Do you remember when he was “America’s Dad” and not some creepy sexual predator who drugged girls half his age so he could rape them while they were unconscious?

Me too (in fact I go back to before Robert Culp), but I started becoming disaffected with the advent of the Cliff Huxtable character. Not that I have anything against the name Cliff mind you, I’ve met John Ratzenberger and he’s exactly like his character only less sensitive to brown people. Not a Hillary supporter.

But Clavin is a blowhard and Huxtable something else. He has a privileged existence, Obstetrician married to a Lawyer, his own Brownstone (not cheap at all), 17 kids in College (I dunno, wasn’t it something like that? I lost track after Rudy.) also not cheap. His Dad was a Jazz Musician and hers a clergyman of some kind who always vaguely disapproved of Cliff because his Dad was a Jazz Musician. Of course everyone from that generation had bone hard Civil Rights Cred, Cliff and Claire were a bit too young to participate personally but they had feelings and stuff and weren’t total sell-outs to Whitey and his Plantation Mentality.

Really.

But he does love him some Libertarian / Republican Bootstrap talk-

• Pull up your pants.
• Get some real clothes, Jacket, Tie, Chinos, Wingtips not a Polyester Jumpsuit, Air Jordans, and Bling. Pull out those damn earphones, put away your phone, and stop listening to that filthy Rap Music.
• And pull up your pants.
• Stop drinking Olde English 40s out of a paper bag and smoking Blunts on your stoop, GET A DAMN JOB! Shave that nasty looking beard and if your hair ain’t straight enough and you’re not willing to conk it, at least cut it high and tight.
• ACT MORE WHITE!
• And pull up your pants.

Uh, thanks I guess Dr Huxtable. Way to be you.

How to be Joe Biden–

DAVIS: Mr. Vice President, I want to come to you and talk to you about inequality in schools and race. In a conversation about how to deal with segregation in schools back in 1975, you told a reporter, “I don’t feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather, I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation, and I’ll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago.” You said that some 40 years ago. But as you stand here tonight, what responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country?

BIDEN: Well, they have to deal with the — look, there’s institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved, I started dealing with that. Redlining, banks, making sure we are in a position where — look, you talk about education. I propose that what we take the very poor schools, the Title I schools, triple the amount of money we spend from $15 to $45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise to the $60,000 level.

Number two, make sure that we bring in to help the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home. We have one school psychologist for every 1,500 kids in America today. It’s crazy. The teachers are — I’m married to a teacher, my deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them. Make sure that every single child does, does in fact, have 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds go to school. Not day care, school.

We bring social workers into some and parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t want to help, they don’t know what — they don’t know quite what to do. Play the radio, make sure the television — excuse me, make sure you have the record player — on at night, make sure that kids hear words, a kid coming from a very poor school — a very poor background will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time we get there.

DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

BIDEN: No, I’m going to go like the rest of them do, twice over. Because here’s the deal. The deal is that we’ve got this a little backward. And by the way, in Venezuela, we should be allowing people to come here from Venezuela. I know Maduro. I’ve confronted Maduro. Number two, you talk about the need to do something in Latin America. I’m the guy that came up with $740 million, to see to it those three countries, in fact, changed their system so people don’t have a chance to leave. Y’all acting like we just discovered this yesterday.

What Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations?

Oh, I expect Joe Biden to act like a mouthpiece for the corrupt and failed DLC, New Dem, Blue Dog Neo Liberal Order.

And a borderline senile moron with some dated (to put it politely) notions about physical space.

So he does.

Calvinist the sign of Election is God’s Favor on Earth you damn Grasshoppers (think you’re so smart, Perish Eternally in the Fire and Brimstone that is separation from him).

Nothing to see here. Keep Calm and Carry On.

Even the Tories admit it: only duty free can get us through
by Marina Hyde, The Guardian
Fri 13 Sep 2019

“I’m afraid I didn’t do enough work at university. My strong advice is: don’t waste your time at university. [sigh] Don’t get drunk, don’t do … not that you would … but use it well … I frittered too much time at university, I’m afraid to say …” An excruciating pause. Shortly after, a boy no older than seven put his hand up and went: “Are we leaving Brexit with a deal or no deal?”

Wow. Look, I know Prime Ministers Say the Darnedest Things. But maybe the best way to stop no deal is to put a call in to Oxford and explain they need to retroactively award Johnson a first-class degree? Just claim there was a marking error or something. Having read the Yellowhammer documents forecasting shortages, pretty much any gambit is justifiable at this point in the interests of public safety. Giving the prime minister a belated first would just be the classics department version of a cop shouting at Raoul Moat: “It’s fine, mate! I know you didn’t mean to hurt her! Nobody’s going back to prison. Just put the gun down and we can talk.”
…
That this is all set against a backdrop of an advertising blitz gives the UK the feel of a Paul Verhoeven satire set in the near dystopian future. There’s “GET READY FOR BREXIT”. There’s “BE ONE OF THE 20,000 NEW POLICE OFFICERS”. But my favourite is the Treasury campaign, where animated booze glasses trilled the news that: “Beer, wine, spirits and cigarettes will all be duty free for people travelling to the EU if we leave without a deal.” You might be reminded of those Conservative ads a few years back, which said the government was “cutting the bingo tax and beer duty, to help hardworking people do more of the things they enjoy”. Those ads had their critics, but I admire the consistency and the realism, as the Conservatives continue to promote the notion that alcoholism and gambling addiction represent the smart choices for anyone governed by them.

In fact, these government-backed reminders to drink early and often fuel the same sense of deep optimism as that moment in the Chernobyl drama when the new recruit to the dogshooting unit turns up to the camp and sees endless stacked pallets of empty vodka bottles. When any government – Soviet or modern British – is pushing cheap booze on you, you’ve got to think you’ve landed on your feet. Haven’t you?

The alternative view, I suppose, is that government-advised inebriation and respiratory disease feels the next logical step of the Brexit shambles. “Prorogation” and “justiciability” and “stymying” and “fiat” – no one’s really sure precisely what these words mean, other than they weren’t in the brochure for the sunlit uplands. Still, don’t put your hand up and ask questions. Just accept we’ve been billeted in the irradiated uplands, gripped by a strong sense that the instruction book to our country has been lost.

Dasvidaniya Rodina.

All Sports Edition.

Actual Breaking News!

And Golf.

Moose Racing

More Golf!

Politeness on the Internet? How basic. My advice, now and always, is don’t take the bait no matter how bright, shiny, buzzy, injured snack imitating it is.

The Illusion of Civility

Irritating Parasite? Would Bret was the only one.