“Is François Mitterrand in The Oval Office with us right now, Grandpa?” Finnegan asked gently.
“I met with him, I-I-I tell you,” Joe said, red-in-face and shaking. “He was as real as you sitting in front of me, Ashley.”
“Ashley is my aunt, Grandpa,” Finnegan said.
“He had a message for you, Ashley,” Joe continued. “He said you-you-you should never listen to disco.”
“Disco?” Hunter asked.
“I called him ‘MIttens,’” Joe said. “It was like a nickname. We rassled all the time.”
“What did he say about disco?” Hunter asked, sitting up from the rug he had been curled up on like a diseased cat.
“La discothèque, c’est nul,” Joe said in a high pitched Parisian accent. “Mangez le fameux!”
“I don’t speak Frog,” Hunter said. He has spent most of the morning picking compulsively at scabs. A few lines of dark blood had dried on his arms.
“I’ll take any risk to tie back the hands of time and stay with you here tonight,” Joe half-sang.
“That’s a Styx song,” Hunter said, batting away distractions.
Joe’s eyes darkened and tears began to well.
“Can we give him another injection?” Hunter asked Finnegan.
“Too much and he could have a stroke,” Finnegan said. “We have to wait at least twelve hours.”
“Stroke? How could we tell?” Hunter asked.
“Can we call Karine?” Finnegan asked. “She seems to make him make a little more sense.”
“Only because he thinks Jen Pskai got a really deep tan,” Hunter said, laughing, scratching himself.
Kamala strolled into The Oval Office talking on her phone. “Oh, yeah. I’m going to have the carpet and wallpaper stripped out. Old man smell, you know.” She walked into the Presidential Shitter and slammed the door behind her.
“She fucking has her own office,” Hunter said viciously.
“Corn Pop was one bad dude,” Joe mumbled.
“He’s playing all the hits,” Hunter snorted. “And I still want to know what François Mitterrand said about disco.”
“He said, disco sucks.”
“Disco was great!” Hunter protested. “Cocaine, girls in tight pants, big jungle bushes you had to hack away at to get to the cookie, cocaine…”
“Don’t use ellipses, Dad… you know they make me anxious,” Finnegan said.
“I’m beginning to think your grandfather didn’t actually talk to François Mitterrand at all,” Hunter said skeptically.
François Mitterrand and John McCain just had dinner with Biden at Sambo’s last week.
…Surrounded by the crackle of flames and screams of the damned.
Ronald Reagan told Joe he would be there too, but then he forgot.
*Nancy Reagan floats into the chat*
You know who else was there???
Basically Hitler?
Je vois ce que t’as fait là.
you don’t speak Frog
Quebecoise is close.
My wife would disagree.. She couldn’t really understand a college friend’s Quebecois “French”. they conversed in english..
I find it interesting that the standard Montreal english accent is TV north american. They could understand her accent perfectly, and then switch to English for me.
By comparison?
Interestingly enough, the French have accepted the English word “sucks” into their language. So “disco sucks” would have been proper French.
Another disconcerting juxtaposition.
Disco, disco bush!
I wanna get some disco bush!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7xfOeGa15Q
“Cocaine, girls in tight pants, big jungle bushes you had to hack away at to get to the cookie, cocaine…”
Talk about a flashback. Hunter was born in 1970, so pretty young for the disco scene. In looking that up, I see Wiki refers to him as an attorney (he did graduate from Yale Law), but I didn’t see any reference on a quick scan to him ever getting a license. If not, then no, he is not an attorney.
“Stroke? How could we tell?” Hunter asked.
!!!!!!!!!
A stroke here, a stroke there, and before you know it you’re having a good time.
Billy Squier wrote a song about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69fPof-ZTnU
The Stroke – Billy Squier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69fPof-ZTnU
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!…
Stolen!
Actual quote: “Mrs. Parker, your good friend Calvin Coolidge (Silent Cal) has died.”
Parker – “How can they tell?”
“Stroke? How could we tell?”
Truly.
“And I still want to know what François Mitterrand said about disco.”
I’d rather hear about le disco from Margaret Trudeau. The stories would be much more entertaining. Especially that time(s) she and Fidel danced the night away.
And had a kid?
My brother’s old co-worker played some pro hockey back in the day and talks about the time he walked into his hotel room to find two of his teammates had Margaret “twisted up like a pretzel”.
NBD, just tag-teaming the prime minister’s wife. (they surely weren’t the first)
“…sitting up from the rug he had been curled up on like a diseased cat.”
Fantastic. My favorite line this week.
Ditto. Definitely a winner.
Yep. Count me as three.
That was great.
Old man smell, you know.
The smell of urine and disappointment.
I snorted.
Me too!
Disco is life!
Disco was the perfect example for this Oscar Wilde quote: “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to change it every six months.”
A very underrated movie.
Even Janeane Garofalo and the brief appearance of Dane Cook didn’t deter from its hilarity.
She was, for me, solid bunk material. Then she dragged out a soapbox and opened her want-warmer to spew her lefty ideas.
Boner killer.
wang-warmer
She was attractive for about a year and a half, between Reality Bites and The Truth About Cats and Dogs.
And yeah, more to do with the amount of insanity she spouted than anything else.
Isn’t she uh…a little small for your tastes?
Also life
Karine walking through just to get to the shitter.
Loved it.
Kamala
She’s treating the office as hers.
Oh, shit. I just totally forgot about her. That makes more sense.
So did everyone else in the DNC. 🙂
She served her purpose, I can’t see why they don’t dump her now, and switch VP. Hell FDR ran with 3 different VP candidates, there is precedence all over the place.
She is a woman of color, they don’t dare.
If she at least got some primary votes from her own party – but not a single delegate to the ’20 convention. Not ONE. Might as well be Wendell Wilkie.
Anyone care to bet whether there’s a, err, contingency plan to remove her from the ticket with extreme prejudice?
They’re deathly afraid of dumping her (although I think they vastly overestimate the blowback if they do). They can’t offer her a better deal than being one blown cerebral vessel away from the Big Chair. That leaves one way to get her off the ticket, doesn’t it?
I think Stacey Abrams was their ‘get out of jail free’ card until she proved to be just as unlikeable.
When Stacey Abrams is your back-up plan, you need to seriously rethink your life choices.
The blowback they fear from dumping Kamala – do they somehow think black female Democrats are not going to show up and vote Dem? No matter what they do?
Now, getting caught killing her – that might cause a few black women to stay home rather than vote.
It isn’t that black women will not vote, although I would bet that is part of the calculus, it is the fence sitters on the left, the Gaza fans, DEI liberal women, etc, that they are heavily leaning on or trying too woo.
Cutting a woman of color off the ticket is a bad move. And when your platform is so tenuous, you don’t rock the boat.
So, they all look alike to you?
Impressive…it took almost an hour for that comment. See world, we CAN do better!
I fell down a little musical rabbit hole, and fetched up here
https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-touts-productive-climate-change-meeting-with-french-leader-napoleon-bonaparte
Joe getting tight with the frogs.
The Drinker weighs in on the lawsuit:
Disney Wars – Gina Carano And Elon Musk Are Suing Disney
Seems like she has a pretty good defamation case.
Disney will settle this outside of court for sure.
Does she want money or publicity? With Musk backing her, she could take it to trial out of spite and ignore all the settlement offers. Granted, the mouse could probably drag it out 3 or 4 years.
Which could drag down Disney’s stock price making it easier for Elon and Peltz to buy.
As he noted, there’s no way they will risk discovery.
The bit at the end about Nelson Peltz and Elon Musk trying to buy Disney was very interesting.
Like most cases, it depends on the Judge.
If she gets a lefty, there is no telling how far they can twist the meanings of words and rule that not only was Disney justified, but by firing her, they helped save democracy.
Which is true. While this example was criminal, Douglas Mackey was tried and sentenced for his ‘election interference’ while Kristina Wong didn’t have to answer to her same exact actions as he.
I have a sinking feeling this will apply in the Mark Steyn trial with Mann as well. I’ve been listening to the transcript reenactment and they have revealed Mann to be a fraud and a bully. Even to the point of entering false evidence relating to claims of lost grant monies. I’m concerned the jury will only see Steyn = right wing climate denier = guilty.
“The beginning of his first term was marked by a left-wing economic policy based on the 110 Propositions for France and the 1972 Common Programme between the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and the Left Radical Party. This included several nationalizations, a 10% increase in the SMIC (minimum wage), a 39-hour work week, 5 weeks holiday per year, the creation of the solidarity tax on wealth, an increase in social benefits, and the extension of workers’ rights to consultation and information about their employers (through the Auroux Act). The objective was to boost economic demand and thus economic activity (Keynesianism), but the stimulative fiscal policy implemented by the Mauroy government was in contradiction with the constrained monetary policy implemented by the Bank of France.[52] However, unemployment continued to grow, and the franc was devalued three times.[53]
Old age pensions were raised by 300 francs per month to 1,700 francs for a single person and to 3,700 francs for a couple, while health insurance benefits were made more widely available to unemployed persons and part-time employees. Housing allocations for the low-paid were raised by 25% in 1981, and in the two years following May 1981 family allowances were increased by 44% for families with 3 children and by 81% for families with 2 children. In 1981, the purchasing power of social transfers went up by 4.5% and by 7.6% in 1982. In addition, the minimum wage (which affected 1.7 million employees) was increased by 15% in real terms between May 1981 and December 1982.[54] ”
Solid policies for Joe’s reelection campaign
That looks like it should spur some good economic growth.
Oh no, we’ve had a run of bad luck!
Somehow those policies look familiar, maybe that’s why Biden was seeing ghosts.
Legacy
The US Environmental Protection Agency has finalized a key update to the federal air quality standard for fine soot – a step toward reducing deadly air pollution that’s been over a decade in the making.
The standards, announced Wednesday, are one of several important finalized regulations coming from EPA this year focused on both improving air quality and cutting down on planet-warming pollution coming from power plants, other major industrial facilities, and vehicles. It comes as President Joe Biden is working to cement an ambitious environmental and climate record and appeal to young voters during a crucial election year.
The current standard, which has been in place for more than a decade, limits the average annual amount of fine particle pollution to 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The EPA would reduce that limit to 9 micrograms.
The agency estimates the limit will prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths and avoid around 800,000 cases of asthma symptoms.
“The stronger air quality standard announced today is grounded in the best available science and will undoubtedly save lives,” Regan told reporters on a press call. “We’re also full steam ahead on a series of rulemakings across the power and transportation sector that are drawing down emissions and protecting communities from dangerous air pollution.”
Still, the new limit is higher than what the World Health Organization recommends. In 2021, the international group put out guidance that environmental agencies slash the allowable limit to 5 micrograms per cubic meter of air. Doing so, the organization said, could reduce deaths associated with fine particle pollution by as much as 80%.
At least Tres will have a job.
That’s not really my bailiwick. My work focuses more on “point sources”, eg smokestacks and emissions from manufacturing, power plants, etc.
That’s the NAAQS- national ambient air quality standards. When means all the stuff you breathe when you, well….breath.
That type of continuous monitoring is something I’ve done but it’s typically some govt agency operates and maintains the samplers.
They also…do all of the ananlysis.
The agency estimates the limit will prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths and avoid around 800,000 cases of asthma symptoms.
Based on a reduction of 3 micrograms? From 12 to 9?
I’ll take numbers pulled out of my ass for $500, Alex!
Take a graph of known harmful levels vs effects and just follow the line downward to the projected level. It’s half-assed but good enough for the fedgov.
Yeah, totally ignore the dose/response effect.
When your real goal is to shut down industry, does it matter?
Subpoena Gaia!!!
So what they are saying is we found our loophole when they ban all other sources! Just set the forest on fire to cook.
Still, the new limit is higher than what the World Health Organization recommends.
Once again, the framing of a story as “Government (or business) plans to do X. But some people say X doesn’t go far enough,” with the implication that of course going farther like the “some people” say is incontrovertibly the right thing to do.
“After the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, my son Beau died at Normandy while under the command of General Mitterand. No joke!”
Japanese women glue snaggleteeth to their real teeth to appear youthful?
https://cvltnation.com/ohaguro-and-yaeba-japanese-cosmetic-dentistry/
What the hell Japan, I just thought you people had crooked teeth and don’t even get me started on the teeth blackening.
“Today is a really big day,” Earthjustice president Abigail Dillen told reporters. “The body of science around this pollution is so robust. We know it takes people before their time; we know it gives children and adults asthma and other sicknesses. This is a big step forward to addressing one of the most deadly environmental injustices in our country.”
——-
Millions of people put their health at risk every time they step outside. The American Lung Association’s State of the Air 2023 report says that, after a steady decline in US pollution levels, the number of people living in counties with failing grades for daily spikes in particle pollution was the highest it had been in a decade. Nearly 64 million Americans live in these counties, and communities of color bear the brunt of the negative health effects, regardless of income levels.
No amount of exposure to particle pollution is healthy.
Turn back the clock to the days of sod huts and cooking over open fires. Just think how healthy we’ll all be.
Except the hippies and lefties don’t want to know how much NOx, CO, and particulate emission an un-controlled open burn like a campfire generates.
They have to ban gas, nuclear and coal first.
Once everyone is freezing they will ban campfires.
“A hot plate in every home.”
“And no electricity to power it.”
To quote the article…”No amount of exposure to particle pollution is healthy” so no, no open fires.
It doesn’t give anyone asthma. Asthma is an allergic response from an improperly calibrated immune system. Particulates can trigger an attack, but it can’t give you asthma. And I seriously doubt there would be a significant difference in response between 12 micrograms and 9 micrograms.
Exactly. Also most asthma is triggered by things such as pollen or cat dander. Not so much random blots of soot.
Bingo. Asthma reacts to a foreign protein like other allergies.
Chemicals as well. Sulfites will trigger asthma. I use potassium metabisulfite solutions in a spray bottle to sanitize brewing equipment. I have to be very careful when I use it in an enclosed space. It can also cause problems for people that drink wine, the belch, and inhale sulfite fumes. It is a non-trivial issue for people with serious asthma.
Cats are a big trigger for me. And those Glade plug in air fresheners my wife insists on buying no matter how bad it has me wheezing.
Hate to break it to you, Doc, but I think your wife wants you dead.
There is at least as much ample scientific evidence to lay the blame for increased childhood “asthma and other sicknesses” in the increase in how much indoor air we breath.
That’s not really my bailiwick. My work focuses more on “point sources”, eg smokestacks and emissions from manufacturing, power plants, etc.
I assumed that would involve point source testing. It’s more of an aggregate? How do they expect to find where it’s coming from? Or is that the point?
I’m sure they’ll set up a monitoring stating in the middle of the Black Rock desert.
Generally, a 2019 study found that exposure to air pollution was linked to more than 107,000 premature deaths in the United States in just one year, with PM2.5 accounting for the most damage to people’s health. That’s more than the number of people killed each year in traffic accidents and homicides combined, the researchers said.
Define “premature”. How many of those “victims” could just as easily be said to have died of old age?
Look if government and the medical industry can get away with it in 2020-2021, so can we!
“Linked to” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Sounds . . . correlationy, not necessarily causey.
so no, no open fires.
Sorry. Grubs and root vegetables, pulled right out of the dirt, then.
“Our environmental impact survey has determined that your digging for grubs and plants has endangered the local ecosystem. You must cease and desist any and all such ‘grubbing’ activity.”
As temperatures rise with climate change, the health problems related to this kind of pollution will get worse. The risk of a deadly heart attack, for instance, may double when people are exposed to extreme heat and high levels of particle pollution, studies show.
And soot is caused from wildfires, which are fueled by hot and dry temperatures due to climate change. Although wildfire smoke causes soot pollution, it can’t be regulated by federal agencies like other sources of soot including industrial and agricultural pollutants.
Soot from wildfires and volcanoes is completely different from smokestack emissions; they’re 100% organic. Not like icky man made poisons.
Remember, kids, there is no difference between saying “may” and saying “may or may not”.
“The risk of a deadly heart attack, for instance, may or may not double when”
So disappointed I didn’t get a chance to play this game in the morning lynx. Also disappointed that such an erudite and well read lot as you all are missed this one:
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen— and then the dragons arrived
Maybe better with more of the first paragraph.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough — and then the dragons arrived.
Not a book, but…
“Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. And then the dragons arrived.”
Since I’m not on twiXtter, I will assume none of these were done already…
“ Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.
Then, the dragons arrived.”
I dunno if X had that, but I did.
“In the second century of the Christian Æra, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.
And then, the dragons arrived.”
The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting — and then the dragons arrived.
“Tom!”
No answer.
“TOM!”
No answer.
“What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!”
No answer.
And then, the dragons arrived
We are at rest five miles behind the front — and then the dragons arrived.
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. And then the dragons arrived.
And we rejoiced!
It was a dark and stormy night. And then the dragons arrived.
Dear Penthouse, I never thought this would happen to me — And then me and the dragons had a Menage a Trois!
Heh.
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. And then the dragons arrived.
Who is John Galt? And then the dragons arrived.
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And then the dragons came.
Take a graph of known harmful levels vs effects and just follow the line downward to the projected level. It’s half-assed but good enough for the fedgov.
It’s a straight line. 10 micrograms per cubic meter is twice as safe as 20.
Shit happens
Swedish officials said Wednesday that they have decided to close their investigation into the September 2022 explosions on the underwater Nord Stream gas pipelines which were built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany, saying they don’t have jurisdiction.
Sweden’s investigation was only one of three into the explosions. Denmark and Germany are also examining the blasts.
The attack, which happened as Europe attempted to wean itself off Russian energy sources following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, contributed to tensions that followed the start of the war. The source of the sabotage has been a major international mystery.
What are ya gonna do?
So they have no theories or thoughts based on what they’ve learned? I’d even settle for a hypothesis but, come on, we all know who did it.
Well, clearly no one in NATO did it.
It was due to eating live bats at the wet market.
When your marketing department tries TOO hard. Small little quip of a stereotypical gay man being turned into a dog was a quiet touch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl–5P79iRs
Where are the dragons when you need them?
I suspect ” and then the dragons arrived” will enter the ever growing Glibs lexicon of shitposting.
I hope not.
and then the dragons arrived.
and then the dragons arrived
AND THEN STEVE SMITH ARRIVE.
I’m more partial to — and then the Winged Hussars arrived.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcYhYO02f98
“It happens sometimes.
PeoplePipelines just explode. Natural causes.”It choked on its own vomit.
How do you know who’s vomit it was? You can’t dust for vomit.
The dragons got it.
François Mitterrand
That is a name I haven’t heard in a long time.
Same with 7 billion others minus one – Joe Biden.
“She fucking has her own office,” Hunter said viciously.
I read that as “She was fucking in her own office”.
“She has her own fucking office.”
Another ray of sunshine
In today’s “I R Smart” incident, I was putting together a price list and the site I was sourcing from had aluminum plate in both 0.500″ AND 12.7mm thickness. This intrigued me, and then I was very interested when I saw that the sensibly-denominated material was almost a tenth the price of the metric.
Because of course, the pricing for the 0.500″ was per square foot and the 12.7mm was per square meter.
😄
This is why you needed to take algebra in high school.
Obligatory: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/73/c0/5c/73c05c5869ad9621146724d09f5a73ce.jpg
Haley pushes forward after Trump’s allies in Nevada ensured her loss to ‘none of these candidates’
Not the people who voted, Trump’s allies. Quite the framing there AP News.
Don’t get too drunk before boarding the plane and somehow end up on the ramp…
https://liveandletsfly.com/atlanta-airport-runaway-woman/
NSFW, language.
So, the CCP has apparently genetically engineered silkworms to produce spider silk. Just think what will happen when they modify them to be complete nutrition for the working class!
It’s disgusting enough that the workers already eat the grubs after boiling them to remove the cocoons.
Some science news is appropriate for a SF post:
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/trout-gonads-can-cure-baldness-32055578
Compare and contrast:
Fox News
Biden’s latest climate rules crack down on manufacturing, ignoring industry warnings of economic devastation
5 hours ago
Thomas Catenacci
CNN
EPA is cracking down on deadly air pollution with a new rule – but it’s not strong enough, some experts say
5 hours ago
Jen Christensen & Ella Nilsen
For funsies, if you find yourself in a convo with a supporter of the Biden administration, ask them “If the Biden administration hated this country and wanted to damage it as much as possible, what would they do different?”
“They would ban abortion and be racist and tweet mean stuff.”
FOX news is capitalist stooge headquarters.
I do not want lions living in my drainage culverts. Especially bitchy ones.
https://twitter.com/TheFigen_/status/1754926774473928761
I do not want lions living in my drainage culverts. Especially bitchy ones.
If your ball rolls in there, just go buy another one.
Pretty sure both that lion’s balls were about to be rolling around int eh culvert.