Stand By Your Man, Or Not, Or A Banana Inside a Fart Balloon

So Trump told this guy people call Dr. Phil that if Jesus himself came down and counted the ballots in California, he would win. Apparently he only loses... California... because vote counters cheat. Uh huh. 

He said he travels around California and sees Trump signs, and tons of people come out to see him, so he knows that he'd win a fair election. Is this the stupidest man who has ever lived?

In 2020, Biden won California 11 million to 6 million, a wipeout, as if there was any question. But since 5,000 of Trump's 6 million supporters came to see him, he thinks that means he should win in a landslide. So embarrassing, the shame, haha.

I think he's more nefarious than stupid though. Do you see what he's doing? If the Democrats even win CALIFORNIA, as they always do... to fragile Trump that's a sham election, the vote counters cheated. If THAT'S his threshold for a sham election, ladies and gentlemen, we're about to have a sham election. 

Trump a loser? Impossible to Trump. If he even loses one state, he's taking his ball and stomping back to Mar-a-Lago. The guy cheapens everything he touches. He's an unserious man.

Woody Allen joked, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment."

Trump's nonsense does give him a degree of immortality at least. He will live on forever in the minds of his countrymen, as a joke.

August 28, 2024

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Valid questions! I guess this means that Trump is now in favor of the partial birth abortions that never existed to begin with? From the article:

Now ask yourself this: How could an evangelical who claims to be passionately pro-life vote for a presidential candidate who now promises that his administration will “be great for women and their reproductive rights”? Especially when that person has cheated on his wives and on his taxes, paid hush money to porn stars, and been found liable of sexual assault?

And how can those who profess to be followers of Jesus cast a ballot for this candidate, once the excuse of casting a pro-life vote is gone? For a convicted felon and a pathological liar, a man who has peddled racist conspiracy theories, cozied up to the world’s worst dictators, blackmailed an American ally, invited a hostile foreign power to interfere in American elections, defamed POWs and the war dead, mocked people with handicaps, and encouraged political violence? How can they continue to stand in solidarity with a person who has threatened prosecutors, judges, and the families of judges; who attempted to overthrow an election; who assembled a violent mob and directed it to march on the Capitol; and who encouraged the mob to hang his vice president?

The Atlantic- Trump's Evangelical Supporters Just Lost Their Best Excuse

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Tammy Wynette recorded Stand By Your Man on this day in 1968, after reportedly writing it in 15 minutes. Country Music Television ranked it the #1 song in the history of country music. I never really thought about it before, but it is a perfect song.

https://youtu.be/f2KP9fYZUWA

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Dorothy Parker:

If wild my breast and sore my pride,

I bask in dreams of suicide,

If cool my heart and high my head

I think 'How lucky are the dead.'

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I just told Gretel that Wikipedia is a great place to look up anything.

G- Jeeps?

Me- Sure.

G- Grass?

Me- Yep.

G- That's a weird thing to have an article about. What about Wikipedia?

Me- Are you asking if Wikipedia has an article about Wikipedia?

G- Yeah. 

Me- Yep, it has articles about everything.

G- A banana inside a fart balloon?

Me- No, they don't have that.

August 28, 2021

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Gretel- Is God bad?

Me- I guess it depends how you look at it. What do you think?

Gretel- I think he's bad.

Me- Why?

Gretel- Because he has yellow eyes.

Wait, what??? We are watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail and it turns out she was asking specifically about the cartoon God who appeared in the clouds.

August 28, 2020

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Dan Rather:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02FjtTz5F7GFymNxhqZjJHBtJfy3WB7W3UAVt3XkmHbLn8vvUFLDb3Mr1BNRxH46Q9l&id=24085780715&sfnsn=mo&mibextid=6aamW6

Favorite excerpt:

"It was a grievance-filled exercise in mass gaslighting. It reinforced my previously-stated belief that the Trump re-election campaign is based on the rather hard-to-swallow idea that only Donald Trump can save America from Donald Trump's America. But we know many of his legions of fervid supporters believe this framing of the national moment to make perfect sense. He is their savior, no matter what he has wrought."

August 28, 2020

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Big Think- Jesse Ventura suggests the concept of a maximum wage. Look it up, no link.

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Emma:

What little girl needs dolls when she has a dead cicada to play with? 

"Mommy, do you like him? Do you want to play with him? Do you want to pet him?"

"NO!"

August 28, 2016

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Chris Wheeler just used the word Houdiniing.

August 28, 2013

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Commenting on the 2012 Republican Convention

William Howard Taft's White House bathtub is silently trembling, nervous about a possible Chris Christie presidency.

Postscript- Come on, I'm better than that! Incidentally, today, 10 years to the day after I compiled this, I'm watching this week with George Stephanopoulos and Chris Christie is on it, and I had the distinct thought earlier that I would trade handing the presidency to Christie versus Trump running against Biden. This is insane, but I kind of like Christie, I can't help it. I differ with him ideologically but I think that he's actually a leader, even though a bully at times. I had a driver stuck in New York for hours and hours when Christie pulled that Bridgegate scheme. 

Condoleeza Rice looks like she was stood up for the prom. I guess she was in a sense.

It's funny to think Ann Romney would be a more appropriate vice-president than Sarah Palin.

This is a great time to remember that Stephen Colbert once referred to Newt Gingrich as a Cabbage Patch Adult.

With Artur Davis's speech, African-American support for Romney rose from zero to .00001%. That's a factor of infinity percent!

Note to democrats: Scott Walker wouldn't stand a chance in an election against someone named Scott Sprinter.

Over on Fox News they're getting Alan Colmes' take on the 2012 election. Sure get the opinion of a democrat who looked like he crawled out from under a swamp rock. Why not ask Gollum instead?

Check my math on this too- the number of republican mentions of 9/11 is inversely proportional to the number of times they remember Obama killed bin Laden.

Wow, you hear Kasich say Obama doubled the national debt and that it's been rising by a trillion dollars a year? Hmm, check my math on this, but has Obama really been president for... seven and a half years??? At least he beat that bum Kerry.

Who wrapped some skin on Al Sharpton's skeleton?

August 28, 2012

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Chomsky On Universal Health Care

We have not succeeded in unifying people. It’s our fault. Now take health insurance- most people believe it’s just a right. The idea that health care should be determined by wealth and not need is so profoundly immoral that I’m sure if you could approach people and talk about it seriously they’ll agree. Now there is an ideology which has been drilled into people for 50 years of intense propaganda by the business classes. We have a highly class conscious business class. They are deeply imbued with Marxist conceptions. They are vulgar Marxists fighting a bitter class war. They happen to be on the other side, but that’s their conception. And you have to control the mass of the population with concepts that will be “self-destructive to them and beneficial for us,” and one of them has to do with the role of government. So it’s plain for there to be a deeply rooted American feeling that we don’t like government, but there’s nothing to it. The business ideology has a very specific and rather sophisticated goal to achieve- it has to get people to hate government, but also to love government, because the business world wants a very powerful state, but working for them. The conservative nanny state it’s sometimes called.

People are deeply concerned that if government is deciding on how health care should work they are attacking us, on the other hand if private corporations are deciding then it’s somehow benefiting us. Private corporations are far more tyrannical than the government. Whatever we think of the government, it is at least somewhat accountable to the population. There are ways to influence the government. There are no ways to influence a private tyranny like a health insurance company. They are totalitarian institutions, unaccountable to the public and they do what they like and there’s not much you can do about it. On the other hand if there’s a government program, you can influence what it does. A conception has been created by massive propaganda campaigns that it’s the government that’s the enemy, not the private corporations. Well they are a far worse enemy and the government is one of the few ways of protecting people from them. But if we haven’t gotten that across it’s our fault.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWs6g3L3fkU

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I just made a honeydew sorbet that could stop a war.

August 28, 2011

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Sometimes vegetarians say "Why would you want your body to be an animal graveyard?" Well if they like vegetables so much, why do they want their bodies to be vegetable graveyards?

August 28, 2011

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Can vegans eat ectoplasm?

August 28, 2011

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For a guy who's never cared too much for societal norms, I just did a ton of weeding.

August 28, 2010

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Emmett Till was brutally murdered on this day in 1955, galvanizing the nascent civil rights movement.

Two years to the day later, U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond broke the filibuster record (24 hours, 18 minutes) to prevent the Senate from voting on the Civil Rights Act of 1957 which would end segregation.

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The first Subway opened on this day in 1965, in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

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Strange Brew was released on this day in 1983. God, how many times have I watched it??? Once a day for 6 months? It was the first movie I could rewatch and rewatch with a VCR.

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On this day in 1988, Tommy Lasorda picked a fight with the Phillies Phanatic.

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On this day in 2014, Obama wore a tan suit.

The Daily Remembers Obama's Biggest Scandal- The Tan Suit

https://fb.watch/j6UYige7Ad/?mibextid=NnVzG8

Reminds me of the time Al Gore was caught in the scandal of making campaign calls from his office in the White House, and then the winner of that election started a war under false pretenses.

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Was born on this day in 1749. A prerequisite for contemplating death.

"Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time."

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Cinematographer, James Wong Howe, was born on this day in 1899.

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Ruth Gordon left us on this day in 1985.

"We would all be happier if we could say 'I don't know' more often and not fling so much crap around. Surrender and learn."

Wise advice. Remember to stay away from her Chocolate Mousse though.

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German writer, Michael Ende, left us on this day in 1995. From Momo:

"People never seemed to notice that, by saving time, they were losing something else. No one cared to admit that life was becoming ever poorer, bleaker and more monotonous. The ones who felt this most keenly were the children, because no one had time for them any more. But time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart. And the more people saved, the less they had."

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Mr. Fuji left us on this day in 2016. I read recently that in the late 90's, after his wrestling career, he worked part-time as a ticket taker at a movie theater in Knoxville, Tennessee. I looked at the dates and realized that I was in Knoxville Tennessee when he was there. How bizarre that would have been to run into him at a theater.

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Other notable birthdays- Daniel Stern (1957), Ai Weiwei (1957), Jason Priestley (1968)

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Other notable deathdays- John Huston (1987)

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Maxence Cyrin- Where Is My Mind (Pixies Piano Cover)

https://youtu.be/4NZdggNUvq0

Stunning...

August 28, 2010

Postscript- Mesmerizing! Someone commented, "Play this at my funeral." Agreed!

Here's an hour loop:

https://youtu.be/0L-jfoOJgec

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Highest level of film-making right here folks. Bob Dylan's Knocking on Heaven's Door, from Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

https://youtu.be/yjR7_U2u3sM

August 28, 2015

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Alternet- Dostoyevsky Predicted Donald Trump

"A skilled psychological writer, Dostoevsky never saw violence as divorced from normal human behavior. What’s most haunting about his works is just how close otherwise ordinary people are from doing extraordinarily awful things."

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/dostoevsky-predicted-donald-trump

August 28, 2016

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New York Magazine- In 2016 Donald Trump Promised to Make America Safe Again. He Failed.

So according to Trump, under Trump there's mob rule, but re-elect him to stay safe!

Trump- “When there is police misconduct, the justice system must hold wrongdoers fully and completely accountable, and it will. But what we can never have a situation where things are going on today — we can never allow mob rule.”

And then there's this excellent little bit of analysis from the article...

"Trump has spent much of his presidency not only ridiculing the peaceful protest tactics of Colin Kaepernick but using his power to blackball Kaepernick from the league. So Trump opposes peaceful demonstrations along with violent ones. He offers no solution to the underlying crisis besides insisting the status quo will solve it. Trump shares with the most violent demonstrators a belief that peaceful change cannot work, that the crisis must be resolved in the streets through force."

That's a pretty rough charge levelled against him, totally on the money.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/trump-convention-speech-crime-rooting-violence-republican.html

August 28, 2020

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Wow! A knockout cover of Buddy Holly's Everyday, by Allison Young.

https://youtu.be/hx2BbNIL_hk

August 28, 2020

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BBC- Covid: Vaccine complications dwarfed by virus risks

Some valid reasons to be concerned about the vaccine... and they happen to be some of the exact same reasons we should be vastly more concerned about the virus.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58347434

August 28, 2021

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The Guardian- Fran Lebowitz: ‘If people disagree with me, so what?’

From the article:

Starved of any new Lebowitz content, her fans have taken to quoting lines from the Reader like religious texts: “All God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable." "Generally speaking, I look upon sports as dangerous and tiring activities performed by people with whom I share nothing except the right to trial by jury.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/28/fran-lebowitz-if-people-disagree-with-me-so-what

August 28, 2021

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Zuzu fancies herself up once in a while. She's testing out the new outfit she got for her birthday.

August 28, 2022

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Apparently Quentin Tarantino said that Francois Truffaut was a terrible director, bumbling through his films. This is from Quentin tarantino, who over and over makes the worst directorial choice in the history of directorial choices- namely, casting the actor Quentin Tarantino in his movies. His criticism made me think of something. Has there ever been an idea expressed in any Tarantino film, or are they just strictly homage? About half of his films are enjoyable, but I think he holds himself up too high.

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John Mulaney- "I never knew you were supposed to push off of your feet when you walked. And I tried it, and I walked much faster."

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Return of the Limerick!

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William James- "As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use."

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Howard Zinn, Marx in Soho: A Play on History- "But I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is... to tell the truth."

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Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles- "The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriousity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is."

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Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's- "It’s better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes."

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Neil Simon- "The body of a young woman is God's greatest achievement...Of course, He could have built it to last longer but you can't have everything."

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Steve Martin- "I handed in a script last year and the studio didn't change one word. The word they didn't change was on page 87."

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There was a young woman of Chester 

Who said to the man who undressed her, 

I think you will find 

That it's better behind- 

The front is beginning to fester.

Addendum

Lovecraft, on dogs versus cats:

"Throw a stick, and the servile dog wheezes and pants and stumbles to bring it to you. Do the same before a cat, and he will eye you with coolly polite and somewhat bored amusement. And just as inferior people prefer the inferior animal which scampers excitedly because someone else wants something, so do superior people respect the superior animal which lives its own life and knows that the puerile stick-throwings of alien bipeds are none of its business and beneath its notice. The dog barks and begs and tumbles to amuse you when you crack the whip. That pleases a meekness-loving peasant who relishes a stimulus to his self importance. The cat, on the other hand, charms you into playing for its benefit when it wishes to be amused; making you rush about the room with a paper on a string when it feels like exercise, but refusing all your attempts to make it play when it is not in the humour. That is personality and individuality and self-respect -- the calm mastery of a being whose life is its own and not yours -- and the superior person recognises and appreciates this because he too is a free soul whose position is assured, and whose only law is his own heritage and aesthetic sense."