And trust me, it’s miserable outside here. Hail, ice, rain, and snow. No sign of the Friendly Angel. But a lovely day indoors ahead, drinking and watching football (real football, with the grownups playing) with SP. And of course, I now have yet another reason to root for my beloved Ravens.
Today is the birthday of Georges “Dotty” Seurat, Alexander “I’m in Charge” Haig, Edwin “Authoritarian Piece of Shit” Meese, Harry “The Pirate” Reid, and Aaron “The Family Guy” Rodgers.
Well, this looks like Chapter 1 of a political thriller more than an actual news story.
The top admiral overseeing US Naval forces in the Middle East, Vice Adm. Scott Stearney, was found dead in his residence in Bahrain on Saturday, the Navy said in a statement. While his death is being investigated, officials say there is no evidence of foul play at this time.
Have fun speculating about what’s going to be in Chapter 2. Underage boys? Passing intelligence to the Saudis? Affair with a Mossad agent? Autoerotic asphyxiation? Read through 103 parts of Hat and Hair and lost the will to live?
If I were to rate Trump’s best accomplishment so far, it would be getting Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. He’s looked pretty good so far. But I’d also rate Trump’s absolute worst idea as using tariffs as a way to whip up his base and get trade concessions in lieu of pushing for actual free trade, unencumbered by sweetheart deals. That’s been backfiring spectacularly (don’t even ask how badly that’s hurt the business I work for), since it’s based on the curious idea that you can pressure socialist countries by forcing them to raise taxes on their citizens. Well, we may be seeing a face-saving retreat happening.
“President Trump has agreed that on January 1, 2019, he will leave the tariffs on $200 billion worth of product at the 10 percent rate, and not raise it to 25 percent at this time,” the statement read. Over the next 90 days, American and Chinese officials will continue to negotiate lingering disagreements on technology transfer, intellectual property and agriculture.
And here’s a lovely gem of stupid symbolic harrumphing:
[Chinese president] Xi also plans to designate Fentanyl as a controlled substance, according to the statement. As the U.S. opioid crisis continues to rage, it would suggest that people selling the drug to parties in the U.S. would be subject to stiff penalties in China.
Crisis! Raging! Jesus fucking christ.
If it seems to you that food poisoning outbreaks are getting as common as Chicago shootings, you’re not imagining it. Or more accurately, you’re not imagining that it’s in the news more.
Year to date, there have been 22 outbreaks investigated by the Center for Disease Control, including the dangerous E. coli outbreak currently linked to romaine lettuce. Itâs the highest number of total investigations compared to the past 12 yearsâbut the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb says thatâs not necessarily because more food has suddenly become âunsafe.â
âI think whatâs happening is that we have better technology than ever before to link outbreaks of human illness to a common pathogen,â Gottlieb told CNN.
Alternate explanation: Chipotle has many more locations now.
This ongoing story leaves me conflicted.
One woman, who went to graduate school with [Neil deGrasse] Tyson, alleged in a 2014 blog post that he had drugged and raped her. After writer David McAfee published an interview with the woman, Tchiya Amet, two other women went public with sexual misconduct allegations. One accuser, physics professor Katelyn Allers, said Tyson groped her at a 2009 party. Tysonâs ex-assistant, Ashley Watson, said she had to quit her job because of his unwanted sexual advances, McAfee reported.
On the one hand, the whole #metoo thing has accelerated the enstupidation of our society. On the other hand, Tyson is an arrogant and sanctimonious shithead of incredibly meager scientific accomplishment who has somehow been lionized by the Left as a great thinker, and there’s an inevitable Schadenfreude factor. Gripping hand, I have to stick with my principles, dammit, despite my personal desire to see the shithead suffer. And that’s driven by seeing several physicists of real merit having had their careers destroyed by this mindless juggernaut.
The French continue to be enraged by their discovery that free shit somehow has to get paid for.
The centre of Paris was on lockdown tonight after masked protesters stole an assault rifle from police, clashed with riot squads and set fire to cars and Christmas trees on the Champs-Elysees in furious demonstrations against the French government. Protesters said today’s actions were ‘the start of a revolution’ that would eclipse the mass strikes and occupation of universities and factories in 1968 when the country was on the cusp of civil war.
Fires and clouds of tear gas covered the French capital from early morning until late in the evening, in some of the worst violence ever seen in the French capital as more than 5,000 demonstrators brought chaos to Paris for the second week running.
I have a hypothesis. Note the running theme in the photos in this news story. Yeah, sure, most of the rioters have something in common ethnically, and I’m sure that Europeans will gleefully point this out, but that’s not really it. When all is said and done, I think we’re going to find out that the French auto companies are actually behind this- massive car burnings mean more sales. Brilliant!
Old Guy Music! And I know that nothing will annoy the masses more than the Grateful Dead. So of course that’s what I’m listening to. And here’s a really nice live version of what I think is their best straight-ahead rock song ever, and one I’ve covered in a couple of bands. It’s just plain fun to play, and it’s fun to listen to. So spark one up and be groovy.
first first of December that happened on a Sunday!
hit some m-f-in theme music, already:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU7D7yHkWn0
Infinitely better than The Grateful Dead. Of course, everything is.
Them’s fighting words (although I do agree).
Infinitely better than The Grateful Dead. Of course, everything is.
Having lived for a year with a deadhead, let me just say: fuck the Grateful Dead.
That is all.
There is some cosmic justice in the French rebelling against their government by wearing the vests which the government required them to purchase.
I like the vests. It adds a bit of a comedic effect to the whole thing.
Safety third!
The start of a revolution. In France. No mention of what is to follow.
How did that turn out last time?
I had to miss a doctor’s appt recently. No, it wasn’t because I was hung over. It was that goddamned meat pie I took a chance on because it looked so good. Under a heat lamp. A food inspector once told me “Never, ever, under any circumstances, eat food prepared in a gas station.” I took my chances. I lost.
Yes, there is a lot of schadenfreude to be had watching the left eat its own. It is incredible to me how stupid they are and never learning from history, but I have to agree that we should stick to principle lest we be guilty of the same. Fuck Tyson, just not like this.
âNever, ever, under any circumstances, eat food prepared in a gas station.â
My exception to that wise rule is the deep fried corn nuggets that I find at BP stations in Iowa. Oh man, I could eat a ton of those, and I say that after having tried to do exactly that. I’m sure that one day I’ll lose that Russian Roulette, but I’ll still maintain it was worth it.
Deep fried is always ok.
Exception to the rule: Auto Grills in Italy. Better than restaurants here. Lol. Had an amazing veal cutlet and peppers sandwich in one.
*Technically* I guess the better comparison are Rest Areas. Still, they have gas stations, right?
Most of the rest areas where I am have actual restaurants.
I don’t care if it’s covered in bacon, corn nuts are disgusting and they reek when the passenger next to you on the train is snarfing them down and breathing on you.
There are always exceptions. For many years, the best burritos in Boston were from a gas station (they’ve since opened a dedicated storefront).
I spent several weeks in your neighboring state at a Bayou La Batre ship yard back in the day. I loved it that they had cooked crawfish in all the gas stations, along with sausages and other assorted stuff that was not good for you. Here we are big on breakfast burritos and not much else.
All of the gas stations here have a delicious lineup of food but you have no way of knowing how long it has been sitting in the incubator. It’s about the same as going in a micro lab and licking petri dishes. I nearly died from eating some fried catfish just outside of Natchitoches a few years back. Spending two days with your body expelling everything in it by any means possible is not pleasant. I guess I am a slow learner.
I’ve never had a problem with Wawa or 7-11, but I don’t eat at either off those often.
Wawa’s a whole other level. I think of them as sandwich shops that sell cigarettes and sometimes gas as a sideline.
There’s also Sheetz and GetGo operating in the same strange area.
Agree with you, Naptown B. Their model is unique. To some extent, 7-11 is along similar lines. They strike me as a low rent Wawa.
Neph, they’ve made it all the way down to Florida. Sheetz & GetGo haven’t
I didn’t know Wawa made the jump down to Flordia. The stranger thing to me is that all three of these chains are based out of Pennsylvania. GetGo is linked to the Giant Eagle chain of grocery stores based out of Pittsburgh, and Sheetz is headquartered in PA as well.
What the fuck was going on in PA that this became a common thing that lasted?
Why was Detroit auto city? Silicon Valley computer land?
One thing that could have happened is one of the businesses grew really big, to the point where they lost some good managerial talent who went on to form competition. Another is that PA’s central location (relative to population density) may have meant it was a good location.
But I’m just spitballing here.
Royal Farms, a chicken shack that sells gas. And the fried chicken is just about the best you will ever get.
Oh, I have been there. I ate lunch at a Hardee’s in Jensen Beach Fl when I lived there. Four hours later I was puking and shitting my brains out. That lasted for about 30 hours. I was praying for death.
Call me when you’ve had salmonella while in China.
Ha ha ha! Amoebic dysentery in Wuhan – 1988.
As I paid for the meal, seeing that the chopsticks were just put back in a bucket to rinse them off (basically just trading microbes with everybody who had eaten there since the bucket was changed). Yeah. I spent 5 days in King Kong’s grip (felt like I was being squeezed by a 8-foot-long hand and everything shooting out of either end) and lost 15 lbs.
That sounds horrible.
A friend once asked me for advice on foreign travel. He had never been out of the states before.
“Only eat things that are well cooked or come in their own wrapper. Peanuts, oranges, that sort of thing.”
Dumbass ate raw oysters in a restaurant just before leaving the Philippines to come home. An hour off of the plane and his son found him unconscious on the kitchen floor in a lake of vomit. Good grief. By ‘do not eat anything raw’ I meant ‘dont put it in your mouth’.
Raw oysters in the Philippines? Now that’s dumb.
Staying in the First World helps, too. Obviously it’s not proof against illness, but buying food canned there helps.
By the third day I just wanted it to end. Either get better or die. I didn’t care too much which way it went at that point.
I got giardia while in S Sudan. That was not a fun plane ride back over the Atlantic. I got treatment in Canada when I landed, and when I made it back to the states the CDC gave me a phone call to see how I acquired it. All I had to say was South Sudan and case closed. Everybody there has giardia.
The world is full of people who cant figure out how to keep their own feces out of their food supply and believe that flies are just a part of life that we cant do anything about because they spontaneously generate.
This is something few Americans know about the third world.
Top things that have increased life expectancy in the west: 1. Indoor plumbing and water treatment 2. Refrigeration and air conditioning. 3. Covered garbage cans and garbage disposal. 4. Antibiotics and vaccination
Everything else is way down the list.
Giardia in Xiamen, 1984. I brushed my teeth without using boiled water. Mistake never repeated.
The trick is slowly build up immunity. I’m pretty sure I have a cast iron stomach by now. I can eat most anything and not get sick. I still like gas station egg salad sandwiches when I’m on road trips. I drank the water in China. I regularly eat the weeks old leftovers that nobody else will touch. The best sushi in town here used to be a small shop attached to a gas station.
Our Kroger did a massive renovation and now has an actual food court area with a sushi store. It’s delicious. I like to get a rainbow roll or something and eat it to avoid the overbuying that always occurs with shopping while hungry.
People still look at me like I’m crazy when I say I ate sushi from Kroger, though.
“How did that turn out last time?”
With Russell Crowe singing horribly?
Don’t forget that the French have had 5+ revolutions
Yes they have, and that was just last year.
Hmm.
Iâve had a number of food borne illnesses from traveling and living in South America. Salmonella from a chicken joint in Peru was particularly bad. I couldnât eat chicken for a year or two after that.
That was easy compared to when I was in a dirty Caribbean city in Colombia many years back and the town flooded. Knee deep water in th streets and you can imagine what was in that water. Two days later while watching Brazil lose to France in the World Cup in a little pension I went outside to smoke a joint with a couple guys I knew there. An hour or so later I started feeling really weird. I had it for six days and lost twenty pounds in that crappy little bathroom by myself. I had a fever of 104 that I could not shake. I was hallucinating A
and somehow I dragged myself across town to a hospital. They tried to send me off and I kept insisting so they put me on a gurney next to some guy screamingly his head off in agony. I went through four bags of IV fluid and they gave me a shot of something. I felt like I came back from the dead. I had another two weeks of bad stomach and ended up thirty pounds lighter. Thankfully I did not contract HIV from the injections.
I’m inclined to assume that China “blinked first” when it came to trade much as Scott Adam’s and others have predicted. Xi picked a bad time to try rolling out some of his new programs when it comes to facing a thoroughly erratic (some would say irrational) opponent.
set fire to cars and Christmas trees
WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!!11!
Well…. yeah…. that too.
I think France is thoroughly screwed at this point. They’ve got an entire underclass that hates their culture, has violent tendencies, and is out- reproducing the native population.
I’m sure that they’re pretty close to cracking the riddle of how to cut taxes, increase spending and contain inflation all at the same time.
Sounds familiar
Substitute “Europe” for “France” and your statement is still sadly accurate.
Eastern Europe is doing better than Western Europe at this point. It would not surprise me to see a new refugee wave in 5-10 years – composed of Native born Western Euros trying to get into Hungary, Poland, the Baltic States, etc.
What’s the carbon footprint of riots against high carbon taxes? Seems like that should be included in the calculations.
once had a car that got burned by a christmas tree. it was about Jan 15 so the tree was dry as it gets and someone lit it up in the middle or the night. melted all the paint and weatherstripping off one side of the car.
The local tradition here is to take your XMAS tree to the beach on the night of Jan 1st and after sunset set it ablaze. It is pretty to see a several mile long beach suddenly light up from end to end and the cheering start. A few minutes later everyone goes home and the tide does its work.
Ah, so it’s you fuckers causing all the global warming!
Repent! Get thee to a Tesla dealership!
The only reason #metoo is a juggernaut with any power whatsoever is because for completely idiotic reasons people automatically believe allegations despite copious evidence that they’re very often fabricated.
We can pick and choose positions on NDT but he’s gonna go down either way because allegations were made. Until enough people have been inoculated against automatic belief this will continue.
That said, as long as it must continue, I’d prefer it target its own supporters and will even cheer when it does. This is simply because the only way it stops is by taking down its supporters, who will support tyranny until they themselves become the target. Sometimes not even then, making taking them out of the discussion the only way to win a battle.
“We can pick and choose positions on NDT but heâs gonna go down either way because allegations were made.”
Don’t know, the lefts sweethearts get more defense. At this point I don’t see it going anywhere. The first allegation is not credible at this time. The others are about unwanted advances, but no details.
Remember that Franken had damning evidence and still the big left donors think it was no big deal.
True, but Franken still had to resign, and look at Schneiderman. Prominent lefties do have a #metoo #resistance, but they’re not fully immune.
Suck it fanbois
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/microsoft-surpasses-apple-as-most-valuable-us-company
I have to give it to Microsoft, they have made a lot of good choices in my mind in the last few years.
Enterprise is always where the steady money is going to be. Apple could have penetrated that market, but they pretty much ignored it.
The real winner in Silicon Valley is Valve though. Private with equity of $2.5B and only 360 employees.
That’s real market dominance.
You mean building an open platform which multiple vendors can use, have low barriers to entry, and making transactions easy creates benefits? Who could have predicted that?
The real threat Steam faces is if EA, Activision, Bethesda, and Ubisoft decide to work together on their own digital storefront. Instead, all of them decided to launch their own separate platform that only supports their games. Most gamers I know have them installed on their machine because they’re mandatory, not because they want them. Steam on the other hand is usually an early install.
When Jobs died I predicted that the MBAs with suits would ruin the company. Sad, but true.
They’re wholly dependent on creating new demand for their products out of thin air. Jobs knew how to do that, Cook not so much.
So fifty people in two countries on a huge continent got sick and they can trace it to Romaine? Color me skeptical. I am sure there are fifty people in the US and Canada who are sick from e coli at any given time and it could be they ate one of Suthens gas station meat pies.
Do they go test all the lettuce where these people have eaten or is this a statistical analysis that points to the most probable suspect? I get it when they find salmonella or e coli in a food processing plant but these wide spread “outbreaks” I am not sure I buy it.
The biggest problem with food is the people who prepare it. It is remarkable to me how few people really understand how to safely prepare food. I once watched a woman stab a cooked chicken with the same utensil she used on that chicken when it was raw. When I explained why that was a bad idea she replied ” We cant see germs so we dont really know they exist”. I know for a fact that woman graduated HS and had to pass basic bio to do it.
Hell, for that matter go sit in your local emergency room and watch the medical staff treat people. From their behavior you wouldn’t know that they even know what germ theory is.
A decade ago –
Mrs. Suthenboy: “You really should go to the ER with that dog bite and get it treated. Why are you so stubborn?”
Mr. Suthenboy: “Because I want to keep my arm.”
That is what I mean. I am no statistician, but surely on a continent with what, close to 400 million people that the odds of fifty poisoning themselves is not too far fetched. Maybe the CDC finds a link because they want to.
I have watched a BBQ concession caterer use the same spoon that never gets washed and sits on the counter for ten hours to dish out chopped brisket. I don’t eat their food.
I spend a fair amount of time in food/supplement/cosmetics/ manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution centers as part of my job. It is possible to track bad romaine from the minute Hector in Mexico picked it to when Dale in Minneapolis purchased it at Kroger. Itâs pretty awesome. And in my experience, the employees, managers, and executives of these companies take proper handling seriously. Itâs actually kind of a refreshing.
Agreed. I worked for a nutrition supplement manufacturer and our quality people were amazingly good.
(No Krogers here, though) đ
Thanks again for the recommendation yesterday. I had never heard of Hicklin and his story was fascinating. I sat in my truck for 15 minutes so I could hear the end. Great stuff!
I thought it would be some good nostalgia. And that voice and those singers were pretty much my entire childhood. Glad you liked it.
Almost finished with my coffee, then I have to go finish the dog fence out in the muddy backyard. Ugh.
Ugh. I just finished weed eating around mine so the electric fence would work again. I found out that I am not in very good shape. Two minutes later I heard a yelp and he was at the door knocking to get in and away from that invisible monster that bit him. I bet he wont dig out again.
I mostly skimmed the France article, but see multiple references to “protesters” and “demonstrators”. Bullshit. They are rioting. Destroying private property and potentially hurting people is not a virtuous act of demonstration or protest. Call a spade a spade.
Damn right.
May all France get to Heaven before the leftists know it’s dead.
Good choice!
I’ve heard a lot of Lefties argue that looting and vandalism during a protest is not that bad since “it’s just property, and it can be replaced”.
I’ll remember to bust out that line if a black church or an abortion clinic ever gets burned down.
3 degrees outside. brrrr.
Jobs knew how to do that, Cook not so much.
That reality distortion field was proprietary technology. Jobs took it with him to the grave.
By all accounts that was really just him being a colossal asshole.
Yet somehow it worked.
I see the slobbery adulation of Saint George Bush has gone into overdrive. What the fuck did President Dishrag actually achieve?
I come up nothing. He sure as fuck did not make us freer.
I think is their best straight-ahead rock song ever….
The one thing the Dead have is a low bar when it comes to one song being judged their best ever. Unless you are ripped the Dead are not tolerable. I would rather listen to their tour bus idle.
Q: What does a hippy say when he runs out of pot?
A: Dude, this band sucks!
Happy almost Hanukkah (((Glibs)))! Have some titties!
http://archive.is/bbpEE
I’d light 11’s menorah.
I tried to zoom in on the “needs a sammich” girl in 27 to read the words of wisdom on her arm. No luck.
This scream “unintended consequences” to me.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-28/how-to-kill-mosquitoes-google-and-verily-have-a-plan
I have no problem with mosquito extermination. The food chain will adjust itself in no time.
In fact, if I had my way I would exterminate mosquitoes, biting flies, ticks, fleas and a plethora of round and flat worms. Fuck parasites.
I mentioned yesterday that The Gates Foundation has been sitting on an extremely effective method of mosquito control for over a decade. The last thing that the elites in the west want is to get rid of third world diseases that keep the population down. They like to brag about having this gizmo but you dont see it on the shelf at Walmart, do you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKm8FolQ7jw
“The food chain will adjust itself in no time.”
Of course it would. You don’t think the adjustment after all those parasites are gone could be potentially worse?
No, I dont. I could be wrong, but I dont think so.
Those parasites don’t just keep the population of third world countries down, they keep every stripe of animal in check. I think parasites are a fundamental necessity in some form or another. I’m not sure I’d prefer whatever fills that void.
Parasite is just a name for predators that are smaller than their prey. I know they keep the other critters down too and that is part of why I hate them so much. I have empathy for more than just humans.
I know, it is always a risk screwing around with nature, but goddamned if she isnt one mean ass bitch.
I agree with having empathy toward other beings. I always thank the animals I personally kill for their sacrifice so that I may survive.
I think it means that they sap nutrients from a host without killing them, merely slowing them down. Kinda like the government does to industry.
What happened with the mosquito sterilization experiment from last year – Florida or something else? I can’t remember the specifics.
Either way…IMO, the better option – like the green revolution – would be to selectively breed mosquito species to transmit beneficial traits/resistances to people they bite rather than diseases. (Of course I have no idea how a mosquito picks up a disease initially – born with the virus or what? – assuming that is the format, you should be able to replace the virus[es] with beneficial proteins, etc).
Will mutant bats be next?
News from the wishful thinking desk
The key revelation of Michael Cohenâs new guilty plea is this: Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller is one step closer to showing links between Donald Trumpâs business interests in Russia and his conduct as a candidate for president.
———-
The details that emerge in the document are fascinating and rich.
But the main takeaway is that Cohen and others in the Trump organization were actively doing a Russia deal that linked Trumpâs emerging presidential candidacy with his business interest in a Moscow Trump Tower. And Trump knew about it, to a degree yet to be revealed.
Until now, many have speculated that there must be some link between Trumpâs business interests in Russia and his campaign conduct. The Cohen plea provides more concrete evidence of such a link.
Yes, yes, of course. Quid pro quos everywhere. Show us the 1040! Collusion and sedition. Treachery and low regard.
They’ve got you now, Bad Orange Man.
One step closer. Any day now.
The real question is whether he traitorously sold his country out to the Russians over a Uranium deal and laundered 145M bucks through his charity foundation. Or if he paid the Russians through a proxy to cook up a completely false dossier to smear his political opponent.
The damn Trump Tower meeting was initiated by Russians, including one well associated with Fusion GPS. Yeah, that Trump colluding with Russians, right.
And the witnesses who are going to convict the Evil, Lying Trump are people who have plead guilty or been convicted of … lying. Obviously very credible witnesses.
I actually read the phrase “our biggest geopolitical foe” yesterday and nearly fell out of my chair. These people really miss the 80s.
2012 was so long ago.
A Moscow Trump Tower that doesn’t exist.
RE: Bush senior’s on-going hagiography.
I was listening to left-wing hate radio yesterday, as I do occasionally to get some derp, and the host was discussing with some guest why Hollywood celebrities weren’t using HW’s death to bludgeon Trump.
The guest calmly explained how Hollywood respects and admires the Bushes (HW and W) and that they wouldn’t sully his memory by associating it with Trump.
I actually burst out laughing in the car.
There is no lie as big as the lies people tell themselves.
Hollywood respecting and admiring Bush the Lesser.
Uber-interventionist, causing incalculable death and destruction. Committed drug warrior, and that literally (e.g., Panama). Operation Condor. Iran-Contra cover-up. And his domestic “achievements” were even worse (putting aside gifting us with his son, who managed to fuck things up even worse). I know some were unhappy with my excoriation of him in Links yesterday, but if anything, I was too kind.
Yes indeed, borderline magnanimous even.
On the bright side, by lowering the bar with his idiot son, we were then gifted with 8 years of a narcissistic sock puppet. This in turn led to the election of the most entertaining president of my lifetime.
On the other hand, if he had been re-elected, Bill Clinton wouldn’t have been. No Bill, no Hillary. No Hillary, no Trump.
The only difference with the French variety of socialism with others is that it’s served with Pernod.
And man that was one bad ass long article.
Due to Romanian beer trends having inspirations in US ones, a local brewer decided to make a pumpkin ale this autumn. Awful. Disgusting. Horrible. I had two sips and poured it in the sink and I usually give a beer at least half before I throw away.
That is funny. Here people either love or hate pumpkin. I will eat pumpkin pie and that is about it. Why would I want my coffee or beer to taste like pumpkin? If I want to taste pumpkin I will eat pumpkin pie. I drink coffee because I like the flavor of coffee.
American beers aren’t American, they are German. I think all of the major beer houses here are German. I think we had a commenter once who worked for one and told us that up until not very long ago you could only work for one if you spoke German. I think that is right. Someone who knows more about the industry should weigh in.
American beers arenât American, they are German. – well just like in hipster coffee, a lot of the craft movement has US origins
Suthenboy, the big houses (Bud, Miller, Coors) were all started by Germans, that is true. At this point, they are all owned by AB-Inbev (who merged with SABMiller a couple of years ago) which is based in Belgium. I believe PieInTheSky is referring to the impact of the growing American craft beer scene, which is now running forward bringing back styles from the brink of death and making some experimental beers. For the most part, the pumpkin in the beer has negligible flavor contributions, it’s the pumpkin pie spices that are used in the beer (which are generally on the sweet side) that people associate with pumpkin.
Thanks. I was wondering earlier where American beer came from before the Krauts showed up. I guess it was all ‘craft’ beer back then.
That was true, but the craft beer movement is about as total a rejection of the reinheitsgebot as can be while still making a product that is still beer. The majority of styles being produced are English or non-German European.
Fighting fire with fire.
U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke unleashed a scathing personal attack Friday against a congressman who had called on him to resign, accusing the Arizona Democrat of drunkenness and using taxpayer money to cover up inappropriate behavior.
Zinke sent his tweet after Rep. Raul Grijalva wrote an opinion column, published in USA Today on Friday, saying that Zinke must resign because of what Grijalva called “ethical and managerial failings.”
“It’s hard for him to think straight from the bottom of the bottle,” Zinke tweeted. “This is coming from a man who used nearly $50,000 in tax dollars as hush money to cover up his drunken and hostile behavior. He should resign and pay back the taxpayer for the hush money and the tens of thousands of dollars he forced my department to spend investigating unfounded allegations.”
The tweet also included the hashtag #TuneInnForMore, a reference to a legendary Washington, D.C., dive bar frequented by Grijalva.
Zinke’s extraordinary accusations are aimed at the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, who is seeking to head the panel once Democrats take control of the House in January. The committee oversees Zinke’s Interior Department, and the back-and-forth on Friday sets a sharp tone for their relationship if Grijalva becomes chairman.
I haven’t been following this very closely, but apparently Zinke is tired of being accused of being some sort of crook or swindler. Especially by a notorious dipsomaniac of the Democrat tribe.
*grabs popcorn*
Ethical and managerial failings. I see.
Unless I am missing something the accusations against Trump and company seem to always be some nebulous vagaries and never specifics. I guess they learned their lesson with the piss hookers.
Out of control bureaucrat? How dare he talk back to the the people’s representative like that.
And, of course, the media are shocked (SHOCKED, I say) that Zinke would respond to character assasination in kind.
And SeĂąor Grijalva is one o’ them coloreds so: RAAAAAAACIST!!!!
Link
WTF, Spurs?
“We’ve lost the plot.”
Could be worse. You could be a Suns fan.
Where am I? Who are these people? What am I doing here?
Members of the U.S. Supreme Court posed for a new group photo on Friday, marking the first time newly minted Justice Brett Kavanaugh was included.
A beaming Kavanaugh relished his first public moment as one of America’s most senior judges following a nail-biting Senate vote last month.
But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was not in a happy mood. She scowled and grimaced through the photo session.
She looks confused.
âWhen nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not.â
She knows she cant out-wait Trump and another Gorsuch/Kavenaugh pick will take her seat.
Suck it Ruth. She is one of the worst we have had. If I had my way that shitweasel Roberts would be gone too.
Another gift from Bush (the younger this time- this family has cursed us).
Wow, you really hate that guy.
I haven’t liked any president since…ever. If I had to pick someone to fill the office I would resurrect Coolidge. Trump has certainly been entertaining and he has done a lot of things that I wanted but never had hope of seeing. I wouldn’t give a cup of warm piss for any of the rest of them except maybe Reagan.
I have been saying for 20 years that our political class needs to go. Every one of them. I am still a fan of term limits. Any elected office you get one go at it…say for 6 years and then you are out. You cant switch to a different office. Go home and get a damned job.
To be fair, I will be equally nasty when Carter, Clinton, and Bush Jr die (I suspect Obama will outlive me so I won’t have a chance to kick his corpse). If this site had existed then, I would have been even more bilious toward Reagan, who oversaw an unprecedented expansion in scope, size, power, and abuse of government, while somehow cultivating an image of someone who was a small-government guy (I quantified this in an early article on this site).
Yeah, Coolidge would be the only president after 1900 I could muster any respect for.
I think of seeing pols that I hate leaving the stage being governed by the ‘Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse…’ principle.
Is it just me or is there a rising tide of authoritarianism in the world right now? I know it has always been bad but my sense is that lately it is getting worse.
Right now? No, it’s always there. We just can’t disconnect from it as easily in 2018.
It’s the nature of government. It will always get bigger and worse, the next prez will have to be worse than the present one to get elected. Bigger promises, more authoritarian. It’s all about control.
“I suspect Obama will outlive me”
He’s a smoker so you never know.
Yeah, but I’m a fat old sedentary Jew with high blood pressure.
Some of my best old friends are… Oh wait, I don’t have any old friends any more. OMWC, you’ll be hanging with these kids forever, who else has the experience to keep them in line.
I can only remember back to FDR but you are spot on with your analysis from then ’til now. Harrison was always my favorite president, could have used a lot more like him.
Harrison was always my favorite president, could have used a lot more like him.
I’m assuming you mean Will, not Ben. In which case, yes indeed.
Will, indeed
I would resurrect Coolidge
Yeah, at this point I would take his disinterred corpse, no resurrection necessary.
She’s not all there. It’s absurd she’s trying to hang on and goes to show how partisan our “non-partisan” court really is.
The only reason our courts are nonpartisan is because the Democrat partisans are counter-partisaning the GOP partisans. Otherwise it’s a totally nonpartisan institution.
I am tucking into a gorgeous cheese bagel with cream cheese, lox and capers. I had to go to three stores to find the ingredients. God, it’s so tedious. At least they are close by.
Played an impromptu show last night using only a kick and a ride cymbal. Actually sounded really good. Seems like the less I have to work with the better I do. Band practice tomorrow night, so another chance to whittle my chops.
Four weeks of work left. My god am I ready for it to end. My reintroduction to America will again be a fun and unusual (and awkward) adventure.
My mother turned 65 today. My dad was 39 when I was born–seems like I was quite the late addition when I compare myself to others’ families.
All the best wishes to everyone. I’m in a starved-hungover-sleepy state that’s quite similar to opium in its combination.
Hang in there, buddy. Safe travels.
Where are you at in IN?
My family is in Indy now.
Iâm in Long Beach, CA. My parents live in Fishers, my bro and his wife are in Carmel. I got out of IN 25 years ago to play punk rock in LA.
Long Beach is an excellent choice to play punk rock in.
Common sense ain’t so common, I guess
Jeff and Cathy Moore have devoted hours of labor to clearing brush away from their house in the Sierra Nevada foothills in preparation for a massive wildfire, which suddenly became reality on Nov. 8. Smoke from the approaching Camp Fire blackened the mid-morning sky so completely that they had to light candles indoors.
The Moores started their generator and pumped water from their well to sprinklers on the roof of their California home. After retreating for several hours, the couple returned to spend the entire night dousing vegetation and stomping out spot fires on their own and neighboring properties, preventing them from igniting and further fueling the blaze. By the time the fire department showed up the next day, Jeff Moore said, âeverything was out.â Not only was their home saved, but so were adjacent buildings in a neighborhood where many burned.
————–
Many fire-prevention measures can be cheaply addressed by homeowners: Clear pine needles and other flammable debris from roofs, rain gutters, decks and yards. Avoid stacking firewood directly against a house. Border the home with bare-soil flower gardens, rather than bark mulch. Replace wooden fences with materials that donât burn. Install mesh screens over vents to prevent smoldering material from getting inside. Surround homes with fire-resistant hardwood trees, like aspen, oaks and maples, which can form a heat shield and wind damper during a conflagration.
âItâs the little things that are igniting our communities,â Cohen said.
I’m surprised the insurance companies aren’t aggressively doing vulnerability inspections, and giving discounts for upgrades.
Interesting Observation:
Cohen, who has spent most of his career studying ways to make wildfires less deadly and destructive, pointed to aerial photos of Paradise neighborhoods where every house was leveled, but the surrounding trees were green and relatively unscathed.
âItâs the community that is actually spreading the fire,â he said.
People aren’t already doing that stuff before fire season starts every year?
Oh well.
I’m sure they are. Unless it’s some government program insuring them.
Now that you mention it…we bought house insurance from Allstate and as far as I know no one ever showed up to inspect. The house was fairly new when we bought it and I have been kinda friends with our agent for 25 years…maybe he just took me at my word.
That fire was way to fast to actually burn anything not already dry. The fuggin thing traveled at like 500 yards a minute. Of course the bigger greener trees stayed that way. Come on.
Those ‘green’ trees are plenty dry enough to burn. I haven’t studied the vegetation in that particular area, but there may not have been a ladder component to get the fire moving vertical and like you say, the wind kept the heat moving sideways rather than torching upwards.
When seconds count, the fire department is just days away.
My response below was in regard to this quote:
“Iâm surprised the insurance companies arenât aggressively doing vulnerability inspections, and giving discounts for upgrades.”
I’m of two minds with the entire concept of insurance. It has enabled much advancement of mankind in so far as allowing geographical exploration and medical advancements that would have otherwise been too risky. On the other hand, when car insurance became mandatory here in CA, it wrecked the body shop industry, cost poor people dearly in money and jail time and made being a car guy into a total nightmare. Every vehicle needs to be insured or registration is suspended and the dmv charges back fees often in excess of the value of the vehicle in question. All body shop quotes are based on insurance estimates now. Every minor fender bender costs the minimum allowed insurance coverage amount, where it used to just cost the price of fixing a little dent. The ambulance chasers make sure your neck hurts regardless of how minor the bump. In order to sue someone who actually damaged your vehicle, you must claim injuries or the lawyers won’t accept your case. This leads the ins companies to refuse to pay for obvious claims, knowing you cant sue without paying more than the damages.
Similar damage has been done to the health care industry. Most younger people could easily pay for their own care with less money than they spend on premiums now. For most of my life I spent zero per year on health care. When I have gone to the professionals, they’ve gone nuts with a bunch of unneeded tests only because insurance companies pay well for them.
I actually got sued once for installing tires on a bike that crashed a few days later. He sued me, Harley-Davidson and Dunlop. I had to attend a forensic disassembly of the tires where they found that the tires were correctly installed. My insurance company paid a settlement just to avoid bigger exposure. I was only included in the suit because I had insurance. Everyone settled and my customer got a decent windfall. He crashed because he had modified his suspension and reacted as wrongly as possible when his bike went into a high speed wobble. It was his fault but we all paid for it. Thanks insurance!
I do believe we should move more to a ‘catastrophic’ model. If the judgment (or assessed loss) will either leave someone bankrupt, or essentially an indentured servant for a decade? And the judgment is justified? Pay up, insurance co.
Judgment is that the negligent party or the Act of God is not catastrophic. Too bad, negligent party or insuree.
Thing is, would you like to care to guess how many Congress-scum come from careers in chasing ambulances? Can you guess how the legislation they’ve written affects their policies towards payoffs… uh, payouts? The insurance companies figure out the minimum necessary payment for Mr. “Oh, my neck!” and his shyster, and then implement them.
I’ve only been in one real auto crash in my life, and the woman I crashed into obviously could have avoided it. There was even a woman who witnessed it, pulled over, and told the cop “there was no way he could have avoided it.” I’m pretty sure that’s a direct quote.
The cop, who was a fucking dimwit, still told me he was going to judge it my fault. I was very lucky not to get shot or beaten that day, because I started screaming. The driver had pulled out – taking a left turn into the lane I was driving in. There were no cars close enough in that lane to cause her problems. But she stopped in my lane. I was expecting her to go into the lane so I didn’t slow down fast enough. I did slow down fast enough not to cause too much damage or really injure her.
It was a scam, but the lawyer for my insurance company was good enough that the driver scum got little more than what it’d cost to fix her car.
hey blackjack, would you want to co-write a blog post on insurance
Sorry, hadda run. I’d love to help, if I can. Let me know, or maybe the mods can give you my e-mail addy.
This is done a lot on the commercial side, because an agreement to have inspectors come onsite can easily be worked out and scheduled, the insured property values are huge, and it doesn’t take long to inspect even most billion dollar properties. Also, most of the government crap I discuss below either doesn’t apply, or applies much less to commercial properties
For the residential side, areas where there are likely to be large losses have low concentration of insured values per square mile (meaning inspectors for each company would have to travel all over hell), the properties might not have anyone who could allow access during the time when inspectors are available, there is a lot more state & federal programs welfare, especially for specific causes of loss that could be catastrophic (wildfires, hurricanes, floods). So there is effectively no way to know if individual residential properties are keeping with limiting their causes of loss and safety measures. Not without seriously intruding on the insured’s privacy, taking up a huge amount of employee time & resources, and duplicating repayment for causes of loss the government will suck up anyway.
HTH. BakedPenguin, former Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter
Crap.
… there is a lot more state & federal
programswelfare,When I was a kid the fire marshal would tell us that we had to remove the dry grass from around our house. At least that’s what my Mom told me when she said I had to clear the grass. That was my chore every spring until the year I discovered the wasps nest. Fun times.
I saw the same thing in those photos. That isn’t a crown fire running through tree tops, it’s all surface fires. And once one home starts the amount of heat given off is amazing, leading to a chain reaction.
The new regulations codify the understanding that limiting home ignitability is the most important factor in preventing a humanitarian disaster.
Without a government regulation to tell people what to do, they are, and will always be, helpless.
“Watson says Tyson made suggestive comments during her visit that contained sexual innuendos.
He allegedly began talking about human beings needing certain ‘releases.’
Watson said at one point Tyson engaged in a ‘Native American handshake’ in which both of them held hands tightly, made eye contact, and felt for each other’s pulse. Tyson told Watson that the handshake was a ‘spirit connection.’
Tyson acknowledges he did offer ‘a special handshake,’ but that he hadn’t touched Watson up until that point.
‘You extend your thumb forward during the handshake to feel the other person’s vital spirit energy — the pulse. I’ve never forgotten that handshake, and I save it in appreciation of people with whom I’ve developed new friendships,’ Tyson wrote.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6450991/Celebrity-astronomer-Neil-deGrasse-Tyson-hits-against-sexual-misconduct-allegations.html
Cultural appropriation!!!
I fucking love “science”!
No kidding. I don’t think he should lose his job for these accusations, but maybe he should stop pretending to be a scientist if he’s pushing this spirit energy stuff.
Sounds a little creepy to me but it comes as no surprise.
I still think all this is bullshit, but it’s hard not to be satisfied when it’s their own ox being gored.
It’s the only way they’re going to learn.. It may be a low chance, but it’s still a chance.
STEVE SMITH GIVE NDT SPECIAL HANDSHAKE
I was hoping Watson referred to the IBM computer. đ
I have no idea who this is
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6451435/Victoria-Justice-shows-flawless-figure-sheer-polka-dot-dress-amfARs-Dance2Cure-gala.html
The only celebrities I recognize anymore all have been grey for over a decade. The only thing smaller than my knowledge about celebrities is my interest in them.
And then I clicked on your link. Good grief, she looks like a child to me. Am I supposed to buy her an ice-cream cone?
No, I am supposed to impregnate her.
“It’s a MAN baby!”
What?
No Justice, no piece?
LOL
This is necks level:
https://twitter.com/DamnWideNeck/status/1069072486132793344
Speaking of presidents: I cant remember where I heard this but regarding our political class this is a good point – Trump is showing the country that we dont need lawyers or politicians to run the country and that is scaring the shit out of the political class. That is why they hate him so much.
^^This^^ times one one hundred.
Let me tell you about my navel
By promising to restore circulation and facilitate personal well-being, restaurants offered both pleasure and profit: profit for the restaurateur, to be sure, but also for the individual customer and, by extension, for the public at large. Public benefits could come from private appetites.
———-
If brick-and-mortar restaurants become mere storefronts for delivery services, they will cease to be public spaces in any sense of the term. When dinner from a restaurant replaces dinner in a restaurant, we lose track of all the other people who are dining as well. Part of the transformation of daily life wrought by Amazon and on-line retailing more generally, this hyper-individualization of consumption may bring a new political revolution as well.
The way we shop and eat now forms a feedback loop with the general discrediting of the idea of âpublic goodââand, with it, of public spaces and shared civility. Cell phones, charter schools, the rhetoric of âtaxpayerâ dollars (as if the money, once paid, still belonged to those who paid it): all make for a political climate and lived reality where very little that is âpublic,â in the sense of shared and common, remains.
“profit for the restaurateur, to be sure, but also for the individual customer and, by extension, for the public at large. ” Sacre bleu! Mutual exchange of value? What an extraordinary concept!
And then we discover, to our horror, the unforeseen detrimental effect of “hyper-individualization”. It’s as if we have torn up the Social Contract. We have repudiated the very notion of community. What a tragedy.
Man, these academics have a lot of time on their hands, I guess.
“Academia is the only field where having bad or absurd ideas does not adversely affect your career.” – Thomas Sowell, paraphrased.
âAcademia is the only field where having bad or absurd ideas does not adversely affect your career.â â Thomas Sowell, paraphrased.
While I hate to disagree with Dr Sowell I have to add politics as another field that rewards the incompetent. Murphy’s Law says we all rise to our level of incompetence but that is not the upper limit in government.
What’s your’s is thier’s, what’s thier’s is thier’s.
What’s “thier’s”?
Charter schools ARE public schools, with an attempt to emphasize serving the students’ interests over the workers’. No wonder the writer dislikes them.
“charter schools”
Christ these progs have a hard-on for charter schools. It’s straight NPC behavior too; I bet 95% of them couldn’t explain to you why they think they’re so terrible.
The left has spent a long time co-opting the education system so they can fill peoples heads with mush. The only way they can hang onto it is if it is kinda, sorta governed by a single entity. A system with widely disparate entities would be much harder to control. With the left it is always about control and charter schools are a threat to that control. This is why you see almost TDS levels of opposition to them.
Totally out of nowhere: I’m really enjoying the Get Shorty TV show, it has a season on Netflix I think it airs on Epix. Of course, I’ve been a fan of Chris O’Dowd since The IT Crowd.
Peter Thiel predicts âreformationâ of higher education in speech to student journalists
Nailing your thesis to the door at a college will get you arrested for hate speech.
I don’t know how it will come from the “outside” as long as the government keeps shoveling money to them.
Are college fees still rising 1500% per year? Does every college have a growing army of slugs acting as ‘diversity coordinators’? Is anyone not teaching marxist claptrap and excommunicating wrong thinkers?
It will collapse on its own no matter how much money Uncle Sugar shovels at them. They will simply become completely dysfunctional and private, non-govt funded institutions will arise.
I would love to see this rampant credentialism replaced with skills testing and promotion from within. They would be vastly more efficient than making everyone spend years and years taking bullshit classes, many of which have no application whatsoever to the career they’re studying for.
Honestly, it’s a little confusing that “progressives” are such radical conservatives when it comes to the university system. You’d think they would want to create a job market where anyone can get a job if they have the skills, not just people who shelled out six figures and several years of their life to get some piece of paper. Some kid from the ghetto who went to a shitty high school could study some subject online and land himself a job, and continue to study independently and get some credentials from professional organizations to further build his resume.
This bubble cannot burst quickly enough.
Why would you think they would want that?
If you are trying to collapse a society you have to cultivate incompetence, destroy character and morals, smash the economy etc.
The left is about that boot stomping on a human face. They cant do that to competent people who can defend themselves.
I would like that too, but it costs money, and right now businesses are getting other people to pay for a lot of their training for them (see “partnerships” to create new specialized degree programs that will only qualify someone for a job with the partner).
As far as college fees, the last time my university raised tuition or fees was 2012. The students graduating this spring have paid the exact same tuition rate their entire time.
I think I am telling this right – it wont be the first time. I believe the guy who invented the caterpillar style tractors (electric motor driven tracks powered by a gasoline motor/generator) started his own private college to train engineers t work for his company. He did so because the rest of academia had their heads up their asses according to him. The engineers he hired from other schools couldn’t find their own asses with a map and a flashlight.
Higher Ed as it exists today is doomed. The sooner we shovel dirt over its corpse, the better.
Speaking of licking Presidential ass
Obama wants to talk about what wasnât political or personal before Trump made everything political and personal, but every time he does, it feeds into their dynamicâin part because Trump and his supporters and the media want the mud fight, and in part because his exasperation keeps making him slip in jokes at his successorâs expense.
He wanted to be mostly done with politics, but he decided Trump gave him no choice but to step back in through the fall. Now that Obama is done with his midterm campaigning that was all about opposing Trump, he wants to be seen as standing up for civility and facts and an international order. Itâs only because those things stand in such contrast to Trump that they become an attack on Trump.
————
And while he tries his level best to avoid talking about Trump, Obama did make it clear Tuesday that he doesnât think Trump deserves to be in the Oval Office, based on his behavior, and that Trumpâs politics is rooted in a perverse âhatredâ that he canât abide.
Before Election Night two years ago, Obama never thought about Trump much. When he did, it was as the âbirtherâ carnival barker who seemed like the embodiment of his caricature of Republicans.
OMG SO DREAMYCREAMY!
We never even deserved a man so enlightened and brilliant. And now look at us. Trump is worse than Genghis Khan.
LOL
but he decided Trump gave him no choice
Trump can make anyone do anything! Our God-Emperor!
“He wanted to be mostly done with politics”
Majorly assumes facts not in evidence.
Um, yea, didn’t Obama say that he would gladly run for a third term if it were possible?
I remember quite a bit of talk about that from his sycophants, repealing the 22nd and all of that. Several of the pinko trolls from TOS argued that he should be made president for life.
I’m going to look forward to the cries of “unprecedented” when former president Trump criticizes his successor
So, in a nutshell, Shitweasel cant go away and shut his fucking mouth. He cant help himself. We are stuck with how many more years of having to listen to his sanctimonious horseshit?
Everyone else had the grace to go away and not muck around while their successors were in office, but not this guy. He is the king of bullshit who loves nothing more than the sound of his own voice. Oh, and lecturing everyone else about how everyone is wrong but him.
What an insufferable shithead. God, I hate that guy.
“before Trump made everything political and personal”
Holy progjection, Batman!
“he wants to be seen as standing up for civility and facts and an international order”
I don’t even know where to start…
The millions they are going to earn soaking up the adoration of their slavering fans is just incidental.
I have never seen anyone string together so much nonsense and projection as that guy. Everything he says is the opposite of truth, every premise wrong and I think he knows that. He is doing it on purpose. It is the same strategy as Chavez claiming the CIA has a cancer ray, or Ghadaffi claiming the insects that ruined crops were trained by the Jews. It is all nonsense calculated to see who the obedient trained seals are.
I don’t think so. I think he actually believes all his own bullshit. This is the guy, according to Valerie Jarrett, thinks he knows more about a subject than the people who come into brief him.
To want to become President takes a narcissist because you have to believe you can solve the problems facing the country. But I think Obama takes the narcissism required to a whole new level.
âUniversities today are as corrupt as the Catholic Church of 500 years ago,â Thiel said.
Nice.
Read through 103 parts of Hat and Hair and lost the will to live?
Any man that can’t take a little abuse is in no position to command a Navy.
The left must always show their high moral standards. The Reverend Al shows he is still in struggle for fighting the man.
https://nypost.com/2018/12/01/al-sharpton-sells-his-life-story-rights-for-531000-to-his-own-charity/
“Make your neck disappear with this one weird trick”
“The document does not indicate when Sharpton, who is president of NAN, gets the cash, which is above and beyond the $244,661 he already pulled down in compensation from the group in 2017.”
I am getting the impression that his charity is bullshit.
Do any members of the political class or their apparatchiks not have a charity to launder money through?
RS beat me to it – I’m guessing that the beneficiaries to this charity sell Rev Al booze, gold chains, cars, and rent him hookers.
If this site had existed then, I would have been even more bilious toward Reagan, who oversaw an unprecedented expansion in scope, size, power, and abuse of government, while somehow cultivating an image of someone who was a small-government guy
No kidding. Talk about sleight-of-hand.
Surprisingly there is one hell of a strong streak of progressivism (everything in the state, nothing outside the state) in people who work for the state and it has been there a long time.
The only way we will ever be rid of it is to make politics a non-career.
This is actually making me mad because Talking about this made me think of Wilson and Roosevelt and that makes smoke come out of my ears.
And Republicans to this day say they are the party of small govt. Smaller govt maybe, but even that is a stretch.
Regarding gas station food, Wawa has awesome breakfast sammiches.
Allsup’s chimichangas.
Regarding the Bush love, leftists demonstrate that they only praise Republicans who are no longer politically relevant and/or dead.
The only way we will ever be rid of it is to make politics a non-career.
The ugly inescapable truth is that nobody ever ran for office (or went to work as a government bureaucrat) so he could leave me the fuck alone.
We’re doomed.
Nobody ever ran for office to leave me alone. <—Good rule of thumb.
I am probably naive and overly optimistic but in some ways Trump did. I think decades of having to deal with unions and government entities in order to accomplish anything is what is driving him. He is there to put a stick in their eye. He has decimated the ranks of some of the bureaucracies and cut a zillions nuisance regulations and gotten us out of some shitty deals that were only in place to benefit the political class. So, there is that.