It would be interesting to see what the unnamed newspaper ends up with after rejecting Ijeoma Oluo's piece. I wonder if we'll ever know? (Or if, after the tweet, the newspaper will have to drop or modify the project.)
Yes. This week I have many, many feels. (But not in the bad Al Franken way.)
But keeping the focus on the tax abomination is probably best. Or worst. A spasm of just about every vile Republican fiscal lie spat up in front of the world to see.
It's cartoonishly evil! We don't deserve to keep this republic.
A lot of people on Twitter are saying the button to close the door is just something top executives have in the movie/TV/music industry. It's a status symbol.
Do not the attempts to discourage educational universities and students not give pause to any of the fuckers?
It's a status symbol.
...symbolizing one's power to trap prey in your office.
Also: the kind of status symbol that is not visible to anyone.
We don't deserve to keep this republic.
I havve some good news then.
The Oluo twitter thread was amazing and horrifying. She said she might name the paper, and I really hope she does.
5: It's a status symbol.It's a status symbol..
So is the freedom to sexually harass and humiliate women. Part of the whole dealio.
11: What happens when you leave your comment in preview tro go look something up.
11: What happens when you leave your comment in preview tro go look something up.
Let me be the first to suggest that a lock button no one can see and that lets you trap people in your office can't really be seen as a status symbol.
Now, somebody praise me for my insight.
Maybe the original goal was to buy a few extra seconds to flush blow down the toilet during police raids?
A call button got security would be fine and probably a button to keep people out.
I'm a little surprised -- really -- that anyone is surprised by the Ijeoma Oluo story. It's completely how television works, and radio, and increasingly how opinion journalism is done.
The process is entirely editor-driven. There is a template. You are hired to fill an entirely predetermined hole. Being made to think is not something either readers or editors are prepared to pay for.
The experience of being asked "Would you be prepared to say that Donald Trump's piles are the most magnificent in recorded history"* is surely one that any freelance has had.
I am enormously lucky to work on one of the shrinking little islands of the business where this is not entirely true. But I have also been an editor, and then you do think about how pieces will fit together, and because writers are not in at the planning stage of a page their ideas (should they have any) are nowhere considered. They are just speed bumps on the way to whatever it was the man person man in charge of the morning meeting thought they had glimpsed. See also hot take.
*or the opposite. Or anything else that might follow from the morning news.
21: Great idea! Write us a 500-word op-ed on that topic for tomorrow's paper.
18: I bet Matt Lauer has a police officer on-call to chop up his cocaine into a fine powder so he doesn't get nose lumps.
Button that closes the door: Visible, status symbol, normal
Button that locks the door: Bad
But keeping the focus on the tax abomination is probably best.
I'm living in denial that the tax bill will meet the same end as the O'care repeal bills. I know that I'm wrong.
A button that locks the door is lame. A real status symbol is a button that opens a trap door under the person standing in front of your desk and drops them into a tank filled with hungry crocodiles.
26: https://twitter.com/pronounced_ing/status/936043425559916544
26: "Sorry, nothing personal. It's just that the crocodiles are hungry."
28: To get the full effect, I think you need to say "You've failed me for the last time" before pressing the button.
20: I've got a little bit of familiarity with this sort of process, and I have to admit: I'm surprised. I mean, I totally understand that 20.2 is correct, but it seems to me that she was entirely prepared to meet the requirements of any minimally coherent template that they had established.
In addition to wanting to see what the newspaper comes up with,
I'd like to read her piece. I hope she writes it anyway.
But not in the bad Al Franken way.
In the end I'm sort of glad about the Franken revelations, disgusting as they are. Not glad that these things happened to these women but glad that it destroys the illusion that men who are allies -- progressive, pro-choice, promote women to leadership, etc. -- would never even think of doing such a thing!
It's the phenomenon we described in college as the "date rape women's studies major."
30: Has someone set up a funding mechanism for that?
Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting? Is it the candidate who doesn't have a penis? I'd say so."
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dana-nessel-campaign-ad_us_5a1f1116e4b0d52b8dc25af9?dbk
24 is right. The close the door button is normal in many offices including mine (I don't have one but could probably get ine if I wanted, some others do). It's so you can ask someone in for a private conversation without having to get up from your desk or saying "please close the door" to your guest. In the olden times the door would have been closed by a secretary, but few places are really staffed like that at lower than the CEO level, ironically making the close the door button a status symbol only for office people below the absolute top level.
The lock the door button is insane.
It's not possible for two people to be in my office without one of them being close enough to the door to shut it without getting up.
Unless somebody was sitting on somebody's lap.
In which case, it would be too late.
The ultimate status symbol is the button that installs a ceiling on your cubicle and installs and then closes a door to it too.
This week was crazy for me personally, which I guess distracted me from the craziness politically. On Monday my co-chair accused me of stealing her former students' (my older peers') ideas and publishing them as my own in my journal article that just came out. (It's a journal they're both regularly featured in and guest edit for). She said she thought about going public with this and putting it in my job LORs, but decided not to ruin my career. When I managed to convince her I hadn't actually plagiarized/substantively stolen their work, she then accused me of having a vendetta against them and selfishly not thinking of their careers (they're mini superstars both coming up for tenure at elite R1 institutions.) She claimed that I had made permanent enemies of them and that anyone reading my work would assume I hated them (her words). She told me that I had possibly ruined my chances of getting a career in academia, and that "I had a hard road ahead of me to make amends." She also told me my article was stupid and derivative and clumsy and clearly "student work" when compared with the other articles in the journal. Needless to say I was a complete wreck. THEN the next day she emails me and is like, "I hope my concern didn't derail your progress, I really love your work and you're so brilliant and creative and everything thinks that about you. Keep me in the loop with your progress." She then praised me lavishly to some other student in office hours.
Anyways, I met with committee member A, who co-founded the journal and was also on the committee (I think chair) of the other two students. He was like "WTF everything about that is insane and abusive and your article is great and no one would in a million years think any of those things reading it." He and my other co-chair think that my other co-chair is upset I didn't cite her, but didn't want to say so directly.* He's like, if you want her off your committee I will make that happen, but the crazy thing is until this moment, she's been a really excellent chair and very supportive and helpful, plus she's a huge name in the field and people would think it weird if she weren't on my committee.
Anyways, blah.
*The article was a narrow-scope one published in a highly technical journal, so it was a narrow, technical article doing the sort of work my co-chair doesn't like but knows that I do.
The door doesn't lock anyway. I still love my office because I have a great view and my coffee pot is next door in room 420.
Also, nobody like that is near me.
On the taxes thing, I always expected the Republicans to slash spending on key services, kill the poor, destroy society, and be monsters for the sake of giving the very wealthiest a completely unnecessary tax cut. What I did not expect was that in their doing so my own taxes would go up. So now I'm mad both in my standard liberal way AND in a selfish IGMFY UMC suburban Republican tax revolt kinda way. Not only are they destroying the world but they are taking more of my money to do so. Hate them so much.
39: People are crazy and awful. So sorry, but at least the effort to gaslight you doesn't seem to be getting any traction. I wonder if there's some kind of manic-depressive disorder at work here.
30: "minimal coherence"?
Oh, go pivot to video.
There are some editors with whom you can argue about that kind of thing. But they are a minority, and in my experience when you point out that the idea is a steaming pile of shit most will move swiftly on to the next person on their list. Not least because the person making the calls/emails may not be the one who had or has the idea for that the final product should be. That's part of the problem with editorial meetings. Churnalism. Let me explain to you how it works. (possibly I ought to write this piece for real)
That said, it's a good idea to always cite the chair of your committee in everything you write.
Halford's tax bracket class is roughly that of the suburban Republican base, no?
Yes, people are awful and insane and that sure seems like an example.
42: It's breathtaking to me how the fuckers are abandoning the rest of the top 10% in favor of the top .1%
I assume so. There are enough people with their taxes getting raised like that to flip PA and Ohio. At least I think so.
49: Maybe the Koch brothers know they are going to die before 2021?
Now you've got me thinking maybe it's worth it.
This analysis is the only way I've been able to make sense of Republican tax policy lately. I liked my phrasing (mentioned elsewhere) that collectively the Baby Boom has decided to shit in the well before it dies.
20
I'm a little surprised -- really -- that anyone is surprised by the Ijeoma Oluo story. It's completely how television works, and radio, and increasingly how opinion journalism is done.
This is true and in one sense is obvious. Editors solicit editorials on topics of their choice rather than candid opinions from certain people, they have to think about the page as a whole rather than one the agenda of one column or columnist, and they try to encourage controversy. All of this is annoying to writers and to people who already have opinions they're confident of and is probably getting worse in recent years. At the same time, it's a basic and unavoidable part of the industry.
But in another sense, it's pretty shocking/depressing that they were trying to cast the feminist side of the debate as "due process is bad, we really need some witch hunts."
39 sounds dreadful. I'm glad it's over and suggest rickrolling your cochair with this, repeatedly.
That wasn't shocking to me. That's standard red pill/Republican/manosphere argument.
44: Yeah, I'm realizing that it's been a couple of decades since I was in that kind of environment, and reading your comment is giving me PTSD. I had forgotten.
||
Pompeo for Tillerson. Rage, despair or indifference? (Only rumoured so far I think.)
|>
He needs to last until tomorrow. You have to have ten months in office before you're eligible for "least accomplished in a cabinet position).
The true status symbol is either a rotating wall, or a conference table with trap doors under every seat: https://youtu.be/VgX6JFoV0TM?t=116
I'm beginning to think there is a Mitchell and Webb clip for every occasion.
AP style is now to close quotes with a paren.
I'm pretty fatalist about the Pompeo/Tillerson switch, since even if they are different from each other in their priorities or abilities to execute them they're both sufficiently awful that it's hard to tell.
Does this make Cotton's senate seat a real possibility? I mean, it's Arkansas, but an open seat is better than an incumbent, right?
I think a lot of the shock and/or outrage on the op-ed isn't about editors pitching stories to writers it's pitching that particular story. But also a lot of work goes in to presenting contributed op-eds as the independent ideas of the contributor and it shouldn't be surprising that people who aren't insiders buy that line.
Amber Tamblyn in the NYT makes an argument that I think is analagous to the one Oluo would make if given the chance.
Regarding whether folks like Louis CK should be given another chance, she says:
Why do we need to talk about the redemption of men when we are right in the middle of the salvation of women? Not even the middle, but the very beginning? Why are we obligated to care about salvaging male careers when we have just begun to tell the stories that have plagued us for lifetimes?
So what's the deal with the Medicare chemo thing? If you get cancer after 65 you just go home and wait to die unless you literally have several hundred thousand dollars in cash? I cannot personally believe that this is going to fly.
Wasn't there some period of time Tillerson (and other cabinet members) has to be in office or he gets an enormous tax bill from the divesting he had to do?
39 Just make sure your co-chair doesn't have a button that locks her office door when you go to see her.
Sorry, that sounds awful.
67: I believe that a substantial number of elderly republicans will happily sign their own death warrants as long as they're assured that it will Piss Off The Liberals.
59 Because State wasn't being destroyed fast enough.
My bet is that the door lock didn't actually lock anybody in but just prevented people from coming in from the outside. That is how most mechanical door locks in offices work anyway. Still super bad because it enabled lauers sexual harassment.
Some people think it's a lock that prevents people inside the room from leaving, as they claw at the door while the evil beast devours them Ghostbusters evil dog style? That's sounds like a fire code violation.
72/73: I figured it was as described in 72, but the way a lot of people have phrased it on Twitter and elsewhere it sounds like their interpretation is closer to 73. It's bad enough that it gives him privacy to do awful things--his social power is enough to force the women to stay even without them being prevented from unlocking it manually.
He just didn't want anyone walking in on him and interrupting the raping
39 sounds really, really awful. It sounds like a tough call -- would she be vindictive if you removed her from your committee? Though sounds like she might still be vindictive (based on her own earlier comments) even if you don't remove her. Where's the crazy most likely to reside?
Will other people even know (yet alone care) who was on your actual committee? That doesn't seem like much of a compelling reason to keep her on. Though there may be other reasons you find it easier to not make that change.
Younger me really did watch a great deal of that show.
His husband announced his death. Kind of sentence that makes me feel very old.
On the Republican tax bill, what's pissing me off most is the remarkable tendency of so many journalists to report that taxes "may" or "might" or "could" go up for x, y, or z constituency.
Or, as a major NYT headline has it today, "It started as a tax cut. Now it could change American life."
Could? What, really, is going on with this hedging language? It WOULD change American life. It WOULD raise taxes on various groups of people.
Seriously. What is up with the hedging language? It doesn't serve anybody well. I hear it constantly, even from commentators who otherwise understand perfectly well what the proposals are: in conclusion, they say, this "could" or "might" result in increased taxes for those in this or that circumstance.
39 sounds to me like a garden-variety high functioning crazy person acting out, realizing she acted badly, and trying to apologize without apologizing via the later email and praise to others. If she's been good and supportive otherwise, I'd watch carefully but hope for the best.
I'm also blown away by the tax bill. I know they're evil, but the staggering incompetence of the evil and the moronic happy talk about really major problems still blow me away. And WTF is up with the NYT just yesterday getting around to noting how fundamentally fucked up the pass-through income bit is? There are many, many horrible things in that bill, but the effrontery of making a bullshit equity argument to justify more tax favors for what's already tax-favored income should have been called out a lot sooner and a lot louder.
39: Everything about that is insane and abusive. I'm so sorry.
39 sounds like mental illness...
You can buy a SCID (Structured Clinical Interview for the DMS) that anybody can use the diagnosis somebody. It just costs $50. Don't let anybody tell you that you need a credential.
I'm old and jaded, and it's absolutely horrible to unleash that kind of thing on someone you're supposed to be mentoring and supporting, but honestly 39 seems entirely consistent with an insecure person overreacting to a perceived slight and then failing at making amends. Crazy, yes, but a familiar sort of crazy, and one that seems to be an occupational hazard of academics, lawyers, and probably others in nominally flat but highly status-conscious organizations.
20, 54: It's obvious, but hard to remember (Cf. Gell-Mann amnesia).
No one mentions how bad the Greatest Generation was at raising children.
I blame Mr. Spock and/or Doctor Spock. (I guess in the future there's either no such thing as a Ph.D. or people with Ph.D.s have stopped insisting on "doctor".)
I always assumed he was ABD -- joined the military after flaking on his dissertation.
Where do you think they get the guy with the wire-rimmed glasses in the WWII movies? Someone's nickname has to be "Professor".
Agree with Dave here. It took me a while to realize some of my most accomplished colleage's strange behavior towards our newly hired pre-tenure faculty member was simple insecurity/jealousy. Doesn't matter that Old Guy gets a billion grants and has a Wiki page, and Young Guy is just struggling to start his group, irrational insecurity rules the day.
The day I realized that a fairly large proportion of mother-daughter interactions are plagued by the same dysfunction (you are literally her mother, how can you be jealous of her and be trying to sabotage her?) was a sad one.
Don't get me started on the problems with kids.
I guess the good news on the tax plan is that once the Republicans get done repealing the "death tax," they'll surely be on board with repealing section
102 of the Internal Revenue Code. Right?
Have I told the story about my Native American math professor at Michigan? He was He missed class for a week or so while he was in the hospital. When he returned, he told this story: a former student visited him in the hospital and addressed him as Professor. The nurse cheerily asked, "Oh 'Professor'! How did you get that nickname?" When he told this story, he gave a very dramatic long drawn out pause and then a very icy answer about getting the nickname for being awarded tenure in the math department of U of M.
For the life of me I cannot figure out on the web who this instructor was, because I would have liked to link a picture of him.
I'm told that you can use a picture of Johnny Depp in his place.
Re: 68, Apparently he has to make it to Feb 1 or he owes capital gains on all the Exxon shares he had to have converted to cash compensation. Some sources report the tax bill as $71M.
99: To which the nurse's cheery response was "Oh, I thought you were American Indian?"
101: Surely they can carve something out in this tax bill to address that.
103: The technical corrections bill next spring will include a section that just says fuck it, Republican officeholders are exempt from taxation of all sorts.
I already know why I hate Tillerson. I don't know enough about Pompeo to know why to hate him. So, basically, switching them out sucks because it creates more work for me.
105: Former hack Republican Congressman, current hack CIA director, member in good standing of the Trump Administration. Good lord, how much do you need?
Surely they can carve something out in this tax bill to address that.
God, I forgot how epically stupid that was.
39 is insane and bizarre, but this bit raised a smile:
He and my other co-chair think that my other co-chair is upset I didn't cite her, but didn't want to say so directly.
Yes, because that might have been too confrontational for her.
I'm sure that Tillerson's replacement will be worse, because Tillerson is not an idiot or crazy, just evil. But it really is satisfying to watch the disaster that has unfolded for his life and reputation just by virtue of hooking up with the Trump administration. A year ago he was one of the most powerful men in the world, the head of the world's biggest and most important company (and a company that is in more sense than many a "meritocracy" again for virtues of merit including evil). Now he's getting shamed by a morons, has his reputation in tatters, and may lose up to $70 million just because he can't serve out his term. Serves you goddamn right for playing ball with Trump.
"getting shamed by a morons" is uncomfortably close to "get a brain morans"
I think those who think that Republican officeholders will face electoral consequences for raising premiums, taxes, etc on their voters are way too optimistic.
I don't think it's that farfetched. Republicans who wanted to do this type of shit lost the presidential primary to Trump who said he wouldn't do this type of shit.
Odds that they manage to step on their own dicks once again with the tax bill appear to be drifting up.
I could be wrong but doesn't that imply that they have very large dicks? Seems unlikely.
Are they really going to pass this tax bill? They can't really be going to pass this tax bill, can they? Oh my god, they're really going to pass this tax bill.
That is also how I've been feeling.
All the members of Congress stand between you and the tax bill.
Actually a lot of little dicks who are good at puffing themselves up.
Is that on the outlet stream from Lake Wobegon?
Where all the ducks are above average.
No, really, 129 and 130 are perfect as they are.
"See the Minnesota Woods" is probably not an actual tourist slogan, but it should have been.
Hey, y'all remember when Democrats were in charge and it was super important that legislation have 60 votes in the Senate? That was cute.
Also, avoiding deficits was important.
Indeed, the deficit. We are so fortunate that they were able to keep the stimulus bill to under $1 trillion. Thanks, Obama!
For the full end of the republic effect, Pompeo should change his name to Pompey and Secretary of State should be re-titled Consul.
137: I almost tweeted something about "Pompey at State" due to autocorrect. Which, like, fair enough. On that topic, I've been enjoying The Storm Before the Storm covering from the Gracchi to Sulla. It's disconcerting that one of its themes on the fall of the Republic is the weakening of norms of governance.
137.LAST: IT'S ALL LEGAL. IN FACT THE FOUNDERS ANTICIPATED THERE MIGHT BE A NEED TO EVOLVE INTO AN EMPIRE.
39 is terrible but also seems par for the course for academia. I've had many friends who've had committee members do crazy shit in order to passive aggressively make the point that the students were not citing them enough.
138: Same! It's a good book. Feels very much of this year, which presumably influenced - although I can't remember offhand when, amidst his current podcast, he was actually writing it.
Are there any recommended historical novels of the Gracchi?
138, 141: I'm probably going to read that soon. I just read this, but actually now I see I read the first edition without knowing there was a second one. That's what I get for checking something out of the library that I just saw on the shelf and never looked for info about before.
"Rubicon" by Tom Holland is also very good. It gives background of the Roman Republic's development from the time of the "kings", and then spends a lot of time on Sulla, Pompey, those guys in that century, and ends with Octavian.
OT: I have to stop at "Even the urine found a way of exiting--not where it's supposed to."
144: "If you don't have a penis, you are essentially dead," van der Merwe said at a press conference celebrating the first transplant. "If you give a penis back, you can bring them back to life."
Um?
Also, don't have a link handy, but the editorial rebuttal thing is apparently USA Today.
I can't wait to read the USA today on how a penis isn't essential to life.
144: the sub who described these surgeons as "at the cutting edge" of medicine deserves to have this procedure performed on him, or some male close to her.
The whole Tillerson thing still mystifies me on every level. However much he despises State (and I don't see that they ever actually obstructed him much), why bother throwing away Exxon just for spite? And he was introduced by Robert Gates, which (1) Gates is the definition of DC insider, why was he dealing with Trump, (2) however shitty his domestic ideology, Gates of all people knows the importance of the foreign policy apparatus, why would he send someone to trash it?
138. Colleen McCullough's fictional history "Masters of Rome" is actually pretty good on the Republican period, starting with Marius and Sulla. It's seven rather large books. Extra bonus of acerbic comments on the opinions of modern historians on togas, etc.
So, Trump spent the week asking Republicans to call of the Russia investigation and today Michael Flynn has been charged.
I think Mike Duncan was actually writing his Rome book before the worst of the recent tribulations, but some influence might have slipped in during editing. And he would have most of the revolutions he covered in his other behind him--at least up to the French and Haitian.
I read another pop sci Rome book by Mary Beard recently--apparently SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. (Actually, I think it's what got me to go back and listen to Duncan's podcast.) It covers an unusual time period: the entire Republic and the Empire up until whomever (one of the Flavians or Servians?) extended citizenship to every free person in the empire, as her organizing principle (not sure if it's a thesis) is that the allure of citizenship is what prompted so many people to do so much to change the empire.
Seems Flynn has a plea deal. Rats rats rats.
I've heard they sometimes desert a sinking ship.
155 is what I wanted to say.
Unlike Moby's, my style can still be improved.
Yes. I peaked about three years ago.
Everyone's seen that Flynn's rolled over on Trump? He's pleading guilty and seems to be cooperating with the prosecutors.
Let you be the first to mention.
Right, I knew it was out that he was pleading, but this seemed to say more about actual cooperation.
Yes. That wasn't in the reports I saw first this morning.
At which point I am sitting here saying "Oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please," to myself.
ABC News says Flynn will testify that Trump ordered him to make contact with the Russians.
Failed link. Here: https://twitter.com/DanLinden/status/936627968440487936
Also, don't have a link handy, but the editorial rebuttal thing is apparently USA Today.
Link in comment 109.
ABC News says Flynn will testify that Trump ordered him to make contact with the Russians.
Ah, but when? 6 months before the election, interesting. 6 weeks after, not as much. Though I can see potential in the latter.
"Candidate Trump" says the clip. Flynn says he's "distraught" to co-operate with Mueller. Betraying his country and destroying the world apparently is no biggie though.
Also, Comey is tweeting sanctimonious shit about all this. He can die in a fire.
Right. Motherfucker should have the sense of decency to just SHUT UP. But I guess we crossed that line 18 months ago.
All of this seeming to add more urgency to the Republican desire to pass "something." Also, for those of you at universities, aren't they freaking out about the tuition assistance stuff?
Ashley Feinberg with a good take on the Comey sanctimony: The only way these tweets are anything but obscenely obnoxious and self-righteous is if they're a direct reference to the pee tape.
Comey tweet was: "But justice roll down like waters and righteousness like in a ever-flowing stream."
174.last: I guess I could ask a graduate student, but I'd have to put my shoes on and get up.
174: Yes, at least my university is decidedly concerned about that. Also taxing endowments, and student loan interest, and and and.
As for Flynn, his song better have a lot more to it than merely someone high up in the campaign directing him to get in touch with Russia. Even assuming it was pre-election, they'd just waive that aside and say But Obama went to Berlin!!12 He was privy to *every* conversation and I expect him to detail explicit coordination between Jared and the KGB about where to target the Facebook ads.
Like if it's just this Logan Act nonsense about delaying the vote on the UNSC resolution condemning Israeli settlements until after the inauguration so the Trumpies could oppose it, I'll be deeply disappointed.
Wouldn't you imagine that Kushner's real exposure has to do with tax evasion and accessory to money laundering, pre-election?
Getting Cambridge Analytics to help Russians with targeting ads -- what's the charge for that?
No, that's overblown. But secretly colluding with a foreign power to influence a US election is at least a violation of campaign finance law?
Like so: https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/
179: Yeah, maybe. But Flynn's got plenty of financial crimes too, so the single-minded focus in the plea deals on the Russia stuff makes me hope that the prosecutors are using the money as leverage to get to the treason. So I'd be pretty disappointed if the big reveal at the end is just that Kushner's a crooked little turd.
For that matter Trump very likely has a bunch of tax avoision and money laundering in his past (and present!) too -- and if that's all they get him on, it'll feel sort of anti-climactic.
Climaxes are seriously overrated.
I am annoyed at facebook because there is no way to control when your friends see posts you liked or comment on when the posts are set to world. I somehow didn't know how much I have been pestering people with my comment addiction. [still not as bad as this poor bastard : "I commented on a post on a support group page I follow that helps me deal with recent personal trauma. Looks like now everyone I'm friends with knows about it. Thanks a lot Facebook." ] I just unfollowed a bunch people who set their posts to world because facebook doesn't want to ever fix this issue.
TAX EVASION WORKS FOR ME.
Its going to come out that Trump is deeply entangled in Russia-related collusion, and that's going to mean jack shit to congressional Republicans. This is a party that endorses pedophiles. Why should they care about a little bit of light treason?
177: Taxing endowments? For real, endowments mostly help rich people. What's their agenda?
For real, endowments mostly help rich people. What's their agenda?
Undermining higher education, a famous bastion of filthy leftism.
Taxing endowments except one specific school which happens to be closely tied to the DeVos family.
Hopefully 2018 and 2020 Democrats will be smart enough to make the election about "repealing every word of Trump's Tax Scam," following the Republican playbook on Obamacare. They better actually have a plan to make it happen if they come into power, though.
Re: USAToday editorials: she should have turned in an editorial saying that employees never deserve due process because of the sanctity of freedom of contract, The Market would never allow a company to deal unjustly with an employee, due process is just excess bureaucracy, etc.
Metaphor of the day- a kid woke me up at 1:51 am, it turns out the precise moment the bill passed, because he had a bloody nose. Blood in his bed, in the sink, on the floor, smeared on the walls.
Maybe he can use the scene in a loosely autobiographical magical realist recounting of growing up during the Bad Times.
At least Toomey comes through for Pennsylvania with the Hillsdale College exemption...
Went to sleep early on purpose to be spared watching it go down live, but now up since 3:30.
195 assumes times will get better. Which, maybe.
Yes, it is a very optimistic take.
I don't quite get how repealing the ACA failed multiple times but this passes the first time at bat.
Eat the donor class.
The Hillsdale thing was ultimately stripped out.
199: They learned their lessons. ("Propose legislation that is not both terrible policy and hideously unpopular" was not one of them.)
We may be in hell, but at least we can have a song or two in our hearts.
Let's attempt to fuck back against the fuckers joyfully at least.
200: Oh, never mind then; I like this plan.
201: I hate, hate, hate, the "get a win" framing of this kind of thing.
Or the framing below. An outrageous lie by a Repub senator followed by "Democrats say" regular order wasn't followed.
"They're listening carefully to all of the concerns," Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said of leadership. "They've gone out of their way to make sure regular order has been observed, as demanded and expected by many of the members."
Democrats called suggestions of "regular order" outrageous as Republicans rushed the bill to passage. But McConnell was sure to hold a committee markup of the measure, which he did not do with health care, and which was a main reason Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) voted that bill down.
188-191: Some churches (at least mainline ones) have endowments.
Are you saying we have small penises? That kind of thing is why we vote Trump.
205 would make things so complicated for Republicans, if they believed in democracy or freedom of religion.
I have an amendment that will make America great again but the margin is too small to contain it.
Did he really just tweet an admission of obstruction of justice?
Hasn't he done that already?
For values of "he" including all members of the Trump family.
It amuses me that Ty Cobb has come back from hell to work as a lawyer for the Trump White House.
Are there any Senate/ House I should be giving money to?
If you're a graduate student, just give it straight to the United States Treasury. They'll see that it gets passed to a billionaire who can give donations to Congress.
213: Yes, give to the most excellent N!na Ahm@d, running in the D primary to replace corrupt, sexual-harassment-minimizing B0b Br@dy in PA-1.
And whoever is running against T00mey.
Gah, scratch that. Moby's right. I had a brain blip.
So, my one neighbor just put me on notice that she wanted me to go see if my other neighbor is dead if the other neighbor didn't answer the phone (I'm paraphrasing). Fortunately, the neighbor did answer the phone before I had to ring the bell and say, "I've been deputized by the neighbors who figured you might be dead since your trash can has been behind your car for 48 hours and when she went to look more closely she saw what was clearly a check in the pile of shit you have had clustered around your door."
Take home point: Even if you're only in your early 60s, the neighbors will start to wonder if you're dead or trapped until a pile a newspapers if you have always looked really unhealthy and have a hoarding problem that is clearly visible from the curb.
Other take home point: I should probably either work on being a better neighbor because I didn't even realize another neighbor had a whole baby over the summer.
Is your neighbor a client of Solomon & Sons Arbitration?
My references are too dated to get that.
Unless that's a Bible reference. The baby is still whole.
Someone halved a baby,
It's rather sad to say.
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I'm leaving for the airport in an hour for a 2 am flight (it's 10:30 now) that will have me in Muscat around 5 am and then another flight to Dubai landing at 10:30 AM. About 11 hours in transit for what used to take about 2.5-3 hours airport time included.
I hope they let me in.
|>
Jesus, 4 hour layover in Muscat International and there's nothing here. Should have waited to go through security and say in the Costa Coffee.
Take home point: Even if you're only in your early 60s, the neighbors will start to wonder if you're dead or trapped until a pile a newspapers if you have always looked really unhealthy and have a hoarding problem that is clearly visible from the curb.
I am periodically concerned about my colleague who is 50 going on 80, and lives alone. She gets out of breath in conversation, standing still. I'm driven to distraction/concern and I don't know if I'm supposed to take some sort of preemptive, protective about the fact that she has to huff and pant hard to make it through sentences. I also feel like me noticing this must be very mean because clearly she doesn't realize it's obvious to other people, but mostly I'm concerned.
Fuck that shit, went back and out and I'm having a latte at Costa Coffee.
Except now I'm going to have to take a piss in the airport and rule #37 of my personal code is avoid pissing at the airport at all costs.
226: I have a coworker who had a heart attack shortly before I started. He has made huge lifestyle changes, but I worry when he's late for work/out sick. He doesn't live alone, though, so I don't need to be more than concerned as a friendly coworkwer. Yours sounds way scarier to interact with.
228: I am so confused by this, but please don't explain. Good luck with the rest of the travel.
It's much easier to piss at the airport than on the plane. It's less bouncy and there's more room.
The men's room at the B terminal of the Omaha airport is great. Modern design and well lighted with faucets that don't skimp.
"Let's wait until everybody from around the world brings their germs together in one building. That's obviously the best place to save water with ridiculous slow faucets."
Assuming you following standard convention, it's hard to find place to be in O'Hare on the E and F concourse until you get almost to the ends. B and C are easier.
Nothing weird, just dealing with heavily trafficked filthy bathrooms + luggage is not a good combination.
Fly Southwest ava check everything.
Or ditch the luggage and roll with just the one overcoat, like Jason Bourne.
I once flew from Chicago to Toronto with zero bags and it was the best air travel I've ever had.
226: "My doctor gave me two copies of this pamphlet on when to consider heart by-pass surgery but I don't want to just waste the one."
"So you can throw this one away."
"When we were kids and it was a rainy day, we would either play Monopoly or memorize the symptoms of COPD. Did you ever play those games?"
I'm not sure that's what they meant by playing doctor.
226 is she a smoker?
No, but she did injure her knee and has limited mobility. I know she used to garden, and somehow I got the notion that gardening does count as moderate exercise, but I don't know if she still does since her knee injury.
If not, maybe your office could get her a hydroponic pot setup for the holidays.
243: "Of course you didn't, no one did. It never happens. Sorry, that's a dumb question... skip that."
We used to play Monopoly a lot until my brother got too competitive.
248: Then you introduced him to Diplomacy.
Made it through passport control. In Dubai with Chani.
On Topic Bleg:
Should I incorporate as an LLC now? Near as I can tell, it has never mattered, tax-wise, whether my practice was incorporated or not (net income under $75k*, no employees, assets, or meaningful expenses). But I get the sense that, under the new rules, it might be worth doing.
Worth noting that AB is in essentially the exact same boat. I think we're in the 26% bracket as joint filers.
Obviously this is really a question for an accountant, but the only time I ever used one, it saved me neither time nor money and cost me $600 in fees, so I'm pretty anti-accountant.
*usually by quite a bit
On a related note: everybody is talking about this impacting the 2018 elections, but surely the first time people will fill out forms based on this law will be April 2019? Am I missing something?
Presumably will affect withholding in 2018?
I do a very small amount of consulting on the side (biggest year was $5650, almost nothing this year) so probably not worth incorporating but who knows.
If you incorporate, you get two votes.
250 yay from me too! Have a lovely time together!