batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 18hMeta point: Remember when Bush II promised the US would liberate Afghanistan and Iraq? 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Trump: "They said if you won three swing states, I won all seven. I won the counties. It's very important, 86% popular vote." Stark, raving barmy. But if Biden had misstated, say, the founding year of NATO as 1950 instead of 1949, we'd have heard no end of it. 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Karl Rove pioneered this technique: use the lower gas price/fed deficit/whatever topic requires deflection inherited by the Republican officeholder and average it with the now-worse number caused by bad R policy. See Bush, George W. and Innumeracy in America. 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Indeed. She was a humanitarian and kindergarten and 1st-grade teacher, who fretted that if she took the part of a witch, her future pupils might be frightened of her. 010
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 24/09/2026The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. George Orwell, 1984 002
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Love will heal. And time in nature helps too. From our campsite near Minto, New Brunswick just now. Good morning, Matthew! 0232
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 23/09/2026I loathe Trump as much as the next guy, but in this case he's more accelerant than cause. The Bush II "tax deferments," commonly called "tax cuts," are the primary driver here. Trump has poured gasoline on a long-smoldering fire. Just in time for accelerating retirements and higher SS payouts. 011
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Wow...just like with Dubya in 2008 and thereafter. And first term, W. got everything (everything!) he wanted economically. It's almost as if Republican policy desideratas don't serve the national interest. Could that be? 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Greetings from Nova Scotia where we awoke to 46 degrees. It's nearly time to head back to the heat of South Texas. We have elections to win! 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 19/09/2026As much aa I enjoyed teaching "Lord of the Flies," I like this napkin, left behind in a coffee shop in Gander, Newfoundland, I suspect by a clergyman in the Salvation Army, who put a lot of thought into it. In NL, the SA are both a service org and regular denomination. Good morning, Matt! 1255
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 16/09/2026I see and hear a young Megan Follows as Anne Shirley in the "Anne of Green Gables" TV movie reciting this poem. 150
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 13/09/2026Now I will never be able to unsee Brezhnev's moobies. 010
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 12/09/2026You realize that you posted a satire in "The National _Roast_," don't you? 230
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 12/09/2026(The rest of yesterday's program, for those interested) 011
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Good morning from Gander, Newfoundland, a beacon of decency. 26215
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 11/09/2026From Gander, Newfoundland: Thank you, Professor Nichols, for the wise retrospective and your ability to confront and revise your earlier views--a talent that's all too rare today. 010
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Good morning from Gander, Newfoundland, which looks much the same as it did 25 years ago today. A memorial service is scheduled for this afternoon at the gathering hall / hockey rink. 031
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Honest question here: doesn't the Red Lion Broadcasting ruling contradict that view? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lio...en.wikipedia.orgRed Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC - Wikipedia 100
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Too bad G.W. Bush wasn't much interested in warnings about Al Quaeda either. Not taking security seriously: a right-wing predeliction since G.H.W. Bush retired. 021
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 07/09/2026Indeed. Per the act: "SEC 8. Nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces except as provided in 4(a)(2) in carrying out this act." (4a2 allows up to $97m in munitions and training for oppo groups). 020
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 06/09/2026Alas, we can't. We're too busy being "exceptional" -- just as Athens right up until 404 BCE. 010
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 03/09/2026My guess is that father Fred offered Wharton a donation for passing Donald and threatened lawsuits if he failed. I suspect that's how he treated Donald's primary and secondary school too. Judging from his speech, Donny has never read a complete book in his life. 130
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 02/09/2026Center-right socially with a large helpjng of tolerance. Economically? Center-left policies poll better. For an example, see the Bush II admin's docs in Price of Loyalty by Ron Suskind with Bush II's T-Sec Paul O'Neill. 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 29/08/2026Wasn't it the French foreign (or defense) minister who said France's security can't be left to the whims of Wisconsin voters every four years? 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 26/08/2026It sounds to me like an argument against health care in general, regardless of how it's funded. 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Just like "Freedom Fries" in the run-up to the invasion or Iraq. The rest of the world was trying to decide a question of peace.and war, of life and death. Rs wanted to talk about renaming fried potatoes. The Rs have been juvenile for at least 25 years; it excites their base. 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 21/08/2026Philip II of Spain and Charles I of England called it "forcing a loan." Spain wound up declaring bankruptcy; Charles eventually suffered, as an old high school student of mine put it, "extreme neck damage." 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 21/08/2026"Czechoslavia is a far away country of which we know little." Is Hannity prepping his fans for "Munich 1938: The Sequel?" 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 15/08/2026I liked Burns but as actor Larry Linville argued, his character couldn't grow. Winchester was much more substantial and the episodes involving his love of classical music, e.g., where he convinces a pianist whose hand is damaged that he's still a musician, to be moving. 220
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 13/08/2026Now you know how those of who didn't skip all the grades where reading comprehension and critical thinking were taught feel about the people who believed that we were just bound to find WMD in Iraq. 010
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 13/08/2026Plenty of sweet tea here in San Antonio. At a restaurant, if you don't want sweetened tea, you'd better explicitly ask for it and hope you don't hear that sweet is the only kind served. My 5th-generation Lubbockite extended family will drink no other tea than sweet. (I'm an unsweetened guy myself.) 030
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 13/08/2026I live in Texas and grade AP exams in Kansas City for eight days every summer. I pay Missouri income tax on the ~$1,600 that the gig pays. 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 10/08/2026Excellent medium rare! Caviar? The fishiness of it clashes with the steak. Besides, regardless of color, the stuff is just overrated. Its overblown reputation results from one-sided coverage--just another sad consequence of the demise of the Fairness Doctrine. 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 07/08/202640-odd years ago, my high school football team lost a game 42-3. The way I see it, if the other team hadn't scored six touchdowns, we not only would have won, we would have shut them out--total domination! 071
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026Wasn't Trump's knock on Janet Yellen was that she was too short to be a central bank chief? Other than that, he liked her. 020
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026Maybe he confused the woman with the 100 years in the mine shaft from Dr Strangelove. "Prodigious service," you know. 170
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 06/08/2026"Limited government," which the Founders properly contrasted with absolute gov't. The term has nothing to do with the size of federal spending relative to GDP. 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 05/08/2026Patton with red epaulettes? Did he defect to the Red Army?!? 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 04/08/2026It's just like that damned Covid testing. No testing, no confirmed Covid. Who knew the solution to our medical emergencies could be so simple? 2142
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 03/08/2026So a respected Canadian newspaper said it. Do you suppose mainstream American media can possibly drag itself to the point of acknowledging what the Globe and Mail does here? 2541
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 03/08/2026Really?!? It's Sunday! Trump wouldn't lie on a Sunday, would he? Surely as we speak the i's are being dotted and the t's crossed on an iron-clad deal, the best ever negotiated some will say, that will last 100 years. 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 23/07/2026Convoy. Followed by Black Bear Road and Wolf Creek Pass because I'm just as old. 000
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 23/07/2026Um, er, uh, I, [blush]...yeah, I did. In my defense, we're overpopulated with white tail deer; lots of high quality meat goes to the food bank; & if I thought what I was doing was ecologically wrong, I'd stop. But yes, I rubbed out Bambi's mommy. She did go out under a fine sauce au poivre however. 020
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 23/07/2026If memory serves, that opinion is shared by Jack Matlock in "Superpower Illusions": How Myths and False Ideologies Led America Astray--And How to Return to Reality." If memory serves further, Thatcher (no longer PM) encouraged GHWB to start such a plan. I found Matlock persuasive on this point. 010
batavicus @batavicus.bsky.social · 23/07/2026Exactly! And in case you get tired of light seasoning, I know an excellent processor in the Texas Hill Country who makes deer hot dogs that are out of this world! 010