This May Be 'Peak Driscoll'

The day is young but I doubt Ed Driscoll's quip will be topped today:

AS SPOTTED BY REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDEAUX: France won’t dine without wine, cancels dinner with Iran over menu dispute.

Go, Team France! Obviuosly changing the dinner menu was crossing a red line. Drawn, perhaps, using a naïve domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but still.

And for my ongoing "Learn Something New Every Day" file, I just learned that sometimes people can meet with the Iranians *without* drinking steadily. That kinda crushes my explanation of Kerry's nuclear deal.

IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE, AM EDITION: Yes, it seems early to start on the drinking jokes but I am willing to put down my coffee cup and have a go if you are...

Comments

[Tom Bowler]

Good morning TM. Love the quip.

[daddy]

Good Morning!

Tonight at a restaurant/bar in Osaka I learned the following:

A former Brit, (now US citizen) who I really enjoy working and hanging out with, happens to be married to a Canuck gal, who is now also an American Citizen. They have 2 kids, (American citizens) and the family has now lived in Alaska the last 10 years.

That said, tonight I learned the following:

My friend, the former Brit (now US Citizen) has been relocated to our Base in Hong Kong. His former Canuck wife (now Us Citizen) is now the surrogate pregnant mom, soon to be delivered of twin babies to their closest US Citizen friends, who asked them to be surrogate parents, since the genetic wife could not naturally conceive.

The surrogate wife is due to pickle the twins in some hospital in Hong Kong even as we speak.

So the natural born question is: Are either of those surrogate born twins eligible to become the President of the United States, or do they have to marry themselves in order to qualify under some special victimhood exemption?

Much fun jabber about that in the bar but we did not get the question adequately settled. G'nite.

[daddy]

Win one for the Quipper!

[Tonto]

Dinner parties are always fraught! One of the reasons my daughter has taken over Thanksgiving.

[clarice]

Driscoll never peaks--each day he's getting better than ever--check out the links today at Instapundit to see what I mean,

[sbw]

Pant, pant, pant. Trying to catch up. Happy birthday, PD.

[Thomas Collins]

Sacre bleu! Beheadings, forced marriages and imposition of dhimmitude don't get the EuroGentries all that upset. Perhaps the thought of no wine in France and Italy and no beer in Germany will stiffen EuroSpines.

[Thomas Collins]

Next thing you know, the Mohammedans will be banning Bruichladdich Scotch in Scotland!

[Thomas Collins]

I'll bet Rouhani wouldn't try to exclude vodka from a dinner with Vlad Putin.

[lyle]

Huh. So the French DO show some backbone when it comes to the really important things like wine with dinner. Defending their country from invasions? No so much. In Vino Veritas, indeed! Oops, guess that should be: Les Amies Du Vin, huh?

[Jack is Back!]

First you have to suspend all belief that those Islamic freaks actually avoid alcohol at all times. I can speak from my time in the sand box that they do not. And if you are in London especially during the summer months you will find lots of young swarthy complected hipster looking men in the best bars downing blue blazers and vodka martinis.

Of course, they pretend to be Lebanese christians but this the most time honored ruse for the house of Saud.

[Jane]

Daddy,

I believe they can only be president if they accept the job as twins. That will be shortly following our first transgender president.

[Old Lurker]

"And if you are in London especially during the summer months you will find lots of young swarthy complected hipster looking men in the best bars downing blue blazers and vodka martinis."

You can say THAT again, Jack.

All you left out, based on my observation from attending Wimbledon recently but staying in a suitable hotel in Knightsbridge, was that there was more money tied up in the cars lining the street outside those bars than one usually sees even in a yacht basis.

[Old Lurker]

basin

[Jeff Dobbs]

Kessler gives Hillary two Pinocchios for her story saying she tried to join the marines in 1975 in order to serve her country.

Everyone will get a good yawn out of that.

Besides, it's not like she claimed they turned down her scholarship application.

[DrJ]

MarkO, caro and I had a delightful get-together yesterday. We met in Park City, where caro has her studio. It is a short drive from Salt Lake City, where I am staying. It is particularly short when MarkO drives.

After a lunch, I was given a tour of Park City, emphasizing how it has changed since MarkO was a kid. Beautiful town, with a mix of old miner's houses and a "vintage" downtown, to new condos and houses, to very high-end estates and motels.

All of it is anchored by the ski resorts, and it feels like many other towns with high-end ski resorts. It has its own charm, of course.

After the tour, caro invited us to her studio, with its many works in progress. The pictures of her work that are on the Internet do not do them justice.

MarkO had to leave early, so caro I and I talked on for many ours before she brought me back to my hotel.

Our discussion throughout the day focused on politics and JOM -- I know this is a surprise. It is amazing how similar our political views are. We also mused on how JOM has changed over the years, and not entirely for the better.

I look forward to doing this again, and I will return to SLC. I have an important collaboration here, and so will be back every now and again.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--We also mused on how JOM has changed over the years, and not entirely for the better.--

I take it this refers to my recent paucity of posting pictures of young conservatives who identify as attractive females.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Jason Whitlock shows Lew Alcindor how a man with a brain writes about race.

[Rick Ballard]

Maybe this is the true meaning of Peak Oil?

It's probably not though, today's 41 handle will be referred to as the "good old days" before the end of next year.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Will Hillary occupy Martha Stewart's old cell?
Probably not, but it's nice to dream.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Chris Matthews boards the TK birther bus.
I hope TK makes him ride on the roof in Romney's natural born dog crate.

[Barry Dauphin]

The answer may not be found at the bottom of a bottle of wine...but you should check just in case.

[Threadkiller]

and not entirely for the better.

I miss bgates.

[lyle]

and not entirely for the better.

Oh, dear...

[Dave (in MA)]

Kessler gives Hillary two Pinocchios for her story saying she tried to join the marines in 1975 in order to serve her country.

She tried, but she couldn't cut it.

[Threadkiller]

Matthews built the birther bus.

http://youtu.be/Ms4Ll12_RHU

[Beasts of England]

BOzo has endorsed the Equality Act, which would add LGBT to the Civil Rights Act. This parallels the Houston referendum that was voted down soundly, in a city with very large black and Hispanic populations (~70%).

It will be interesting to see Hillary navigate this issue while trying to capture and motivate those demographics to elect her. A delicate dance for a very awkward candidate.

[Jack is Back!]

Golly gee, Sargent, whatch think of my new wig?

[henry]

Congress hasn't passed the "equality act" has it?

[jimmyk]

A delicate dance for a very awkward candidate.

I don't think Barry and Hillary think very deeply or strategically about these issues, other than as demagogues. What could be wrong with "equality," and "civil rights"? If you oppose them you are anti-gay people! And the MSM will agree.

[jimmyk]

Of course not, henry, and it presumably has no chance of passing. It is merely propaganda for Dems to whip up the left and fodder for the MSM to declare how evil Republicans are. And unlike Republicans, the Dems understand that promoting legislation that cannot possibly pass can still be a useful PR strategy.

[rse]

I think the Equality Act would put into statute what the OCRs in the various federal agencies are already insisting on in their expansive interpretations.

I am hoping the Republican appointees would not interpret based on what they wish the law actually had been written to say.

[Beasts of England]

No, henry. But Ø is introducing the idea to the base and she'll have to address it.

[buccaneer morgan]

There have been twin bombings in a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut.

[buccaneer morgan]

That Russian smuggling story with siloviki ties that miss marple linked has resurfaced.

[buccaneer morgan]

Levin does get around to reproaching trump.

[matt]

So with all of this microaggression going on how is it that these delicate flowers can drop F bombs and all sorts of other profanity at will? It dunna make any sense, captain!

[Threadkiller]

http://www.virginia.gop/donald-trump-first-to-submit-signatures-for-rpv-pre-check-for-march-1-primary/

[Threadkiller]

Didn't a handful of GOP contenders fail to get on that ballot in 2012?

I remember Perry and Gingrich blew it.

[Buckeye]

So much for the thought that Trump doesn't have an organization behind him.

Probably has the best that money can buy ;)

[Janet]

how JOM has changed over the years, and not entirely for the better.

???

[jimmyk]

Kessler gives Hillary two Pinocchios for her story saying she tried to join the marines in 1975 in order to serve her country.

I presume it's a lie, but if she did actually talk to a Marine recruiter, it was entirely a bluff in order to gather an anecdote for her anti-military feminist agenda, kind of like much stupider version of O'Keefe.

[Thomas Collins]

Janet, were you around when TCO was posting? I'm sure everyone who was here when TCO visited will confirm that those were the good old days! :-)

[jimmyk]

and not entirely for the better.

???

Janet, I presume that means that not every change has been positive, which is hard to disagree with (e.g. losing bgates). But on balance I think JOM is better than it was a few years ago--either that or my narcisolator is doing much more filtering than I'm aware of. There is much less trolling, and much less back and forth on certain tiresome topics.

[lyle]

http://patterico.com/2015/11/12/christian-workers-fired-from-childcare-center/#comments

One of the commenters sez the real problem was the Christianists not the day care center or the gay couple butching up a child and tries to tie it to transvestitism. He gets this:

gay people and trannies shouldn’t be conflated

permit me to put you some knowledge

trannies are squirrely and selfish

gay people are just gay

you know, like your mama

happyfeet (a037ad) — 11/12/2015 @ 10:07 am

[lyle]

and not entirely for the better.

???

Is it me?? C'mon, I can take it... ;)

[Rick Ballard]

Geez, walleye, nobody has mentioned the hump or the goiter in months.

[lyle]

The healthcare revolution is coming and, boy, will it be even more expensive:

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/11/12/colorado-to-vote-on-single-payer-health-care-plan-for-the-entire-state/

They plan to pay for it by imposing an additional ten percent payroll tax on every working person in the state. That’s right… the state would be lopping an additional ten percent right off the top of everyone’s paychecks – in addition to the many other federal, state and local government deductions which already trim down many people’s take home pay by a third or more – to pay for what is approaching a completely socialized health care plan.

Well, at least someone is excited:

“We’re all excited. This is really important for the people of Colorado,” said Ivan Miller, executive director of ColoradoCare Yes and head of the Colorado Foundation for Universal Health Care.

Whoo hoo!!

[lyle]

I was hoping we were beyond such indelicate discussions, Mr. B. ;)

[jimmyk on iPhone]

"I'm sure everyone who was here when TCO visited will confirm that those were the good old days! :-)"

And Anduril. And Sylvia (sorry Jeff). And others that shall remain nameless.

[Threadkiller]

...and much less back and forth on certain tiresome topics.

I have enjoyed that as well.

[Old Lurker]

And that has freed up TK so he can teach us all about timing chains and gears which I enjoyed immensely!

:-)

[Janet]

Hah, lyle!

Makes me think of that old Ann Coulter quote -
"“Religious Right” is always something somebody else is, like a ‘son of a bitch.'” — Ann Coulter

A lousy JOM poster is always someone else, not me. Hah!

Thomas Collins,
I think so. Was TCO the one that cursed a lot & posted gay nude pics?

Anyway...it doesn't matter. I'm pretty good at scrolling by posts I don't want to read.

[henry]

Yes, but BAD and PUK and bgates and Jim Ryan and Maybee and DOT. There is a lot of good that isn't here anymore as well.

[Buckeye]

Sexual identity in six year old children is very easy to figure out.

If the child prefers to sit down to take a whiz, the child is a girl.

If the kip prefers to stand up and whiz all over the floor, the child is a boy.

Not at all complicated.

[Beasts of England]

Protests have spread to Emory. At a different school, someone else has started a hunger strike to jettison their president.

Didn't see this coming...

[Threadkiller]

Where is Extraneous?

[lyle]

Not at all complicated.

Clearly you're not cut out for day care in these modern times...

[Stephanie]

happyfeet is a weird loon over at Patterico's at Jeff Goldstein's proteinwisdom blogs. Totally nutso.

[Buckeye]

lyle

There is a LOT I am not cut out for in these modern times.

[henry]

Beasts, given the obesity we are warned about... these hunger strikes may save lives!

[boatbuilder, Esq., Lord of All He Surveys]

"As far as we can tell, the only time a journalist quizzed Clinton about this incident was in 2007, when Michael Crowley wrote a profile for The New Republic. In a brief interview, he asked what should people make of the fact that she had briefly tried to enlist in the military. He wrote: “At this her eyes narrowed and she threw me a glare of mistrust."

Am I wrong to wonder whether Mr. Crowley passed away under "suspicious circumstances" shortly thereafter?

[Appalled]

It's nice that, in the wake of the Carson stories, certain medial have felt impelled to look back at Hillary's more fascinating tall tales:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/426964/cnn-skeptically-examines-hillarys-tale-trying-join-marines-jim-geraghty

Problem is -- unlike with Carson -- not one reporter is going to put their story on the front page, with front page follow ups. Nor is any reporter going to use this story as grounding for a question as to whether Hillary is fit to be President.

[Threadkiller]

@WSJ and dopey Karl Rove made a mistake and purposely mischaracterized my statement on the terrible TPP deal. https://theintercept.com/2015/11/11/trump-was-right-about-tpp-benefitting-china/ …

Trump Was Right About TPP Benefitting China

"Trump never suggested that China was part of the TPP, only that they would “come in, as they always do, through the back door” of the agreement."

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/664850952319553536

Go to his twitter home page if you want to read more name calling of Rove.

[Jane]

Dr J,

Sounds great. I've never seen Caro's studio. I have however slept on her boat!

If we are talking about missing people, I miss JMH, Maybee DOT, Bgates and a few others.I wish they would stop by.

[lyle]

I know, Stephanie. But his IS often funny. Some have speculated that happyfeet is Goldstein.

Anyhoo, your daily Wretchard:

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2015/11/11/the-descendants-of-the-stranger/#more-45651

For example, in Engel’s view property is theft. Force was what “Christians in Moorish Spain” used to to steal “the highly developed agriculture and horticulture of the Moors.” Force is what capitalism uses to steal labor from the proletariat. Therefore force is what the proletariat will use to build their new world. As he memorably writes ”force … is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one, that it is the instrument with the aid of which social movement forces its way through and shatters the dead, fossilised political forms.”

He didn’t mention Free Speech in his tract. Free speech on the Left never played a part beyond functioning as a rhetorical club to beat the down class enemy with own book of rules. The protections of the Constitution were only useful as a means to effect its abolition. What finally mattered was force. ”Political power,” as Mao observed, “grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Or as they put it these days, “I need some muscle over here.”

[Buckeye]

"Problem is -- unlike with Carson -- not one reporter is going to put their story on the front page, with front page follow ups. Nor is any reporter going to use this story as grounding for a question as to whether Hillary is fit to be President."

Correct. Everybody understands just how vicious this hag is. President Hillary will do far more than have the IRS audit your tax returns.

[Thomas Collins]

It looks as if you did experience TCO, Janet. One thing I'll say for TCO: It was tough to characterize his/her/cis politics. I looked at TCO as the skew line of posters. TCO didn't bump into anybody else and wasn't parallel to anyone else.

[Threadkiller]

OL, thanks!

[Thomas Collins]

Interesting article on Belichick and Coughlin, and how they go back to the days when they were assistants to Parcells when Tuna was coaching the NY Football Giants.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/page/HotRead/how-tom-coughlin-solved-bill-belichick-riddle

[lyle]

I looked at TCO as the skew line of posters. TCO didn't bump into anybody else and wasn't parallel to anyone else.

This is brilliant and I'm sooo going to steal it! With attribution, of course.

[Old Lurker]

I miss NK too.

Chicken that he is!

[Old Lurker]

DrJ might have visited Caro's studio, and Jane might have slept on her boat, but Robert Redford has shared his hot tub with her and more than once...

So you guys are pikers.

[Threadkiller]

I miss ChaCo.

[Old Lurker]

And Mel. Don't forget Mel when we had him first hand, though Henry does a good job channeling him for us.

[Jack is Back!]

Hillary up 20pts. in new National poll. Another reason to celebrate #NationalHappyHourDay.

Skoal, y'all!🍸🍸

[DrJ]

In other news (WSJ):

GM to Import Chinese-Made Buick

General Motors, fresh from agreeing to a new four-year union contract that is expected to drive up its U.S. labor costs, plans to become the first U.S. auto maker to sell a Chinese-made car in America.

Of course this is simply to add a new SUV to their product line, and has nothing to do with labor costs.

[henry]

Or lack of sales in China where they spent all their money building plants.

[jimmyk]

I have no problem with GM moving manufacturing to China, given how the UAW has inflated labor costs, but for the fact that in an ideal world GM would have gone bankrupt in 2009.

[Rick Ballard]

You can't expect China to complete The Great Leap Into the Abyss all by itself. I hope GM holds on to China all the way to the bottom.

[Old Lurker]

Me too, Rick. Particularly since their crony in the WH rid GM of all those pesky bond holders and other secured investors.

[Buckeye]

I have actually driven a Chinese made Buick in China.

Appeared identical to what they build here except for the tires being total crap.

[jimmyk]

Carly as usual gets to the hart of the matter (regarding the guy who wanted to strangle her).

"I don't take umbrage with him. I don't even take umbrage with Mrs. Clinton," Fiorina said. "I do take umbrage with the clear double standard that exists in the media. If this happened with the conservative candidate the liberal media would be all over and asking to apologize and all the rest of it."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/carly-fiorina-hillary-clinton-strangle-ok

[jimmyk]

Or, rather "heart."

[Miss Marple 2]

I warned you guys this morning these campus actions were going to spread. This is exactly like 1968.

On another subject, Hillary and the Marines:

Hillary is my age. (I think I look a lot better. She is my example of what happens if an older woman does not pay attention to diet, exercise, and proper grooming.)

But I digress. Anyway, she grew up in a suburban area of Chicago, not much different from my suburban high school, although maybe a tad wealthier.

In the mid to late 60's I didn't even know that there WERE woman Marines. We never saw recruiters at our high school. Women who went in the services were (in my mind) army or navy nurses.

The odds of her considering the Marines, when the only thing we knew about Marines was John Wayne's Marine movies is slim to none.

She is always rewriting history to insert herself, as does her husband and Obama. When they are not flat-out lying they are fabulists.

[Jack is Back!]

its another theory and one I was pondering at first since the AQ online magazine Inspire features all kinds of new and exoctic ways to bring down airliners. To think they haven't infiltrated every airfield and airport service company in the ME and elsewhere would be pretty naive. Even in the maintenance corps.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/12/u-s-baffled-by-russian-jet-bombing.html

[Old Lurker]

"I think I look a lot better"

I agree and I have never seen you MM.

Talk about a low bar...

[Miss Marple 2]

Jack,

I agree about the infiltration. I still remember that I called the FBI a month or so after 9/11 because they were auctioning off surplus ground crew uniforms from the Indianapolis airport over in Terre Haute.

This seemed to me to be something that should have been watched. However, the woman on the FBI hot line who took my call seemed to not be particularly interested.

[GMax]

And like 68 the images on TV and now of course also the internet will be appalling to normal voters, and the Democrats will take the voter wrath backlash that will surely follow, again just like 1968. Who said history never repeats itself...

[Miss Marple 2]

Old Lurker,

HA! You will note I did NOT say I look better than Raquele Welch or Jayne Seymour.

I know my limits.

[jimmyk]

More on Hillary and the Marines, and my idea that she could have done it as a bluff, let's remember this was right around the time she was going to marry Bill, who had pulled off a similar bluff with the ROTC:

http://www.angelfire.com/la2/prophet1/clintonholmes.html

It's worth reading Col. Holmes's letter, especially this:

I was not "saving" him from serving his country, as he erroneously thanked me for in his letter from England (dated December 3, 1969). I was making it possible for a Rhodes Scholar to serve in the military as an officer. In retrospect I see that Mr. Clinton had no intention of following through with his agreement to join the Army ROTC program at the University of Arkansas or to attend the University of Arkansas Law School. I had explained to him the necessity of enrolling at the University of Arkansas as a student in order to be eligible to take the ROTC program at the University. He never enrolled at the University of Arkansas, but instead enrolled at Yale after attending Oxford. I believe that he purposely deceived me, using the possibility of joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to delay his induction and get a new draft classification.

(My emphasis.) No wonder Hillary was attracted to Bill.

[clarice]

I miss JMH, Maybee DOT, Bgates,Chaco and a few others.I wish they would stop by. I wish PUK were still able to stop by.

But I still love JOM

[henry]

You didn't say you look worse either. ;)

[Miss Marple 2]

henry,

My looking worse than those 2 goeswithout saying.

Jayne Seymour amazes me.

[clarice]

Dean of Claremont just resigned after student screaming fits.

[James D]

Hillary is my age. (I think I look a lot better. She is my example of what happens if an older woman does not pay attention to diet, exercise, and proper grooming.)

That, and she's also an example of what happens when the terms on your contrat with the devil begin to come due...

[MaryD]

Hey OL, I'm five years older than Hillary, and trust me, I look a lot younger than she does. Can't say I owe it to squeaky clean living; Maybe it is just a really low bar :-)

[James D]

GMax @ 3:25

Maybe. But Nixon only won the popular vote by 0.7% (43.4 to 42.7, with Wallace taking 13.5% - and five states, too).

And that's before half a century of prog education and a media that's far more dishonest and biased than even the anti-Nixon media of 1968 was.

[Threadkiller]

Any resigning Dean should lose their retirement.

[Captain Hate on the iPad]

Wishing people who leave voluntarily for whatever reason are still around is as much a part of blog dynamics as the exits.