The other thing that proves it is having to pay my alimony. In any case, we’ve had delightfully chilly nights and moderate days, perfect weather for riding my new bike (I came under the malign influence of Tonio and Nephilium) with NPR Lady laughing at my discomfort. She, of course, can ride ten miles without huffing and puffing or breaking a sweat. Me, I count it as a triumph if I don’t have a coronary. Anyway…
Birthdays include a guy who gave Spud a ride; a strong believer in economic Georgism; a true polymorph; a guy who, say what you like but he had balls; a guy who showed us all who was boss; a guy whose life was a catastrophe; a guy with the greatest hair EVER; possibly the dumbest guy to ever set foot on a football field; the inspiration for Donna Rice jokes; a hero to us all; an actually half decent senator; one of my top five favorite baseball names; an actor I badly want to dislike but can’t; and someone almost as good as her economist namesake.
Let’s move on to Links before I keel over.
“Oh, we figured that out. We’ll go at night.”
Someone never read Napoleon’s adage, “When your enemy is making a mistake, do not interrupt him.”
All of the propaganda in neat summary form.
Hoist a margarita, if you are so inclined.
Paul Cebar is not just a marvelous musician, he has great shoes. The Old Man is a fan.
Mornin’, Old Man.
The proper spelling for the beisbol birthday Boy is “Spaldeen”.
Good morning, ‘patzie and Old Man!
Maybe it’s just the wannabe drummer in me, but if that’s Paul Cebar singing lead and playing the Les Paul(ish?) axe, he reminds me of Mick Fleetwood.
Even if that isn’t Cebar, he still reminds me of Mick.
It’s Cebar. Having met both him and Mick, I will reveal that Mick is significantly taller. And can’t sing.
I don’t doubt either of those facts.
“Funding for Ukraine is generally an area of bipartisan agreement”
Nothing left to cut, eh?
Equal-opportunity graft.
It is generally bipartisan in Congress, but at the same time it’s interesting that the top 3 Republican presidential candidates have all expressed skepticism. That tells me that the voters are not as on board with it as Congress is.
It’s still summer here.
Yeah, we had three or four beautiful days. Another fucking heat wave is arriving tomorrow. 😡
Fall here for today, Summer returns later this weekend.
Trees have been changing color since mid-August. The early trees, one variety of maple if I remember correctly.
Mornin’, DEG.
Fall here for today
Same here, 55° this morning. Sounds like a red maple, they are the first to turn here.
Mornin’
I’ll have to tune up my leaf blower soon. Not a euphemism.
We have the trees turning color and falling, up here in STEVE SMITH land.
Here in the Great Land as well. Overnight temps are in the forties. Summer’s over.
Same. Early rains this year and leaves are starting to drop but summer is July/August/September temperature wise here.
Surely context-dependent. If the shooter was not a cop it would be “fetus”.
“Uterine parasite”.
16-year-old birthday boy, funky organ riffs backing Sam Cooke.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mvikf1gzrVQ
Good song
Something about throwing good money after bad.
“I still maintain that lawmakers who blatantly disregard the constitution should be given 20 years in the electric chair”
Now I understand the urgency of net zero energy policy. Pretty soon, 20 years in the chair won’t kill a flea.
Holy Shit It’s Fall – the proper word is autumn
In any case, we’ve had delightfully chilly nights and moderate days, – well screw you buddy. stupid heat.
We’ve already switched to red wine.
Is that where the no white clothes after labor day thing comes from? So the wine stains are harder to see?
If it’s any consolation to you we in the southern US are not enjoying Old Man’s moderate days yet. Today is a relatively cool day for me with a high of 99 F (37 C).
The best season of the year.
Truth.
Thirded.
+1 It’s fall y’all!
Yup.
Am I alone here in thinking Ukraine is a vassal state and nothing but a neocon proxy war and that Russia isn’t getting its ‘ass kicked’?
The other day I heard two people discussing it on Sirius (out of Toronto). Apparently, the Russians are the only ones committing atrocities and bombing civilian targets. Unlike the Nazi-inspired Ukes.
Modern war is so fucked up, noncombatants routinely get killed, maimed, and tortured during the festivities. It was so much better in the old days, when soldiers fought each other and left the civilians alone. Raping and pillaging took place after the battle was over, as God intended.
The 30 Years War wasn’t any fun for noncombatants.
Modern war “rules” arose from noble elite (or those seeing themselves as such) wanting to larp warfare and have a beer afterwards.
Just like WWII. The allies never firebombed civilians or anything.
Those two nukes dropped on Japan were very selective in their targets as well.
I believe they were within their danger close range.
a true polymorph; – how do you know all these obscure chemists
a strong believer in economic Georgism
I thought you were referring to robc.
“There is no one that calls for transparency more that the FOP,” Steel said Friday.
That smells like bullshit.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is emphasizing to his conference that if the government shuts down, investigations into the Biden family and foreign business dealings would come to a halt. House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who is leading the chamber’s probe into the Biden family businesses, also warned that a shutdown would interfere with his committee’s work.
It’s not like anything will come of these investigations.
The American singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett has died aged 76.
RIP
Old Guy Music is good.
I have no strong feelings about Jimmy Buffett’s music (or his restaurants for that matter), but I can’t hear his name without thinking of this
😂👍
That’s lovely 😂
Happy birthday Tony Danza?
Happy birthday James Trafficant?
Not a fan of Don King?
Happy birthday James Trafficant?
Grown, not purchased.
Beam me up!
Now Bill Paxton can finally confront Jimmy Buffett
Noice!
Such a terrible movie. Now I have to rewatch it.
Jordan Ladd 👍👍👍
Covid vaccine as an image of redemption?
Russell Moore, David French, and this guy👇join forces to create a new curriculum for churches to use to teach congregants about politics. Here, Curtis Chang argues that the COVID vaXX “redeems an abortion” just like Jesus redeems us.
They can fuck right off.
CWAA
I never thought I’d end up nostalgic for the smug, leftist Hitchens/Dawkins/Harris New Atheism of the early aughts, but here we are.
I think that’s more retarded than my meltdown “He called me a lady” link below.
I’m a damned agnostic and I think that’s sacrilegious.
😬 That’s sick.
I assume this is for the secular denominations.
perfect weather for riding my new bike
What? My bike isn’t good enough for you anymore?
I wanted one without your taint stains on the seat.
Jimbo’s Taint Stains
Band or album?
Obviously the Papal choir.
Well why did you take it in the first place?
And don’t try to taint shame me! Do you know how hard it is to bike while wearing all my vestments? Of course, I’m gonna sweat a bit on the seat.
Better Spaulding
Best Spaulding
I just realized Judge Smails is based off my dad’s parenting style.
“I’ve sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn’t want to do it. I felt I owed it to them.”
Lasagna in the oldest Michelin restaurant in Italy – Arnaldo Clinica Gastronomica*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRuw_rutru0
Yummy.
Because that’s totally different from a 17 year old kid getting thrown out of 7-11 for trying to buy the pack of smokes with the compulsory surgeon general’s warning label affixed to the front of the packet…
Not that I support that either, we’re just awfully selective about when the constitution does and does not apply.
Clearly judges are more likely to use porn than to smoke.
1970s NYPD was something else
https://twitter.com/Indian_Bronson/status/1697455843099173079
’71 Minneapolis cops were pretty much the same as now.
Back story
Feh. The pendulum has swung completely in the opposite direction at light-speed since you-know-who a couple years ago. The Dems have more or less officially adopted the far-left pro-crime talking points such that cops won’t do their job now because they’re afraid of losing it.
What the story leaves out is MPLS cops were equal opportunity oppressors. They didn’t care what color you were, if you glanced at them wrong, you were getting a beating and getting charged for the privilege (disorderly conduct, in my, er, a friends case). Or worse, the Hennipen County detox.
For some reason, Minneapolis was civilized in the 1970s, compared to the present anyway.
“Even though there was a relatively big crowd of people, predominantly white, the dogs went right for Randy,” Carlson said.”
Even the dogs were racist back then…..
Huh. Keanu Reeves is older than I thought.
https://www.keanuisimmortal.com/
Taste the
rainbowcrazyhttps://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1697959689315913981
I’m lost. Even the subtitles didn’t help.
#metoo
The only thing I got out of it is that the bartender was correct to cut her off.
He called her a LADY.
What’s so hard to understand about how that’s TRAUMATIZING?
I tapped out after a minute.
Seek help, lady.
Uppity gay men. TrIgGeReD.
I just spent an hour of the remainder of my life reading the birthdays. So many, so interesting.
Thanks, OMWC, now on to the links!
France used to be the “China of Europe”—1 in 25 people globally was French and 1 in 5 Europeans was French.
Now, France is smaller than Germany and virtually identical in population to Britain
Why?
Thanks to some wonderful new work, we probably know the answer
https://twitter.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1697695568158470604
Good morning, Old Man!
Not autumn here. Another scorcher of a day. Still going hiking, though.
How about the rest of y’all?
Working
#MeToo
But it is nice because I don’t have to get sucked into meetings and other people’s problems. Just work on my shit today. I actually sort of like it.
Taking 5 nieces and nephews to the County Fair. Sadly, no more Freak Shows at the fair.
All on the Glibs
How many are you bringing back from the fair?
Relaxing with coffee, pipe, and hydrocodone. In retrospect, shaving while intoxicated was probably not a good idea.
You’re bleeding out, but you don’t care? (Hope not!)
It’s just a flesh wound!
Ahh…. Monty Python
At least you’re home.
It’s warming up quick here. I might need to turn the AC back on.
How about the rest of y’all?
Procrastinating on the work I need to do by hanging out here and tinkering with my FreedomFest 2023 article.
Visiting relatives. Then the closest you can get to an ocean in NoDak; a meal at Red Lobster.
Cooped up in our trailer waiting for the mud to dry. Come to Burning Man, you only have to worry about the dust they said.
One of Russia’s top rocket scientists, Vitaly Melnikov, has died after accidentally eating poisonous mushrooms.
I guess he lived on the ground floor.
*snort*
Took me a second. Nice
nice
Still summer here. I’ve seen some trees turning, but fall doesn’t usually set in here until beginning of October, and even then it can still get hot. My September wedding day was pretty hot.
“My September wedding day was pretty hot.”
Giggity.
‘Beach Scene.’ (1869) Winslow Homer was one of the first artists to focus on the theme of bathers on the beach, which had recently been made fashionable by Boudin in Paris in the mid-1860s – this work comes closest to Impressionism, both for its lively handling and luminosity.
https://twitter.com/ahistoryinart/status/1697596819943887144
Many brave men and women have held views outside the mainstream of their society and been pilloried for it, only for the world to later view them as visionary humanitarians ahead of their time; take William Wilberforce, for instance; or think of Annie Besant; or, say, me.
By far the most anger my writing has ever provoked came about just before Covid with a piece, which seemed pretty uncontroversial to me, arguing the case for the return of child labour. I couldn’t believe the reaction from some people.
My point was that children might be better off entering the workforce at an earlier age, perhaps 14, and continuing in part-time education until they were 16. But since then the effects of the pandemic and lockdown school closures have forced me to reconsider my views — in the sense that I now think I was even more right than before.
My view on this issue probably stems from my own experience of school, where it was clear that by the fourth year (14-15), some of the less academically inclined boys were learning nothing, hated being in school, were often disrupting the education of others and making their teachers’ lives a misery
https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/the-modern-cruelty-of-schools
I was academically inclined, but that still describes me. I think that’s just teenage
boyshumans.Decades of propaganda pushing college on every child isn’t just an American thing, I guess.
Alaska banned so called “trans” girls from sports. Good.
https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2023/08/31/board-education-votes-ban-trans-female-athletes-competing-girls-sports-division/
like sled racing and moose hunting?
don’t forget muktuk making. gotta eat that nasty eskimo ice cream.
Which one do you like better?
https://www.bluebell.com/product/cherry-vanilla/
https://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/6/23/1277295716703/Butchering-a-Whale-006.jpg
Hmmm….tough choice.
nasty eskimo ice cream
Euphemism?
Presumably a male. I would think input from a female would be more useful here.
I see the ACLU still hates girls.
They do. It’s fucked up to put a dude against some girl. There’s a reason a boys club team smokes the US women’s national team in soccer.
It’s the most vivid example of the victim stack in action that we’ll probably ever see. Trans über alles.
Sorry, but this house needs to be burned down before it can be rebuilt.
This only stretches out the trans insanity longer.
I’m gonna have to root against Colorado today, only because of the Deion Sanders hype.
Colorad is a real wild card this year. We’ll see if the hype is real today.
Regarding porn law: compelled speech is unconstitutional. That includes surgeon general warnings on cigarettes. But I don’t have much of a problem with age verification. Although the term “reasonable” age verification in the law is going to be abused for sure.
Parents’ job, not the State’s. This is a MASSIVE privacy infringement and would quickly be an absolute disaster.
Someone else noted above that there are lots of other things that have age verification. I would agree we shouldn’t need it at all, but if we do have age verification for some things, having it for porn doesn’t seem egregious to me. And I’m genuinely curious, not trying to be an asshole, but how it would be an absolute disaster.
So a nice verified database of names, locations, license numbers of visitors to a porn site is going to be perfectly secure, never get leaked or sold, never be looked at by the State, and never be abused for extortion.
You’ll be anything but deciduous on Silicone Saturday.
https://archive.ph/KVCu6
I’m 18, I pinky swear it.
This week in pronoun misusage – from the St Louis Post-Dispatch:
“By about 8:30 p.m., Mensah said, they were sitting alone in the lobby when officers arrived, pulled them out of a chair and wrestled them to the ground.
Mensah says they don’t know exactly what happened afterward, but they woke up in a hospital and underwent a routine physical before being discharged. Mensah said they have had seizures and fainted before. They also said they were not read their Miranda rights during the arrest, their wrists bled from being handcuffed and their shoulder hurt from being pushed. ”
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-courts/member-of-oversight-board-is-arrested-seeking-answers-about-deaths-at-st-louis-jail/article_a87a2c6a-48ea-11ee-9a70-cf633aafb2c4.html
I watched an old Limey movie last night (featuring a young David McCallum) called Violent Playground. Very good, I thought.
And, of course, as with all those fifties movies, it’s striking how much WW2 destruction remained.
The UK remained on rationing into the 50’s.
Set in 1947.
I love that fillum! “No pig.”
No way.
Oh… linky.
Yes, winter is coming, and I still need to get down in the crawlspace and attempt to freeze-proof my water lines.
You must have a big crawl space if you can get down in it. What sort of funky grooves do you need to freeze-proof water lines?
Ford announcement indicates Mach-E might be in trouble
Ford announced today that it is offering several incentives to help encourage sales of its 2023 Mustang Mach-E EV. The significance is that at one time, Ford couldn’t build them fast enough. Now, sales have fallen off a cliff. And Mach-E dealers are not ordering them nearly at the amounts they did since its inception in 2021.
It’s not a Mustang.
Mockery is a perfect name for it. It looks like restyled Pinto, which is appropriate given the original was supposed to replace the real Mustang too.
Agreed; calling it a Mustang feels like a FU.
As others have pointed out, everyone who wanted an electric car pretty much has one at this point. Most of the market isn’t interested.
We just have to give out more tax rebates.
Failing that, we have… other options.
It doesn’t help that their dealers were gouging customers and Ford was only making loaded higher margin vehicles.
It gives people a bad impression about both the brand and the specific vehicle.
Meanwhile in public subsidy stupidity the Model X as an “SUV” qualifies for the same federal tax credit as Ford’s Lightning.
Tesla drops price of Model S/X, Model X now qualifies for US tax credit
The tax rule was aimed at “SUV’s”. Tesla’s lawyers rightly pointed out that the X and the Y have as much interior space as some of the “SUV’s” on the list, and have AWD as well. So if the legal definition of SUV is AWD, x amount of interior cabin space and a hatch, they qualify.
With regards to the first link, I had a cousin who was killed in a similar circumstance (except he wasn’t pregnant, had his 5 year old son in the car with him), so I’m guessing based on how that played out that the cop won’t be punished but the family will get a decent wrongful death settlement.
Oh, that sucks. How is the son now?
Remembering the bench seat
There’s a reason why new cars – even the large ones (which aren’t very large compared with the American cars that once roamed the roads in vast herds, now gone) only seat five and not very comfohtabry (say it Japanese-style, like the old Datsun commercials):
They don’t have seats for more.
At one time, they did. And many cars (especially American cars) seated six – or more – without a third row of seats. Because they had bench seats.
Obligatory slice of Cake:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW9mZLnQ7Yc
A buddy in high school had a ’47 or ’48 Hudson with a backseat large enough for the whole cheerleading squad. Yeah, like that was ever going to happen!
Not saying much, I’m sure the cheerleaders of yesteryear were quite a bit less “thicc” than current
This week’s Powerline fun.
Not quite fall.
The fall equinox and the first day of autumn arrives on Saturday, September 23, 2023, at 02:50 A.M. EDT in the Northern Hemisphere. The equinox occurs at the same moment worldwide.
NPR labor day thumbsucker about the politics of the working man
It has been some time since the Democrats could simply call themselves “the party of the working man.” For one thing, women’s share of the total workforce is now approaching 50%. For another, increasing numbers of working people do not regard the Democrats as their party. Donald Trump won the support of workers with less than a college degree in both 2016 and 2020 by 7 percentage points in 2016 and by 8 in 2020. Among those in the category who were white, Trump’s margins were 36 points in 2016 and 32 four years later.
But gaudy as Trump’s advantage was in the white subcategory, Biden got 5 percentage points more than Hillary Clinton had in 2016. And that improvement was critical in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the pivot on which the Electoral College turned.
That is just an illustration of how the wage-earning sector, variously defined, has become the principal battlefield in presidential elections and for many down ballot races as well. One measure of the category has always been “union households,” meaning voters who report having at least one union member in their home. But as the membership in labor unions has fallen to the low teens in percentage terms,
For example, network exit polls found Biden winning 57% of union households, even as he lost the category of workers without college degrees to Trump.
It is hard to find an observer who thinks Biden could be reelected without doing at least as well among working people as he did in 2020. And he has shown keen awareness of this from the outset of his term with his open embrace of unions, support for their leadership, bargaining positions and legislative agenda. He regularly promotes his claim that 90% of the jobs created by his massive infrastructure bill (the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act) would not need a college degree.
“misnamed”? You ain’t kidding, sister.
I think Biden has the homeless vote sewed up.
I guess several decades is “some time”.
*falls out of chair*
When you’ve lost NPR….
The beauty of the homeless vote is that, being homeless, their votes can be allocated to whatever districts are needed to properly fortify things.
“Conservative activists are pushing ‘trafficking’ laws to prevent women from traveling out of state for an abortion – with one Texas town attempting to make it ILLEGAL to drive on certain roads”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12472687/Conservative-activists-pushing-trafficking-laws-prevent-women-traveling-state-abortion-one-Texas-town-attempting-make-ILLEGAL-drive-certain-roads.html
That’s way over doing it.
While the House, Senate and Biden agreed earlier this year to a deal to raise the debt ceiling, conservatives have since balked at the spending levels set by that agreement.
It’s never been a ceiling. Just get rid of it.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his forces were continuing to make progress in their counteroffensive after weeks of a near stalemate that had sparked concern among Kyiv’s supporters. “Despite everything and no matter what anyone says, we are advancing, and that is the most important thing. We are on the move,” Zelensky wrote on Saturday.
I don’t believe you.
https://ibb.co/NN64hDb
Mister President, have pity on the working man
Left foot, right foot…
“Sarah Paulson, 48, brands partner Holland Taylor, 80, ‘incredibly sexy’ in candid interview and says actress is the ‘most extraordinary person I’ve ever met'”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12472177/Sarah-Paulson-48-gushes-partner-Holland-Taylor-80.html
80/2 + 7 = 47
Holland Taylor is one of my favorite character actresses.
Ha! I was just going to say that. I miss Bosom Buddies.
Well, you missed your shot 😉
You must have a big crawl space if you can get down in it. What sort of funky grooves do you need to freeze-proof water lines?
A doublewide by any other name is still a doublewide. I apparently need to put some heat tape on it. The water froze twice last winter.
It’s not a Mustang.
They should have called the Pinto.