Thank Republicans Jesus®️ that one of our last freedoms to go (after the freedom to accept ever more abuses from our masters) is the freedom to mock the subhuman thing we again(!) chose to lead us.
I have been reliably informed that authoritarians CAN'T STAND mockery, it's their Achilles Heel, or something. Which is why Cabaret ends with the Nazis being laughed out of Berlin.
Just like it's never the crime, it's the cover-up, I am dreading the next four years of media sane-washing as much as the Trump presidency itself. Seeing actions like nuking Denmark or sending troops to the Yukon described as "bold" or "cheeky" instead of, you know, the insane rampage of a declining despot is the very definition of insult added to injury.
However, I suspect the nonsense about Canada and Greenland is just the shiny object they are waving at the media to keep them mesmerized while Trump and company get on with implementing the truly horrendous shit.
Big trans has blighted the crops, dried up the cow's milk, and caused the Los Angeles fires. Pay no attention to that South African man behind the curtain!
2) per recent abnormal braining, and per #1 above, he seems to me increasingly desperate to have a splendid little war, as if winning such a thing would somehow shower him with legitimacy. So Denmark, sure. Panama. Canada (if you consider the population size).
"just the shiny object they are waving at the media"
Even the people who put weird ideas in Trump's head don't know how he'll digest and regurgitate them. He is a problem-setter for everybody, each in their way.
I'm saying there's no plan among his team to wave the crazy stuff as shiny objects. It's just that everyone has their incentives to react. Would they seize an opportunity to distract? Yes, but Trump never warns them that he's going to serve a particular ball.
Maybe that doesn't matter, and I've weakened my point. I dunno.
Yes, thank you, sometimes I think I'm losing my Goddamn mind, but THERE IS NO FUCKING PLAN HERE. Or "strategy". He's fucking crazy, he desperately needs attention every waking minute, this is what we get.
The Atlantic (natch) recently had a think-piece with a title like "The Political Logic Behind Trump's Foreign Threats."
Yes, the LOGIC behind a threat to invade Greenland.
What would we do without the bigbrains at the Atlantic to 'splain all this to us? Because to this ignorant littlebrain it just looks like Crazy Narcissist Says Crazy Shit to Get Attention.
IF (that's a big if) that Atlantic piece explains that the Greenland bullshit is Trump Media Management 101, with the goal of pushing Jack Smith's report out of the public awareness completely, it might be worth reading.
I know this is cynical of me (and being less cynical was one of my New Years resolutions!) but why should he care if the public is aware of Jack Smith's report? We already knew plenty about his attempt to overturn an election, millions voted for him anyway. They didn't want to know, and you could staple Jack Smith's report to their eyeballs and they still wouldn't read it.
Josh Marshall wrote something about how Trump doesn't care about ethical problems, but he does care about political problems which can become pains in his ass, and the Smith report has a lot of potential to cause political problems, on a par with that Gaetz report.
The most dispiriting outcome of this election was realizing that the fundamental problem is people who just don't give a shit. If people are simply misinformed, you can hope to better-inform them, but I got no clue what to do with Don't Give a Shit.
Some might have given a hoot if Trump had been convicted of Federal crimes, but that would have required the Dems starting sooner and campaigning on that
Funny how we don't hear about his cabinet selections lately.
But I have the awful feeling that the whole "everyone wants to be American now" thing has metastasized onto the general dumbassosphere and actually won't go away soon. What could be more manly and exciting than a Grenada-style "liberation" of the oppressed people of Greenland?
I have a sneaking suspicion that the "truly horrendous shit" might fade back when they get the chance to plunder and loot. Maybe if they fill their time with plain old graft that'll be better than fascist belligerence.
PS: Don't think I'm some literature nerd. I can't even remember what this is from, I just know that it was referenced in one of my favorite Stephen King novels of all time, his 1975 "Salem's Lot."
In January 1976 a good friend of mine and I took another good friend of ours, one of our high school cheerleaders, to see " Lucky Lady" a big budget piece of shit film with Gene Hackman Liza Minnelli and Burt Reynolds. Directed by Stanley Donen(!). We went to Sunday afternoon matinee. While we're in the movie it started to snow. Like " a bitch"as we probably would have said in our senior year in high school. We had all been good friends since grade school and it wasn't unusual for us to hang out like this.
So we're driving home to the snow storm which was getting worse and worse. We stopped at a Frisch's coffee shop about halfway home to get the snow plows a chance to clear the roads.
Frisch's was open but not very busy. Just other people like us waiting for the snow to clear. We settled in with some coffee. My friend started telling us about this book he was reading by this guy named Stephen King and about how it was just like the best thing ever. It was Salem's lot. We were stuck and had nothing but time so he started to tell us about the book . He did a great job! We were there for hours and he told us the whole story. We eventually made it home. I don't remember the trip but I'm sure we did because I'm here.
I remember seeing the Tobe Hooper film and thinking it wasn't as good as the book and then thinking hell I never read the book!
I didn't get around to reading it until 30 years later. It was as good as I remembered!
You know I guess I read all of early to mid Stephen King and then just lost track of him 20 or 25 books and he was 75 book career so far.
Salem's lot was definitely the best of the lot. It was lean and really moved compared to the rest of what I've read.
Agree bigly. It's the only vampire book I've read that follows a well-known, even cliched vampire "fact" to its logical conclusion. And it's not one of his door-stoppers.
As Miss Taylor, the prim spinster who taught my 7th grade Home Economics class sternly insisted, it's "sherBET, not sherBERT like some burly truck driver!"
She also confessed that, as a child, she was dining at a friend's house when fish was served. Since she didn't know how to politely deal with the bones, she swathed them in mashed potatoes and ate them. Thanks to her I know how to make Rice Krispie treats.
Also, our film club did 'Monsieur Lazhar' last Saturday, and what comic relief there is in't flowers in the school dance scene wherein one of the rituals is staff bringing food. Lazhar, who had run a restaurant (thus presuming for us that he made them himself), brings dessert pastries: makrout el louz and tchareks. The teacher next to him at the food table offers him a Rice Krispies square, saying ""They're like baklavas, but Quebec-style."
He tries it and says "Interesting" before quickly backing away...
While I never delete any of these, this one I'm flagging as totally indicative of our current (and for the foreseeable future) disfunction. God, I'm already so tired. I think I'll take the rest of January off.
Fox News: “Democrat President Harry S Truman, in 1867, discussing taking over Antártica, also filled his trousers over the wonders of the world’s iciest continent.”
Random Republican Representative from a Red State: “The people of Antartica, the Antarticaians, should be crapping their pants that President Trump wants to turn their shithole country into part of America.”
Senator Lindsey Graham: “It will be interesting to see.”
Jeff Bezos: “Before President Trump was re-elected, I didn’t give a shit about anything except money, but now I happily drop a deuce while I donate cool million to his White House bathroom remodeling project.”
President Elon Musk: “I shit diamonds and emeralds.”
Vice President J D Vance: “President Trump may use my couch any time he wants.”
"We have a wide selection of traditional Victorian style toilets, high-level and low-level vintage cisterns in a variety of colours and materials and authentic support brackets, all of which are ideal to provide the finishing touch to your new Thomas Crapper bathroom or cloakroom. Our iconic 814 cast metal cistern is an exact copy of an original Victorian cistern, recreated in modern materials to ensure many years of trouble-free use."
A US Army Air Forces colonel, stationed in England during WWII, supposedly wrote his wife: "You pull the chain and nothing happens. You let go and all hell breaks loose."
Watching the Carter funeral, Obama has drawn the short straw and is seated next to Tubby. Watching for signs that he’s about to pass out from the fumes.
Instant classic.
Thank Republicans Jesus®️ that one of our last freedoms to go (after the freedom to accept ever more abuses from our masters) is the freedom to mock the subhuman thing we again(!) chose to lead us.
Grateful and amazed.
Ha! The clock on that one is ticking....
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
I have been reliably informed that authoritarians CAN'T STAND mockery, it's their Achilles Heel, or something. Which is why Cabaret ends with the Nazis being laughed out of Berlin.
Some heavy shit, Roy...
"...whose very feces are an untrammeled delight..."-M Python
"...for Love has built his mansions in a place of excrement/
And nothing be made whole, or sole, without first being rent.."
-WB Yeats, "Crazy Jane talks to the Bishop"
I somehow don't think crapping on the Construction or one's "domestic enemies" is exactly going to make much great...
Can we all at least agree that we are grateful for Roy's service taking that whiff so we do not have to...?
Dan Patrick from long ago on SportsCenter: “The whifffff…”
Just like it's never the crime, it's the cover-up, I am dreading the next four years of media sane-washing as much as the Trump presidency itself. Seeing actions like nuking Denmark or sending troops to the Yukon described as "bold" or "cheeky" instead of, you know, the insane rampage of a declining despot is the very definition of insult added to injury.
However, I suspect the nonsense about Canada and Greenland is just the shiny object they are waving at the media to keep them mesmerized while Trump and company get on with implementing the truly horrendous shit.
The looting is already underway. Look over there, a transperson entering a bathroom!
Big trans has blighted the crops, dried up the cow's milk, and caused the Los Angeles fires. Pay no attention to that South African man behind the curtain!
Big Trans gots Big Plans!
Myself, I like Little Trans. Nothing bigger than O scale.
Steve, thy gage is narrow.
Trans women are the new witches
Nah.
1) he only ever punches down, never up.
2) per recent abnormal braining, and per #1 above, he seems to me increasingly desperate to have a splendid little war, as if winning such a thing would somehow shower him with legitimacy. So Denmark, sure. Panama. Canada (if you consider the population size).
His mind contains nullions.
"just the shiny object they are waving at the media"
Even the people who put weird ideas in Trump's head don't know how he'll digest and regurgitate them. He is a problem-setter for everybody, each in their way.
I'm saying there's no plan among his team to wave the crazy stuff as shiny objects. It's just that everyone has their incentives to react. Would they seize an opportunity to distract? Yes, but Trump never warns them that he's going to serve a particular ball.
Maybe that doesn't matter, and I've weakened my point. I dunno.
Yes, thank you, sometimes I think I'm losing my Goddamn mind, but THERE IS NO FUCKING PLAN HERE. Or "strategy". He's fucking crazy, he desperately needs attention every waking minute, this is what we get.
In future, one might suggest not electing lunatics to the highest office in the land. Just a thought.
Wait...what now? I'm sorry – I thought that was the plan...
Narcissists have to keep people on their toes. It's not that thing A is meant to distract from thing B. Everything is a distraction from everything.
Yes, "keep everyone guessing" is an exercise of power. But it's a power we give to the narcissist when we hang on every word.
Hang on, hang on every word
Up in yer face
I ain't had no logic since
2015, 2016 – it's a disgrace
Showtime – that's the time to put
Him in his place
So Hang on, gang, on every word
For he ain't no pal
Was thinkin' LittlePig woulda picked up on that one by now...probly busy.
Referring (once again) to that--can't remember who said it but Trumpov uses scandal to distract from the crimes he's committing.
The Atlantic (natch) recently had a think-piece with a title like "The Political Logic Behind Trump's Foreign Threats."
Yes, the LOGIC behind a threat to invade Greenland.
What would we do without the bigbrains at the Atlantic to 'splain all this to us? Because to this ignorant littlebrain it just looks like Crazy Narcissist Says Crazy Shit to Get Attention.
The Atlantic can bite me. Or something.
IF (that's a big if) that Atlantic piece explains that the Greenland bullshit is Trump Media Management 101, with the goal of pushing Jack Smith's report out of the public awareness completely, it might be worth reading.
I know this is cynical of me (and being less cynical was one of my New Years resolutions!) but why should he care if the public is aware of Jack Smith's report? We already knew plenty about his attempt to overturn an election, millions voted for him anyway. They didn't want to know, and you could staple Jack Smith's report to their eyeballs and they still wouldn't read it.
Josh Marshall wrote something about how Trump doesn't care about ethical problems, but he does care about political problems which can become pains in his ass, and the Smith report has a lot of potential to cause political problems, on a par with that Gaetz report.
Jack Smith's report is nothing but Deep State propaganda! That's all he needs to say. It will work.
The most dispiriting outcome of this election was realizing that the fundamental problem is people who just don't give a shit. If people are simply misinformed, you can hope to better-inform them, but I got no clue what to do with Don't Give a Shit.
Some might have given a hoot if Trump had been convicted of Federal crimes, but that would have required the Dems starting sooner and campaigning on that
Funny how we don't hear about his cabinet selections lately.
But I have the awful feeling that the whole "everyone wants to be American now" thing has metastasized onto the general dumbassosphere and actually won't go away soon. What could be more manly and exciting than a Grenada-style "liberation" of the oppressed people of Greenland?
Does Greenland have a med school for kids who couldn't get into one in the States?
I have a sneaking suspicion that the "truly horrendous shit" might fade back when they get the chance to plunder and loot. Maybe if they fill their time with plain old graft that'll be better than fascist belligerence.
If there is any "plan," this is it.
Let it be the finale of seem:
The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream
😁
PS: Don't think I'm some literature nerd. I can't even remember what this is from, I just know that it was referenced in one of my favorite Stephen King novels of all time, his 1975 "Salem's Lot."
Wallace Stevens: "the Emperor of Ice Cream"
I have it memorized.
"Sea Surface Full of Clouds." (*gratified sigh*)
" For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is."
I've got a relationship with Wallace Stevens similar to the one I have with Ezra Pound. I read their poetry and I think Man this shit is great !
And then I admit to myself that I understand fuck all of what they're saying but I'm okay with that!
It's the kind of poetry you understand through your pores, a kind of osmosis, as opposed to direct rationality.
All poetry, really, though some arrives in street clothes
Yeah, I read poetry in my civies. Except the hard/fast metered stuff like limericks. They demand uniformity.
Then when you you’re getting Pound or Stevens, along comes John Ashbery with the real uncut heavy shit.
Pound, Canto XLV: “Usura blunteth the needle in the maid’s hand and stoppeth the spinner’s cunning.”
In January 1976 a good friend of mine and I took another good friend of ours, one of our high school cheerleaders, to see " Lucky Lady" a big budget piece of shit film with Gene Hackman Liza Minnelli and Burt Reynolds. Directed by Stanley Donen(!). We went to Sunday afternoon matinee. While we're in the movie it started to snow. Like " a bitch"as we probably would have said in our senior year in high school. We had all been good friends since grade school and it wasn't unusual for us to hang out like this.
So we're driving home to the snow storm which was getting worse and worse. We stopped at a Frisch's coffee shop about halfway home to get the snow plows a chance to clear the roads.
Frisch's was open but not very busy. Just other people like us waiting for the snow to clear. We settled in with some coffee. My friend started telling us about this book he was reading by this guy named Stephen King and about how it was just like the best thing ever. It was Salem's lot. We were stuck and had nothing but time so he started to tell us about the book . He did a great job! We were there for hours and he told us the whole story. We eventually made it home. I don't remember the trip but I'm sure we did because I'm here.
I remember seeing the Tobe Hooper film and thinking it wasn't as good as the book and then thinking hell I never read the book!
I didn't get around to reading it until 30 years later. It was as good as I remembered!
You know I guess I read all of early to mid Stephen King and then just lost track of him 20 or 25 books and he was 75 book career so far.
Salem's lot was definitely the best of the lot. It was lean and really moved compared to the rest of what I've read.
Agree bigly. It's the only vampire book I've read that follows a well-known, even cliched vampire "fact" to its logical conclusion. And it's not one of his door-stoppers.
Hearted, but OOF
Double OOF.
Not Just OOF but OOF-DA!
As Miss Taylor, the prim spinster who taught my 7th grade Home Economics class sternly insisted, it's "sherBET, not sherBERT like some burly truck driver!"
She ain't wrong.
She also confessed that, as a child, she was dining at a friend's house when fish was served. Since she didn't know how to politely deal with the bones, she swathed them in mashed potatoes and ate them. Thanks to her I know how to make Rice Krispie treats.
With masticated fishbones?!
Also, our film club did 'Monsieur Lazhar' last Saturday, and what comic relief there is in't flowers in the school dance scene wherein one of the rituals is staff bringing food. Lazhar, who had run a restaurant (thus presuming for us that he made them himself), brings dessert pastries: makrout el louz and tchareks. The teacher next to him at the food table offers him a Rice Krispies square, saying ""They're like baklavas, but Quebec-style."
He tries it and says "Interesting" before quickly backing away...
Miss Taylor give a lot of thought to burly truck drivers, did she?
"Like some hot... and sweaty... truck driver wearing a wifebeater like Marlon Brando in Streetcar... class dismissed!"
So this is terrifyingly real.
What a crock of shit Roy -
Good job!
The bull-in-the-china-shop shockery
Requires us to ramp up the mockery
His MAGAsty rumbles
And out the crap fumbles
O'ertopping the bedpans and crockery
While I never delete any of these, this one I'm flagging as totally indicative of our current (and for the foreseeable future) disfunction. God, I'm already so tired. I think I'll take the rest of January off.
Fox News: “Democrat President Harry S Truman, in 1867, discussing taking over Antártica, also filled his trousers over the wonders of the world’s iciest continent.”
Random Republican Representative from a Red State: “The people of Antartica, the Antarticaians, should be crapping their pants that President Trump wants to turn their shithole country into part of America.”
Senator Lindsey Graham: “It will be interesting to see.”
Jeff Bezos: “Before President Trump was re-elected, I didn’t give a shit about anything except money, but now I happily drop a deuce while I donate cool million to his White House bathroom remodeling project.”
President Elon Musk: “I shit diamonds and emeralds.”
Vice President J D Vance: “President Trump may use my couch any time he wants.”
Time to reassess Thomas Crapper!
Still in business!
"We have a wide selection of traditional Victorian style toilets, high-level and low-level vintage cisterns in a variety of colours and materials and authentic support brackets, all of which are ideal to provide the finishing touch to your new Thomas Crapper bathroom or cloakroom. Our iconic 814 cast metal cistern is an exact copy of an original Victorian cistern, recreated in modern materials to ensure many years of trouble-free use."
https://thomas-crapper.com/product-category/toilets-basins/toilets-cisterns-and-brackets/
If there's a part of your life were you really want " trouble free use"...
"years of trouble-free use, followed by a couple years where things get sketchy, after which it all ends in tears..."
This hints at a use for "cloakroom" with which I had not been familiar.
A US Army Air Forces colonel, stationed in England during WWII, supposedly wrote his wife: "You pull the chain and nothing happens. You let go and all hell breaks loose."
Today as parody, tomorrow as journalism. Yep, you can see - and smell - it coming.
The First Rough Wipe Of History
2...uh...marks...
I love this one - hilarious, disgusting, and plausible all at once.
Roy deserves high praise for staying a couple weeks ahead of the news.
Looks like I'll be the first to mention that a few MAGA rally-goers wore diapers and "Real Men Wear Diapers" T-shirts.
Watching the Carter funeral, Obama has drawn the short straw and is seated next to Tubby. Watching for signs that he’s about to pass out from the fumes.
I fear that Roy already has a draft of a future related episode .
That "draft" ^^ is doing a heavy, er, lift...