Acoustic Excellence: Dominic Miller, “Water” [VIDEO]

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Dominic Miller
Silent Light

Dominic Miller: guitar, bass guitar
Miles Bould: percussion, drums

+++++ CD / 180g Vinyl / Streaming: https://ecm.lnk.to/_Ey_d

Born in Argentina to an American father and Irish mother, guitarist Dominic Miller was raised in the U.S. from age 10 and then educated there and in England. Now he lives in France, though he has toured the globe for the past three decades. Aptly, Silent Light – Miller’s ECM debut, featuring him solo and with percussion accompaniment – has a very international feel, with the Latin influence strong in such pieces as “Baden” (dedicated to Brazilian guitarist-composer Baden Powell). “Le Pont” has an early 20th-century Parisian air, while “Valium” evokes Celtic tunes in the vein of Bert Jansch and “Fields of Gold” is a hushed instrumental take on one of Sting’s best-known ballads. Miller has long been known as Sting’s right-hand man on guitar – and co-writer of the worldwide hit “Shape of My Heart,” among others. Miller has also worked with the likes of Paul Simon, The Chieftains and Plácido Domingo. The guitarist’s playing has prompted praise from Simon, who points out, in a liner note to the album, that Miller “has a beautiful touch, with a fragrance of jazz and English folk.”

ECM 2518

Website: https://www.ecmrecords.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ecmrecords
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ecm_records

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258 comments
1
Charles Johnson  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:04:03pm
2
Dread Pirate  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:09:47pm
3
Blind Frog Belly White  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:09:48pm

“What’s Trump’s strategy with Iran?”

Seriously. It’s like asking what a baby smearing shit on the wall is trying to depict.

4
Rightwingconspirator  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:13:09pm

re: #1 Charles Johnson
re: #3 Blind Frog Belly White

Iran policy? Iraq policy? Economic policy? Military policy? All 100% subservient to re-election at all costs policy.

5
jaunte  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:20:11pm
6
Dread Pirate  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:20:51pm
7
FormerDirtDart 🍕🐀  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:21:59pm
8
Quoth the raven, Covfefe.  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:22:44pm

re: #7 FormerDirtDart 🍕🐀

On the one side, we have a fanatical administration, driven by years of hate, with a passionate religious fervor. On the other side, we have the Iranians.

9
BigPapa  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:24:02pm

Trump is starting a war with Iran without having a war in Iran. But Iraq may boot us out because Iran could threaten to invade and get them to blink.

Then what would Trump do?

10
jaunte  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:25:15pm

I have a feeling the Iranians are smart enough to know their problems aren’t coming from the Rio Grande Valley.

11
I Would Prefer Not To  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:26:30pm

So the guy we killed was planning attacks. What’s to stop the next guy from carrying out the already planned attacks?

12
jaunte  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:28:46pm

re: #11 I Would Prefer Not To

Trump has a celebrity concept of the world. Unless the next guy has great ratings, he doesn’t exist.

13
Anymouse 🌹🎃  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:28:49pm

From the previous thread:

re: #399 Barefoot Grin

Yep. My dad turns 95 this month. I can’t really afford it, but I’m flying to be there for his birthday. It’s not his fault that I got a job so far away.

re: #453 Anymouse 🌹🎃

My mother will be turning eighty in July. I’ll be back in Chicago for that. As we are planning to go to Germany in May and tour Europe, we might plan our trip to bring us to Chicago for the return (kind of a long jog on a trip back to Regina).

14
gocart mozart  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:28:52pm

Interesting article on Benito’s final days. He was actually machine gunned then pelted with rotten vegetables then hung. No cement milkshakes though

15
Sherlock Hound  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:34:12pm

re: #14 gocart mozart

Unfortunately for Allessandra, there are innumerable petrol stations in her country, and no shortage of rope. Or vegetables.

16
Dread Pirate  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:36:29pm
17
Citizen K  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:37:40pm

re: #16 Dread Pirate

[Embedded content]

Guess we don’t have to worry about escalation from Iran turning things into a shooting war.

Trump did that all himself. “De-escalation” indeed…

18
BigPapa  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:42:20pm

2020 is starting out with a bang.

19
I Would Prefer Not To  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:43:58pm

I just got a friend request on FB and the only reason I know who they are is because of the dog pic in the profile. I love dogs. That is all.

20
Anymouse 🌹🎃  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:48:30pm

From the previous thread:

re: #417 Charles Johnson

In response to your “I wonder if Glenn Greenwald said anything about Trump” on Twitter, he made sure to both siderise it:

21
BigPapa  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:48:45pm

Hannity and the rest of the right wing media hawks should report live from in front of the US embassy tomorrow for the Shiite protest. Should be lit.

22
Blind Frog Belly White  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:49:08pm

re: #19 I Would Prefer Not To

I just got a friend request on FB and the only reason I know who they are is because of the dog pic in the profile. I love dogs. That is all.

Twice in the last month, I’ve gotten notifications from FB that my new friend had accepted my friend request.

I didn’t send either one a request.

23
jaunte  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:50:01pm
24
Anymouse 🌹🎃  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:52:23pm

re: #22 Blind Frog Belly White

Twice in the last month, I’ve gotten notifications from FB that my new friend had accepted my friend request.

I didn’t send either one a request.

Considering Facebook’s job is to make money, it wouldn’t surprise me if you couldn’t buy friends for the right price.

25
gocart mozart  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:55:27pm
26
retired cynic  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:56:36pm

re: #25 gocart mozart

Game, set and match.

27
Dave In Austin  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:58:10pm
28
Blind Frog Belly White  Jan 3, 2020 • 7:59:38pm

re: #26 retired cynic

Game, set and match.

Whatever you think about porn, trying to shame somebody for something you’re ashamed about but they are not is a losing game.

29
goddamnedfrank  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:00:51pm
30
retired cynic  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:01:36pm

re: #29 goddamnedfrank

Or oil…

31
Anymouse 🌹🎃  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:02:37pm

A six-hour hostage standoff at a credit union in Rockford just ended without any deaths and the bank robber in police custody. He held one clerk hostage for six hours after the bank robbery went sideways.

32
Quoth the raven, Covfefe.  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:03:36pm

re: #31 Anymouse 🌹🎃

A six-hour hostage standoff at a credit union in Rockford just ended without any deaths and the bank robber in police custody. He held one clerk hostage for six hours after the bank robbery went sideways.

The robber must have been white.

33
Anymouse 🌹🎃  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:05:29pm

WGN television is showing how hated the Iranian general was there with live video of Iranians burning American flags with tires to make more smoke.

34
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:08:16pm

re: #33 Anymouse 🌹🎃

WGN television is showing how hated the Iranian general was there with live video of Iranians burning American flags with tires to make more smoke.

Not surprised since WGN is owned by the Chicago Fibune!

35
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:10:37pm

And the latest from Florida Man!

BRADENTON, Fla. - Florida police are warning residents to be on the lookout for a criminal who has a thing for toes. Actually, more to the point: Sucking on said toes.

A Bradenton man sound asleep in the early morning hours on Dec. 24 awoke to find a stranger man sucking on his toes.

local10.com

OK so how did this sucker get in the house??????

36
Anymouse 🌹🎃  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:13:12pm

Report on the first two days of weed sales in the Chicago area: $5 million in retail sales.

There are already plans being worked out to expand the number of sales locations here (including Weed Street in Lincoln Park)

37
i(m)p(each)sos  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:26:24pm

re: #34 Joe Bacon 🌹

Not surprised since WGN is owned by the Chicago Fibune!

Used to be. The Tribune broadcast properties (including WGN radio and TV in Chicago and KTLA in Los Angeles) had already been split apart from the newspapers a few years ago, and just recently were sold to Nexstar Broadcasting, which is a pretty middle-of-the-road operator of local TV stations.

38
Eclectic Cyborg  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:33:07pm

Trump is apparently set on becoming the first Impeached President to take us to war.

39
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:33:09pm

re: #37 i(m)p(each)sos

Used to be. The Tribune broadcast properties (including WGN radio and TV in Chicago and KTLA in Los Angeles) had already been split apart from the newspapers a few years ago, and just recently were sold to Nexstar Broadcasting, which is a pretty middle-of-the-road operator of local TV stations.

Hmmm they didn’t say that in the LA Times when SincLIAR tried to buy KTLA in Los Angeles. LA Times said that Tribune still owned it!

40
gocart mozart  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:37:19pm
41
i(m)p(each)sos  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:38:09pm

re: #39 Joe Bacon 🌹

Hmmm they didn’t say that in the LA Times when SincLIAR tried to buy KTLA in Los Angeles. LA Times said that Tribune still owned it!

They were not wrong. But the Tribune Broadcasting that owned KTLA had already separated from the company that owned the newspapers. That company renamed itself Tronc for a while before reverting to Tribune Media.

(And of course it had sold the LA Times off completely, to Patrick Soon-Shiong.)

42
Anymouse 🌹🎃  Jan 3, 2020 • 8:41:46pm

Can I rant about citified vending machines here? I can? Good.

Click to Reveal

So I went to buy a soda from the hotel vending machine. Figure I could use a few quarters or maybe a dollar bill and I’m good.

Nope.

The machine doesn’t take coins, nor does it give change. It does take ATM cards (if it has a chip, mine doesn’t), Apple Pay (not sure how that works, I assume you have to own an iThing), credit cards (if it has a chip), or a special card you can buy from the hotel desk (for an additional 25¢).

A soda pop costs $1.25, so I could just use $2 (and get no change) or buy a card from the hotel desk (and cough up an additional 25¢).

The 25¢ is apparently an inconvenience charge for the hotel clerk.

43
A Mom Anon  Jan 3, 2020 • 9:00:38pm

re: #19 I Would Prefer Not To

Lcixt1nkMh7JbolyjmPw+fCtLAo5BkJtZzEz6n4Kz8kRVzXll9YJuG/VfiFm77cymvO3L+HQS/JsDiONK1U6Qpob+rhqzqgw

44
Anymouse 🌹🎃  Jan 3, 2020 • 9:17:19pm

Iran’s U.N. ambassador is urging the U.N. Security Council to condemn what Tehran calls “a criminal act” of “state terrorism” by the United States that led to “the horrific assassination” of the country’s top military commander.

(live updates from the Scottsbluff, Nebr. Star-Herald, because my regional newspaper can’t make fancy chyrons and television sets like CNN can)
starherald.com

45
Hecuba's daughter  Jan 3, 2020 • 9:33:04pm

re: #34 Joe Bacon 🌹

Not surprised since WGN is owned by the Chicago Fibune!

Isn’t Anymouse being sarcastic anyway — that WGN is showing that the Iranians are actually infuriated with the American action?

However, it does seem as though if the posting downstairs is correct (see below), then either the Pentagon (1) feels that it’s obligated to show all options as it would to a competent President or (2) is run by neocons who want to provoke a war. If (1) is true, then the Pentagon is run by morons for not understanding that you have to filter the information to prevent Trump from taking what you think is a reckless action.

From downstairs:

@MollyMcKew
This is not the first time Pentagon types have written a memo of options that were mostly batsh*t crazy to show POTUS that things like invading North Korea aren’t really sane options, and he looked at it and said, “when do we start?”

46
Eclectic Cyborg  Jan 3, 2020 • 10:09:30pm

re: #45 Hecuba’s daughter

Maybe next time let’s not give him any insane options, okay?

47
mmmirele  Jan 3, 2020 • 10:14:09pm

re: #42 Anymouse 🌹🎃

Can I rant about citified vending machines here? I can? Good.

[Embedded content]

Japan is pretty much the opposite. No coins, no Boss coffee in a can, no tea in a bottle, no Pocari Sweat, no Peach Coke, no Asahi Dry beer, etc. etc. And by coins, we’re talking (usually) anything between 10 yen and 500 yen (about $4.70). All cash. I never saw a vending machine in Japan that took a credit card. In fact, I was told that the only places which regularly take credit cards in Japan are hotels and department stores. The only time I used plastic in Japan was when I used my debit card to get money from my checking account. It’s my understanding that the general Japanese aversion to credit cards springs from the Japanese economic bubble bursting in 1992. A lot of people apparently got screwed.

I have a pile of Japanese yen coins sitting on my dresser, waiting for my next trip. I’ll be prepared for vending machines and hotel laundromats. Oh yes, and just so you know, there are something like 5 million vending machines in Japan. They are ubiquitous. You might be in a place (Gokanosho) where there isn’t Internet connectivity, but for sure there will be that one vending machine at the end of the world, with the one delivery driver stepping out of his truck, carefully depositing his empty in the gray trash bin next to the machine before using coins to buy his next drink and driving off.

ETA: there are also 5 yen and 1 yen coins. What are those good for? Temple and shrine donations.

48
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 3, 2020 • 10:26:08pm

49
fern01  Jan 3, 2020 • 10:27:00pm

While trump is dreaming up ways to upset the world order, without knowing why - Climate issues are fast overtaking what man can do.

Australia
Fires blaze out of control across NSW as Penrith temperature soars past 48C (118.4F). Penrith is west of Sydney - a commuter suburb.

Indonesia
Indonesia tries cloud seeding as flood death toll rises to 46
Indonesia’s air force has dropped salt flares on storm clouds in an effort to prevent further torrential rain over the capital Jakarta, after deadly floods ravaged the city over the New Year period.

50
unproven innocence  Jan 3, 2020 • 10:57:55pm

It’s getting worse…

New US air raid on Hashd commander in Iraq kills medics instead

51
Anymouse 🌹🎃  Jan 3, 2020 • 11:09:47pm

Godless Cranium is a Canadian atheist counter-apologist on YouTube.

Recently he decided that he needed to address a more important problem, the rise of fascists around the world, and particularly in the United States.

With another atheist counter-apologist, they started creating videos on the history of fascism and fascists in the USA (which have been demonitised and stricken by YouTube because you are not allowed to attack fascists on social media sites).

His latest in the series goes after Father Coughlin and his radio show from the Thirties, and how both Christianity and fascists use each other to advance their aims (it’s Teh Jooooos! in both cases which are the cause of your problems, whether your movies and media aren’t to your liking, or your saviour was murdered).

Father Coughlin was the original Christian hate radio preacher, but is also the template for later hate radio preachers and political propagandists. He was remarkable at fundraising to fund both building a Catholic church in Detroit and to keep his radio programme on the air.

He was finally rebuked by the Catholic Church and ordered to give up any non-pastoral work or be defrocked. He died in the late Seventies.

At the height of his popularity spreading antisemitism and promoting Nazi propaganda, Gallup did a poll, finding one-third of those polled listened to his radio programmes at least once a month.

Caution for ugly hate speech from a radio programme by Father Coughlin in the beginning of the clip, along with hate speech by David Duke and Nick Fuentes as comparisons to today (they are remarkably similar, and all rooted in Christianity).

[18:45, third in a series]

How Fascists Use the Media to Spread Hate: The Story of Father Coughlin

52
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Jan 4, 2020 • 2:22:38am

re: #29 goddamnedfrank

This is called insider trading. How many bought defense stocks?

and oil futures

53
Dr Lizardo  Jan 4, 2020 • 3:27:01am

Why a war with Iran is a really bad idea. And fairly well-explained, to boot.

Why War With Iran Is Just….A Horrendous Idea

54
dirkdigglerjr  Jan 4, 2020 • 4:41:45am

re: #35 Joe Bacon 🌹

This guy might be toe fiend!

I Can Get You A Toe

55
FormerDirtDart 🍕🐀  Jan 4, 2020 • 5:03:58am
56
Backwoods_Sleuth  Jan 4, 2020 • 5:12:09am
57
Backwoods_Sleuth  Jan 4, 2020 • 5:15:53am
58
HappyWarrior  Jan 4, 2020 • 5:16:26am

re: #56 Backwoods_Sleuth

[Embedded content]

They know that Trump’s base doesn’t care about facts so why not make up some.

59
HappyWarrior  Jan 4, 2020 • 5:18:27am

re: #57 Backwoods_Sleuth

[Embedded content]

Oh yes the Kurds. The same ally he abandoned in Syria. They’ll be thrilled to work with us. Maybe Hegseth should spend less time jerking Trump off and more time actually learning about the region.

60
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Jan 4, 2020 • 5:29:54am

re: #58 HappyWarrior

They know that Trump’s base doesn’t care about facts so why not make up some.

and they know that the press will not take them to task for making up shit and spreading it with a trowel, in fact, they will both-sider it and help with the spreading

61
PhillyPretzel  Jan 4, 2020 • 6:00:00am

OT For fans of Terry Gross (Fresh Air NPR): Terry will be on Finding Your Roots January 21st.

62
steve_davis  Jan 4, 2020 • 6:09:07am

re: #25 gocart mozart

[Embedded content]

I don’t care much for Stormy, but I love the fact that she can generate a retort that consists of taking pride in numerous awards her husband has won for sex he has had with other women.

63
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Jan 4, 2020 • 6:11:23am

re: #62 steve_davis

I don’t care much for Stormy, but I love the fact that she can generate a retort that consists of taking pride in numerous awards her husband has won for sex he has had with other women.

The issue here is not the sex or even the amount of money paid for her to remain silent, just the nature of how the payment was booked.

64
jeffreyw  Jan 4, 2020 • 6:12:25am

Good morning!

65
Colère Tueur de Lapin  Jan 4, 2020 • 6:41:05am

re: #6 Dread Pirate

I’m not sure that the orange idiot doesn’t want a war. All that talk about using a nuke is terrifying.

66
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 6:41:15am

No self awareness at all.

67
HappyWarrior  Jan 4, 2020 • 6:46:28am

re: #66 jaunte

[Embedded content]

No self awareness at all.

Says the network that mocks the idea of every person having affordable health care and insurance and laughs at people on food stamps.

68
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 6:50:15am
“The report compares paltry welfare payments made to those living under absolute poverty with the larger sums of money paid to Afghan mercenaries bankrolled by Iran to fight in Syria.”
foxnews.com

“This report has the merit of explaining the hidden dimension of the ongoing Iranian opposition to the regime,” Fox News national security and foreign affairs analyst Walid Phares said.

They’re starting to build the story of the Trump coming to the rescue of the Iranian people.

69
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Jan 4, 2020 • 6:51:06am

re: #68 jaunte

They’re starting to build the story of the Trump coming to the rescue of the Iranian people.

They will welcome us as liberators.

70
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 6:51:11am

Hidden Dimension = Silent Majority

71
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 6:51:54am
Phares said, “This policy has been practiced by the regime since its inception: They put the ideological war doctrine ahead of their people’s daily life’s interest.”

Can you imagine!

72
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 6:53:11am
The report concludes that any future deals with Iran will strengthen the clerical regime and its armed entity, the IRGC. The report ends by recommending that to, “order to eliminate the dictatorship’s machinery of war and suppression, all of the regime’s officials, the IRGC and the array of economic organizations and institutions in their orbit of influence must be placed under international sanctions.”

If only we had some allies to help with that.

73
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:00:09am
74
Dr Lizardo  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:01:15am

re: #73 jaunte

Looks like meat assassination is back on the menu.

75
Rightwingconspirator  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:07:21am

re: #73 jaunte

[Embedded content]

Wait, when did Russia ever obey the allegorical red light? Anyone else recall Afghanistan when the Soviets rolled in?

76
I Would Prefer Not To  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:14:00am

re: #43 A Mom Anon

[Embedded content]

eeBtm5RP+1f2waWZcsaA72myWX2Koiklaly3XwC6uFj5peGG1VIjJ9rhnU15KxBa

77
Barefoot Grin  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:17:03am

Another motivating factor for Trump, besides just personal aggrandizement and distraction, might be having something to boast/rally about during the SOTU address in a month. Of course, by then so many things will have happened….

78
Rightwingconspirator  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:19:51am

re: #66 jaunte

In Iran, 90% of the people have medical coverage. 6% of GDP is health spending. We just ruined the ACA, cut SNAP and cut social security, with record deficits.

79
Colère Tueur de Lapin  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:27:20am

The elder soon and I can’t figure out if this is a right-wingers attempt at humor or what it’s supposed to be. I’m good with it.

80
PhillyPretzel  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:30:40am

re: #79 Colère Tueur de Lapin

I do not get it either. And I do not think that picture is representative of anything except some really bad photoshopping.

81
retired cynic  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:31:50am

re: #51 Anymouse 🌹🎃

… Father Coughlin was the original Christian hate radio preacher, but is also the template for later hate radio preachers and political propagandists. He was remarkable at fundraising to fund both building a Catholic church in Detroit and to keep his radio programme on the air.

He was finally rebuked by the Catholic Church and ordered to give up any non-pastoral work or be defrocked. He died in the late Seventies.

At the height of his popularity spreading antisemitism and promoting Nazi propaganda, Gallup did a poll, finding one-third of those polled listened to his radio programmes at least once a month.

Caution for ugly hate speech from a radio programme by Father Coughlin in the beginning of the clip, along with hate speech by David Duke and Nick Fuentes as comparisons to today (they are remarkably similar, and all rooted in Christianity)….

Oh, my husband hated Father Coughlin! I knew nothing about him until we got married, and I sure heard about him then. We thought of Rush Limbaugh as being like that. In our early decades of marriage, we listened to KMOX out of St Louis. It was on all the time we were up. Then the long time manager died, and the new manager booked in the RL show. We turned it off, and found NPR, and we never listened to KMOX again.

82
HappyWarrior  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:37:17am

re: #81 retired cynic

Oh, my husband hated Father Coughlin! I knew nothing about him until we got married, and I sure heard about him then. We thought of Rush Limbaugh as being like that. In our early decades of marriage, we listened to KMOX out of St Louis. It was on all the time we were up. Then the long time manager died, and the new manager booked in the RL show. We turned it off, and found NPR, and we never listened to KMOX again.

I wonder how my uncle felt about Fr Coughlin. He was a priest but pretty liberal minded for that era, had a parish of African American congregants, told my Great Grandmother(his sister’s mother in law) not to worry about attending events in Protestant churches, & never gave my grandparents grief after they got disillusioned with the church in the early 60’s. Coughlin yeah was a proto Rush. A loud mouth buffoon demagogue.

83
ericblair  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:38:22am

re: #73 jaunte

Does Russia now see a green light for it do so the same when it so chooses?

Uh, it already does, such as recently trying to assassinate the Montenegrin prime minister for starters. Authoritarian dictatorships don’t need the green light from the US, and Republicans don’t need the green light from Democrats. They never felt they needed permission, and will happily do what they want if they think it benefits them.

If I were in the Iranian government, I would be thinking about what the Russian government knew about this attack before the fact, and what they failed to tell the Iranian government about it.

84
Sufficient unto the day...  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:46:56am

re: #79 Colère Tueur de Lapin

The more I look at that picture, the less I understand about WTF is going on.

But yeah, I’m OK with that future, even if I have no idea what is happening in that future…

85
HappyWarrior  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:48:50am

re: #84 Sufficient unto the day…

The more I look at that picture, the less I understand about WTF is going on.

But yeah, I’m OK with that future, even if I have no idea what is happening in that future…

I like it better than our present.

86
Teddy's Person  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:49:44am

re: #84 Sufficient unto the day…

The more I look at that picture, the less I understand about WTF is going on.

But yeah, I’m OK with that future, even if I have no idea what is happening in that future…

Me too. As long as everyone doing what ever is being depicted in that meme is a consenting adult, it’s none of my fucking business.

87
Hecuba's daughter  Jan 4, 2020 • 7:52:58am

re: #73 jaunte

[Embedded content]

The CIA made repeated attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro in the early years of his reign. So this is nothing new.

88
Eric The Fruit Bat  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:00:54am

re: #66 jaunte

Speaking of Fox on Twitter, their Fox Nation Twitter account is still not posting since it stopped since November 6th of last year.

89
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:05:39am
90
makeitstop  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:07:46am

I don’t get why anyone would even ask fucking Meat Loaf about climate change.

91
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:07:53am

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: I’m saying if you look at all of the statements that the Secretary and the President and I have said over the last year and a half, and there’s - it was said in different ways, but the thrust of it is if the Iranian regime or its proxies conduct armed attacks that injure American personnel, interests - there’s a number of ways we have said it - there will be decisive action. They met the condition, and so then we then fulfilled the consequence.

92
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:09:59am

QUESTION: Can you get a little more specific about what imminent means? Did that mean days? Did that mean hours? And when were you first informed of this specific threat? Were Secretary Pompeo and Esper aware of it when they went to Mar-a-Lago on Sunday? Was it discussed there?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Can’t answer either question without getting into sources and methods.

93
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:11:07am

Why would the question of whether it was discussed at Mar-a-Lago be into sources and methods.

94
Eric The Fruit Bat  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:13:08am

re: #47 mmmirele

Japan is pretty much the opposite. No coins, no Boss coffee in a can, no tea in a bottle, no Pocari Sweat, no Peach Coke, no Asahi Dry beer, etc. etc.

I’m surprised to hear about Japanese vending machines not willing to take payment cards.

The one thing that was somewhat surprising is that our domestic carriers are shifting from using Tokyo-Nartia and are now landing at Tokyo-Haneda. Delta (nee Northwest) used to use NRT as its Asian hub, but no more.

95
retired cynic  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:13:33am

juanitajean.com

Last Spring, Senator Tom Udall introduced an amendment to the defense appropriation bill that would have prevented Trump from taking any military action against Iran or its leaders without congressional approval. McConnell poo-pood it and all but 4 Repubs voted against it. McConnell even said that Trump had assured him he had no intention of taking action against Iran.

There were several good comments, too: 1) suggested that every week, Nancy’s office should publish a list of everything the House has passed that is sitting on McConnell’s desk, and 2) that Iranian leaders should announce, in advance, that since this was DT’s decision, that they plan to attack only DT branded properties, so that non-combatants can get the heck out of dodge. Then his properties will sit empty.

96
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:14:22am
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: I did this for two years in the Bush administration. Assassinations are not allowed under law. Revenge killings, non-judicial executions are not. The criteria is do you have overwhelming evidence that somebody is going to launch a military or terrorist attack against you. Check that box. The second one is do you have some legal means to, like, have this guy arrested by the Belgian authorities or something. Check that box because there’s no way anybody was going to stop Qasem Soleimani in the places he was running around - Damascus, Beirut. And so, you take lethal action against him. This is something that we have done many times over both Democratic and Republican administrations that I served in. It’s the same criteria; it was applied in this case and all cases.

We have overwhelming evidence that Putin is conducting a military intelligence attack against our elections.

97
Backwoods_Sleuth  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:25:36am
98
Eric The Fruit Bat  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:29:02am

re: #90 makeitstop

If there was no Jim Steinman there would be no Meat Loaf - and some of the performances Meat Loaf did were not all that great when compared to Barbara Streisand’s “Left in the Dark” , and Barry Manilow’s “Read ‘em and Weep”

99
BigPapa  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:29:03am

Rage With the Machine

100
Hecuba's daughter  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:35:35am

re: #99 BigPapa

Rage With the Machine

[Embedded content]

Rage For the Machine.

101
Shiplord Kirel, Friend of Moose and Squirrel  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:38:46am

re: #90 makeitstop

I don’t get why anyone would even ask fucking Meat Loaf about climate change.

[Embedded content]

Batshit Out of Hell….

102
Quoth the raven, Covfefe.  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:39:57am

Morning Lizardim. What fresh hell awaits me as I get off to a roaring start in the cold and sunny wild north country?

103
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:41:57am

re: #101 Shiplord Kirel, Friend of Moose and Squirrel

Batshit Out of Hell….

It got him mentioned in the press again…

104
Shropshire Slasher  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:43:26am

re: #101 Shiplord Kirel, Friend of Moose and Squirrel

Batshit Out of Hell….

I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that

105
Rightwingconspirator  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:44:24am

If Bush had not gotten away with the falsehoods about Iraq and WMD’s we would not be in this damn mess now.

106
Ace Rothstein  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:45:04am

re: #105 Rightwingconspirator

Why do you sympathize with the terrorists?
//

107
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:45:04am

re: #104 Shropshire Slasher

I would do anything for love attention, but I won’t do even that

108
Rightwingconspirator  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:45:58am

re: #98 Eric The Fruit Bat

I can’t help but think Meat Loaf’s political acumen is about the same as Donald Trumps ability to hold a note long and loud in a song.

109
BigPapa  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:46:03am

Started binging Handmaid’s Tale. Super on the nose creepy.

110
Rightwingconspirator  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:47:45am

re: #106 Ace Rothstein

On a separate subject, just for fun, tell republicans that if Trump is not yet impeached, by the same logic the Second Amendment does not count until the bad guy fires the first shot at you at home.

111
Quoth the raven, Covfefe.  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:48:10am

re: #109 BigPapa

Started binging Handmaid’s Tale. Super on the nose creepy.

There’s a reason why comparisons between the Trump Administration and Gilead have been numerous.

112
BeachDem  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:48:40am

re: #98 Eric The Fruit Bat

If there was no Jim Steinman there would be no Meat Loaf - and some of the performances Meat Loaf did were not all that great when compared to Barbara Streisand’s “Left in the Dark” , and Barry Manilow’s “Read ‘em and Weep”

Hell, Jim Steinman himself did some better versions.

113
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:51:07am

re: #111 Quoth the raven, Covfefe.

There’s a reason why comparisons between the Trump Administration and Gilead have been numerous.

I had a funny realization the other day that V for Vendetta works WAY better today than it did back when it was made. Yeah, Dubya’s administration flirted with fascism, but this administration blew past flirting ages ago and has been in a hot and heavy make-out session ever since.

114
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:52:56am

re: #51 Anymouse 🌹🎃

Godless Cranium is a Canadian atheist counter-apologist on YouTube.

Recently he decided that he needed to address a more important problem, the rise of fascists around the world, and particularly in the United States.

With another atheist counter-apologist, they started creating videos on the history of fascism and fascists in the USA (which have been demonitised and stricken by YouTube because you are not allowed to attack fascists on social media sites).

His latest in the series goes after Father Coughlin and his radio show from the Thirties, and how both Christianity and fascists use each other to advance their aims (it’s Teh Jooooos! in both cases which are the cause of your problems, whether your movies and media aren’t to your liking, or your saviour was murdered).

Father Coughlin was the original Christian hate radio preacher, but is also the template for later hate radio preachers and political propagandists. He was remarkable at fundraising to fund both building a Catholic church in Detroit and to keep his radio programme on the air.

He was finally rebuked by the Catholic Church and ordered to give up any non-pastoral work or be defrocked. He died in the late Seventies.

At the height of his popularity spreading antisemitism and promoting Nazi propaganda, Gallup did a poll, finding one-third of those polled listened to his radio programmes at least once a month.

Caution for ugly hate speech from a radio programme by Father Coughlin in the beginning of the clip, along with hate speech by David Duke and Nick Fuentes as comparisons to today (they are remarkably similar, and all rooted in Christianity).

[18:45, third in a series]

[Embedded content]

Grandma Bacon DETESTED Coughlin. She had boarders living in her house during the Depression. When one of them turned the radio on and tuned it to listen to him, Grandma pulled the plug on the radio and forbade anyone to listen to that bigot. The CIO and SWOC organizers living with her agreed. All of them hated Coughlin’s anti-union shit.

115
Pawn of the Oppressor  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:53:23am

re: #90 makeitstop

I don’t get why anyone would even ask fucking Meat Loaf about climate change.

[Embedded content]

Our next Secretary of the Interior.

116
Alephnaught  Jan 4, 2020 • 8:59:23am
117
HappyWarrior  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:00:39am

re: #116 Alephnaught

[Embedded content]

This is why conservatives suck.

118
makeitstop  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:02:43am

re: #98 Eric The Fruit Bat

If there was no Jim Steinman there would be no Meat Loaf - and some of the performances Meat Loaf did were not all that great when compared to Barbara Streisand’s “Left in the Dark” , and Barry Manilow’s “Read ‘em and Weep”

Gotta give Todd Rundgren some credit as well - he essentially bankrolled the Bat Out Of Hell album after every major label initially turned Steinman down, as well as paying his own band to record the tracks.

And as far as Steinman goes, you forgot to include another biggie - Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart.’ All of it is a little overwrought for my tastes, but you can’t argue with success.

119
Barefoot Grin  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:03:41am

re: #94 Eric The Fruit Bat

I’m surprised to hear about Japanese vending machines not willing to take payment cards.

The one thing that was somewhat surprising is that our domestic carriers are shifting from using Tokyo-Nartia and are now landing at Tokyo-Haneda. Delta (nee Northwest) used to use NRT as its Asian hub, but no more.

My last two trips have been into Haneda as well. I like it.

120
HappyWarrior  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:04:17am

re: #105 Rightwingconspirator

If Bush had not gotten away with the falsehoods about Iraq and WMD’s we would not be in this damn mess now.

God it makes me so furious to see Pence spreading outright and easily disproved lies about 9/11 to justify this.

121
BigPapa  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:07:34am
122
Alephnaught  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:10:15am

I was seeing on social media last week that apparently there are a number of people who thought the Year 2000 Bug was some make up thing, because nothing happened when 2000 came around, as opposed to the reality, that a lot of people worked to mitigate the effects.

A week later- some of those fixes were short term enough to fall over when 2020 comes around.

123
Rightwingconspirator  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:12:16am

re: #122 Alephnaught

I just googled that, and parking meters are impacted. I just have no tears to shed, lol.

124
Quoth the raven, Covfefe.  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:12:48am

re: #122 Alephnaught

I was seeing on social media last week that apparently there are a number of people who thought the Year 2000 Bug was some make up thing, because nothing happened when 2000 came around, as opposed to the reality, that a lot of people worked to mitigate the effects.

A week later- some of those fixes were short term enough to fall over when 2020 comes around.

I saw this story on Fark and actually thought it was some kind of joke. I mean, who’d be stupid and short-sighted enough to think that systems built in the 1970’s, being modernized after 30 years to avoid the original Y2K bug, would have been replaced in 20 years?

Ugh. This is why us software people can’t have nice things. Because stupid cowboys run around and “fix” stuff for obscene amounts of money and do a half-assed job of it.

125
William Lewis  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:14:33am

re: #122 Alephnaught

Just wait till we get closer to the Unix Time Overflow (Y2038). With all this warning you’d think it would be fixed already but … nope.

126
Blind Frog Belly White  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:14:58am

re: #105 Rightwingconspirator

If Bush had not gotten away with the falsehoods about Iraq and WMD’s we would not be in this damn mess now.

I blame Saddam, at least in part. Seriously - he knew that if anyone knew how weak he actually was, he’d be done for. So he portrayed himself as having cheated and kept his core WMD programs and having rebuilt his stocks, when he had done nothing of the sort.

And I blame America for buying into it. We forget, but even opponents of the war thought Saddam had the weapons. They just didn’t think it was worth going to war over, or they were concerned about the aftermath. This is why Hans Blix was ridiculed for not finding what wasn’t there - because pretty much everyone thought it was.

I don’t even know that Bush himself actually lied. I think he “knew” Saddam had the WMDs and so he believed every single shred of evidence for them no matter how flimsy, and didn’t believe any evidence no matter how solid to the contrary. We went to war for Confirmation Bias.

That’s the problem with Conservatism, BTW. It attracts and depends on people who “know” things even in the face of overwhelming counterevidence, because so much of Conservatism is bullshit.

127
Quoth the raven, Covfefe.  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:15:59am

re: #125 William Lewis

Just wait till we get closer to the Unix Time Overflow (Y2038). With all this warning you’d think it would be fixed already but … nope.

Pretty sure a large number of Unix derivatives have already upgraded their datetime type to 64 bits.

128
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:17:27am

re: #124 Quoth the raven, Covfefe.

I saw this story on Fark and actually thought it was some kind of joke. I mean, who’d be stupid and short-sighted enough to think that systems built in the 1970’s, being modernized after 30 years to avoid the original Y2K bug, would have been replaced in 20 years?

Ugh. This is why us software people can’t have nice things. Because stupid cowboys run around and “fix” stuff for obscene amounts of money and do a half-assed job of it.

To be fair, those “cowboys” probably just did the job for which they were paid by cheap-ass companies that told themselves in 1999 that by 2020 they’d either A) be out of business, B) have spent the money to upgrade their systems, or C) would just find another cheap fix to postpone the inevitable.

129
William Lewis  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:17:36am

re: #127 Quoth the raven, Covfefe.

Pretty sure a large number of Unix derivatives have already upgraded their datetime type to 64 bits.

Boat load of embedded systems that haven’t though. Including any 32 bit Android systems, forex.

130
makeitstop  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:17:40am

re: #99 BigPapa

Rage With the Machine

[Embedded content]

A friend’s son plays guitar and he answered a cattle call for a band a few years ago. They were ready to give him the gig, but first they explained that the band had conservative leanings and that he had to sign an NDA before rehearsals started stopping him from telling anyone what the band was about. He turned them down and left.

Turns out it was these guys.

131
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:20:43am

re: #79 Colère Tueur de Lapin

The elder soon and I can’t figure out if this is a right-wingers attempt at humor or what it’s supposed to be. I’m good with it.

[Embedded content]

Somebody should just stick to writing Penthouse Letters!

132
PhillyPretzel  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:20:59am

re: #130 makeitstop

I do not blame him one bit.

133
mmmirele  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:21:26am

re: #94 Eric The Fruit Bat

I’m surprised to hear about Japanese vending machines not willing to take payment cards.

The one thing that was somewhat surprising is that our domestic carriers are shifting from using Tokyo-Nartia and are now landing at Tokyo-Haneda. Delta (nee Northwest) used to use NRT as its Asian hub, but no more.

I am surprised about that as well. Haneda is much closer to Tokyo, however. If Delta is moving to Haneda, maybe they’re trying to capture international business traffic that needs to get into Tokyo faster than tourists.

I’ve not been through either airport, having gone through Kansai International in Osaka both times. (Nice airport, btw.) My next trip (hopefully in May) will be to the Tokyo region, so I will likely fly into one of those airports.

134
Quoth the raven, Covfefe.  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:21:56am

re: #128 Targetpractice

To be fair, those “cowboys” probably just did the job for which they were paid by cheap-ass companies that told themselves in 1999 that by 2020 they’d either A) be out of business, B) have spent the money to upgrade their systems, or C) would just find another cheap fix to postpone the inevitable.

Or they were sold a false bill of goods by someone who was on the take. The 1990’s was a very competitive place for software houses, and people can - and did - take advantage of the desperate need for Y2K fixes by shelling out big bucks for bad patches.

135
HappyWarrior  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:21:59am

re: #126 Blind Frog Belly White

I blame Saddam, at least in part. Seriously - he knew that if anyone knew how weak he actually was, he’d be done for. So he portrayed himself as having cheated and kept his core WMD programs and having rebuilt his stocks, when he had done nothing of the sort.

And I blame America for buying into it. We forget, but even opponents of the war thought Saddam had the weapons. They just didn’t think it was worth going to war over, or they were concerned about the aftermath. This is why Hans Blix was ridiculed for not finding what wasn’t there - because pretty much everyone thought it was.

I don’t even know that Bush himself actually lied. I think he “knew” Saddam had the WMDs and so he believed every single shred of evidence for them no matter how flimsy, and didn’t believe any evidence no matter how solid to the contrary. We went to war for Confirmation Bias.

That’s the problem with Conservatism, BTW. It attracts and depends on people who “know” things even in the face of overwhelming counterevidence, because so much of Conservatism is bullshit.

For me it was knowing Iraq was a multiethnic and multi religious state that would have chaos if invaded.

136
makeitstop  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:22:59am

re: #132 PhillyPretzel

I do not blame him one bit.

That band was horrible. Apparently they’re still at it. Who knows who the hell they’re playing for, though.

137
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:23:36am

If you’re saying to yourself “How can any business not have fixed this problem in 20 years?,” think about it this way: The IRS couldn’t process electronic tax returns 2 years ago because the Rube Goldberg-esque interface built to allow modern-ish computers to interface with a computer built in the 1960s to handle all the nation’s tax information had a minor bug that the big-wigs decided wasn’t serious enough to pay the programmers to squash until the entire system went down.

Or, to put it another way, the major hotel chain I work with has thousands of hotels still using a Property Management System that looks like it was “new” when Reagan was in office.

138
Quoth the raven, Covfefe.  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:24:20am

re: #129 William Lewis

Boat load of embedded systems that haven’t though. Including any 32 bit Android systems, forex.

That work is underway, according to the wiki page.

139
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:24:38am

re: #122 Alephnaught

I was seeing on social media last week that apparently there are a number of people who thought the Year 2000 Bug was some make up thing, because nothing happened when 2000 came around, as opposed to the reality, that a lot of people worked to mitigate the effects.

A week later- some of those fixes were short term enough to fall over when 2020 comes around.

[Embedded content]

Should have gone to Julian date representation

140
mmmirele  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:26:30am

re: #122 Alephnaught

I was seeing on social media last week that apparently there are a number of people who thought the Year 2000 Bug was some make up thing, because nothing happened when 2000 came around, as opposed to the reality, that a lot of people worked to mitigate the effects.

A week later- some of those fixes were short term enough to fall over when 2020 comes around.

[Embedded content]

I had one of those this week at work!

bU9IecwjLTYF9f98kfiVth0AfRjnfgTPvS3uA8MiB+fOLWAlXZ3K5oejKbalup+pfE4lWX4OTqMibrBVNSZ3ArDTET3ua6RDgBGuOjtGBrZQinow71995zdcAVAKZoEYMLJiIiP9W2FFl0/kxTkMGkczEhODCtPvgJEJVL8IJbs2ltnpyu/3IMG3RKvlBdGi16a/Jrf5fzjBbZFLNFzm4a6GzKRImRuTlGDJmQeHEkH91ztT8taojipw3sHS7K+ZicgnQl1daTS3YypXrTelouaHxBPGOwP+nWJJ4ca2E3FVBR3DgvjfCUKjs54zoxhMOK+M79+NlVezs3Pxom9eJLJ7u8VP4HDImHdg58+n7j37fb3lmRlWejfscteNEPTktR0tOMncZYjSG4BiRxTTpg==

141
Pawn of the Oppressor  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:27:01am

re: #116 Alephnaught

[Embedded content]

This is for the People of the Gun!

“Madison Rising”? I saw that movie. It had a surprise plot twist.

Wikipedia page there reads like one of those wine labels covered in copy. (I have a rule of thumb developed years ago that lots of verbiage on a wine label does not indicate a good product.)

142
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:28:38am

re: #136 makeitstop

That band was horrible. Apparently they’re still at it. Who knows who the hell they’re playing for, though.

They probably have a gig at the Branson Bowling Lounge with Dennis Miller as their warmup act…

143
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:29:09am

re: #137 Targetpractice

If you’re saying to yourself “How can any business not have fixed this problem in 20 years?,” think about it this way: The IRS couldn’t process electronic tax returns 2 years ago because the Rube Goldberg-esque interface built to allow modern-ish computers to interface with a computer built in the 1960s to handle all the nation’s tax information had a minor bug that the big-wigs decided wasn’t serious enough to pay the programmers to squash until the entire system went down.

Or, to put it another way, the major hotel chain I work with has thousands of hotels still using a Property Management System that looks like it was “new” when Reagan was in office.

It’s mostly head in the sand climate denial thinking
Nope not an issue, so no budget and we won’t do anything until there’s an ‘actual’ problem

144
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:30:14am

145
William Lewis  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:30:38am

re: #137 Targetpractice

If you’re saying to yourself “How can any business not have fixed this problem in 20 years?,” think about it this way: The IRS couldn’t process electronic tax returns 2 years ago because the Rube Goldberg-esque interface built to allow modern-ish computers to interface with a computer built in the 1960s to handle all the nation’s tax information had a minor bug that the big-wigs decided wasn’t serious enough to pay the programmers to squash until the entire system went down.

Or, to put it another way, the major hotel chain I work with has thousands of hotels still using a Property Management System that looks like it was “new” when Reagan was in office.

OPERA! God what a POS from Oracle. I used it at an old hotel I was at then went to work for Comfort Suites. We had the wonderful completely online system that was fast, reliable & everything you could want. Then the owners changed franchise to Holiday Inn Express and they said we’d get this wonderful NEW PMS system.

I took about a week before the rest of the staff understood why I started swearing a blue streak at that moment…

146
Blind Frog Belly White  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:31:13am

re: #135 HappyWarrior

For me it was knowing Iraq was a multiethnic and multi religious state that would have chaos if invaded.

I’ll be honest, I thought they were probably there. I was disturbed however, when the fact that the UN inspections couldn’t find anything was used as evidence that Saddam was hiding them.

I was also concerned about what happens to a multi-sect state that had been kept “united” under a strongman when that strongman is gone. Yugoslavia was still fresh in our memory. My take home lesson from the fall of the Warsaw Pact, and of Tito’s Yugoslavia, is that while we in the West liked to imagine a freedom-loving population of Lech Walesas and Nelson Mandelas, it seemed like the first thing a newly freed people ever thought about was how much they HATE that guy who’s different from them that they had to be nice to while the strongman was alive.

147
retired cynic  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:31:35am

A Blizzard of Tumbleweeds Caused a 10-Hour Traffic Jam in Washington State

Amazing!

COME WINTER, SALT TRUCKS AND snowplows try their best to protect drivers from slick roads. But a few days ago, on New Year’s Eve, a stretch of highway near Richland, Washington, was faced with a different sort of winter foe: Not a blizzard or an ice storm, but a terrible confetti of thousands of tumbleweeds. Officials dispatched snowplows to wrangle them.

Some heaps were 20 feet tall! Twenty miles of the road were shut down for 10 hours! They used snowplows, but couldn’t feed them into wood chippers or burn them. So they used the trucks to throw them into the air, to let the high winds blow them on.

148
William Lewis  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:32:13am

re: #140 mmmirele

I had one of those this week at work!

[Embedded content]

HFRb/BZPiO8Wos88FOkN81IQUavJAS6nywKDOy1tpe21dLNNDEwjaCxPvhX9jKyLJOPF031Kb14=

149
Hecuba's daughter  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:32:55am

re: #139 Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)

Should have gone to Julian date representation

In the beginning, the problem was system limits, such as a maximum of 4096 for record length. So earlier programmers were forced to use 2 digit years. But when you have millions of lines of code written by people who have long left the firm, updating this code without introducing new errors was a herculean task that took years. My sister worked with someone who was one of these cowboys — fastest programmer she knew. Unfortunately, it was spaghetti-code so that no one else was able to decipher what he had done and so subtle errors crept in that often wouldn’t emerge until months or even years later.

150
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:35:25am

re: #143 Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)

It’s mostly head in the sand climate denial thinking
Nope not an issue, so no budget and we won’t do anything until there’s an ‘actual’ problem

It’s the corporate mentality that says it would be too much of a “disruption” to do the necessary upgrades, even if those upgrades are little more than a software update to all the relevant systems, and so they can just continue to putter along until the disruption caused by the actual problem is great enough that business has come to a halt.

151
mmmirele  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:36:29am

More on dates…

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

152
Danack  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:36:31am

re: #126 Blind Frog Belly White

So he portrayed himself as having cheated and kept his core WMD programs and having rebuilt his stocks, when he had done nothing of the sort.

My memory is that the situation is slightly different and even more stupid than that.

Hussein had realised that the chemical weapons could be used as a pretext for war by the US, and that as he thought that Iran was unlikely to start a war with Iraq, and he didn’t want to start another war with Iran, he had the chemical weapons destroyed in secret, mostly by the method of pouring the precursor chemicals out onto the sand, where they quickly decomposed in the Sun.

When the inspectors came along to inspect them, the Iraqis truthfully told them “we don’t have them any more, we poured them out onto the sand.” And so the inspectors were trying to measure residual chemicals in the sand…..which could never provide a definitive confirmation of whether they had been actually destroyed or not.

There was literally nothing the Iraqis could do to ‘prove’ that the stock piles had been destroyed.

And I blame America for buying into it.

Tony Blair, the un-prosecuted war criminal, also deserves a share of the blame.

153
BigPapa  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:38:18am

This is beyond detestable.

154
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:39:41am

re: #145 William Lewis

OPERA! God what a POS from Oracle. I used it at an old hotel I was at then went to work for Comfort Suites. We had the wonderful completely online system that was fast, reliable & everything you could want. Then the owners changed franchise to Holiday Inn Express and they said we’d get this wonderful NEW PMS system.

I took about a week before the rest of the staff understood why I started swearing a blue streak at that moment…

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

155
Blind Frog Belly White  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:45:16am

re: #153 BigPapa

This is beyond detestable.

[Embedded content]

The smaller the percentage of the population who ever actually serve in the military, the more we lionize them, but also the more willing we are to send them off to kill and die for causes we can’t even define anymore. We worship the idea of them, while spending their lives like pocket change.

Our involvement in Vietnam was ended because guys we all knew were being drafted and sent over to die for a cause we didn’t really care that much about, with no end in sight. But we’ve been in Afghanistan for WAY longer than we were ever in Vietnam, and where are the protest marches?

156
BlueGrl21  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:48:26am

re: #153 BigPapa

This is beyond detestable.

[Embedded content]

I’ve seen this one around a couple of times….I live in a Houston metro city/suburb that is in transition to blue (women and minorities driving it) and some of the white male red necks in their trucks are getting pretty stirred up. Oh well.

It’s another sign to me that we’re winning here.

157
William Lewis  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:48:35am

re: #154 Targetpractice

[Embedded content]

rc2GvWA2deUWph+qVX2qqZ8NikwMOqiRDH098Nyw0G4C+51ZvZ7E33fOS9c736hSfUwspB3psh8TCxiVWmkt2iF/g4Yq04RLfhF74Sok7Qh6jMSerz1Ic1QO4l2bEVFARl2pXY9eJ4NzwQEK/XSBdNK0rH/kVLbJAwLRRHUN1BZzLE78lRaMwcDgUPU+k6NMgVkuGQFhsoJmXa09nq7ejg==

158
A hollow voice says, Guilty, guilty, guilty!  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:49:53am

re: #137 Targetpractice

If you’re saying to yourself “How can any business not have fixed this problem in 20 years?,” think about it this way: The IRS couldn’t process electronic tax returns 2 years ago because the Rube Goldberg-esque interface built to allow modern-ish computers to interface with a computer built in the 1960s to handle all the nation’s tax information had a minor bug that the big-wigs decided wasn’t serious enough to pay the programmers to squash until the entire system went down.

Or, to put it another way, the major hotel chain I work with has thousands of hotels still using a Property Management System that looks like it was “new” when Reagan was in office.

We used to say that the payroll system at the university was unhackable, because it was installed on a brand-new computer in the 1960’s (PDP-12?), and there was no-one who knew how anymore). I believe it was still in use the last temp job I did there a couple of years ago. And they were swearing that THIS TIME it was really going to disappear in the upcoming overhaul.

159
mmmirele  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:50:20am

re: #148 William Lewis

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

160
William Lewis  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:51:23am

re: #155 Blind Frog Belly White

The smaller the percentage of the population who ever actually serve in the military, the more we lionize them, but also the more willing we are to send them off to kill and die for causes we can’t even define anymore. We worship the idea of them, while spending their lives like pocket change.

Our involvement in Vietnam was ended because guys we all knew were being drafted and sent over to die for a cause we didn’t really care that much about, with no end in sight. But we’ve been in Afghanistan for WAY longer than we were ever in Vietnam, and where are the protest marches?

O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”;
But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play,

161
Barefoot Grin  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:53:02am

Meat fuckin’ Loaf.

162
William Lewis  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:55:44am

re: #159 mmmirele

[Embedded content]

HIPD3z9PoFMhElbGTBwBgJihTlxewY83+aO7Hwa0umKR2m2tfB695vmtqt1SrLC3zfJ4kRmzmc01s+XqTLe0TdHgPmUq3oI/h6498EvHQGeF2maQvmf2BpueuMSb1N5LWO3kDvz/Tn69B5e8RokQPlAAJlC5r9PnwrHN3wbf8eW2yVJNGWdxEKAubyMYMBsqfFgGWs+r7W5CXFIaim7pE6bXi6W0Vu1kUaj0iRNKT7EpQk+wtB06DD7u/QES4/y9v31yBBlXkTNWwwTl7Zzv9ZPUN6EV+TcohZ8hLidQ3Q9DpoNFJOCzmCWMdtBo2x9ryYw2sSgiYzjcBqa/vCm2t5sMdbDQEySS

163
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 9:58:29am

re: #155 Blind Frog Belly White

The smaller the percentage of the population who ever actually serve in the military, the more we lionize them, but also the more willing we are to send them off to kill and die for causes we can’t even define anymore. We worship the idea of them, while spending their lives like pocket change.

Our involvement in Vietnam was ended because guys we all knew were being drafted and sent over to die for a cause we didn’t really care that much about, with no end in sight. But we’ve been in Afghanistan for WAY longer than we were ever in Vietnam, and where are the protest marches?

Well, one argument could be because the situation in Afghanistan is not as much of a shooting war as Vietnam was and ceased being that way years ago. To put it in perspective, “Americanization” of the Vietnam War started in ‘64/’65 and the Tet Offensive (when public opinion shifted to viewing the war as “lost”) was in ‘68, with the Paris Peace Accords another 5 years away in ‘73 and the Fall of Saigon in ‘75.

By contrast, the official shooting war in Afghanistan started in Oct ‘01 and the Taliban was declared “defeated” by Dec of the same year. The transition gov’t was set up the following year and the first democratic elections held in ‘04. Unlike the early days of the insurgency when you had events like truck bombs being driven into buildings or mortar strikes happening within the boundaries of major cities, the low-grade fighting that has become the norm since has lulled the public into believing that what’s happening there is “normal.”

164
Dread Pirate  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:00:51am
165
Blind Frog Belly White  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:01:30am

I’m seeing people calling the assassination of Suleimani ‘illegal’ and others saying that it is legal under international law, rules of war, Geneva convention, et al., and a concomitant debate over whether we have opened ourselves to assassinations by killing Iran’s top general, and it strikes me that the whole discussion is stupid.

Iran hasn’t been following the Geneva Convention or the ‘rules of war’, because they’ve been fighting an asymmetrical war. Are they suddenly going to start following the ‘rules’?

No.

The ‘rules’ in this conflict are not rules. They’re just the limits beyond which each feels it can’t go without damaging its cause. If we exceed the limits we had previously adhered to, Iran will exceed the limits THEY’D adhered to.

The “Chicago Way” from The Untouchables - “They put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue” - SOUNDS good, and makes you feel tough, but you don’t get to control how the other side responds.

166
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:01:58am

re: #164 Dread Pirate

[Embedded content]

Wait, that can’t be! We were assured by Dear Leader that Soleimani was majorly unpopular with the people of the region and that they were celebrating his death! Pompeo showed video of people celebrating! HOW CAN THIS BE?!

//////////

167
Blind Frog Belly White  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:03:22am

re: #166 Targetpractice

Wait, that can’t be! We were assured by Dear Leader that Soleimani was majorly unpopular with the people of the region and that they were celebrating his death! Pompeo showed video of people celebrating! HOW CAN THIS BE?!

//////////

You mean we WON’T be welcomed as liberators? Who’d have thought?
/////

168
mmmirele  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:04:11am

re: #161 Barefoot Grin

Meat fuckin’ Loaf.

or, as the New York Times calls him, Mr. Loaf.

169
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:05:28am

re: #149 Hecuba’s daughter

In the beginning, the problem was system limits, such as a maximum of 4096 for record length. So earlier programmers were forced to use 2 digit years. But when you have millions of lines of code written by people who have long left the firm, updating this code without introducing new errors was a herculean task that took years. My sister worked with someone who was one of these cowboys — fastest programmer she knew. Unfortunately, it was spaghetti-code so that no one else was able to decipher what he had done and so subtle errors crept in that often wouldn’t emerge until months or even years later.

iirc storing a full date with a 2 digit year took 6 bytes (yymmdd) or whatever

storing a julian integer a) took less and b) didnt have any limitations or cutoffs (y2k), at least for financial and integrated accounting purposes (ie that didnt have to go back further than say 1800 or in the future more than 500 years)

p.s. i havent programmed in years

170
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:06:10am

Meat Loaf willingly agreed to star in an Uwe Boll film. So I can’t say that his decision-making skills are all that great.

171
marcusgorillius  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:06:47am

re: #90 makeitstop

Meatloaf is an idiot.

172
Dread Pirate  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:06:56am
173
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:07:16am

re: #153 BigPapa

This is beyond detestable.

[Embedded content]

the first amendment writ large and stupid

174
Blind Frog Belly White  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:07:22am

re: #163 Targetpractice

Well, one argument could be because the situation in Afghanistan is not as much of a shooting war as Vietnam was and ceased being that way years ago. To put it in perspective, “Americanization” of the Vietnam War started in ‘64/’65 and the Tet Offensive (when public opinion shifted to viewing the war as “lost”) was in ‘68, with the Paris Peace Accords another 5 years away in ‘73 and the Fall of Saigon in ‘75.

By contrast, the official shooting war in Afghanistan started in Oct ‘01 and the Taliban was declared “defeated” by Dec of the same year. The transition gov’t was set up the following year and the first democratic elections held in ‘04. Unlike the early days of the insurgency when you had events like truck bombs being driven into buildings or mortar strikes happening within the boundaries of major cities, the low-grade fighting that has become the norm since has lulled the public into believing that what’s happening there is “normal.”

Yes, that’s true. But we’re now accustomed to Americans dying in ones and twos every week or so. It doesn’t even make a ripple anymore. And then there are all those who have served multiple deployments over years. Vietnam, if you got out alive, you were OUT!

175
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:08:35am

re: #155 Blind Frog Belly White

The smaller the percentage of the population who ever actually serve in the military, the more we lionize them, but also the more willing we are to send them off to kill and die for causes we can’t even define anymore. We worship the idea of them, while spending their lives like pocket change.

Our involvement in Vietnam was ended because guys we all knew were being drafted and sent over to die for a cause we didn’t really care that much about, with no end in sight. But we’ve been in Afghanistan for WAY longer than we were ever in Vietnam, and where are the protest marches?

we’re creating a sort of samurai or ‘warrior’ class, though something seems to be missing

176
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:08:42am

I’m not surprised that Booby Nincompoopo was told and he probably told Shithead to not say a word to Nancy or Chuck…

177
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:10:09am

re: #174 Blind Frog Belly White

Yes, that’s true. But we’re now accustomed to Americans dying in ones and twos every week or so. It doesn’t even make a ripple anymore. And then there are all those who have served multiple deployments over years. Vietnam, if you got out alive, you were OUT!

That’s what happens with an all-volunteer military, you can not only ignore the steady drip of body bags by saying “They knew what they were getting into when they signed the contract!”, you can also lionize the shambling wrecks of men who return as “heroes” because they willingly agreed to serve knowing they could end up maimed for life.

178
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:10:24am

re: #170 Targetpractice

Meat Loaf willingly agreed to star in an Uwe Boll film. So I can’t say that his decision-making skills are all that great.

That says it all.

179
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:10:35am

re: #166 Targetpractice

Wait, that can’t be! We were assured by Dear Leader that Soleimani was majorly unpopular with the people of the region and that they were celebrating his death! Pompeo showed video of people celebrating! HOW CAN THIS BE?!

//////////

didnt even take a full week

180
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:12:14am

re: #176 Joe Bacon 🌹

I’m not surprised that Booby Nincompoopo was told and he probably told Shithead to not say a word to Nancy or Chuck…

[Embedded content]

The citrus-colored douchebag was going around his private golf club and telling the patrons that he’d ordered Soleimani’s death. The idea that he couldn’t go to Congress for any reason other than a bruised ego is laughable.

181
Eclectic Cyborg  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:12:20am

re: #176 Joe Bacon 🌹

I’m not surprised that Booby Nincompoopo was told and he probably told Shithead to not say a word to Nancy or Chuck…

[Embedded content]

Israel knew. Russia knew, KSA probably knew, Trumps kids knew.

But the proper parties in the U.S. Government did NOT KNOW.

182
Dread Pirate  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:14:02am
183
Shiplord Kirel, Friend of Moose and Squirrel  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:14:19am

Follow-up to this story from last month.

Case dismissed after 3,350 pounds of hemp in U-Haul mistaken for marijuana
The driver, one Aneudy Gonzales, has been released from jail in Amarillo, where he had been locked up since December 9th.

Court documents say Gonzalez was also stopped by police in Arizona but was let go when they determined the load to be legal hemp. The same documents say a DEA agent testified not knowing about Texas House Bill 1325, which explains Texas’ hemp law and was confused thinking that the limit for THC in hemp was .03 percent, when according to the law, it’s .3 percent.

So, Goober narc didn’t know the allowable percentage (or possibly doesn’t know the difference between .3 and .03) and couldn’t be bothered to check before he tossed an Innocent man in jail. Needlesss to say, Aneudy plans to sue.

184
Dread Pirate  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:16:16am
185
PhillyPretzel  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:18:43am

re: #184 Dread Pirate

Why am I not surprised?

186
Barefoot Grin  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:19:03am

re: #181 Eclectic Cyborg

Israel knew. Russia knew, KSA probably knew, Trumps kids knew.

But the proper parties in the U.S. Government did NOT KNOW.

A post from a Pakistani-American friend on FB thinks now that it was likely done at MBS’s behest. General consensus from his other Pakistani and Pakistani-American friends.

187
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:20:35am

re: #180 Targetpractice

The citrus-colored douchebag was going around his private golf club and telling the patrons that he’d ordered Soleimani’s death. The idea that he couldn’t go to Congress for any reason other than a bruised ego is laughable.

The argument will be “I don’t trust the Dems not to leak…”

188
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:20:53am

re: #184 Dread Pirate

[Embedded content]

You mean they aren’t tossing flowers and singing praises in front of the embassy?

189
Blind Frog Belly White  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:22:04am

re: #187 Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)

The argument will be “I don’t trust the Dems not to leak…”

Yeah, because lord knows, Trump is discretion’s very soul.
/////

190
BigPapa  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:22:16am

Odds are super high Iran will pull a Doolittle raid then buckle down and get to work.

191
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:23:02am

I‘m just waiting with baited breath to see what’s the next move The Heinous Anus makes that fucks us even further…

192
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:24:04am

re: #187 Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)

The argument will be “I don’t trust the Dems not to leak…”

He kept everybody in Congress who mattered out of the loop, though he made sure that Leningrad Lindsey got a heads-up.

193
Hecuba's daughter  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:24:11am

re: #169 Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)

iirc storing a full date with a 2 digit year took 6 bytes (yymmdd) or whatever

storing a julian integer a) took less and b) didnt have any limitations or cutoffs (y2k), at least for financial and integrated accounting purposes (ie that didnt have to go back further than say 1800 or in the future more than 500 years)

p.s. i havent programmed in years

Don’t Julian dates take 8 characters: yyyymmdd. At least that’s how they would have been transmitted from our clients.

In any case, rewriting major systems in a new language is an especial nightmare. You cannot translate the original code — you have to get detailed new specs; the original specs never contain all the patches made over the years. It takes years to rewrite, test, and replace big systems. And things never go as planned

194
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:26:21am

re: #190 BigPapa

Odds are super high Iran will pull a Doolittle raid then buckle down and get to work.

I said the other night that if they really want to punch us in the gut, they could stage another attack on Saudi oil fields/refineries through their intermediaries. The disruption to the international oil market would do more damage to Trump than the death of Americans abroad, would actually make their own exports more valuable on the market, and leave Trump with no obvious target to go after.

195
retired cynic  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:26:23am

re: #191 Joe Bacon 🌹

Upding for The Heinous Anus

196
Eventual Carrion  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:29:40am

re: #122 Alephnaught

I was seeing on social media last week that apparently there are a number of people who thought the Year 2000 Bug was some make up thing, because nothing happened when 2000 came around, as opposed to the reality, that a lot of people worked to mitigate the effects.

A week later- some of those fixes were short term enough to fall over when 2020 comes around.

[Embedded content]

Yep. I was in charge of making sure all of our hospital equipment would change over to 2000 without issue pretty much the whole year of 1999. One manufacturer wanted me to pass a piece of equipment that they were fixing that way and I told them no. Wonder how many other hospitals just gave in and have been having problems with the equipment the last few days.

197
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:30:46am

re: #194 Targetpractice

I said the other night that if they really want to punch us in the gut, they could stage another attack on Saudi oil fields/refineries through their intermediaries. The disruption to the international oil market would do more damage to Trump than the death of Americans abroad, would actually make their own exports more valuable on the market, and** leave Trump with no obvious target to go after***.

I’m guessing that’s not a factor

198
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:31:19am

re: #99 BigPapa

Rage With the Machine

[Embedded content]

Virality of the Will.

199
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:35:12am

Oh, Mr. Loaf…once you were hot shit but now you’re just a cold turd!

200
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:35:32am

re: #186 Barefoot Grin

A post from a Pakistani-American friend on FB thinks now that it was likely done at MBS’s behest. General consensus from his other Pakistani and Pakistani-American friends.

Flimsy intelligence is seized upon when it’s Iran.

Rock solid intelligence is utterly denounced when its Russia

201
Charles Johnson  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:35:38am
202
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:36:36am
203
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:37:04am
204
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:37:40am

re: #203 Joe Bacon 🌹

205
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:37:40am
206
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:38:23am

Nasty Servile Dupes Against The Dem Machine

207
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:38:55am

re: #201 Charles Johnson

[Embedded content]

He wouldn’t have received permission because “I NEED OINTMENT FOR MY BRUISED EGO!!!” is not enough of a reason to endanger national security.

208
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:43:11am

209
PhillyPretzel  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:44:42am

re: #208 Joe Bacon 🌹

I agree. Well done.

210
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:45:49am
211
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:47:50am

re: #195 retired cynic

Upding for The Heinous Anus

and

re: #180 Targetpractice

The citrus-colored douchebag was going around his private golf club and telling the patrons that he’d ordered Soleimani’s death. The idea that he couldn’t go to Congress for any reason other than a bruised ego is laughable.

212
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:52:19am

The “imminent threat” bit was spun up for the same reason that we’re told Trump could violate the law to put a hold on the Ukrainian assistance funds: It’s an after-the-fact excuse for a totally impulsive action. He was never going to get Congressional approval, which is what the law requires him to seek for such acts. So he put his underlings to the task of coming up with an excuse and the best they could do was shit out this paper-thin “imminent threat” justification that they can avoid going into by mumbling about “national security” and “classified intel.”

213
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:53:50am

214
Barefoot Grin  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:54:57am

re: #212 Targetpractice

The “imminent threat” bit was spun up for the same reason that we’re told Trump could violate the law to put a hold on the Ukrainian assistance funds: It’s an after-the-fact excuse for a totally impulsive action. He was never going to get Congressional approval, which is what the law requires him to seek for such acts. So he put his underlings to the task of coming up with an excuse and the best they could do was shit out this paper-thin “imminent threat” justification that they can avoid going into by mumbling about “national security” and “classified intel.”

Yep, that’s why no one at DoD can or will talk about it (and some mumbo jumbo about “sources and methods”): they’re still trying to piece together a plausible justification and can’t.

215
Charles Johnson  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:56:51am
216
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 10:59:41am

re: #215 Charles Johnson

[Embedded content]

They say this now, versus 2011 when they were screaming that OBL being found and killed didn’t mean anything because Al-Q still existed.

217
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:02:59am

Honestly, they were on better footing by BSing that Soleimani “deserved to die” and so we should be happy that he’s gone. Saying “the world is safer” when Americans are being told to un-ass from Iraq with all possible haste is just laughable by this point. It’s going to look even dumber when Iranian proxy groups start to hit us outside Iraq’s borders.

218
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:03:47am
219
jaunte  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:05:05am
220
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:06:29am

re: #193 Hecuba’s daughter

Don’t Julian dates take 8 characters: yyyymmdd. At least that’s how they would have been transmitted from our clients.

In any case, rewriting major systems in a new language is an especial nightmare. You cannot translate the original code — you have to get detailed new specs; the original specs never contain all the patches made over the years. It takes years to rewrite, test, and replace big systems. And things never go as planned

i just pulled out some old documentation and source code (don’t ask).

it was the late 80’s and we were writing financial accounting software in a 4GL.
It stored dates on disk as 2 digit julian integers.

All date manipulation - adding days to dates, comparing dates, calculating days between dates, was simple integer math. no string extracts or concats etc., though there were functions if you needed a month, day or year. Date sorts too, were trivial because they were just numbers.

The 4GL automatically converted to whatever your desired mask format for screen display and reports.

we started using the system in ‘84. we didnt choose that 4GL because of the ease and power of manipulating dates this way. we were lucky.

in 1999 we sat back smiling and smug because we didnt have to do anything for y2k. we werent nearly that prescient, though we had fun pretending to be.

im off to bail some water out of the greatpoolpondconversion that doesnt belong there

221
Barefoot Grin  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:08:17am

Whenever republicans do things like obstruct gun reform or support illegal military actions they claim “now is not the time for politics.”

222
Dread Pirate  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:09:00am

Fuck off, Chad.

223
Targetpractice  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:09:37am

re: #221 Barefoot Grin

Whenever republicans do things like obstruct gun reform or support illegal military actions they claim “now is not the time for politics.”

That’s usually because their argument is so weak that there’s no chance in hell it could withstand scrutiny. They want blind obedience, not a serious discussion of just how fucked they are.

224
Dread Pirate  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:10:36am
225
Alephnaught  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:26:21am

re: #222 Dread Pirate

[Embedded content]

Fuck off, Chad.

“Chad Wolf”? That sounds like either a pron non-de-plume, or the name of the “manly” protagonist in a right wing pulp fiction.

Seriously, Chad Wolf? Is that his actual birth name?

226
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:26:47am

re: #224 Dread Pirate

And The Usual Assholes are in Obama Attack Mode.

227
PhillyPretzel  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:32:00am

re: #226 Joe Bacon 🌹

He has been out of office for almost 4 years and they still attack him. Oy Vey.

228
Teddy's Person  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:33:04am

re: #224 Dread Pirate

[Embedded content]

JFC, irony and logic share a burial plot. What exactly is private citizen Obama supposed to do? But okay, I’ll play along. Imagine Trump calling Obama for some advice …

229
Eclectic Cyborg  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:35:03am

This is all a bad dream right?

I am going to wake up soon and listen to President Clinton announce an awesome new healthcare law and cheaper tuition and the expansion of the EPA.

Right?

//

230
William Lewis  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:40:03am

Another photography blat behind the lock.

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

231
Dread Pirate  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:42:53am

Trump does realize Iraq is 2/3 Shia Muslim, right?

232
William Lewis  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:44:52am

re: #231 Dread Pirate

I would be surprised if there are more than 5 people (including garderers and cooks) in the white house who could accurately explain the difference between Sunni & Shia much less go into details about the twelvers.

233
Dread Pirate  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:49:41am
234
PhillyPretzel  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:50:24am

re: #229 Eclectic Cyborg

You, me and most of the country. I still say “Madame President” has a nice ring to it.

235
Teddy's Person  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:55:17am

Edit: But Reverend Wright, am I right?

236
retired cynic  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:56:14am

re: #235 Teddy’s Person

not mine!

237
Dread Pirate  Jan 4, 2020 • 11:58:28am
238
Teddy's Person  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:02:36pm
239
Joe Bacon 🌹  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:03:02pm

re: #235 Teddy’s Person

[Embedded content]

Edit: But Reverend Wright, am I right?

Precisely what I expect from Xtians!

240
PhillyPretzel  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:03:49pm

re: #238 Teddy’s Person

Ahh. A cuteness break. Thanks. :)

241
Teddy's Person  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:05:50pm

re: #240 PhillyPretzel

Ahh. A cuteness break. Thanks. :)

I thought we needed one.

242
garzooma  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:12:11pm

re: #215 Charles Johnson

[Embedded content]
Republicans are such pathetic sycophants. Sure, the world is safer, and also EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS TO GET OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. Because the world is so safe now.

…

Arthur Dent:
“Ah. This is obviously some strange usage of the word “safe” that I hadn’t previously been aware of.”

243
Backwoods_Sleuth  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:14:52pm

re: #130 makeitstop

A friend’s son plays guitar and he answered a cattle call for a band a few years ago. They were ready to give him the gig, but first they explained that the band had conservative leanings and that he had to sign an NDA before rehearsals started stopping him from telling anyone what the band was about. He turned them down and left.

Turns out it was these guys.

friend’s son dodged a literal career bullet there.

244
Teddy's Person  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:18:04pm

TFW a stuffed animal comes to life.

245
Backwoods_Sleuth  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:18:34pm

re: #136 makeitstop

That band was horrible. Apparently they’re still at it. Who knows who the hell they’re playing for, though.

Sarah Palin thinks they are just perfect.

really

246
Citizen K  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:25:14pm

I know the saying ‘what’s old is new again’. But I was hoping that would be about 90s nostalgia these days, not a replay of 2002’s war mongering. And yet…

247
Charles Johnson  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:29:11pm
248
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:30:05pm

re: #227 PhillyPretzel

He has been out of office for almost 4 years and they still attack him. Oy Vey.

as if he was in the loop and should have showed some restraint or something

249
makeitstop  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:31:16pm

re: #243 Backwoods_Sleuth

friend’s son dodged a literal career bullet there.

I’m pretty sure he thanks his lucky stars every day that he turned them down.

I’m glad he did, too. But he’s a smart kid (helluva player, to boot), so he can tell a lame gig from a good one. :)

250
Rightwingconspirator  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:32:37pm

re: #230 William Lewis

Another photography blat behind the lock.

[Embedded content]

8Scr4XlcW7pzFK7PteYBMlNNG//wXlSk+eiXakWEHzpYnttkprq3JlvhISrxChhu9yEX+XfGA93L/AjV2Xn0WEirAVtSZ41yrSAO/YKwoXD64jdVb2VKaauB3AFdTu4Eqg0f47QfZz+KMN2YU+5b9O0t0LCQn1PZbY6p0a4HO/eL36NsELXE4KRAKJGbl10JkhtaadSMfafJIT4CHsjmdLrugRtghEm66vco1ERawzHhYARGIBmzQA0+82woqPUzf3uYUAsRM3KuAXppiADwc0WUUcPnwGdJk2xlQKAKHWlJ4/Wayg2yCUiwGE3IeauHbFvXkwwOGJQVnx08RWgEC5CwwSDMi4D9NFKd8zgpx+54QNQDCnCI7Q==

251
Dangerman (misuser of the sarc tag)  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:32:45pm

re: #233 Dread Pirate

like i said yesterday
‘different desk’
because this narrative serves his purpose today

252
makeitstop  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:36:49pm

Besides being a great performer, Pink is a fine human being.

253
Teddy's Person  Jan 4, 2020 • 12:37:57pm

Poor Mikey’s not getting the international response he expected but is getting the response we all anticipated given Trump’s treatment of our traditional allies.

“I spent the last day and a half, two days, talking to partners in the region, sharing with them what we were doing, why we were doing it, seeking their assistance,” Pompeo told Fox News. “They’ve all been fantastic. And then talking to our partners in other places that haven’t been quite as good.

“Frankly, the Europeans haven’t been as helpful as I wish that they could be. The Brits, the French, the Germans all need to understand that what we did, what the Americans did, saved lives in Europe as well.

“Qassem Suleimani led and his IRGC [Revolutionary Guard] led assassination campaigns in Europe. This was a good thing for the entire world, and we are urging everyone in the world to get behind what the United States is trying to do to get the Islamic Republic of Iran to simply behave like a normal nation.”

European reaction to the drone-strike killing of Suleimani and Iraqi Shia militants travelling with him in Baghdad has been cautious and apprehensive. While noting Suleimani’s destructive role in the region, governments have called for restraint.

Source: The Guardian

254
Backwoods_Sleuth  Jan 4, 2020 • 1:00:09pm

re: #171 marcusgorillius

Meatloaf is an idiot.

Explains much why Magenta loved him…

255
Blind Frog Belly White  Jan 4, 2020 • 1:04:58pm

re: #254 Backwoods_Sleuth

Explains much why Magenta loved him…

One wonders why anyone cares what Meatloaf thinks. I mean, he was briefly famous as a singer, then did some solid, workmanlike acting in bit parts later in his career, but he’s an entertainer. There’s no reason to think his political opinion is any more valid than some random goober pulled off the street.

256
Belafon  Jan 4, 2020 • 1:13:33pm

re: #242 garzooma

257
Eventual Carrion  Jan 4, 2020 • 1:15:51pm

re: #164 Dread Pirate

[Embedded content]

Thousands gathered in Baghdad, Iraq, for the funeral procession of General Qassem Soleimani.

Probably more people than were at tRump’s inauguration.

258
Backwoods_Sleuth  Jan 4, 2020 • 1:28:21pm

re: #192 Targetpractice

He kept everybody in Congress who mattered out of the loop, though he made sure that Leningrad Lindsey got a heads-up.

gotta talk about something while on the golf course…


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