I still think Gaylord is a failed beta tested android financed by Soros and programmed by the Farsi Ferret. The stuttering was the tell; they barely were able to stop him from smoking (circuit overload not cigs).

clarice, it might be impossible for anyone walking around free to be as dumb as Kerry.

Another great thing about Alaska. When I was in Anchorage Mrs H and I hit the Glacier Brewhouse for dinner; excellent beer and food. When we parked the car I tried to use my credit card at the meter and it wouldn't accept it; since it worked at another meter earlier I figured the metering time frame expired so went inside. So when I came out there was a ticket. Needless to say I wasn't happy but they have an online site to appeal them so I did just that and explained the above events with an offer to pay the two hour charge that I intended to originally pay. I hadn't heard anything so I logged back onto the site from a link they emailed me when I submitted my appeal and found it was resolved with me owing nothing. What a great state!

Whoa, Miss Marple; I was talking about Kerry, not Mueller; although they're both as attractive as a cat's ass. If you realize how badly the Bush Crime Family sold the country out none of their moves are surprising.

The lantern jawed goof, with or without being filled in with mashed potatoes, always hated the country and the feeling is very much reciprocated. He's also as dumb as a stump.

He won the election because he worked harder at it than Hillary Bingo; he outworked and outsmarted The Beast.

clarice, maybe being as dense as a neutron star was a condition of employment. Or advancement. A silent cold front has passed with dry winds from the north.

No disrespect to Herb, who was obviously a brilliant man, but being the only analyst to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union speaks volumes about the quality of the rest.

Jim, The appeal of Stoner is how you get immersed in it from beginning to end. It's a page turner of substance.

Alaska's more than twice the size of Texas.

Anybody own a Nissan Sentra? That's what my rental was and it performed great as far as getting me from point A to B in up and down terrain without using lots of gas. Just efficient no frills transportation.

Also the day I stop worrying about my children is the day I meet the Grim Reaper. Now the level is alleviated for both.

Stoner's a great book. It was terrible that it existed unread until NYRB publishing resurrected it from the slag heap.

clarice, my daughter finding a soulmate and making it official was the best part. I've had some good friends who are complete without a spouse but that wasn't her. I've liked most of her prior squeezes but this one was a cut above and I'm very happy for both of them.

Catsmeat, Probably both. Proust's writing, and the translation, is so dense that you ponder sentences (diagram that, sucker) for minutes just processing what he's saying. But the natural beauty of the state was likewise calming. On the two days that the skies were clear enough to see Denali, it was a constant looming presence that translated to me that all was well.

I figured you'd take it the right way, clarice.

Capn, the natives in Alaska don't have a big enough footprint to be demogogued and made victims in the other 49 states. Actually I think they do, GUS, but that's not how they roll. Many times after a pleasant encounter I'd wonder, much later because it didn't matter, what ethnicity they were. There aren't enough people for any group to not have a footprint. Fairbanks reminded me of Canton in size and population.

Being in Alaska calmed me down quite a bit. Even O'Hare and flying United didn't bug me as much as usual. There are still a few things I'm mulling over boring people with I encountered there, particularly the seamless interactions of aboriginal/indigenous people with relative outsiders. There was a piece in the Anchorage Museum of a tribal youth who accomplished a rite of passage by killing something and the SJW twitterstorm of ignorance he received. I think most of the locals have their priorities in order.

Lowry is just smoking everyone at the Open. NBC's coverage, while not bad per se, is typically inferior to Fox's and CBS's.

Is everyone through the weekly tongue bath of clarice for distilling what we talked about for a week or should I hang out at the Book Thread longer?

People defending Avenatti hopefully haven't reproduced.

Hey Catsmeat, while on vacation I finished Claudius the God and Proust's Within a Budding Grove. I started rereading Volume 1 of the Moncrieff and Kilmartin translation three years ago and got bogged down for whatever reason in the Place-Names: The Place part, which was odd because there were things actually happening in there; until I picked it up recently and devoured it. Anyway, near the end young Marcel writes "Just as we often discover a vain miser beneath the cloak of a man famed for his charity, so her flaunting of vice leads us to suppose a Messalina a respectable girl with middle class prejudices". Leaving aside that I think that was an odd way of phrasing things (or translating it) if I'd read it earlier I'd have had no idea who Messalina was.

I really want her gone and too damn bad if Andy McCarthy doesn't like it.

Nobody loves a traitor https://newrepublic.com/article/154496/mississippi-quotes-john-roberts-defend-racist-election-law

Pin, True fact: a polar bear can smell Erin Brockovich 2,000 miles away.