Fun facts about Filoli. Built by mega-rich William Bowers Bourn II. San Francisco native.
Bourn made most of his money in the Empire (gold) mine in the Sierra foothills, used it to buy a lot of stuff.
Either had a hand in creating or bought the following:
PG&E
the San Francisco water system
Muckross House in Killarney Ireland (bought it for his daughter, then gifted it to the people of Ireland),
the Greystone Mansion in the Napa Valley (later became Christian Brothers Cellars, then an outlet of the Cullinary Institute of America),
and of course Filoli.
Filoli was built on watershed land (atop the San Andreas fault in the fault valley that runs up the Peninsula) belonging to Spring Valley Water Company, which he had invested in; Spring Valley was later sold to the City of San Francisco. Spring Valley would go on to create, much to John Muir's agony, Hetch Hetchy dam, whose waters now pass through reservoirs on the old Spring Valley property North of Filoli on their way to San Francisco. Bay Area natives will tell you this is the best municipal water on the planet. Pure and sweet straight from Sierra snowmelt.
Bourn's hand in creating critical infrastructure in Northern California (power, water, etc) is under-appreciated.
btw: While he was out of the picture by then, he opposed Hetch Hetchy.
It's * not * true that OHJB was overheard saying "Bitch better have my money" as he departed Air Force One earlier. Pool reports to the contrary are inaccurate.
I can't help but think of a scene from the Britcom "Yes, Prime Minister". PM Jim Hacker finally got his summit meeting with the President of the U.S. Back home in his office, he was asked about what when on in their private, closed-door meeting.
I paraphrase from memory: "Well, I started reading from my briefing, and then he started reading from his, so we decided to just swap briefing papers, and we spent the rest of the time ragging on the French."
And this is a senator. I get that people want representation who feel familiar, but I don't think I'd want to discuss penis-biting technique with my representative.
I just think it's funny that he's trying so hard to show what a grr tough manly man he is while bragging that he'd a) fight dirty and b) bite an opponent on the cock.
Hey. I was promised it would be in San Francisco proper, not SF adjacent. For my money, it should be held in Los Angeles, where real shit gets done. Or El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
Filoli is an excellent choice. They are closed for "holiday decorating", they are in the middle of vast and preserved open space, and the few neighbors are rich Republicans with guns and horses and that whole Montana thing where they'd happily shoot any hippy who trespasses
"It means that gay Christians will be able to invite family and friends to a special service, which could be held on Saturdays, to bless and celebrate their weddings. Special music, readings, confetti and other features would mean such services could look very similar to a standard church wedding"
the conflict between how things *are* and how they *ought to* be is their entire business model/concept of everything with a heavy emphasis on the "ought to," and always going as far back as their grievance of the day takes to magically disappear.
GOP Rep. Roy: I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing that I can go campaign on and say we did. One! Come and explain to me one meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done
Filoli (the "estate") is fabulous. It's nestled right in the San Andreas fault in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco and is probably the closest thing we have to a French château in the Bay Area.
They'll have a lovely time, especially without James Comer around.
Is this the place that I could get a glimpse of out of my parents car windows heading down Interstate 280 in the '60's? I've never been but have driven past it probably 1000 times as a kid.
I don't know if one can actually see it from the freeway, but it's likely (if I'm on that freeway I'm ususally the one driving so can't really look), but you can certainly see the signs for it. I also drove past it 1000 times before finally going for a visit.
Angry, screamy music makes me feel better. For some reason if I start angry screaming, the neighbors become "concerned". If I let Disturbed or Slipknot do the screaming, it's socially acceptable.
OHBJ: In talking with President Xi, I discovered that the Chinese and English languages have a surprising commonality. There's a Chinese word that roughly translates to "flaming asshole" that might be familiar to a lot of you. President Xi, would you like to elaborate?
Xi: Thank you President Biden. The word in question is a little different in Cantonese, but in Mandarin it's roughly pronounced "Comer" in English. I also shared with President Biden that the Xiang word for "face like a backed-up sewer system" sounds very much like "Trump," except that the "u" has the slightest vocal inflection.
Well, it's about god-damn time for President Biden to talk to Xi, behind closed doors. There's a lot to discuss.
And let's not let Blinken and Sullivan's protocol team do the table-tent namecards in Traditional Chinese characters this time, like they did in Anchorage a month into Biden's term, mmmkay? That was some bush-league bullshit and it's not like Xi's guys didn't notice. Things are very different from then.
Stuff in west Asia have gone downhill bad for America in the past two months. We need to get in sync with China on lots and lots of things. Not just roll over and let them do whatever they want; but it's past time to stop pretending America can just snap our fingers and send a carrier group to do a drive-by and everybody is going to just do whatever we want. Those days are over, and the sooner we take that into account and act accordingly, like a First Among Equals kind of attitude, the better things are going to go for everybody. America no longer has any credibility in western Asia. China, Iran, and Turkey have far more, and if we want the things we need, we need to get in line with that reality.
Keep Jake Sullivan in a box and this could be a very important meeting with some good outcomes.
I reminded myself that in Pussy Ass Bitch foreign travel events, the really smart smart people said the US is loosing it's "soft power" because of him and his ignorance.
It's definitely not one that geography wants you to delve too much into, because "fuckass long mountain ranges" like the Urals aren't used as a dividing line for continents anywhere else except here.
Europe is an Asian peninsula, much like India. A culturally and ethnically distinct peninsula, sure, but a continent they are not.
you find a similar situation with India. long mountain ranges are in the habit of being at plate boundaries but a plate by itself doesn't a continent make.
you could make the argument that Europe is defined as a continent because Europeans came up with the definition, I suppose.
It is, but like I said below, mountain ranges aren't really ever the dividing line between continents. The Urals as the dividing line is more an ethno-political boundary than it is tectonic.
Like Bagels said, I wouldn't be too hard on yourself with that one. Indonesia, among other things, shares three (EDIT: Whoops, no, still three) of its larger islands with other countries. I'm pretty sure it's the only one.
Oh, and a lot of the oil China is buying, is coming from Russia and not being paid for in US Dollars. So it's kind of off the radar and hard to quantify. That's a very tricky wrinkle. Something like 7 out of every 10 USD in existence, exist solely overseas; used for trade between third-party nations. We owe a lot of our wealth to that dynamic, and it's slowing fast (in historical terms). We need to be positioned for how that plays out. That's what I mean below, about a window of time in which we need to cash in and max out our advantages before they go away.
Oh, there's a lot to consider. No, China's economy is not in great shape. In gross terms, it's the largest in the world. But there's a lot of it that's based on bogus "ghost" spending. They've got tons of US Treasuries they're sitting on, in exchange for US Dollars, and they need to do something with that money. Looks great on the ledger; but it's like cornering the market on snowcones on a hot day; you'd better sell 'em fast or you've just got a sticky mess.
China's been trading Treasuries for global influence. Smart. But not fool-proof, either.
China doesn't use their military to buy influence, the way we do. So the dynamic is totally different. I wouldn't want to rely on the tender mercies of the Chinese in any case.
My core belief is that the US needs to use this window, where we'll still the global power, to cash in and fix stuff at home, while being reliable partners globally and not the unchallengeable bully. That's a tough transition to make. Takes a lot of planning; both globally and at home.
But then, since the rest of the world doesn't use US Dollars; a "hard cash" US Dollar that has to be converted to whatever unit, is still just a promise to pay. We pay China in hard cash. They pay it back to us in return for Treasuries. They can cash those in, but if they did it all at once it would crash the market, and they'd hurt themselves at least as much as us.
As an American, one of my sisters is a naturalized Canadian (dual-citizen). We've had some family issues that required all of us to chip in some money to help our parents. She mailed by a check (ope, it was on a Canadian bank, so it was a "cheque"). I couldn't cash the damn thing at my credit union. I had to sign it over to my wife, who has an account at a big bank that does convert foreign currencies; and she was able to cash it. Same deal for China and everybody else with US Dollars.
Not that I personally have a problem with it, but was POTUS Joe praying, there, to open that meeting?
🙏
🙏
Probably? I mean, he's pretty well known to be a devout Catholic.
Fun facts about Filoli. Built by mega-rich William Bowers Bourn II. San Francisco native.
Bourn made most of his money in the Empire (gold) mine in the Sierra foothills, used it to buy a lot of stuff.
Either had a hand in creating or bought the following:
PG&E
the San Francisco water system
Muckross House in Killarney Ireland (bought it for his daughter, then gifted it to the people of Ireland),
the Greystone Mansion in the Napa Valley (later became Christian Brothers Cellars, then an outlet of the Cullinary Institute of America),
and of course Filoli.
Filoli was built on watershed land (atop the San Andreas fault in the fault valley that runs up the Peninsula) belonging to Spring Valley Water Company, which he had invested in; Spring Valley was later sold to the City of San Francisco. Spring Valley would go on to create, much to John Muir's agony, Hetch Hetchy dam, whose waters now pass through reservoirs on the old Spring Valley property North of Filoli on their way to San Francisco. Bay Area natives will tell you this is the best municipal water on the planet. Pure and sweet straight from Sierra snowmelt.
Bourn's hand in creating critical infrastructure in Northern California (power, water, etc) is under-appreciated.
btw: While he was out of the picture by then, he opposed Hetch Hetchy.
It's * not * true that OHJB was overheard saying "Bitch better have my money" as he departed Air Force One earlier. Pool reports to the contrary are inaccurate.
I can't help but think of a scene from the Britcom "Yes, Prime Minister". PM Jim Hacker finally got his summit meeting with the President of the U.S. Back home in his office, he was asked about what when on in their private, closed-door meeting.
I paraphrase from memory: "Well, I started reading from my briefing, and then he started reading from his, so we decided to just swap briefing papers, and we spent the rest of the time ragging on the French."
I've never been to China, but I welcome our robot overlords and hope someday to dig a feathered dinosaur from the Chinese soil.
OT and hilarious
https://twitter.com/dabbs346/status/1724794310833664372
Markwayne is still going on about it, and wants you to know he will bite your penis.
And this is a senator. I get that people want representation who feel familiar, but I don't think I'd want to discuss penis-biting technique with my representative.
The other white meat.
Who are we to judge another’s kinks?
Using teeth in a blowie is for advanced users only, Markwayne.
Amuse Douche, micro peni fare well in cockbiting.
"just a little mouthful"
"hold my beer, Mike Tyson"
He's just letting it be known he's down for the ground and pound.
I guess we as a society are giving up on the idea that adults are anything other than large children.
That he overcompensates for his persistent impotency so loudly is some paramount arrogance.
I just think it's funny that he's trying so hard to show what a grr tough manly man he is while bragging that he'd a) fight dirty and b) bite an opponent on the cock.
"... it’s in Woodside, California ..."
Hey. I was promised it would be in San Francisco proper, not SF adjacent. For my money, it should be held in Los Angeles, where real shit gets done. Or El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
Filoli is an excellent choice. They are closed for "holiday decorating", they are in the middle of vast and preserved open space, and the few neighbors are rich Republicans with guns and horses and that whole Montana thing where they'd happily shoot any hippy who trespasses
Can't get better security than that!
The christofascists, they are losing.
𝗖𝗵𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗼𝗳 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘀 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗮𝗺𝗲-𝘀𝗲𝘅 𝘄𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/15/church-of-england-backs-plans-for-blessings-of-same-sex-weddings
separate but equal never gets old
"It means that gay Christians will be able to invite family and friends to a special service, which could be held on Saturdays, to bless and celebrate their weddings. Special music, readings, confetti and other features would mean such services could look very similar to a standard church wedding"
I hate everything about this. every single bit.
don't want to get the gay all over the church on a Sunday. this is the same bullshit as limiting us to civil unions.
the conflict between how things *are* and how they *ought to* be is their entire business model/concept of everything with a heavy emphasis on the "ought to," and always going as far back as their grievance of the day takes to magically disappear.
What I love best about that is that it means some very good and damned deserving people are finally winning.
It is about damned time.
"Jayne Ozanne, a campaigner for equal marriage within the C of E, said the decision offered “tiny scraps of hope to LGBT+ people”."
ah yes! I knew there was a huge "however" in there somewhere.
Related:
bidenharrishq
19m
He has a point...
bidenharrishq
32m
GOP Rep. Roy: I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing that I can go campaign on and say we did. One! Come and explain to me one meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done
https://www.threads.net/@bidenharrishq/post/CzrWFVOrMIX
You guys shivved your own leader for no reason whatsoever
Rep. Roy should do what the rest of the GQP is; take credit for the bills they voted against.
Okay, how about "they've singlehandedly managed to scare the bejeezus out of most Americans while simultaneously making them laugh their asses off."
bringing porn to a hearing is an achievement
Picking fights in a hearing, too.
or you, Chip Roy, for that matter.
How about plunging a katana into it's belly in an act of political seppuku
that would require some sort of code of ethics and honor.
One can dream.
just give him something pointy when he's butt standing the next time. maybe he'll trip.
Made America Taiwan Again?
I'll give you one, dipshit congresscritter Roy: Y'all are white trash and you demonstrate it everyday. How's that?
Filoli (the "estate") is fabulous. It's nestled right in the San Andreas fault in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco and is probably the closest thing we have to a French château in the Bay Area.
They'll have a lovely time, especially without James Comer around.
Is this the place that I could get a glimpse of out of my parents car windows heading down Interstate 280 in the '60's? I've never been but have driven past it probably 1000 times as a kid.
I don't know if one can actually see it from the freeway, but it's likely (if I'm on that freeway I'm ususally the one driving so can't really look), but you can certainly see the signs for it. I also drove past it 1000 times before finally going for a visit.
Jr. visited there last summer when he was down at Stanford for his med school summer internship. Beautiful gardens.
Xi still at baggage claim.
Angry, screamy music makes me feel better. For some reason if I start angry screaming, the neighbors become "concerned". If I let Disturbed or Slipknot do the screaming, it's socially acceptable.
::excerpt from meeting::
OHBJ: In talking with President Xi, I discovered that the Chinese and English languages have a surprising commonality. There's a Chinese word that roughly translates to "flaming asshole" that might be familiar to a lot of you. President Xi, would you like to elaborate?
Xi: Thank you President Biden. The word in question is a little different in Cantonese, but in Mandarin it's roughly pronounced "Comer" in English. I also shared with President Biden that the Xiang word for "face like a backed-up sewer system" sounds very much like "Trump," except that the "u" has the slightest vocal inflection.
Niiiiice.
snerk
I hope they go to Chinatown.
Lee Ho Fooks.
Evan, you are a hero. Still roaring with laughter!
Well, it's about god-damn time for President Biden to talk to Xi, behind closed doors. There's a lot to discuss.
And let's not let Blinken and Sullivan's protocol team do the table-tent namecards in Traditional Chinese characters this time, like they did in Anchorage a month into Biden's term, mmmkay? That was some bush-league bullshit and it's not like Xi's guys didn't notice. Things are very different from then.
Stuff in west Asia have gone downhill bad for America in the past two months. We need to get in sync with China on lots and lots of things. Not just roll over and let them do whatever they want; but it's past time to stop pretending America can just snap our fingers and send a carrier group to do a drive-by and everybody is going to just do whatever we want. Those days are over, and the sooner we take that into account and act accordingly, like a First Among Equals kind of attitude, the better things are going to go for everybody. America no longer has any credibility in western Asia. China, Iran, and Turkey have far more, and if we want the things we need, we need to get in line with that reality.
Keep Jake Sullivan in a box and this could be a very important meeting with some good outcomes.
I reminded myself that in Pussy Ass Bitch foreign travel events, the really smart smart people said the US is loosing it's "soft power" because of him and his ignorance.
Western Asia? Where is that, Iran? You can go a little farther East than China but not much, I have a confuse
Sorry; I guess I meant "The Not-So-Far-East." Because I know the "Middle East" is Pennsylvania, by Pittsburgh.
on a side note, how many people you think realize where Europe ends and Asia starts?
As geology goes that's a relatively thorny question, since it's less a matter of plate tectonics and more "Europeans don't want to be called Asian".
I remember the geography lesson. it made my teacher sweat more than usual.
as for politics, particularly in Turkey, it's also the other way around.
It's definitely not one that geography wants you to delve too much into, because "fuckass long mountain ranges" like the Urals aren't used as a dividing line for continents anywhere else except here.
Europe is an Asian peninsula, much like India. A culturally and ethnically distinct peninsula, sure, but a continent they are not.
you find a similar situation with India. long mountain ranges are in the habit of being at plate boundaries but a plate by itself doesn't a continent make.
you could make the argument that Europe is defined as a continent because Europeans came up with the definition, I suppose.
It is, but like I said below, mountain ranges aren't really ever the dividing line between continents. The Urals as the dividing line is more an ethno-political boundary than it is tectonic.
It's not even a very imposing range (the Urals).
A convenient boundary in the lack of anything better.
You're ALWAYS asking these inconvenient questions...
Guessing I'd be disappointed by the answer.
But it's the Bosporus, and the Urals.
Don't ask anyone from the Balkans.
And let's not tell any Americans there are any Muslim nations in Europe, for similar reasons.
Shit that goes back to the 1400's, we Americans aren't so good with.
That's nobody's business except the Turks'.
Upvote for ISTANBUL reference! Yes!
Not Constantinople
Russia is chopped liver to you?
-- Vlad
Is potato
I can't remember either but I agree, it's awesome.
to be honest, I think the number of Europeans who don't know the answer is higher than acceptable.
Pacific island nations always mess me up.
Like Bagels said, I wouldn't be too hard on yourself with that one. Indonesia, among other things, shares three (EDIT: Whoops, no, still three) of its larger islands with other countries. I'm pretty sure it's the only one.
Borneo is one that comes to mind with Brunei but I draw blanks with the rest.
north of Australia. that's easy. the harder part is to get its borders correct because much of Indonesia is a gazillion islands.
Get out the Venn diagrams....
Oh, and a lot of the oil China is buying, is coming from Russia and not being paid for in US Dollars. So it's kind of off the radar and hard to quantify. That's a very tricky wrinkle. Something like 7 out of every 10 USD in existence, exist solely overseas; used for trade between third-party nations. We owe a lot of our wealth to that dynamic, and it's slowing fast (in historical terms). We need to be positioned for how that plays out. That's what I mean below, about a window of time in which we need to cash in and max out our advantages before they go away.
Oh, there's a lot to consider. No, China's economy is not in great shape. In gross terms, it's the largest in the world. But there's a lot of it that's based on bogus "ghost" spending. They've got tons of US Treasuries they're sitting on, in exchange for US Dollars, and they need to do something with that money. Looks great on the ledger; but it's like cornering the market on snowcones on a hot day; you'd better sell 'em fast or you've just got a sticky mess.
China's been trading Treasuries for global influence. Smart. But not fool-proof, either.
China doesn't use their military to buy influence, the way we do. So the dynamic is totally different. I wouldn't want to rely on the tender mercies of the Chinese in any case.
My core belief is that the US needs to use this window, where we'll still the global power, to cash in and fix stuff at home, while being reliable partners globally and not the unchallengeable bully. That's a tough transition to make. Takes a lot of planning; both globally and at home.
I think it's possible, and absolutely essential.
Yeah, Treasuries are just that; like any bond.
But then, since the rest of the world doesn't use US Dollars; a "hard cash" US Dollar that has to be converted to whatever unit, is still just a promise to pay. We pay China in hard cash. They pay it back to us in return for Treasuries. They can cash those in, but if they did it all at once it would crash the market, and they'd hurt themselves at least as much as us.
As an American, one of my sisters is a naturalized Canadian (dual-citizen). We've had some family issues that required all of us to chip in some money to help our parents. She mailed by a check (ope, it was on a Canadian bank, so it was a "cheque"). I couldn't cash the damn thing at my credit union. I had to sign it over to my wife, who has an account at a big bank that does convert foreign currencies; and she was able to cash it. Same deal for China and everybody else with US Dollars.
So it's all kind of a balancing act.