I was told there would be no Dylan

There are many who say that a dog has its day,

And a cat  has a number of lives;

There are others who think that a lobster is pink,

And that bees never work in their hives.

There are fewer, of course, who insist that a horse

Has a horn and two humps on its head,

And a fellow who jests that a teen can have breasts

Is as rare as a donkey that's red.

Yet in spite of all this, I have moments of bliss,

For I cherish a passion for youth,

And though doubtful of biscuit, I'm willing to risk it,

And I love to chase rabbits and chicks.

But my greatest delight is to take a good bite

At a calf that is plump and delicious;

And if I indulge and grow quite a bulge,

Let's hope you won't find me victorious.

"I saw obvious discomfort in the women’s faces" or "Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?”

Fresh off The Cut:

Imagine you’re at work and a male colleague who you have no personal relationship with approaches you from behind, smells your hair, and kisses you on the head. Now imagine it’s the CEO of the company. If Biden and I worked together in a traditional office, I would have complained to the HR department, but on the campaign trail, there’s no clear path for what to do when a powerful man crosses the line. In politics, you shrug it off, smile for the cameras, and get back to the task of trying to win your race.

After the event, I told a few of my staff what happened. We all talked about the inexplicable weirdness of what he did, but I didn’t plan on telling anyone else. I didn’t have the language or the outlet to talk about what happened. Who do you tell? What do you say? Is it enough of a transgression if a man touches and kisses you without consent, but doesn’t rise to the level of what most people consider sexual assault? I did what most women do, and moved on with my life and my work.

Time passed and pictures started to surface of Vice-President Biden getting uncomfortably close with women and young girls. Biden nuzzling the neck of the Defense secretary’s wife; Biden kissing a senator’s wife on the lips; Biden whispering in women’s ears; Biden snuggling female constituents. I saw obvious discomfort in the women’s faces, and Biden, I’m sure, never thought twice about how it made them feel. I knew I couldn’t say anything publicly about what those pictures surfaced for me; my anger and my resentment grew.

Had I never seen those pictures, I may have been able to give Biden the benefit of the doubt. Had there not been multiple articles written over the years about the exact same thing — calling his creepy behavior an “open secret” — perhaps it would feel less offensive. And yet despite the steady stream of pictures and the occasional article, Biden retained his title of America’s Favorite Uncle.

Sample from the internet, not the woman in question.

Los Ciccones

Madonna offers Joe Blobs?

BIDEN WANTS TO KICK TRUMP'S ASS!
Clinton Foundation Paid Women LESS Than Men...
Is Madonna's 'Oral Sex for Hillary Votes' Legal?
POLLS, POLLS... 

I hope she was being sardonic:

Herpetic lesions are nothing to smile about.

Separated At Birth?

 

link to original

What's the old saw? Old men (and women) all look alike just like babies do?

I swear to Blog* that I thought that was a photo of Jerry Brown when I first clicked on it.

Why is Biden in town for the Oscars?
_____________
*h/t Ruth Anne

Former prosecutor: "She's going to have to be charged with a crime."

"Can Clinton Run The Gov't From A Prison Cell?"

Former federal prosecutor Joseph DiGenova stirred the Hillary Clinton hornets' nest Tuesday when he said on talk radio that he is convinced "she's not going to be able to complete her campaign" because "she's going to have to be charged with a crime."

"Her biggest problem right now is the FBI. They're not going away," DiGenova said on the "Laura Ingraham Show." "They have reached a critical mass in their investigation of the secretary and all of her senior staff. And it's going to come to a head, I would suggest, in the next 60 days. And I predict Hillary will not make it to the finish line."

DiGenova said that investigators have found more than 1,200 classified emails from the private Clinton account, and he indicated that they are likely to recover more from her hard drive. The evidence that the FBI is finding against her is so compelling that Attorney General Loretta Lynch will have no choice but to charge Clinton, he believes. If Lynch resists, "there will be a massive revolt inside the FBI, which she will not be able to survive as an attorney general. It will be like Watergate." 

So overwhelming is the evidence, explains DiGenova, that if there's no indictment, the FBI "will never be able to charge another federal employee with the negligent handling of classified information. The intelligence community will not stand for that. They will fight for indictment."

Meanwhile... Joe Biden on 2016 decision: 'I regret it every day'

Krauthammer: Biden will run as ‘Insurance Policy’ in case Hillary’s indicted

Link to video

Charles Krauthammer predicted Joe Biden will enter the presidential race, but only to be able to easily pick up the nomination should Hillary Clinton be indicted. Relevant footage at approximate 4:10 (via The Corner)

To Wit: A Challenge And Invitation

link to original

That's Mr. Sardonicus on the right, from William Castle's 1961 film, "Mr. Sardonicus." 

Sardonic: Why isn't there a noun form like "sardony"? The word sardonic is curious too and relates back to the island of Sardinia and what those people ate -- things like sardines: link

I get confused keeping the different forms of humor straight. Here's a handy guide I pulled from the linkable OED of English Etymology; the definitions come from H.W. Fowler's The Dictionary Of Modern English Usage.  

device	HUMOR	WIT	SATIRE	SARCASM	INVECTIVE	IRONY	CYNICISM	SARDONIC
motive/aim	discovery	throwing light	amendment	inflicting pain	discredit	exclusiveness	self-justification	self-relief
province	human nature	words & ideas	morals & manners	faults & foibles	misconduct	statement of facts	morals	adversity
method/means	observation	surprise	accentuation	inversion	direct statement	mystification	exposure of nakedness	pessimism
audience	the sympathetic	the intelligent	the self-satisfied	victim & bystander	the public	an inner circle	the respectable	the self

That's a very cool table. I went looking for my copy of Fowler which I bought in college but haven't seen since I can remember. So I just went and bought a copy using Lem's portal. I want to discuss this topic (and that book) at a future date. If anybody else has the book or would like to buy it and follow along at a future date, please do.

What forms of humor do you employ in your writings and comments at Lem's Levity?

"Biden himself leaked word of his son's dying wish"

"The vice president is mourning. He’s also calculating"

Joe Biden has been making his 2016 deliberations all about his late son since August.

Aug. 1, to be exact — the day renowned Hillary Clinton-critic Maureen Dowd published a column that marked a turning point in the presidential speculation.

According to multiple sources, it was Biden himself who talked to her, painting a tragic portrait of a dying son, Beau’s face partially paralyzed, sitting his father down and trying to make him promise to run for president because "the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.”

It was no coincidence that the preliminary pieces around a prospective campaign started moving right after that column. People read Dowd and started reaching out, those around the vice president would say by way of defensive explanation. He was just answering the phone and listening.

But in truth, Biden had effectively placed an ad in The New York Times, asking them to call.

Update : Hillary Clinton Readies Oppo-Research to Go to War Against Joe Biden

The Trump effect meme

ht AllenS

Biden's window

This is a meme running for months with seeming endless possibilities, the more ridiculous the better. Something coming down the road, something happening in the distance, something resented, musings on some current event from a uniquely Biden point of view, the frustrated hopes of a political operative, any thought a writer would have Biden think is added as text to this photo. I just now read another one a moment ago, they're usually not this self-referential, usually nothing about the picture itself or the window or room, but this time it is, the entry is text on picture "This would be a glass ceiling if the building were sideways."

The Biden touch

Biden is in and Hillary is out?

BREAKING: White House spokesman says Obama's choice of Biden as VP indicates president's view of Biden's capability for presidency.

— Reuters Politics (@ReutersPolitics) August 24, 2015

Uncle Joe will make everything alright

@Hankers @BradANGSA @AnthonyBialy @instapundit Uncle Joe will make everything alright. pic.twitter.com/zunBJ1XlGK

— MarketRunner (@SWGaspar) August 19, 2015

"Joe Biden said to be considering one-term presidency"

“And one thing that I keep hearing about Biden is that if he were to declare and say, because age is such a problem for him if he does, I want to be a one-term president. I want to serve for four years, unite Washington. I’ve dealt with the Republicans in Congress all my public life,” [Carl] Bernstein told CNN’s “New Day.”

“He’s looking at it right now. His people believe he may do it. Some say yes, some say no. But the distrust factor with Hillary Clinton, the whole Trump excitement and bubble that will probably burst gives a great opportunity to Biden to capture the imagination of the press, of this race, of Democrats who don’t want to see Hillary Clinton, who are worried about the distrust factor with her,” Bernstein added."

Incontrovertible proof

Joe Biden is running...

 

Giant Minion stops traffic in Dublin

Maureen Dowd asks Joe Biden, are you in?

"Joe Biden is also talking to friends, family and donors about jumping in. The 72-year-old vice president has been having meetings at his Washington residence to explore the idea of taking on Hillary in Iowa and New Hampshire."

He gets along with Hillary and has always been respectful of the Democratic Party’s desire to make more history by putting the first woman in the Oval Office.

But going through the crucible of the loss of his oldest son, Beau, to brain cancer made the vice president consider the quest again.

As a little boy, Beau helped get his father through the tragedy of losing his beautiful first wife and 13-month-old daughter in the car crash that injured Beau and his brother, Hunter.

When Beau realized he was not going to make it, he asked his father if he had a minute to sit down and talk.

“Of course, honey,” the vice president replied.

At the table, Beau told his dad he was worried about him.

My kid’s dying, an anguished Joe Biden thought to himself, and he’s making sure I’m O.K.

“Dad, I know you don’t give a damn about money,” Beau told him, dismissing the idea that his father would take some sort of cushy job after the vice presidency to cash in.

Beau was losing his nouns and the right side of his face was partially paralyzed. But he had a mission: He tried to make his father promise to run, arguing that the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.

Hunter also pushed his father, telling him, “Dad, it’s who you are.”

Is he or isn't he, jumping in the race for president?

Biden being Biden

"Tuesday, at Defense Sec. Ash Carter‘s swearing-in ceremony, Biden got all touchy feely with Carter’s wife, Stephanie. From the pictures, it looks like he’s whispering sweet nothings into her right ear. He’s also getting a good whiff of her shampoo."

Full Biden Mode

Attention, Rolling Stone magazine pic.twitter.com/mUgKFhjBvD
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) January 6, 2015

"Jewish group chides Biden for using 'offensive' term"

"Vice President Joe Biden "should have been more careful" in a speech when he used a term that some consider anti-Semitic, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League said Tuesday."

"That's one of the things that he finds was most in need when he was over there in Iraq for a year," Biden said, "that people would come to him and talk about what was happening to them at home in terms of foreclosures, in terms of bad loans that were being...I mean these Shylocks who took advantage of, um, these women and men while overseas."

ADL National Director Abraham Foxman issued a mild reprimand later Tuesday.

The name "Shylock" derives from the name of the antagonist in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice." Shylock, a Jew, was a ruthless moneylender in the play, and he's remembered for demanding a "pound of flesh" from the merchant Antonio if he failed to repay a loan.

"Shylock represents the medieval stereotype about Jews and remains an offensive characterization to this day," Foxman said. "The vice president should have been more careful."

All in all, it was a "good thing" that it was VP Biden that suffered the slip of the tongue and not someone higher up the food chain, someone like former VP Cheney.

Joe Biden Caption Challenge

.@DWStweets @JoeBiden pic.twitter.com/m37a4bJdiY
— #WarOnLeftists (@corrcomm) September 13, 2014