JoeA64

A lot of people have suggested that many of these "agents" aren't professional LE at all but may have been recruited from far-right groups (which may well be a reason why they've been so stubbornly insistent about masking up).

Defying a federal judge's order is never a good idea. NEVER.

...to look tough.

...about the polls.

...and in general Republicans in both houses are starting to get very nervous. So I think it's door #2, Johnson is trying whatever he can to make himself look tough & unyielding to curry favor with That Man but is on a knife's edge especially if TM decides to do a 180 if HE gets nervous enough...

...the last few days shows that repeated attempts to place the blame for the shutdown on the Democrats have gotten little to no traction, people are angry about their ACA premiums exploding, the prospect of the military reacting to missing paychecks is starting to really scare people...

I always thought Johnson was on pretty thin ice from the time he was elected - it looked to me at the time as though he were a compromise candidate after the House Republican caucus had so much trouble finding a new Speaker after McCarthy was shoved out the door. Moreover, reporting over...

I haven't seen much evidence of the former so far, though it might well be buried down deep, but a lot of evidence of the latter - that so many things have gone so wrong for them that they seem to be figuring they might as well play Samson in the temple.

Rouge (1987)

A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon (1989)

The Heroic Trio (1993)

The Enforcer (1995)

Images from films starring Anita Mui - BOTD in 1963

Rouge (1987)
A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon (1989)
The Heroic Trio (1993)
The Enforcer (1995)

They're coming under more pressure daily as the shutdown wears on and more people get kicked in the slats by it - government employees, even those on "excepted" status, are going to feel the pinch starting today/tomorrow. So they're deflecting more frantically than ever.

I always liked Joan Fontaine better than her sister. (Now THERE'S a controversial opinion for you for today!)

There was never going to be a moment when everyone—everyone in government, everyone in media, everyone in the population—was roused to action at the same time. We're turning a battleship. And Pritzker understands that.

He was noted for his Christian beliefs but it's a leadpipe cinch he'd have loathed "Christian Nationalists", especially since he witnessed the gestation of that plague in his later years. He once declared himself to be "the biggest sinner of them all". When did you last hear a CN say that?

Color photo of Anita Mui posing by a wall in a purple jacket with her midriff exposed.

Anita Mui - BOTD in 1963

Taken away WAY too soon.

He had a darker side, though - which, in truth, he was very candid about. TIL, for instance, that he once almost wiped out the California condor by carelessly setting a fire in a wildlife preserve in 1965!

Johnny Cash Refutes “Conservative” Persona in Surprisingly Revealing 1988 Interview Johnny Cash refuted his regional, ultra-conservative persona in a candid 1988 interview where he talks about war, Twisted Sister, and more.

Also, did you know that Johnny not only liked New Wave and punk, he was into heavy metal? And his politics weren't what a lot of people think they were - or would have liked them to be. americansongwriter.com/johnny-cash-...

The iconic photograph of the legendary Man in Black, Johnny Cash, making a very rude gesture DIRECTLY AT YOU. (Europeans take note, this is the American analogue to the "two fingers" gesture.)

Will *you* ever even come close to being as cool as he was?

Redmond and Daisy are just like that, because my apartment is so small and cluttered that setting up a big X-pen for them in the evening and overnight hours (they sleep in their habitat during the day) is simply the best thing to do, so they pout at the bars of the X-pen for treats every evening.

News: Bari Weiss just sent a memo to staffers at CBS News asking them to produce a memo explaining "how you spend your working hours—and ideally, what you've made (or are making) that you're most proud of."

One CBS News staffer puts it like this to me: "We just got Elon Musked."

It's one thing for NATO air forces to have more-or-less permanent presences for training at Luke Air Force Base in AZ (because they need the space), but why does Qatar need a base in Idaho? What military purpose does it serve?

If you're going to walk off in a snit instead of bringing things that actually would help - water, namely - after being rebuked for relaying wrong information that stands to get people hurt, then maybe you shouldn't be there anyway. Goodbye and thanks for playing.

,,,lived long enough to witness most of that catastrophe (which began in 1618) and its innumerable atrocities; 20 percent of Germany's total population died from war-related causes from 1618-1648.

Basically a translation of the Biblical account of Herod's massacre of infants in an attempt to kill the Christ child into the context of the Eighty Years' War, the Dutch war of independence against Spain. Though it could also be taken for a 30 Years' War scene, given that the younger Brueghel...

Not really - he proposed the idea early on but it wasn't passed for years and took a Supreme Court decision (deciding vote cast by, with profound paradox, John Roberts) in 2012 to seal the deal.

Ed Bishop and Wanda Ventham (Benedict Cumberbatch's mom) in, UFO (TV Series 1970–1973).

Tim Burton's biopic is really good. You'll come away from it both convinced he was nutty as the proverbial fruitcake and feeling a lot more empathy for him as an artist and human being than before.

At the risk of getting the pitchforks-and-torches mob running after ME, it seems that "(fill in the blank) Derangement Syndrome" (which catch phrase is actually a quarter of a century old or more) is not always a figment of the imagination. Some people really are that obsessed.

Or, for that matter, since Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho got the prize for the Paris treaty...and then, three years later, North Vietnam overran South Vietnam.

I've thought so ever since Obama was awarded the prize for (checks notes) not being George W. Bush.