“Rubio is next,” Donald said, “He’s got to go.”
“Hey, hey, ho, ho,” the hat chanted.
“I don’t like the way he looks at me in press conferences,” Donald said.
“Do you guys think we spend too much time just hanging around The Oval Office by ourselves?” the hair asked.
“It’s the only way I can myself think,” Donald said.
“It’s the only way he can hear himself think!” the hat said.
“We used to go on so many adventures…” the hair said. Wavy lines appeared around him in the air.
A low guttural moan echoed through the tunnel and the hair let the scooter glide to a halt.
“What was that?” the hat asked.
“How should I know?” the hair asked. “Fucking creepy as fuck though.”
“I did it come from ahead of us or behind?” The hat turned on the flashlight on his cellphone. The light barely penetrated a few feet in front of them before being swallowed by the dark. The hat turned it off with a snort of disgust.
“Shh,” the hair shushed.
“What? What is it?” the hat asked.
“Be quiet. I think I hear something.”
They both strained to listen. Water dripping. Far-off churning of machinery. The stale exhale of one of the grimy air vents set into the ceiling. The hair was about to speak when he heard the soft shuffle of feet.
“Did you hear that?” the hat asked.
“Yes, of course, I heard that,” the hair replied in an urgent whisper.
“Ruh-roh, Raggy,” the hat whispered. The hair reached back with a tendril and slapped at him.
“I’m going to keep going,” the hair whispered back and started the scooter forward.
“Wanafud?” a voice behind them asked and they both yelped in terror.
“Go!” the hat said. “Go go go go go go go go go go go!”
The hair twisted the throttle as far as it would go and the scooter sped up a little.
“Wanafud?” asked the voice again.
“It’s coming, it’s coming,” the hat screamed. “Open her up.”
“That’s what she…” the hat began before scooter ran into a low wall that had been built across the tunnel.
“Adventure?” the hat asked incredluously. “I nearly got raped by a degenrate JFK jizz descendants C.H.U.D.ing it up in a filthy tunnel.”
“Yeah, but…”
“You know how you rape a hat?!?”
“Well, not really…” the hair said before the hat cut him off.
“I don’t want to have someone take a shit in me!”
“That’s how you rape a hat?”
“HOW ELSE DO YOU DO IT?!?”
“OK, fine, whatever,” the hair said. What about all the times Hillary tried to kill us?”
Donald’s clumsy sleeping fingers tugged open the tiny box and the hair lowered his head to look inside.
“What is it?” the hat demanded.
“It’s an egg. Some sort of black egg.”
“DON’T TOUCH IT!” the hat yelled.
The hair began to scream when tendrils shot from the egg and began to wrap around Donald’s tiny hands.
“Get it off me!” the hair wailed. “It burns!”
“Ah, fuck, man. Ah, fuck,” the hat moaned impotently.
“Oh, wait, that was really awful,” the hair said.
“See? It told you.”
“What about the day we named Pie?” the hair asked.
“I don’t know, sir” Sarah mumbled around a mouthful of pie.
“What’s with this?” Donald asked, waving his hands. “What’s with the pie?”
“Sir?” she asked again, cocking her head like a dog.
“The pie. The pie. The pie that you are eating!” Donald pointed the piece of pie in each of her hands.
“I get low blood sugar in the afternoons,” Sarah replied.
“Is your blood sugar low now?” Donald asked sardonically.
“I get low blood sugar in the afternoons,” Sarah said robotically.
“The pie. It’s disgusting. It’s like a cheap set-up for a fat girl joke,” Donald said. “Get rid of it.”
“I wear a size 12,” Sarah said, almost in a whisper. “Size 12 is the average dress size for an American woman.”
“I wouldn’t even watch you piss on a motel bed,” Donald said, sneering.
“Who the hell is Pie?” the hat asked.
Sarah Huckbee?” the hair asked. “She was White House Press Secretary?”
“Sorry, I have a hard time remembering fats,” the hat said.
“She was in one of the Shakespeare episodes?’ the hair prompted.
His Royal Cap
Harken, Hairpiece, something waddles our way!
‘Tis King Donald’s Courtesan of Kitchens,
The Intemperate Pie, who throws rank scraps
To the braying lap-dogs of pen and ink.
ENTER PIE, SINGING
Pie
Blackberry and blueberry, pecan, quince
Sift the flour, knead the dough; strawberry sweet!
Rhubarb–So tart!; Allspice and cinnamon,
Nutmeg and mace, cherry, apple and peach
All in the oven to make pies for me!
King Donald
Ah, Sarah… so loyal and round. My Voice,
My Word made wobbly flesh. My Will, My Power
In a bright dress. Approach my sticky one…
Faithful Pie, always well-fed and so gay!
Pie
I never! Wait, what have you heard? Fake news!
Sure, there was that time in college… Fake news!
She was the RA in my dorm… Fake news!
Jesu did judge us like Father said… Fake news!
The Royal Cap
(to the troubled Wig)
How like a sow she must have snorted and
Rooted for that poor girl’s meaty truffle.
“Sounds like theatre fag shit,” the hat said.
“Royalist!” the hair yelled. “Maybe dredge up your own memory!”
“I liked when we time-travelled,” the hat admitted.
“OK,” the hat gasped. “We get up there, cure Donald, and change the future.”
“OK, Mr. Exposition.”
“And if we cure Donald, then he doesn’t die and that will wipe out our horrible timeline,” the hat said.
“A little louder for the audience,” the hair said dryly.
“And Pelosi never becomes President?”
“That’s the plan.”
“And she’ll never ban ballcaps and wigs for men and we won’t be hunted to extinction?” the hat asked.
“Why are you asking me?” the hair asked. “It was your plan, dammit!”
“You came back with me!” the hat shot back.
“Yeah, I got in that rattletrap time machine. What a piece of shit. Seventeen trips to get the time coordinates right! Seventeen! A dinosaur shit on me!”
“You’re fine,” the hat said. “If we get this right, you’ll just fade away.”
“It just feels too high concept for me,” the hair said.
“What?” the hat said, skating along a lake of dried semen.
“Too high concept. Time travel? Closed timelike loops? Cures from the future?” The hat sighed loudly.
“The Chinese forced our hand,” the hat said grimly.
“No, they didn’t. You read the reports of the Ocasio-Cortez Commission just like I did.”
“That idiot?”
“It was the wet market, bat blood and wolf shit and pangolin piss all mixed together.”
“Now who’s too high concept?” the hat scoffed.
“Let’s just get this over with,” the hair said, mounting the ladder that led to the Oval Office.
“See? That was a good story, I was the hero,” the hat said.
“How did you know about a timeline that was erased?” the hair asked.
“Fuck you, that’s how.”
In ye olde times…
Vanity Sizing Is Forcing Petite Women Into Kids’ Clothes
Jesus! I am a 5’10” fairly muscular man and that’s only 5 pounds less than I weigh!
I definitely believe that. According to Grok: “In 2023, approximately 34.1% of women in the United States were considered obese”. But that 170 is a mathematical average, right?
TOK – yeah, average is not the Mean, so probably some really heavy cruisers tilting the scales, so to speak.
The median or mode would be more representative as it would eliminate the effects of a relatively few heavy hitters pushing 300-400 plus.
I’d prefer if all three values are provided.
Maybe the distribution curve whil we’re at it.
The data makes more sense when you have more of it to peruse.
Ow! I think I sprained my brain!
Better than spraining your penis.
That’s awful bye the way.
Yeah, that was….something. Dragged into the hair’s fever dream.
The Intemperate Pie, who throws rank scraps
To the braying lap-dogs of pen and ink.
Very nice.
It’s like a summer rerun highlight reel.
Must be sweeps week!
Rawr!
Weirdly, uncomfortably porny.
Props for keeping it all in Iambic Pentameter
Trshy, from the AM thread:
This is just majoritarianism dressed up in democratic terms. Society likes a command and control economy. A large segment of society likes censoring wrong thinkers. Society likes racism against the majority race. The fact that some societal desire exists doesn’t make that desire good or “progress”. There has to be some standard to measure against, and “we like it” is a garbage standard.
This why the constitution has such strong guardrails, due to that society, writ small, likes all of those things you mention, but society, writ large, does not. Elsewise they would have been easily ripped out of the constitution. But, we call them rights, and when society looks at them in that light, they enjoy and like them. All of which were a change from what was the norm before this; the rule of kings. And it got to the point of a serious constitution by gradually, progressively, loosening the absolute power of that position.
The meat of your comment though is that you cannot separate economics from culture, and that this is the failure of libertarianism. That you cannot abandon the culture war to the left. Well, as a libertarian, both large and small L, I don’t want to abandon the culture war to either side. As I point out in the comments, the middle east went full reactionary in 1979, and reenlisted religion as a primary factor in civic life, which was the standard across the world at one time. This has done nothing to further either the economy, nor the freedom of those people. I would rail against this were it to happen here. We can also look at socialist societies, such as Cuba or North Korea, who have adopted via the most extreme form of economic liberalism as its adherents would call it, such as AOC or the guy running for mayor of NYC, and it has done nothing for either the culture or the economy of those countries. I would, and do, rail against that were it to happen here.
So, yes, culture and economy are tied together, but through accepted rights that we can fight for everyone, their needs and wants, and work to achieve both an economically conservative and and socially liberal society. But the crux of this is to respect every ones rights, which should be the main aspect of Libertarianism. I would argue that this what we have had, and have grown here in the US. And, as I look around, we are both economically successful, and fairly liberal. But, as will always be the case, we are slightly out of balance, and are working to right that, which is why Trump was elected.
I realize we are all products of our culture, or largely so and I do this myself quite a bit; refer to groups like society, culture, nationality…or subgroups of those yet I still recoil when I hear it.
“Who is we? You and that frog in your pocket?”
I find it a bit like when someone starts an argument with “We can both agree that…”
We is the population as a whole. I know people hate that use, and would rather only look at the individual, but it works.
Trashy also sez: We were out of step with it 50 years ago, and we’re all the more out of step with it now.
Hmm, as compared to our Western peer countries? Aren’t we rather lagging them?
Well, we weren’t out of step, because here we are.
Compared to the average equilibrium of the prior 1500 years.
I get that the equilibrium drifts. That’s my point. I was arguing against the idea that history is just a sine wave of cultural shifts around a set equilibrium. Yes it moves in waves, but the equilibrium point moves as well, and our current equilibrium point is well out of step with what was normal for the west.
Now, here’s where I expect the biggest pushback….
I don’t think this was a gradual shift. I think many of the ingredients were put in place gradually, but I think the shift happened quite precipitously.
If I had to chart out my guess of where the equilibrium was, it would be drifting leftward slowly until the late 19th century, and then it would hop left drastically over a period of 50 years and has continued to move at increased leftward pace since then.
That’s why I’m saying that the last 50 years we have been out of step with the west historically. I think our equilibrium has jumped leftward substantially.
Well, what else happened at those times? Industrial revolution and the computer revolution. Both completely changed how the world worked, who worked, what our social lives are like, etc.
And that is why I wouldn’t say we are out of step. We (all of us, Suth) just moved to what worked best. Seemingly. There are no other timelines to compare this one too, so as long as the human race is still kicking, I would say we are doing good.
Excellent writing. I felt like I was there in the tunnels with them.
Maybe you were?
“Wannafud?”
Shh. I don’t want my secret to get out.
I was expecting Hunter, lost in the subterranean labyrinths…..
“The hat turned on the flashlight on his cellphone.”
This raises questions. So. Many. Questions.
He uses the same appendage he uses to rape grapefruits.
The one that got me:
…and the hair lowered his head to look inside.
I imagine than like the characters in Veggie Tales.
No limbs but they pick up stuff.
Reminds me of the old trick question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Neither, the rooster came first.
There was a movie about time travel, and the protagonist was caught in a time loop, but I can’t remember the name of it.
Time travel makes my head hurt.
https://www.ranker.com/list/best-time-loop-movies/ranker-film
#28 surprised me.
Predestination. That’s the one I was looking for. Good movie.
It should be higher.
I scrolled through the first 40, I only saw maybe 4 or 5. Had not even heard of most of them. Wouldn’t Terminator be a time loop movie?
There are a lot of ways writers handle time travel, each with its own problems. There is one timeline, and going back can mess that up, OR there are multiple timelines each spawned off based on someone’s actions OR you don’t physically go back in time, but you can send your consciousness back to your body. There are probably more.
The show Travelers had a neat design for time travel in their show. It was consciousnesses from the future that could be sent back to take over someone in another portion of time. They remembered the timeline they came from, and they would overwrite the person that they were sent to. The good coded time travelers generally only used people who were expected to die in the next couple of minutes. As the time travelers started making changes in the past, the new time travelers sent back were from a different timeline, and things got… complicated.
I liked the concept of this one. Changing the past is irritatingly impossible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Murdered_Mohammed
It’s not a trick question, eggs predate chickens by millions of years. Even the first chicken egg was laid by something that wasn’t a chicken – a Red Junglefowl.
This one:
https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/kelsey-grammer-star-trek-1568×847.jpg
?
Captain Frasier?
But where is first mate Niles?
Donnie Darko? That’s the big one that got popular. Primer is the other one that’s really well done.
Then there’s the dozens of poorly thought out time travel movies that are fun until you start to think about them (looking at you Looper).
I’ve only tackled time travel in fiction Once.
I spent way too much time trying to avoid paradoxes. But then again, so did the time traveller in the story.
The important thing to remember about Donnie Darko and time travel, is that the writer/director is completely fucking nuts.
EvilSheldon:
Pretty sure that’s true about the guy behind Primer as well.
Interesting sci-fi concept, no? Time travel is only possible for psychotics…
The guy behind Primer made few movies, but Upstream Color was a real mind F**k. I think in a good way, plus it has little dialog and a great deal of visual and auditory appeal.
If you like straight forward movies this is not for you.
“Upstream Color” closely examines the very idea of sensibility — and identity, memory, perception — as if under a microscope. If that sounds a little obscure, well, the movie is designed as an enigmatic experience, to be absorbed, felt, puzzled over, free-associated about and reconsidered while you’re watching it and then for a good while afterwards. (Once you know what the title refers to, you still won’t necessarily know what it means.)
https://youtu.be/d0Ue7v6o6zc
Chicken came first. It’s right there in Genesis.
Book One, how to BBQ?
Fiat Lux
I always had a crush on Pie. There, I said it.
Yeah, I kinda have a thing for snarky eastern European tech industry powerlifters, too…
“We used to go on so many adventures…” the hair said. Wavy lines appeared around him in the air.
LSD has replaced cocaine in the White House?
Augmented, rather than replaced.
Whoa
High speed psychedelia!
There was a movie about time travel, and the protagonist was caught in a time loop, but I can’t remember the name of it.
Bruce Willis?
I don’t think he can tell you the name of the movie either.
Ouch.
Groundhog Day?
Oh damn, didn’t even think of 12 Monkeys in my initial post.
That was a depressing movie, why did you remind me of it?
Willis would be Looper and 12 Monkeys. I can’t think of another on off the top of my head.
The entire Die Hard Series was actually a giant time loop, about the erosion of the Christmas Spirit.
Bobarian LMD:
There’s a reason I’m interested to see what the latest Final Destination movie did.
(I’ve never hid my love for trashy horror films).
#metoo
I love that series.
Only I can save y’all
“It’s not what happens to us, it’s how we respond to it. And our opportunity presents itself anew. In 18 months, you have the power to end Donald Trump’s presidency,” Newsom said, to loud applause from the full room.
“We’ll have to deal with the tweets, we’ll have to deal with the attacks and the bullying. But the legislative agenda is effectively over,” Newsom continued. “You have that power in these midterms.”
Throughout his remarks, Newsom touted his own efforts to stand up to the Trump administration and help rebuild the Democratic Party. He made repeated references to his efforts to support the Democratic presidential ticket in 2024 and promoted California as “the most un-Trump state,” while also slipping in the occasional “y’all” in a nod to the South.
18 months? That’s an interesting timeline.
With a bare majority in the House and Senate, they can RULE OVER HIM!!!
“But the legislative agenda is effectively over”
Given what Congress has done during the first six months of his term, which are traditionally the best months for a President’s legislative agenda, I’d say it was strangled in its crib.
He ain’t in no ways taahhhrrrrd!
The problem with figuring out time is that time is most likely a construct, an imaginary entity that we invented to understand what we experience and the sequence of cause and effect.
We have a beginning, a life and an end. We think of that as a journey because we experience physical travel from place to place on a path between, we apply that template to an ever changing existence.
That works well for us but when it comes to understanding what time actually is we kind of draw a blank.
At some point a while back I realized that almost everything I learned in school was wrong. Then it happened again…most of the revised understanding then turned out to be wrong. Now I think most of what we think we know today is….you guessed it….wrong.
It’s a way to observe and measure change using discreet units that humans can comprehend. In other words, a contrivance.
Time is real, but our understanding of it, is most likely wrong.
I think you need to take some time and think about that, Suth.
At one point, while invoking his support for former President Joe Biden, Newsom noted that included the “not so easy” role of being a surrogate on the night of the first presidential debate hosted by CNN in June 2024. “I say this with love in my heart – with love in my heart – but love for my party and love for my country.”
I never covered up for Joe, but if I did it was because I love my country and I’ll do anything for the Democrat-ocracy and my future shot at the Big Chair.
“What’s that mean? What’s woke? Anti-woke?” Newsom said. “All I hear is anti-Black. That’s all it is.”
Loretta Streater McNeal, a Black woman who attended Newsom’s event in Cheraw, accused Trump – whom she referred to as “No. 47” – of trying to erase her history.
“It made me proud when Newsom started talking about that,” she said. “A White man stood up and said that. It made me proud.”
That nice white man made her feel seen. I’m happy for her.
What a ridiculous fucking fraud he is.
He doesn’t give two shits about her kind, or Joe, or “his country”, or anything else beyond the accumulation of wealth and power.
“I wear a size 12,” Sarah said, almost in a whisper. “Size 12 is the average dress size for an American woman.”
That right there breaks my heart.
Too small?
I would like to raise a Taco Bell cup of Mountain Dew to our beloved Sugarfree, without whom we might take some of this political nonsense seriously. To Sugarfree! Hero, myth, way, truth, pervert, and probably the most sane amongst us.
probably the most sane amongst us
Proverbial low bar or meme of monkey with side eye?
World’s tallest midget.
[bows]
If only we had eight more of her
Two trends have emerged at the Supreme Court in recent weeks: President Donald Trump is on a winning streak and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s junior-most justice, is having none of it.
That dynamic was on full display yet again Tuesday as the court handed down a significant – if temporary – decision allowing the White House to move forward with plans to dramatically reduce the size of the federal government. Jackson penned a solo dissent and the justice, who recently took up boxing as a way to relieve stress off the bench, pulled no punches.
“For some reason, this court sees fit to step in now and release the president’s wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation,” Jackson wrote. “In my view, this decision is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless.”
Jackson’s dissent was the latest striking rebuke of a court she has served on since 2022, when President Joe Biden named her to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer. Her predecessor, for whom she once clerked, had developed a reputation during nearly 28 years on the court of attempting to reach common ground with the conservative bloc.
The court is off the rails!
She’s terrible, makes Ruth Bader Ginsberg look like Antonin Scalia.
She may be worse than Biden putting Harris on the bench.
Great, let’s feed the delusion of a lone progressive hero standing up to the forces of the evil dictator, like Star Wars or Harry Potter.
Or Michael Douglas in Falling Down.
“Jackson’s dissent was the latest striking rebuke of a court she has served on since 2022”. Wasn’t the decision 8-1? Maybe, just maybe, she’s the one off the rails here, CNN.
Are you kidding me? That narrative is just the thing to rally the troops.
Sotomayer wrote the pretty scathing beat down of her stupid retort.
“Bitch, how is it you ain’t no hobbit!?”
CNN didn’t even bother to label that article as opinion.
Striking rebuke. It was striking alright.
“Fuck you, that’s how.”
Ain’t that the truth.
a lone progressive hero standing up to the forces of the evil dictator
“I REBUKE thee, Satan!”
“Perhaps the degradation of our rule-of-law regime would happen anyway,” Jackson wrote in dissent. “But this court’s complicity in the creation of a culture of disdain for lower courts, their rulings, and the law (as they interpret it) will surely hasten the downfall of our governing institutions, enabling our collective demise.”
Jackson registered her dissent with “deep disillusionment.”
Nobody told me I wouldn’t always get my way.
Feelings.
Nothing more than feelings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6vI0uE9iqM
Jesus that song was heinous.
“But this court’s complicity in the creation of a culture of disdain for lower courts, their rulings, and the law (as they interpret it)”
Isn’t your job to ensure the lower courts interpret the law according to the constitution and prior precedence? If that is not being done consistently by the lower courts, then you should have distain for them.
Honestly, I think this right here gets to the crux of my problem with the modern discourse. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, their thoughts, and their beliefs. What they are not entitled to is respect, honor, acceptance, or freedom from consequences.
Too many people think saying “Sorry” is the end of things. No, you also have to work to correct the mistakes you made.
I heard it put this way: Allowing lower court judges to do this makes each one of them more powerful than the President, and more powerful than any single SC justice.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Investigation Finds Irvington Wasted More Than $600,000 in Opioid Settlement Funds on Two “Awareness” Concerts
Pretty much standard Team Blue in Essex County, NJ.
From the linked article:
You would probably get more use out of $600k by piling it up and setting it on fire, than spending it on ‘prevention, treatment, or recovery efforts.’
Oh no! The city leaders didn’t get input from a bunch of useless bureaucrats and grifters!
Frankly, at least some people might have gotten some enjoyment out of the concerts. Better to spend the money on that then to pour it down the ever-widening maw of ‘public health’…
“Ruh-roh, Raggy,” – one of my faves
Oh no, it’s Wednesday.
*grits teeth, dives in*
OK, that could have been worse.
Oh no, it’s Wednesday
Strange, my usual reaction upon this realization is: “Wow, it’s Wednesday already!!! (unzips)”.
and this is why your meat has turned putrid.
Anyone know what Ketanji ‘Rule of Law’ Jackson’s take is on the Trump charges and trials?
Mostly just backward rationalization for what she wants. She should not be on SCOTUS. She doesn’t understand The Constitution beyond a Howard Zinn level of analysis and doesn’t understand her role is to determine if things are Constitutional as written and intended. (Yes, lots of courts have degraded it and misinterpreted it, but she has no idea what is going on.)
Worst Justice in history appointed by the worst president in history. DEI for the win.
She probably understands the Constitution – and clearly does not support much of it.
https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/ketanji-brown-jackson-immunity-ruling-trump-rcna168578
Huh.
Also, I should mention that dogs give a much better side eye than cartoon monkeys do.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/53/57/f1/5357f18676a134d2aa9565e7d3f9c407.jpg
She should not be on SCOTUS. She doesn’t understand The Constitution beyond a Howard Zinn level of analysis
In that article there is a quote where she specifically refers to “rights granted by Congress”. I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Rights and privileges are two different things.