Welcome to Hump Day, or Mid-Week Maintenance Sex Day for those of you in long-term relationships where you don’t schedule monthly appointments. I don’t have much patter or chatter today, Sloopy does a pretty good job of sucking all the air out of the day in the morning. We’ll see how this Croatia/England matchup goes. After eliminating the Cravats, I think the English will fall to the French in a way that will disappoint them as much as anything since Joan of Arc’s victories.
“It was Gatlinburg in mid-July/I shat myself ’cause of e. coli./I tell ya, life ain’t easy for a Boy Named Sue” – I believe Shel Silverstein would be okay with this
As a fellow Brett, I am shocked and disappointed at these baseless allegations. I was never a member of a fraternity.
Halfway through the week for many of you. I’ve got an all-weekend work-a-thon with the arrowhead auction coming up, so I don’t know when I’ll have a day off next. But that’s all good with me. You know who has a loooong weekend? the Belgium soccer team. Those dudes have to go to play in the 3rd Place game later, but that’s never really mattered much. They’ll face whoever loses today between Croatia and England, while the winner of that match will square off against France for all the marbles. My pick: England 2-1. If they weren’t completely gassed, I’d go with Croatia, but I think the tank has gotta be about empty.
The Orioles beat the Yankees, the Nats got above .500 after beating the Pirates, the Red Sox topped the Rangers, the big red machine took down the cross-state rival Indians, the Phillies beat the Mets, The Brewers doubled up the Marlins, the Rays stung the Tigers, the Blue Jays drilled the Braves, the Cardinals embarrassed the White Sox, the Royals bested the MINNESOOOOODA TWIIIIIINS, the D-backs topped the Rockies, the Giants beat the Cubs, the Angels beat the Mariners, the Padres topped the Dodgers, and I went to sleep in the middle of the 8th with the Astros up 4-0, so I assumed they finally got Verlander a decision. Apparently that was a mistake. I wish I’d have seen the circus play that ended that game in the Astros favor.
Would most likely be “problematic” today.
Scottish king Robert the Bruce was born on this date. So too were President John Quincy Adams, “lawman” Bull Conner, author E.B. White, slap-head actor Yul Brynner, fashion designer Giorgio Armani, rocker John Lawton, singers Jeff Hanna and Bonnie Pointer, boxer Leon Spinks, Bauhaus’s Peter Murphy, guitarist Richie Sambora, vocalist Suzanne Vega, and Thurston Harris.
Its also the day Antonius Pius succeeded Hadrian as Roman Emperor, Henry VIII was excommunicated, Samuel de Champlain returned to Quebec, Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton, the US Marine Corp was established, the first auto race was held, Babe Ruth made his Boston pitching debut, the Marx Brothers “A Day At The Races” opened, “To Kill A Mockingbird” was published, Earl Weaver made his debut as Orioles manager, “Space Oddity” was released, Nolan Ryan recorded his 4,000th strikeout and Mike Tyson hired Donald Trump as his advisor.
Heady stuff there. But I digress. Its time for…the links!
Where’s my eggs and ketchup, you lazy European bastards!
Well the start of the NATO meetings sure wasn’t boring. I swear, I’ll fly to DC and kiss the man if he pulls our troops out of Europe and those people start funding their own defense. We’ll see how those social safety net programs get funded if they actually have to supply their own military.
Sacha Baron Cohen appears to have struck a nerve with former Governor Sarah Palin. Well, her and disabled veterans support groups. I don’t have Showtime. If anybody does, let me know if its funny or not. I assume it will be a combination of hilarity and cringe-worthy stupidity. Not sure yet who will supply each.
But they have strict gun control! How could this have happened? I bet he went to Indiana. Yeah, let’s blame Indiana.
Chicago government: is there anything they can’t fuck up? Also, good on the ACLU for taking this up. I guess that’s where they’re spending all their energy after abandoning free association, the second amendment and the right for people to have religious objections to regulations.
Put that “Popcorn” down!. Popcorn is for closers only.
Just in case you needed an excuse to go get one. Personally, I’d mix cherry with blue raspberry and call it a day. Although I was always more of a Slush Puppy kid growing up, I’ll probably try to find a local store.
I think the first time I was really drawn to computer programming as a career was when I realized that I could literally read the internet and be good at it. “Hey nobody at [GIANT COMPANY] knows how to do this!” I sneak off to the internet, use whatever came before Google — Yahoo? Lycos? Anyhow, I would type in some phrases, spend an hour or four reading blog posts and trying shit, and come in the next day with something that worked. Almost 20 years later, this still works. Am I good a writing code or just good at Googling? Who cares? The only people enjoying more job security than me right now are pipeline welders. I’ll tell you what is different — I used to have to write the code myself or at least copy and paste and change some things. Now, at least half the time, there’s an app for whatever I’m trying to do. Also, it gives me an excuse to be on the internet all day.
France beats the Belgians, like every war ever.
Wow. It turns out that the DOJ settled with Cody Wilson — he will be allowed to post specifications for essentially any type of firearm a private citizen can buy without an ATF endorsement. He has more plans. I’m also hoping that now that DD’s legal troubles are over, they’ll drop the price of the GhostGunner about $500.
Huh. I heard a lot about “fuckin’ the dog” when I worked that construction job in Houston, but I didn’t realize how apt the metaphor was. The article implies that this congress may not have been illegal as late as last year, but I’m pretty sure an ass-whipping is part of the deal anytime you get caught.
World Cup semifinal #1 is today. After a little deliberation, I’m going to go with France. Belgium look tough as nails, but the French are playing really well too and I think they have what it takes. Which means jack shit since I thought Spain would win it all. But we can forget week-old predictions at our leisure here and I will. France 3-2 is my pick. Federer and Nadal both won yesterday. The circus of a Woman’s draw fires back up this morning with 6 seeded players (are there more than 6 left int he entire draw?) taking the courts today.
The baseball all-star game balloting process is taking its lumps on social media after Justin Verlander knocks its antiquated system. The Astros, Yankees and Cubs all lost. And that’s about it for sports. 7 more weeks until college football. Thank God.
Tennis great Arthur Ashe
Theologist John Calvin was born on this date. But that was his lot in life. So were painter Camille Pissarro, swill-maker Adolphus Busch, “creator” of A/C electricity Nikola Tesla, intellectual Marcel Proust, Houston Symphony founder Ima Hogg (seriously), boxer and wop Jake LaMotta, actor Fred Gwynne, tennis great Arthur Ashe, dipshit singer Arlo Guthrie, musician Greg Kihn, “The Hawk” Andre Dawson, Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant, anti-war activist (who hasn’t played party politics) Cindy Sheehan, “singer” and “poster” Jessica Simpson, musician Wally Bryson and R&B singer Willie Ford.
Its also the date when Caesar defeated Pompey at the Battle of Dyrrhachium, the city of Dublin was founded, Lady Godiva took her naked horseback ride, Louis XVI declared war on Great Britain, Rochambeau landed in the US to join the Continental Army (and figuratively help kick the limeys in the nuts), Wyoming became the 44th state, the Baltimore Orioles sold Babe Ruth to the Red Sox, Woodrow Wilson delivers the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate (and puts in motion the steps leading to WW2), Bobby Jones (a very fine golfer, one of the best ever) won the US Open, Howard Hughes flew around the world in 91 hours, Allied forces invaded Sicily, MLK Jr was arrested during a peaceful demonstration in Georgia, Telstar 1 was launched, “Escape From New York” debuted, Coca-Cola admits they fucked up and will re-introduce old Coke recipe, French intel agents blew up Greenpeace’s “Rainbow Warrior” in New Zealand, Boris Yeltsin was sworn in as the first President of the Russian Federation, and Joe Camel was pulled from ads by RJR-Nabisco.
Well this date has some significant stuff. But we have to move on to…the links!
Kavanaugh and family
President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to there Supreme Court. The guy looks really solid on 1A and 2A issues. He looks a little less solid on 4a issues and I don’t really know where he stands on 9A or 10A issues, which should come up in front of him. Of course, the left is painting him as the most evil person since forever, but that was expected if Trump had nominated Jesus Christ himself. One thing’s for sure: Red state Dems are going to be hard-pressed to go after him.
Whoever called Boris Johnson a squish yesterday (and yes, I’m looking at you, UCS), you might want to rethink that position. Looks like he’s sick of the Brexit team being staffed by Remoaners and is about to move in for the kill on Teresa May.
The Hat and Hair may soon have company
Want read something absolutely amazing…in a good way… for a change? Then this might be the story for you. These are the kids places with socialized medicine write off and let die. They’re the type of thing American doctors figure out and then get to work on. And that’s why we are better than the countries with single-payer.
Welcome back everyone to the weekday links. I hope everyone is catching up on all the work you “missed” last week. I know I am. Not a whole lot else going on. Excellent contributor articles abound, please peruse the main page and catch up on any you’ve missed over the last week. If you guys generate much more content, I’m going to start skipping links (that’s a promise not a threat!). Also, stick around after the links for the thrilling conclusion of THE STEVE SMITH SANCTION.
I don’t know what they mean by disproportionately large stinger, every wasp that gets within five feet of me looks like this to me. h/t Mad Scientist
Newly-wed husband and wife collide on zip-line, men hardest hit. That’s one way to get out of it.
I feel like we could send a delegation of Dennis Rodman, Bill O’Reilly, and ICP, and make this happen.
Texas’s Great White Hype: As he wound his way through his stump speech, he leavened his talk of migrants with a vulgar crack about Congress’ approval ratings: “Just below communism, just above gonorrhea.”
There’s an awful lot of excitable boys (and girls and other genders) out there nowadays.
What’s with all this rain lately in Houston? Good thing I’m not into cave exploring. Oh well, we got to wrap up a few painting projects around the house, so the weekend wasn’t a total washout. And at least I’m not in Los Angeles. Or a seeded woman at Wimbledon. Jeez, they dropped like flies through Saturday. Let’s see who survives the second week. The Men’s side is going a little more to script, and if you’re interested, you can catch a Federer-Nadal doubleheader starting right about the time these hot, steamy links hit the interwebs.
“Oh my God, I think he’s gonna make it.”
But if you’re not into tennis, we’ve got some baseball news: starting with the MLB All-Star Game team selections. Which are a travesty now that they’ve implemented a rule that says the Orioles, Royals, White Sox, Mets, Marlins and all the other teams that suck deserve a player on the roster. Why not just name every player in the league an All-Star and be done with it, huh? And speaking of baseball, your winners yesterday were: thew Yankees, Athletics, Rangers, Rays, Marlins, Pirates, Brew Crew, the MINNESOOOOODA TWIIIIIINS, Red Sox, Cubs, Gigantes, Mariners, Padres, Angels and the defending World Series champion Houston Astros, who won on a suicide-squeeze play…which was awesome. As an aside, Albert Pujols hit homers #627. World Cup semifinals start tomorrow, so I won’t discuss it until then when I make my picks.
Rock on, brother!
Hero to women everywhere, Elias Howe was born on this date. As was architect Michael Graves, actor Brian Denny, blackspoitation actor Richard Roundtree, writer Dean Koontz, noted musician Bon Scott, rental-car pitchman and golf enthusiast Orenthal James Simpson, TV ‘s John Tech, NWA Member Kevin Nash, suicide-muse Courtney Love, and actor Tom Hanks.
Its also the date on which the following happened: Talleyrand became the first Prime Minister of France, the donut-cutter parent was issued, the first successful open heart surgery without anesthesia was performed (that must have hurt like hell), the Commonwealth of Australia was established by Britain (unlike we Americans that did it the right way), the HMS Vanguard blew up killing 804, Spain voted to institute the Franco monarchy, the great Satchel Paige made his major league debut, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto was released, Jack Nicklaus won the British Open to become just the fourth man to win all four of golf’s majors. He would go on to win more than any other player has. And Kissinger visited China.
That’s it for the extras, now for the entree. Which means…the links!
The entire Brexit process has officially (again) turned into a shitshow. I still don’t see what the problem here is: you say “we’re no longer part of the EU,” you pack your shit up from Brussels, you announce what will be your process for allowing people and goods to travel into your country and you tell your former “partners” that they’re free to trade or let the flow of people be whatever it is they want. That’s it. That’s the whole process. Stop kowtowing to the ECB and Brussels and just pull the fucking band-aid off. Jesus H Christ. This isn’t rocket science.
Hero woman gets properly noticed for her bravery. Now, if only one of the people were armed instead of living in a state that all but outlaws transporting weapons without an expensive and arduous (by design) permitting scheme.
ZARDOZ IS SICK OF GRAIN AT THIS POINT. THERE IS A CHANGE IN THE BRUTALS’ TASKS. THE BRUTALS WILL NOW BE PUT TO WORK BRINGING POTATOES. ZARDOZ HAS A HANKERING FOR FRENCH FRIES.
TO SHOW THE BRUTALS THAT ARTHUR ZARDOZ MEANS BUSINESS, ZED HAS HAND-CARRIED LINKS TO WORDPRESS.
THE GIFT OF THE GUN HAS UNFORTUNATE CONSEQUENCES. EVERYONE LIVED. NEXT TIME, MANY SHOULD DIE.
MORE BAD NEWS. EVERYONE LIVED. ZED IS PARTICULARLY AMUSED BY THE DELICATE PHRASE “SMOKING MATERIALS.”
EVEN MORE BAD NEWS. EVERYONE LIVED. WHAT GOOD IS THE GIFT OF THE GUN IF COPS WON’T EVEN USE IT TO CLEANSE?
It was a fun day yesterday. SP and I really love going up to Wisconsin, and yesterday’s excuse was the Ed Gein Memorial Fun Walk and Barbecue. It’s a great event, honoring a great man, and it’s fun for the whole family. It was delightful to see such diversity among the people participating, the weather was great, and I think the entire day went by with no one being groped or mugged. We need more positive things like this in our sick society.
I forgot to do the birthday roundup yesterday, and missed Robert Heinlein. I’ll forget again today because it was a pretty dull bunch. I’m not doing sports because the Orioles are setting new records for suckiness, football season doesn’t start for two more months, and there’s no other sports going on now. So let’s do some links:
Trump raises the art of “brain lint as free association” to ever-higher levels. I’m sure he’ll eventually top this, but my limited imagination can’t see how.
I have broken more Elton John records, he seems to have a lot of records. And I, by the way, I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ.
…as Allison Moon writes in Girl Sex 101, “For some girls, too much glans stimulation can feel annoying. This can be especially true if she gets erections.” In this case, Moon recommends “small licks about an inch down from the frenulum, on the ventral [under] side of her clit.”
A small group of activists protesting against what they perceive as the erasure of lesbian identity by trans women, attempted to insert themselves at the head of the parade at Pride in London. When authorities intervened, the women laid on the floor until persuaded to move by officials.
Personally, I find the word “insert” to be triggering.
“You didn’t build that!” This is one of those articles that is so transparently ignorant and mendacious that you can make a party game out of “who can find the most fallacies, ignorance of technology and history, and non sequiturs?”
Contrary to public perception, it is government and taxpayer dollars, not private enterprise, that are the main drivers of technological innovation. If it wasn’t for government funding of new technologies, the smart phone you are holding in your hand right now wouldn’t exist. Furthermore, nearly the entire high-tech industry owes its existence to government.
Legalizing marijuana means that Americans will be faced with new forms of the addictive chemical found in marijuana, THC. By and large, marijuana today is not the marijuana the hippies were smoking at Woodstock, or even the kind they were smoking outside of Metallica concerts in the ’90s. Big Marijuana is selling us “elixirs” like orange-aid with potent levels of THC in it. There are also edibles: brownies and gummy bears laced with THC.
These drugs, which masquerade as food, have caused emergency room visits to skyrocket. People don’t adequately understand how edibles work or how much THC they are consuming. One gummy bear turns into a handful, and the next thing you know, someone is hallucinating in the emergency room.
Old Guy Music! This one from a Wisconsin-born singer-songwriter whose songs about historical events are always interesting and beautifully crafted. He’s not well-known but ought to be, dammit. In any case, the futility and waste of war are recurring themes in his music, and World War I may have been the most futile and wasteful of them all. Which of course is why our Progressive president of the time found it irresistible to get the US involved in it. Oh, and if the artist stumbles across this, please don’t dox us.
Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
Sea Smith sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber’d and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
SEA SMITH READ THIS WHEN SAD AND LONELY. GET SADDER AND LONELIER. MISS STEVE AND WORRY. AND BY WORRY, MEAN “FIND SAILORS AND RAPE.”
It’s been a somewhat eventful week here, and despite the holiday on Wednesday, it seemed like it was ten days. On the bright side, I had a personal triumph this week, breaking an inventive drought and filing a patent application for my first real invention in several years. I got to mock JW for his amateurish attempts at posting Links. Taking advantage of a free trial, we binge-watched Season 4 of our favorite TV show, Silicon Valley. My most senior researcher retired, leaving me with all of his work on top of mine. I got a new computer. I wrote a long introduction to Links with a bunch of shit no-one cares about.
And speaking of links, here we go.
The nightmare may be upon us. WE MAY ACTUALLY TAKE OUR ARMY OUT OF EUROPE. This is, of course, unthinkable, letting sovereign nations fend for themselves instead of sucking off the American taxpayers’ teat to fund their own welfare states.
After 18 months of Donald Trump’s “America First” presidency, European leaders meeting with him next week fear the United States may change its traditional course and begin to bring American troops home from the continent.
OK, we’re probably not going to do that, this is more Trump brain-lint, but fuck, it’s a nice thought. It is amusing to see the “Trump-Is-Hitler” crowd now worrying that Hitler is going to remove his armed forces from their soil…
Mulvaney’s appointment set up a partisan showdown over who was the CFPB’s rightful acting director. Democrats and liberal groups previously aligned with CFPB backed English and refused to recognize Mulvaney’s legitimacy. Republicans and financial services industry advocates backed Trump’s authority to supercede (sic) the CFPB’s line of succession.
As usual, neither Team backs “get rid of the fucking thing entirely.”
Pfleger said his decision to shut down the Dan Ryan [Expressway] was inspired not only to make a statement about stopping violence, but also by a variety of movements including those pushing for immigration reform and the teacher’s union in Chicago.
Gee, the union thugs involved in trying to extort more money. >This< is my shocked face. Now it would be wrong of me to think that it would be just irony if someone trapped in the massive traffic jam got pissed off and shot Pfleger. Yes indeed, that would be terribly wrong and I absolutely wouldn’t be laughing my ass off about it. Nossir. What’s amazing on the surface is that the protest is backed by the Chicago mayor and police chief. But not really so amazing- for those of you unfamiliar with Chicago history, the city has no jurisdiction over the expressways because it was taken away by the courts due to a legacy of corruption and bribery by the city cops. So it’s the state cops’ worry. HAH-hah!
…before a cheering crowd in Montana he poked at Elizabeth Warren for claiming to have Native American ancestry, disparagingly saying that he would send her a test kit to check her DNA: “We will take that little kit and say — but we have to do it gently. It’s the ‘Me Too’ generation, so we have to be very gentle. And we will gently take the kit and slowly toss it, hoping it didn’t hit her and injure her arm. Even though it weighs only 2 ounces.” In the same speech, he again insulted Rep. Waters’ intelligence, spewing the now-familiar mix of racism and misogyny.
In their observations, the team saw that there are “amplifying mechanisms,” not well-represented in climate models, which make long-term warming worse than what is forecasted in climate models. “This suggests the carbon budget to avoid 2°C of global warming may be far smaller than estimated, leaving very little margin for error to meet the Paris targets,” said Hubertus Fischer, lead author and University of Bern professor.
And of course, no good climate science paper is complete without pleas for more and bigger government.
“This research is a powerful call to act. It tells us that if today’s leaders don’t urgently address our emissions, global warming will bring profound changes to our planet and way of life – not just for this century but well beyond.”
Old Guy Music, yet again. Feel free to ignore it and wallow in your nekulturni love of contemporary pop music. But this is the real deal, a classic, one of the most modally complex songs ever written, and here covered by a superb band. Besides the amazing (((Lee Konitz))), who amazingly is still alive and kicking at age 90, the band features one of my favorite trombonists, Jimmy Knepper.
