Day 2 of The Great House Hunt. I’m trying to find one with a gila monster in the back yard that we can name Irving. So far, no success. Day 4 of struggling with this stupid MacBook. It appears to be winning. Fuck it, let’s dive right in.

First, the customary birthdays. Guy on the $100,000 bill and the only Treasury secretary named after a fish, Salmon P. Chase; bridge specialist and Nobel winner Wilhelm Wien; Airplane! star Robert Stack; brilliant guitarist and incredibly nice guy Joe Pass; master of gimmicks and props Rip Taylor; tall baldie Richard Moll; pencil-neck with one foot out the door Rod Rosenstein; and our best vice president and president ever, Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

And now the news.


As we’ve been saying all along, the so-called shutdown is really a free vacation for largely useless tax leeches, since they’ll end up getting paid for the entire duration of not working. Which massively passed congress and which Trump has signed off on.  And unsurprisingly, Thomas Massie and Justin Amash are right there in the tiny group of principled objectors.

 

Speaking of which, World’s Smallest Violin. Fuck off, slaver.

 

Fake News is fake news. This might be the most meta story I’ve ever seen.

 

All we need now is Robespierre and a few guillotines. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

 

Castro wants to be our Leader. And be joined by his brother. What could possibly go wrong?

 

Christians say to Muslims, “Hold my beer!” And at least you know that the Muslims won’t drink any while they’re holding it.

 

Proof again that petty outrage can direct anywhere. I love the poster on the podium, so very stylistically reminiscent of Chavez, Castro, or Maduro.

 

Part of being presidential is getting Mazie Hirono, in competition for Dumbest Person in the Senate, to spew her usual stupidities. This is a sign that Tulsi Gabbard might actually be a viable candidate.

 

This one is for Spudalicious. I love when the phrases “…and then the Internet lost its mind” or “…and then Twitter lost its mind” are used because, well, that starts with an incorrect assumption.

 

This could certainly cause some flight delays.

 

There’s a STEVE SMITH joke in here somewhere.

 

I’m always amazed that bugnuttery seems to follow patterns.

 


 

Old Guy Music is really old today. I’ll confess to a fascination with Hieronymus Kapsberger, and this piece may explain why. It really sounds remarkably modern despite dating back to the early 1600s.