Democrats are the party of jobs and economic growth. It’s time to own it. https://t.co/XgJMZBgTiQ
— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) June 23, 2021
President Joe Biden pledged to crack down on a crime spike across the country, targeting illegal gun dealers and boosting support for local law enforcement https://t.co/vQgwWz2fos pic.twitter.com/47UJiZ47EU
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 24, 2021
Taking the Law & Order rhetoric and turning it onto the gun dealers and gun friendly states is a good move https://t.co/cfn7gP9523
— prime macpoasting account (@Convolutedname) June 23, 2021
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said the Democrats are committed to passing the election reform bill after Republicans blocked the proposed bill https://t.co/iLSIwU7mlT pic.twitter.com/hoI1lgtMUX
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 24, 2021
raven
I can’t wait to hear Andrew Clyde’s take.
billcoop4
Dems too often remind me of public school teachers (and I was one from 1997 – 2011) — too hesitant to toot their own horns to keep public support, especially when forces opposed to public works and the common good consistently vilify them.
BC
Cheryl Rofer
Referencing Adam’s analysis (and mine) of Schumer’s strategy:
NotMax
Well, a teaser for the upcoming Foundation series is out. Expectations from back when the series was announced significantly dampened after watching. Why oh why do these things, intended to entice viewers, default to depicting existence as invariably looking dim, grim and gray (the very antithesis of Asimov’s philosophical bent) and never, never, never include a single shot of anyone smiling?
Ken
@Cheryl Rofer: I suppose I’m glad he’s confident, but the phrase reminds me of that cartoon dog sitting in the burning house.
dmsilev
@NotMax: Well, it is a story inspired by Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, so fundamentally not a happy cheery tale.
Geminid
There was a dinner party at my friend Joan’s last night, and her son had an interesting story about Virginia firearms law enforcement. Jack was at the local Field and Stream store, waiting in line at the gun counter to buy shotgun shells. The guy in front of him wanted to buy a handgun. The woman at the counter scanned his ID and helpfully told him he might get a better deal on one in the stock room, and she would go check. After a few minutes passed, she had not come back, but two cops had shown up to arrest him for trying to buy a firearm as a convicted (and clueless) felon.
Ken
@dmsilev: Summary of the Foundation Trilogy:
Soprano2
I listened to a 1A program yesterday about the ATF and how they weren’t shutting down gun dealers even when they continued to break they law. A guy in the FB comments was arguing that no one would get a permit and then knowingly break the law, that it was all just paperwork fuckups because the laws are so convoluted and hard to follow. I asked him if he thinks they should ever be punished, if after being found in violation 8 times perhaps there should be punishment. I never got an answer from him. It’s strange to see a conservative advocating that a person should be allowed to break the law over and over again and get away with it because it’s too hard to follow the law.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Cheryl Rofer:
A lot of comments in that thread are incredibly skeptical, labeling Dem leadership as out of touch. I haven’t been following the past few days closely. Is it actually a good strategy?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
Because that’s what’s popular now and has been for the past 20 years imo, ever since the Battle Star Galactica reboot
NotMax
@dmsilev
I’ve about had it up to here with the production standard for science fiction being “Paint everything either black or gray and light the sets with a 25 watt bulb.”
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): If it works, it’s a good strategy. If it doesn’t, it isn’t.
SiubhanDuinne
Anybody following this building collapse near Miami? How the hell does a building just up and collapse?
Matt McIrvin
@Cheryl Rofer: I thought that was a sarcastic vignette about how out-of-touch he is.
Cheryl Rofer
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s the only strategy that has a chance of working, imo, because of the very thin majority and two quirky Democratic senators
ETA: Agree with Baud at #13.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Is crime actually going up? I thought we lived in the best of all possible worlds and the best time in history according to such luminaries as Stephen Pinker
Cheryl Rofer
@Matt McIrvin: It’s double-edged.
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: Honestly the Foundation series always struck me as a strangely joyless series of arguments in boardrooms, with the interesting action mostly happening offstage. It would be extremely difficult to film well and it’s culturally musty as well.
The robot stories have more potential, which hasn’t adequately been tapped–the adaptations that have existed were kind of bad or were adaptations in name only.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
No idea if this is the case but upon hearing Miami, ground subsidence immediately leaps to mind.
Geminid
@Cheryl Rofer: I noticed that Barack Obama came out in support of Manchin’s voting rights proposal.
Soprano2
Gun homicides are up. All other crime is down by around 6%.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@SiubhanDuinne:
Was it built by The Trump Org.?
Cheryl Rofer
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Murders are going up, not crime in general, but reporters are sloppy.
I’d like to see an investigation into how much domestic violence contributes, after a year of being cooped up with one’s family.
Chief Oshkosh
What are your all’s thoughts about the infrastructure compromise deal the Manchin and his BFF GQPers presented to the President?
Soprano2
@NotMax: That would be my guess too, but it will probably be awhile before they know what caused this to happen.
Patricia Kayden
“U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said the Democrats are committed to passing the election reform bill after Republicans blocked the proposed bill”
Tell that to Manchin and Sinema. They’d be shocked to hear this.
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Polling related to the NYC Mayoral race showed 55% of city residents identified violent crime as their number one concern. I doubt if that many Virginians would pick this as their biggest concern, despite Republican efforts to hype the problem. So I guess it depends on where you live.
Soprano2
I’d like to see this, too. Domestic violence shelters have been extremely concerned that the circumstances surrounding Covid were going to increase domestic violence, and make it harder for people to escape from it.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Comments regarding the “trailer”:
I really hope it turns out to be much better than the trailer indicates.
NotMax
@Chief Oshkosh
In summation….
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Geminid:
I guess that means Roy Blunt & Moscow Mitch will announce that they’re now calling it the Abrams-Obama Bill.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
An intriguing turn of phrase.
Geminid
@Chief Oshkosh: This won’t be the last bite we get at the infrastructure apple. I’m ok with it.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Soprano2: “an ingroup that is protected by but not subject to the law, & an outgroup that is harmed by the law & subject to it”.the
the white shooters shop owners in my hometown of west allis, wi, are the ingroup, the young lords & latin kings on 27th street are the outgroup. (never minding that the shooters shop sells to survivalists from the northwoods who are more of a threat to civil society.)
Uncle Cosmo
@Cheryl Rofer: That whole Twitter thread is a graphic illustration that Dunning-Kruger operates irrespective of political alignment. I.e., we have as many (if not more) idiots on our side of the aisle who think they know soooo much better than the professionals who’ve been doing this for decades, know the laws and procedures all the way down to the fine print, and have up-close-&-personal understanding of everyone on the other side of the aisle. And our idiots are particularly whiny and loud because the Internet lets them be.
Maybe we should, y’know, all stand the fuck back and shut the fuck up until and unless the folks on our side who actually know what they’re doing ask for our help – and then we should provide it to the best of our abilities in the manner they designate. Y’think that might be just a tad more productive than screaming our butts off & providing the knuckledragging mouthbreathers of the GQP their daily sadistic supply?
(tl;dr: Sheesh!)
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
A Southernism. Like “The old man just up and died.”
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@SiubhanDuinne: ask tim pawlenty. he would tell you inexplicable concrete collapses are just good reaganomic practice.
SFAW
@MontyTheClipArtMongoose:
Fixed
Cheryl Rofer
@Uncle Cosmo: I try not to look at the comments.
Sometimes it’s useful to get some idea of what is being said, but there are far too many people on Twitter who have all the answers, Dunning-Krueger style. I control that in my followers by quickly blocking anyone showing signs of that. But outside my Twitter feed, it can be pretty bad.
ian
@Cheryl Rofer: His tweet lacks any context if he thinks that’s a good or bad thing. His tweeter feed is full of people equally confused. Given the lack of extra detail, we don’t even know if this is serious reporting of events or sarcastic inference
Baud
@ian: Right. He could be talking about his health or his personal life for all I know.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
BBC cranked out a wistfully remembered multi-part radio adaptation back during the early 70s.
IIRC first aired in the U.S. somewhat later, on NPR stations, maybe 1978?
SiubhanDuinne
Here’s an early report on the building collapse.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1272216
And, although it’s not quite as consequential as the main story, I cheered when I read this sentence:
Orthographical exactness lives to fight another day!
Amir Khalid
@Matt McIrvin:
Asimov did attempt to tie the robot and Foundation stories together, late in his life, but his execution of the idea wasn’t great.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Geminid
@Uncle Cosmo: I bet you would appreciate @SashaBeauloux. I continue to be impressed by the way Ms. Beauloux and other Black Democrats stand up for the Democratic Party and it’s leadership. I think these people have their feet on the ground in a way a lot of white Twitter-warriors do not.
dnfree
@Amir Khalid: He just up and left. She just up and disappeared. Something happened suddenly, in a colloquial expression. But you’re right, it doesn’t make sense in the context of a building collapse.
The expression of that type that my husband hates is “went missing”. He went missing. It has gone missing.
ArchTeryx
@SFAW: What, no Shai-hulud either?
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Ken
@Amir Khalid: Also it turned out that Henry, the waiter at the Black Widowers, was a positronic robot.
Uncle Cosmo
@NotMax: FTR, IMO Asimov was the SF-authorial equivalent of a rhino trying to tap dance in hip boots. On rare occasions when an idea grabbed him by the scruff of the neck (“Nightfall” being the only one I can think of right now) his prose could rise to slightly above adequate; otherwise, he wrote like a scientist (which after all was his day job) writing for other scientists, i.e., ploddingly.
(And anyone who cares to dispute this can crawl back to your CGI’d-up-the-wazoo stupidhero flicks. Most of you wouldn’t know a competent English sentence if it slid up behind you & yanked down your euphemism to expose your dangling participle.)
NotMax
@dnfree
Don’t get me started on “near miss.”
;)
Ken
@Uncle Cosmo: Are you making a list? Please add Robert L. Forward.
Cameron
@Cheryl Rofer: I’m not really a skeptic, since I think those two know what they’re doing a whole lot better than I do, but I am reminded of Kevin Bacon in Animal House yelling, “Keep calm! All is well!”
Honus
@Geminid: as a Virginia resident for the past 50 years, I tend to agree. I’m also skeptical of commentators (Sabato, I’m looking at you) already crowning Youngkin, who is hyping CRT and fear of crime, the next governor. I can’t stress how important GOTV will be though. We cant fall asleep and have another 2010.
Elizabelle
@Geminid: Good recommendation. Checked her out, and I love SashaBeauloux’s slogan:
Works for me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
that line gutted me when I was a little kid
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It gutted me a few seconds ago.
Amir Khalid
@Uncle Cosmo:
Another story where the idea helped elevate Asimov’s writing, a bit, was The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline. Asimov said that the story was published right before his doctoral thesis defence — at which one of the examiners asked him about it.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
My thinking:
Thanks for the distraction from what turned out to be a crappy day.
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: Asimov never should have done that–ideally, he should have let the Foundation lie and run with the robots, which were always a more adaptable series and had the potential for more interesting futures than “the robots fade away into the background and we have the Foundation, with robots as super secret puppetmasters”. The robot and Foundation universes just don’t fit together and you could see the visible seams in the books that formed the connective material.
dnfree
@NotMax: you made me laugh! One of my former co-workers in a factory just hated that too. The safety committee would refer to a “near miss accident” on their report, and my co-worker would say “Then it wasn’t an accident, WAS IT?”
You also should never refer to a hot-water heater around him. Why would you heat water if it was already hot?
Honus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve always liked the David Bromberg version where he pauses singing and points out that Jerry Jeff wrote that song when he was in jail in New Orleans, and that “Jerry Jeff wasn’t there on a sociology project.”
NotMax
@Uncle Cosmo
Prefer to describe his prose as the equivalent of what used to be called homespun. Typically served the purpose, though fashionably drab, for which it was intended but not something one would outfit him/herself in for formal occasions.
dmsilev
@Amir Khalid:
It would have been more thematically appropriate had the story been published after his defense, at which one of the examiners asked him about it.
opiejeanne
@Uncle Cosmo: I was thinking similar thoughts. I read the first Foundation book and was not engaged enough to continue the series. I read his essays about writing stories and appreciated them, and subscribed to the sci-fi magazine that he started, back in the late 70s. Some decent stories in it by other people
I wouldn’t have made the snarky comment about the abilities of our fellow jackals, though.
Geminid
@Honus: Youngkin’s strategy seems to be to hold the Republican base with coded language, attract Independents with positive platitudes, and put Democrats to sleep by soft-peddling his positions on women’s rights, firearms, etc. He is now dodging debates that would provide opportunities for McAuliffe to make him take stands. I don’t think this stategy will work, though. My feeling is that Virginia Democrats are as motivated as ever.
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: “Homespun” was more Robert Heinlein–that manipulative tone that Carlos Yu called “folksy didactic”, like your uncle who’s been around the block a few times giving you some commonsense bromides about how the world REALLY works. (Dangerous when combined with wacko politics, at least in a 20th-century context.)
Asimov’s style was a very deliberate non-style, the same one he used in his far more extensive nonfiction. It worked well there–he always said that clarity was his primary goal. In fiction… well, it works for a very specific type of audience, one that does not expect or want literary fireworks. It used to be that there were a lot of these in science-fiction fandom; I suspect it’s a dwindling fraction. Might work better in YA. I think I found it comforting when I was a kid.
Edmund Dantes
@Baud: there is a Futurama episode that destroys me. It’s about Fry and his dog. Stupid funny fish out of water (20th century man in 30th century) shouldn’t leave you a blubbering mess after one of its episodes.
”Jurassic Bark”
Honus
@Geminid: I’m with you on all of that. I’m certainly motivated.
The general assembly making it easier to vote in recent years will help too.
J R in WV
@Soprano2:
Nope. They mostly think those laws are meant for the black and brown people, and women, and liberals, and commies, who all should just report to jail when they turn 16. Red blooded American Conservatives just need to be polite to the nice policeman, who will thank them and send them on their way to continue breaking the law, exp. firearms law.
Actually, I think that’s how the firearms rules are supposed to work. The salesman needs to show the “customer” a better less expensive gun, until the cops show up!! When I bought my last gun at the local lumber yard (a .22 rifle, bolt action) the background check took the nice lady about 4 or 5 minutes.
eclare
@dnfree: I’ve always hated the word “preheat” in recipes. Just say heat!
Ken
I’ve seen “BAIT * BEER * GUNS * CANDY” signs, but not “LUMBER * SHEETROCK * GUNS * NAILS”.
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: IIRC, one of the problems with the Foundation series was that it was originally written/published in monthly-magazine-sized chunks, leading to a lot of repetition and re-explication that became tedious when it was bookified.
J R in WV
@SiubhanDuinne:
The contractor, a huge Republican donor, didn’t get many inspections, in order to permit him to use substandard low strength concrete, which broke under the strain of other Republicans walking on it for 30 years. This allows the contractor to increase his profit by using cheaper material, after which his company is allowed to go bankrupt, so that there is no one left to sue.
I suspect this is standard operating procedure in towns run by Republicans and the Mob, who are one and the same in many such towns… like Miami.
narya
Thank you, jackals, especially Gin & Tonic! My primary care provider called me yesterday (after I sent a message through the portal), sent a script for 200mg of doxycycline, and I took it. Had a queasy moment (happens sometimes) but managed to keep it down; here’s hoping that it works. Would not have thought to do any of that if not for you all, so I appreciate it!
Roger Moore
@Soprano2:
It may be strange, but it happens all the time. They are more than happy to argue laws they don’t like should be repealed because compliance is too difficult. I’ve never seen how they square this with the rest of their beliefs, but intellectual consistency has never been their forte.
opiejeanne
@Ken: I am trying to remember the name of the author of a collection of “short” stories and a novella contained in an enormous tome, probably written in the 1960s. The stories were so dull and written so ploddingly that I finally handed the book back to the friend who lent it to me, and everyone expressed surprise that I didn’t enjoy those works, including a first cousin to whom I had complained. Apparently this author is beloved by some people, and I’m too shallow to appreciate his writing.
I’d prefer Heinlein’s earlier works any old day.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
That was S.O.P. for ages. Same held true for Dune. Packed away somewhere I have the issue of Analog magazine in which the first installment was published. So long ago that it was still being printed in real magazine, not digest, size.
ian
@Baud: No, the point is that reporter did not even say he was actually in Pelosi’s office. There was no 1/2 tweet that was “in pelosi’s office for interview, when schumer came in…”
It could a knock knock joke, for all the detail we are given.
SiubhanDuinne
@J R in WV:
Those thoughts flitted through my mind when I first heard the news, but I was reluctant to believe that human beings are capable of such malicious neglect. Yes, despite everything, I still have trouble grasping that people are that heartless and evil. I’ll go to my grave as naïve as a newborn lamb, I guess.
There go two miscreants
@Amir Khalid: I read those books, and hated every one, even though (or maybe because!) I’d read the Foundation and robot books as a kid and liked them then.
Just Chuck
@Gin & Tonic: I was wondering why there was so much repetition. Every other page has the characters tripping over themselves to recap and praise
AsimovSeldon’s infallible ideas. Some decent editing and it would have been a single actually good book.WaterGirl
@Chief Oshkosh:
I haven’t seen it, but I still have an opinion. I suspect that it’s a bad move overall that will negatively impact how much we can do in the end, but I eagerly await finding out that I am wrong.
Kathleen
@Cheryl Rofer: Right. In Cincinnati shootings are up over 30 percent but homicides are down!
Honus
@Ken: Probably a hybrid lumber yard/hardware store. Hardware stores were the predominant vendors of rifles in my youth. Because back when you could get along fine with three firearms (usually a .22 rifle, a deer rifle and a shotgun for rabbits and squirrels) a gun shop couldn’t make enough money on its own.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: i have been thinking that if we pass the Manchin-approved version, we won’t have his vote for anything we might otherwise be able to pass through reconciliation.
Has Manchin indicated that he would support the full infrastructure package thru reconciliation if his smaller version has passed?
M31
“Knock knock”
“Who’s there?”
“Interrupting Majority Leader”
“Interrupting Maj — ”
“THINGS ARE GOING WELL!”
Kathleen
@Geminid: Amen!
J R in WV
I believe this is an example of Southernese English… I’m pretty sure my Grandma from Very Eastern Kentucky used this turn of phrase…
Geminid
@Elizabelle: Sasha Beauloux lives in Virginia. She has a responsible job, tweets in her spare time, and not just about politics.
Ms. Beauloux does not mince words, and she nails her colors to the mast with the pinned tweet that has led her account for some time:
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Honus:
In your youth, people were more inclined to see their firearms as tools. The serious game and bird hunters would allocate money for higher quality tools because they generally hunted things at a distance, but the motivations were the same across the board. Nowadays, every slackjawed fatbody in chaw-stained camo gains macho cred with a plastic piece of shit that is lousy for hunting pretty much anything (but slow moving humans) and looks “cool”.
dnfree
@Uncle Cosmo: if my euphemism is yanked down, nothing dangles.
germy
@Ken:
Here’s a photo of a hardware store from 1939: “Guns, Guitars, Groceries”
https://www.shorpy.com/node/26149
NotMax
@J R in WV
“‘Yes, but not in the South,’ with slight adjustments, will do for any argument about any place, if not about any person.”
– Richard Usborne
(Described by its coiner as “a formula that let me off the boredom of finding out facts and retaining knowledge.”)
:)
MomSense
@NotMax:
I object to pre-heat and pre-board.
NotMax
@MomSense
Preemptively?
:)
Baud
@MomSense:
Don’t forget pre-register.
germy
Experts Encourage Americans To Start Thinking About What Form Of Government They’d Like To Try After Democracy Crumbles
opiejeanne
@MomSense: I object to “one of the only”. Is it one of a few, or the only one?
Also, “second to last”. Does that mean next to last? Or next to next to last?
opiejeanne
@germy: The Onion sometimes hits too close to home.
I think one will be chosen for us, regardless of what we think.
germy
@opiejeanne:
I still can’t cope with movie release dates being described as being “pushed back” (meaning delayed). Should they say “pushed forward” ?
germy
@opiejeanne:
I’m thinking “chaos”
Just One More Canuck
@NotMax: Code violations? Lack of inspections?
Fair Economist
@NotMax: Grim and grey seems right for most of the Foundation series to me. Only the second story of the last book gives me a colorful and cheery feel. Asimov was an optimist, but he did write *some* grim stories.
Elizabelle
@Geminid: I saw her pinned tweet. She is not wrong.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I think it’s pretty clear at this point that Manchin is going to vote for what he is going to vote for. I would guess that these aren’t the last infrastructure funds he will support, but I don’t think we will know how much more of Biden’s package he and the Wicked Witch of the West will support for weeks if not months. But this money will go out, and we should hit the midterms with that much stronger an economy because of it.
As for letting ten Republicans in on the deal, some may be chafed by them getting credit. That is not a downside to me, when forty others will be on record voting against good American jobs and business activity. And once Romney, Murkowski and friends have dipped their toes in the water, maybe they will want to wade a little deeper.
TomatoQueen
From that link, the key word is “pancaked.” I see that and the inner screaming starts up. It’s from old national building standards that were changed after the L’Ambiance Plaza building under construction in Bridgeport, Connecticut collapsed, killing 28 construction workers when the constructed floors landed on them one by one. The condo in Surfside was built before 1987, so was built under old code. It’s also on the beach side of the island, and has been standing facing the weather for 40 years. All of its brother buildings of that age and in that place are at risk for doing the same thing. The article says it was being recertified for occupancy after 45 years, as is its sibling next door. If I were the head of building occupancy code issuance in Miami, I would evacuate all the buildings today. But I am pleased to report that I do not have that job. So all those buildings will pass.
Elizabelle
@germy: Pushed forward sounds like “earlier,” so no.
And there is the eternal slow up or slow down.
Baud
Elizabelle
@TomatoQueen: Yeah. “Pancaked” is terrifying.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Yeah. I always knew Pelosi would do that, and well.
Article has the usual idiotic projection comment by Kevin McCarthy, which I will not repeat. And then immediately following, a reported paragraph on how the Republicans have treated the insurrection entirely politically, throughout.
MattF
Giuliani is suspended from the practice of law in NY.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Let’s see if the people complaining about Dems for not doing this yet will applaud it.
Baud
@MattF: ?
MomSense
@TomatoQueen:
I wondered about the stability of the ground it was built on.
NotMax
@Fair Economist
Not just in this case, but have long been bothered in that people in the confines of a space vessel would, if for nothing else than purposes of morale and relieving monotony, crave splashes of variety and color in the decor.
Fair Economist
@opiejeanne: Oddly, Foundation and Empire (the second book) was the first novel-length science fiction book I ever read. I was quite young and very limited in what I had access to (although they had a big library, neither of my parents read science fiction). I liked it a lot, and bought Second Foundation at a bookstore, but couldn’t find Foundation for several years.
When I did find Foundation, I thought it was the weakest of the series. (I think F&E is the best, which is pretty unusual for a trilogy) My impression after reading it was that Asimov had decided the episodic format of Foundation was getting boring and had cooked up the Mule story to spice up the series. A friend of mine, however, told me Asimov had had the overall plan from the beginning.
Fair Economist
@J R in WV:
The construction “up and xxx”, indicating that XXX was done surprisingly or suddenly, was common enough in my youth in Alabama.
Uncle Cosmo
I wonder how much input Ike had to IASFM or whether he simply licensed the brand name. I do know the mag had the superlative Gardner Dozois as editor from 1984 to 2004, which probably goes farther toward explaining the quality of the content.
U.B.U., hon. The longer I spend here, the less impressed I am with the clientele, particularly with respect to political acumen and the English language. Pace Elvis Costello, I am working past disgust and hoping to end up amused.
(FTR the snide crack re “stupidhero movies” refers to the impending perfection of CGI, which not only bids fair to put a lot of actors and support personnel out of work, but is likely to be a direct cause of the demise of liberal democracy, inasmuch as it lies through its dazzling teeth to persuade those who trust their lying eyes to believe damn near any- and everything is possible and real, especially that Manichean tribal IGMFY existence they devoutly want to believe. YMMV /rant)
Anne Laurie
Asimov famously refused to do any revisions on his fiction — and that included revising his pulp-published material when it was reprinted as a book. One of his peers is supposed to have said “Isaac would be a better writer if he was a worse [less efficient] typist”.
Ken
@NotMax: Perhaps after thousands of years of space travel, humans have adapted to enjoy their cramped, dark, monotone spaces, and exposure to bright colors and open air would cause them serious trauma. I’m sure there must be at least one story or novel exploring this idea — Asimov had a bit of it in The Caves of Steel.
Elizabelle
@MattF: Ha ha. NY Times breaking:
I love New York.
Dorothy A. Winsor
MattF
@Anne Laurie: Asimov was a compulsive writer— his compulsion was (perhaps) softened by his self-awareness. Once asked what he would do if told he had a month to live, he said “Write faster”.
Cacti
I see someone beat me to it.
Rudy Giuliani got his law license suspended. Woohoo!!!!!
Searcher
@Anne Laurie: It’s cruel to expect it of them, but I often wish that some of these authors publishing 15-book series would then go back and revise the entire thing after they finish.
There is usually so much that could be tightened up and fixed once they actually figure out how the story ends.
Uncle Cosmo
@SiubhanDuinne: I saw a post-collapsed photo (briefly, before NBC News started an interminable reload) and it reminded me of Istanbul apartment buildings in the 1999 earthquake. There was (may still be) a law on the books from Ottoman times that any building erected between sundown and the following sunrise was exempt from code restrictions, and some builders got very good at constructing the framework of apartment buildings (which were desperately needed) overnight to bypass the building codes. Many of these poorly-built gecekondu (literally “night-built”) pancaked when the quake struck, killing thousands in their homes.
Fair Economist
@SFAW:
“Foundation” has a plot framework rather than a plot. You could completely replace every story up to the Mule without any problem.
Kathleen
@Baud: Oh Baud! (Using very poor imitation of Betty Davis inflection)
rikyrah
He can’t be the only one doing this.
Lord of the Roths: How Tech Mogul Peter Thiel Turned a Retirement Account for the Middle Class Into a $5 Billion Tax-Free Piggy Bank
by Justin Elliott, Patricia Callahan and James Bandler
June 24, 5 a.m. EDT
More at the link:
https://www.propublica.org/article/lord-of-the-roths-how-tech-mogul-peter-thiel-turned-a-retirement-account-for-the-middle-class-into-a-5-billion-dollar-tax-free-piggy-bank
Leto
@Dorothy A. Winsor: universe working really hard here to make me believe in a higher power. It’s a start.
Another Scott
This is how you do it.
People trying to make fun of Schumer’s comments (about having to have a reconciliation plan to go with a “bipartisan” plan) are, as usual, not understanding (or deliberately throwing gravel in the gears).
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
@narya: Happy that my repeated tick-bite sufferings have been of some help.
Uncle Cosmo
@MattF: Ike was also a certified Male Chauvinist Pig (who claimed he wasn’t because he “loved all women equally” – ha). I was at Disclave one year when he was GoH and female friends in attendance told me they made special efforts to keep their distance when Ike was in the room, as he wasn’t shy about grabbing a buttock or a boob in reach of his short arms**.
FTR I share the opinion of Asimov expressed by a not-yet-legendary Harlan Ellison, as related in the former’s foreword to the latter’s later groundbreaking anthology Dangerous Visions.
** Asimov’s sizeable head rested on a smallish torso. Think Jiminy Cricket in his 60s with longish graying hair and muttonchop sideburns.
Doug R
@NotMax:
Google tells me it’s shot in Berlin, Iceland and Ireland.
brantl
@Ken: Those stories were terrific!
Doug R
@SiubhanDuinne: Really close to the beach. Sinkhole?
rikyrah
@Another Scott:
Go Nancy Smash!!!
rikyrah
@SiubhanDuinne:
Wait?
A building?
A whole building collapsed?
WHAT????
Just Chuck
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
While he is a throwback, I still think of him more as an Election Git
?
Another Scott
@rikyrah:
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Doug R
@Uncle Cosmo:
A lot of superhero movies do use a lot of CGI to fill in backgrounds but there’s still a lot of wire and harness work because our brains can recognize shabby physics when we see it.
germy
@Doug R:
He and his wife made it to the basement and found rising water there. They returned upstairs, screamed for help and were eventually brought to safety by firefighters using a cherry-picker.
Cohen said he raised concerns years ago about whether nearby construction might be causing damage to the building after seeing cracked pavers on the pool deck.
https://wnyt.com/news/building-collapse-in-miami/6150706/?cat=10114
Omnes Omnibus
@Uncle Cosmo: Since you don’t care for us and are really only coming here to give us your wisdom at the cost of great pain to your psyche, I think it would be fine if you just gave up on us and went to share your wisdom with others far more deserving. You could make everyone happier.
Kayla Rudbek
@NotMax: and for providing directions or color-coding various parts/functions of the spacecraft as well…are all the directors color-blind?
burnspbesq
The opinion granting the disciplinary authorities’ motion to suspend Rudy (it’s actually an interim suspension pending formal proceedings, kindasorta equivalent to a preliminary injunction) is a supremely righteous beat-down, well worth the time it takes to read all 33 pages.
My best guess is he’s toast.
James E Powell
@rikyrah:
It’s darkly amusing that the writer apparently does not realize that the Roth IRA was created to work exactly as Thiel is working it. Rich people not paying taxes was the only issue he really cared about.
James E Powell
@burnspbesq:
Agree completely. Josh Marshall has it up.
The interim suspension is granted because
There are several other attorneys who ought to be facing the same proceedings for the exact same reasons.
Ken
@James E Powell: I found it amusing that one of Giuliani’s defenses was that, when he made the claims about fraud in the election, he did not know that those claims were false. So he now admits there was no fraud?
James E Powell
I realize this thread is deader than disco, but that said, I have no other place to put this until an Open Thread appears.
Giuliani’s son tweeted that “leftist judges” suspended his father’s license. The responses to that tweet are stellar.
Bluegirlfromwyo
@Roger Moore: Too difficult to comply is basically their anti-regulation rationale. Why would laws be some exception?
Uncle Cosmo
@Ken: Done. Also James P. Hogan, whose prose style makes Asimov’s read like John F’ing Keats…although Hogan likely had any glimmer of literacy pounded out of him after decades as a technical writer 8^O…
Uncle Cosmo
@Omnes Omnibus:
Geez, is it a requirement here to actually care about the Jackaltariat? Which AFAICT is a granfalloon posing as a karass**, since most of you have never met IRL.
In fact, “Oh-Oh,” most of yinz are probably nice, intelligent, considerate, caring, progressive folks who love their furry friends – while parading distinctly unhelpful tendencies toward loud WATB-ism and leftish Dunning-Kruger syndrome.
I serve a purpose here analogous to the Roman slave allegedly placed in the chariot beside the conquering general during his triumphal procession. You need someone like me around to tell you when your screams of existential pain serve no purpose but emboldening the opposition to aggravate you even more, and when your alleged political insights are half-formed or uninformed opinions blown out your arses.***
And in that context I am pleased to continue serving. Read my posts or pie me and/or try to convince Cole to ban me. Your choice.
** Look it up – do I have to do all the work for you?
*** In the spirit of “Opinions are like assholes: Everybody has one and it usually stinks” – which, FTR , is as true of Subject Matter Experts when they wander out of their expert lanes