Sunday Music: You Wreck Me

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers playing pure rock, straight ahead, no compromise, the way it ought to be played.

RIP GVDL

Gerard Van der Leun, 1945-2023

The world bids adieu to Gerard after a sudden and brief battle with cancer.
He was a perennially kind and thoughtful soul, and thoroughgoing gentleman, who occasionally commented here, and kindly linked our own thoughts and essays more times than we deserved at his American Digest blog, and which has lately informed we, his legion readers and admirers, of his final struggle, and his death yesterday in the wee hours of the morning.

Like all, we are saddened at his passing and the stilling of his voice on the web, and the world is poorer for his passing, but we are all richer for having known him and partaken of his thoughts and musings. We wish nothing but solace and comfort to his family and friends in the days of their grief at his passing. We shall miss him.

Blogs don't last forever, and eventually get memory-holed as if they never were. Exactly as we've seen enough times to know whereof we speak. If you can spare some time to go visit the gardens of his mind while it yet remains, it will be time well spent.

Huh.

According to Blogger's counter, that last post was #4000.

Whoopee. 

Kept me off the streets, I suppose. And it's gluten-free. So there's that.

Slàinte Mhath!

Haggis is strictly for tourists and suckers. For this Burns Night, we'll be having a slab of prime rib, as usual.

Place Your Bets

With her announcement that " We are fighting Russia," I'm taking bets on how long before the dipshit running Germany's foreign ministry has her retirement announced.

But for those who think one person saying it, or that sending tanks to Ukraine proves it, tell the class how Russian SA-2 missiles around Hanoi triggered the US to nuke Moscow in 1965.

[Moscow is no more likely to take the bait on this than the West was likely to pre-emptively strike Russia the 27 times Vlad's minions threatened nuclear holocaust over Ukraine. Learn a lesson from that.]

For those who think a public official saying something makes it so, you ought to think long and hard before setting that precedent.

Long and hard. Just saying.

Good To The Last Drop

 h/t daily timewaster

"It's A Major Award"

FAFO Medal:

Bronze tombstone-shaped device, inscribed "Fucked Around Found Out", suspended below a ribbon, argent. 

 "For conspicuous stupidity and jackassery, generally in public, usually resulting in pain or great bodily harm to self, to no good ending, and frequently awarded posthumously. (Bronze cluster for subsequent awards. Gold star for posthumous awards.)"

We're thinking of having a medal company whip up a batch of these. But we have a feeling no matter how many we have made, demand will always exceed supply.

Quiet Pastimes

 h/t WRSA

Natzsofast, Guido

 

h/t WRSA

"...will not accept defeat, no matter the cost."

 

Oh really, Professor?

I didn't realize we were posting comedy as explanation these days.

Conference call for you: Tokyo 1905 on Line 1, and Kabul 1989 on Line 2.

Beware of analysis where the "anal" part means "pulled out of somebody's @$$."

[Pro Tip: When your pronouncement crashes and burns on the rocks of actual history, it isn't history that got it wrong.] 

And the Samson Option? Samson committed suicide, for those who went to Common Core Sunday school. That means the end of the existence of the Russian nation and people, pretty much forever.

Russia has accepted military defeat over and over in its history. It's nothing remarkable, and nothing new for them. And unless Russia's drunken buffoons pull their heads out of their back ends soon, Kiev is liable to be phoning in on Line 3.

When and if that happens, in the words of Bill Engvall,

So maybe instead of wishcasting, it would be more helpful to wait and see how things turn out.

Sunday Music: Crystal Blue Persuasion/Suavecito

 

Tommy James #2 hit of 1969 "Crystal Blue Persuasion", and Malo's 1971 Top 20 hit "Sauvecito". Officially, they're two separate songs. Musically and stylistically, I wouldn't want to be defense counsel trying to prove to plaintiff in a copyright suit that the latter didn't borrow/steal heavily from its predecessor. They're both great, so you get a double shot today, of beautiful music from happier times.