Surprisingly affordable for Bring a Trailer (of cash). 1970 Checker Aerobus 9-door Station Wagon, $9600! That just like a thousand dollars per door! And I wonder if it's the same one they used in Dog Day Afternoon? If so, the upholstery may need cleaning.
"What is it, Mr. Spock?" "I felt the Intrepid die". "Spock, even you from this far away, can't.." "No Captain, the death scream of a ship of Vulcans. Vulcan has never been conquered in living memory, I heard their cry". "Of what?" "Astonishment". "So...they had never seen a full taxi stand dropped from a great height?"
Words, what do they mean, anyway? Do they mean anything at all? How is one to know?
On a related note, the Democratic leadership is arguing that the words in the 26th amendment are unclear and preparing a bill to raise the legal voting age to 55.
I wanted to like and reply to your comment, but it was just meaningless gibberish-symbols. Is that what they call language, whoever you are and wherever you're from? How do I know you're even real?
Well, yes that's what I was referring to with my little joke. Did you know that the U.S. has given Israel enough money lately to entirely, or very nearly, fund their universal healthcare system? If I were running for office, I'd sure be making that point. I've wondered for awhile now why nobody does. Sadly, that's a better argument against giving them money than war crimes and genocide. Not another dime to Israel until they stop with their socialist healthcare!!!
Israel was a time bomb. Always has been. How about Kent? Or Upstate New York? Oh no, we feel guilty, but not THAT guilty. Let's honor a Bronze Age real estate contract! What could possibly go wrong?
Yep, the Allies kicked that can down the road. Little did they know earl was about to be found off Saudi Arabia....
Did the heavy math yesterday, still recovering, so I'm not going to dope this out but: How possible is a constitutional amendment getting passed etc reversing the 14th amendment?
Never mind, I'll do the research...
*whew*
Gemini assured me that it's impossible at present. DOA in the Senate...
No, the trick is to never trust them and to push them.
In this case, Gemini gave the numbers needed to pass an amendment, in this case that a supermajority is needed in the Senate, a number that’s practically speaking impossible.
Had a great with Gemini discussing whether in fact NYC’s Mt Sinai hospital is a shit show. Much prodding was needed because there was always yet more ways it is in fact a shit show.
Bottom line is that if one doesn’t know how to use a hammer, it’s not the hammer’s fault.
My sister has the daintiest tool kit you’ll ever see in her condo. But its featherweight claw hammer can still pack enough punch if necessary, without the joint pain. Not what you’d want on a job site, but good for hanging pictures. Or wrangling LLMs.
my partner has one of those too, in her 'dainty' tool collection. back in the shed somewhere is my big ol' framing hammer that i haven't used in about 30 years.
back in my yute, i wanted to be like nietzsche and "philosophize with a hammer." never got any further than being allowed to sweep up the place and pile up the scraps. oh, well…
Depends on how you define shitty, I guess. For me, shitty is profiling me to target advertising and who knows what else. Fuck Google in all its manifestations.
Related to your comment below on how to use AI's, I posted this late in the thread the other day, but it's a great primer, both on how to approach AI's and also on how a great writer works. Margaret Atwood shows how the pros do it and basically makes her encounter into a short story.
I guess Ms. Atwood has time to spend chatting with this monstrosity (and her record of it just confirms for me that, were I on the Enterprise-D and had any authority, I would have shot Data out an airlock).
“a great primer…on how to approach AI’s” —Dunno about that. Like most novice users—been there, done that—Atwood here summoned forth from the Anthropic product a mode I have come to think of as “Cloyed.” Had I not taught myself techniques for steering the models away from these oleaginous tendencies I would have given up on the tech long ago.
Point is she engaged it with curiosity and at least feigned open-mindedness and made an effort to understand how it works rather than just approaching it to get gotcha's. I suspect Atwood could figure out how to use it at least as well as you or I, though somehow I hope she doesn't go there.
I liked her exchange, but one interp of Claude's splat-logo she didn't mention is: What if it's an image of HAL-9000's staring red eye smashed with a hammer? Ever think of that? Huh?
Between the engineered sycophancy on the LLM end and the lure of confirmation bias on the human side, it’s pretty easy for the user to be drawn into hallucination-adjacent territory, but I have found it possible to steer the models away from the one and to monitor myself for the other.
Also helpful is for us to keep in mind—to the extent we may be said to possess these—that a hammer is not a drill or an adze or a hex wrench. If we saw a carpenter attempting (in John Updike’s memorable formulation) to hammer screws into wood with suboptimal results I trust that most of us would fault the workman rather than the tool for botching the job.
Actually, to abuse the tool metaphor for just one more paragraph, these things are more akin to “Swiss Army knives” insofar as they can be effectively brought to bear for a range of different tasks. It’s on us to understand when to use the corkscrew and when to use the blade.
And, or, one could argue it’s on us to do everything we can to control this technology. I don’t think I exaggerate when I say it’s a harbinger of doom for our civilization, and perhaps the species.
yes, when i read stuff (like i just read Atwood's little story) i get that we're likely headed into a future of "endless night" — but, of course, that's just me, and i can get a little grumpy at times.
Is it a hammer, or is it cocaine? "Yes, I've found that if cocaine is not used CAREFULLY, there can be adverse consequences, but through years of practice I have learned how to keep it under control."
Me too. But why can't it be both? And an agent of our demise to boot? You could add gasoline as well. You can huff it, and it's fueling the economy and climate disaster at the same time. And it will be used to blow things up, particularly employment. Yet I have motor vehicles and use them.
“A proud and arrogant man…with an admittedly admirable quality of didacticism about him was given to doing research in the area of a certain disfiguring and degenerative disease. One day he contracted it himself. Since he had not yet developed a cure for the condition, he did take time out to regard himself in a mirror and say, But on 𝘮𝘦 it does look good.”
Trump agrees with the Kegster! From his social shite: "The Supreme Court upheld Birthright Citizenship, which is too bad for our Country, but we can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President, that has now been determined during this process. No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary!"
Indeed. Congress can simply write a law wiping out any Constitutionally guaranteed right! Which everyone would understand if they were drooling imbeciles like Trump!
Conservatives hope it becomes part of our jurisprudence because it would open the door to wiping out women's suffrage, direct election of senators, the income tax, the Fourth Amendment, etc. But truth be told, a tiny part of me hopes that this really does become part of our jurisprudence because it would open the door to just wiping out the Second Amendment.
I think we all know he doesn’t write his own Truths, if he ever did. The question is, does he even dictate them, or are they just an intern’s interpretation of his ketchup-spattered 3AM tantrums, dropped on Stephen Miller’s desk for a final polish?
The decision where and when to go CAPS-LOCK or not must be made at the highest level.
In his defense, it’s not like his 21-22 majorities would have done anything if he had raised the issue.
On the other hand, color me naive but I like to believe that POTUS’s could make things an issue and get the voters behind them. You know, like Obama should have done when Moscow Mitch screwed him re Garland and Obama took up the ass instead of making it an issue during an election year.
Note that while the national Dems, per Jeffries does not tolerate people opposed to aligning with Republicans and supporting unrestrained capitalism, the Manquemanist Peoples’ Liberation Front is 1,000% opposed. We believe that the capitalists must be policed and, when they fail the people, the state must fill the gap even if it means competing with the parasites. Contribute today.
Gemini, Schemini, I coulda told ya that. Some Supremes are feeling what's in the wind. The death of a thousand Donny cuts. Just arguing with a buddy. Jail? he asked. Nay, the actuarial tables. I know an IV intake bruise when I see one. The neck? Now that one is weird, unless direct steroid injections to the vertebrare....
Hey, the only thing keeping Cheetolini alive (other than the dozen or more drugs he takes...funny, like the Nazis!) is all the preservatives he's built up from 60 years of fast food.
with 'citizenship' currently @ 5-4 odds, plus Monday's trump v. Slaughter decision, i got a feeling an executive order will be coming down removing Jackson, Sotomayor and Kagan from "the auxiliary judicial branch" of the trump executive government, which of course will wind up in scotus, and the fash 6 will insist the 3 recuse themselves from the decision.
ridiculous you say? hard to imagine? "turn around and put your hands on the hood of the car…" then we'll see about Bolt's toothbrush.
I always picture some poor schmo learning that the lawyer assigned to him just graduated from the Hail Mary School of Law. Talk about inspiring confidence!
Liberty University has a law school. It's been considered an absolute joke, but the few graduates who manage to pass a bar exam find themselves in high demand in the Trump administration and various Rightwinger/evangelical organizations.
I have failed to open that link, but if you can assure it goes "Ah-OOOga!, AhOOOga!" I might be inclined to try it. And yes, I AM searching for a new phone-ringer...
I read these mainly for the fashion, which is, as always, perfect. Love Chafe's little-boy seersucker suit, which I have actually seen in the wild at the clubs dotted around my leafy green Eden.
Your ability to put together outfits is remarkable and I have been too embarrassed to ask how you do it. You perhaps already explained it elsewhere? Like Nance, I also pore over the fashion links and just go "oooh..."
The outfits that left me agog was at a black-tie thing at a yacht club at the bottom of the obnoxiousness scale (for Detroit). Somehow I was invited. There were a couple of men there in black tie from the waist up, and whale-printed go-to-hell Bermuda shorts on the bottom. With Topsiders. Very George H.W. Bush. I was told this look was born in Nantucket, and I don't doubt it.
Glad I'm not the only one to pick up on Roy's sense of a fashion. I never would have dreamed that the Roy I remember from the East Village and CBGB could put together such clothing palates. But, we must all evolve.
"When we return, we’ll be joined by Christopher Rufo, who’ll ask why liberals can’t be more like Ezra Klein, and Ezra Klein, who’ll ask why more conservatives can’t be like Christopher Rufo." I spit out my coffee on that one!
I'm not a lawyer either, so I'll simply say expand the Court. Expand the Court. For the love of the idea of America, expand the fucking Court already.
Well, they can't have the same kind of deep, personal relationship with America that White folks have. I mean, unless you're willing - and even eager - to fuck the Constitution, what kind of a relationship can you have?
I will never forgive MSNBC for sweatily trying to make Ezra Klein happen as a tv host lo, those many years ago. Though apparently Ezra is one of those people whose innate gifts (and social standing, and personal connections) let him make his way up in the world. No matter how many buckets he steps into, flailing Three Stooges style, Serendipity drags him upward.
I didn't think I'd be up to LOL at this shit but you came through as always. It's clear that Thomas and Alito believe in themselves, not the Constitution. From Sotomayor's dissent in Slaughter:
"Today's majority, however, decides that it knows better: better than members of the founding generation... better than a century and a half of Congresses and Presidents... better than even Brandeis, Frankfurter, and Rehnquist" [and all other Courts and Justices that have come before]. This is true of all the major decisions of this court, from overturning Roe to Bruen and the voting rights abominations. And they do this when the Republic is commemorating 250 years of independence from monarchial tyranny.
On a lighter note I can afford that seersucker outfit. I'd just look ridiculous in it.
Me: proud son of one immigrant and grandson of another.
Gas main explosion at a tool and die facility, taxiing 747 hits gravel truck, scissoring pendulum hits Jon Bonham's drum kit--
all the music from the Chafe show is done by a guy I went to college with, Daz Baker; he was well known as the guy who emulated Joe Venuti's experiment to drop a grand piano from the third floor to find out what key it's final sound would be.
Obviously, Latinos are most often targeted by ICE. But the only person I personally know who has been taken, temporarily imprisoned in another state, and then deported, is a man from Poland. He owned/ran the construction and general contractor's company that we have hired over the years to do various remodeling jobs. I don't know the full details, but this guy is around 60 years old. His (American born!) son is in his early 30s and is still running the company while his dad (and his mom!) both got deported to Poland. I guess the company is still going (they're currently doing a large job at a friend's building) but the dad was the guy fully in charge while his very capable but still learning son did a huge amount of the work and business dealing. The dad speaks English, but not as fluently as his son, and the son also knows a lot of Spanish by working with the Mexican-American people they hire out to drywall, pain, etc.
Fuck ICE. These particular folks will be OK in the long run, as they have a strong support system in the USA and in Poland. But these hard working people were taken from their suburban homes and put into separate (!!!) "holding facilities" in Indiana (shudder) and then sent to Poland. (I'd prefer Poland over Indiana, but different people have different priorities and needs).
And yet there are people who are absolutely FURIOUS at a guy who's done nobody any harm and has done much that's good. "He didn't follow ZE RULEZ!"
A news report on Springfield Ohio after the Supreme Court verdict came down: Haitian people making preparations to move on, who knows where, one Haitian business owner points down the street at seven Haitian-owned businesses that will all close. Great, Springfield becomes a ghost town, and what's gained from it? People filled with RAGE manage the slightest smile for just a second before going back to their normal state of RAGE. Because no matter how many millions are hurt or even killed, it will never be enough for these monsters.
Ugh, just read that Klein/Rufo mutual peter -pull. Awfulness frosted with pretension. “What’s your telos?” “Eh, that bronze colossus that came alive in the Harryhausen movie?”
“Sound of a full taxi stand being dropped from a great height, and bouncing”
Top ten in the list of Best Descriptions of Transitional Music on Received Opinion
"I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if a full taxi stand was dropped from a great height..."
The Checker Marathons that gave their life for this music. https://bringatrailer.com/checker/
Surprisingly affordable for Bring a Trailer (of cash). 1970 Checker Aerobus 9-door Station Wagon, $9600! That just like a thousand dollars per door! And I wonder if it's the same one they used in Dog Day Afternoon? If so, the upholstery may need cleaning.
Cat-a-lit-ick convertah? Never hoird of it.
I would learn to drive again for this.
It's a Checker Marathon, you don't need to learn to drive well.
"What is it, Mr. Spock?" "I felt the Intrepid die". "Spock, even you from this far away, can't.." "No Captain, the death scream of a ship of Vulcans. Vulcan has never been conquered in living memory, I heard their cry". "Of what?" "Astonishment". "So...they had never seen a full taxi stand dropped from a great height?"
Words, what do they mean, anyway? Do they mean anything at all? How is one to know?
On a related note, the Democratic leadership is arguing that the words in the 26th amendment are unclear and preparing a bill to raise the legal voting age to 55.
I wanted to like and reply to your comment, but it was just meaningless gibberish-symbols. Is that what they call language, whoever you are and wherever you're from? How do I know you're even real?
Better get that in quick, Democratic Socialists KICKIN' ASS in Colorado:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/01/melat-kiros-democrat-defeats-diana-degette-blue-state-colarado-house-primary-denver
One of the news reports I caught on YouTube has the news-guy sayin' "Have you ever seen so many YOUNG PEOPLE at an election watch party?"
Well, yes that's what I was referring to with my little joke. Did you know that the U.S. has given Israel enough money lately to entirely, or very nearly, fund their universal healthcare system? If I were running for office, I'd sure be making that point. I've wondered for awhile now why nobody does. Sadly, that's a better argument against giving them money than war crimes and genocide. Not another dime to Israel until they stop with their socialist healthcare!!!
"I'd sure be making that point" YOUR TIME IS NOW!
Nah, I’m on a new art project. Maybe I’ll go back to that one in a couple years. I think about it.
Israel was a time bomb. Always has been. How about Kent? Or Upstate New York? Oh no, we feel guilty, but not THAT guilty. Let's honor a Bronze Age real estate contract! What could possibly go wrong?
Yep, the Allies kicked that can down the road. Little did they know earl was about to be found off Saudi Arabia....
It's funny. Ya fuck people over hard enough, and even the stupid ones will figure this out.
Chuck Schumer approves of your voting age proposal and wishes he'd thought of it first.
Can we be British for a moment and throw a milkshake on this guy?
Grrrrrrrrr Now I'm seeing Dale, dressed in only, what? 45s? Missing Persons. Heard of 'em?
I believe it was a clear plastic jumpsuit, with strategically placed electrical tape.
Just be glad you're not having a vision of the Brothers Gibb similarly attired.
Did the heavy math yesterday, still recovering, so I'm not going to dope this out but: How possible is a constitutional amendment getting passed etc reversing the 14th amendment?
Never mind, I'll do the research...
*whew*
Gemini assured me that it's impossible at present. DOA in the Senate...
https://gemini.google.com/app/3d8788763a57996e
some ai 'agents' tell you what you want, but Gemini tells you what you need.
No, the trick is to never trust them and to push them.
In this case, Gemini gave the numbers needed to pass an amendment, in this case that a supermajority is needed in the Senate, a number that’s practically speaking impossible.
Had a great with Gemini discussing whether in fact NYC’s Mt Sinai hospital is a shit show. Much prodding was needed because there was always yet more ways it is in fact a shit show.
Bottom line is that if one doesn’t know how to use a hammer, it’s not the hammer’s fault.
But we were all over this the other day…
yeah we've been hittin' that hammer since before the stone age, as Kubrick hath revealed unto us.
Those of us who attempted to invest the 7 years required to gain proficiency hammer-wise have the ruined elbows and wrists to prove it.
shoulder too.
I blew both shoulders via bicycle crashes before the rest of my arm anglers failed.
My sister has the daintiest tool kit you’ll ever see in her condo. But its featherweight claw hammer can still pack enough punch if necessary, without the joint pain. Not what you’d want on a job site, but good for hanging pictures. Or wrangling LLMs.
my partner has one of those too, in her 'dainty' tool collection. back in the shed somewhere is my big ol' framing hammer that i haven't used in about 30 years.
back in my yute, i wanted to be like nietzsche and "philosophize with a hammer." never got any further than being allowed to sweep up the place and pile up the scraps. oh, well…
I’m not gonna touch that phrase up there while the scent of euphemism still hangs in the fetid air this morning…
The trick is to fully relax your arm on the upstroke. That's how John Henry was able to hammer all day without getting tired.
uh, the end of that story is a little sad.
he may have died for our sins, but he *did* die racin' that machine.
And yet, you still owe your soul to the company store.
Actually, a recent study found Gemini was the most sycophantic. Why anyone would use Google anything is a mystery to me?
Still the least shitty search engine.
And the sycophancy can and should be ignored and worked around.
Depends on how you define shitty, I guess. For me, shitty is profiling me to target advertising and who knows what else. Fuck Google in all its manifestations.
Related to your comment below on how to use AI's, I posted this late in the thread the other day, but it's a great primer, both on how to approach AI's and also on how a great writer works. Margaret Atwood shows how the pros do it and basically makes her encounter into a short story.
https://margaretatwood.substack.com/p/claude-you-are-a-cutie-pie
I guess Ms. Atwood has time to spend chatting with this monstrosity (and her record of it just confirms for me that, were I on the Enterprise-D and had any authority, I would have shot Data out an airlock).
Who would't?
“a great primer…on how to approach AI’s” —Dunno about that. Like most novice users—been there, done that—Atwood here summoned forth from the Anthropic product a mode I have come to think of as “Cloyed.” Had I not taught myself techniques for steering the models away from these oleaginous tendencies I would have given up on the tech long ago.
It has a winning personality! Fortunately I know for sure you can always trust a salesman with a smooth line of patter.
Point is she engaged it with curiosity and at least feigned open-mindedness and made an effort to understand how it works rather than just approaching it to get gotcha's. I suspect Atwood could figure out how to use it at least as well as you or I, though somehow I hope she doesn't go there.
I liked her exchange, but one interp of Claude's splat-logo she didn't mention is: What if it's an image of HAL-9000's staring red eye smashed with a hammer? Ever think of that? Huh?
I first saw it as Kurt Vonnegut’s drawing of an asshole.
The no-AI version of Duck Duck Go is pretty great.
i been on it for awhile, no complaints. (well, maps can be a problem for me sometimes & i go google.)
Same! The maps part is too bad.
What can I say. It failed me.
Easier to use for an image search but that’s due to page design.
Used it then stopped. It’s a layer of privacy over Bing. Failed me too often.
This explains a lot, actually.
Between the engineered sycophancy on the LLM end and the lure of confirmation bias on the human side, it’s pretty easy for the user to be drawn into hallucination-adjacent territory, but I have found it possible to steer the models away from the one and to monitor myself for the other.
Also helpful is for us to keep in mind—to the extent we may be said to possess these—that a hammer is not a drill or an adze or a hex wrench. If we saw a carpenter attempting (in John Updike’s memorable formulation) to hammer screws into wood with suboptimal results I trust that most of us would fault the workman rather than the tool for botching the job.
Actually, to abuse the tool metaphor for just one more paragraph, these things are more akin to “Swiss Army knives” insofar as they can be effectively brought to bear for a range of different tasks. It’s on us to understand when to use the corkscrew and when to use the blade.
As should be no surprise, a joy for me is the arguing with the thing and occasionally acting pissed with shitty responses.
And, or, one could argue it’s on us to do everything we can to control this technology. I don’t think I exaggerate when I say it’s a harbinger of doom for our civilization, and perhaps the species.
yes, when i read stuff (like i just read Atwood's little story) i get that we're likely headed into a future of "endless night" — but, of course, that's just me, and i can get a little grumpy at times.
Meanwhile, as you folks are fretting over “artificial intelligence,” these biologists have gone ahead and begun devising artificial life:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/07/01/science/spudcells-synthetic-cell.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uVA.bPwJ.KVS0izofd9pf&smid=url-share
Is it a hammer, or is it cocaine? "Yes, I've found that if cocaine is not used CAREFULLY, there can be adverse consequences, but through years of practice I have learned how to keep it under control."
Me too. But why can't it be both? And an agent of our demise to boot? You could add gasoline as well. You can huff it, and it's fueling the economy and climate disaster at the same time. And it will be used to blow things up, particularly employment. Yet I have motor vehicles and use them.
“A proud and arrogant man…with an admittedly admirable quality of didacticism about him was given to doing research in the area of a certain disfiguring and degenerative disease. One day he contracted it himself. Since he had not yet developed a cure for the condition, he did take time out to regard himself in a mirror and say, But on 𝘮𝘦 it does look good.”
—Roger Zelazny, 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘓𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵
worked for me in grad school; i'm (so) sure 6th graders would do well with a few huffs a day.
Imagine my chagrin when, yesterday, I asked Claude a darn good question, and it *didn't* start with, "That's a darn good question!"
That's a sharp observation, one of the best I've ever seen. It shows you are a human of great insight.
"Oh, sure, those other humans, I flatter them, it amuses me to do so, but I would never do that to YOU."
Gemini knows to suck up proving that the free AI (Gemini) is far more intelligent than the elitist for-pay model.
Also proving that the tech bros’ porcine AI model is a scam.
Meanwhile, Nu Siri (the iOS 27 DB) has not sucked up to me yet, proving that it's, well, *not* actually intelligent.
i'm tellin' ya, you keep monkeying around with this stuff, sooner or later you'll get an infection.
You'll just have to wait for the development of Folksy Claude to be completed.
If it ever does, VOILA! Chagrin Falls!
Did you go down to have a soda with Mr. Jimmy? Your favorite flavor, cherry red...
Damn you got there first, ya bastid.
Trump agrees with the Kegster! From his social shite: "The Supreme Court upheld Birthright Citizenship, which is too bad for our Country, but we can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President, that has now been determined during this process. No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary!"
Indeed. Congress can simply write a law wiping out any Constitutionally guaranteed right! Which everyone would understand if they were drooling imbeciles like Trump!
Conservatives hope it becomes part of our jurisprudence because it would open the door to wiping out women's suffrage, direct election of senators, the income tax, the Fourth Amendment, etc. But truth be told, a tiny part of me hopes that this really does become part of our jurisprudence because it would open the door to just wiping out the Second Amendment.
A major reason for the Second Amendment was to put down slave rebellions. That amendment ain't going anywhere.
"Congress can simply write a law wiping out any Constitutionally guaranteed right!"
Well, they couldn't BEFORE...
When one has enough self-confidence, one can say this and, like, manifest it jut by saying it.
And the elite establishment media outlets won’t say that such a person is insane.
Unwieldy?
That’s too unwieldy a word for Tongue-Tied Tubby.
I think we all know he doesn’t write his own Truths, if he ever did. The question is, does he even dictate them, or are they just an intern’s interpretation of his ketchup-spattered 3AM tantrums, dropped on Stephen Miller’s desk for a final polish?
The decision where and when to go CAPS-LOCK or not must be made at the highest level.
I think highest level Decider is Steven Cheung. And he keeps the secrets of CAPS-LOCK stored in that conehead noggin.
Is he Fake Tubby’s primary ghost poster on Truth Sociopath you think?
Known fact Donny’s doesn’t write all the posts credited to him.
"White House Communications Director" suggests yes.
Oh, this is called "communications", is it?
"No long and unwieldy democratic process is necessary!"
That Hakeem Jeffries you’re quoting?
Fool! Ve do not vork thru your zilly "democratic" means! Ve haff ze Zupreme Court! Chust VUN vote avay from ze FINAL SOLUTION!
If the Roberts junta was an actual problem, it would have been addressed and resolved during our last trifecta way back in 2021/22.
At the time, Biden said he didn't have a problem with the Roberts court. Oopsie!
Once it was beyond academic, he reversed himself.
Even less an issue for the Democrats now because socialism and people who disagree with the party should fu—- ah, never mind.
Once he was out of power and could do nothing about it he reversed himself.
In his defense, it’s not like his 21-22 majorities would have done anything if he had raised the issue.
On the other hand, color me naive but I like to believe that POTUS’s could make things an issue and get the voters behind them. You know, like Obama should have done when Moscow Mitch screwed him re Garland and Obama took up the ass instead of making it an issue during an election year.
Note that while the national Dems, per Jeffries does not tolerate people opposed to aligning with Republicans and supporting unrestrained capitalism, the Manquemanist Peoples’ Liberation Front is 1,000% opposed. We believe that the capitalists must be policed and, when they fail the people, the state must fill the gap even if it means competing with the parasites. Contribute today.
Gemini, Schemini, I coulda told ya that. Some Supremes are feeling what's in the wind. The death of a thousand Donny cuts. Just arguing with a buddy. Jail? he asked. Nay, the actuarial tables. I know an IV intake bruise when I see one. The neck? Now that one is weird, unless direct steroid injections to the vertebrare....
Hey, the only thing keeping Cheetolini alive (other than the dozen or more drugs he takes...funny, like the Nazis!) is all the preservatives he's built up from 60 years of fast food.
It'd be wise for Bolt to keep that toothbrush in his pocket.
Right; Professor Parturition For Thee... Though I did enjoy his association with Ave Maria Domino Pizza School of Law.
Can I get extra pepperoni on that degree?
If extra pepperoni means added crazy in the judiciary.
Hey, maybe you've hit on Pizzagate, for real. Could topping options be code for the Opus Dei plans?
Very possible. Check with Rod Dreher. As I recall, sacred cured meats are his thing.
That's graduate school level.
You tell people about that and they think you're kidding!
(Used to own the Detroit Tigers until the '90s when they sold to Little Caesar's)
with 'citizenship' currently @ 5-4 odds, plus Monday's trump v. Slaughter decision, i got a feeling an executive order will be coming down removing Jackson, Sotomayor and Kagan from "the auxiliary judicial branch" of the trump executive government, which of course will wind up in scotus, and the fash 6 will insist the 3 recuse themselves from the decision.
ridiculous you say? hard to imagine? "turn around and put your hands on the hood of the car…" then we'll see about Bolt's toothbrush.
I always picture some poor schmo learning that the lawyer assigned to him just graduated from the Hail Mary School of Law. Talk about inspiring confidence!
Liberty University has a law school. It's been considered an absolute joke, but the few graduates who manage to pass a bar exam find themselves in high demand in the Trump administration and various Rightwinger/evangelical organizations.
These days all they need to pass is the Kavanaugh Bar Exam. "Just keep my glass filled, kid, and you can put 'Supreme Court Clerk' on your resume."
"Then... just when the jury is about to read out a 'guilty' verdict, I pull the fire alarm! It's BRILLIANT!"
"keep that toothbrush in his pocket"
is without doubt Euphemism of the Day. 2 marks.
But no euphemism.
Well it SHOULD be!
If it's for, "We've replaced the Constitution with a portable, concentration camp ready hygiene tool."
"Let's see if Bob notices"
Just for the record, if anyone wants to do a gofundme to pay Roy to play The Bells of Saint Mary’s by firing pistols at gongs, I’m in for $20.
Roy needs to team up with the guy who runs the "There, I Ruined It" channel on YouTube
Get Orkestra Obsolete on the case!
I request: https://www.alarmwillsound.com/
I have failed to open that link, but if you can assure it goes "Ah-OOOga!, AhOOOga!" I might be inclined to try it. And yes, I AM searching for a new phone-ringer...
Now there’s a good (?) Fun Friday idea: favorite ring tones.
AAAAND... intensely, deeply, passionately hated ringtones. You know, the kind you have to hear as you walk past near the SCIFs
I read these mainly for the fashion, which is, as always, perfect. Love Chafe's little-boy seersucker suit, which I have actually seen in the wild at the clubs dotted around my leafy green Eden.
"clubs dotted around my leafy green Eden" I wasn't thinking about that but man I can absolutely see it
Your ability to put together outfits is remarkable and I have been too embarrassed to ask how you do it. You perhaps already explained it elsewhere? Like Nance, I also pore over the fashion links and just go "oooh..."
In Peoni's case, this week? I confess I literally stole it from a Vogue "editor's choice." Chafe's was all mine, tho.
Chafe brought to mind https://loudwire.com/why-angus-young-schoolboy-outfit-meaning-acdc/
"Chafe's was all mine, tho"
Not sure I'd be sharing that.
The outfits that left me agog was at a black-tie thing at a yacht club at the bottom of the obnoxiousness scale (for Detroit). Somehow I was invited. There were a couple of men there in black tie from the waist up, and whale-printed go-to-hell Bermuda shorts on the bottom. With Topsiders. Very George H.W. Bush. I was told this look was born in Nantucket, and I don't doubt it.
A look was born in Nantucket
My tailor said to seersuck it
And sandals with socks
Cuz that’s what I rock
With a hat that looks like a bucket
I clicked, and I did think it odd that the suit jacket and the shorts would be on the same page.
Massive!
Once seen, cannot look away.
Not quite purple enough for me, tho gotta give marks for seersucker, as we have recently pointed out.
Also, if it's gonna be called 'Purple Haze' shouldn't there be at least a hint of paisley?
Then they'd hafta call it "Purple Haisley".
WHY WOULDN'T THEY?
Add this to the list of Great Questions We Should Ponder.
Especially since we cleared the air regarding 'seersucker.' Onward!
I'm here for the fashion too! Peoni's halter is quite daring for a mature lady. I guess the booze is pickling her and keeping aging in stasis.
Actually, it's a killer fit right down to the shoes. Well done, Roy!
Yes, I thought the same. Peoni best not turn around, not with the high-definition TVs we all have.
Glad I'm not the only one to pick up on Roy's sense of a fashion. I never would have dreamed that the Roy I remember from the East Village and CBGB could put together such clothing palates. But, we must all evolve.
Or die. Or maybe AND die!
"When we return, we’ll be joined by Christopher Rufo, who’ll ask why liberals can’t be more like Ezra Klein, and Ezra Klein, who’ll ask why more conservatives can’t be like Christopher Rufo." I spit out my coffee on that one!
I'm not a lawyer either, so I'll simply say expand the Court. Expand the Court. For the love of the idea of America, expand the fucking Court already.
With you on Expand the Court, but I don't get why "Impeach these six motherfuckers already" doesn't get more votes.
The Power Panel with no shouting!
"It’s a place where the domiciled have a deeply established relationship with their habitation and their jurisdiction" TL/DR: white
"So the brown parents could be domiciled in the same place for 20 years and that would be fine then?"
"LOL, no."
You see, a domicile isn't so much a place as it is a state of being.
A state of being white.
It's where you put all your domestics. Who, ironically, are not domiciled themselves.
Don't be silly. No matter how long the browns are domiciled they don't belong. Just, you know, not like US.
Well, they can't have the same kind of deep, personal relationship with America that White folks have. I mean, unless you're willing - and even eager - to fuck the Constitution, what kind of a relationship can you have?
Relationship? Me and my jurisdiction aren't even talking.
Blood und soil!
Blut und scheissen
Well, that's two of the four humors accounted for.
Our boy Graham got me thinking about this -
"From Penobscot to Augusty
All the boys are feelin’ lusty,
And the girls ain’t even puttin’ up a fight."
And now Roy's being all Maine like and such...
I saw Young Ezra described as " Pete Theil's butt boy" That seems harsh to me. ( Though I will admit to quoting it first chance I got)
I feel sorry for Ezra - no one loves him enough to keep him from going out in public with that horrible beard .
I will never forgive MSNBC for sweatily trying to make Ezra Klein happen as a tv host lo, those many years ago. Though apparently Ezra is one of those people whose innate gifts (and social standing, and personal connections) let him make his way up in the world. No matter how many buckets he steps into, flailing Three Stooges style, Serendipity drags him upward.
Can he carry Bright Young Man all the way into his sixties? I think he can, the trick is to be staggeringly naive.
Sure, I may LOOK old, but I have the brain of a twelve year old!
I didn't think I'd be up to LOL at this shit but you came through as always. It's clear that Thomas and Alito believe in themselves, not the Constitution. From Sotomayor's dissent in Slaughter:
"Today's majority, however, decides that it knows better: better than members of the founding generation... better than a century and a half of Congresses and Presidents... better than even Brandeis, Frankfurter, and Rehnquist" [and all other Courts and Justices that have come before]. This is true of all the major decisions of this court, from overturning Roe to Bruen and the voting rights abominations. And they do this when the Republic is commemorating 250 years of independence from monarchial tyranny.
On a lighter note I can afford that seersucker outfit. I'd just look ridiculous in it.
Me: proud son of one immigrant and grandson of another.
i think i could pull off the seersucker, but i know i'd get smirks if i wore those weejuns.
Thing is, if'n ya's fixin' to pull off the seersucker, y'all needs to be confident of whatcha wearing underneath...
my underneath is a constant surprise as i get older, so who knows.
As does Chafe!
After which, Ghost of Reinhard Gehlen asks why Ghost of Joseph Goebbels couldn't be more like Ghost of Julius Streicher!
Worst Christmas Carol remake ever.
Ends with a tight shot of Tiny Tim's crutch being thrown onto a pile, camera zooms back to show thousands and thousands of crutches.
Night and Heep
Hearted and oof.
Bill Kunstler? Where has *he* been?!
Roy, I went to Kunstler's site (after a gap of... nearly a decade?) and, just, wow
"Haspel 'Purple Haze' seersucker"... Derek Guy wept
Gas main explosion at a tool and die facility, taxiing 747 hits gravel truck, scissoring pendulum hits Jon Bonham's drum kit--
all the music from the Chafe show is done by a guy I went to college with, Daz Baker; he was well known as the guy who emulated Joe Venuti's experiment to drop a grand piano from the third floor to find out what key it's final sound would be.
2 marks for Joe Venuti. A hero of me sainted father.
Obviously, Latinos are most often targeted by ICE. But the only person I personally know who has been taken, temporarily imprisoned in another state, and then deported, is a man from Poland. He owned/ran the construction and general contractor's company that we have hired over the years to do various remodeling jobs. I don't know the full details, but this guy is around 60 years old. His (American born!) son is in his early 30s and is still running the company while his dad (and his mom!) both got deported to Poland. I guess the company is still going (they're currently doing a large job at a friend's building) but the dad was the guy fully in charge while his very capable but still learning son did a huge amount of the work and business dealing. The dad speaks English, but not as fluently as his son, and the son also knows a lot of Spanish by working with the Mexican-American people they hire out to drywall, pain, etc.
Fuck ICE. These particular folks will be OK in the long run, as they have a strong support system in the USA and in Poland. But these hard working people were taken from their suburban homes and put into separate (!!!) "holding facilities" in Indiana (shudder) and then sent to Poland. (I'd prefer Poland over Indiana, but different people have different priorities and needs).
And yet there are people who are absolutely FURIOUS at a guy who's done nobody any harm and has done much that's good. "He didn't follow ZE RULEZ!"
A news report on Springfield Ohio after the Supreme Court verdict came down: Haitian people making preparations to move on, who knows where, one Haitian business owner points down the street at seven Haitian-owned businesses that will all close. Great, Springfield becomes a ghost town, and what's gained from it? People filled with RAGE manage the slightest smile for just a second before going back to their normal state of RAGE. Because no matter how many millions are hurt or even killed, it will never be enough for these monsters.
Ugh, just read that Klein/Rufo mutual peter -pull. Awfulness frosted with pretension. “What’s your telos?” “Eh, that bronze colossus that came alive in the Harryhausen movie?”
NYT formula for fascist fluffing: "awfulness frosted with pretension."
Klein's been positioned as Even Liberals Agree counterpart to Douthat's pretension-frosted awfulness (and Rufo amplification).
Frosted Fakes! It's GRRRREAT!