Old Home Week

On the 145th anniversary of my (occasional) home town.

From Wikipedia:

In 1870, the Colorado Central Railroad laid tracks through the area on its route from Golden to link up with the Kansas Pacific Railroad and the Denver Pacific Railroad at Jersey Junction, 3 miles (5 km) north of Denver. On December 1, 1870, Benjamin F. Wadsworth and Louis A. Reno platted the Ralston Point townsite along the railroad. To avoid confusion with other communities along Ralston Creek, Ralston Point was soon renamed Arvada in honor of Hiram Arvada Haskin, brother-in-law of settler Mary Wadsworth.[11] Her husband, Benjamin Wadsworth, became the first postmaster of Arvada. Colorado was granted statehood on August 1, 1876, and the Town of Arvada was formally incorporated on August 14, 1904. A vibrant agricultural community, Arvada claimed the title "Celery Capital of the World."

I had a semi-crummy old farmhouse at 7898 Reno Dr.  The landmark water tower was right next door.  The water tower survives, but both the house and the street were erased to make way for "progress".  So I guess Mr Wolff is to be taken quite literally in this case.

Cyber Monday (NSFW)

I held off as long as I could.  Now let's get out there and shop our asses off, people.  The planet's not gonna fuck up itself, y'know.

We'll start with a nice assortment of ornaments for your Holiday Tree:

Pix and Memes and Toons and Stuff

Today's Weird

On a tip from my brother, I went over to Fandango to look at the trailer for a new movie called Spotlight.  I clicked on the start arrow and ended up having to see 2 video ads before I got to the trailer.  

So, in order to watch the commercial for the movie - it's a commercial; I went in search of a commercial because I wanted to see a commercial.  And as if that's not bad enough, I had to sit thru a coupla commercials I didn't wanna see before they'd let me see the commercial I did wanna see.

I'm trying to decide if I'm a little bummed and/or aggravated at the extreme levels of monetization going on, or if I'm more than a little impressed that somebody's figured out just how captive we are to this kinda crap.

Or maybe I'm just pissed that I'm willing to put up with the whole mess.  My head hurts - I may start drinking early today.

Score Card

For those of you scoring at home - or even if you're all by yourself - somebody's gotta be trying to keep track of all the shitty things Trump has said or done - things that so many of the Press Poodles tell us will blow him up and scatter his remains to the four winds.  But then, somehow, he stays around because the "lefty librul lame-stream media" are unable to resist breaking away from any and all programming to make sure we all get to see Lil Donny doing whatever he does that will surely disgust all of us, while we are never quite disgusted enough to stop watching that crap which of course is why they keep showing us that crap.

Anyway, here's a (probably) partial list:

• outraged prisoners of war by doubting the heroism of Vietnam veteran John McCain, because he allowed himself to be captured
• he appeared to accuse Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly of asking him tough questions because she was menstruating
• accused Mexican immigrants to the US of being rapists
• claimed that a Black Lives Matter protester who was violently ejected from a rally deserved to be “roughed up”
• appeared to mock a New York Times journalist for his disability and then accused the journalist of “grandstanding” on that disability in his response
• falsely accused Muslim Americans of cheering on the 9/11 attackers
• agreed with suggestions that all such Muslims should have their names tracked on a database
• Trump’s Twitter account recirculated racially charged but falsified crime statistics from an actual Nazi sympathiser
• complained that many of these incidents were exaggerated by the political media, saying 70% of whom are “scum”

Suck It Up And Listen

Time for a little homework now, kids:



ha tips: Facebook buddy LM-M and MoJo

There is by now evidence from a variety of laboratories around the world using a variety of methodological techniques leading to the virtually inescapable conclusion that the cognitive-motivational styles of leftists and rightists are quite different. This research consistently finds that conservatism is positively associated with heightened epistemic concerns for order, structure, closure, certainty, consistency, simplicity, and familiarity, as well as existential concerns such as perceptions of danger, sensitivity to threat, and death anxiety.

Today's Latenite

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Today's Podcast

Ripping the scab off the big festering ulcer on the national ass - all of those being apt metaphors for the GOP, btw.

And oh yeah - ya gotta get all the way to 36:15 for the cool holiday surprise - for me anyway.  

But first, there's a bit of brilliant at about 9:00 when driftglass hits one out, talking about Matthew Dowd, using a font size metaphor.

Colbert

This popped up quite a few places.  Just need to get it in before I lose it.

I think it has to start taking it's toll after a while.  Any attention is better than being ignored as far as Trump cares - he knows it's hard to find 'bad' publicity.  But there's a point where you become Terminally Uncool.  Like when Dick Nixon's handlers knew he needed something to help him "connect with the youngsters" in the late 60s, and so they invited Up With People to perform at The White House, and then at some rallies.  Fuckin' disaster was all that was.

Here's a little taste (sorry).  Although it does feature a very young Glenn Close - but don't listen to the whole thing.  Seriously - it could give you diabetes. Don't do it:

Anyway, when people are laughing, and they're laughing not because you elicit some pathos, but because you're pathetic and they pity you - time to turn around and head back to the barn.

Today's Cold Shot