Hail to the victors! A great win for the national title for U of New Jersey Monday night over UCONN. Oops. I can explain the “mistake” — two of the biggest Michigan stars are Garden-Staters: Lendeborg and Cadeau. Great job, guys!
Back on poor planet Earth, here’s a headline from The Onion:
Trump Warns Iran To Accept His Ultimatum Or Face Wrath Of Next Ultimatum
WASHINGTON—Threatening to continue issuing threats if the Islamic Republic did not quickly agree to his demands, President Donald Trump warned Iran on Monday to accept his ultimatum or face the wrath of his next ultimatum. “Lay down your weapons now or I will have no choice but to ask you to lay down your weapons later,” the commander in chief wrote on Truth Social, adding that the Iranian regime only had two more days to consider his terms before he would give them eight more days to consider his terms.
OC note: We hope this story stays funny. Paul Krugman very much fears we are on the verge of becoming a criminal nation of historic proportions. Here’s what he said:
“Damned if I know what’s going to happen. I mean, at some level, I think that the civilization that may be destroyed tonight is our own. I mean, are we civilized if we do this kind of thing? If America as a nation doesn’t stand up against this, what are we?
“So, God help us. Normal life will continue. It’s going to be a really weird thing to be out there, you know, grocery shopping and taking the subway and all of those things. But this is, in a way, the defining moment. The fate of the whole American idea is on the line.
“I have no idea how this ends.”
[Since the above was written, things have been pushed off two more weeks.]
I am finding much to play with in the puzzles lately, and so have been embarrassing myself with shameless idiotic posts on Rex Parker’s blog. Yesterday’s fodder was: TOKEN (“Unit of arcade currency”): STOOPED (“Bent down”); AYE (“Reply to a ship’s captain”); RANATAB (“Decided to pay later, say”); HUN (“One under Attila’s rule”); and OFFAL (“Organ meets”).
Here’s what I came up with:
TOKEN: How Barbie dedicated her first novel.
STOOPED: How someone who is might spell it.
The bartender tripped on his way in to the pub and twisted his ankle. So he said he could only walk a tab with a limp for me instead of running one.
Senator #1: I’ll vote for your bill if you vote for mine.
Senator #2: It’s a deal.
(An AYE for an AYE)
HUN: How Mrs. Attila referred to her hubby.
Attila: Have you seen my sword, Babe? I have some pillaging to do.
Mrs. Attila: The kids were playing with it, HUN. Look in Junior’s room.
Attila: Thanks, Pumpkin!
Wife: What’s this stuff you brought home from the butcher? It looks awful.
Husband: It’s OFFAL.
W: That’s what I said, but what’s it called?
H: It’s OFFAL.
W: Yes, but what is it?
H: OFFAL.
W: I can see that — but what is it called?
H: OFFAL
W: Stop repeating what I say!!
H: Repeating what you say?
W: Arggggggh!
[Chases him around the table with a carving knife as the curtain comes down.)
Anony Mouse added:
I stumbled going into a pub in merry old England, the stone steps were worn down. Suggested to the innkeeper that, in America, we would simply turn them over. He smiled and replied “They did that 150 years ago!”
The theme was BALL AND CHAIN. Each theme answer had two words: the first a type of ball and the second a type of chain. E.g., BEACHHOTEL (“Resort with a signature piña colada, perhaps”). See how it works: BEACH ball, and HOTEL chain. Another was FASTFOOD (“Combo meal, usually”). FASTball, and FOOD chain.
Here’s a song that was new to me. One of the YouTube comments for it was “If this song ain’t played at my funeral I ain’t coming.” It’s called “Ball and Chain.”
At 2D, for the clue “Casual musical project” the answer was MIXTAPE. It led Son Volt to share this song with us by the exquisite Tift Merritt.
Is it possible to fall in love with a sports figure within the space of a few paragraphs? Here’s how the story in today’s NYT about UCLA women’s basketball coach Cori Close starts. (If you live under a rock like I do, you may not know UCLA won the title this year over powerhouses South Carolina and UConn.)
“’Let me show you who Cori really is,’ a UCLA staffer says as he pushes the door open to the UCLA coaches’ temporary locker room at the Final Four arena. Around the corner, there’s a collection of recyclable cans and bottles that Close has picked up and set atop a mini fridge.
“In the next hour, those cans and bottles will be packed into a bag so they can take the flight back to LA with the newly crowned national champion UCLA Bruins. Behind Close’s efforts, the entire team regularly gathers these bottles and cans after practices and games. Staffers then take turns returning the recyclables for 5 cents apiece, and later, that money is pooled and donated to one of the Bruins’ chosen nonprofit organizations. Recently, the UCLA women’s basketball team paid for school uniforms and a computer for girls in Tijuana with money collected from these recyclables. The school later sent a photo of the girls watching one of the Bruins’ games this season.
“After games and practices — and yes, even on the day the Bruins won their first NCAA title, thwarting resident powerhouse South Carolina 79-51 — Close collects these plastic bottles and cans, pulling them out of trash cans or grabbing them from the locker room or empty gyms. Coaches and players joke that if you can find Close’s blue purse, you’ll undoubtedly find some recyclable cans and bottles nearby. ‘That’s just who she is,’ the staffer says. ‘That’s Cori.’”
Sounds Jewish to me, but she isn’t. George says she’s “Jew-ish.” She’s 54 and not married.
If you followed the Congressional Jan. 6 hearings several years ago as reported in the Dirty Old Man’s Guide to the Insurrection (Owl Chatter Press, 2022), you’ll remember us drooling shamelessly over Cassidy Hutchinson, who appeared on the cover and centerfold, handily beating out Liz Cheney for the honors.
Her testimony was compelling and it is hard to imagine the member of any jury (or the nation, in this case), doubting her integrity and honesty. So it comes as no surprise that Trump’s corrupt DOJ has opened up an investigation of CH on charges of perjury. We fully support the effort, of course, on the grounds that it will put her back in the news for us to gawk at.
Members of MAGA (Morons Against Governing America) can’t comprehend why the cases against Trump proceeded through the legal system while the cases against Comey, James, Powell et al are all being summarily thrown out. They (and Trump, of course) don’t appreciate the key distinction that Trump actually committed many serious crimes and none of these other parties even came close. Once, when I umped women’s softball games in New Providence NJ, similar fly balls down the left field line dropped. Looking directly down the line I could plainly see that one fell fair and one fell foul and I made my calls accordingly. At the second call, the shortstop yelled at me: “Yeah, for them it’s fair, but for us it’s foul.” I was incredulous at the stupidity of the charge, since she was a good player and generally sharp. “Exactly,” I replied. “The first one fell fair and the second one fell foul.” To me, that mattered.
Cassidy is still only 29 and is a proud Jersey girl (Pennington, down Route 31). She’s not married and denied having dated Matt Gaetz. “I have much higher standards in men,” she said. (Not kidding.) Ouch. That rules all of us out, fellas.
Let’s wrap up today with a final word from Paul Krugman, so I can finish with a nice song he posted.
“There will be many analyses by military and strategic experts of the Iran debacle. But let’s not lose sight of the larger picture: We were led to disaster by the boastful ignorance of men like Trump and Hegseth — boastful ignorance made even worse by claims that God supports whatever they want to do.”
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 