Google Translate Has A Sense of Humor

Glad to see that Google hasn’t lost all sense of fun.

Screen Shot 2020 01 23 at 7 44 04 PM
The Funniest Joke In the World 

If one opens Google Translate, plugs in the German version of the deadly joke in Monty Python’s “The Funniest Joke In The World” sketch, Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!

Google spits back: “Fatal Error”

Ha!

Rest in peaces, Terry Jones…

Guardian UK:

 

Terry Jones, founder member of Monty Python and director of three of Python’s celebrated feature films, has died aged 77, his family have announced. In a statement they said: “Terry passed away on the evening of 21 January 2020 at the age of 77 with his wife Anna Soderstrom by his side after a long, extremely brave but always good humoured battle with a rare form of dementia, FTD.”

…Born in Colwyn Bay, Wales, in 1942, Jones moved to England as a child, growing up in Surrey. While at Oxford studying English literature, he met fellow student Palin while performing in the Oxford Revue. After university, along with Palin, Jones wrote and performed in a string of TV shows alongside other future stars of British comedy – including Cleese, Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie, Eric Idle, Peter Cook and David Jason – on The Frost Report, Do Not Adjust Your Set and The Complete and Utter History of Britain.

 

In 1969, Palin and Jones joined Cambridge graduates Cleese and Graham Chapman – along with Idle and animator Terry Gilliam – on a BBC comedy sketch show. Eventually broadcast under the title Monty Python’s Flying Circus, it ran until 1974, with Jones largely writing with Palin (complementing Cleese’s partnership with Chapman). Seemingly chaotic, frequently surreal and formally daring, Monty Python’s Flying Circus would became one of the most influential shows in BBC history, revolutionising comedy formats, spawning scores of catchphrases, and inspiring an entire generation of comedians. Jones’s fondness for female impersonation was a key feature of the show, as was his erudite writing.

 

 

(click here to continue reading Terry Jones, Life of Brian director and Monty Python founder, dies aged 77 | Culture | The Guardian.)

Devin Nunes says Stephen Colbert’s skit about him is a danger to the country

Five U S Senators Are Space Aliens
Five U.S. Senators Are Space Aliens. 

Devin Nunes is a threat to American democracy. I suppose he’s so busy polishing Trump’s turds, that Nunes hasn’t had a chance to read the 1st Amendment yet.

One of the nation’s exercises in democracy can be found on late-night TV. Hosts crack sharply critical jokes about the country’s politicians without fear of retribution from said politicians.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) sees that exercise very differently. He told Fox News Channel that a skit Stephen Colbert did mocking Nunes’s memo alleging FBI bias in the Russia investigation is a danger to the country.

“Devin Nunes is a REDACTED,” says a memo Colbert circulated on Capitol Hill, asking Democratic and Republican members of Congress to fill in the blank.

“I think this is the danger we have in this country,” Nunes told host Neil Cavuto on Saturday in response. “This is an example of it.”

To defend his point that Colbert’s jokes are dangerous, Nunes spun off a conspiracy theory filled with factual inaccuracies that Hollywood and Democrats are working together to make fun of him because they have failed in the public sphere to debunk him.

“The left controls the universities in this country, Hollywood and the mainstream media,” Nunes told Cavuto, “so conservatives in this country are under attack, and I think this is great example of it.”

Nunes falsely told Cavuto that his memo provides “clear proof” that the Democratic Party colluded with Russians. (Fact check: There is an independent investigation looking into potential Trump-Russia collusion, not into Democrats and Russia.)

Nunes also claimed that the FBI opened an investigation into the Trump campaign specifically to spy on it. (Fact check: The FBI got a warrant from a secret court to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page after Page had left the campaign, and there’s no evidence that the FBI spied on the Trump campaign itself. )

(click here to continue reading Nunes echoes Trump’s authoritarian view on press, says Stephen Colbert’s skit about him is a ‘danger’ to the country – The Washington Post.)

Perhaps we should send Nunes some postcards with the following statement written on it:

 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

 

(click here to continue reading First Amendment to the United States Constitution – Wikipedia.)

Watch the video yourself, and decide. I’d say Colbert wins this round…

Kushner Cos. Claims Jared Is a Victim of Harassment

Absent the Human Voice bleached
Absent the Human Voice… 

For your chuckle of the day, check out Bess Levin’s “Jared Kushner, dimpled slumlord” piece in Vanity Fair, which begins…

Though we can’t say for certain, in all likelihood, Jared Kushner spent the afternoon rocking back and forth in a fetal position under his desk, emitting soft moans that left White House aides frantically searching for what they assumed was a wounded animal loose in the building. After entering the West Wing last year with a slate of modest goals that included solving America’s opioid epidemic, bringing peace to the Middle East, overhauling I.T. infrastructure, and more or less “re-invent[ing] the entire government,” and rounding out his first year there with approximately zero of these items accomplished, the First Son-in-Law on Wednesday found his downpour of a week upgraded to a Category 5 shit-storm.

Within a 48-hour period, Kushner had his interim security clearance downgraded; learned that his P.R. guru is quitting; and was the subject of a mortifying article in The Washington Post alleging that officials in at least four countries have discussed ways to manipulate him “by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience.” To cap things off, on Wednesday, multiple outlets reported that the New York Department of Financial Services has requested information from several banks “about their relationship with Kushner and his finances,” among them Signature Bank, New York Community Bank, and Deutsche Bank, the latter of which Kushner has been a client for years, and from which he and the First Daughter have unsecured lines of credit between $5 million and $25 million, while Kushner and his mother, Seryl, reportedly have an unsecured line of credit valued at up to $25 million. In December, The New York Times also reported that the Kushner family business, Kushner Companies, had received a $285 million loan from Deutsche in 2016, and that Jared had “ordered up a glowing profile of [executive Rosemary] Vrablic in the real-estate magazine he owned,” with a disclosure about their connection at the very end of the article. According to The Wall Street Journal, the inquiries are “expansive” and “comprehensive,” meaning the senior adviser to the president can expect the equivalent a full-body cavity search of his finances.

Obviously, it’s a situation the boy prince never expected to find himself in, given that his life thus far has primarily involved working at institutions run by his ex-con father or his father-in-law, where he was accustomed to never being told no. And speaking of Charles Kushner, who went to prison for, among other things, setting up his brother-in-law with a prostitute, taping the encounter, and sending it to his sister as retaliation for cooperating with the government, perhaps he’ll have some fatherly words of wisdom to impart re: the big house, should things progress to that point.

(click here to continue reading Kushner Cos. Claims Jared Is a Victim of “Harassment” | Vanity Fair.)

Jared Kushner has been a wormtongue to Trump for a long time. If he had any self awareness, or perhaps paid attention to the history of other Trump sycophants, Kushner might have been aware of what being in Trumpland inevitably leads to – debasement, humiliation, degradation, and even possible jail time. 

Sad! Jarvanka might not get the last laugh at Bannon’s expense after all…

That Is The Way It Goes
That Is The Way It Goes

The polite term for slumlord is predatory capitalist, but it doesn’t have quite the zing. And since I had to refresh my memory:

 

In a feature for ProPublica and the New York Times Magazine, journalist Alec MacGillis shined light on the role of Jared Kushner—son-in-law and close adviser to President Trump—as a real estate developer and landlord. In 2011 and 2012, seeking a stable source of revenue, Kushner and his partners purchased thousands of units of working-class housing in the inner-ring suburbs of cities like Baltimore and Pittsburgh. Their largest holdings are in Baltimore County, Maryland, where they control 15 complexes that house up to 20,000 people in total. And in managing these properties, reports MacGillis, Kushner is a harsh and unforgiving landlord.

 

Kushner’s company is relentless in its pursuit of “virtually any unpaid rent or broken lease—even in the numerous cases where the facts appear to be on the tenants’ side.” Residents are slapped with thousands of dollars in fees and penalties, even if they had previously won permission to terminate a lease. All of this is compounded by poor upkeep of facilities. MacGillis describes one family that has had to deal with mold, broken appliances, and physical damage to their unit—even after paying the management company for repairs. In one complex, a resident “had a mouse infestation that was severe enough that her 12-year-old daughter recently found one in her bed.” In another, raw sewage flowed into the apartment.

 

 

(click here to continue reading Jared Kushner’s life as a predatory capitalist..)

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert uses my photo called Wieners Circle Rages At The Dying Of the Light

The title says it all. And I even got compensated!

Wieners Circle Rages at the Dying of the Light

Here’s the clip from the opening of last night’s show:

I should have asked how LSSC found my photo out of the gazillion images of Wieners Circle. Maybe they liked the title (partially nicked from Dylan Thomas)?

Chris Christie Fetches Donald Trump’s Burger and Fries

Watch it Rot - from October 2006
Watch it Rot – a McDonald’s hamburger from October 2006, a metaphor of course.

OMG, I would love to see this clip. I wonder what the good citizens of New Jersey think about it? Are they happy that Governor Christie is busying himself with other, important matters like waiting for Donald Trump to pat him on the head? Or do they wish he was still doing the job he is currently being paid to do?

Governor Chris Christie, of New Jersey, another of Trump’s opponents early in the campaign, has transformed himself into a sort of manservant, who is constantly with Trump at events. (One Republican told me that a friend of his on the Trump campaign used Snapchat to send him a video of Christie fetching Trump’s McDonald’s order1 .)

(click here to continue reading Occupied Territory – The New Yorker.)

Did Governor Christie sneak some fries? Good lord, how the self-righteous have fallen…

Footnotes:
  1. *Christie’s office denies this account. []

Lorem fucking ipsum: A Good Fucking Design Advice Service

words at the Seattle Public Library
random words at the Seattle Public Library.

Sometimes standard Lorem ipsum is not the right choice. Lorem fucking ipsum might be.

Here is 156 words worth:

You are not your fucking work. Respect your fucking craft. Creativity is a fucking work-ethic. Don’t worry about what other people fucking think. You won’t get good at anything by doing it a lot fucking aimlessly. Practice won’t get you anywhere if you mindlessly fucking practice the same thing. Change only occurs when you work deliberately with purpose toward a goal. Paul Rand once said, “The public is more familiar with bad fucking design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design, because that is what it lives with. The new becomes threatening, the old reassuring.” When you sit down to work, external critics aren’t the enemy. It’s you who you must to fight against to do great fucking work. You must overcome yourself. To go partway is easy, but mastering anything requires hard fucking work. Form follows fucking function. Intuition is fucking important. Why are you fucking reading all of this?

(click here to continue reading Lorem fucking ipsum: A Good Fucking Design Advice Service..)

Create your own

The Short-fingered Vulgarian Named Donald Trump

Donald Trump Is A Swine
Donald Trump Is A Swine

I used to subscribe to Spy Magazine for a few moments in my callow youth, and I remember this epithet of The Donald, but had forgotten about it until recently…

[Donald Trump] has one proven weakness over the course of his four decades in overly public life: stubby fingers.

Trump has presumably had short fingers for as long as he’d had fingers, but it wasn’t until 1988 that anyone called attention to it. That year, Spy magazine began the practice of needling Trump at every  opportunity by referring to him in virtually every story as a “short-fingered vulgarian.” (“Queens-born casino profiteer” would also do.) Trump defended his honor in the New York Post, stating that “my fingers are long and beautiful, as, has been well-documented, are various other parts of my body.”

In an essay last fall, former Spy editor Graydon Carter revealed how much this pissed Trump off: To this day, the Republican presidential front-runner continues to mail Carter photos of himself, and “[o]n all of them he has circled his hand in gold Sharpie in a valiant effort to highlight the length of his fingers.” …

On Friday, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska even joined in on the fun, responding to an insult from Trump by joking, “you’d think I asked Mr @realDonaldTrump abt the length of his fingers or something important like that.”

(click here to continue reading What Donald Trump’s Short Fingers Mean for His Presidency | Mother Jones.)

Short Fingered Vulgarian - Spy - April 1988

and Graydon Carter’s article includes this laugh line:

Like so many bullies, Trump has skin of gossamer. He thinks nothing of saying the most hurtful thing about someone else, but when he hears a whisper that runs counter to his own vainglorious self-image, he coils like a caged ferret. Just to drive him a little bit crazy, I took to referring to him as a “short-fingered vulgarian” in the pages of Spy magazine. That was more than a quarter of a century ago. To this day, I receive the occasional envelope from Trump. There is always a photo of him—generally a tear sheet from a magazine. On all of them he has circled his hand in gold Sharpie in a valiant effort to highlight the length of his fingers. I almost feel sorry for the poor fellow because, to me, the fingers still look abnormally stubby. The most recent offering arrived earlier this year, before his decision to go after the Republican presidential nomination. Like the other packages, this one included a circled hand and the words, also written in gold Sharpie: “See, not so short!” I sent the picture back by return mail with a note attached, saying, “Actually, quite short.” Which I can only assume gave him fits.

(click here to continue reading Why Donald Trump Will Always Be a “Short-Fingered Vulgarian” | Vanity Fair.)

Donald Trump in Spy Magazine April 1988

Spam Report – Dear , Quotation Request ASAP

Somewhere, there is an energy leak
Somewhere, there is an energy leak

Amusing spam I received today via

smtprelay01.ispgateway.de (smtprelay01.ispgateway.de [80.67.31.28])

purportedly from

envelope-from “s.ragesh1@dr.com”

I was wondering if you could send me quotes for the attached, I will be in United States of America Chicago – 60629, next month, and i will be visiting your office for further discussion about these orders, i hope your office is still located at 6933, S Rockwell,.
I respectfully request that you treat this inquiry with utmost importance I look forward to your response soon, take care.

Warm Regards Ragesh.

Also attached was an Excel document that I opened in Preview. There was text:

As for the above inquires, please do not forget to include the following.
Delivery terms/method
Payment terms, preferably TT
30% after i come to your office and 70% upon completion
Production duration
How long before delivery

There also looks to be five macros. I couldn’t exactly see what the macros included did, but it looked as if they would take multiple files off of my desktop, if I ran Windows, and send them somewhere. Not worth investigating further.

The .de domain looks to be from the Federal Republic of Germany, and .dr is allegedly from somewhere called the Deltoran Republic, which looks to be a made-up country with its own domain. Weird, really, try searching for it yourself, you’ll be amused. 

Avoid The Marxist Apocalypse
Avoid The Marxist Apocalypse

If you know Chicago at all, the idea of me having an office located at 6933 S. Rockwell is amusing. I guess there could be a home office of some sort, but looks to me to be a two-story building in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood, not a typical business address, and especially not a manufacturing concern. This seems like such a random place to direct spam towards. The quotation never says exactly what is being quoted, but I guess if you are actually a business located at 6933 S. Rockwell in Chicago Lawn, you already know what it is you manufacture, and if you are willing to accept Telegraphic Transfer of bank funds. 

On The Internet You Can Become A Dog Easily

Starbucks Elevators
Starbucks Elevators

In a second follow-up to this minor, amusing tale, the @GSElevator guy lost his book deal.

In the face of a barrage of attacks on his credibility, his publisher stood by him. But on Thursday it reversed course and said it was canceling the book.

The publisher, Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, did not provide a reason for the turnabout. It released a terse statement saying: “In light of information that has recently come to our attention since acquiring John Lefevre’s ‘Straight to Hell,’ Touchstone has decided to cancel its publication of this work.”

In a phone interview Thursday afternoon, Mr. Lefevre said that he and his agent demanded a conference call with Touchstone, and received one Thursday morning, but were not told why the deal had fallen through. “All they would say is our hands are tied,” he said.

Only Goldman Sachs seemed to be enjoying the moment. “Guess elevators go up and down,” @GoldmanSachs tweeted in response to the news.

Mr. Lefevre’s proposed book, titled “Straight to Hell: True Tales of Deviance and Excess in the World of Investment Banking,” had drawn widespread attention — for the window it promised to provide into Wall Street’s often raucous culture, and as the latest test case in whether social media postings, some resembling online performance art, could be transformed into successful books.

(click here to continue reading Book Deal Falls Apart for Parodist of Goldman – NYTimes.com.)

Don't Bring Your Dog Shet to Town
Don’t Bring Your Dog Shet to Town

from John Lefevre, the banker behind Goldman Sachs Elevator, this defense:

For the avoidance of any doubt, any person who actually thought my Twitter feed was literally about verbatim conversations overhead in the elevators of Goldman Sachs is an idiot.

Newsflash: GSElevator has never been about elevators. And, it’s never been specifically about Goldman Sachs; it’s about illuminating Wall Street culture in a fun and entertaining way. Without highlighting the obvious evolution of the tweets into more generally-appealing observations, let’s start with the simple fact that each of my tweets says “Sent from Twitter for Mac,” hardly the work of someone pretending to be hiding in the walls of 200 West.

Being called a “fake” or a “hoax” by the same people who embraced me as “satire” is simply laughable – and it really speaks to the silly and opportunistic attempts at cheap headlines.

(click here to continue reading GSElevator’s Open Letter To Haters – Business Insider.)

Gawker piled on, claiming it discovered plagiarism on the @GSElevator feed

and the beat goes on…

Who Made That Nigerian Scam?

Max Ernst - Spanish Physician
Max Ernst – Spanish Physician

Speaking of spam, you probably have encountered the so-called Nigerian scam a few times. Maybe even your lawyer has…

The Nigerian scam may seem like a scourge of the Internet age, but it actually predates email. Before we started getting all-caps proposals in our inboxes, con men in West Africa plied their trade by fax and paper letter. Some of the first scams to make their way to Western Europe arrived by telex in 1989 and 1990, when businessmen in Britain started hearing that a wayward tanker of Nigerian crude could have its cargo claimed for bargain prices — in exchange, of course, for some cash upfront. Before then, Nigerian fraudsters aimed their grifts at locals. One scheme was the “wash-wash,” a literal money-laundering in which the mark is shown a valise of supposed bills blackened with Vaseline and iodine and promised a cut if he pays for an expensive cleaning agent.

(click here to continue reading Who Made That Nigerian Scam? – NYTimes.com.)

The scam is even older than that:

“Some of these guys came out and started perpetrating fraud,” says Andrew Apter, an Africa historian at U.C.L.A. “They used the language and insignias and letterhead of financial offices to lure people in.”

Apter has traced this sort of misuse of official iconography as far back as a century. When Nigeria was established as a colony under British rule in 1914, its first governor cracked down on scammers in fake uniforms who claimed to be collecting taxes on behalf of the empire. The advance-fee scam itself — whereby payments are extracted from a sucker who hopes to gain an enormous treasure — seems to have originated elsewhere. According to Robert Whitaker, a historian at the University of Texas, an earlier version of the con, known as the Spanish Swindle or the Spanish Prisoner trick, plagued Britain throughout the 19th century.

(click here to continue reading Who Made That Nigerian Scam? – NYTimes.com.)

Legal Tender
Legal Tender

From Wikipedia:

The Spanish Prisoner is a confidence trick originating in the late 16th century.

In its original form, the confidence trickster tells his victim (the mark) that he is (or is in correspondence with) a wealthy person of high estate who has been imprisoned in Spain under a false identity. Some versions had the imprisoned person being an unknown or remote relative of the mark.

Supposedly the prisoner cannot reveal his identity without serious repercussions, and is relying on a friend (the confidence trickster) to raise money to secure his release. The confidence trickster offers to let the mark put up some of the funds, with a promise that he will be financially rewarded when the prisoner returns, and perhaps also by gaining the hand of a beautiful woman represented to be the prisoner’s daughter. After the mark has turned over the funds, he is informed that further difficulties have arisen and more money is needed. With such explanations, the trickster continues to press for more money until the victim is cleaned out or declines to put up more funds.

(click here to continue reading Spanish Prisoner – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)

Every deed and action that humans have done to each other has already been done in prior centuries…

Funny Spam – from Rev Kenneth

https://i0.wp.com/farm8.staticflickr.com/7401/11369557945_ba6d7ff46a_z.jpg?resize=640%2C640

Quite the offer here from Rev Kenneth, who claims to be in Florida despite his email being routed via Urbanphilly.com, via a bad English translator. Rev Kenneth is quite the renaissance man, a reverend who works for a charity organization with the best of names, and owns an art gallery that is nameless.

Hello,
My name is Rev Kenneth, I work for the charity Organization based in Florida. I am 60 years.
I am looking for someone That can handle my business errands falling on his or her spare time (I own an Art Gallery)
I need your services because i am Constantly traveling abroad to supporting the charity Organization. We work in over 190 countries helping children survive, Protecting em from harm and getting ’em to school.
Manage my business errands today and earn yourself not less than $ 600 weekly. You are not required to travel abroad or inter state. Your errands are simple and straight
Responsibilities
1. Receive my email and drop ’em off at the post office or shipping center.
2. Pick up my items at your Florida post office at your convenience.
3. When you get my email or package, Would you email all items to Where I want em shipped. All dйpenses and shipping costs Will Be covered by me.
The contents of the packages are mostly art materials and paintings. In addition, there Will Be clothing I need for business and personal letters. No heavy packages is Involved
please read the employment requirements listed below.
EMPLOYMENT REQUIREMENTS:
A. You are an honest and trustworthy citizen.
B. You need to be able to check your EMAIL 2 times daily.
THE WEEKLY PAY IS $ 600 and you are entitle to a brand new car Effective 2weeks if you are hardworking and honest with me, WHICH IS NOT A BAD OFFER.
In closing, I have a pair of questions for you.
First, If I were to mail you money to do my shopping over an upfront payment for your service Where would you want it mailed to?
Second, how would you like for your name APPEAR on any package feels to you?
Apply Below & send your information to Kenneth.steward@aol.com
Full Name:
Home Address: PO BOX IF AVAILABLE
City:
State:
Zip Code:
Home No:
Cell No:
Age:
Work Status:
Hope all is clear?
Waiting to hear from you & I look forward to Establish long-term business relationship with you.

You see, he needs someone to pick up his email, and then drop it off at a post office. Presumedly the email didn’t come in a self-addressed stamped envelope (??). 

Also, although the salary is only $600 a week, after two weeks, you’ll get a brand new car. You know, the kind of brand new car you can purchase with $1,200. I guess if you work for a company that goes by the name, Organization, you’ll need help from strangers. Strangers gullible enough to respond with their address and cellphone numbers…

https://i0.wp.com/farm6.staticflickr.com/5508/11669017856_d8be41d1ea_n.jpg?resize=180%2C320

Sorry, Rev Kenneth, your offer doesn’t sound to enticing to me.

Dude: Etymology of the word is traced to “doodle”

Dudes
Dudes

Important, nay essential research being conducted in our ivory towers…

The project belongs to Barry Popik and Gerald Cohen, described by Metcalf as “Googlers before there was Google.” Along with the help of other colleagues, they have been combing through 19th century periodicals for years, slowly amassing the world’s biggest collection of dude citations. The latest issue of Cohen’s journal, Comments on Etymology, lays out, in 129 pages, the most solidly supported account yet of the early days of dude.

So where does dude come from? Evidence points to “doodle,” as in “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” He’s the fellow who, as the song has it, “stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.” “Macaroni” became a term for a dandy in the 18th century after young British men returned from their adventures on the European continent sporting exaggerated high-fashion clothes and mannerisms (along with a taste for an exotic Italian dish called “macaroni”). The best a rough, uncultured colonist could do if he wanted to imitate them was stick a feather in his cap.

“For some reason,” Metcalf says, “early in 1883, this inspired someone to call foppish young men of New York City ‘doods,’ with the alternate spelling ‘dudes’ soon becoming the norm.” Some of the early mocking descriptions of these dudes seem awfully familiar today: “A weak mustache, a cigarette, a thirteen button vest/A curled rim hat — a minaret — two watch chains cross the breast.” Yep, sounds like a hipster. But that word has gotten so stale. We should all go back to “dood,” or maybe even “doodle.”

(click here to continue reading Dude: Etymology of the word is traced to “doodle,” as in Yankee Doodle Dandy..)

Self Confidence In a Suit
Self Confidence In a Suit

and

Here’s a poem, courtesy of the Brooklyn Sunday Eagle for April 22, 1883:

“What is the dude, papa?” she said, with sweet, inquiring eyes,

And to the knowledge seeking maid,

her daddy thus replies:

A weak mustache, a cigarette, a thirteen button vest,

A curled rim hat—a minaret—two watch chains cross the breast.

A pair of bangs, a lazy drawl, a lackadaisy air;

For gossip at the club or ball, some little past “affair.”

Two pointed shoes, two spindle shanks, complete the nether charms;

And follow fitly in the ranks, the two bow legged arms.

An empty head, a buffoon’s sense, a poising attitude;

“By Jove” “Egad!” “But aw” “Immense!”

All these make up the dude.

(click here to continue reading Dude! – Lingua Franca – The Chronicle of Higher Education.)

Prisoner of Fashion
Prisoner of Fashion

Bill Cunningham Ready, in other words, or BCR – our private code to point out a stylish dresser approaching on the street. As in “He’s BCR!” – meaning, if Bill Cunningham saw this person, he’d take the dood’s (or doodine’s) photo. 

Dueling Banjo Player in Kentucky Missing A Couple of Strings

This made me giggle today…

Nice Rack

Nice Rack

Quick backstory – Senator Rand Paul was found to be a serial plagiarist in his speeches, and in his recently published book. Not the greatest of crimes, but still, something that should be addressed with seriousness. Instead, Senator Paul got indignant, and blustery, and basically melted down, saying he would duel “hacks and haters” like Rachel Maddow, et al, if only the law wasn’t holding him back. Of course, Kentucky anti-dueling law only applies to State Senators, so technically Senator Paul is free to back his words up…

Anyway, Charles Pierce adds:

Uh-oh, Senator Aqua Buddha, noisy spalpeen of Crazy Uncle Liberty (!) apparently drifted onto the air of The Clinton Guy Shocked By Blowjobs in order to seek satisfaction upon the field of honor with friend of the blog, kindly Doc Maddow.

“I will admit, sometimes we haven’t footnoted things properly. In fact, I’ve given thousands of speeches and I don’t think I’ve ever footnoted any of those speeches… I’ve written scientific papers. I know how to footnote things. But we’ve never footnoted speeches. And if that’s the standard I’m going to be held to, yes, we will change and we will footnote things…But the difference is, I take it as an insult and I will not lie down and say people can call me dishonest, misleading or misrepresenting,” he added. “And like I say, if, you know, if dueling were legal in Kentucky, if they keep it up, you know, it would be a duel challenge. But I can’t do that, because I can’t hold office in Kentucky then.”

Up with this, I will not put.

On behalf of KDM, I offer myself as second, but not in a contest of crude firearms. No, my lad. We will be civilized. I will meet you in a place of your choosing and, since I will be representing the one challenged, I get choice of weapons, and we will duel with epees, my young buck. We can go to 15 touches, or to first blood. I care not. I say now, you are a cheat and an internet thief, and I proclaim it to the world. I accept challenge. I will hear from you within the week as to time and place or I will protest your cowardice to the ends of the kingdom. Now, young lackbeard, you know my mind. Dawn comes every day.

(click here to continue reading What Are The Gobshites Saying These Days? – Esquire.)

Steve Benen of MaddowBlog:

There seems to be some ongoing confusion on the senator’s part about the nature of the controversy, which may be causing him to lose his cool. Perhaps I can help by highlighting the basics:  

1. Rand Paul presented others’ work as his own several times.  

2. Rand Paul got caught.  

3. Rand Paul has not yet explained why how or why he presented others’ work as his own.  

I’m at a loss as to why this is proving to be so difficult for the senator. The issue shouldn’t have anything to do with his personal feelings towards those who uncovered his missteps. Whether or not he’d like to shoot – or shoot at – journalists who uncovered his wrongdoing shouldn’t matter, either.  

As for Paul complaining about the “standard” he’s “going to be held to,” the sitting U.S. senator is facing the same scrutiny routinely applied to 14 year olds, who’ve been taught that copying and pasting text from Wikipedia without attribution is a big no-no.  

What is it, specifically, that Rand Paul considers “unfair”?

(click here to continue reading Rand Paul: ‘If dueling were legal in Kentucky…’ | MSNBC.)

Spam That Makes Me Laugh – part the 234,234th

Fountain near the Pantheon Rome 1993
Fountain near the Pantheon Rome 1993

In a long running series, I occasionally republish spam email that I receive so you can laugh as well. Today’s edition comes from our buddies at the Italian Association International Headquarters in Rome, via their friends at mail.muniindependencia.gob.pe (Country Code pe = Peru, by the way), via their friends at 8ta-150-62-148.telkomadsl.co.za (Country Code za = South Africa). The Italian Association International Headquarters is such a small organization, they haven’t had the time to create a website yet, nor even get mentioned by any other agency that Google indexes, other than variants of this email.

Their request reads (all errors as in original):

 

Italian Association International
Headquarters: Via Vittorio Veneto 121- 00187
Roma Italy.

Announcement!!
********************
To Whom it may Concern/

My name is Giovanni Alessandro and I work for Italian Government in Milan. I will love to pass this information to you and I hope you are the honest one That

is really willing to take good care of 7 years old girl-whom her mother Came from an unknown area in Poland and they live in Italy the mother was one Of the

four victims who were killed by recent Flood That hit Tuscany and Venice.

We hope you will be so honest to accept this little girl and train her like Your own daughter, the victim left the sum of €1.5 million Euro in her account and this

fund has automatically for the little girl and the amount Will be to pay her in full.

We shall love a good honest female or male interpreter who can accept the Kid and take good care of her and every twelve months the government Milan Will

always come to check her and after longer available That person will be Given the €1.5 Million Euro to take good care of the kid. Please write me back if you are

Interested So THAT we can contact the bank where the money is deposited As Soon As Possible And Also contact the Milan government so they can sign and

Agreed That the kid to go with you and the money.

Best Regards
Giovanni Alessandro
adoption@italymail.com

Google Maps isn’t always accurate, but on a whim, I looked up the above referenced address. Looks to me like this is a hotel, or on the other side of the street, the United States Embassy, neither of which would be a good place to send money. Maybe because Sig Giovanni Alessandro is actually from Milan, he got the Roman address wrong. I’m sure if you email him, he’ll set you straight. 


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Venice Canal
Venice Canal

…not to mention, what recent flood that hit Venice? The one that occurs seemingly every day? Or the one that happened in 2012 and took the life of a 73 year old man and three employees of Enel, Italy’s biggest electricity company? Amazing how progressive Ente Nazionale per l’energia ELettrica is to hire recent Polish immigrants, and even give them company vehicles.

Some 200 people were evacuated in parts of Tuscany as heavy rains over the weekend left 70 percent of the city of Venice underwater, authorities said on Sunday. Sea levels peaked at 1.5 metres above normal levels before receding slightly. Floodwaters drenched most of the tourist destination of Venice and led to the evacuation of 200 people in Tuscany, as bad weather hit northern Italy at the weekend, authorities said Sunday. In Venice itself, heavy rains and winds from the south triggered “acqua alta” (high water) and 70 percent of the city was flooded, with sea levels reaching a peak of 1.5 metres (five feet) above normal before receding slightly, they said. In Tuscany, around 200 people were evacuated because of heavy rains which flooded homes and caused mudslides, local officials said. The most affected region was the province of Massa and Carrara, which produces the famous Carrara marble.

Brewing Controversy Over Proposal to Make Water Cheaper Than Beer in Czech Republic

Afternoon Pilsner
Afternoon Pilsner

Probably won’t happen, as the Czech are all shook up about this proposal, but still amusing to an American. We are very familiar with a government that wants to control what and how we eat and drink…

PRAGUE—In most restaurants and taverns across the Czech Republic, a mug of beer is, literally, cheaper than water. The country’s health minister wants to change that as he tries to put Czechs on a lower-hops diet.

It won’t be easy. Here in the birthplace of pilsner, beer is known as “liquid bread.” Czechs drink an average of 37 gallons of the stuff per person per year, the highest per capita consumption in the world and more than double U.S. levels.

Pub patrons go through the sudsy amber liquid so fast that the nation’s largest brewer, SABMiller unit Plzensky Prazdroj, maker of famed Pilsner Urquell, delivers beer with the kind of tank trucks used to haul gasoline, and pumps it into bars’ storage vats.

“Beer is like mother’s milk for adults,” said Marek Gollner, a 36-year-old computer programmer and regular customer at the U Zelenku pub in the Prague suburb of Zbraslav. “For a Czech, it’s like wine for a Frenchman or vodka for a Russian.”

Faced with such attitudes, Health Minister Leos Heger’s campaign to make Bohemia a bit less bohemian is starting with baby steps.

He wants to require restaurants and bars to offer at least one nonalcoholic beverage at a price lower than that of the same amount of beer, primarily to offer teens, who can legally drink at 18, an alternative. The easiest thing to do, Dr. Heger said, would be to offer patrons pitchers of tap water.

 …

For at least a thousand years, beer has been a staple in the Czech lands, and the country’s native hops are renowned for being aromatic and bitter. St. Wenceslas, a martyred 10th-century Czech nobleman, is a patron saint of brewing and malting, in addition to being the patron saint of the nation.

When the city of Plzen, about 60 miles southwest of Prague, got its charter in 1295, its people were given the right to brew beer, helping ensure the settlement’s prosperity.

At a typical local pub, a pint—500 milliliters, actually, in this metric-measuring country—costs about $1. A similar portion of water, juice or soda generally costs twice as much. Offering free tap water as at U.S. eateries is extremely rare.

At U Zelenku, a neighborhood institution for more than a century, for instance, a pint of the cheapest beer goes for 99 cents. The same size of soda water is $1.30. At the fancier Kolkovna restaurant in touristy Old Town, a pint is $2.50, while mineral water is $2.29, for a bottle less than half the size.

 

(click here to continue reading Brewing Controversy Over Proposal to Make Water Cheaper Than Beer – WSJ.com.)