So, so ready.

Alan lurched through the door last evening and pronounced himself ready for vacation, if only to get away from the country in a more or less constant constitutional crisis these days.

Couldn’t agree more.

What else, today? Not much. Just a to-do list a mile long. Why is it so hard to get out of town for a couple weeks? Of course, it doesn’t help that there’s a strike going on, which has blotted out the sun in Alan’s world for a month or so. It’s just hard to slip the surly bonds of earth, even for a little while. But stuff is getting ticked off the list, and one way or another we’re getting on the plane.

As to the constitutional crisis.

I’m so damn tired of all this stuff. The bonkers communications, the horrible family, the idiot enablers, the First Sex Worker, all of it. And this sort of thing, as well:

“Pathay.” Or maybe it’s “pathé.” I guess that’s fancy talk you learn in fancy-talk school.

And now we’re going to be seeing more of Trey Gowdy. Another reason to be so, so glad I gave up cable TV.

You guys can post the links today. Alas, I have to tackle this to-do list.

Posted at 9:23 am in Current events |
 

37 responses to “So, so ready.”

  1. LAMary said on October 9, 2019 at 9:38 am

    I think I’ll spend my day celebrating pathways today. Yay.

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  2. Jeff Borden said on October 9, 2019 at 9:42 am

    We learned when we were in Portugal last year that purchasing property valued at a certain level entitles you to a Portugese visa within 6 months. Just sayin’. . .Lisbon and Porto are pretty kickass cities.

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  3. Julie Robinson said on October 9, 2019 at 9:46 am

    Ack! Curse of the last commenter! Here’s what I was writing while Nance was posting.

    The latest Nobel went to developers of lithiom-ion batteries, magic supplier of power to everything we love, and end up throwing away.

    Anyone here have a pair of AirPods? It turns out the batteries aren’t replaceable, and Apple really, really just wants you to buy a new pair, at $159. We, and our environment, pay dearly for our teeny-tiny devices. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/08/everyones-airpods-will-die-weve-got-trick-replacing-them/

    Contrast that to my mom’s flip phone, which wasn’t holding a charge after five years. We spent all of $6.59 for a new one, which I will slip in for her. I hardly want to go back to a flip phone, but they do carry a lower environmental profile.

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  4. Deborah said on October 9, 2019 at 10:10 am

    Not to change the subject but in this video are all the other guys standing on books or is Rep Jim Jordan really that small? https://mobile.twitter.com/thehill/status/1181877212057886720 Maybe he has a Napoleon complex and that’s why he acts like such an asshole.

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  5. Icarus said on October 9, 2019 at 10:55 am

    Julie Robinson @3 I cannot get to that article, I must have used all my free visits already. I also tried the Reader View trick and Google News trick, no luck.

    can you give a spoiler?

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  6. Suzanne said on October 9, 2019 at 11:03 am

    I was surprised, too, at the size of old Gym Jordan. I, too, thought Napolean complex. What a complete jerk who, apparently, doesn’t worry too much about sexual assault.

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  7. susan said on October 9, 2019 at 11:23 am

    Icarus @5 – Trash your cookies (“manage your data”).

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  8. Jeff Borden said on October 9, 2019 at 11:54 am

    I found a biography of Gym Jordan online that states he is 6-feet tall and 183 pounds. Matt “DUI” Gaetz is listed at 5-feet-7 inches tall and 160 pounds. So, the guys in the back must’ve been standing on something in that photo.

    Regardless of height and weight, Jordan, Gaetz and the entire “Freedumb Caucus” are tighlty packed masses of shit.

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  9. Julie Robinson said on October 9, 2019 at 11:58 am

    Sure thing, Icarus. Hope you don’t have these.

    When the writer’s AirPods couldn’t hold a charge after 34 months, he went to the Apple store, where they said they said he could get a replacement set for $138, a discount of $21 from a new set. When they came out, Apple said battery replacement would cost $49, so he emailed back and forth with them, and probably reminded them that he’s the tech writer at the WaPo and had recommended them in an earlier article.

    Finally they held to the $49 price, but it was per battery. Yikes. He found out that to get that, you have to tell them “battery service”. He gave an Apple link to explain that: https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair/service

    If they are under a year old, no charge. If you buy the $29 warranty, no charge, but it only covers two years.

    At the end of the article he tries to find out why it’s so expensive to replace the battery, only to find out you can’t. When Apple says they are servicing them, they are giving you new AirPods.

    So, with help from an expert, he took one apart. He had to use a special melting knife to access the inside, and learned that everything is glued together and you have to wreck them to get the battery out. Even though Apple says they recycle them, it seems doubtful.

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  10. Jakash said on October 9, 2019 at 12:44 pm

    “Gym Jordan … is 6-feet tall and 183 pounds.” That’s interesting to me, because, while 6-feet is a very round number, 183 pounds is not. It is, however, the precise highest weight at which a 6-foot person is not considered “overweight,” according to BMI calculators. (I know, ’cause I’m attempting to get down to it!)

    Anyway, he certainly doesn’t look overweight, but if he’s 6-feet tall, he spends a lot of time being photographed with folks who are taller than that. Or perhaps he’s got a bit of a wrestler’s slump…

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  11. Sherri said on October 9, 2019 at 2:59 pm

    The AirPods are an environmental mistake, but the environmental disaster is Apple building a massive suburban car-centered HQ in a city where the median house price is $2.2 million and NIMBYism is epic even by Bay Area standards.

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  12. Deborah said on October 9, 2019 at 8:37 pm

    That video I linked to earlier made Jordon look tiny compared to the men around him (white men of course), not just in height but his facial features and head size etc. odd how that could have happened, since he was in the foreground.

    We went to Abiquiu, just for the day, since we can’t sleep there until we get our futons back (grrrr). We got things squared away so when we do get to stay there, we won’t have a lot to do. Tomorrow night and Friday night are going to get down into the 20s. We should get to stay in Abiquiu Friday night unless they screw up even more.

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  13. beb said on October 9, 2019 at 10:24 pm

    The airbuds story Julie told @9 seems endemic of modern technology. It’s not enough to build something that people want (or more likely need) they have to build in planned obsolescence. Batteries that can’t be replaced, printers that will only accept OEM cartridges (refilled or third-party cartridges register as “broken” and of course cars, tractors and so many motorized vehicles than can only be repaired by “certified” mechanics. Or even “Windows as a service” always rebooting whether you want it or not. There’s a word for all this — rent-seekers. It’s the world is divided into rent-seeking grifters and and a shrinking world of stooges.

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  14. Jakash said on October 10, 2019 at 1:32 am

    “live video of me trying to keep up with the news cycle”

    https://twitter.com/goldengateblond/status/1182009150131167232

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  15. Dexter Friend said on October 10, 2019 at 3:18 am

    I really didn’t need or even want a smartphone as I am retired and used a desktop computer and a reliable tablet and a flip phone for calls only, but when my kids insisted I join the modern world, I got an iPhone a year ago, probably 11 years after Jobs introduced them. All my friends told me I was soon to become an addict. It took a couple months, but now, yeah, I panic when I don’t have a charger handy, I check my alerts constantly, I have unlimited data so I listen to podcasts and news-radio and music all the time on “Radio dot com” and “I Heart Radio”. I haven’t charged my MultiTed earpieces yet; maybe tomorrow. I suppose they are already horribly obsolete. Hefifino. ~ I am anxious to go meet my new Red Heeler granddog soon, down by Columbus. Tomorrow, headed to Michigan to buy some Jonathon apples. I just cannot find any good Jonathons here anymore. Some spell it “Jonathan”. That’s wrong, in my book anyway. Gonna get a bushel; I eat ’em like a horse eats them, in quantity that is. 🙂

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  16. alex said on October 10, 2019 at 7:07 am

    Horses eat them cores and all. Good roughage, I suppose, for making road apples out of Jonathons.

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  17. Dexter Friend said on October 10, 2019 at 4:03 pm

    Alex is surely a great road apple dodger, living there where he does. 😉

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  18. Deggjr said on October 10, 2019 at 8:24 pm

    Gym Jordan was an NCAA champion wrestler, apparently in the 134 lb weight class. He’s probably not 6′ tall. Wrestling explains his attitude, checked shirt, etc. (It doesn’t excuse the attitude.)

    Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State. That program had its own creepy sexual issues. His involvement is unclear: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/brennan/2018/11/07/ohio-state-jim-jordan-scrutiny-sexual-abuse-scandal/1906480002/

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  19. LAMary said on October 10, 2019 at 9:16 pm

    Six feet tall and 134 pounds would be a skinny guy for sure. Five foot seven maybe. He really is a jerk.

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  20. Deborah said on October 10, 2019 at 9:20 pm

    Just got back from seeing the movie Judy. Say what you want about Renee Zellwegger was terrific.

    When I was a kid growing up in Miami there was an AA meeting place down the block, it used to be a bakery I think. Anyway at some point Judy Garland was sequestered there for a few days, her minders picked an obscure location to keep the press away, but the word still got out. My neighborhood was all a flutter but none of us actually spotted her.

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  21. alex said on October 10, 2019 at 9:43 pm

    I saw some old ’60s video of Judy Garland’s anti-gay tirades and they made Anita Bryant look like a total wuss. Does Renee get that part right?

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  22. Deborah said on October 10, 2019 at 10:04 pm

    Actually on the movie they portrayed Judy as the opposite of what you described Alex. And another weird thing about my days growing up in Miami was that Anita Bryant used to show up at a large Baptist church in my neighborhood. I didn’t really know who she was except as a controversial figure.

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  23. alex said on October 10, 2019 at 10:46 pm

    I’m remembering some interviews in B&W where she was drunk and stoned off her ass and chain smoking and having a total meltdown about fags and how they fucked her up. I’m guessing these were from the early to mid ’60s.

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  24. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 11, 2019 at 7:20 am

    To send Nancy on her way . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak_MTXQALa0

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  25. Peter said on October 11, 2019 at 12:00 pm

    Apparently Trey Gowdy can’t join Trump’s impeachment train until January due to rules – apparently he has to wait a year after getting out of office to lobby the House again.

    I don’t know if that’s true or not, but if it is, then if I were him I wouldn’t bother helping out Trump – at the rate this is going, he can sign on in time to defend Pence from his impeachment inquiry.

    Schadenfreude to the nth degree! Oh the humanity!

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  26. David C. said on October 11, 2019 at 3:38 pm

    It sounds like the Ambassador to Ukraine is spilling her guts. It’s getting interesting. I think the dam is breaking.

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  27. Suzanne said on October 11, 2019 at 4:14 pm

    Also, I think that someone told Trump that Trey Gowdy is not Draco Malfoy and has no magic wand to help him. So away he went.

    Also, Shepherd Smith is out at Fox
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/shepard-smith-stepping-down-from-fox-news

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  28. Scout said on October 11, 2019 at 4:52 pm

    Interesting timing… Bill The Enforcer Barr had a meeting with Murdoch yesterday, today Shep Smith is out. There is no such thing as coincidence.

    Happy Birthday, Deborah!

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  29. beb said on October 11, 2019 at 5:01 pm

    I was so excited to read this headline:
    Sasse Condemns Beto O’Rourke’s ‘Bigoted’ Call to Strip Churches of Tax Exempt Status
    but it turns on that Beto was only referring to churches that refuse to perform same-sex marriages. I would love to see churches stripped of their tax exemept status. They are a drain on society. I might accept tax exempt status for sanctuaries but not for anything else, like Catholic hospitals, any religion schools or other property not used on a regular basis for religious services.

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  30. Dexter Friend said on October 11, 2019 at 5:23 pm

    My gawd what a news day. Yovanovitch in D.C., blasting Trump for firing her from her ambassadorship in Ukraine, Rudy and those two goons + Trump…Joe Walsh of Illinois blasted Trump , on msnbc of all places. Trump, Pompeo, Rudy…all saying to hell with Congress/everything, they’re marching ahead to another nomination and election. And Trump said Biden kissed Barack Obama’s ass, that is what made him a great VP.

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  31. alex said on October 12, 2019 at 8:00 am

    I don’t know if we’ll ever return to normal, but I’m increasingly confident that we’re going to see an illegitimate president and his enablers kicked to the curb and duly punished for their crimes.

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  32. Deborah said on October 12, 2019 at 11:14 am

    Guilliani is going to have to take the fall for his orange mob boss. That’s exactly how it works in the mafia. I just hope we can eventually bring down the boss. I think it will happen but it ain’t gonna be easy.

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  33. Brian stouder said on October 12, 2019 at 11:17 am

    Sitting on a sunny hill overlooking a chicane at Road Atlanta for the Petite LeMans race, with my son Grant (veteran race fan and Moraco visitor) Caught news headlines before leaving the motel, and sincerely think Alex is right about Trumpo’s increasingly steep spiral toward the earth

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  34. Suzanne said on October 12, 2019 at 11:25 am

    Family values party! https://www.journalgazette.net/opinion/editorials/20191012/seeing-red-gop-at-war-in-huntington

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  35. ROGirl said on October 12, 2019 at 2:31 pm

    They’re all so fucked and they know it. Trump will turn on every last one of them, except Vladimir Putin.

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  36. beb said on October 12, 2019 at 3:13 pm

    I was wondering if Nancy will leave the keys to NN.c with JC Burns so he can open up new threads from time to time. 100+ comment threads are always hard to navigate. And Lawd knows news of the day will keep this place active.

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  37. Deborah said on October 12, 2019 at 5:31 pm

    Ha ha ha, the Buzzard family!

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