The Shutdown's Over; Long Live the Shutdown

The Elephant and Ass Show rolls on, as Trump takes on Laura Ingraham and MTG, Democrats get what they want really out of the shutdown, and the Israel worship takes some odd turns. Happy FFS Friday!

Ouch.

Or . . .

Can’t argue there.

And here we go . . .

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Great, now we’re going to have to learn whale pronouns.

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If you thought “eat zem bugs” was bad . . .

Currently, the ISS is supplied by food that’s manufactured on Earth and brought to the station, which is fine for low-orbit missions but would be impractical — financially and otherwise — for long-haul trips.

“For human beings to be able to implement long-duration missions on the Moon, or even one day, to go to Mars, will require innovative and sustainable solutions to be able to survive with limited supplies,” declared Van Ombergen. “With this project, the ESA is developing a key capability for the future of space exploration.”

In absolutely no iteration of Star Trek do I remember them eating pee.

Just throwing that out there.

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“Our findings, combined with prior research, indicate that opium use was more than accidental or sporadic in ancient Egyptian cultures and surrounding lands. [It] was, to some degree, a fixture of daily life,” Yale Peabody Museum researcher Andrew Koh explained in a university announcement.

And how did they figure this out? Dirty pots.

Koh first became interested in this specific vase after spotting unknown dark brown, aromatic residue inside the container. A subsequent chemical analysis confirmed the presence of noscapine, thebaine, papaverine, hydrocotarnine, and morphine–all clear opium biomarkers. In their study, the authors noted that their find is only the latest of many similar artifacts. Opium-laced vessels like these weren’t limited to royalty, either. Archaeologists previously identified opium residue in jugs belonging to a merchant class family’s tomb dating back to the New Kingdom (16th to 11th century BCE).

I believe it.

How else would you dream up something like Horus . . .

Or Anubis . . .

But given how innovative the Egyptians were, maybe we should replace the pot shops with opium dens.

Just saying.

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When life gives you lemons . . .

I had to click on this, even though it’s the WaPo, to find out which big city they were talking about.

It’s Pittsburgh.

So we all know where this is going.

How the city has remained one of the nation’s most affordable is a story with many threads, chief among them the law of supply and demand. Since the steel industry that defined it collapsed five decades ago, Pittsburgh simply has more houses than people looking to buy them, including 25,000 properties that are vacant or abandoned. Plus inventory skews toward aging homes in need of upgrades, further leveling prices.

So where most people would see a lack of jobs and houses that are falling apart, WaPo sees . . .

Just keep reading. It will all makes sense. I promise.

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We live in interesting times . . .

While Elon Musk is already the richest man in the world, his $1 trillion payday offer comes with a simple condition. Having secured the largest corporate package, Musk will earn about $878 billion in Tesla stock, causing his total wealth to escalate to $1 trillion. However, achieving the $878 billion package requires Musk to adhere to one condition, should he wish to earn it all. Musk must be able to achieve financial and technological victories that will redefine the future for Tesla.

Actually, it can be said much simpler.

He has to keep the stock prices up.

If Tesla’s share price remains at an all-time high, Musk will be able to achieve the $878 billion deal. To ensure that Tesla’s share price remains high, the company would need to transform its operational goals, including those related to robotaxis, robots, and artificial intelligence. Tesla will also need to ensure that it produces 20 million vehicles within the next decade and even deploys over 1 million autonomous taxis throughout the world. Tesla would also need to secure 10 million subscriptions to its Full Self-driving (FSD)Software.

That’s all well and good.

Good luck with that stock price.

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Why was Adolf Hitler such an angry man? I think we just figured it out.

Adolf Hitler most likely suffered from a rare genetic condition called Kallmann Syndrome, researchers and documentary makers said Thursday, following DNA testing of the Nazi dictator’s blood. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the syndrome can “disrupt the process that drives puberty” and manifest in symptoms that include undescended testicles and a micropenis.

Sixty to eighty-five million people dead because one man was compensating for a tiny dick.

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Speaking of alleged, hypothetical, and maybe not so mythical penises, Michelle Obama popped up this week.

Translation: the American taxpayer wasted money getting me the full Hollywood treatment because after all, all this fakeness is hard to maintain.

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On the topic of “fakeness” . . .

Trump was understandably disappointed about not winning the Nobel Peace Prize. After all, he’s stopped eight wars by his own count.

But FIFA set out to potentially right that wrong.

Now don’t ask me what a soccer organization knows about peace prizes because I don’t have a clue.

But watching FIFA set up a peace prize, Fox News said . . .

Just so we’re clear here. Fox Nation awarded an Israeli soldier an Honor Award for being taken captive while serving in Israel.

He wasn’t fighting in a war on behalf of America. He has American citizenship, but apparently the country of his birth and primary residency wasn’t important enough to fight for.

And he gets a Fox Nation patriot award.

One has to wonder which nation the nation in Fox Nation really refers to.

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Speaking of things that have nothing to do with other things . . .

It’s just as stupid as it sounds.

The FDNY boss was concerned about Mamdani’s anti-Israel hostility, with a source noting that Tucker’s support of the Jewish state “does not align with the new mayor.”

So I did some research, consulted a globe, a few maps, some experts, the flight time from New York to Tel Aviv.

It turns out that Israel is—hold on to your hat—not in the New York Fire District!

Don’t worry. It’s no great loss.

According to the Daily Mail . . .

Tucker was only brought in as commissioner last August, having no actual experience as a firefighter.

You see, he donated enough money, through his employees, to buy his position from Eric Adams.

A fire commissioner who has no experience fighting fires gets his job because he donated money to the previous mayor and then quit, not because he was woefully unqualified and someone pointed that out, but because he disagrees with the new mayor over opinions about a foreign country.

But the real story here was that Mamdani is a socialist Muslim.

Glad to see our priorities are in order.

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Speaking of priorities and Israel, I give you the most un-self-aware person in the world: Ben Shapiro.

So . . . big thing to take away here, other than Ben Shapiro’s growing yarmulke is cutting off oxygen to his brain is this:

According to Ben Shapiro . . .

You are not entitled to live where your parents lived.

Says the rabid Jewish Zionist and Israel supporter whose entire ideology is that his “tribe” is entitled to live where people he’s only tangentially related to (if at all) lived millennia ago.

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In other Israel news . . .

Netanyahu spoke against Israel’s current method of forming a state commission of inquiry, which entails a probe that operates independently of the political echelon, with members appointed by the Supreme Court.

“The question is not only what we investigate, the crucial question is who investigates the truth,” Netanyahu said.

“The question is not who votes, the crucial question is who counts the votes,” to paraphrase Joseph Stalin and drive my point home.

You see, just before Hamas fortuitously broke through the barbed wire and wreaked havoc by going on a bloody rampage on October 7th, Israel was on the edge of a civil war and Bibi was on the edge of just not losing his prime ministership but losing his freedom, as in going to jail for corruption.

Why the civil tension? Because Bibi decided the Israeli Supreme Court was pinching his style and he was trying to “reform” it (meaning pull all its teeth so he and his party could run wild).

So having the Supreme Court appoint a commission to investigate his actions on October 7th . . .

No, instead, Bibi wants . . .

He also called on Israel to mirror the method of inquiry that the US used following the 9/11 attacks.

“We want to establish an inquiry committee on October 7 that will be balanced and that will earn the broadest possible public trust,” Netanyahu said, calling for a different body to head the commission of inquiry.

I’d ask if anyone wants to tell him about the level of “trust” the 9/11 commission actually earned among Americans, but my guess is he already knows.

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So if you ever wonder who really won the War on Terror, wonder no more. Here’s how Trump “celebrated” the day before Veteran’s Day.

When asked about being so friendly with someone who very recently had a $10 million bounty on his head, Trump had this to say:

“He’s had a rough past. We’ve all had rough pasts.”

Yes, who among us has not founded a terrorist group and chopped off a few heads here and there.

And who among us has not taken over a country and murdered religious minorities in that country, which is only the “past” as much as last Christmas is “the past.”

But the visit did come with a moment of levity . . .

Okay, I kind of enjoyed that.

Mark one up for Mad King Don.

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Speaking of “rough pasts,” I think The Donald is glad to have this interview in his rearview mirror. Now just comes the damage control.

Though given that the interview itself was probably “damage control” of a sort . . .

I think Donald Trump walked in thinking Laura Ingraham was going to play softball, and she started throwing lead-filled dodgeballs.

Let’s start off with a question about H1-B visa workers.

So we don’t have talented people in this country who need decent paying jobs.

How about these people?

I think we might just go ask them.

The 2026 commercials are making themselves.

Oh, as an aside, I love how Trump pretends that the “they” who raided the Georgia Hyundai plant looking to expel the foreign workers wasn’t his administration.

But then Laura Ingraham brings up another issue where Americans are not being put first: the importation of foreign students displacing Americans at American universities.

Half the universities, Don? Half? I might need to see the numbers on that.🤨

But this gives me an idea. If this is true, and “we’re” bringing in trillions from foreign students for college tuition, “we” just figured out how to give millions of American students a free education.

Brilliant.

Oh, wait, um, I’m being told I misinterpreted the meaning of “we.”

“We” most specifically does not mean you and me.

But for the “we,” meaning you and me, does Trump have a deal for us!

A loan that spans a half century. That’s, um, well . . . not quite what I’d call a solution to the affordability crises, though the banks . . .

But for the rest of us, it’s less a solution and more like something very familiar I heard not too long ago.

I’m struggling here. Can I get some help?

But the best clip of all . . .

The polls are fake.

You know what I’m going to tell the energy company and Mountain Health Coop (who just raised our monthly health insurance by $300) and Safeco who keeps raising our homeowner and car insurance and the grocery store whose prices never seem to go down or Taco Johns when it costs $25 for the same two meals I was paying $17 for just three years ago.

I’m going to tell them that their prices are wrong because the “polls are fake.”

I’ll let you know how my little experiment goes.

You know, for a while, I thought Donald Trump was turning into George Bush.

But these days, he’s sounding more and more like Joe Biden.

Round and round we go.

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I think Trump has had his fill of “strong women” this week.

While it’s been going on for a while, the latest flareup in the MTG-DJT battle of wills came with a tweet . . .

And it was on . . .

So the person who did a complete 180 on his campaign promises is accusing the person who is trying to hold him to those campaign promises of “losing her way” and “working for the other side.”

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So the biggest news of the week was that the shutdown finally ended, at a record forty-eight days.

Okay, so it wasn’t the biggest news for me. The biggest news for me is that my Christmas cacti are starting to bloom and Wendy’s stopped selling brewed ice tea . . .

Yeah, I didn’t notice the end of the shutdown either, but then Yellowstone closes in the winter and I don’t work for the government or fly for that matter. So . . .

But I do have to give the Democrats credit. The Republicans never took it this far.

Forty-eight days.

So what did we get for our forty-eight days?

From the BBC . . .

The deal includes an agreement for a vote in December on extending healthcare subsidies that are due to expire this year, a key issue Democrats had been holding out for concessions on.

So a month and a half and all they got is an agreement to vote?!?

Was it worth it?

I mean, not that I care. The subsidies have never done anything for me but drive up the prices of my own health care and insurance.

But there’s a problem with this whole claim.

You see, in the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats could have put the subsidies out further, even perhaps made them permanent, but instead, they chose to give a bunch of handouts to their “green energy” buddies (much as Trump 1.0 could have made the individual tax cuts permanent but he chose to make the corporate tax cuts permanent). A budget bill can only add so much to the debt before it can no longer pass with half plus one (read: a party-line vote). They don’t want you to remember what they prioritized.

Look over there at those evil Republicans who took away your health care. Never mind that we could have taken care of this ourselves and that Obamacare is the closest thing you’ll see to fascist economic theory in the modern world and has really only helped the medical and insurance industry suck the country dry.

But if you’re upset that you think your team didn’t win quite enough, don’t worry, we’re headed for a sequel.

That should start 2026 off with a bang.

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It’s been really, really nice for nearing mid-November. We haven’t gotten the yard picked up yet, but most of the leaves are on the ground (except the weeping willow, which holds out to the last minute).

I fall down a rabbit hole every now and then with the shorts on YouTube. I can kind of understand the lure of TikTok, though it’s a gigantic time killer. But it did hand me this week’s bit of fun to lead us out . . .

Have a great weekend!

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