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How McCain Got the Last Word Against Trump (archive)

By the time he died on Saturday, Mr. McCain had carefully stage-managed a four-day celebration of his life — but what was also an unmistakable rebuke to President Trump and his agenda. For years, Mr. Trump had used Twitter and the presidential bully pulpit to mock and condemn the senator. In death, Mr. McCain found a way to have the last word, even quietly making it clear through friends that Mr. Trump was not welcome at the services.

“I think it’s fair to say that they have a very different view of this country and what this country means, here and abroad,” said Mark Salter, the senator’s longtime friend and co-author who sat with Mr. McCain — often with a lump in his throat — during the many discussions about his looming death. “His overall message was: ‘It doesn’t have to be this shitty.’”

The series of events honoring Mr. McCain is the kind of grandiose spectacle that is normally reserved for someone who became president, not someone who twice failed to do so. Friends said that Mr. McCain was surprised by the level of interest in his death even as he planned it.

When advisers suggested that his coffin should lie in state at the Arizona Capitol, Mr. McCain said he believed the legislature would never approve such a rare honor for him, recalled Rick Davis, who had been at Mr. McCain’s side for decades and served as his 2008 campaign chairman. “Every inch of the way, he underestimated what he thought this would be about,” Mr. Davis said.

The memorial events this week began in Arizona on Wednesday, when Mr. McCain’s body was taken to the Capitol, and will continue Thursday at a service at North Phoenix Baptist Church. The procession will then shift to the nation’s capital, when Mr. McCain’s coffin will arrive at an air base outside Washington as the president holds one of his raucous campaign-style rallies for supporters in Indiana.

By the weekend, when virtually all of official Washington — Democrats and Republicans alike — gathers at the National Cathedral for a nationally televised farewell, Mr. Trump is expected to have retreated to Camp David, where White House aides hope he will contain his anger at the attention being lavished on Mr. McCain.

[...] Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian activist who survived two poisoning attempts for his opposition to the government of President Vladimir V. Putin, said that Mr. McCain, who was widely seen as one of the Russian leader’s fiercest detractors, had also asked him in April to be a pallbearer. “He spoke the truth regardless of party or political situations,” Mr. Kara-Murza said. “That was his defining characteristic.”

In Washington, a town where Mr. Trump has given Mr. Putin an open invitation to visit, Mr. Kara-Murza said that Mr. McCain’s choice of a Russian pallbearer — one repeatedly brought to the brink of death for challenging his country’s authoritarian brand of politics — was “actually pretty symbolic.”

John McCain: Sarah Palin 'excluded from his funeral'

Is that bad?

At least it's not green. Green is bad.

A two pack a day friend I once had denoted his own phlegm as "Lung Cheese" yet strangely uncritically accepted such Cheese.

I am otherwise awake enough and functioning mentally well enough to write code.

I got to work at Midnight Monday night. I spent less than five minutes staring at my source then quite grimly quit Xcode then hung out on the Net until the trains started running again about 5:30.

What I regard as "today" but no one in their right mind would actually so regard led me to arrive at work at nine Monday evening.

I've been able to somehow extract from deep within myself the Moral Fibre required to Deliver Value to my client for six hours or so.

For me, that's a good day but for a whole lot of really good reasons I promised a delivery "today" for various values of "today".

In my own particular internally-consistent system of Postulates and whatever Gödel Escher Bach calls the means by which one can start with some postulates, apply some operators to eventually arrive at an item that is contained within any particular internally-consistent system - Help Me Out Here, I'm Begging You! - all possible values of "today" commence when I somehow drag my sorry ass out of my beloved warm, comfortable bed right up until I pass out on the sidewalk while waiting for the MAX Yellow Line from Pioneer Courthouse Square to North Portland's Delta Park / Vanport Station.

While it often slips my mind, despite my Totally Whacko sleep/wake patterns I really do have a completely normal Circadian Rhythm. It's just that my Circadian Rhythm has very little influence over when I feel the need to sleep or when I'm ready to wake up and start my day.

I actually sleep far more than anyone I have ever met but when I actually do so is all over the map.

I have no understanding of why I sleep or awaken without correlation to my otherwise-normal Circadian Rhythm nor have any of the many Medical and Mental Health Professional I have quite desperately begged for insight from.

The one thing I can say is that whether I'm able to focus on my code as opposed to my great many Walls Of Text quite closely tracks my Circadian:

I always feel totally trashed as well as freezing cold starting around 6:30 AM until 8:00 or so. Just now at Midnight I'm at my mental peak so I would do well to stop composing such a great many Walls Of Text that I may Deliver Value to my client...

... just after...

... I submit to SN...

... what I regarded as...

... what for me is an uncommonly concise...

... as well as effectively argued...

Wall Of Text

KTHXBAI!

To: the-boss@client.com, his-coder@client.com
Subject: This Is Very Embarrassing

I just a couple hours ago realized that my code was A Multitude Of Sins.

I'm now making rapid progress and will stay at the office until I have a meaningful build to deliver.

(Attempting to salvage what's left of my repution.)

I'm now feeling a whole lot more confident that I can reliably do what you're paying me to do today.

Disconcertedly,

Mike

Do Yer Worst.

Aaaaaargh. This is going to be news to precisely no one who knows a woman or is one, but I'm gonna say it again anyway: womens' clothing SUCKS.

First, and biggest problem: they all assume that if you're a given size in one measurement, the rest of you matches up too. This couldn't be further from the truth. According to a standard size chart, I have the waist of a 12, the hips of a 14 or 16, and the bust of a 16. This makes finding anything with a proper fit basically impossible. You *have* to go with the larger measurements, which means 1) high-rise and mid-rise jeans are too big around the middle and 2) there is simply no way I can wear a dress or other one-piece clothing item without alterations.

Second: why the bloody hell do sizes *differ* from manufacturer to manufacturer?! In some brands I'm a 12 waist, in some a 10, in one a 14 (wtf), and of course everything else varies as well. This varies brand by brand, even if you're shopping in the same store. If you wonder why we take eleventy hojillion items to the dressing room and spend so much time trying stuff on, THIS is why.

Third: pockets. Full stop. Yes, this is getting better, but it's hard to find pants that have the number and size pockets mens' pants do. I know, I know, we're supposed to splash out several hundred dollars on some ruinously expensive branded handbag. Screw that. I don't have the money, and even if I did it wouldn't be spent on a handbag. And good grief are they ugly, with their diamond patterns or repeated monograms or whatever. No, my messenger bag does fine for all my carry-stuff-around needs, and you can't fit a laptop in a $400 Gucci handbag. I may be femme but I'm not stupid, or lipstick for that matter.

In my opinion, the lack of pockets is something more cynical and sinister than just a ploy to get women to buy handbags: it's a deliberate removal of our agency. And false pockets, the ones that are just sewn-on seams with no actual depth, can DIAF.

Fourth: Quality and price. Mens' clothing seems a lot more substantial and I wear what pieces of it I can for that reason. It's also cheaper, aside from suits and formalwear. I can get a men's size L t-shirt (flaps on me like a tent but the M won't fit my chest...) for something like $5 at Shopko. I have *never* seen a womens' shirt for that price outside a very low-end thrift store, and the equivalents are smaller, thinner, made of less-durable materials, and MORE expensive.

Fifth: too much of our clothing is basically candy wrappers. What I mean by this is it exists mostly to imply what's under it, either by showing a lot of skin or, less greasily, indicating by color or pattern that "the person wearing this is demure, defenseless, meek, quiet, and perfectly happy to be basically an object." I really think sometimes that all the pink and floral pattern stuff is some sort of salve to mens' fragile egos, or at the very least a way of firmly separating the two sexes by clothing and letting all concerned know who stands where in the power dynamic.

Now yes, I'm aware 2/3 of the time men are not looking at our clothes specifically. And yes, I am very much aware most of this stuff is done to compete with *other women,* which is another game I flat-out refuse to play. It still pisses me off, and many a time I've been standing in the changing room thinking to myself "Madokami have mercy, WHAT does a girl need to do to get something functional, well-fitting, and decently-priced that *doesn't* tell the world I'm a simpering moron with no aims in life other than to lasso a guy?!"

There's way too much politics surrounding clothing, is what this boils down to. Politics, and something a level or two under it, also. I'm very aware that by not "playing the game" I'm shut out of many social interactions, and for interviews I do the "pretend to be perfectly normal" game with light makeup and the "appropriate" clothes, but what a crock. Do men worry about this stuff? It doesn't seem like it.

• Battle Ground
• Vancouver
• Corporate Headquarters

Both in Washington State.

My Cafe section is only a prototype. I'm going to build out Clark and King - Seattle and Redmond - Counties, Washington, Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington Counties, Oregon and Alameda County, California (for Peets).

Then I'm going to ask Peets' and Starbucks' MIS people to work with me to set up automated data feeds. That way when a new cafe starts hiring, it will appear on Soggy Jobs that very same day. In the unfortunate event that one goes Tits Up, it will disappear into the ether. Fall off the edge of the Earth. Stop phoning home.

It's common for cafes not to have websites, but many of them have either Facebook or Twitter. I could link those but then my table rows would be two wide to fit on smartphones.

Is there a way to make table rows take up two lines without embeddeding a two-row table in a table row?

Some have neither website, Facebook nor Twitter. If there's just one location I plan to provide their street addresses.

I'll be going to breakfast at the Portland Rescue Mission soon.

In other news, late tomorrow morning I'll be setting out QR codes for BitCoin, Ether and LiteCoin so I can accept crypto tips when I sing on the street.

Just yesterday I added Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" to my Set List. Please to be suggesting folk songs, show tunes and American patriotic songs that I could sing. I do it A Capella, so whatever I sing can't have long instrumental sections.

Have we just seen ghosts of black holes from another universe?

Evidence that Universe has infinite cycle of Big Bangs from very early black holes

Separately:

Physicists Say They've Come Up With a Mathematical Model For a Viable Time Machine

All you need is the same exotic matter that powers your Alcubierre drive. What? You don't have one of those?

Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer for the Trump Organization, was one of the executives who helped arrange $420,000 in payments to longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen to help reimburse him for hush money he paid an adult-film star.

Weisslberg was granted immunity by federal investigators in New York in exchange for his truthful testimony about his role in the payments, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Weisselberg is the person identified in court filings as “Executive-1,” who prosecutors said helped authorize $420,000 in payments to Cohen, one person said. He testified before a grand jury investigating Cohen last month

Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg, who allegedly helped arrange hush-money reimbursement to Cohen, granted immunity

Federal prosecutors reached an immunity deal with the tabloid executive David J. Pecker, a key witness in their monthslong investigation into payments during the 2016 campaign to two women who said they had affairs with Donald J. Trump, according to two people familiar with the investigation.

Mr. Pecker is the chairman of American Media Inc., the nation’s biggest tabloid news publisher, which was involved in the payments, which prosecutors have identified as illegal contributions made in violation of campaign finance law.

David Pecker, Chief of National Enquirer’s Publisher, Is Said to Get Immunity in Trump Inquiry

1. First book posted on Main Page (Community Reviews nexus) on the first of the month. Let's just pick Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem for the inaugural book, unless you have any better ideas.

That thread will contain discussion of the book throughout the month, as well as any suggestions you might have for the next book (you have two weeks to make them).

2. On the 15th of the month, we'll have a front page poll to choose the next book. An editor will pick suggestions from the discussion thread. It looks like we can have a maximum of 8 poll options, which is probably sufficient.

3. Finally, a new thread on the first of the next month, announcing the new pick, containing discussion for the new pick, calling for suggestions, and also as a place to write any closing thoughts you had about the previous month's book.

Guidelines

A. You are encouraged to use the <spoiler></spoiler> tag in the discussions. You don't have to wrap your entire comment with the spoiler tag, just use your best judgment.

B. The book should be written primarily in the English language, or the American language.

C. The suggestions could be from any genre, not just "hard sci-fi". Even those ess-jay-dubya Hugo Award #winning books are welcome.

D. The book should be obtainable from a variety of sources, including BitTorrent, Library Genesis, etc. The thread will link to official places to buy the book, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or the author's website. Bezos haters, feel free to add to this list.

Is a 1 month cycle long enough? Do you want a 2 month cycle instead?

What say you?

The Dipole Drive: A New Concept for Space Propulsion

Why bring your propellant?

The Guardian and the BBC report that last year the Conservative Party in the UK received twice as much money in donations from dead people than from living members. The Labour Party received almost £10M more in donations, mostly from living members. The Conservative Party had a membership of 124 000 (living) and Labour 564 443.