Independence Day Weekend (with a little socialism)

Happy Independence Day Weekend! Along with the festivities, why not take the opportunity to make remembering some history fun for the kids? One of the keys to the popularity of the clearly incompetent socialist mayoral candidate in NYC seems to be that he smiles a lot.

We can do better than this with young people. And older people, for that matter.

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History of Independence Day

Following are some pieces to read and share so we can keep things in perspective during these crazy times. Most of them were accessed through Powerline:

Why we love America

From City Journal. Remembering to share family stories, including stories of experiences in foreign lands

Celebrating Independence From Anti-American History Propaganda
The end of the 1619 Project?

That would be great, wouldn't it?

What, to the New York Times, Is the Fourth of July?

No institution has worked harder in recent years to destroy the narrative of America’s founding than the New York Times, whose 1619 Project reimagined the experiment in republican self-government as a grand scheme to institute and perpetuate slavery. James Piereson calls their bluff, and examines the contradictions of the destructive Left’s founding myth.

A Real Live Niece of Uncle Sam

An organization supporting the history of Mount Vernon

How to Celebrate the Past
Claremont School Board President William B. Allen uses the Fourth of July as an occasion for reflection on the Founding principles of this nation.

Following a fading tradition, Claremont School Board President William B. Allen uses the Fourth of July as an occasion for reflection on the Founding principles of this nation. His address raises issues concerning the schools and civic education which the recent, well-publicized education studies have virtually ignored.
This contribution inaugurates a new section of the Review which will feature essays, interviews, and reviews of particular interest to students, professors, and other residents of Claremont.

For the more studious of your acquaintances, I guess. Did you know there was once a Forefathers Day?

Resources from Wilfred M. McClay

We must work to understand the Declaration better and to grasp the various sources of its strength and enduring appeal.

A River Fed By Many Streams

Thomas Jefferson was not a particularly modest man. Few great and world-changing public figures are. But in a famous letter of 1825 to Henry Lee, he insisted upon taking a modest approach to his role as the principal draftsman of the document that has come to characterize the heart and soul of the American Revolution: the Declaration of Independence. He could have claimed brilliant originality for himself. He could have complained, as he had on other occasions, about the fact that the drafting committee altered his brilliant original draft in ways of which he disapproved. But he chose not to do so in this instance. The passage in question deserves to be quoted at length, as the best account we have of his considered view of the matter:
…with respect to our rights and the acts of the British government contravening those rights, there was but one opinion on this side of the water. all American whigs thought alike on these subjects. when forced therefore to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. this was the object of the Declaration of Independance. not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject; [. . .] terms so plain and firm, as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independant stand we [. . .] compelled to take. neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the american mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. all it’s authority rests then on the harmonising sentiments of the day, whether expressed, in conversns in letters, printed essays or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney Etc. the historical documents which you mention as in your possession, ought all to be found, and I am persuaded you will find, to be corroborative of the facts and principles advanced in that Declaration. (my emphasis added)

There is much more. Perhaps the story is not as simple as we thought it was.

The eternal meaning of Independence Day (Scott Johnson)

On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience as Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas graciously invited Lincoln to join him on the balcony to listen to the speech. . .

The eternal meaning of Independence Day (2) (Scott Johnson)

President Calvin Coolidge celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1926, with a speech providing a magisterial review of the history and thought underlying the Declaration. His speech on the occasion deserves to be read and studied in its entirety. The following paragraph, however, is particularly relevant to the challenge that confronts us in the variants of the progressive dogma that pass themselves off today as the higher wisdom:

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

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NYC Democrats have chosen an interesting candidate for mayor

Douglas Murray:

. . . in the end we have to face the fact that the present front-runner for mayor is the most woefully inadequate candidate possible.
Promising the most woefully impossible agenda.
On Mamdani’s qualifications the facts speak for themselves.
Mamdani may be presenting himself as the representative of struggling New Yorkers, but he himself is anything but.
Privately schooled at the Bank Street school, he went on to study at Bowdoin College in Maine.
From there he loafed around for a bit, trying to make it as a rapper before deciding to become a political activist.
Truly a story of American struggle.

The young hipsters who are his biggest supporters are thrilled to have a declared socialist (one who has used old-fashioned Marxist rhetoric about seizing the means of production) as their candidate. He is downplaying the Marxist language right now, but the internet is forever. Let's just go with his current campaign, never mind the goof-ups already noted by Murray above:

Touch it bb 🫶🫶 pic.twitter.com/oOe8Hd4WgC
— Becky Weiss (@Becky_Weiss_) June 27, 2025

I blame the universities, in large part, for the appeal of this guy. The current dust-up over his identifying himself as African-American stemmed from an internet sleuth trying to keep tabs on Columbia, for example.

There three posts by different authors and commenters this week with lots of food for thought on where the universities have let us down at Chicago Boyz this week. Check out the recent posts on the Fourth of July, too.

From commenter "Mike" at the last link above:

Great thoughts in this thread: Mike June 29, 2025 at 7:47 pm
I think the overproduction of worthless college degrees is and the resentment it generates among their holders is one problem. It provides a degree of anger for people who feel their ambitions, whether material or emotional are not being filled
I think there’s another problem which is, the what? The Zeitgeist? A problem with the higher education system and the hatred it preaches to students is that not only does it make students at best indifferent to their culture and past but makes them openly hostile to it. A rejection of the past means a rejection not only a rejection of its collective wisdom and prudence but the elevation of individual will as the highest virtue
If that sounds a little too high-minded think of it this way – we have a large, seething mass of resentful college-educated young people who think they are the smartest and most virtuous people the world has ever produced and that they are only being held back from immanentizing the eschaton by corrupt forces. They are on the cutting-edge of History and the past has nothing to teach them . .
Btw… as Bruce Abbott commented in the previous thread if you want to look at the decline of the American higher ed system look no further than Bowdoin College which has gone from producing Joshua Chamberlain to Zohran Momdani. Somehow it seems totally appropriate to their respective given times.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

Let's think about why a mayoral candidate has a foreign policy. Peter W. Wood has written a piece on his education, but much of the piece is is about his father. Even though Wood wrote an exhaustive review of education at Bowdoin in 2013, when our mayoral candidate was at school there.

His father was a settler colonialist in Uganda, and his parents were conflicted about this issue. Their son's middle name honors a famous Black African revolutionary.

Teaching African Studies at Columbia, it must be interesting for Dad to teach about Idi Amin, who kicked him out of the country.

Junior was a perfect fit at Bowdoin.

* * * * *

Story Time

A Daily Dose of History (FB)

There is a joke about macaroni and cheese being the most popular vegetable in the South. Another says that in the South macaroni and cheese is a food group unto itself. So, how did the remarkable and beloved dish become such an important feature of Southern cuisine? For history lovers, the answer is fascinating.
Thomas Jefferson was, among many other things, an epicure and a Francophile. When he learned in May 1784 that he had been appointed American Minister to France, Jefferson recognized the opportunity to realize one his ambitions. He sent immediately for James Hemings.
Elizabeth Hemings and her twelve children (including James and his famous half-sister Sally) had been slaves of Martha Jefferson’s father, John Wayles, and Martha had inherited them when her father died. The Hemings family was afforded special privileges by the Jeffersons, one being that, although still legally slaves, Elizabeth’s sons were allowed to work for wages and keep the money they earned. At the time he was summoned to join Jefferson on his voyage to Paris, 20-year-old James was working as a riding valet in Richmond. Jefferson thought highly of James’ abilities and knew him to be intelligent and trustworthy. Jefferson had long wanted to have a French-trained chef at Monticello, and he chose James to be that man.
In July 1784 Jefferson and James Hemings sailed for France, with Jefferson’s daughter Martha traveling with them. For three years James studied French cuisine in Paris, eventually becoming the head chef at Jefferson’s Paris residence the Hôtel de Langeac, which functioned also as the American embassy. James used some of his wages to hire a French tutor, gaining a good command of the language while there.
Jefferson and James Hemings returned to America in 1789, Jefferson having been appointed Secretary of State. Slavery was illegal in France at the time, so James could have stayed behind, a free man in Paris. Why he returned, while still technically a slave, is unknown. Tradition in the Hemings family is that James negotiated the conditions of his return, which may well be true. But the details are lost to history for now. What we do know is that James Hemings went with Jefferson to Philadelphia, where he served as the chief chef for the Secretary of State, earning the same wages as the other staff.
Under Pennsylvania law at the time, any enslaved person who remained in the state for more than six months became free. Because he lived in Philadelphia longer than that, James Hemings was entitled to his freedom. But as in France, he did not elect to claim it immediately. Instead he and Jefferson negotiated an agreement.
Jefferson did not want James to leave until he had trained a replacement, and for reasons we do not know, James agreed to stay on for that purpose. On the eve of his retirement to Monticello, Jefferson drew up an agreement with James that read:
“Having been at great expense in having James Hemings taught the art of cookery, desiring to befriend him, and to require from him as little in return as possible, I do hereby promise and declare, that if the said James shall go with me to Monticello in the course of the ensuing winter, when I go to reside there myself, and shall there continue until he shall have taught such person as I shall place under him for that purpose to be a good cook, this previous condition being performed, he shall be thereupon made free, and I will thereupon execute all proper instruments to make him free. Given under my hand and seal in the county of Philadelphia and state of Pennsylvania this 15th day of September one thousand seven hundred and ninety three.”
Back in Monticello, James Hemings trained the man chosen by Jefferson to be his replacement—James’s 23-year-old brother Peter Hemings. About two years later, once he had imparted to Peter all of the culinary skills he had learned in France, James was officially and legally manumitted by Jefferson.
But back to macaroni and cheese. While in France James Hemings learned to prepare, among other things, French fries and ice cream—both of which were popularized in America after being served at the Jefferson residence. Likewise “macaroni pie,” which we would now call macaroni and cheese. The dish had become popular in Europe after 1769 and James Hemings learned to make it while in France, bringing his own recipe back to America with him. In 1802 Jefferson served “macaroni pie” at a state dinner, using James Hemings’s recipe. In 1824, Jefferson’s cousin Mary Randolph published “The Virginia Housewife,” which would become the most influential cookbook of the 19th century. Included in it was the recipe for “macaroni and cheese.” The rest is history.
Unfortunately, however, there is no happy ending to the James Hemings story. After being granted his freedom James became a traveler, returning to France for a while and possibly visiting other places in Europe. By 1801 he was working as a chef in Baltimore, and by then had become a chronic alcoholic. We don’t know whether it was his alcoholism or something else that drove him to such despair, but in 1801, at age 36, James Hemings took his own life.
Thomas Jefferson, his daughter Martha, and James Hemings sailed for France on July 5, 1784, two hundred forty-one years ago today.

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Music

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Hope you have something nice planned for this Independence Day weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Serving your mid-day open thread needs

The Week In Pictures: Independence Day Edition

Posted by: K.T. at 11:19 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 [ Automatic first ]

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 11:23 AM (jc0TO)

2 Morning, KT. Still got you in my prayers.

Posted by: olddog in mo at July 05, 2025 11:24 AM (VpKXM)

3 Good morning K.T. so glad to see you here. Hope all is going well.
Good morning all.
Coffee's ready.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 11:25 AM (xCsAY)

4 Lies, but feelings

Posted by: Hokey Pokey at July 05, 2025 11:26 AM (QSrLX)

5 Is this Independence Day or April Fools Day?

The Hill@thehill
"Trump’s failures are turning Americans away from him"

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Big Mouth of the West at July 05, 2025 11:26 AM (L/fGl)

6 Macaroni Pie sounds good.

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 11:28 AM (jc0TO)

7 Socialism will never go away. Promising people free shit will always be politically popular. Work and buy things vs don’t work and get things. Yeah I know which way I’m voting dude!!

As the video says, you have to left them touch the stove, every couple of generations.

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 05, 2025 11:28 AM (KrOdt)

8 Pixy posted this verge article this morning and reading it is just depressing.

https://archive.is/WASw5

As Reagan noted, it's not what our Bolshie countrymen don't know that's the problem, it's what they KNOW that's not so.

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 11:30 AM (jc0TO)

9 >>> 1619 Project reimagined the experiment in REPUBLICAN self-government as a grand scheme to institute and perpetuate slavery...

How odd that the elite political machine that calls itself "The Democratic Party" would forever be advocating slavery by any name.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at July 05, 2025 11:30 AM (/lPRQ)

10 Something like 65% of millenails view socialism positively. So screaming you’re a socialist isn’t going to hurt someone like Mamdani. The right needs to learn a new tactic to fight them. I don’t know what that is. But “socialism is bad” isn’t working.

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 05, 2025 11:31 AM (KrOdt)

11 Having some curried goat, rice and peas and stewed cabbage for lunch, washing it all down with an ice cold Ting.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 05, 2025 11:34 AM (Kd28s)

12 Shot: Aaron Rupar@atrupar
Trump describes certain bankers as "shylocks"

Chaser: Chuck Schumer@SenSchumer
This is antisemitic. Plain and simple.
Trump is just spewing hate.

-
Chuckie Cheese is like Shylock except instead of demanding a pound of flesh, he's selling a pound of bullshit.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Big Mouth of the West at July 05, 2025 11:35 AM (L/fGl)

13 Is that a feather in your cap or are you just full of macaroni?

Posted by: Count de Monet at July 05, 2025 11:35 AM (wVcYX)

14 Something like 65% of millenails view socialism positively. So screaming you’re a socialist isn’t going to hurt someone like Mamdani. The right needs to learn a new tactic to fight them. I don’t know what that is. But “socialism is bad” isn’t working.

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 05, 2025 11:31 AM

Yep. Same thing happened with Obama back in 2007-2008. When all his radical past was being brought to light, it didn't make a damn bit of difference. I see the same thing happening here.

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at July 05, 2025 11:36 AM (P5BPp)

15 The problem is that socialists and communists (But I repeat myself) historically have been given more favorable press than Naziism.

Then you get claims that if we just became socialists, we would be free from want and everyone in the world would be 100% equal. The fact it hasn't worked is handwaved away as "The right people didn't get slaughtered."

Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 11:37 AM (7xrfc)

16 Thank you KT!

Joshua Chamberlain to Zohran Momdani… that is a depressingly huge regression

Jefferson even if he wasn’t presenting new thoughts or ideas… he sure could write so beautifully. Like poetry

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 05, 2025 11:38 AM (6RwsA)

17 Unless you think you have all the answers, you must grant that polities have the right to be wrong. In the case of NYC, the voters should get what they vote for, good and hard. If only as a cautionary example.

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 11:39 AM (jc0TO)

18 The sidebar vlog is pretty good.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at July 05, 2025 11:39 AM (bss/y)

19 The NYC primary was light turnout. Zohran also got a boost from Muslim turnout. He won’t win the general if normal voters get off their asses.

Posted by: Ignoramus at July 05, 2025 11:40 AM (6prLv)

20 olddog in mo at July 05, 2025 11:24 AM (VpKXM)

Thanks!

Posted by: KT at July 05, 2025 11:41 AM (xekrU)

21 Just 5 minutes ago Trump was a tool of Israel and aipac. Now he’s anti-Semitic? 😂

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 05, 2025 11:41 AM (KrOdt)

22 The NYC primary was light turnout. Zohran also got a boost from Muslim turnout. He won’t win the general if normal voters get off their asses.
Posted by: Ignoramus at July 05, 2025 11:40 AM

Is that really true? You have to present a desirable alternative to beat someone. Is there a alternative?

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 11:42 AM (jc0TO)

23 Big tent politics.

Scott Jennings@ScottJenningsKY
Democrats are having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that Republicans are taking all of their voters.
The Democratic tent is so diverse that in one corner they have the socialists and in the other corner they have the communists! It's really wide - lol

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Big Mouth of the West at July 05, 2025 11:42 AM (L/fGl)

24 He’s still at 70% on Polymarket. By no means a done deal. But definitely still the favorite.

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 05, 2025 11:43 AM (KrOdt)

25 Could have been first. But I digressed.

Posted by: From about That Time at July 05, 2025 11:43 AM (n4GiU)

26 The Democratic tent is so diverse that in one corner they have the socialists and in the other corner they have the communists! It's really wide - lol
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Big Mouth of the West at July 05, 2025 11:42 AM

The ideas run the full gambit from Stalin to Mao.

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 11:43 AM (jc0TO)

27 21 Just 5 minutes ago Trump was a tool of Israel and aipac. Now he’s anti-Semitic? 😂
Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 05, 2025 11:41 AM (KrOdt)

Life comes at you fast.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at July 05, 2025 11:43 AM (bss/y)

28 >>> By 1801 he was working as a chef in Baltimore, and by then had become a chronic alcoholic. We don’t know whether it was his alcoholism or something else that drove him to such despair, but in 1801, at age 36, James Hemings took his own life.

Studying the culinary arts for yearsthen having your most famous recipe ripped off and attributed to random nobodies can do that to you.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at July 05, 2025 11:45 AM (/lPRQ)

29 I have always considered that passage of Coolidge's speech to be a dig at Wilson.

Posted by: tankdemon at July 05, 2025 11:45 AM (FVLcK)

30 Is that really true? You have to present a desirable alternative to beat someone. Is there a alternative?
Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 11:42 AM (jc0TO)

Believe it or not, the current mayor Eric Adams should be a viable alternative for most Dems. He ran as a Dem last time… he’s said he’d support efforts of ICE in the city. Sane voters have an option. Will they take it who knows…

Also don’t discount fraud. Lots of fraud. Who does the machine want?

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 05, 2025 11:45 AM (ANuwa)

31 Adams can win. It’d help if Cuomo drops out. Zohran won the primary in part because everyone now hates Cuomo.

Posted by: Ignoramus at July 05, 2025 11:46 AM (6prLv)

32 Good morning KT
Out doing yard stuff

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 11:46 AM (+qU29)

33 1) Jefferson, while a good writer, was a poser and a deadbeat. I've no use for him. "I'll give you your freedom, but first, you must teach your enslaved brother how to cook for me".

2) Why is it that leftists always choose people with absolutely no demonstrated expertise in anything real to completely remake society. What has Mamdani achieved, other than grifting?

Posted by: Archimedes at July 05, 2025 11:47 AM (Riz8t)

34 Macaroni Pie was the original song title. Don Maclean changed it to be less French.

Posted by: mot at July 05, 2025 11:48 AM (Mn0fF)

35 Back from breakfast and shopping. Cat is having her daily feline freak out, racing around like a maniac. Laundry started. Feet are blissfully bare. It's already miserably hot outside.

Remember kids! Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do!

Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench) at July 05, 2025 11:49 AM (2J/Lj)

36 I had my own car at age 15. Framing houses, that’s how it was in Old America.

Posted by: Eromero at July 05, 2025 11:50 AM (CuubL)

37 Rich, white liberals who push and vote for the "socialists" are never harmed when the "socialist" gets into power in the US. Obongo is just an example and Manny will be the same. Now in Cuba in 1959, when the "socialist" came into power, the rich that did not flee where frog marched into La Cabana and shot. Hopefully Manny will do the same in New York City. Yankee Stadium would be the perfect venue or maybe Times Square with the Black Hebrew Israelites singing back up.

Posted by: Zombie Fidel Castro at July 05, 2025 11:50 AM (R/m4+)

38 When we were celebrating my first Christmas in SC, and I asked what I should prepare to accompany the prime rib, Mama Publius asked for macaroni pie (I had a vision of pasta in a pie crust!)

Publius explained that it was baked macaroni and cheese, so I set out to find a good recipe. Slapweasel turned me on to Alton Brown, and the rest is history.

Sometimes I set aside a portion to enjoy as creamy mac 'n' cheese, and bake the rest with the buttery panko topping.

Posted by: Miley, okravangelist at July 05, 2025 11:51 AM (w6EFb)

39 If the Democrat's election machine in NYC wants the Muslim to be mayor, he'll be mayor. In my opinion it's just that simple. If it happens then people who champion socialism will get a very instructional view on how it works in real life. Those who want it can go there and experience it first hand.

Sometimes life's lessons can be very harsh.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at July 05, 2025 11:52 AM (Q4IgG)

40 Archimedes — Jefferson has long been one of my least favorite of the founders. His admiration for the French Revolution is inexplicable

But his writing was sublime

And he was a brilliant mind

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 05, 2025 11:52 AM (ANuwa)

41 Let them touch it is another way of saying FAFO..

Great flash mob thanks KT!

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 05, 2025 11:52 AM (SzZZ5)

42 One of the things that seem to be a big factor these days is that so many people think they are so smart and anyone that disagrees with them is dumb.

There seems to be a pronounced lack of introspection.

People are ritually ridiculed for changing their minds so why even consider another viewpoint.

Posted by: pawn at July 05, 2025 11:52 AM (zgXrm)

43 2) Why is it that leftists always choose people with absolutely no demonstrated expertise in anything real to completely remake society. What has Mamdani achieved, other than grifting?

Posted by: Archimedes at July 05, 2025 11:47 AM

What had Obama achieved before he ran for public office. Nothing. What did he achieve in public office before he ran for President. Nothing. Didn't matter.

The vast majority of elections in this country are popularity contests and have nothing to do with policy, facts, logic or reason.

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at July 05, 2025 11:53 AM (P5BPp)

44 >>> Zohran Mamdani Identified as Asian and African American on College Application

If this clown was an Americn he might be ale to pull off the African American part, but as it is Elon Musk has more clain being native born sub-saharan (South) African and an American. Wnd people would accept the tweak of overtly racist terminology pretending it isn't.

No clue where the clown gets 'asian' unless he is pretending to be ignorant that the Euroweanies idea of 'asian' is very different than Americans... and he is actually a native of Pahkestaaan od similar shithole.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at July 05, 2025 11:53 AM (/lPRQ)

45 “I believe I was poised and set up to love Mount Vernon because of the place where I was born, and of course because of the day on which I was born,” she says. She also loves the story of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, founded by Ann Pamela Cunningham (“I love her gumption and the continuation of that determination up to this day”, which for over 160 years has seen to the restoration and rehabilitation of George Washington’s historic homestead. That story, she says, “confirms yet again the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.”

My church, Pohick Church, was Washington's church, and has been the recipient of lots and lots of indispensable help from the MVLA. Pohick and Mt. Vernon are tightly coupled, and benefit from each other. We owe the MVLA huge thanks.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 05, 2025 11:54 AM (Riz8t)

46 >>Sometimes I set aside a portion to enjoy as creamy mac 'n' cheese, and bake the rest with the buttery panko topping.

I made smoked mac and cheese yesterday to accompany the pork butt. It came out awesome. Cheddar and smoked gouda, panko and a pinch of rub on top. That one is going in the regular rotation.

Posted by: JackStraw at July 05, 2025 11:55 AM (viF8m)

47 12 Shot: Aaron Rupar@atrupar
Trump describes certain bankers as "shylocks"
-
Chuckie Cheese is like Shylock except instead of demanding a pound of flesh, he's selling a pound of bullshit.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks,
------------

Goldman Sachs enters the conversation with lame excuses.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 11:56 AM (xCsAY)

48 What had Obama achieved before he ran for public office. Nothing. What did he achieve in public office before he ran for President. Nothing. Didn't matter.

The vast majority of elections in this country are popularity contests and have nothing to do with policy, facts, logic or reason.

See also, Hillary, Mooch, Kamala, Beto...the list is endless.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 05, 2025 11:57 AM (Riz8t)

49 The vast majority of elections in this country are popularity contests and have nothing to do with policy, facts, logic or reason.
Posted by: Clyde Shelton

Until November of 2024. That election was absolutely about facts, policies, and "I'm really getting sick of this shit the demoncrats are shoving down our throats".

Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench) at July 05, 2025 11:59 AM (2J/Lj)

50 Biden Struggles to Set Up Beach Chair in Malibu During First Fourth of July Weekend Since Leaving Office

-
Well, he still smarter than a stool.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Big Mouth of the West at July 05, 2025 11:59 AM (L/fGl)

51 That verge article isn’t depressing, it’s just pathetic. Could have been written by Bill Kristol, it’s the same old “Trump is a dictator!” bullshit as always. Yeah yeah, democracy is dead because the people were able to vote for who they wanted. GFY, verge.

And I’m glad to accept Zohran as an African-American, so long as they agree that Elon is an African-American too.

Posted by: Tom Servo at July 05, 2025 12:02 PM (Lhvai)

52 In the first 5 days of July, 76 people have been shot with 12 killed in Chicago.

5 days.

Nobody has to wonder what NYC would like if Mamdani wins. It's playing out in places like Chicago and LA right now.

Posted by: JackStraw at July 05, 2025 12:04 PM (viF8m)

53 >>>Slapweasel turned me...
glad you didn't say ...into a newt.

Slapweasel is a missing name around here. Possibly its mention will cause his appearance.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 12:04 PM (xCsAY)

54 Something like 65% of millenails view socialism positively. So screaming you’re a socialist isn’t going to hurt someone like Mamdani. The right needs to learn a new tactic to fight them. I don’t know what that is. But “socialism is bad” isn’t working.
Posted by: Its Go Time Donald

Socialism is like Reverse-Lotto.

Instead of a few throwing in a pittence knowing it won't hurt them and hoping for the jackpot
everybody has to put in everything in knowing that they get a pittence back and hoping they don't get shot in the head.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at July 05, 2025 12:05 PM (/lPRQ)

55 In other news: Yesterday, I mentioned asking for a plumber to come out to the house because water was backing up in our kitchen sink.

Ended up rescheduling it for Monday. Seems that they are short one plumber because he got into an accident on Thursday. This means not paying emergency rates so I suppose that balances things out.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 12:07 PM (7xrfc)

56 How odd that the elite political machine that calls itself "The Democratic Party" would forever be advocating slavery by any name.
Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at July 05, 2025 11:30 AM (/lPRQ)

When 51% of the people control the other 49% it is called democracy.
When 49% of the people control the other 51% it is considered Tyranny

Posted by: Kindltot at July 05, 2025 12:07 PM (D7oie)

57 The problem is that socialists and communists (But I repeat myself) historically have been given more favorable press than Naziism.

Socialism is more fair in that everybody gets to be slave labor for the party boss!

/// Come on, come on, pick me to be Party Boss

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at July 05, 2025 12:07 PM (/lPRQ)

58 Now Superman has gone globalist?!

“Superman” Star David Corenswet Swaps “The American Way” Motto for “Truth, Justice, and Good Things”

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Big Mouth of the West at July 05, 2025 12:07 PM (L/fGl)

59 I have a half pound of good cheddar that unfroze badly. Won't slice, just crumbles. Some cheeses freeze well, some don't. So baked mac 'n cheese it will be.
Tomorrow. Tonight I have been invited to a fifth of July bar-b-que.

Posted by: From about That Time at July 05, 2025 12:08 PM (n4GiU)

60 Re: sidebar

More from the same... guy?

https://tinyurl.com/4awmtwfz

The voice keeps changing, but I like the attitude. Not right for washington but...

Posted by: Aetius451AD at July 05, 2025 12:09 PM (bss/y)

61 >>>Until November of 2024. That election was absolutely about facts, policies, and "I'm really getting sick of this shit the demoncrats are shoving down our throats".
Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench)
------------------

Trump is working diligently weeding out the chaff. It's a slow tedious process. This BBB negotiation highlighted some that need to go. As individuals we can choose an opponent and support him or her. I suggested that we as a group pick one or two and collectively support but, you know, cats in a bag.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 12:09 PM (xCsAY)

62 58 Now Superman has gone globalist?!

“Superman” Star David Corenswet Swaps “The American Way” Motto for “Truth, Justice, and Good Things”
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Big Mouth of the West at July 05, 2025 12:07 PM (L/fGl)

They're gay and their shit's all retarded.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at July 05, 2025 12:10 PM (bss/y)

63 Now Superman has gone globalist?!

“Superman” Star David Corenswet Swaps “The American Way” Motto for “Truth, Justice, and Good Things”

Count your blessings. At least it isn't "Diversity, Equity, and America sucks!

Posted by: Archimedes at July 05, 2025 12:10 PM (Riz8t)

64 He hit; He forget it.

Brad Pitt Sends Brutal Message to Exes Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie – “I Got Over It Quickly…”

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Big Mouth of the West at July 05, 2025 12:10 PM (L/fGl)

65 Until November of 2024. That election was absolutely about facts, policies, and "I'm really getting sick of this shit the demoncrats are shoving down our throats".

Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench) at July 05, 2025 11:59 AM

Maybe. But I wonder if Trump wins without the popular MAGA branding. The Trump campaign was as much about celebrity as it was about facts and policies. People were voting for Trump as much, and in some cases moreso, as they were voting for policies.

Republican candidates have spouted the same campaign promises for decades without keeping their promises in office. So the 2024 election was, in my opinion, more about people's trust in Trump to follow through on the policy promises.

We'll see in 2026 and 2028 how the elections go with Trump and MAGA no longer on the ballot. Will candidates without the celebrity and popularity and trustworthiness of Trump inspire Trump voters to vote for them... we'll see.

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at July 05, 2025 12:11 PM (P5BPp)

66 Nothing to see here - just a typical Portland resident engaging in an assault downtown on July 4th.

https://tinyurl.com/5r4bahp5

Posted by: The ARC of History! at July 05, 2025 12:11 PM (xTIDn)

67 Mabdani to my understanding is Indian Asian whose parents immigration to Uganda. So guess he clames both.

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 12:13 PM (+qU29)

68 Maybe. But I wonder if Trump wins without the popular MAGA branding. The Trump campaign was as much about celebrity as it was about facts and policies. People were voting for Trump as much, and in some cases moreso, as they were voting for policies.

I firmly believe that Trump would never have been president if he hadn't been willing to talk about a wall and closing the border. He was the ONLY one willing to do what the people clearly wanted, so that helped launch him on his way.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 05, 2025 12:13 PM (Riz8t)

69 Did you get better?

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 05, 2025 12:14 PM (WIJBc)

70 Nothing to see here - just a typical Portland resident engaging in an assault downtown on July 4th.

One comment to this speaks Truth:

HRT cooks their brains.

Posted by: The ARC of History! at July 05, 2025 12:14 PM (xTIDn)

71 >>We'll see in 2026 and 2028 how the elections go with Trump and MAGA no longer on the ballot. Will candidates without the celebrity and popularity and trustworthiness of Trump inspire Trump voters to vote for them... we'll see.

I think you're forgetting that we had a pretty good idea of what Trump would do based on what he did in his first term despite being constantly hounded. His policies worked, he didn't lose any of his support.

Trump is obviously unique but I think someone like Vance would get a lot of support if they ran on a platform of continuing what Trump started.

Posted by: JackStraw at July 05, 2025 12:15 PM (viF8m)

72 "I think the overproduction of worthless college degrees is and the resentment it generates among their holders is one problem."

One of the major causes of this is the flood of illegal immigrants over the last 50 years. It caused a massive surplus in labor for jobs with low education requirements, so every kid going through school was told they needed a college degree to get a decent job, with schools in more recent years even making it their motto to have every student "ready for college".

Universities were flooded with applicants so they expanded into useless niche degree programs to keep receiving tuition from the students that would've otherwise dropped out.

Graduates with their bachelor's degree then entered a labor market that had a surplus of people just like them and then discovered the degree was not the magic ticket to a decent job that it was marketed as. Instead they now needed particular skills or even worse they needed to take on (more) debt to get a master's degree to differentiate themselves.

Posted by: Sjg at July 05, 2025 12:15 PM (aqZN1)

73 Nothing to see here - just a typical Portland TRANNY engaging in an assault downtown on July 4th.

Posted by: The ARC of History

correction

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 05, 2025 12:16 PM (SzZZ5)

74 just a typical Portland TRANNY engaging in an assault downtown on July 4th.

As I said, a typical Portland resident.

I think there is something to the theory that hormone replacement therapy makes so-called "female" trannies incredibly violent.

Posted by: The ARC of History! at July 05, 2025 12:18 PM (xTIDn)

75 Tremendous post K.T.

Posted by: Javems at July 05, 2025 12:18 PM (8I4hW)

76 Let them eat cake!

Fed Reserve Chair Jerome Powell Accused of Lying to Congress Over $2.5B "Palace of Versailles" HQ Revamp

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Big Mouth of the West at July 05, 2025 12:18 PM (L/fGl)

77 I think Trump benefited from Obama's animosity towards him. Any one tired of Oshitstain recognized TRUMP was going to dismantle O's crap sandwich.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 05, 2025 12:19 PM (SzZZ5)

78 I think there is something to the theory that hormone replacement therapy makes so-called "female" trannies incredibly violent.

It's both sides. Their bodies are getting pumped full of hormones that they don't naturally produce. Add that to an existing case of mental illness and the realization that their problems didn't magically go away and violence follows.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 12:19 PM (7xrfc)

79 Graduates with their bachelor's degree then entered a labor market that had a surplus of people just like them and then discovered the degree was not the magic ticket to a decent job that it was marketed as. Instead they now needed particular skills or even worse they needed to take on (more) debt to get a master's degree to differentiate themselves.

Peter Turchin developed the concept that overproduction of "elites", i.e. overcredentialed people with no useful skills but high expectations of what they're owed by society, is one of the most dangerous sources of societal instability. China and Korea are now facing that situation in spades, so we are not alone.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 05, 2025 12:21 PM (Riz8t)

80
Busy morning. To TSC for birdseed, dog food and pine shavings. To Costco for a chicken, a leg of lamb and getting the car filled with gas. Soon, lawn mowing starts.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 05, 2025 12:21 PM (/HVsR)

81 think there is something to the theory that hormone replacement therapy makes so-called "female" trannies incredibly violent.

Maybe not having the years of being trained out of the male inclination to just hit it if it's giving you trouble that boys get might have something to do with it.

Posted by: From about That Time at July 05, 2025 12:21 PM (n4GiU)

82 Add that to an existing case of mental illness and the realization that their problems didn't magically go away

I read a while ago a post by a tranny burning with complete rage, because he was seated next to a table of 20-something women talking about jobs and clothes and boyfriends; and realizing that he would never, ever, be accepted as a woman, no matter how much he lied to himself.

Posted by: The ARC of History! at July 05, 2025 12:23 PM (xTIDn)

83 It does seem Female to.male Trannies are time bombs getting pumped up with hormones females are just not ready for.

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 12:23 PM (+qU29)

84
Rosalind was Winners at today's Trinity Valley KC show in Dallas, but there was no competition and therefore no points. Varus was Best of Breed, despite having thrown his neck out yesterday.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 05, 2025 12:24 PM (/HVsR)

85 Even the Germans couldn't figure out how to make me work.

Posted by: Socialism at July 05, 2025 12:24 PM (XQo4F)

86 Yeah whites with college degrees making $18 an hour in service jobs are the biggest supporters of socialism.

In a way I can’t blame them. They were promised a solid middle class life. Just sign here for $100k in student loans. It’ll be worth it. Well it wasn’t. And now they’re fucked. People like Mamdami offer them a false hope and they sign on.

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 05, 2025 12:25 PM (KrOdt)

87 just a typical Portland TRANNY engaging in an assault downtown on July 4th.

As I said, a typical Portland resident.

I think there is something to the theory that hormone replacement therapy makes so-called "female" trannies incredibly violent.
Posted by: The ARC of History!
===

Just to clarify - is this a butch bitch getting her 'roid rage on?

Most dykes I've known have the temperament of teenage boys, but with less emotional control and no life-experience of getting their asses beat by an alpha male gorilla (because technically female) so even less control.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at July 05, 2025 12:25 PM (/lPRQ)

88 Good morning, KT! Was your lawn covered with fireworks debris from last night?

Posted by: Eromero at July 05, 2025 12:25 PM (LHPAg)

89 Instead they now needed particular skills or even worse they needed to take on (more) debt to get a master's degree to differentiate themselves.

And then discovering that a master's degree in a useless subject doesn't make you any more employable.

Posted by: The ARC of History! at July 05, 2025 12:25 PM (xTIDn)

90 It does seem Female to.male Trannies are time bombs getting pumped up with hormones females are just not ready for.

I read an interview with a female detransitioner who talked about how she was so full of anger while on testosterone. Thankfully she figured things out before it got too bad.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 12:26 PM (7xrfc)

91
Instead they now needed particular skills or even worse they needed to take on (more) debt to get a master's degree to differentiate themselves.

_________

The problem, both undergraduate and graduate, is taking classes and getting a piece of paper instead of learning something and building a skill.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 05, 2025 12:27 PM (/HVsR)

92 Socialist dilettante and Twitch favourite Hasan Piker just showed his true socialist colours by waving a handgun on stream and threatening someone.

Perhaps this time Twitch will permanently cancel Hasan.

Posted by: Anna Puma at July 05, 2025 12:27 PM (C/v00)

93 the overproduction of worthless college degrees"

Griggs vs Duke Power enters the chat...

Posted by: man at July 05, 2025 12:27 PM (tubbA)

94 Boys will be boys.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 05, 2025 12:27 PM (WIJBc)

95 I believe that Trump, in contrast to Obama, has created and nurtured a true grass roots movement that will long outlast him personally, because it is based on the values that millions of Americans hold.

Contrast to Obama , a celebrity based on media hype only, with astroturfed top-down movement that only Ivy League university professors and George Soros believed in. Of course that was going to fall apart as soon as the Chocolate Savior lost his luster .

Posted by: Tom Servo at July 05, 2025 12:28 PM (0DdMG)

96 New view, good illustration, of the Guadalupe River flooding.

https://tinyurl.com/8mhju3jz

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 12:28 PM (xCsAY)

97 I have to find a better way to get to sleep rather than beer and edibles.

Lol.

Even the visiting cat let me sleep in 4 hours today and she's fine jumping on me at 7an to let me know breakfast.

Anyways. 1 more screw off day than 100 days of 100 things.

Posted by: Stateless, 80% clawing back from 10% at July 05, 2025 12:29 PM (JCp76)

98 I firmly believe that Trump would never have been president if he hadn't been willing to talk about a wall and closing the border. He was the ONLY one willing to do what the people clearly wanted, so that helped launch him on his way.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 05, 2025 12:13 PM

That issue -- illegal alien invasion -- is what made me a Trump supporter in 2016. When he first announced his candidacy, I was not a supporter. I honestly thought he was joining to the campaign for his own purposes or to somehow help Hillary -- whom he previously supported -- to win.

It was only as the 2016 campaign progressed and I saw none of the GOP candidates take up the issues of fixing the open border and enforcing immigration law that I knew that every other GOP candidate was part of the establishment and not to be trusted.

I then decided to give Trump a chance, since he was the only one even talking about those issues. I voted for him in 2016, 2020 and 2024.

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at July 05, 2025 12:30 PM (P5BPp)

99 93 Socialist dilettante and Twitch favourite Hasan Piker just showed his true socialist colours by waving a handgun on stream and threatening someone.

Perhaps this time Twitch will permanently cancel Hasan.
Posted by: Anna Puma at July 05, 2025 12:27 PM (C/v00)

Performative retard.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at July 05, 2025 12:30 PM (bss/y)

100 87 During a brief (about three years) career in law enforcement (the Sheriff took over things and the Department went away, funding) we had limited training at the State U extension and a lot of riding with seasoned officers. The Chief always gave us words to live by, some being "the most dangerous thing is a domestic violence call and let me tell you, if it's a couple of lesbians you'll have your hands full".

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at July 05, 2025 12:31 PM (gm9Sb)

101 That issue -- illegal alien invasion -- is what made me a Trump supporter in 2016. When he first announced his candidacy, I was not a supporter. I honestly thought he was joining to the campaign for his own purposes or to somehow help Hillary -- whom he previously supported -- to win.

It was only as the 2016 campaign progressed and I saw none of the GOP candidates take up the issues of fixing the open border and enforcing immigration law that I knew that every other GOP candidate was part of the establishment and not to be trusted.

I then decided to give Trump a chance, since he was the only one even talking about those issues. I voted for him in 2016, 2020 and 2024.

Same. He was my last choice in '16, and I figured he was a sure loser to Hillary. I know I was not alone. I didn't give him a chance so much as resign myself when he won the nom, assuming we were looking at a catastrophic 4 years of Hillary. I've said many times I was never so glad to be so wrong.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 05, 2025 12:32 PM (Riz8t)

102 Hasan Piker just needs a hurdy-gurdy

Posted by: Anna Puma at July 05, 2025 12:33 PM (C/v00)

103 “I read an interview with a female detransitioner who talked about how she was so full of anger while on testosterone. Thankfully she figured things out before it got too bad.
Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 12:26 PM (7xrfc) “

What’s scary about that is that I’ve known plenty of females full of anger all the time, even without testosterone.

Posted by: Tom Servo at July 05, 2025 12:33 PM (0DdMG)

104 Thanks for your excellent essay, K.T.

I too have been bothered by how much Osama Bin Lenin (Madman) smiles. It seems incredibly artificial.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at July 05, 2025 12:35 PM (2GCMq)

105 Aerial view of devastation.

https://tinyurl.com/34j22w49

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 12:35 PM (xCsAY)

106 Mabdani to my understanding is Indian Asian whose parents immigration to Uganda. So guess he clames both.

Studies show that if you spend enough time in Uganda, you turn black even if you weren't black to start with.

It's SCIENCE

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at July 05, 2025 12:35 PM (TcVeV)

107 "if it's a couple of lesbians you'll have your hands full"

Sadly, not in a good way. Porn lied to me again.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 12:35 PM (7xrfc)

108
"the most dangerous thing is a domestic violence call and let me tell you, if it's a couple of lesbians you'll have your hands full".

__________

It's a strength and power differential problem.

Guy v. Guy: Over quickly, because the knockout blow comes faster.

Guy v. Girl: Over quickly because Girl isn't strong enough to resist physical force.

Girl v. Girl: Not over quickly because neither can deliver the knockout blow.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 05, 2025 12:36 PM (/HVsR)

109 You know who else smiled a lot?

Albert Kesselring

Posted by: Anna Puma at July 05, 2025 12:37 PM (C/v00)

110 >>>@59 I have a half pound of good cheddar that unfroze badly. Won't slice, just crumbles. Some cheeses freeze well, some don't. So baked mac 'n cheese it will be. Tomorrow. Tonight I have been invited to a fifth of July bar-b-que. ... Posted by: From about That Time at July 05, 2025 12:08 PM
===========
Betcha you'd make friends by adding chunks of lobster to that Mac 'n' Cheese and taking it to the BBQ.

Posted by: Kathy at July 05, 2025 12:37 PM (qpw89)

111 Girl v. Girl: Not over quickly because neither can deliver the knockout blow.

In this case, the long hair/short hair differential can be decisive.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at July 05, 2025 12:37 PM (TcVeV)

112
I wasn't voting for Trump in 2016, I was voting against Hillary. I voted for Trump in 20 and 24, you betcha.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 05, 2025 12:37 PM (/HVsR)

113 I too have been bothered by how much Osama Bin Lenin (Madman) smiles. It seems incredibly artificial.

He's happily imagining the camps that he is going to build for his political opponents.

Posted by: The ARC of History! at July 05, 2025 12:38 PM (xTIDn)

114 I wouldn't be so sure the Germans national Socialism wouldn't have a better chance if they didn't start WWII. But then as Maggy said you rub out of other people's money so maybe invading other countries was always going to happen.

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 12:38 PM (+qU29)

115 109 Oh. And during training one of the instructors asked us if parents ever said don't hit a girl. And he went on to 'splain how we should banish that silly thought from our heads.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at July 05, 2025 12:38 PM (gm9Sb)

116 Nobody has to wonder what NYC would like if Mamdani wins. It's playing out in places like Chicago and LA right now.
Posted by: JackStraw at July 05, 2025 12:04 PM (viF8m)
~~~~~

And surprisingly, this was the first time in history that there were no murders in NYC on July 4th.

Probably the last now.

Posted by: IrishEi at July 05, 2025 12:39 PM (3ImbR)

117
And he went on to 'splain how we should banish that silly thought from our heads.
Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door

_________

Otherwise no spanking.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 05, 2025 12:39 PM (/HVsR)

118 In other news: Yesterday, I mentioned asking for a plumber to come out to the house because water was backing up in our kitchen sink.
Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 12:07 PM

Did you try just putting a plunger to it?

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 12:39 PM (jc0TO)

119 "I think the overproduction of worthless college degrees is and the resentment it generates among their holders is one problem."

One of the major causes of this is the flood of illegal immigrants over the last 50 years.
__________

Frustrated intelligentsia has been a problem longer than that. At least since the early/mid 19th century. Many of the Russian revolutionaries fit in that class. Even Marx himself.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at July 05, 2025 12:40 PM (QqW4y)

120 106 Aerial view of devastation.

https://tinyurl.com/34j22w49
Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent

I just read they have recovered some of the bodies from the girls at camp Mystic. My heart is broken for the families.

Posted by: Piper at July 05, 2025 12:41 PM (p4NUW)

121 Did you try just putting a plunger to it?
Posted by: toby928

Plunger, snake and Liquid-Plumr. No change.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 12:43 PM (7xrfc)

122 Everyone thought that Jeb would be the 2016 nominee. But Trump came ready to fight, while Jeb just wanted to lay down and die.

A Jeb campaign would have Bob Dole ‘96 all over again.

Posted by: Tom Servo at July 05, 2025 12:44 PM (0DdMG)

123 Plunger, snake and Liquid-Plumr. No change.
Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 12:43 PM (7xrfc)

Maybe its time to apply a hot iron to it.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at July 05, 2025 12:45 PM (TcVeV)

124 Did you try just putting a plunger to it?
Posted by: toby928

Plunger, snake and Liquid-Plumr. No change.
Posted by: NR Pax
______

Maybe time to go Keith Moon on it.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at July 05, 2025 12:45 PM (QqW4y)

125 A Jeb campaign would have Bob Dole ‘96 all over again.
Posted by: Tom Servo at July 05, 2025 12:44 PM (0DdMG)

Erasing our southern border would have been an act of love.

Asshole.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at July 05, 2025 12:46 PM (TcVeV)

126 Itinerant Alley Butcher -

The Middle East is still the East: it is still part of Asia. The fact that Brits call Indians and Pakistanis Asians is correct. It’s just we, in America, think of the ME as being sui generis, a one of a kind, and typically don’t think nor talk that way. It is funny how what was at one time the name for a small part of the Anatolia peninsula, the Roman district of Asia, gave its name to the whole peninsula, Asia Minor, then to a whole continent Asia Major, or just Asia!

Posted by: NemoMeImpuneLacessit at July 05, 2025 12:47 PM (gxRWI)

127 On this plumbing stoppage
I wonder how far the blockage is, trap the first to wherever it exits the house. The trap is the easy part to take apart usually.

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 12:48 PM (+qU29)

128 But then as Maggy said you rub out of other people's money so maybe invading other countries was always going to happen.

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 12:38 PM

You rub out and get other people's money?

Damn, I must be doing it wrong...

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at July 05, 2025 12:48 PM (P5BPp)

129 Is it just the one sink that is slow draining?

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 12:49 PM (jc0TO)

130 110 You know who else smiled a lot?

Albert Kesselring
Posted by: Anna Puma at July 05, 2025 12:37 PM (C/v00)

Well that’s because he did his run in 16 parsecs.

Posted by: Tom Servo at July 05, 2025 12:49 PM (Lhvai)

131 and does the sink .. err .. glub?

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 12:50 PM (jc0TO)

132 An inspiring 4th of July message from your next President:

"This Fourth of July, I am taking a moment to reflect. Things are hard right now. They are probably going to get worse before they get better.

But I love our country -- and when you love something, you fight for it. Together, we will continue to fight for the ideals of our nation."

-- Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 4, 2025

Posted by: Duncanthrax at July 05, 2025 12:50 PM (0sNs1)

133 Sorry, that’s the Roman province of Asia, not district.

Posted by: NemoMeImpuneLacessit at July 05, 2025 12:51 PM (gxRWI)

134 You rub out and get other people's money?

Damn, I must be doing it wrong...
Posted by: Clyde Shelton at July 05, 2025 12:48 PM

I was doing it pretty well for a while.

Posted by: Harvey W. at July 05, 2025 12:51 PM (0sNs1)

135
"Together, we will continue to fight for the ideals of our nation."

__________

"Anybody got anything to drink?"

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 05, 2025 12:52 PM (/HVsR)

136 102 Archie

Me three.

Based on Trump's substantial and undisputed history of support for liberal causes and campaigns, including HRC's, I thought he was dissembling & would morph into the next liberal Big Thing if he won.

Like you, I've never been SO glad to be SO wrong.

I did come around in time to contribute to, & vote for, him in '16. But my first reaction was, "This guy is a big honking liberal fraud."

People who went to school a lot fewer years than I did recognized him as the real McCoy FIRST.

Posted by: mnw at July 05, 2025 12:52 PM (kd60y)

137 "I think the overproduction of worthless college degrees is and the resentment it generates among their holders is one problem."

One of the major causes of this is the flood of illegal immigrants over the last 50 years.
__________

Frustrated intelligentsia has been a problem longer than that. At least since the early/mid 19th century. Many of the Russian revolutionaries fit in that class. Even Marx himself.
Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at July 05, 2025 12:40 PM

This is known as "overproduction of elites". It's one of the factors that drives the cycles described in cliodynamics and the Fourth Turning.

Posted by: Duncanthrax at July 05, 2025 12:54 PM (0sNs1)

138 I have seen a few posts from parents trying to get home to TX because their girls have been found and I realized how much of a hovering parent I must be. I could never leave the country after sending my kids to camp. I need to be able to get to them pronto in the event something happened to them. Also, I would want to bring my kids with me to Europe, or any vacation. I am sure these parents are going through so much guilt on top of their heartbreak, I am not saying the situation would change had they been home. I am just saying I would not have been able to just send my kids to camp and leave the country.

Posted by: Piper at July 05, 2025 12:55 PM (pRpzT)

139 A Jeb campaign would have Bob Dole ‘96 all over again.

Posted by: Tom Servo at July 05, 2025 12:44 PM

I initially was supporting WI Governor Scott Walker. He seemed to have a good track record of fighting the Left in Wisconsin as Governor. When he announced his withdrawal from the campaign in an effort to support a GOPe candidate against Trump, that was a wakeup call to me about the GOPe and the untrustworthiness of Republicans in general.

In 2006, with the amnesty betrayal by President Bush and the GOP, that's when I changed from being a Republican voter to a conservative voter. In 2016, that was solidified even more. And over the next 4 years with the GOPe undermining the first Trump Administration, it was solidified even more.

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at July 05, 2025 12:56 PM (P5BPp)

140 As to the slow draining sink described above, what is with you people? It's July Fifth and surely somebody has one little M80 left over.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at July 05, 2025 12:56 PM (gm9Sb)

141 I am overcome with gratitude that I was placed in this nation and time to experience the American experiment of liberty and self-rule. May we preserve and defend the USA.

Posted by: Emmie at July 05, 2025 12:57 PM (rF2iL)

142 The water line from the meter to the house was broken while we were grading the front yard after a tree removal. Had a plumber there in 30 minutes. A nephew. Good to have a plumber in the family.

Posted by: javems at July 05, 2025 12:57 PM (8I4hW)

143 Lordie, I step away for a moment and the questions are flying:

Maybe time to go Keith Moon on it.

Get drunk and overdose?

I wonder how far the blockage is, trap the first to wherever it exits the house. The trap is the easy part to take apart usually.

No clue. I'll find out on Monday when the guy is done.

Is it just the one sink that is slow draining? and does the sink .. err .. glub?

It's only the kitchen sink. Drains slowly overnight and it looks like it puked out whatever it had at the time.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 12:57 PM (7xrfc)

144 An inspiring 4th of July message from your next President:

The hilarious part is she used a photograph of her and hubby, after editing President Autopen and DOCTOR Jill out of the picture.

Posted by: The ARC of History! at July 05, 2025 12:57 PM (xTIDn)

145 Morning, KT! Good to see you back.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 05, 2025 12:58 PM (1w94Y)

146 As to the slow draining sink described above, what is with you people? It's July Fifth and surely somebody has one little M80 left over.

Did I forget to mention that I am married and there are several noise adverse Greyhounds in the house? I'd rather not go that route if possible.

And given the noises we heard last night that rattled our windows, I think the M80s were all spent.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 12:59 PM (7xrfc)

147 Posted by: Piper at July 05, 2025 12:55 PM (pRpzT

That's not hovering, honey. That's what good parents do. Send the kid to camp and go to Europe? That's a self absorbed asshole move.

Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench) at July 05, 2025 12:59 PM (2J/Lj)

148 How stupid and incompetent does an elitist have to be before it gets dropped a tier?

Posted by: Northernlurker , Maple Syrup MAGA at July 05, 2025 12:59 PM (ZbsBz)

149 Both Jeb! and Walker's campaigns died when they said that they didn't want your vote unless you were in favor of mass immigration.

IIRC, Walker didn't even make it to a primary, and Jeb! spent $120M for six delegates to the convention.

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 12:59 PM (jc0TO)

150 I mentioned this on an earlier thread, but when we had flooding back in February and again in April I was amazed at how quickly the water rose and covered the end of our driveway and the road with about 4 - 5 feet of water. And how long it took to recede.

It came over the road in sheets and you could hear it gurgling as it filled in all the low spots. Unreal. Scary.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at July 05, 2025 01:00 PM (Q4IgG)

151 Mamdani isn't stupid. He may be inexperienced, but he ran an excellent grassroots campaign.

Dont underestimate him.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 05, 2025 01:03 PM (Zv8bq)

152 Plunger, snake and Liquid-Plumr. No change.
Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 12:43 PM (7xrfc)

Maybe its time to apply a hot iron to it.
Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at July 05, 2025 12:45 PM

If you've tried hot iron, the next step it to tell it to "calm down".

Posted by: Duncanthrax at July 05, 2025 01:03 PM (0sNs1)

153 139 I have seen a few posts from parents trying to get home to TX because their girls have been found and I realized how much of a hovering parent I must be. I could never leave the country after sending my kids to camp. I need to be able to get to them pronto in the event something happened to them. Also, I would want to bring my kids with me to Europe, or any vacation. I am sure these parents are going through so much guilt on top of their heartbreak, I am not saying the situation would change had they been home. I am just saying I would not have been able to just send my kids to camp and leave the country.
Posted by: Piper at July 05, 2025 12:55 PM

I couldn't either and I'd be planning in my head how to get to them in case of a disaster. I always think like that and my friends do too.

Posted by: CaliGirl at July 05, 2025 01:05 PM (77W69)

154 The occupied territory of Asia Minor.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 05, 2025 01:05 PM (WIJBc)

155 The occupied territory of Asia Minor.
Posted by: Boss Moss at July 05, 2025 01:05 PM

Why is there no Asia Major?

Posted by: Duncanthrax at July 05, 2025 01:06 PM (0sNs1)

156 Dont underestimate him.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 05, 2025 01:03 PM

I'm sort of rooting for him. If the evil stays localized, big if I know, it will be good for the country.

And who knows, maybe he can get communism to work.

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 01:06 PM (jc0TO)

157 I am overcome with gratitude that I was placed in this nation and time to experience the American experiment of liberty and self-rule. May we preserve and defend the USA.

Posted by: Emmie at July 05, 2025 12:57 PM

Just saw this the other day and it has the same sentiment. We live in arguably the greatest time in world history.

Never Forget How Lucky You Are

"No one that you admire from 100 years ago had this simple pleasure in life (hot shower)".

Instagram reel: https://bit.ly/44OYVCM

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at July 05, 2025 01:07 PM (P5BPp)

158 I live on tippy top off a nice tall hill. If my place ever floods to the point that the road is not passable and water is standing around my house, I will be catching a ride with the next passing ark.

Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench) at July 05, 2025 01:07 PM (2J/Lj)

159 I don't think Mamdani is stupid . I think he is very clever with social media and thus is reaching a whole lot of people . He is much better at this that Cuomo was and I don't know if Adams is up to speed on that yet.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at July 05, 2025 01:07 PM (2GCMq)

160 One can also take the P-trap off and snake forward without the trap encumbering the snake.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 01:07 PM (xCsAY)

161 Liquid smoke. The kind of stuff your maintenance man might have.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 05, 2025 01:08 PM (WIJBc)

162 NR Pax:

Try this Drain King. Somebody on this smart military blog suggested it to me several years ago, and it seriously worked like magic after everything else had failed.

https://tinyurl.com/mvbuz8r6

Posted by: IrishEi at July 05, 2025 01:09 PM (3ImbR)

163 I assume it's not the sink with the garbage disposal since you said that you snaked it.

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 01:10 PM (jc0TO)

164 >>>I will be catching a ride with the next passing ark.
Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench)
----------------------

The second clip from his deck. Water level with the deck he notates that it's usually 18 to 20 feet below the deck. Time to break out the rubber duck.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 01:10 PM (xCsAY)

165 If you catxh a car from the river do you get to keep it?

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 05, 2025 01:11 PM (WIJBc)

166 No clue where the clown gets 'asian' unless he is pretending to be ignorant that the Euroweanies idea of 'asian' is very different than Americans... and he is actually a native of Pahkestaaan od similar shithole.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at July 05, 2025 11:53 AM (/lPRQ)

During the colonial era, the Brits brought a lot of Indo muslims to Africa to work as clerks and storekeepers, etc. Idi Amin kicked a whole mess of them out of Uganda, and many landed here in Canada.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 05, 2025 01:12 PM (rw/0o)

167 One can also take the P-trap off and snake forward without the trap encumbering the snake.
Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 01:07 PM

This has the added benefit of allowing one to inspect the P-trap, and determine if the problem lies therein.

Does Ace realize how much good home-maintenance information is dispensed in the weekend Threads?

Posted by: Duncanthrax at July 05, 2025 01:12 PM (0sNs1)

168 Last night, one of our neighbors was shooting off some noise makers. Not colorful light just loud boomers. The cat yawned and shifted to a more comfortable sprawl.

Anyone goes out and starts the lawnmower or string trimmer, the cat hides under the bed until the scary noise stops.

Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench) at July 05, 2025 01:12 PM (2J/Lj)

169 159 I don't think Mamdani is stupid . I think he is very clever with social media and thus is reaching a whole lot of people . He is much better at this that Cuomo was and I don't know if Adams is up to speed on that yet.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at July 05

He has been a citizen for 6 years. 6. I think the fact that AOC is behind him is helpful to the young, dumb and liberal crowd. What I find interesting is at the start, DU was indicating they were disappointed in his antisemitism and would be in AOC to learn she was supporting him. I haven’t seen anything that indicates they are still upset, it’s like that never happened. And bless our liaison for posting tidbits over here so we can see just how disconnected from reality that crowd is.

Posted by: Piper at July 05, 2025 01:12 PM (pRpzT)

170 That God Bless America video made things very dusty in here. Simply wonderful. Hoping everyone has a wonderful Independence Day weekend.

Posted by: thatcrazyjerseyguy at July 05, 2025 01:13 PM (5xuJ/)

171 The trap is the easy part to take apart usually.
Posted by: Skip

Usually. The most hated word in plumbing. In all maintenance, for that matter.

Posted by: From about That Time at July 05, 2025 01:13 PM (n4GiU)

172 I find it hard to imagine wanting to go off to Europe while leaving kids at camp in the U.S. First of all even though parents need a break to go out to dinner or such for a time, these are young kids, it seems . It sounds like the parents didn't want to be inconvenienced for a month.. So yes, the parents will feel a lot of guilt. In addition , why not bring your kids to Europe since they can probably afford it. First time I went there I was 12 and it was great!

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at July 05, 2025 01:14 PM (2GCMq)

173 Mumble decades ago, the wife and I kayaked the Little St. Francis in Mo when it was at flood stage. It was pretty exciting dodging trees. The most amazing part was when I saw an aluminum canoe wrapped around a tree another 15 higher than we were.

I just remember hoping no one was in it at that level.

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 01:14 PM (jc0TO)

174 Slapweasel is a missing name around here. Possibly its mention will cause his appearance.
Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 12:04 PM (xCsAY)

I have chatted with him on the phone a few times. Quite a character, and I mean that in a good way.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 05, 2025 01:14 PM (rw/0o)

175
If you catch a car from the river do you get to keep it?
Posted by: Boss Moss at July 05, 2025 01:11 PM (WIJBc)

__________

Have to throw it back if it's too small.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 05, 2025 01:15 PM (/HVsR)

176
Instagram reel: https://bit.ly/44OYVCM
Posted by: Clyde Shelton

I call BS.

I'm, over 29 and we always have had hot showers available.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 05, 2025 01:17 PM (SzZZ5)

177 Socialist dilettante and Twitch favourite Hasan Piker just showed his true socialist colours by waving a handgun on stream and threatening someone.

Perhaps this time Twitch will permanently cancel Hasan.

I believe they already said no. Asmongold showed a video of Twitch's CEO and executive staff singing Happy Birthday to Hasan as an explanation.

Posted by: Ian S. at July 05, 2025 01:17 PM (QZThv)

178 only the kitchen sink. Drains slowly overnight and it looks like it puked out whatever it had at the time.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 12:57 PM (7xrfc)

Drop an M-80 down the drain.
Plumber s coming on Monday anyway.

Posted by: From about That Time at July 05, 2025 01:18 PM (n4GiU)

179 Try this Drain King

OK, I'll save that for later. Gotta use my Amazon balance for something.

If you catch a car from the river do you get to keep it?

After you search the bodies for cash first, yes.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 05, 2025 01:19 PM (7xrfc)

180 I wonder what the Democrat's election machine in NYC thinks of Mamdani and whether they'll take a chance and install him as mayor anyway. I doubt voter turnout even enters the equation.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at July 05, 2025 01:19 PM (Q4IgG)

181 Remember when catching cars from the river that there's an air bag limit.

Posted by: Duncanthrax at July 05, 2025 01:20 PM (0sNs1)

182 Socialist dilettante and Twitch favourite Hasan Piker just showed his true socialist colours by waving a handgun on stream and threatening someone.

Perhaps this time Twitch will permanently cancel Hasan.
Posted by: Anna Puma at July 05, 2025 12:27 PM (C/v00)

Performative retard.
Posted by: Aetius451AD at July 05, 2025 12:30 PM (bss/y)

sounds like a swatting is in order...but that might be illegal

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 05, 2025 01:21 PM (rw/0o)

183 This is what planet lovers are doing to us.

https://tinyurl.com/yb6euhbr

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 01:22 PM (xCsAY)

184 178. 146. Horde mind. I swear to God hadn't seem the previous.

Posted by: From about That Time at July 05, 2025 01:26 PM (n4GiU)

185 sounds like a swatting is in order...but that might be illegal

Hasan is Chunk Yogurt's nephew. And actually even more retarded.

Posted by: Ian S. at July 05, 2025 01:26 PM (QZThv)

186 180 I wonder what the Democrat's election machine in NYC thinks of Mamdani and whether they'll take a chance and install him as mayor anyway. I doubt voter turnout even enters the equation.
Posted by: Martini Farmer
----------------------

NYC is such and odd mix. If 50% of the population the results would be different. If only people with a net worth of $1M+ voted the results would be different. And how in the world could the Democrat machine think that Mamdani will be good for them?
Could it be that AOC's handlers are also the Dem machine?

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 01:27 PM (xCsAY)

187 couldn't either and I'd be planning in my head how to get to them in case of a disaster. I always think like that and my friends do too.
Posted by: CaliGirl at July 05, 2025 01:05 PM (77W69

Not just the disaster scenario.. What if the kid got sick? Appendix happens quickly. Sure someone from the camp or a relative can make the call on emergency surgery but that baby can't go back to camp. Is she supposed to just stay with aunt Linda for the rest of that precious vacation? She needs her mama.

Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench) at July 05, 2025 01:27 PM (2J/Lj)

188 I call BS. I'm, over 29 and we always have had hot showers available.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 05, 2025 01:17 PM

Quick Grok inquiry about hot showers in USA:

Early 20th Century (1900s–1920s): Indoor plumbing and gas or electric water heaters became more common in urban middle-class homes. By the 1920s, electric water heaters were gaining popularity, though still not widespread in rural areas.

Post-World War II (1940s–1950s): Hot showers became standard in most American homes due to widespread electrification, improved plumbing infrastructure, and mass production of affordable water heaters. Suburban housing booms further normalized indoor bathrooms with hot showers.

By the 1950s, hot showers were a common feature in most U.S. households, though rural and lower-income areas lagged behind until later decades. Exact dates vary by region and economic status, but the technology was broadly accessible by mid-20th century.

Grok: https://bit.ly/44MIWFf

Posted by: Clyde Shelton at July 05, 2025 01:28 PM (P5BPp)

189 I wonder what the Democrat's election machine in NYC thinks of Mamdani and whether they'll take a chance and install him as mayor anyway. I doubt voter turnout even enters the equation.

Anyone who still believes after 2020 that any blue city/state election result isn't fake and gay probably still believes in the Easter bunny too.

Posted by: Ian S. at July 05, 2025 01:28 PM (QZThv)

190 My grandfather, who built his own house from recycled bomb crates during WWII, included a shower head in the one bathtub in bumfuck Texas. So it was at least a common thing in the '40s.

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 01:30 PM (jc0TO)

191 That instagram shower thing reminds me of old Russian story: an angel comes to Sergei, says “The lord has seen how much you have suffered, he will now grant you anything you wish! With one condition, your Neighbor Ivanovich will receive twice whatever is given to you.” Sergei thinks about the gift, and says “alright, I ask that you make me blind in one eye.”

Posted by: Tom Servo at July 05, 2025 01:31 PM (Lhvai)

192 Instagram reel: https://bit.ly/44OYVCM
Posted by: Clyde Shelton at July 05, 2025 01:07 PM (P5BPp

Thanks, Clyde, that was a great thought to consider!

Posted by: Emmie at July 05, 2025 01:33 PM (rF2iL)

193 I remember that the shower had no toggle or valve to divert the water to it, instead there was a brass plug that you screwed into the faucet to close it off.

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 01:33 PM (jc0TO)

194 By the 1950s, hot showers were a common feature in most U.S. households, though rural and lower-income areas lagged behind until later decades. Exact dates vary by region and economic status, but the technology was broadly accessible by mid-20th century.

Grok: https://bit.ly/44MIWFf
Posted by: Clyde Shelton at July 05, 2025 01:28 PM (P5BPp)

Water heaters attached to and heated by wood/coal cookstoves existed, but I don't know how popular they became. To have a shower, you need to have either a well with a pump, or gravity feed.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 05, 2025 01:33 PM (rw/0o)

195 By the 1950s, hot showers were a common feature in most U.S. households, though rural and lower-income areas lagged behind until later decades. Exact dates vary by region and economic status, but the technology was broadly accessible by mid-20th century.

Grok: https://bit.ly/44MIWFf
Posted by: Clyde Shelton at July 05, 2025 01:28 PM (P5BPp)

The old farmhouse that my dad grew up in didn't have a shower. There was a bathtub but no shower. My cousin gutted the house and remodeled the whole thing and enlarged the bathroom to have a shower. That was around the year 2000.
They were still using an outhouse when my dad was a kid. He was born in 1941 and was probably ten or twelve years old when they got indoor plumbing.

Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench) at July 05, 2025 01:34 PM (2J/Lj)

196 >>>I am sure these parents are going through so much guilt on top of their heartbreak, I am not saying the situation would change had they been home. I am just saying I would not have been able to just send my kids to camp and leave the country.
Posted by: Piper at July 05, 2025 12:55 PM
----------------------

You're absolutely right on the whole thing. Being available, not hovering, while the kid's are at camp is proper parenting. Leaving the country and the children at the mercy of strangers (that's what they become in an emergency) is void of humanity.
Bet they are physically bonded to their telephones.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 01:34 PM (xCsAY)

197 You're absolutely right on the whole thing. Being available, not hovering, while the kid's are at camp is proper parenting. Leaving the country and the children at the mercy of strangers (that's what they become in an emergency) is void of humanity.
Bet they are physically bonded to their telephones.
Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 01:34 PM (xCsAY)

There is a middle way here. Parents send daughter to camp for two weeks, fly to Paris. But they also have arranged for trusted friends or relatives (who the daughter knows and trusts) to act in loco parentis for the duration.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 05, 2025 01:38 PM (rw/0o)

198 Bet they are physically bonded to their telephones.
Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 01:34 PM (xCsAY)

Emotionally bonded as well.

Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench) at July 05, 2025 01:39 PM (2J/Lj)

199 I might be the contrarian here but if I were planning say a two week tour of the Orient, and I could leave the kids at a summer camp they enjoy, I wouldn't think myself irresponsible for doing it. Sure, if bad stuff happened I would feel guilty but, I would feel guilty just for sending them there even if I stayed at home.

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 01:39 PM (jc0TO)

200 >>>That was around the year 2000.
They were still using an outhouse when my dad was a kid. He was born in 1941 and was probably ten or twelve years old when they got indoor plumbing.
Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench)
------------------

Thomas Sowell said Black folks in the South didn't get indoor plumbing until FDR.
HEY THOMAS, no one in the South got plumbing until FDR.
He also said the gun violence in Detroit is from Southern Black redneck migration.

Hey Thomas, KMA.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 01:39 PM (xCsAY)

201 relatives (who the daughter knows and trusts) to act in loco parentis for the duration.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 05, 2025 01:38 PM (rw/0o)

See me at 187.

Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench) at July 05, 2025 01:40 PM (2J/Lj)

202 GT nood!

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 05, 2025 01:41 PM (SzZZ5)

203
Emotionally bonded as well.
Posted by: Madamemayhem (uppity wench)
----------------

Excellent, yes. More so than to their children.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 01:42 PM (xCsAY)

204 I don’t think it’s fair to judge those parents who left the country while their kids were at camp.

If I had the means, I would have sent my boys to study abroad for a quarter when they were in high school.

What’s the difference?

Posted by: nurse ratched at July 05, 2025 01:47 PM (mT+6a)

205 >>I might be the contrarian here but if I were planning say a two week tour of the Orient, and I could leave the kids at a summer camp they enjoy, I wouldn't think myself irresponsible for doing it.

We lived in New Jersey for a couple years when I was a kid. One of the kids in my neighborhood went to a camp on the NY side of Lake Champlain. My mom and sister came to pick me up and as we were coming down the NY Thruway my mom turned toward Massachusetts.

I told her she took the wrong exit and she said "We moved while you were gone. At least we came and got you.".

Thanks mom.

Posted by: JackStraw at July 05, 2025 01:49 PM (viF8m)

206 I told her she took the wrong exit and she said "We moved while you were gone. At least we came and got you.".

Thanks mom.
Posted by: JackStraw

Now that is funny!

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 05, 2025 01:52 PM (SzZZ5)

207 >>>If I had the means, I would have sent my boys to study abroad for a quarter when they were in high school.

What’s the difference?
Posted by: nurse ratched
---------------------------

The difference is that these girls were very young children.
Not teenagers.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 02:00 PM (xCsAY)

208 Everyone can stick around all afternoon here as well you all know

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 02:00 PM (+qU29)

209 Asia = Asia Minor + Asia Major

Asia Major is all of Asia except Asia Minor.
We just call it all Asia!

Posted by: NemoMeImpuneLacessit at July 05, 2025 02:05 PM (gxRWI)

210 It’s like Little Italy and then just Italy.

Posted by: NemoMeImpuneLacessit at July 05, 2025 02:07 PM (gxRWI)

211 Or York and New York.

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 02:10 PM (jc0TO)

212 Unless they live in the tiny little strip of Turkey that lies in Europe, most Turks are Asians!

Posted by: NemoMeImpuneLacessit at July 05, 2025 02:12 PM (gxRWI)

213 Good point

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 02:14 PM (+qU29)

214 Skip, hope you are taking it easy today - resting up.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 02:16 PM (xCsAY)

215 Barbara Eden wishes America a happy and fulfilling Independence Day.

https://tinyurl.com/mvtz9e9c

*swoons*

Posted by: Maj. Healey at July 05, 2025 02:25 PM (/U5Yz)

216 Except for some garden tractor driving down to commenting and reading

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 02:29 PM (+qU29)

217 @RealHickory . 2h

Not a single arrest has yet been made of anyone from the illegitimate Biden regime!

Spygate, RussiaGate, the stolen 2020 election, Nancy Pelosi's infamous J6 "Insurrection" hoax, the FBI raid at Mar-A-Logo, the unconstitutional lawfare, on and on!

NOT. ONE. SINGLE. ARREST.

Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others _ at July 05, 2025 02:30 PM (xCsAY)

218 I want heads on pikes

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 02:43 PM (+qU29)

219 According to an online website: “The boundary between Asia and Europe is often defined to follow the Aegean Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Turkish Strait, the Black Sea, the Greater Caucasus, and the Ural River and Mountains.” But of course not everyone agrees, and the details are tricky, see the article I’m quoting from below -

https://is.gd/yjgFIl

Posted by: NemoMeImpuneLacessit at July 05, 2025 02:48 PM (gxRWI)

220 I want heads on pikes too! But I don’t expect as we’ll get any.

Posted by: NemoMeImpuneLacessit at July 05, 2025 02:49 PM (gxRWI)

221 217 @RealHickory . 2h

Not a single arrest has yet been made of anyone from the illegitimate Biden regime!

Spygate, RussiaGate, the stolen 2020 election, Nancy Pelosi's infamous J6 "Insurrection" hoax, the FBI raid at Mar-A-Logo, the unconstitutional lawfare, on and on!

NOT. ONE. SINGLE. ARREST.
Posted by: Braenyard - some Absent Friends are more equal than others

The DOJ continues to be outside my circle of trust.

Posted by: Maj. Healey at July 05, 2025 02:50 PM (/U5Yz)

222 See, young people are very offended by the idea of rich corporate types rigging everything so that they keep all the money and dole out just enough for the others to survive. But they are really enthusiastic about the idea of rich government types rigging everything so that they keep all the money and dole out just enough so the others can survive.

Posted by: azjaeger at July 05, 2025 02:51 PM (3/XaG)

223 Wouldn't doubt the heads of DOJ and other departments might be Trump people but the line and files are filled with Deep Staters

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 03:02 PM (+qU29)

224 Washington's response in that last meme:
"It's alright. We'll pick him up off the ice floe on the way back. I hope the current hasn't increased much by then."

Posted by: GWB at July 05, 2025 03:06 PM (maNsM)

225 More winning news!

Canadian's will not be coming here this winter.

https://tinyurl.com/mv86majp

Posted by: Maj. Healey at July 05, 2025 03:16 PM (/U5Yz)

226 Parents send daughter to camp for two weeks, fly to Paris. "

Well, I'd drive. It's about 5 hours or so

Paris, TX. Right?

Posted by: man at July 05, 2025 03:27 PM (m5/ie)

227 PET NOOD

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 03:34 PM (+qU29)

228 I don't see anything wrong sending kids to camp and going away. Sitting home and worrying isn't solving a disaster.

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 03:35 PM (+qU29)

229 Rubio has been the most surprising appointment in a good way. Bondie the least pleasing, though I am trying to give her the benefit, presuming that the wheels of law grind more slowly than foreign and domestic policy.

Posted by: toby928 at July 05, 2025 03:42 PM (jc0TO)

230 The fit and ready UK troops.

https://tinyurl.com/2bjzzkp6

Good gravy, I thought I was watching a Canadian military parade.

Posted by: Maj. Healey at July 05, 2025 03:46 PM (/U5Yz)

231 The fit and ready UK troops."

Hey, we have to keep up!

Snort.

Posted by: man at July 05, 2025 03:48 PM (cGjQu)

232 Bondi is running out of time imo, 6 months something should have broken open

Posted by: Skip at July 05, 2025 03:59 PM (+qU29)

233 Skip, you still here?

Posted by: Ben Had at July 05, 2025 04:12 PM (HFcKg)

234 I imagine that the expectation of any case brought by Bondi and the DOJ would be a conviction. How long does it take to gather evidence, find reliable witnesses and build a winnable case?

Posted by: Ben Had at July 05, 2025 04:19 PM (HFcKg)

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