakash said on August 27, 2019 at 1:59 pm
That’s a nice, succinct summation, Sherri. Of course, it’s a Twitter bonanza, and a wonderful demonstration of the Streisand effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
The original bedbug tweet evidently garnered 9 “likes” and 0 retweets; the professor’s follow-up tweet sharing Stephens’ preposterous overreaction is currently checking in at 65,000 “likes.”
Stephens wrote in the email “I would welcome the opportunity for you to come to my home, meet my wife and kids, talk to us for a few minutes, and then call me a ‘bedbug’ to my face. That would take some genuine courage and intellectual integrity on your part. I promise to be courteous no matter what you have to say.”
Prompting some swell retorts from the Twitterati, as “Bret Stephens” is trending. To wit:
From a scientist who studies Climate Change (Stephens is a high-profile denier): “I encourage Bret Stephens to come to my lab, meet my students, talk to us for a few minutes, and then tell me to my face that my climate advocacy isn’t based on science. That would take some genuine courage and intellectual integrity on his part. I promise to be courteous.”
From a journalist who writes about Climate Change: “I’ve been called a cunt and gotten death threats and told I should die in a gas chamber and belong in a concentration camp and never once sent an email to anyone’s boss let alone one this absolutely sniveling and thin skinned. Climate denier Bret Stephens is worse then a bedbug.”
A few potshots: “A bedbug just emailed me and dared me to call him a Bret Stephens to his face.”
“The line to Bret Stephens’s house to tell his family that he’s a bedbug and a terrible columnist would look like the cars pulling up to Ray Kinsella’s farm at the end of FIELD OF DREAMS. Bret could be there playing catch with a ghostly relative. I’d tell the ghost the same.”
“‘Bedbug’ snitch shit aside, Bret Stephens is really underestimating how many people on here would tell his wife and kids that he sucks to their face.”
2043 chars
Scout said on August 27, 2019 at 2:39 pm
Kudos to whomever created the Today in nn.c history in the sidebar. (Was that you, jcburns?) I really enjoy re-reading what we were discussing back in the day. On August 27, 2009, entitled ‘Ouch’, two comments had me laughing out loud again today, a flashback to reading them for the first time.
From coozledad:
“I haven’t tried Pilates, but yoga helped me a lot, and even seemed to partially correct my scoliosis. I think I had the best results when I was part of a mostly geriatric group that was never permitted to do much more than sun salutations. They always had Enya’s soundtrack for “The Celts” playing, and when the time came around for the recumbent meditation, at least three of the group would pass out and start snoring. We changed health clubs and the next yoga teacher was similarly disinclined to incur the liability for breaking someone’s neck. She was more philosophical and spiritual, however, and asked us to use our “third eye center” to seek clarity and purpose. My wife said “third eye center” sounded like a headshop/arcade on the outskirts of Cary.
The last yoga teacher was a practitioner of power yoga and a weightlifter. Her abs had inch deep furrows between the muscles, like an Albinus engraving. We had older people in the class, so I was encouraged. Then more people started to filter in. The girl who set out her custom mat beside mine was warming up by pulling her feet behind her ears. Definitely a harbinger.
I got through the first positions alright, trying to ignore the whimpering coming from the back of the room, where previously I’d noticed a man on crutches. Then the teacher started changing positions swiftly, and with some violence, I thought. Toward the end of the class, when she had us standing on our heads, she came over to me and said my legs weren’t straight, and proceeded to adjust them. There was an instant radiating pain that looped from my ass around my crotch and then back up my back to my left shoulder and arm. “Hold it there” she said.”
And from Sue:
“My very liberal brother in law loves guns but isn’t into the “cold dead hands” aspect of it. He just likes to research them, buy them and shoot them. When my sister and I spent the weekend at the family cabin last fall (“Doe Camp” instead of “Deer Camp”, ha ha), he insisted she take along a gun, because of the isolated location of the cabin. One of those long guns, or at least a gun with a long case, since we never took it out to look at it. What were we supposed to do, beat the intruder with it? He showed her how to get it ready once (load it, maybe?), but she wasn’t paying attention, because Hell No she wasn’t going to use it and somehow kill both of us while leaving the intruder intact but he didn’t need his peace of mind disturbed by being informed of that. We put it in the middle of the living room floor, in order to trip the intruder, who by the end of the weekend had a complete personality and physical description. We decided that our preferred method of handling the intruder was to be out shopping when he stopped by.”
I also enjoy nostalgically revisiting the rants and missives of prospero/april glaspie/whoever else he wrote as. He sure was a character.
3244 chars
Sherri said on August 27, 2019 at 4:12 pm
An interview with the professor who sent the Bretbug tweet: https://www.chronicle.com/article/This-Professor-Compared-a/247013
127 chars
Deborah said on August 27, 2019 at 4:49 pm
Joyce Vance said on Twitter that compared to the trolls she gets commenting on her tweets, being called a bedbug would almost be a compliment.
Some friends of ours in Chicago ended up with bedbugs after the wife took a cheapo trip to Paris, where she stayed in practically a flop house. It took a long time before we took them up on an invitation to their house after that. They had the house treated, but still. Their house was never very clean to begin with.
463 chars
Sherri said on August 27, 2019 at 5:09 pm
We need a world in which AOC has a Point of View Gun to use on Bret Stephens.
https://alienencyclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Point_of_View_Gun
140 chars
Dexter Friend said on August 27, 2019 at 5:20 pm
On TWC an expert said a nuke in a hurricane would only kill untold millions of marine life, as trillions of watts are generated in a hurricane and a nuke would only create tsunamis and would not affect the hurricane one iota. It seems , from what I have seen, Trump just pulled the idea out of his ass and presented it as a thing to look into. He did not even make a call to a weather scientist or scholar. He’s a demented creep who should be forcibly removed from Washington forever. Have you thought how dangerous it is for everyone on the planet to have a lunatic at the switch of nuclear strike possibilities?
616 chars
Sherri said on August 27, 2019 at 7:00 pm
Sorry, I can’t help it, Bretbug Stephens is too funny. I had forgotten this isn’t the first time he’s lost it and tried to bigfoot somebody.
https://splinternews.com/bret-stephens-tried-to-teach-me-how-the-world-works-bec-1832996576
241 chars
basset said on August 27, 2019 at 8:57 pm
I’ve mentioned that Mrs. B and I have been looking for a house on the outskirts of town… saw one we liked, fcc.gov said Comcast was the only broadband nearby and they only go down to the census block level so I figured I’d better check… Comcast said the area was “serviceable” but a drop to the house would be “exactly $30,693.”
ahh… no. and it only took them a week to tell us that.
405 chars
alex said on August 27, 2019 at 9:46 pm
Good heavens, Basset. Can the phone company do DSL to that location? What about satellite?
90 chars
jcburns said on August 28, 2019 at 9:02 am
Thanks for the kind words, Scout. Just wanted to “resurface” (as the kids say) some fine, fine writing that sits on the nn.c server, otherwise gathering digital dust.
183 chars
bb in DE said on August 28, 2019 at 9:24 am
Jeff tmmo @ 34: Teaching is the thing that shook me of my fear of public speaking, tho’ I’d agree that appearing on live TV would be a different beast.
It’s been 30+ years since I had my finger on the pulse of pop culture, but I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the newer tunes on Obama’s playlist I recognized. Then again, I’m currently sharing living quarters with a 16 and a 20 year old. They’re the hip ones; I just listen to what they play using their iTunes on the car radio.
490 chars
Suzanne said on August 28, 2019 at 9:47 am
So, now Jim Mattis is speaking out. Why the months and months of silence? What was the tipping point? Nuking hurricanes? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mattis-says-he-served-as-long-as-i-could-warns-of-a-leader-not-committed-to-working-with-allies/2019/08/28/f5f3cc34-c988-11e9-be05-f76ac4ec618c_story.html
315 chars
Jakash said on August 28, 2019 at 12:43 pm
A 2-minute video explaining the movement to maintain the Electoral College system, while still assuring that the candidate with the highest popular vote becomes president. Sidestepping the need to pass a constitutional amendment. (Uh, apologies if this has already been covered here at nn.c.) My blue state, Illinois, is already evidently on board.
https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1166476295774932992
409 chars
Jakash said on August 28, 2019 at 12:59 pm
“Donald Trump promised on August 9, 2016, that his wife, Melania, would answer questions about her immigration at a news conference ‘in the next couple weeks.’ It’s been 1,113 days since then. We’re still waiting.”
https://twitter.com/MarkJacob16/status/1166318897722789889
276 chars