There hasn’t been one of these for a while, at least in the sense that no topic is off-topic. I’ll start…
FIRST SNOW! We got about five inches overnight. We were within ten days of the record for latest first measurable snow of the season.
GftNC ordered a buckwheat hull pillow, but I don’t recall that she ever said if it worked out well for her. I’ve used one for many years now and love mine, because I never wake up with a sore neck.
I was in Colorado in early May 2024, spending some time in Denver and more time in Estes Park, plus driving between the two. I will simply say that I experienced a very wide range of weather while I was there, sometimes during a single day.
I’ve written here before about the one day while working an inventory job across CO, NE, SD, WY, MT that I drove from Fort Morgan to Fort Collins and drove through sunny weather into fog, hail, sun, rain, fog, light snow, and sun again over about 35 miles of empty state highways.
Colorado: sunny weather punctuated by acts of god.
It’s said about Iceland: If you don’t like the weather, just wait 15 minutes.
I’ve noticed that the archive site has nothing June-December 2017. Is it lost, or did it not exist for some reason I’ve forgotten?
In 1971-72, I was on the southwest coast of Iceland. There were gale-force winds several times. But everything that could blow away had already blown away. We’d get snowstorms immediately followed by rainstorms. Once the temperature got to a record high of 59°F.
I have more stories about weird Front Range weather than there is room for. I’ll settle for the recurring nice one in winter. When you go to bed, it’s 5 °F. In the middle of the night you wake up because the Chinook is howling. When you get up in the morning it’s 55.
I’ve noticed that the archive site has nothing June-December 2017. Is it lost, or did it not exist for some reason I’ve forgotten?
None of the archive is lost, except possibly a few things during the transition earlier this year. Feeding it from the Typepad export files into WordPress has to be done in chunks, and is tedious. Kudos to lj for the effort he’s put in.
Colorado: sunny weather punctuated by acts of god.
Front Range Colorado summer mornings are glorious. The afternoons are a total crap shoot.
I’ve written here before about the one day while working an inventory job across CO, NE, SD, WY, MT…
Did you go through Casper? Was the wind blowing? (That’s a trick question, for those who have not spent time in Casper.) The utilization factor at 80 meters for wind turbines near Casper is 49%. That is very likely the best in world for onshore turbines. Even the old school fossil fuel members of the Wyoming legislature are figuring out the state can derive far more revenue selling wind power to out-of-state customers than they can make burning coal.
Did you go through Casper? Was the wind blowing?
LOL – yes and yes. Casper, Sheridan, Gillette, Weston, Lusk, Riverton, Chugwater, Rawlins, Lander, Rock Springs, Saratoga…
All the happening places.
So much wind. Especially fun when it’s snowing, you are driving a full 14-passenger van, and you have been awake for 36 hours straight. The drifts blowing across the road start looking surreal.
I don’t miss it.
Pro bono, thanks, I must have skipped over that chunk of the file. The archive was out of sight, out of mind, so thanks for noting that.
Here’s a Facebook post with some very nice art. And some photorealistic transformations in the comments.
Rakshy Tarik Kamal – Artist Kate Lewis
Open thread, so: I’m sick at heart about what seems to be happening with regard to Trump and Ukraine. None of it is even that unexpected, but I guess I was still hoping beyond hope that, to quote Grace Paley, there would be Enormous Changes at the Last Minute. I suppose it could still happen, but you’d be a fool to put any money at all on it.
I do realise that many or most of you have concerns that are a great deal closer to home, and with that in mind I am posting a gift link to a podcast and its transcript from the Atlantic, with David Frum interviewing Michael Waldman, the president of the Brennan Center at NYU. The main part is about the threats to the coming elections (2026 and 2028), and what can be done to thwart them:
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2025/12/david-frum-show-michael-waldman-2026-elections/685219/?gift=cx0iluuWx4Cg7JjlT8ugCUa60y1nrf54jxaP3FioTT8&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Set in stone…
Warner Bros. has released a trailer and poster for the Supergirl movie coming out next June. Perhaps I’ll take granddaughter #1 to the theater to explain it to me.
The Roman magistrate song
Tune: The Major General’s Song (Gilbert&Sullivan: The Pirates of Penzance)
Chorus: |: His name is Marcus Tullius Cicero 😐
Cicero: My name is/Indeed I’m Marcus Tullius Cicero
1.
I am the very model of a proper Roman magistrate
although of origin a poor provincial legal advocate
I came to Rome with country drawl, behaved and clothed/dressed still/quite prissily
Then came to fame defending the oppressed poor folks of Sicily.
I beat that Asianic fop, illustrious Hortensius
The greatest advocate till then, an omen so portentious
That gave my standing quite a boost. I moved to better neighbourhood
[neighbourhood! maidenhood? hazelwood? Oh, of course!]
I can/could afford now finally some furniture of citrus wood
I ran the course of honors through and “suo anno” at each stage
An akin meteoric rise you’ll seek in vain on his’try’s page
See, does/did not turn my origin as studied legal advocate
me into a fine model for a proper Roman magistrate?
2.
I love the lengthy period with con- and subjunctives galore
I best each verbal labyrinth as Theseus did the minotaur
I know my ornaments and tropes from zeugma to apostrophy
I practice hypotyposis that leads to eucatastrophe
I shun the tmesis like the plague, don’t mix en- with hypallage
Against non-cretic clausulae I have an aching allergy
Occasions for anacoluth or sentence aposiopese…
[mayonaise? Calliopese? Alcibiades?… Eureka/I’ve got it/Ah, but of course!]
And don’t insinuate insinuations are just lies – oh, please.
I can explain the difference twixt alleg’ry and metaphor
and can provide for evr’y term the context that it matters for
This stanza has too many lines, I humbly do apologise
[eulogize?…extemporize? Nobel prize?… Something more epic!]
But with this topic dear to me the words swell like Apollo’s rise
No one can yet convict me of abuse of inconcinnity
My subtle sense of tone does truly verge on pure divinity
So I from modest origins, a mere provincial advocate,
became the very model of a brilliant Roman magistrate
3.
I dabble in philosophy, in dreams I talk to Socrates
Of rivals I am as devoid as medicine’s Hippocrates
A challenger compared to me sounds Numid or Iberian
I’d win a dispute easily no matter what criterion.
I can force words to do my will, of Latin mine is mastery
Comparable my aptitude to expert sculptor’s plastery
I keep my gestures dignified, at least when on the senate floor
[senate floor…janitor?…penny whore?…Ah! Of course!]
Avoid the roll-of-eyes and row-of-arms, I’m not a semaphor.
A homo novus though I am, by birth a mere equestrian
I soared through toil and eloquence past nobles more pedestrian
So out of plainest origins a paltry legal advocate
arose as very model of a palmy Roman magistrate
4.
I have a slave named Tiro who brought forth the art stenography
And who, if fates permit, one day will publish my biography
He notes down ev’ry word that in the public or at home I’ve said
And of course in the most august assembly here in Rome, senate!
Although with voters common I will be at times gregarious
I find the populares faction utterly nefarious
So without doubt I throw my lot in with the noble optimates
[optimates! obstinates? pots and plates?… I’ve got it!]
For what they’re always aiming at “best for the state” approximates
I love the toga candida and the elections annual
My brother Quintus was so kind to write the winner’s manual
With this assistance I was spared a certain loser’s tragic fate
Became with vote unanimous of Rome the highest magistrate
5.
I can declaim in Greek like born in Athens or in Miletos
I showed that rascal Catiline who really is in Rome the boss
Some say his motivation was just violated vanity
But then to start a coup attempt was madness and insanity
He clearly was a bolshevik, although I don’t know what that means,
and right against the mos maiorum but that’s normal for such fiends
I then got hailed as savior of our sacred fatherland
[fatherland…rather bent?…leather scent?…EUREKA]
but squinting sods did disagree and planned my triumphs there to end.
Thus afterwards you exiled me through that tribune so odious
Who had exchanged his honest name for that of vulgar Clodius
With fire denied (and water too) exiled to places desolate
I fell down from the lofty peak of supreme Roman magistrate
6.
It’s said the perfect orator a good man is well versed in speech
And for him who has mastered this no thing to aim for ‘s out of reach
I climbed through efforts tireless the heights of Attic oratory
I penned some self-promoting but unsuccessful epic poetry
The way I use the language shall one day be made canonical
Which given no bum talks like this should be seen as ironical
Categorise my style as neither Asian nor atticist
[pacifist, can’t resist? Oh, me stupid!]
I walk the golden middle course, am not baroque but classicist
I made the Latin language shine and stay for all eternity
To form with Persian, Greek, Sanskrit forever a fraternity
And thus despite my origin as country bumpkin advocate
my eloquence made me the model of a Roman magistrate
7.
Indeed it was an/the orator who first united as a group
the cultureless humanity fed up with bitter acorn soup
He taught them all there was to know and how to found a/the city state
He was the natural candidate to serve as its first magistrate
We know that our first Roman king – Quirinus Romulus – could wield
The word as well as any sword. The eloquence served as his shield
Then Numa his more peaceful heir could do away with sagum red
[garum fed?…Boba Fett?… Ouch! It’ s so obvious]
Inspired by Camena’s source/spring he governed in the toga clad
And this tradition it holds true while seven centuries have passed
If to my precepts/teachings you will hold, for many more it’s going to last
To Rome despite my origins as rural legal advocate
The gods called me as model both as orator and magistrate
8.
The orator before all things must never ever be a bore
And even on the dullest topic find his mark and hit full score
But this be done/he does with dignity, avoiding all cheap stage effects
And with quick wit the heckling claque’s intrusions craftily deflects
An orator worth of the name of ev’rything has ample gist
And, if he hasn’t, he can still make use of an exempla/example list
But I digress – I often do – but this is not the lecture hall
Please don’t take it as flattery me saying that I love you all
What is this world, if not a stage, for each of us a part to play?
[part to play…hard to pay…start to say?…I got it.]
And I was given billings prime to take the lead and save the day
For not by chance for Roma’s sake in time mine was the consulate
The vilest plot I could unveil and just before it was too late.
The gods send forth as champion me, an unknown rusty advocate
In time of need to take the role of lucid Roman magistrate
9.
The Parthians do not fear me yet for my strategic genius
No blade I bathed in human blood for I am rather squeamish, yes
Of British cooking I stay clear, a parcel one calls them of rogues
The Gauls I hate for drinking beer (exception made for Allobroges)
No sword is worn within Rome’s walls, the sanctified pomerium
Removed from fasces is the axe, no soldier holds imperium
And though I lack the clever stratagems of Quintus Fabius
[fabulous, platypus? Ah, that’s it!]
And cannot tell apart, ye gods, a spatha from a gladius
I am no blood-stained warrior. The tongue is mighty, not the sword
I have steered through the roughest seas the ship of state to safest port
Therefore, despite of origin a humble legal advocate
I am the very model of a glorious Roman magistrate
10.
Republican I am at heart, I hate all things tyrannical
Despite nice news of victories both Gallic and Britannical
I would not take – if offered one – a seat in a triumvirate
Political shenanigans of “great men” get me quite irate
My idol is Demosthenes the great Athenian orator
I do philippics just like him and give Rome’s fetid foes what for
I hate that guy Marc Anthony and call him many nasty name
[lasting shame?…ghastly maim? Misplaced my head again…Duh!]
A scoundrel very wanton he, too fond of wine, whore, slut and dame
Not worthy of his noble birth, a moral stain on Roma’s face
Defiler of all honest things, in short a total gross disgrace!
Compare that to my humble self, this Arpinate and advocate
Possessing moral stamina, apt for a Roman magistrate
Who says corporate America doesn’t have at least some sense of humor left? I got this card from Mint Mobile. It included a fragment of holiday wrapping paper :^)
To fit the vibe…
Who says corporate America doesn’t have at least some sense of humor left?
Ryan Reynolds makes humorous, self-deprecating Mint Mobile commercials. In 2020 and 2024, he was the world’s second-highest-paid actor. Now that he’s an entrepreneur, he’s also a billionaire.
How I got to Mint Mobile seems strange, at least to me. My wife and I signed up for T-Mobile’s cheap plan, unlimited everything for two people aged 55+. Moved to Fort Collins, where every network’s coverage was great. Fort Collins had started requiring all wired networks — phone, power, cable — to be buried in 1948. The only tall poles left were the power authority’s high-voltage lines, all of the cell companies used them, which is why coverage was great. Then the feds decided putting cell antennas on HVAC poles was dangerous and required that they be removed. Fort Collins now has some of the worst cellular coverage of any city. By happenstance, T-Mobile’s was the best in the parts of the city where I spent most of my time. At some point after my wife went into memory care I was fixing up service. Mint Mobile was the least expensive of the discount companies reselling T-Mobile service. At the end of the initial period, they sent me e-mail and text saying, “We recommend you change to this cheaper plan.” As I recall, all of my phone service since I was an undergraduate back in the 1970s cost more than the $15/month I’m paying now.
Part 2
Keir Starmer chooses to see Trump as some kind of elderly greedy badger who can be placated with offers of a deluxe breakfast
As an alleged teenage fan of Hitler alleged to have told small black British children to go home to Africa, although all in a spirit of harmless banter if he even said it at all, Nigel Farage would benefit from Trump’s foreign intervention in our politics. But being a man of honour and principle he will of course reject America’s direct assistance as it would be hypocritical to do otherwise. Because back in 2016, when Barack Obama said Brexit would harm British trade with America, Farage said: “Vladimir Putin behaved in a more statesmanlike manner than President Obama did in this referendum campaign. Obama came to Britain, and I think behaved disgracefully, telling us we would be at the back of the queue. Vladimir Putin maintained his silence throughout the whole campaign.” Farage and Putin sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
We must assume that, unlike Farage’s colleague Nathan Gill, the Reform leader wasn’t being paid at that point to promote Putin, the world leader he most admires, who, although nominally silent himself during Farage’s referendum, certainly had a lot of online bots making a lot of pro-Brexit noise on Farage’s behalf.
Don’t look for much pushback against Trump’s plan for European regime change from America’s on-off enemy-ally Russia or the rightwing British media. Both Kremlin mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov and the Times columnist Melanie Phillips found some common ground to jointly endorse Trump’s plans, the former saying “The adjustments we’re seeing are largely consistent with our vision … we consider this a positive step”, and the latter commenting “Only Britain and Europe can save themselves. That’s what the Trump administration is saying.”
Phillips appears to welcome the dismantling of our democracy as long as it returns us to “principles rooted in historic faith, traditions and institutions”, and the imposition of a puppet fascist government is a small price to pay to get Songs of Praise back on the BBC. And the Kremlin wants to make sure an Islamified UK doesn’t neglect all those beautiful old cathedrals so beloved of its architecturally infatuated international chemical weapons assassins, slaughtering civilians on our streets.
Defence analysts discreetly admit we may already be at war with Russia, which is probing our communications cables, badgering European airports with drones and quietly flooding our social media with misinformation to make your Facebook-following uncle foam at the mouth and ruin your upcoming Christmas dinner by insisting Volodymyr Zelenskyy spends all the Ukraine aid money on yachts, cocaine and designer puffa jackets.
And the moment we start sending Russia’s seized assets to Ukraine we can expect to see our entire online infrastructure shut down with the flick of an undersea switch, as British politicians’ eyes melt out of their faces while swathes of civilians evaporate behind them on the high street in invisible chemical warfare clouds, tapping at their suddenly unresponsive phones and asking an inert ChatGPT why their internal organs are wriggling about on the pavement.
But the truth is we are now at war with Trump’s America as well, and the only reason we don’t recognise the situation for what it obviously is is because it seems so utterly inconceivable. And still Starmer prevaricates about re-entering the European customs union alongside Trump’s other intended European victim nations, because he worries it may jeopardise our American trade deal, a scarecrow walking into a furnace.
Part 1 obviously had more links than I realised, so is still “waiting for approval”.
Just trying again, in case I found out how to delete one link
Part 1
Stewart Lee: Remember when America used to destroy democracy in style? Those were the days
The CIA once promoted abstract expressionism as a tool of regime change. Now we have AI videos of Trump bombing people with faeces
Stewart Lee
Dec 12, 2025
I wasn’t even born in the 50s but I’m already nostalgic for the days when, rather than re-bombing drowning Venezuelan sailors to make sure none survive an airstrike in a war Congress has not authorised, American operatives in sharp suits and sunglasses instead tried to implement regime change subtly, discreetly and even tastefully, to a soundtrack of Paul Desmond cool jazz classics. It’s called democracy, daddio, you dig?
The historian Frances Stonor Saunders believes the CIA promoted the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko in order to discredit Soviet realist art. Donald Trump, meanwhile, just gave some kind of made-up award to the band Kiss, who pretended to be magic animals from space in the 1970s.
A world in which America could imagine abstract art as a cultural propaganda tool is a far cry from one where the president releases an AI video of himself carpet bombing protesters with clods of human excrement, although the 60s Italian artist Piero Manzoni, who canned his faeces and sold them, might recognise Trump as a kindred creative spirit. On balance though, those postwar CIA guys were a better class of bastard.
Because on Monday, quietly and without much fanfare from the mainstream media, the world we grew up in changed for ever and our Euro-doom was decreed. Donald J Trump’s National Security Strategy statement explained, quite explicitly, that he will be actively aiding European far-right nationalist parties to win elections in order to “restore western identity”, end mass migration into Europe, and enforce a contemporary American idea of freedom of speech, which appears to mean the right to say anything irrespective of its accuracy. Don’t like these facts? The algorhythmically amplified far-right avatars of American social media have others. And if those don’t convince you, the president has a cartoon of himself bombing people with shit.
Conservative commentators like to imagine Donald J Trump as a largely unserious presence whose provocative statements are meant to bait the libtards rather than to represent a genuine direction of political travel. Keir Starmer in turn chooses to see Trump as some kind of elderly greedy badger who can be placated with offers of a deluxe breakfast with Magic King Charles of Ye Olde England, and some string.
Trump in turn has already agreed to use the United Kingdom as an enormous energy-sapping battery, housing all the servers needed to generate the algorithmically skewed content that will eventually destroy liberal European democracy. Result! Sir Keir did a great deal with Donald, who then sent him down to the DIY shop to buy some striped paint.
But since Monday’s White House National Security Strategy statement, Starmer’s going to have to up the standard full English at Windsor Castle to at least the level of the late lamented Little Chef Olympic if he wants to avoid the country falling fast into fascism. Baked bean ramekins all round! Just how good can those Windsor Castle sausages be? And will the Royal footmen even be able to find any sausages now Prince Andrew, currently Andrew, is rumoured to have been playing a game involving hiding them?
GftNC, thanks for the Stewart Lee piece. He hits similar notes pre Trump here
https://youtu.be/D2DkYHbSxUE?si=GqYxfZTM9PqD4NT5
The transcript is in his book How I Escaped My Certain Fate
And, I was reading this great book of, of trial transcripts, of American soldiers accused of human-rights abuses in, in Abu Ghraib, which was of course closed today. And, um … I don’t know if you remember Charles Graner, he was a fat American soldier but he had a moustache, so you could identify him. And he was the guy that organised the photographing of a naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian being dragged out of a cell, er, on his hands and knees, er, on a dog’s lead. And, um, in his defence, er, his lawyer, Charles Graner’s lawyer said that the naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian wasn’t being dragged out of the cell but was actually crawling of his own free will. And I just wondered how many other lines of defence they rejected before they settled on that one. And also what the naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian might have been crawling of his own free will towards? And I like to think he was crawling towards the notion of Western democracy. But obviously he was having some difficulty knowing which way to crawl, er, because of the hood, er, and because of the fact that he was approaching a palpably abstract concept.
We shouldn’t forget or forgive what was done by our side at Abu Ghraib.
But now I’m triggered by “palpably abstract”.