An Earworm for Elon

Looks like the Chief Twit’s main talent is taking credit for others’ work.
Srsly, how did this incel with the emotional and intellectual maturity of a deranged fourteen year-old boy become the richest man in the world.
Satan?

Start of December, I thought Tesla had found its level at $190. It’s now hovering around $140 — and Elon sold off $3 billion last week to throw down the Twitter toilet.

So what’s the bottom? Dunno. The woke libs he’s dunking on are the folks who buy his (dangerous) cars. Sales are down, and there’s no reason for them to recover. Maybe Apple ends up buying Tesla and fixing shit.

@nojo: I’m the bullseye in Tesla’s target demo, and now whenever I see my neighbors driving their Teslas, I wanna take a focking hammer to those cars.

@¡Andrew!: I happened to take a Lyft in a Tesla last week. Dash display is as huge as a pro iPad, which personally I would find mighty distracting — but hey, I’m still driving a 2005 Civic with a CD player.

I come with randomness.

A few years ago I went on a Russian history binge. It started by accident when I read, “The Romanovs: The Final Chapter” by Robert Massie. This book reads as if The Keystone Cops were bio archeologists. Everyone was fighting over who owns the Romanov bones, if they actually are the Romanov bones, and who gets to test the DNA of said bones? American and British scientists were ready to shiv each other over these damn bones.

Then I read, “The Romanovs: 1613-1918” by Simon Sebag Montifiore. Ooof! That book took a few months. But I learned what a Potemkin village is and learned just how many grandchildren Queen Victoria had. Good God!

Next I read a book about Catherine the Great. I have no idea which of the bazillion CtG books it was because I borrowed it from the library. I think the most amazing thing she did was to publicly be vaccinated for small pox. The rest was interesting but a bit of a mess.

Somewhere along the line I learned that Prussia isn’t in Russia.

Then I read, “Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets” by Svetlana Alexievich. It’s fascinating. It’s a collection of oral histories of people who lived through the fall of the Soviet Union. Some people pine for the good old times. Blew my mind.

Next were “Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar” and earlier this year “Young Stalin”, both by Montifiore. Apparently there’s a yearly celebration in Georgia when everyone goes outside and beats the tar out of each other. Another thing I found interesting was that Stalin was born about 1,300 miles from where Saddam Hussein was born.

I finally bought an atlas.

I think I need to read more about the steppes and the borders with Finland and Norway. Too many books. Too short a life.

@¡Andrew!:
He had help from the Saudis and a lot of fawning press.

When they make a movie about Nleo’s life, it will be called Citizen Asshole.

“Twitter” is the new Rosebud.

Merry Xmas Y’all

@ManchuCandidate: Including the losers and haters!

@ManchuCandidate: Sing Along
Why should Eggs Benedict always be served in a Hubcap?
‘Cause There’s No Place Like Chrome For The Hollandaise.

@jaycubed: Because it’s a holiday, I won’t hunt you down and wipe your existence from the face of the Earth.

@nojo: Even Jesus had limits.

Belated merry christmas to all! Hugz : )
I’m trying not to reflect on the year gone by, since the pandemic has swiss-cheezed my brian.
Was 2022 a good year? Hell if I know anymore.

@¡Andrew!: 51-49, a Senate of a year. Could have been better, could have been a shitload worse.

@nojo:
Sums up most years.

“I get it. I fucking get it that the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress have accomplished a legitimately impressive legislative record, despite the savagely conservative Supreme Court and the bullshit of the filibuster in the Senate. I understand that there is much to appreciate, celebrate, even, on that account, along with the success in getting judges confirmed and more.

But, goddamnit, I can’t get over this dark cloud, this sense that the motherfuckers are gonna get away with it. For some, it’s enough that the revelations of the 1/6 Committee ensure a permanent historical stain on the Trump presidency and the Republican Party, but no one gives a damn about that because it doesn’t change a thing.

We need to know that some shit we believe in matters. We need to know that laws matter. We need to know that the legal system is capable of punishing people who wanted to torch democracy, who still want to do it. We need to know that something is fucking sacred. We just need to know that it’s worth it to fucking care. Shit has to have meaning.

We can’t keep “moving on” when our leaders do something awful. We saw what that accomplished when President Obama implored us to move on from the vast crimes of the Bush Administration. Now, Bush is seen as some revered elder, not that fuckclown who wrecked two nations and degraded the country in the world and should have been in cuffs at the Hague. No, no, no. Not again. We can’t let the compromising bastards tell us to suck it up for the good of the country. It’s not for the good of the country. It’s for the good of those telling us to suck it up. Fucking hell, we just need to know that some shit we believe in matters.”

https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2022/12/hurrah-for-january-6-committee-report.html

@¡Andrew!: I get the Dark Cloud, but for me it’s all this dawdling while the Earth fries to a crisp. The problem with the Moral Arc of the Universe is that more immediate forces are in play.

Bonne Annee

Happy new year, everyone!
We made it through another one : )

The American Popcorn Reserve is running dangerously low today.

Keep on fucQing that chicKevin—hez deelicious.

So what are we thinking for round 4?
Migraine Treason Gangrene in an explosive vest vowing to blow ‘em all back to hell if she lifts her thumb off the dead man switch trigger.

@¡Andrew!: No specifics, but in general, I don’t see why this doesn’t go into next week. No benefit to compromise for the Freedom Caucus.

Which is why I’m starting to think that all it takes is ten Republicans to say Fuck This and cut a deal with Democrats. That would have to be later next week when hopelessness seems inevitable.

@nojo: Also takes just ten Republicans to just sit out a vote and lower the majority threshold. Except, right now, Hakeem has won all three votes.

@nojo: The ongoing climate disaster is just too great a problem over a century in the making for us to cope with as individuals.

You could do absolutely everything right by minimizing your carbon footprint as much as possible, and it wouldn’t delay the effects of climate change by even one second. We have to reach some level of acceptance that this is beyond our control personally if we’re gonna stay sane-ish.

We can’t even talk about the core problem in human society, which is over-population–our species is reproducing out of control and destroying our environment. It’s still taboo to mention this.

I’ve heard of all kinds of insane, prohibitively expensive proposals, like trillion-dollar sea walls and carbon capture factories, that’re interesting, but unbuildable.

What we really need is free birth control, family planning, educational and job training opportunities for the masses.

Unfortunately, there’s no immediate massive payoff in any of that for the oligarchs who control human society, and our economic and political systems are self-reinforcing doom loops. So the best we can do is take care of ourselves and each other. Sometimes that has to be enough.

Ten Speaker ballots. Free coffee!

These antics are delaying serious Republinazi bizniss, like:1. Ginning up fake investigations into Hunter’s laptop and penis;2. Spreading hateful lies and deranged conspiracy theories;3. Kissing their hero Putin’s azz;4. Threatening terrorist attacks against uppity wimmin, people of color, hummuhsekshals, and immigrants.
In other words, nothing of value wuz lost.

Looks like 15 is it, after what may be the weirdest adjournment vote in history, if history tracked such things.

Lying media: And now back to declaring FLAWLESS VICTORY and demanding RED WAVE.

The stupidest part was watching various MSM talking heads DEMAND that the Dems save the GOPers from themselves.

LOL, fuck no.

Another rich motherfucker can’t accept losing. Bolo pulls a Trump, unleashes a wave of hopeless brain dead motherfuckers on the capitol.

@¡Andrew!: 2022 is now the ocean’s hottest year in the recorded history. Stored heat is building up. More extreme weather fun to ensue.

Qev’s going to Ride or Die with Santos and Marge.

@ManchuCandidate: And the funny thing is that we all know there’s a chain reaction legislative car crash coming that’s gonna end with KKKevin’s body parts all over the House, yet the lying corporate media is still gonna have to act ‘shocked’ and ‘surprised’ when the insane MAGAt trash turn on him.

It’s the Narrative that’s straining me. Goes back sixty years now, to the Making of the President books. Guys, “first draft of history” means you get the facts down, not spend forever gaming the thing.

@nojo:
But that’s our press.

@ManchuCandidate: Gad, last week’s Balloonapalooza reeked of CNN and Fox going 24/7 on it. Felt like Twitter breaking out into Facebook.

@nojo: Now Canada has one, “hey, me too!”

@¡Andrew!: Under NAFTA, Mexico’s next.