This feels like what I needed to see this morning. Last thing I saw on TikTok last night was a (so-obviously-AI-it's-no-surprise-that-far-too-many-don't-recognize-it-as-AI) image of DJT in emergency overalls & a hard hat comforting a woman in a blanket, both hip-deep in floodwater, with the caption blathering about how he's on the ground helping disaster victims. So I guess I'm feeling extra salty this morning.
As a small child ca. 1958 I poured a glass of orange juice into a bowl of Rice Krispies—my infant reasoning can probably be guessed at—and found the resultant breakfast rather less than the sum of its parts. It is with this episode in mind, and with Zima having been mentioned, that I here report being prevailed upon yesterday afternoon, Oakland having turned unseasonably warm, to sample a canned carbonated beverage consisting of Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola, alcohol 7% by volume. Here again the looked-for synergy was not in evidence.
I once had a job going door-to-door asking people if they'd heard of Heublien Full-Strength Cocktails, in a convenient pop-top can. The few people who listened to my schpiel had not. I tried one once.
Absolutely amazing that literally anyone could look at that imagery and think "yes, that's a very accurate depiction of who Trump is." I mean, I understand the Fuck Your Feelings crowd, as deplorable as they are. But how anyone with two brain cells to rub together can believe Trump is altruistic and caring is an utter mystery. It's like he's this empty vessel into which they can pour literally any fantasy they want to believe.
Can't we just construct an alternate reality where Trump is President and let these people live in it through their computers? I'd be willing to chip in to buy the headsets.
We'd all chip in to buy the headsets. These people live in a fantasy of the past anyway, let's have VR simulate that past for them so they leave the rest of us the fuck alone.
Note though that "fuck your feelings" only applies to others; if, say, they get bad feelings from student protestors or mass culture, those things must be destroyed. Kinda like Big Government is bad when doing things beneficial to poors, but good when doing fascisms.
The Guardian also had a story about the regulars who go to all his rallies. About half of them were merch-sellers, which makes sense. He's a grifter, but he draws a swarm of smaller grifters to him. Are they drawn to him, or to the grifting opportunities he provides? Who can say, I doubt his grifter-followers even know any more.
“In a dramatic change of tone, former President Donald Trump paused his call for a pogrom against immigrants and for the police to rain down fury against the citizenry in a Purge-like night of violence to offer conciliatory outreach to victims of Hurricane Helene. Looking around at the devastation surrounding him, Mr. Trump displayed a new tone of deep empathy by commenting, ‘Lot of destruction, too bad it happened.’ Is this a new direction toward a healing message of compassion and unity from the Republican nominee?”
"Mr. Trump's website is now offering new t-shirts emblazoned with the logo 'I Survived Helene And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt, Make America Great Again' for $39.99."
Father Guido Sarducci did a guest spot on a Prince Paul/Dan the Automator jawn hawking "Handsome Boy Modeling School" wherein he says "If it weren't for Handsome Boy Modeling School, I would still have $50."
"You know, Blurt, I always feel much better when a man is in charge during a hurricane."
...and at literally all other times as well...
And did anyone else notice that the polo jacket or whatever it's called is widely available in every size EXCEPT XXsmall and XXlarge? Why is it only the radical outliers want this effulgent scrappa cloth?
That CNN thing made me feel, not for the first time, that there are fascists among the reporters of our corporate media, fascists clever enough to know that sane washing is the way to make the non-fascists think, “Maybe he’s not that bad. I mean, look at the polls. Half of America couldn’t support a rightwing authoritarian racist antisemite; I should cut them some slack, what with the economy and all.”
I still have to stop myself when my mind can't figure out what they are doing and say (again and again) they are indeed fascists or at the best fascist enablers. Why they are this way I do not know, but they are.
Good for you and your mental health. It's only recently that I decided to just throw up my hands and stop trying to figure out the thought processes of the New York Times. Not like it matters, anyway.
Almost apropos today's banger, how did they decide to have the VP debate on CBS? No surprise that there won't be any real time fact checking given Norah O'Donnell's documented let's say inability to engage in same.
Which is to say were it possible to use real people in these Received Opinion sketches, Norah qualifies.
Other than, it's my problem for sure but I'm finding Trump jokes a little triggering this close to the coming opening of the gates of hell come 5 November. (Not saying it will happen for sure but... 😳😬
"Attempts to demonstrate the existence of a 'brown note' using sound waves transmitted through the air have failed. [...]
The U.S. space program, worried about the harmful effects of rocket flight on astronauts, ordered vibration tests that used cockpit seats mounted on vibration tables to transfer 'brown note' and other frequencies directly to the human subjects. Very high power levels of 160 dB were achieved at frequencies of 2–3 Hz. Test frequencies ranged from 0.5 Hz to 40 Hz. Test subjects suffered motor ataxia, nausea, visual disturbance, degraded task performance and difficulties in communication. These tests are assumed by researchers to be the nucleus of the current urban myth.
In February 2005 the television show MythBusters attempted to verify whether the 'brown note' was a reality. [...] The show declared the brown note myth 'busted.'"
And in a stunning reversal, the bust was thrown outta court by Antonin Scalia on a strictly originalist truth that brown notes, having not existed when Jimmy Madison was in short pants, getting busted for 'em was deconsitutionalisticated.
Why the kitchen? Am I safe in the living room? Do they need access to knives? ("Goddamn it, Leon, you were SUPPOSED to BRING a knife!" "I've been stressed lately..." "Oh nevermind, we'll see what they've got in the kitchen." *get to kitchen, the only knives are butter knives, one of those blunt cake knives, and a bread knife someone apparently used to saw bamboo with*)
They get to Katie Britt's kitchen and find all the drawers and cupboards empty and she's just a cardboard cutout...
Was on the east side; 70-80 MPH winds were enough to take down trees and power lines. We can't bury anything because the water table is so high (and we're at sea level anyways).
That storm went through Georgia like a vengeful reverse Sherman.
I think I've run out of things to say. I didn't think I'd ever get here.
Trump will lose. He jumped the shark last season and everybody's ready to vote him off the island. Or maybe he gets elected. I hope, when he feels the knife slide between his ribs, he understands JD is the one holding the blade.
The maddening thing is that Donnie's lies in Valdosta*, contradicted by a man I never imagined I might find some sympathy for, or something like it, Brian "Brain" Kemp, probably won't hurt him in Georgia.
This, and for the same reason they wouldn't "find" 11,780 votes in 2020: they were like, "Hell if I'm going to jail for violating state elections law for *this* loser." (Kemp wants to be Senator, or President, and Raffensperger wants to be Governor.)
Folks don't get the genius of Stacey Abrams refusing to concede her first governors race to Kemp: and suing.
The trial established that Kemp couldn't show his voter purge was legitimate: and the judgement mandated a paper trail and a chain of custody for votes that was clear and auditable.
While in the old days a GA Sec.of State might pull +11k votes out of his ass, Rafffensperger had no such option without it being illegally obvious.
I'm not inclined to call them any sort of hero because I'm sure they would have helped the Felon if they imagined they could get away with it ...
When I saw the news stories about Trump and "The Purge" I realized that we just can't handle Trump because we just can't take him seriously. He was proposing that the cops be allowed to murder people because all our problems come from The Bad People and once we let the cops murder all The Bad People, no problems. This was the actual program of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and thousands of people were murdered by the death squads. My understanding is that Duterte himself didn't need to set up the death squads, he just needed to give the green light and the cops did the rest (ah, but OUR cops would never do THAT, right?).
But the response isn't "Trump proposes Philippine-style death squads" it's "Trump references movie from ten years ago." Whoever said ridicule is an effective response to dictators ("Oh, those dictators just HATE being ridiculed, lemme tell ya!") well, now we're seeing the limits of that.
You're really hitting your stride capturing the vibe of this, The Year of the Vibe, or as I like to think of it, Goldwater's Revenge. It is more than a bit of slander to lay blame for the Republican party at the feet of AuH2O, but the demons he unleashed from that Box are the party now. Trump is simply surfing a wave he foolishly thinks he created and controls. He's calling for Kristallnacht and we still have a month to go. As Chubby Checker tried to warn us, how low can you go?
It's going to be a long month.
[Homer Simpson] A long month and four days! Happy birthday btw
[Lloyd Bridges voice] Looks like I picked the wrong month to stop [fill in blank]
Mainlining heroin
violently smirking
Doing poppers
You mean those decadently divine jalpen˜o cheese thingies? I LOVE those!
Um... kinda like those...
Oh yeah baby. Absolutely. I can knock down a dozen easy....if I could afford it.
..to stop chanting "Nambu Amida Butsu"..,
Klatuu berada nicto? (joke)
summoning Goetic demons
The next day or so, you mean?
Aw, shit, can I just skip this one? I had a long month already last week.
This feels like what I needed to see this morning. Last thing I saw on TikTok last night was a (so-obviously-AI-it's-no-surprise-that-far-too-many-don't-recognize-it-as-AI) image of DJT in emergency overalls & a hard hat comforting a woman in a blanket, both hip-deep in floodwater, with the caption blathering about how he's on the ground helping disaster victims. So I guess I'm feeling extra salty this morning.
JFC.
Now that I think of it, I think JFC was holding her other arm so yes indeed.
You got the front seat on the intertubes, apparently. I never get to see that cool stuff.
My brother in Christ, u do not want this algorithm
Fair.
Peppery!
Did that image fuck up your sleep?
Not enough Zima in the world, my guy
Not 'ny more, anyway...
Fair
As a small child ca. 1958 I poured a glass of orange juice into a bowl of Rice Krispies—my infant reasoning can probably be guessed at—and found the resultant breakfast rather less than the sum of its parts. It is with this episode in mind, and with Zima having been mentioned, that I here report being prevailed upon yesterday afternoon, Oakland having turned unseasonably warm, to sample a canned carbonated beverage consisting of Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola, alcohol 7% by volume. Here again the looked-for synergy was not in evidence.
A friend of mine from college once did this experiment with Smurfberry Crunch cereal and Guinness Stout.
Breakfast of Champeens!
Good one.
In England this is what they prescribe for expectant mothers.
Well, they WOULD.
Ooooo, intriguing.
My partner's younger brother once described and Irish Breakfast thusly: "A pint o' Guiness, a shot o' whisky, and a punch in the fookin' face."
I once had a job going door-to-door asking people if they'd heard of Heublien Full-Strength Cocktails, in a convenient pop-top can. The few people who listened to my schpiel had not. I tried one once.
Have you heard, it's in the stars,
Get drunk at home, stay outta bars!
Sounds like a nice party...
That stuff wasn't half bad. (again, professional alcoholic testimony)
Delicately put.
I remember being nonplussed… you’d think putting Jack and soda together in a can would be easy to do well
Never was. As a professional alcoholic, to this I attest.
Absolutely amazing that literally anyone could look at that imagery and think "yes, that's a very accurate depiction of who Trump is." I mean, I understand the Fuck Your Feelings crowd, as deplorable as they are. But how anyone with two brain cells to rub together can believe Trump is altruistic and caring is an utter mystery. It's like he's this empty vessel into which they can pour literally any fantasy they want to believe.
In public, they can always retreat to, "LOL, that's a funny joke that'll really trigger those libs!" In private they masturbate to it.
Stop that triggering! Or at least take it inside...sheesh.
Can't we just construct an alternate reality where Trump is President and let these people live in it through their computers? I'd be willing to chip in to buy the headsets.
We'd all chip in to buy the headsets. These people live in a fantasy of the past anyway, let's have VR simulate that past for them so they leave the rest of us the fuck alone.
If Trump can fantasize about The Purge, we can fantasize about The Matrix.
Or The Split! Let 'em form their own country. We'll help them pack!
Unless this involves seasteading on a leaky boat, I'm less than enthusiastic.
Igg-zackly. Hence, "cult." Look at all the contradictory traits ascribed to JFC himself. Same thing.
There are American men who fetishize Jesus as a warrior.
Why the hell would he die on the cross if he was defiant and bellicose?… Does he start out chill then *come back* that way?
I’m overthinking.
Note though that "fuck your feelings" only applies to others; if, say, they get bad feelings from student protestors or mass culture, those things must be destroyed. Kinda like Big Government is bad when doing things beneficial to poors, but good when doing fascisms.
One fascism oughta be plenty, you'd think...
Only one per person, but these bastards are always taking more than they should.
Wait. You mean I get one too? Why was I not informed?! Minion! Fall upon your rusty sword!!! Next minion! Yeah, you! Fall on his sword too!
If I can't have a fascism of my own at least I can enjoy some minion-on-a-stick!
"Next minion! Yeah, you! Fall on his sword too! "
I believe this sequence is against the law in most Bible Belt states.
Here ya go, The Trump Shoppe in Saginaw, Michigan:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/01/trump-shoppe-republicans-michigan-saginaw
🤮🤮🤮🤮
Reminds me of the 'christian stores' all around San Jose´. Because you'd think nothing can sell better'n a god person. Same deal.
The Guardian also had a story about the regulars who go to all his rallies. About half of them were merch-sellers, which makes sense. He's a grifter, but he draws a swarm of smaller grifters to him. Are they drawn to him, or to the grifting opportunities he provides? Who can say, I doubt his grifter-followers even know any more.
For minions, it is enough to be allowed to sit at the foot of the master.
“In a dramatic change of tone, former President Donald Trump paused his call for a pogrom against immigrants and for the police to rain down fury against the citizenry in a Purge-like night of violence to offer conciliatory outreach to victims of Hurricane Helene. Looking around at the devastation surrounding him, Mr. Trump displayed a new tone of deep empathy by commenting, ‘Lot of destruction, too bad it happened.’ Is this a new direction toward a healing message of compassion and unity from the Republican nominee?”
"Mr Trump sent out an official 'There, there' to the victims of the disaster.
Oakland off the hook.
"Mr. Trump's website is now offering new t-shirts emblazoned with the logo 'I Survived Helene And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt, Make America Great Again' for $39.99."
"No electricity - no electric bills! Send it all to Trump 2024"
Okay, wait. Can't we market shirts that say, "I Sent Donald Trump $99 And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt"?
"I sent Donald Trump $99 once and all I got was a recurring charge on my credit card until my bank account was empty."
Or--late editing--"I Sent Donald Trump $99 For a T-Shirt And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt."
Father Guido Sarducci did a guest spot on a Prince Paul/Dan the Automator jawn hawking "Handsome Boy Modeling School" wherein he says "If it weren't for Handsome Boy Modeling School, I would still have $50."
Not bad, but not as good as "just 25 cents short"...
"Sucks to be you" shows a new tone from Trump
Thoughts and prayers!
Unless you didn't buy my $59.99 Bible, in which case fuck you.
I kind of think that a "there, there" would be showing more empathy than Trump is capable of. And "there, there" is a pretty damn low bar.
"You know, Blurt, I always feel much better when a man is in charge during a hurricane."
...and at literally all other times as well...
And did anyone else notice that the polo jacket or whatever it's called is widely available in every size EXCEPT XXsmall and XXlarge? Why is it only the radical outliers want this effulgent scrappa cloth?
"Sorry, you're too many standard deviations from the mean."
And I'm a mean deviation
Coincidentally, Standard Deviation opened for The Good Rats back when band names meant something (assuming the drugs had already taken effect)...
That CNN thing made me feel, not for the first time, that there are fascists among the reporters of our corporate media, fascists clever enough to know that sane washing is the way to make the non-fascists think, “Maybe he’s not that bad. I mean, look at the polls. Half of America couldn’t support a rightwing authoritarian racist antisemite; I should cut them some slack, what with the economy and all.”
If'n they wuz ta let somma they slack hang out lahk that, I'd cut it too.
"Half of America couldn’t support a rightwing authoritarian racist antisemite"
Yes, the "safety in numbers" effect.
Herd immunity.
I still have to stop myself when my mind can't figure out what they are doing and say (again and again) they are indeed fascists or at the best fascist enablers. Why they are this way I do not know, but they are.
Good for you and your mental health. It's only recently that I decided to just throw up my hands and stop trying to figure out the thought processes of the New York Times. Not like it matters, anyway.
Almost apropos today's banger, how did they decide to have the VP debate on CBS? No surprise that there won't be any real time fact checking given Norah O'Donnell's documented let's say inability to engage in same.
Which is to say were it possible to use real people in these Received Opinion sketches, Norah qualifies.
Other than, it's my problem for sure but I'm finding Trump jokes a little triggering this close to the coming opening of the gates of hell come 5 November. (Not saying it will happen for sure but... 😳😬
Sonic Shart is a cool name for a band consisting of bass clef instruments playing the lowest notes possible on their respective axes.
and for the coda, using 2 sticks and a piece of string to set fire to them on stage...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note
"Attempts to demonstrate the existence of a 'brown note' using sound waves transmitted through the air have failed. [...]
The U.S. space program, worried about the harmful effects of rocket flight on astronauts, ordered vibration tests that used cockpit seats mounted on vibration tables to transfer 'brown note' and other frequencies directly to the human subjects. Very high power levels of 160 dB were achieved at frequencies of 2–3 Hz. Test frequencies ranged from 0.5 Hz to 40 Hz. Test subjects suffered motor ataxia, nausea, visual disturbance, degraded task performance and difficulties in communication. These tests are assumed by researchers to be the nucleus of the current urban myth.
In February 2005 the television show MythBusters attempted to verify whether the 'brown note' was a reality. [...] The show declared the brown note myth 'busted.'"
And in a stunning reversal, the bust was thrown outta court by Antonin Scalia on a strictly originalist truth that brown notes, having not existed when Jimmy Madison was in short pants, getting busted for 'em was deconsitutionalisticated.
They also can have an album titled “Goo.”
The new leaf needs every encouragement to flourish, lest it never grow to be a Pivot.
I see Tubby's workshopping, "Invaders will get in your kitchen and slit your throat." (Masterful appeal to suburban women, Sir, that *kitchen*.) What passes for conventional campaign effort has tried the old, "Are you better off now than four years ago?" https://www.wbtv.com/story/35398478/99-percent-of-hurricane-matthew-aid-requested-by-nc-denied-by-trump-administration/
Why the kitchen? Am I safe in the living room? Do they need access to knives? ("Goddamn it, Leon, you were SUPPOSED to BRING a knife!" "I've been stressed lately..." "Oh nevermind, we'll see what they've got in the kitchen." *get to kitchen, the only knives are butter knives, one of those blunt cake knives, and a bread knife someone apparently used to saw bamboo with*)
They get to Katie Britt's kitchen and find all the drawers and cupboards empty and she's just a cardboard cutout...
Why JD's MeeMaw had a gun in every room.
That knife won't even leave 2 marks.
But I will.
Glad I missed this whole thing, as I was, well, WITHOUT POWER. (Of course the white Trumpov suburbs got their power back first.)
Are you in Helene's path? Is anyone?
(Pardon me if I've missed any updates from REBID readers; I haven't been around much.)
Was on the east side; 70-80 MPH winds were enough to take down trees and power lines. We can't bury anything because the water table is so high (and we're at sea level anyways).
That storm went through Georgia like a vengeful reverse Sherman.
Sorry to hear! Glad your power is restored.
2 marks for vengeful reverse Sherman.
Here's hoping the replacement water table has shorter legs.
“Quasimusical brain slash”
Aces.
Opening for Sonic Shart
Holy Sonic shart, Batman!
I think I've run out of things to say. I didn't think I'd ever get here.
Trump will lose. He jumped the shark last season and everybody's ready to vote him off the island. Or maybe he gets elected. I hope, when he feels the knife slide between his ribs, he understands JD is the one holding the blade.
Yes, ask me what I think will happen, and I'll say "Trump will lose [long pause] or he will win." Gotta cover all the bases.
The maddening thing is that Donnie's lies in Valdosta*, contradicted by a man I never imagined I might find some sympathy for, or something like it, Brian "Brain" Kemp, probably won't hurt him in Georgia.
* the Joke: first play https://youtu.be/q3svW8PM_jc
"Knock Knock"
"Who's there?"
"Valdosta"
"Valdosta who?"
"Valdosta way uh huh uh huh I like it uh huh uh huh...:
The young lady at the Valdosta/Lowdnes Co. Chamber of Commerce looked at me as if she wanted to strike me...
This, and for the same reason they wouldn't "find" 11,780 votes in 2020: they were like, "Hell if I'm going to jail for violating state elections law for *this* loser." (Kemp wants to be Senator, or President, and Raffensperger wants to be Governor.)
Folks don't get the genius of Stacey Abrams refusing to concede her first governors race to Kemp: and suing.
The trial established that Kemp couldn't show his voter purge was legitimate: and the judgement mandated a paper trail and a chain of custody for votes that was clear and auditable.
While in the old days a GA Sec.of State might pull +11k votes out of his ass, Rafffensperger had no such option without it being illegally obvious.
I'm not inclined to call them any sort of hero because I'm sure they would have helped the Felon if they imagined they could get away with it ...
When I saw the news stories about Trump and "The Purge" I realized that we just can't handle Trump because we just can't take him seriously. He was proposing that the cops be allowed to murder people because all our problems come from The Bad People and once we let the cops murder all The Bad People, no problems. This was the actual program of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and thousands of people were murdered by the death squads. My understanding is that Duterte himself didn't need to set up the death squads, he just needed to give the green light and the cops did the rest (ah, but OUR cops would never do THAT, right?).
But the response isn't "Trump proposes Philippine-style death squads" it's "Trump references movie from ten years ago." Whoever said ridicule is an effective response to dictators ("Oh, those dictators just HATE being ridiculed, lemme tell ya!") well, now we're seeing the limits of that.
In Haiti the Duvaliers had the Tontons Macoute, which served the same purpose.
Was that a movie? Because if it was, we could use that. Oh, just reality? Never mind.
Now I'm thinking it might have been a mistake to make Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers our first line of defense.
"surrounded by putti"
cement mixer, putti putti
Oooo...
2 SOLID marks
Vout!
Now do the Groove Juice Special!
You're really hitting your stride capturing the vibe of this, The Year of the Vibe, or as I like to think of it, Goldwater's Revenge. It is more than a bit of slander to lay blame for the Republican party at the feet of AuH2O, but the demons he unleashed from that Box are the party now. Trump is simply surfing a wave he foolishly thinks he created and controls. He's calling for Kristallnacht and we still have a month to go. As Chubby Checker tried to warn us, how low can you go?
Between Chubby and Yogi, I think we have all of human wisdom captured.
As Mark Twain said of Kipling, "Between us we cover all knowledge. He knows all that can be known, and I know the rest."
Yogi before Yogi.
Trump is supposedly a billionaire, I suppose he could actually do something to help people if he wanted to.
Just the hot ones.
Why demonstrably help anyone when you can just loudly declare that you help people, then get credit?
He helps more than anyone ever has, if you ask him or his cult.