Ten percent of this would blow me away. And it just keeps going and getting better. But maybe I’m just easily impressed.
OMG, was Trump great at the UN, or what? We are miles beyond “you cannot make this stuff up.”
“I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”
“I do not believe in letting problems fester,” he declared. “They only become harder to solve. So while others have talked, I have acted. While others have spoken of peace, I have made peace. While others have ignored threats, I have confronted them. While others have talked of courage, America has shown it. While others have promised strength, I have used it to make America the most powerful country in the world.”
Bouncing around a bit . . .
“The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control the artificial intelligence being spoken of so much, now here and after officially called superintelligence, changing the name. The use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake, it makes it sound fake … From this point forward, all of United States documents and hopefully the world will be changed to use the much more accurate term super as opposed to artificial.”
Krugman notes: “Most reporting on Trump’s speech emphasized either his belligerence or the fact that almost everything he said was a lie. But isn’t the bigger story the fact that the leader of what used to be the world’s most powerful nation has clearly and undeniably lost his mind?”
He compared it to the dictator’s speech in Bananas:
From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check.
Here’s a poem for autumn, courtesy of my new Canadian friend Wendy from the Scandinavian folk music band. (Note that the letters making up the bottom line are the ones that fell from the upper lines. )
Roger Allen of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) asks: What is an acceptable level of bubbles?
Philip Goodchild: As I live on my tod, if I’ve cooked dinner and a saucepan has been used, I use the saucepan as a washing up bowl. It saves water, uses minimum detergent, the saucepan then gets washed up last. Then I rinse off everything once the washing up is done as I don’t like the idea of soap suds drying on the plate. Even if the plates have stacked up, I can wash several dinner plates, a bundle of cutlery and a couple of saucepans using the medium saucepan as the washing up bowl.
OC: What the hell are you talking about? He asked about bubbles. What’s a tod?
Well, I did a little research, Chatterheads. First, it means he lives “on his own.” It derives from “Cockney rhyming slang,” rhyming with Sloan whose first name was Tod. Here’s the progression: On your tod . . . on your tod Sloan, . . . on your own.
James Forman (Tod) Sloan was born in Indiana in 1874 and overcame neglect and poverty in his early life to become a highly successful jockey. And get this — George M. Cohan’s Yankee Doodle Dandy was based on Sloan’s life.
Yankee Doodle came to London,
Just to ride the ponies.
He fell from grace after his successful period. Doesn’t look too chipper here.
According to historian Heather Cox Richardson:
James McCrery II, the first architect on Trump’s ballroom, resigned when Trump insisted on a design that did not meet fire codes. Normally, White House construction would be managed by federal agencies required by law to comply with building safety codes, but White House officials have routed the ballroom through the tiny Executive Residence office that is exempt from rules because it is not a federal agency.
McCrery warned that Trump’s design did not have enough emergency exits or measures to contain a fire, which could spread quickly from the kitchen below the ballroom to the event space above it, and pointed out that the design was not up to code.
Trump waved off his concerns. “I am the code,” he said. (Not kidding.)
It reminded me of a brilliant traffic cop I saw years ago at the corner of 56th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan. It was a very active intersection. The cop was a big, very-well-built Black officer in a military-crisp uniform. He was in total command. The light stopping traffic from 56th Street entering the Avenue turned from red to green, but the officer determined it would be better to hold those cars at bay a little longer. The driver of the first car in line was not happy about it. He stuck his head out of the window and yelled: “Hey, the light’s green!” And the cop beamed down at him with a wide smile and said “I am the light, baby.”
Continuing with the news:
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. funded enhanced security for himself by taking funds from the department’s Office of Minority Health. The Reagan administration created the Office of Minority Health after a landmark report showed that Black life expectancy in the U.S. was shorter than white Americans’ and that Black babies were more likely than white babies to die.
[When this was brought to Trump’s attention at a press conference, he said “Fuck ’em. What the hell do I care?” (That didn’t happen.)]
At 54D today, IOWA was boringly clued with “Part of the Corn Belt.” This one is for very special Owl Chatter friend Pam:
Some of the great battles in Crossworld are over plurals. For example, much blood has been shed over the plural of octopus: octopi, octopodes, octopusses. Anyway, the puzzle today had SOLOS for “Recital pieces,” and commenter Keith clarified when it should be SOLOS or SOLI:
“According to the Standard Dictionary of Italianate Loanwords, it’s SOLI when the constructor needs to fill 4 boxes, SOLOS when she’s filling 5. SOLOES is an obscure variant for emergencies.”
[Because we’re a serious group, Anony Mouse added later: “Love the joke answer, but here’s a serious answer (in orchestral music): solo is played by one person, a soli is a (singular) solo-like passage played by a group of people (e.g. the cellos in the opening of William Tell). Solos is the plural of solo. The plural of soli is probably solis, but I’ve never heard that used.”]
If they can avoid disaster over the weekend against the visiting Mets, the Gnats will be finishing off the season on a good note. They won their last two series on the road, against the Cards and Tigers. The brilliant CJ Abrams reached 100 RBI, and our fave, little Nasim Nunez, set the all-time franchise season steals record. He’s at 49. Hope he makes 50. Ace Cavalli has been locked up with a new contract, a good sign that they may be willing to spend a few bucks. We’ll say goodbye to the boys on Sunday. Thanks for a fun season guys! Get some rest!
Here’s the gang that won it all in 2019.
They defeated the hated cheating Astros in seven games. Oddly, the road team won in all seven. Stephen Strasburg was the Series MVP.
Wait, did someone say Stephen Strasburg?
Owl Chatter staff photographer Phil made it into the news again! According to NBC News, earlier this month, on a United Airlines flight out of Rochester, NY, headed to Newark, a woman left her seat and complained to a flight attendant that the man sitting next to her was looking at her and jerking off. (Not kidding.) Apparently, instead of being flattered, she was upset. Neither party was named in the story, but it had to be our Philly: We recall him complaining after that flight that there wasn’t enough elbow room.
Anyway, there were no empty seats on the plane, so they allowed her to stand in the flight attendant’s area for the duration of the flight. However, when the plane began its descent, they told her she had to return to her seat. Her feeling was “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not going near that guy.” But they gave her no option. They said it should just be for about five minutes, but it lasted longer, of course. When the flight landed, the “gentleman” simply deplaned and walked away.
You may be surprised to learn that the airline did not respond with much wisdom to the woman’s complaints. They offered her a $100 credit and the moron in charge of the response wrote: “I can imagine how upsetting and uncomfortable it must have been to experience behavior from another passenger that caused you concern, particularly while seated in a location where you felt concerned.”
The woman, a pediatric crisis therapist, called the language “blaming” and “offensive.” “Additionally, framing public masturbation as ‘behavior that caused me concern’ implies that what occurred could somehow be perceived as acceptable,” she told NBC.
We asked Phil why he didn’t get a photo of her for OC, and he said he had his hands full.
See you next time, Chatterheads! Thanks for popping by.
