Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Now is probably the time to be putting great wines from around the world in the cellar, since the coming trade wars are probably going to jack up all the prices. Plus, when he shifts the tax burden from the rich to the working class, there will be more money in the hands of the idle wine drinking class.

I'm betting fine Bordeaux outperforms the market significantly during the Trump years. Probably even more than luxury real estate, where if Trump isn't careful he'll scare off all those Chinese buyers into the US market.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

This has simply never been true in the Israel/Palestine conflict. Indeed, the exact opposite is true historically. Reagan used his last month in office, freed from electoral pressure, to begin dialogue with the PLO. Bush II focused on pushing Israel and Hamas to talk, including abstaining on a security council resolution on the issue. Clinton used the period to push the Clinton Parameters and an Egyptian-led Israel/Palestine summit.

We've probably not had an incoming President with the same "Fuck you and Fuck US Policy, too" attitude toward the President ever. Lincoln and Buchanan certainly had the rockiest of all transitions ever, but Lincoln was still more respectful of the man who was spending the transition complaining about the union falling apart but not doing anything about it. There really isn't anything to transition to right now, just a great big morass of promises to shit on existing policy with no policy to replace it. Don't worry, though, post-inauguration we'll get filled in on who we're going to war against.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Special snowflakes in Moscow upset that US might get in the way of the next Aleppo, hopes Comrade Trump will reverse bipartisan defense bill.

What's the over/under on Trump picking up the baton here, and helping the Moscow snowflakes out?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

We could use some special snowflakes here after a Christmas day thunderstorm turned the area into an ice skating rink. Here is a nice classic old cut, famously sampled by N.W.A (hilariously enough with an anti-pot message from Dr. Dre a few years before he released The Chronic). The Daily Dose is "Express Yourself" by Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Band. So groovy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPSDQygm4dI

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Hi, me again! Another version of the Daily Dose coming your way, with Eddie Bo under the pseudonym Curley Moore. "Funky Yeah." It's ~psychedelic~!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk_8v5CNsBg

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

So i plan travel to Moth cities for when the moth is there- coming to St. Paul in late February for a hearing, and I planned it for the day the Moth will be there. But then I remembered it'll be fucking February in Mn. It'll be horrible? Will there be any way to run? Do you guys plow the bike paths? Should I send an associate?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I'm a Cali wine guy anyway, but there are rumblings it will leave the US so who knows.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Once the trade wars protect California wines from competition, they'll have less incentive to keep the quality up, so I'd stock up on your Cali wines too, before they all taste like boxed wine.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

February can be anything. 40. Negative 20. The bike paths around the lakes are maintained very well. I assume that the bike paths along the river on the north side of downtown are similarly maintained. Don't know about St. Paul. People run here in basically any temp, but if it gets icy (freeze-thaw cycle, or rain then freeze) then all bets are off. What temps you can run in is largely dependent on what clothes you have. I x-country skied for an hour and a half last Sunday and the air temp was ten below.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Obama needs to stop trying to counter Putin. Today's debacle was a new low. We look like fools, and Putin looks like he's just toying with a despearate lame duck. (And Trump will reflexively undo all of the symbolic sanctions, just to demonstrate he cannot be put in a box by Obama or the GOP Congress.)

Leave on a high note, Mr. President. You've immense domestic popularity. But you cannot play on the same court with Putin.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I do not think Obama has a fuck left to give about the way that the press will react to what he does.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I can only imagine Putin's goals while he has a patsy in the White House.

The idiot Republicans in Congress are all saying, "finally, you should have done this earlier on Russia," though they've had plenty of power to levy sanctions themselves, and potentially more meaningful sanctions. It's the old "the food tastes awful but I want bigger portions" gang. Let's see what they come up with to follow on Obama's sanctions. Anything that slows Putin down now is a good thing, because he's going to be partying like it's 1721.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Does Hank pay you to make him look good?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Agreed. And it was his only technical move in the game of traditional intl relations.

But it was probably a much smarter move to just avoid Putin altogether. Why leave any flank open by screwing around with the guy? Preferable to dryly tell the media, "Well, Putin is Trump's problem, or bestie, from now on... Good luck with that."

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Come on. Objectively, Putin volleyed that perfectly. There's no getting around that fact. Giving him the opportunity to do so was error.