Melania Trump used the gold-rimmed china that Hillary Clinton stole from the White House

Troll level: Master.

As you'll recall the exceedingly entitled Hillary Clinton stole a White House set of china valued in the tens of thousands of dollars. They stole other things and were forced to return them. They kept some of the items they stole and paid for them. But none of the numbers reported add up. The plates were part of the group of things they returned.

Souvenirs.

Come on. Can't a girl take a few souvenirs?

ABC News, Feb. 8, 2001

[The Clintons] sent $28,000 worth of household goods back to Washington after questions arose over whether the items were intended as personal gifts or donations to the White House. 

After they were criticized for taking $190,000 worth of china, flatware, rugs, televisions, sofas and other gifts with them when they left, the Clintons announced last week that they would pay for $86,000 worth of gifts, or nearly half the amount. 

Their latest decision to send back $28,000 in gifts brings to $114,000 the value of items the Clintons have either decided to pay for or return.

More nit-picky nefarious details of criminal minds at the link. But you read this already seventeen years ago.

And the numbers still don't add up. Stole $190,000, paid $114,000 returned $28,000.

I'm no mathematician but there seems to be a significant gap of $48,000.

But ew, it's so pretty.

Just checked my book (🤓) and it appears the china is the Clinton China Service. pic.twitter.com/A479qKi1oQ

— Kate Bennett (@KateBennett_DC) April 23, 2018

I saw a gold china service set one time. I shouldn't mention this, but what the heck. Everyone's dead now. Bobby Buckles (dead) invited me to assist with a large luncheon for television stars who worked for Fox. The cast of Dynasty (mostly dead), company soap operas, and other random stars, too numerous to list but including, Gary Colman (dead), Gerald Ford (dead), Lucille Ball (dead), Sophia Loren, and Diana Ross who was giving a concert in Denver at the time of the Barbara Davis'  Carousel Ball fundraiser for children's diabetes. 

It was the second time Bobby invited me because he thought I was the right profile to help.

Invite me as a guest, you asshole, so I can mix and mingle. 

Come on. Be a sport. You'll see a lot of interesting people. And I did. I saw and heard Henry Kissinger who was advisor to Marvin Davis (dead) at the time. That was a big thing for me.

The gold plates were not used that day. They were stacked carelessly in a cabinet. One of the permanent staff opened a cabinet when I was in one of the dining rooms that revealed slots that held various sizes and styles of silver and gold serving trays upright on their sides. And I thought, now that's the way to store trays. She opened other built in cabinets that held different sets of plates and service ware. The gold plates were just one of several sets. Just like the White House. They entertained a lot. In fact, that day, another of my friends (dead) was chief cook there. He got Bobby Buckles his job. He showed me how to grill to medium rare, slice and serve a stack of fifty beef tenderloins. And not freak out about the high volume of food served to entertainment stars and other important people. 

It's no big deal. It's just a job. And that attitude stuck. I never did freak out about anything like that. If someone didn't like something then uckemfay. 

I was a terrible service person. 

A check for a couple hundred dollars came in the mail a few weeks after that. And I wasn't even expecting to be paid. I was just helping Bobby Buckles with this unusually large task. It was all totally legit. And a heck of a lot of fun too. Bobby was right.

And the gold plates did not impress me so much because I cast back to the little ceramics shop I wandered into at Barksdale Air Force Base. 

Women there were casting ceramic plates. 

That was not my sort of thing. I didn't care about regular household items like plates and mugs and elaborate German steins. 

B-o-o-o-o--r-i-n-g.

But I saw how it was done. Plates were a bit tricky because they're flat in the plaster mold and easy to mess up getting out. The mold seam had to be cleaned up. They tend to warp as they dry. When you pour eight of them then they're fired to bisque. Then painted in clear glaze. Then painted again with special gold paint. It's a tiny vial of what appears to be blood with microscopic flecks of actual gold that cannot be seen. When fired at lower than usual firing heat, the blood-like carrying material burns off and the gold melts and coalesces. One wrong move like a fingerprint and the project is ruined.

At that time, each tiny vial of gold paint cost $1.00 on the AFB. One vial could cover at least one plate. If you failed to to cover the pate evenly then there would be splotches of missing gold. And if you overpainted by double then the gold would melt and drip in unsightly patterns. It was a bit tricky to get the blood-like paint strokes exactly right. 

Skip 10 years. 

My parents bought me two common King Tut objects in fired bisque. The burial mask, and Queen Nefertiti. Incidentally, Nefertiti means "beautiful titi." I was supposed to paint them myself. I did paint the Tut burial mask, but I needed that special gold paint. I gave my parents instructions to buy it from the shop at Lowery Air Force Base, now subdivided into housing. At that time each vial cost $10.00. As you can see, an increase of 1,000%. But boy, my King Tut head sure looked great. Lapis Lazuli blue and gold striped Nemes headdress, and pure gold face. Real gold. Just like the real burial mask.

I bought too much. I still have one of the vials. And it would still work to make these type of plates. 

Ex-Clinton aide does on power-mad tirade against cops: "You may shut the f up!"

The woman was financial adviser to Hillary Clinton before, until this she was commissioner with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Now she's unemployed.

Her daughter was passenger of a car that was pulled over. Turns out the car was not registered so it was towed off. The kids called this woman to come pick them up. Once there, the woman pulled the old, "do you know who I am" routine and that did not go over very well with the two policemen who kept their cool through the whole thing.

I hate watching these videos. But maybe you like them. The sound of her nagging voice and repeating the same line of attack, her aggression and her entitlement make me want to punch her in the face through the screen. It's not good for the blood pressure. But again, maybe you'll really dig the colossal fail.

She drags in irrelevant tidbits trying to demand respect. The kid's higher degrees at ivy-league schools, the people she knows, the number of houses she owns. The longer she goes the more she sounds like a Jewish American princess off her mood enhancers. And that voice. OMG, the ears protest, make it stop.

She followed through with her threat and that's why we have this video. She made the same noise with the police commissioner and he made this video public.

This is not how you handle your government power. Let it be a lesson for when we become powerful through government. It's done unemotionally. The next day, not in the moment. We accept the situation then quietly inform our contacts of our situation who then wipe it away. Like a mere traffic citation. It's done everyday throughout the land. It's a matter of style. Live better through smart style.

Kanye West whacks a hornet's nest

my MAGA hat is signed 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/DrDHJybS8V

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

Read the Twitter thread here, if you care for that sort of thing. 

Whose that girl?

She is past it now but at one time she was one of the hottest women on TV. Her most iconic role was as the incest obsession of one of the most notorious homosexuals in Hollywood.

A model and actress she had to wrestle with a bunch of crappy roles over the years but did her best work in a Mafia story.

Whose that girl?

Bosch Season 4 - Check it out

Bosch he said.

Being laid up  I am binge watching a lot of stuff on Hulu, Amazon and even Netflicks. The past couple of days I have been checking out season four of "Bosch."

It's pretty good.

The best part is the performance of Titus Welliver who is superb in the role. Long a character actor who specialized in heavies he is taking this role and running with it.

This is of course based on the series of novels by Michael Connelly. This particular season is based on the novel "Angels Flight" which uses a lot of the plot but makes significant changes that only improve the story.

It is always fun to have a series where an author is involved. Time and again these shows are just superior. Elmore Leonard in "Justified' is one example. George Rape Rape Martin in "Game of Thrones" is another. When there is so much good material it is great when it is boiled down to a TV show. This even happens on womans novels on Hallmark. It is just better than the run of the mill muck that TV writers come up with.

In any event I highly recommend this series on Amazon. If you have Amazon Prime it does not cost you anything. If you haven't seen this show you can binge watch four seasons. You will enjoy it immensely.

The Babe Abides.

"Hey keed nice to meet you."
"Same here Mr. Ruth."
"Call me Babe everybody does. Except  fuckin' Cobb who calls me Nigger Lips that cracker asshole. Here I have something. My autobiography. That means I wrote it myself not that I wrote it in a car."
"Thanks Babe I am sure I will learn a lot from reading about your life."
"Keed don't follow me. You should follow Lou. He is more in the line of clean cut kid like you. Say you aren't in love with your mother or anything. Cause that ain't healthy. My Mom was a whore. Like most women. So watch it bud."
"No I have a special girl. See she is sitting over in that box over there."
"Who? That broad with the white hair and the pearls? How fucking old is she? What are you a Frenchman?"
"She's only twenty but she looks mature for her age."
"Well that's all right I guess. She can be your first wife. It's not like she will be around for fifty or sixty years. Use her to have your kids and then trade up. When you are tired of her you can let her play with matches like I did and you can trade up. Think an older experienced whore with a cooze like cashmere. It will slide right in. Trust me the older you get the better that is."
"Thanks for the advice Babe. Anyway I will treasure this book. I bet it has a lot of your adventures in it. I will pass it on to my first son. He might learn from it."
"Yeah if he wants to learn about booze and broads than that's the ticket. Anyway say hello to your Dad for me."
"Will do Babe. Thanks."
"Your welcome kid. Now I have to go visit Honey Fitz's grand kids. That little Jack is a pistol. Seeya keed."

personality test

16Personalities

The Mysterious Black Mummy

I didn't want to watch this. It was pushed to the end of the list of things to bother with. I couldn't care less about the race of mummies, but then it started out fairly well and it kept getting better. Joann Fletcher is much more tolerable because she's speaking from home and not poncing around the desert as goth Orphan Annie with speech impediments.

An early mummified baby is discovered in the Saharan desert. Glyphs of animals are scratched on the rocks nearby. Samples of pollen indicate water-demanding plants once flourished. They're dated. Glyphs indicate a cattle culture.

Archaeologists determined the earth shifted axis and weather patterns changed so that subSaharan people migrated northward toward advantageous climate and terrain. Simultaneously people moved westward from the Levant bringing cattle with them. The two racial types of people mixed into a type that can be seen today in Libya.

Meanwhile similar discoveries in petroglyphs and pottery were made in Sudan, Chad, Niger, and Mali adding to western Egypt, Libya and Algeria amounting to a vast mixed prehistoric culture that took advantage of climate that was good for agriculture. Then the climate changed again. Designs in pottery show that the drying Saharan culture was pushed eastward to the Nile. The pottery designs and the glyphs show the people and the culture of Egypt is derived from them.

The study of the history of Egyptian writing begins with the Narmer Palette. But it always seemed a bit odd that the entire range of symbols in their unique style could spring into existence codified so solidly like that, so quickly, virtually overnight. These new discoveries give a good and satisfying explanation for how these styles of writing and pottery were really developed over ages much earlier than Egyptian writing and crafts appear in our historic timeline. It changes everything.

Watching the video that bases ancient migration on climate change forces you to confront modern climate change and modern migration. 

Yes, climate change causes migration. But that's not what is happening now. 

Present day migration is economic. And economic policies are political. Migration today is political. And political climate can be fixed. That makes it amazing and at the same time distressing to watch entire populations make exactly the wrong political decisions. 

Europe criticizes us while making the wrong decisions themselves. Venezuela is stuck in economic misery as their bad decisions play out to the bitter end. Venezuelan migration to Colombia is resisted. Mexico is learning from Cuba and Venezuela precisely the wrong politics, so they'll suffer the pursuant identical retarded economy, and aggravate their own migration and experience U.S. resistance. Because of politics. While the middle eastern religion welded to politics does the same thing of retarding their economies and causing migration to anywhere without their politics, but bringing their politics with them as religion. 

It's a climate change alright. But it's not weather. 

A picture Trooper could write a story about

This is a picture of George Bush I receiving a copy of Babe Ruth's biography. Ol' HW certainly paid attention to parts of the story, if the reports are to be believed.

Melania Trump masters the moment.

Every last detail for Tuesday evening's state dinner has been thoughtfully and carefully overseen by the first lady, who, unlike some of her predecessors, did not hire an event planner or other outside consultants for the event.

More laudatory reporting at CNN Politics.

What?

Yes, CNN.

With photos and excellent commentary and only the briefest compulsory calumny toward President Donald Trump.

Apart from that, it's lovely reporting.

Mary Beard edited from U.S. version of Civilizations by PBS for ageism, sexism, odd old-ladyism

Mary Beard is accusing US broadcaster (PBS) of editing her out of Civilizations to make the episodes more anodyne, saying her on-screen appearances as a "slightly creaky old lady with long grey hair" had been cut.

Who?

Her.

Really hope that friends in USA realise that my Civilisations episodes on PBS are very different from original BBC versions, have been drastically changed. 

The originals were far from 'anodyne' I promise.

It's PBS. We'll have what PBS decides we'll have.  PBS decided her look and her manner outweighs her message.

There's more at the Telegraph.uk about the U.S. version focusing more on Christianity than her version, and that she's pleased with the way the British treated her material. And whatever the outcome she said what she wanted to say.

It's all such a sad shame. Because it doesn't have to be this way where a little give and take will go a long way. All she would have to do is visit a hairdresser, allow a touch of makeup, accept some advice from costume department. But no.

I'm too old now myself to work up any sympathy, for Mary Beard or for PBS viewers. Both lose. And I don't care.

Here's how my attitude calcified. I can actually trace it.

I've watched every YouTube video on Egyptology and Egyptian hieroglyphics available. Only 1% of them are in American English. Apparently it's a field not so attractive to Americans. British have the lockdown on videos. Same is true with Amazon Prime. There is nothing on Netflix and Hulu has scant offering. When an American accent comes on, it's like a breath of fresh air. I'm not kidding. Not exaggerating. Even if the Americans say unhelpful things and even when the British are good.

There is an old female British Egyptologist who does very well explaining things. Her approach is uniquely personal. Touching in places. She has a marvelous manner of digging in enthusiastically in such a way to bring her audience along with her strange obsessions. She is worth watching for her unique insights.

For example. Last night I watched a video of her looking at tomb paintings, just my cup of tea right up my alley, and I've read everything available on them, then Joann Fletcher comes along and breathes them new life. She puts us right in the families that prepared these places so carefully. "Look, there is no reaper, just Isis to embrace them in her warm arms." Warm? I never heard anyone talk like that about these Egyptian paintings. No reaper. Just warm arms. What an extraordinary perception. Decades of study and nobody ever said that. Nobody ever imbued those painted arms with warmth. Even after describing the monster that threatens to eat the heart of the person whose heart symbol does not balance with the feather of Maat. I love her for her perception. And I keep thinking what an ace personal friend she would be. I can overcome my bias against British accents as baby talk in one-on-one confabs but it's media saturation that forces me to mute them.

Everything else about her is intolerable. She's barely watchable. Beginning with her hair.

In both cases, Joann Fletcher and Mary Beard, a simple trip to the hairdresser and allowing them carte blanche would fix both their problems in a snap. But they don't. They're both professors and well beyond all cosmetics. And that makes them both unwatchable.

Because viewers are thinking the whole time, you're ridiculous hair is driving me nuts. A person with such nutty appearance cannot be sensible. A person who mispronounces everything repeatedly is not sensible.  It's not just distracting, it's disqualifying.

Joan Fletcher is worse. She's the original goth. She wears black top and back pants in the Egyptian desert. She wears super-shined plastic parade shoes. She walks about in the shade of her black umbrella. She's a black blob with super shined black shoes and outrageous fuzzy red untrimmed Orphan Annie hair wafting in her face, discussing outstanding archaeological insights while looking and sounding perfectly ridiculous. So her videos are an agonizing and frustrating experience.

She has dull black shoes in this video. Expect her to say, "LUv in their hOts" at any moment. You'll have to multiply this video X 100 videos to experience the full impact of admiration VS repulsion.

The style is what PBS is trying to protect their viewers from. And religious content to a lesser extent. Still, that's what you get with control freaks. And PBS viewers can always tune in the original shows. In that way PBS shoots themselves in the foot. While Mary Beard and Joann Fletcher shoot themselves in their own feet by holding steady to their creaky old style.

I'm not a hairdresser, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn, but I know in both cases a simple haircut, a touch of blending makeup for television, and speech therapy will make both women a whole lot more attractive. 

WKRLEM: When they had real women in the movies

Sheree North 1973



One of my all time favorite actresses.



She was the definition of sexy. Yowzah!

Top Ten lines I love in the Movies

"What we have here is failure to communicate." Cool Hand Luke.
"I expect you to die Mr. Bond." Goldfinger.
"Here's a stick to beat the lovely lady with." The Quiet Man
"What's a Bath without Bubbles." Back to School
"Like the turning of the Earth" The Searchers.
"You were my brother Fredo." Godfather Two
"I'm your Huckleberry." Tombstone
"Doncha walk away from me you chalk faced whore." Chained Heat.
"Because you're a whore." The Long Riders
"Leave the gun take the cannoli." The Godfather