.
In case you haven’t yet been told why the idiots among your FB relatives & acquaintances are sniggering about the First Lady, again.
Apart from waiting for the US/Belguim overtime to end, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
This post is in: Open Threads, #notintendedtobeafactualstatement
.
In case you haven’t yet been told why the idiots among your FB relatives & acquaintances are sniggering about the First Lady, again.
Apart from waiting for the US/Belguim overtime to end, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Comments are closed.
Mandalay
We just got our first black female four star admiral.
Congratulations to us. It’s about time we got something right.
Betty Cracker
Aw, what a cute couple.
I have absolutely no fucks at all to give for soccer, but my family is watching, and even I thought the American blew it in the final seconds of regulation. WTF?
PaulW
That’s it. No more f-cking soccer.
We can’t generate any f-cking offense might as well just f-cking not play the damn thing.
Mike in NC
The only proper First Lady has white skin and blue hair.
Violet
It’s looking pretty brutal for the US now.
Steeplejack
Cavuto: “Is there crack in the White House?”
D58826
@Steeplejack: They were porking out on pie rather than rescuing those brave Americans in BENGHAZI
bago
Just rockin some Trap while doing some accounts.
https://soundcloud.com/graham-gawthorpe
jeffreyw
Say hello to my little friend.
TaMara (BHF)
You know what makes me happy? That I’m on the side of history that is thrilled with our beautiful First Couple. And that I have enough of a sense of humor to find that completely charming and funny.
Fuck the haters.
Hungry Joe
I’ve watched more soccer in the last two weeks than I’ve watched in my entire life. And probably more than I’ll watch in the entire rest of my life. Well, at least I tried. Back to baseball and tennis.
Just returned from two weeks in Peru. Magnificent country, wonderful people. We were careful, but still I managed to get food poisoning TWICE. The second time it was along with altitude sickness — a combo that, in retrospect, is exactly what I’d wish on my worst enemy.
The Dangerman
@D58826:
Did you hear 4 Americans died there? FOUR!
MomSense
@TaMara (BHF):
I think this all the time.
Pogonip
@TaMara (BHF): I hate haters.
kindness
Boo hoo. USA lost.
Damn Belgians. What is the derogatory name for someone from Belgium anyhow? Damn if I know. All I know is I love their beer. No not the Stella Artois. That stuff is crap.
adepsis
@Mandalay: Awesome!
I want to point out that she is THE first female 4 star Admiral – period.
She is also African American.
Patrick
@The Dangerman:
Those 4 are worth a hell of lot more than all those Americans that died in embassy attacks under Bush or the 4500 US soldiers that died in the Iraq war that was invaded under false pretenses.
Yes, I’m sarcastic.
Mnemosyne
@kindness:
I always assumed that “Stella Artois” was Dutch for “Budweiser.”
Pogonip
Because of various problems taking up my time and attention, the Pogonip Weather Project was spotty at best during May and June, so I’m scratching those months and picking it up again today.
Emma
@Mandalay: Impressive lady.
PsiFighter37
If only we hadn’t blown that point-blank shot at goal in the 92nd minute. Goddammit.
Oh well, back to soccer being on the peripheral edge of what I pay attention to. It sucks because it is an entertaining sport – basically hockey on a much larger playing area – but MLS games are just way worse, in terms of quality, than the World Cup is (or even the teams in Europe, I’m sure). Hard for me to pay attention to overseas leagues.
That said, given the team has a lot of new players, I’m excited to see how much more they can improve over the next 4 years. I do wish they had kept Donovan on the team, though – once Altidore went down, they really just didn’t have the people to push the attack like they needed to.
Pogonip
Does anyone else wonder how everyday life would be affected if the U.N. member nations got together and decided to effect regime change in the U.S.?
Steeplejack
@Pogonip:
What is the Pogonip Weather Project? I must have missed the Kickstarter page.
JPL
Someone explain to me how the haters are using this film to ditz the first lady. I don’t get it.
gogol's wife
@TaMara (BHF):
Me too. I don’t know what I’m going to do when they’re out of the White House. I haven’t been able to enjoy it as much as I would have liked, given all the horrible hateful bile that’s poured on them every day, but I love them.
Steeplejack
@Pogonip:
I, for one, would welcome our metric system overlords. To think we almost got that in the Carter administration!
Mike in NC
@kindness: Some of the terms used to describe Belgians in “Monty Python” skits were Flems, Sprouts, and Waffles.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@kindness: I hope this helps.
Baud
@Pogonip:
If U.N. member nations got together, it probably wouldn’t matter as much what regime we had in the U.S.
Pogonip
@Steeplejack: The PWP consisted of me, using a sophisticated data-storing device called a “notebook,” noting down each day’s weather with the intent of comparing it to the Farmer’s Almanac to see how right it was. So I guess they’ll get a pass on May and June.
Mandalay
This is cool:
Pogonip
@Steeplejack: You will take our yardsticks when you pry them from our cold dead fingers in our six FEET deep graves!
Trollhattan
@Baud:
Pesky black helicopters everywhere? No thank you, good sir/madam!
Baud
@Trollhattan:
Agreed. I like my drones unmanned.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
The First Lady is near.
Baud
So Obama said this today:
Which, after the season finale of Silicon Valley, may not convey quite the message the White House is going for.
Cacti
@Mandalay:
It’s really the best they’ve got.
Their real argument against marriage equality is “Gay people are icky and make the baby Jesus cry.”
Baud
@Mandalay:
Agreed. They trump the rights of the majority!
Steeplejack
@Pogonip:
How about we just make the yardsticks, oh, say, 3.37 inches longer? That wouldn’t be such a big deal, would it?
rikyrah
From Charles Pierce:
So there really isn’t any excuse any more.
I occasionally get chaffed by folks for giving out civics lessons but, seriously, we get the government we deserve. The Founders, and those brave people who came later, a group that certainly includes the three Mississippi martyrs and thousands more whose names we don’t know, made sacrifices that leave us no alibis. If you live in a state that has restricted the franchise, and that has erected hoops through which you have to jump, then learn how to jump through the hoops and break down those barriers by flooding the polls. If you don’t live in a state where it has been made more difficult to vote, then get off your sorry ass.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/No_Excuses
Pogonip
@Steeplejack: Never! Give ’em an inch, they take a kilometer!
When I was at Bedrock High School back in the day, there was a huge push on to teach the metric system because it was going to happen Any Day Now. I graduated in 1977. Still waiting.
Mandalay
@Cacti:
Your argument is actually more plausible than that used by the lawyers of the haters. The judge was pretty brutal about their bullshit:
Davis X. Machina
@Mandalay:
It is difficult to imagine how pissed a Federal appellate judge must be before he or she commits something like that to the record.
Roger Moore
@Pogonip:
It would be a lot shorter, for one thing, what with the nuclear exchanges and all.
scav
@Davis X. Machina: or
That does somehow come out in a Spock voice.
Randy P
@Pogonip: In New York State about that time, some of the highway signs got changed to english and metric. There was a huge outcry and the state actually spent the money to change them back.
I think the ones on the highways to Canada still have those furrin units though.
@TaMara (BHF): I use “do you adore the First Lady” the way I use “do you absolutely adore my wife upon meeting her”, as a basic sanity test. If you fail either of my sanity tests, I’m not really interested in your opinions on anything else.
Violet
@Davis X. Machina:
One wonders if the decisions by the Supremes this week have had an impact on lower court judges’ opinions. The Supremes are making the judging profession look bad.
Bex
@TaMara (BHF): The haters must have stroked out celebrating the latest SC decisions and missed the President’s reference to “Charlie and his husband.” Best of luck to Charlie and Bill.
Randy P
@scav: “There is insufficient data to justify that conclusion, Counselor”.
Steeplejack
@Pogonip:
Killed by Reagan (as usual):
Mnemosyne
@Davis X. Machina:
IMO, this is one of the reasons why the state of California declined to defend Prop 8 — they looked at the “arguments” from the anti-marriage crowd and realized they would look like idiots trying to sell them to a judge.
JPL
Gosh all this talk about courts and decisions. Although I’m pleased that some lower courts have decided to rule on the law, most and especially the Supremes rule according to their political leanings.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@efgoldman:
The navy isn’t an abomination; that’s the air force.
PaulW
@Mike in NC:
Unless it’s anime, in which case it’s blue skin and white hair. …what?
Matt McIrvin
@Pogonip:
If you specialize in any sort of science, it happened long ago, which ought to be reason enough to teach it.
A Humble Lurker
@Bex:
I loved that little thing. Someday that’s what it’ll always be like: just something you mention off hand and with no fanfare. And FLOTUS looks good with a hair band.
Howard Beale IV
For all of you ex-pat Detroiters of a certain age: Ollie Fretter has shuffled off the mortal coil, age 81.
jharp
Very cool couple. I really enjoy watching them and Michelle is a real beauty.
We are lucky to have them in the White House.
Can you imagine having Romney running the county like he did Bain Capital.
Yikes!
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@efgoldman: Oh, they’ll get you, my pretty. And your little dog too.
OzarkHillbilly
For years now I have been making chili and cornbread for “Project wkends” (caving ) here in the Ozarks. And for years people have accused me of putting crack in my cornbread, as it is the best ever.
I can not tell a lie: You will never know.
David Koch
@efgoldman: Gay marriage broke up Mark Sanford’s marriage
John Revolta
America is a bombin’ nation.
Also: it’s nice to know that on top of every other reason I’ve got to hate Reagan, it’s his fault that I have to own two sets of tools.
Also too: Ditz?
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
Recipe, please! Although I have to say my sainted mother’s cornbread recipe from the hollers of north Tennessee is pretty damn good.
mai naem
I grew up using the metric system and then came here and had to get used to the incredibly stupid system here. Why the fuck would you not want to memorize the deci, milli and kilo and the multipliers. No, we have to know fucking ounces, inches, pounds, miles, yards WTF. Get those foam fingers out. USA!USA!USA!
Even the way math is taught in this country is fucked up. Most other countries do not split geometry and algebra, its all combined. And, jeebus, forget elementary math. Everything’s made more difficult.
mai naem
@jeffreyw: That is an awesome picture.
OzarkHillbilly
@jharp:
Michelle is smokin’ hot.
ps: yes I am a sexist pig. At least I wouldn’t hit on her in front of her children.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@efgoldman: I saw my chance and I took it.
JPL
@efgoldman: That’s what I think. It becomes such a non issue that even the republicans won’t touch it. Unfortunately, woman’s health issues never will.
catclub
@mai naem: Are the dimensions of a soccer pitch metric?
JPL
The Supreme Court rulings upset me so much that it is hard for me to forget about bush v gore. The ruling that changed everything. I really fear for our democracy. I was never a big fan of unions until I realized that non union shops were keeping up with benefits and pay in order to prevent the big bad unions from taking over. What’s going to happen when they are gone. It never dawned on me that the Supremes would tell me what type of family planning was acceptable. Palin campaigned on the fact that the current President would dictate your medical care.
Gosh she was wrong. She is now dictating what is appropriate.
Does any one feel as despdrate as Me?
Howard Beale IV
@catclub: Originally they were described in Imperial measures, now its metric.
E.
@Davis X. Machina: As someone who practices in federal court, I can tell you it is extremely unusual to get that kind of language in an opinion. I’ve gotten one snarky opinion by a judge who was quite angry with my opponent, but he was way more subtle than that. And he was quite literally screaming at my opposing counsel during oral argument. So I would say, yeah, this judge was pissed.
schrodinger's cat
@mai naem: Metric system is used in all scientific work. We use m/s not furlongs/fortnight. Geometry + Algebra = Coordinate geometry. Euclidean geometry and Algebra are always taught separately, why would they be taught together?
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
I find it very strange. When I’m at home, I tend to judge things using customary units: feet and inches, ounces and pounds, degrees Fahrenheit, etc. But when I’m at work, I automatically shift gears and judge things in metric units. It’s not a conscious thing where I really work in one system or the other all the time and convert units in my head; I really think in different units at different times.
JPL
@E.: So that is good news.
OzarkHillbilly
I have to pause and take note: Tomorrows predicted high is 76. For July 2nd. Suck on that Texas.
PS: and yes I know, I will pay for it next year. I paid for it last year too. But right now? I rub it in.
BruceFromOhio
@Mandalay:
Finally, someone noticed.
Howard Beale IV
@JPL: Outsourced to J. Michael Straczynski:
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat:
Not on that Mars orbiter that got lost because they used English measurements.
schrodinger's cat
@Violet: That was a mistake.
realbtl
I’m on a motorcycle trip to BC. It’s not that much of a PITA to multiply all of the speed limits and distances by .6 plus a bit more but come on, why can’t the US get with the program?
JPL
@Howard Beale IV: Well that makes me feel better. So we might be able to have marriage equality but not the other nice stuff.
Last year or the year before, I think, The Economist wrote an article that said if you want to achieve the American dream, move.
OzarkHillbilly
@Violet: Not in mapping US caves either. Fortunately there are several programs that do the conversions quite easily.
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat: It certainly was. And it was done on an expensive engineering project by a scientists and engineers in an organization that should have known better.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@realbtl: Hey, my car averages 126 gills per furlong. I don’t see the problem here.
jeffreyw
@mai naem: Thanks! He’s my favorite bug.
Suffern ACE
I for one now favor funding any moderate Walloon separatist militia that John McCain can identify.
schrodinger's cat
@JPL: Where did they advise you to move?
realbtl
@efgoldman: Unfortunately my Suzuki Gladius has a digital speedo/odo. There is probably a way to change it but for a 3 day trip why bother.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: What’s Homer up to these days?
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
“Ah’m goin’ a hunnert!” (i.e., 62)
Washington State and IIRC Oregon sprouted metric+English highway signs in the ’70s, then they went away. During the first, no wait, second gas crisis stations didn’t have pumps that handled prices over a buck so for quite a while gas was sold in liters. That blew some hillbilly brains, I tells ya.
JPL
@schrodinger’s cat: At the time The Economist said France but that was a while ago. I’m sure that The Economist is now a liberal magazine.
Howard Beale IV
@JPL: Yep. If I ever hit the lottery I’m claiming dual citizenship and leaving this godforsaken shitpile.
trollhattan
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yesterday was 105 and today, 91. I’m getting whiplash.
Baud
If we start mucking around with our system of measurement, we’ll end up with one in which the Earth is 6000 years old. I’ll stick with what we’ve got, thank you very much.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): That’s even more esoteric than how many stones in a slug. I tip my hat to you.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Hold up-is that Imperial gills or US gills?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Howard Beale IV: US and I mistated it. It is furlongs per gill, not gills per furlong.
ETA: And that is highway furlongs.
Baud
@Howard Beale IV:
Bridgekeeper: Huh? I… I don’t know that.
[he is thrown over]
Bridgekeeper: Auuuuuuuugh.
Howard Beale IV
@kindness: If you subscribe to Monty Python: it was either “The Sprouts” or “Fat greasy Belgian bastards.”
jeffreyw
@schrodinger’s cat: Homer is trying to keep away from Toby. Serious bad blood, there.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): What is a gill?
Howard Beale IV
@Baud: I blame Wikipedia.
Howard Beale IV
@schrodinger’s cat: See #113.
Howard Beale IV
@efgoldman: Totally correct, but totally useless.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@schrodinger’s cat: A gill is 1/32 of a gallon. A furlong is an eighth of a mile.
Howard Beale IV
@schrodinger’s cat: Omes quoted the US gill. The Imperial gill is 5 fl. oz.
Howard Beale IV
@efgoldman: Since you have spawn, at least they can embarrass you in many unimaginable ways.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Howard Beale IV: Is that anything like technically-true-but-collectively-nonsense? If so, I think efgoldman has a prima facie case against you for defamation.
Baud
@efgoldman:
You should bring some granite countertops as well.
ETA: Damn your ETA.
Roger Moore
@Howard Beale IV:
But a stone is a measure of weight and a slug is a measure of mass. They don’t interconvert.
Origuy
The UK has gone metric for the most part except for road distances. They are still in miles. It would cost a fortune to change all of those; imagine how much to change the ones in the US. Petrol is sold in litres, though. I don’t know, do car ads give the fuel consumption in litres per mile?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@efgoldman: Slug is also a rapper from Minneapolis.
Kropadope
@efgoldman: Hey don’t hate on our counter-tops and pink salt!!!
Howard Beale IV
@Roger Moore: For all practical purposes, weight = mass. It’s only if you’re being anal does it matter.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): It isn’t over till its over, dude.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Howard Beale IV: Since we are being pedantic about things for fum, I posit that the weight/mass difference does matter.
scav
@Roger Moore: But this is the 21st century and even KY is loosening up all the archaic interconvert taboos. Slugs and stones are mainstream, if a little respectively bottom and top. I’m pretty sure slug beats paper, but the slime gums up the scissor’s mechanism into a tie.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Howard Beale IV: Quoting Lenny Kravitz lyrics at me isn’t helping your case.
schrodinger's cat
@Howard Beale IV: Physics fail.
Pogonip
@Baud: No, no, no. The earth is six MILLION years old.
In dog years.
Kropadope
@efgoldman: Now you impugn my wit? That’s it, sabers shortly after dawn, provided you dispense with omnes.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Mandalay:
I spent a quarter of my long life in the United States Navy. Goddamn if the Navy ain’t tough. Goddamn if it ain’t fair.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Kropadope: I wasn’t equating efg and McMegan. I was noting that HBIV may have been doing so.
ETA: I know that such comparisons are fighting words much like “And so’s your momma.”
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Well, eff them too. I’ll take you all on!!!!
gogol's wife
We just watched the Combat! episode “The Duel.” Sgt. Saunders held off a German tank for 50 minutes while Bobby Rydell tried to change a tire but ended up under the truck. It was cool. And so to bed.
Kropadope
@efgoldman: I did until the Supreme Court told me it was unconstitutional.
schrodinger's cat
I got the DVDs for the first season of Homeland, has anyone watched it? Is it worth watching?
Citizen_X
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh yeah? Then why does every lab on Earth use a scale to measure mass?
(Off Earth, OTOH: do they have some kind of inertial-mass-measuring thing on the ISS?)
schrodinger's cat
@Citizen_X:
I don’t understand your question.
Mass = amount of matter in an object
Weight = mass* gravitational acceleration
You have the same mass on earth as you do on the moon but on the moon you weigh about one sixth as much as you do on the earth.
Roger Moore
@Howard Beale IV:
Dude, I’m an analytical chemist; I’m anal for a living.
catclub
@Citizen_X: Because the scale was made assuming the gravity (g) on earth.
Put em on the moon and they will give wrong mass.
also, an equal arm scale will measure mass. A spring scale measures weight, and converts.
Eric U.
most of us that understand the distinction between mass and weight also understand why the two are indistinguishable (within a proportionality constant). That is, those of us that live a strictly terrestrial life.
Roger Moore
@Citizen_X:
Many don’t; actual mechanical balances are still quite common. Even labs that use scales calibrate them on-site against known masses rather than depending on uniformity of the earth’s gravity. “Electronic balances”- basically scales that use strain gauges rather than spring force- usually have several built-in masses to use as part of an automatic calibration routine.
Roger Moore
@Eric U.:
And don’t care about extremely precise measurement. Acceleration due to gravity varies by as much as 0.6% between major cities, so anyone who needs to measure stuff to better than one part in 200 (and who needs those results to be globally accurate) will need to worry about the difference between weight and mass.
chopper
@Howard Beale IV:
it’s true. butt plugs are one of the few things on earth whose weight and mass differ. it’s almost magical.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@chopper: Being, not doing.
chopper
@Roger Moore:
I don’t think most people give a shit about that level of precision.
KS in MA
@rikyrah:
Thank you.
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
To be is to do. To do is to be.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@chopper: Many very organized but prudish people would take issue with that.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Used to get this argument when weighing race bikes. Told them, I don’t care what your bike weighs in your shop, on the moon, at 10,000 ft or Death Valley, your bike needs to weigh x, here, today, as shown on the official scale.
Roger Moore
@chopper:
Depends on what they’re measuring. I bet a lot of people care deeply about a 1 part in 200 change when the thing being measured is their body weight.
Scamp Dog
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): in Denver, the east-west streets are numbered, and there are 8 streets (avenues if you want to be fussy) per mile. So the furlong lives on! It’s just that most of us don’t recognize its presence.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Scamp Dog: I am old enough that I remember the 220 as a race distance.
ETA: Not my best event. I could never get a good start out of the blocks. Eventually, I found I was an 800 or 880 guy.
gian
@Pogonip:
the sun is in the east even though the day is done
two suns in the sunset. maybe the human race is run
– Roger Waters
WaterGirl
@JPL: I know it’s hours later and it’s likely that you won’t see my reply. The outcome of Bush v. Gore was a real eye-opener for me. I was shocked by the naked partisanship of the decision and it rocked my faith in the supreme court.
Today’s ruling was a shock as well, even though I now know how partisan they are. This ruling feels very personal to me. Mistermix was right when he said: “The Supremes just put a hand-embossed “fuck you” into the mail to over half of the population.”
It’s hard to be treated with such disregard, and I’m angry and I’m sad and I feel terribly discouraged.
Perhaps a story will illustrate how I’m feeling. My best friend is a guy, and we have been close friends since 1975. HIs wife is jealous about how long we’ve known each other, and quite often she is not particularly nice to me. But I make the effort because he’s my friend and it’s the right thing to do, and he hates conflict. Last summer we had talked about all of us getting together before she left for France for a couple of months. I was trying to figure out which night might work, and she sighed this big sigh and said “I don’t even have time to do the things I want to do“. I know I’ve never been her favorite person, but that was shocking, even coming from her. She had no idea what she had just said or how awful a thing that was to say.
That’s how I feel about this decision by the supreme court. They have no idea that they just told us exactly what they think of us, and they have no idea what an awful thing they have just done. I have not been oblivious to the war on women, but this feels personal.
So no, I would have to say that you’re not the only one.
Maxwel
@The Dangerman:
Did you hear thousands died in IRAQ!
bago
@Maxwel: In my brother’s hands, bleeding out in the desert? More than a few.
Yeah. We did that.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
This may make this harder to take but I think the USSC men do know, they just don’t give a damn. They have zero respect for half the world’s population. It stuns me that they have absolutely zero. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, they are the assholes you think they are. But it still does.
If I did my job even one tenth as bad as they do theirs, I’d be fired and with good reason. That we practically can not fire them is bad. But we should tell each of our reps/senators that they need to be fired. Yes I know the term is impeached but fired gets the idea across better.