Open thread

The mobile office, 2026 edition.

Don’t bother calling the John Laws … they know where I am, even if you don’t.

It’s been a long week, and bloggery has gone walkabout, along with cycling, running, thoughtful meal selection, preparation and consumption, feline management, etc., et al., and so on and so forth. Nothing to be concerned about, just busy busy busy and largely disconnected from most of the tools of my former trade.

With any luck at all I should be back in the saddle tomorrow.

In the meantime, consider this post what my fellow bloggers call an “open thread,” suitable for discussing/debating whatever happens to be floating your boats.

Marvel-ous

Eurocrossin’ in the New Mexican desert.

Why is a Steelman Eurocross better than a BMW 7 Series?

Well, for openers, it’s a Steelman Eurocross. And you can’t just slide on down to your local Steelman dealer and drive one off the lot, because Brent Steelman isn’t making them any longer.

Even if you could, its touchscreen wouldn’t be showing you an ad for “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” the instant you climbed aboard, which BMWs are doing. My Steelman Eurocrosses ain’t got no steekeeng touchscreens. Oh, sure, they share an ancient Cateye Velo 8, but it doesn’t say shit to me because it saw what I did to Herself’s sportswatch with a claw hammer when the fucker started beeping and wouldn’t shut the hell up.

I knew this day was coming the first time I pulled into a gas station for a tank of the cheap stuff and the pump started shrieking advertising bullshit at me. I nearly drove off right then and there, but I was running on fumes, and figured that if one station was doing it, they all were.

And they all are.

The Eurocross “touchscreen.” One button, no Spider-Men.

So, guess what? If six-figure BMW 7 Series sedans are inflicting advertisements upon their owners — and nobody at BMW gets fed feet first into a wood chipper over it — your $24K Kia Shitbox will soon be pitching Happy Meals, weight-loss programs, and boner pills at you.

My 2005 Subaru Forester? Not so much. The only screen in that sucker is the windscreen, as the Brits call it. The clear one I look through to see where in the hell is it that I’m going.

John Gruber sums up the whole deal nicely at Daring Fireball:

Ho ho ho. What isn’t?

‘Worry’

“I thought this was a fan, but it’s not moving and I don’t feel any cooler,” says Miss Mia Sopaipilla.

Another day, another record.

Yesterday’s high of 101° pipped the previous record of 100°, set all the way back in 1944, when America was still fighting fascists rather than electing them.

Every day brings a new high, or a new low, depending upon your perspective.

Now it seems we want to start a pissing match with Brazil. Jaysis H., etc. As if things aren’t already stupid-hot enough around here.

How many Brazillions will that cost us? How many is a Brazillion*, anyway?

* Remember when we thought that guy was as bad as it could ever get?

Aw, nuts

GOP senator testicles (actual size).

When it came to nut up or shut up, guess what Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina did?

Lemme give you a hint: They won’t have any trouble hitting the high notes in choir come Sundays.

The two alleged senators had refused to bless Todd Blanche’s bid to rock The Big Chair at Justice unless the former mouthpiece for You Know Who committed in writing to (a) dropping a $1.8 billion slush fund for traitors, fart-sniffers, and ring-kissers, and (2) getting a hammerlock on the issuance of “Get Out of IRS Jail Free” cards for blood kin and pretty much anyone else with a whiff of damp, wrinkly ass on their breath.

And then hey presto! Blanche pops back with assurances scribbled on — hell, who knows what? One of Whiskey Pete’s bar tabs or Ka$h P’tui’s monogrammed buttfloss — and these two fold like Mar-a-Lago beach chairs in a category-five hurricane.

Killjoys dismiss Blanche’s assurances, written or otherwise, as “a political solution to a political problem, not a legally binding document.”

Quoth The New York Times:

“Law.” It is the hee, and also the haw. To this gang of brigands, it’s the law that is meaningless.

• Addendum: For more, see Talking Points Memo.

Who peed in the pool?

Pucker up, Jeanine. The Great Builder has a boo-boo that needs kissing, and since you put it there — you know where — you’ve got the duty. | AP photo by Jacquelyn Martin

Ho, ho. I needed a good laugh today and Jeanine Pinot Noir delivers:

Except, uh, not so much.

Do tell. Polygraphs for everyone!

I guess Jeanine skipped the “Investigate Before Charging” seminar at Albany Law School. Bad case of brew flu, p’raps?

In any case, The Great Builder was not amused. Writing on “Truth” Social, he screeched:

Couldn’t agree more. Charge the senile old saboteur who peed in the pool!

And a word to the wise, fatso: Get yourself a real ambulance-chaser if you want this kind of shit to stick to someone other than you. This boozy bag of hot air couldn’t deliver a case of beer to a frat house if one of the brothers was driving. She’d probably drink it all before they got there.