I think it must be a deliberate attempt to make the rest of the Republican party realize they have no morals outside of him. Like in "1984", when Winston realized that he loved Big Brother.
But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
IYKWIM.
He's going down the line of all the ways various conservatives have argued for their moral superiority and forcing them to choose between open, naked violation of the moral standard or facing the electorate without him so that they can see, in their own heart if not in public, the pile of shit they are.
Basically I am going to save my comments for the next meetup.
5: Will the nation's liquor stockpiles hold out that long?
I'm thinking London drinks cosmopolitan.
On Brexit, there's really not much to be said until tomorrow, which will certainly be interesting. This link in the OP is quite useful and .
Somehow the link in 12 has vanished into the full stop at the end. This: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50095368
13 hero is great. Almost Hogarth.
For the first year or so of the Trump presidency, it seemed like all right-thinking people were dumbfounded that he wasn't immediately getting impeached for a new scandal every week, except for me and a dozen equally cynical and jaded people around here, who understood Congressional procedure and had low expectations for Republican ethics. For the past month or so I've felt like one of those naive dumbfounded people. I always knew that Republicans were fascists and their leaders were more concerned with winning their next primary and their own careers in general than with the welfare of the country or the judgement of history, but surely they wouldn't tie themselves to president who's this openly corrupt and just plain dumb, right? Right? Wrong! Apparently they really can dig through rock bottom!
It does increasingly seem like there are a significant number of people who view politics as a zero-sum game they are trying to win, and all issues around actual governance are at best a distraction.
At this point I'm putting my head in the sand over Brexit. Please work it out, yinz. I'd like to be living in the EU next year. I believe in you. Kinda. (Amusingly, at least to me, I'm probably going to be living in Corbyn's district. No voting rights for non-Commonwealth/Irish foreigners, alas.)
The G7 Doral thing is so on the face of it corrupt, it's hilarious. They forgot to dog whistle. Ditto with Mulvaney not realizing that he's supposed to pretend there was no quid pro quo. It feels like a phase shift, and that means worse things will happen. I'm most appalled by Trump's recent quotes on the Kurds. What he's said is what committers of genocide say.
I think the real problem now is the belief that having agreed something, anything, is an achievement in itself.
The bar for upper class white people to "succeed" just keeps getting lower.
I bet (option 1) it doesn't actually come to pass. Someone convinces him that the bad publicity will outweigh the profits.
I think it's more likely that (option 2) it doesn't come to pass due to the other six not showing up. Or (option 3) a "shadow G7" happens where some significant number of the other six send representatives rather than going in person, or (option 4) they might just have an event of their own and call it the G6. I'd still put greater odds on the G7 happening as currently planned than either of those four options. 2, 3, and 4 are unlikely due to realpolitik; as horrible as Trump is, the US is still a big economy, which is supposed to be the deciding factor in the G7. Option 1 is unlikely because they're still digging.
There isn't going to be a G7. There will be a G8.
19: Does it, or has it always been that low and we are having a rare moment of transparency?
re: brexit I've given up trying to make sense of it. It seems like it must either push through soon now, or collapse entirely into what? Sheepishly remain in the EU and internecine political hashing through the domestic fallout?
it does occur to me that 23 contains it's own contradiction
I agree with 4. Specifically, Trump's brazenness seems to have had a second function throughout his career: it tells him who is loyal based on who is willing to toady most obsequiously. (Obviously it wouldn't work if he didn't enjoy the deference given to money from birth, but it has.)
"The bar for upper class white people to "succeed" just keeps getting lower."
Honestly not sure if this is Johnson, Trump or Corbyn being referred to here.
It's a very wide bar. All of them.
The bar for upper class white people to "succeed" just keeps getting lower.
I almost posted The 'Glass Floor' Is Keeping America's Richest Idiots At The Top, by friend-of-the-blog Michael Hobbes.
So what happened to the general election? I thought everyone wanted a general election and it was just a matter of timing and preconditions.
link 29 is a good article. I wonder if glass is the right material for that floor though - after all, those standing on it would rather not be seen to..
They're wearing bath robes and the floor is glass.
And they aren't wiping their butts very carefully.
I haven't read the article yet, but I assume that they use the metaphor the same way I do.
but surely they wouldn't tie themselves to a president who's this openly corrupt and just plain dumb, right? Right?
I think the fundamental thing to understand is that it's too painful and humiliating for them to admit they were conned, and until Trump is forced from power, it's rationally self-interested for them to keep doubling down. From what I can tell, support for Trump (among Republicans) is also basically addictive. There's a tipping point, but we're nowhere near it yet. Adam Serwer is always nice and pithy on this subject:
Attempting to use one's official powers for private gain is the most basic definition of corruption. Yet because the base of the Republican Party believes itself to be the only legitimate expression of popular will, whether or not its members constitute an actual majority of the electorate, it does not matter what Trump's motives are. Much of the Republican base believes, as Trump does, that loyalty to the country and loyalty to himself are one and the same. Therefore, nothing Trump could do is corrupt, and even using his official powers for personal gain is an act of selfless patriotism. In this warped view, attempting to extort foreign countries into attacking his political rivals is not a betrayal of his responsibilities as president; it is the fullest expression of them.
Unless Republican support for Trump craters, Republican legislators will not turn against him. And Republican support for Trump cannot crater as long as many Republicans view their political rivals as illegitimate political actors rather than fellow citizens.
I know that, written out like that, it sounds just batshit. But I also believe it's true. Like my awful ex, who stopped trying to talk me out of leaving only once he could officially glom onto someone else, they would probably drop Trump like a hot potato if any other effective leader were available. I suspect a lot of the evangelicals are fervently praying for one.
They'd probably pray for your awful ex too, if you sent in his name and didn't explicitly ask for them to pray for him to be less of a shithead.
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Completely off-topic, a 2018 paper on domestic dog evolution in North America with a sad ending:
This initial dog population entered North America and then dispersed throughout the Americas, where it remained isolated for at least 9000 years. Within the past 1000 years, however, at least three independent reintroductions of dogs have occurred. The first may have consisted of Arctic dogs that arrived with the Thule culture ~1000 years ago (6). Then, beginning in the 15th century, Europeans brought a second wave of dogs that appear to have almost completely replaced native dogs. Lastly, Siberian huskies were introduced to the American Arctic during the Alaskan gold rush (25). As a result of these more recent introductions, the modern American dog population is largely derived from Eurasian breeds, and the closest known extant vestige of the first American dogs now exists as a worldwide transmissible cancer.|>
I am also 100% confident in ajay's ability to disguise his remarks on the events in question (2, 5) as a Shakespearian soliloquy. IYKWIM.
Naturally ANYONE ELSE can take up this challenge under ANY BURNER PSEUD.
In that case, though, transmission is primarily through coprophagy rather than venereal.
Never mind how exactly that works. It just works.
||
This paragraph is cracking me up:
For something with interior Mexican flair and a complete disregard for subtlety, puntas de puerco matches roasted pork with seemingly equal parts garlic and a dragonfire chipotle salsa for a satisfying burn. Paloma Blanca's skill with pork extends to a lip-staining pozole with a restorative stock, blanched hominy pearls and fresh cabbage and radishes to customize the bowl.
It's a possibility for a dinner date tomorrow (for our 10th anniversary!)
|>
If we should die, think only this of us:
That there's some tumor of a foreign dog
That is for ever pre-Columbian.
37: I spent a while recently reading up on exactly that point, and I think subsequent research has shown that Chihuahua's and similar South American hairless breeds as well as Carolina Dogs still have a lot of American dog DNA.
Oh never mind, 37 might be even more recent than what I read.
Similar to 35, I read some theory about Republicans have a sense of order and so long as Trump keeps it, they'll never abandon him. That sense of order is that the Big Daddy gets the spoils and punches down. Nothing we've seen Trump do in self-enrichment violates their inner sense of order, so they won't defect. If he makes allegiances with the weak or suffers defeat, then he's dq'd as the Big Daddy and they'll peel off. Says that theory, from wherever I saw it.
Until Scotsxit, the liquor is fine.
Not if you're living in the US and suddenly get to pay an extra 20% tariff on your single malt.......
I'd like to be living in the EU next year. I believe in you. Kinda. (Amusingly, at least to me, I'm probably going to be living in Corbyn's district. No voting rights for non-Commonwealth/Irish foreigners, alas
I've not been around much, so it's no surprise that I missed this, but hey! Moving to the UK! Long term? Exciting!
I totally don't understand why it's being levied on some things and not others (like, why French wines and not Italian? why not Irish single malts), but I'm far too lazy to read something in depth, even though it directly affects my job. (Also, it's 25%. I can't even get my facts straight.)
(Or append ?'s correctly. Clearly, I should go back to lurking.)
i will be in london during the week nov 11 - 17 with time off in amsterdam for a concert at some point that week, not exactly sure of precise dates as i'm not the one making intra-uk travel arrangements, i just have to show up at the airport on time and with work-related obligations tamped down to a somewhat reasonable level for the duration of the trip.
we'll be staying in spitalfields, have no idea if there is any interest in a meet up - ??? we super enjoyed lunch with ume and nw last time we were there.
Anyone want to meet up in London tomorrow after the demo? We may need to down our dirtied
55/56 posted by NW before seeing 54. DQ, it would be lovely to see you. Come help down our dirtied or drown our sorrows, whichever.
(We have just seen Noises Off, as if you have to spend an evening in London at the moment farce is the only conceivable accompaniment.)
yay! will find out dates from better half and get back to you. yay! am feeling v blue from afar, better half extremely low about it all, imagine how hideous you feel there.
did he really like this ? https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EHHbEWnX4AMM-sQ.png
I don't get if he misinterpreted the tweet or if he's gloating. I assume he's gloating but he doesn't seem capable of subtlety.
"Topical" is a good pseud. It works for news or ointments.
I thought so. Unfortunately it's not a good pseud for much of this place's content, so I should probably eschew it.
Don't chew the ointment. Based on petroleum jelly.
It should just strain right through your teeth.
You could be "topical" and "offtopical" according to the content of your comment.
When it's humid, you could be tropical.
I am full of factual, citable information.
I am the very model of the jelly of petroleum.
riff away, mineshaft!
I can dissolve a hole in a latex condom, but try my best not to because I don't want to be a bother.
I've information oleoic, volatile , and mineral
(I sometimes have to operate in small spaces)
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Council of Agriculture has warned about excessive cabbage planting, indicating that the crop has exceeded the alarming surplus of late August|>
My bicycle-commuting, public-transit-taking, vegan 5/7, fanatical urban development self longs for the day we put hydrocarbons back in the fucking ground rather than winkle haul and suck them out HOWEVER until petrolatum is the tipping point in deconstructing the carbon economy its super helpful occlusive properties should be recognized. Compromised skin barrier, petrolatum is your friend.
occidit miseros crambe repetita magistros
No stress, I'm sure whale oil will work fine.
Re: 54
I'm in Ann Arbor the week before, but back in London that week, so would be around for a meetup, and it is always lovely to see Ume and NW, and other big smoke Unfoggwegians.
I'd be up for that too if it isn't a work night...
Re: 78
Yes, I arrive on the 3rd and fly back on the 7th.
72. Cabbages? Those folks should take a look at the chard situation.
Chard is always alarming. That's just normal.
This whole thing is making me suspinach.
Re-heated cabbage would be bubble and squeak if the Romans had had spuds. Probably why the empire fell.
Toledo is close and probably has more to do.
Letwin Amendment passes, making the way for the Irish Sea border deal much more difficult.
Fencing the sea? Why didn't I think of that?
According to the WP, Parliament voted to kick the can down the road again? I don't think time works like that.
In this analogy, the road is time, which AIUI is actually infinite.
Which is really not deep thinking. It's misspecification of the equation.
I kind of thought this time they might go for the deal. Are we at the point where one can actually say there's a parliamentary majority against Brexit, or does the margin here include at least a couple of dozen MPs who think a yet better deal can be had if BJ is made to go one more round?
It seems like the Letwin amendment mostly forces more messy detail be revealed before the no-turning-Pback point. They've sacrificed the DUP, but they could still cobble together support for the revised deal with Labour brexiters.
I think there always has been a parliamentary majority against brexit and the whole shitshow has been parliament stumbling to a position where it can vote that way in the face of the referendum. Presumably by holding another referendum.
They're marching in the streets for that today.
We should be doing the same in re impeachment.
We marched today but I don't trust the phone to give a coherent account
All very dicey but since the fragile coalition that includes the DUP and the hard Brexiters has now broken, there 'is a pathway' to killing off the latest deal. The pending withdrawal bill that formalises the deal will have to be amended to get DUP support, and in amending it, the government is guaranteed to alienate the hard Brexiter (ERG) vote. Come to that, the degree of amendment required will probably warp the base deal to the point of destruction: this is because an arrangement that eliminates the Ireland border problem is probably also an arrangement that puts the whole of the UK inside the customs union, if not the single market.
Things that could go wrong: in theory, the ERG could switch to supporting customs union membership in a last ditch effort to save Brexit. The EU27 could also throw a spanner in the works and insist that the UK leave in short order (i.e. no deal). More Labour MPs could defect to Johnson's side such that the DUP vote isn't needed. Or the DUP could be bought off somehow.
Also, because I am a very literal person, I genuinely am baffled by why Johnson's crew hasn't pivoted towards the centre and recruited deep cross-party support for a soft Brexit deal (i.e. Norway+). That'd certainly go through, and they could then run their next campaign on 'we unified the nation'. I never understood why May didn't do this either. At least May was genuinely respectful of her coalition partners (the DUP); she seemed to understand the risk to the project of treating them high handedly.
Because above all else Johnson does not want to fight a general election in which the Brexit Party is putting up candidates against the conservatives and, especially, against him personally. And he thinks that a sufficiently hard Brexit will satisfy them (it won't).
Also because a soft brexit combines all the disadvantages of being in and out. The only way that brexit of any sort makes sense is of it leads to the kind of deregulation shorthanded as Singapore on Thames. Of course that's just another chimera but that discovery will be slow and painful
This implies that brexit can only be justified if the whole EU project fails. I think that puts a worrying interest at the heart of British foreign policy. My former boss, a soft brexit man, argued that after ten years we could come back in. I don't think the world will stay still for that to happen
101: I can imagine using that argument, but really, does it? Switzerland and a Norway seem fairly happy.
How can a country be happy that is full of Norwegians?
Switzerland has an economic model that depends on neutrality but its relationship with the EU is full of niggles and friction.
Norway has oil
Not any longer very much, and, unlike the Norwegians, we spent all the money as it came in.
I thought you were famously stingy.
Re: 108
Scotland, sure. But the money didn't go to Scotland.* It went in tax cuts or whatever else the UK government as a whole decided.
The oil question -- and why we aren't all rich social democrats like Norway -- has been a central concern of Scottish Nationalists since the 70s.
* although there was a fair bit trickle down from employment in the industry. I knew loads of people who spent time on rigs, and my childhood village, which is nowhere near Aberdeen, had a couple of specialist small engineering firms making high tech tooling and analytical equipment for the oil industry.
96: yes. Is anyone organizing anything like that in different cities?
100: Is there some plausible future with a general election in which brexiter MPs have major net losses because Brexit Party candidates split the vote but don't win seats?
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"The picture in the Mexican Caribbean is devastating: in six months the same amount of reefs has died, as in the last 40 years, which corresponds to 30 and up to 60 percent in the most affected areas, we're looking at a very alarming figure," she continued.|>
96, 110: The nature of federalism makes this maybe less effective than in unitary societies. I don't think McConnell cares at all how many people march in Brooklyn. Any more than Sen. Warren cares if 300,000 people march, every year, against Roe.
And you really get one big march for impeachment. When do you want to do it? Now? When Articles are introduced? When the Senate starts a trial?
If the Senate refuses a trial, then that's a good day to march.
Don't get me wrong: I'll go to one if someone puts it together.
Ha, so it looks like someone explained to the President that he can't have the event at his hotel after all.
One of the things that helps me stay cheerful is knowing how badly his hotels are going to fail after bribing him stops being a reason to stay at one.
95. Best one-sentence explanation of what's happening with Brexit.
Apparently, Johnson asked the EU for an extension as required by law, but didn't sign the letter because that makes him feel better.
If the Senate refuses a trial, then that's a good day to march.
Exactly so.
111: Yes, in fact that's exactly what polling looked like when May stepped down. BoJo has brought a bunch of Brexit party people back on board, but he's afraid they'll go back if he doesn't Brexit quickly and hard enough.
If you hold in a Brexit, you could get hemorrhoids.
Trump: Get a load of this ridiculous and completely unpresidential letter I just sent to Erdogan.
Boris: Hold my beer.
Nigel Farage is the haemorrhoid of Brexit. Coming soon to a screen near you.
117: even better, it seems he wrote a second letter, signed, asking them to ignore the first one. And a third giving "context".
Erdogan paid off Trump somehow. I don't know when we'll found out how, but almost certainly not until after November 2020.
123: And a fourth that's just a photocopy of a butthole.
Trump has two hotels in Istanbul
There's no such thing as a fractional hotel.
The word "motel" was originally short for "moiety hotel".
That's a really obscure pun. Conflagrations.
It kind of reminds me of the way I used to like to tell a specific joke, to biologists. (And I'm pretty sure I've told it here before.)
Me: Want to hear a biology joke that I don't understand?
Biologist: Sure.
Me: What does the H. stand for in Jesus H. Christ?
Biologist: What?
Me, shrugging as if I don't get it: haploid?
Biologists, laughing: that's actually funny!
Me, more shrugging: I guess!
To the extent that you were laughing.
Anyway, Trump is coming to Pittsburgh this week to talk about gas. He may be cruel, self-centered, unstable, and venial, but he knows that Pittsburgh is a town that likes fart jokes.
We have an app for it!
132: What does the B in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for?
Benoit B. Mandelbrot.
139 punchline works even better in a smaller font
140: What does the B in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for?
Benoit B. Mandelbrot.
I only use the unabridged OED in paper format.
Chaperoning a field trip is the most stressful thing I can remember. One hour down, four to go...
143: Good luck! Remember no one expects all of the kids to survive. If you keep most of them safe, you're doing a great job.
My wife, who is working as a teaching assistant in a middle school, has been asked to chaperone students on a four day trip to Washington DC. She is trying very hard to get out of it. I think she should ask to be paid quintuple overtime.
My son is supposed to go on a field trip to Washington, D.C., this spring.
146: Could be good timing for the impeachment/conviction march!
The government actually won a vote--not the important one, yet, but there was actually a vote in the direction of Brexit, with a 51% majority. Eep.
I don't know how to interpret this. Who are the 16 MPs who voted for the deal but against the timetable? What happens next?
What I think happened is that the Commons was offered to chance to sign the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which takes from Labour's 1983 manifesto the title of the longest suicide note in history. They passed it, with the help of the DUP, who seem not to have learned from non-Protestant terrorists that the point of a suicide bomb is to take some of your opponents down as well.
But, in a spirit of compromise, the DUP then voted for a motion to give parliament time to read the bill it had just passed. To continue the banned analogy, they thought better of throwing themselves in front of a train and took a massive overdose of paracetemol instead.
There will now be a couple of years of British politicians saying they feel fine, and why can't the doctors just go away, and what is all this nonsense about liver failure, Project Fear is what I call it, and why have the foreigners turned my skin and eyes all yellow and maybe I don't feel too good and why didn't you tell me this would happen etc.
(I think that the USAnian for paracetemol is Tylenol)
But the DUP was supposed to be all fucked off about the Irish Sea thing.
152: They voted for second reading which is not the same as voting to pass it. The next stage is to debate the bill, and then there is committee, which may well include vast numbers of amendments which change it very substantially - most obviously, a CU amendment and/or a referendum requirement.
And you are wrong about the DUP. They voted against second reading. The second reading vote passed because of support from some independents and some Labour MPs.
"which takes from Labour's 1983 manifesto the title of the longest suicide note in history."
Just as an aside, I have yet to find any evidence that anyone called it this _before_ the 1983 election. Afterwards, yes.
Maybe it was a train-surfing note?
Mea culpa - it was I who misled NW about the DWP's vote by whooping as Layla Moran's tweet that they were actually voting No on the programme motion came through. I'd assumed that meant they had abstained on the previous vote.
It's still hard to believe so many Labour MPs voted for the second reading, though.
Mea culpa - it was I who misled NW about the DWP's vote by whooping as Layla Moran's tweet that they were actually voting No on the programme motion came through. I'd assumed that meant they had abstained on the previous vote.
It's still hard to believe so many Labour MPs voted for the second reading, though.
Some of them said they wanted to get it onto debate so they could amend it, which could actually be a good way of killing it. Also a lot of Labour MPs are not very intelligent.
153: North Americans (not just USA-ians) say Tylenol for the brand or acetaminophen for the generic. Not sure where the different names came from.
Agreed; it was said afterwards, by one of the people, I think, who had stood on it, if that is the relationship you have with a manifesto.
Paracetamol is just Tylenol? I thought it was like a barbiturate or something.
I had the same thinking when I first heard of it. Americans have never managed to abuse it the way the British do.
