Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Bark louder, little dog.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

After roe, women are no longer free.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Come on, man.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Not all heroes wear capes.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Saturday Night Open Thread

Saturday Night Open Thread

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This post is in: 

Over at Brian and Tammy’s house with Lily and Sam and the plethora of cats, so no more blogging tonight. We went to the farmers market this morning, then did some shopping, then hit the rails to trails, and then topped the night off with a pretty sick dinner.

Had some onions from the market baked with a demi-glace and bacon and topped with chives, some blanched green beans, some sauteed mushrooms, some browned new potatoes, and a Chateaubriand that was perfectly cooked. Having some iced coffee now and listening to Stevie Wonder with Lily on my lap and Sam running around being crazy, and I thought I would come rub it in because it was SOOOO damned good.

The sky is red, which means the hiking and gardening will be perfect tomorrow. Things are good. This is how it is supposed to be.

Reader Interactions

160Comments

  3. 3.

    JGabriel

    John Cole: … some blanched green beans …

    How do you blanche your green beans? I usually do it by telling them, “I’m chopping you all in half! Bwahaha!”

    .

  4. 4.

    JGabriel

    John Cole:

    … a Chateaubriand that was perfectly cooked.

    I know you’re not supposed to refrigerate red wine, but cooking it?

    .

  5. 5.

    General Winfield Stuck

    @tams:

    Yup. Mr. Cole’s glass is half full or better tonight. Good to see.

    I’m finishing up a movie started last night called To end All Wars. It’s a re-telling of Bridge on the River Kwai and the first 15 minutes were great.

  7. 7.

    General Winfield Stuck

    The sky is red, which means the hiking and gardening will be perfect tomorrow. Things are good. This is how it is supposed to be.

    And tonight will bring dreams of Sugar Plum Fairies.

  8. 8.

    WereBear

    I just had to check out the story of the puppy with the cooking fork in his head… it was an accident, and he’s supposed to make a full recovery.

    But for FSM’s sake, I now actually prefer the three armed woman pic.

  9. 9.

    JenJen

    There’s little I love more than hearing that really awesome, good people are having a wonderful day.

    A few good friends, some wine, a puppy on the lap, a full belly, and Stevie Wonder. It probably doesn’t get any better than that.

    Life is good,indeed.

  11. 11.

    JK

    After they’ve compared Obama to Hitler and said that his health care plan is EVIL, what do Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin have left for an encore?

    Fucking Boston Red Sox – Are these assholes going to simply roll over and play dead for the remainder of the season?

  12. 12.

    burnspbesq

    Just got to see the kid turn in a very professional performance, in a company of highly skilled teens, in a real professional theater.

    I could not be prouder of the little fuck.

  13. 13.

    Currants

    I lived outside the US last year (returned about 2 weeks ago), and re-entry has been rough. Even without getting into the political issues (which I’d mostly kept up-to-date on via the intertubes), it’s jarring how dissatisfied most people seem to be, and how that dissatisfaction manifests itself in consumerism. I can’t believe the kind–and quantity–of crap people buy, and how cranky everyone seems to be with each other, even in public. And especially in cars.

    So thank you, John, for that lovely image of simple contentment. I needed it.

  14. 14.

    General Winfield Stuck

    In their fury and defiance, the wingnuts haven’t thought about what happens if they bring health care reform down. One has, Mr. Frum, though of course he is already a RINO.

    This is really pretty good.

    What would it mean to “win” the healthcare fight?
    For some, the answer is obvious: beat back the president’s proposals, defeat the House bill, stand back and wait for 1994 to repeat itself. The problem is that if we do that… we’ll still have the present healthcare system. Meaning that we’ll have (1) flat-lining wages, (2) exploding Medicaid and Medicare costs and thus immense pressure for future tax increases, (3) small businesses and self-employed individuals priced out of the insurance market, and (4) a lot of uninsured or underinsured people imposing costs on hospitals and local governments. We’ll have entrenched and perpetuated some of the most irrational features of a hugely costly and under-performing system, at the expense of entrepreneurs and risk-takers, exactly the people the Republican party exists to champion. Not a good outcome. Even worse will be the way this fight is won: basically by convincing older Americans already covered by a government health program, Medicare, that Obama’s reform plans will reduce their coverage. In other words, we’ll have sent a powerful message to the entire political system to avoid at all hazards any tinkering with Medicare except to make it more generous for the already covered.
    If we win, we’ll trumpet the success as a great triumph for liberty and individualism. Really though it will be a triumph for inertia. To the extent that anybody in the conservative world still aspires to any kind of future reform and improvement of America’s ossified government, that should be a very ashy victory indeed.

  15. 15.

    John O

    Yep, John, that is what it should be. Good on ya.

    Had a nice day of my own, not coincidentally eating well and hanging out with two cousin dogs I’m sitting for the day. One is a wonderfully mellow German Shepherd, and the other a yellow lab with a frisky-problem that I just love.

    There’s a lot to be said about the simple things.

  16. 16.

    bernini

    couldn’t agree more. perfect day, perfect evening. Just got off the shawangunks ridge. climbing was exquisite. btw: I noticed that many climbers bring their dogs to the ‘gunks. adds a certain je ne sais quoi vibe, all positive.

    keep up the food blogging, punk.

  17. 17.

    JK

    Has anyone seen an online petition calling for the suspension of Glenn Beck and requesting an apology from Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch for Beck joking about poisoning Nancy Pelosi?

    How much airtime would Fox News Channel spend denouncing someone who joked about poisoning Dennis Hastert or Newt Gingrich?

  18. 18.

    MikeJ

    Fucking Boston Red Sox – Are these assholes going to simply roll over and play dead for the remainder of the season?

    If they do like they did in the olden days, they’ll try to get your hopes up again, and *then* suck.

  19. 19.

    JK

    @MikeJ:

    No other sports teams with so much money to burn have done more in their long histories to humiliate, rip open and smash the hearts of their fans than the Boston Red Sox and the NY Mets.

    The only thing that can save this baseball season would be to see the goddamn NY Yankees be eliminated in the 1st round of the playoffs.

  21. 21.

    jwb

    JK

    After they’ve compared Obama to Hitler and said that his health care plan is EVIL, what do Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin have left for an encore?

    True, it’s hard to know how they are going to dial it up from eleventy, but so far they have not yet failed to find a new level of wingnuttery.

  22. 22.

    RedKitten

    I also had a really nice day. The weather was just perfect, so we went for a drive to town (I bought myself TWO new books today — a rare indulgence!), had a late lunch, and then went and did some Geocaching. Came home and made a yummy paella for supper, and am now relaxing, and debating which book to read first.

  23. 23.

    JK

    @jwb:

    I can’t believe how toxic and disgusting the climate has gotten from Election Day to today thanks to assholes like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michele Bachmann, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Instadouchebag Reynolds, Bill O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs, Alex Jones etc.

    Alex Jones Classic: FU OBAMA – Obama Joker Poster Contest – Win $1000
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyqpoQpsS2o

  25. 25.

    Mark S.

    @RedKitten:

    debating which book to read first

    Speaking of which, has anyone read Nixonland? I was thinking of buying it the other day.

  27. 27.

    JK

    WTF with Jenny Sanford? Now that Mark Sanford is politically save, she decides to dump him.

  28. 28.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    I attended a wedding this afternoon on the Outer Banks. If I close my eyes I’m instantly transported back to 5 mph bumper to bumper traffic for a solid hour and a half. Fix your traffic problem, assholes.

  29. 29.

    Indylib

    @RedKitten: Ooh, new books. I could use some new recommendations, I finished the ones I bought due to the book thread in what was it, June?

    Btw, how are you feeling? If you feel an urgent need to clean and straighten up, even if you don’t need to, you’re probably about 36 hours from starting labor. My nesting instinct worked every time I was pregnant as an indicator.

  31. 31.

    JGabriel

    @JK:

    WTF with Jenny Sanford? Now that Mark Sanford is politically safe, she decides to dump him.

    I expect it’s a little more personal than that; the marriage isn’t working out. That said, even if you’re right, it wouldn’t be surprising.

    Jenny comes from a very rich family. Mark is a politician they paid for and invested a lot in. Divorced or separated, Jenny and her family will still want to maintain professional relations with Mark and leverage their investment. If Mark’s political career swirls down the drain, the investment stops paying dividends.

    .

  33. 33.

    JGabriel

    @cliff: Ahem. ‘Twas a (purposefully) bad pun, Cliff. Or did you not catch the preceding pun on ‘blanching’?

    .

  34. 34.

    stibbert

    it’s hard to imagine anyone taking Tunch anywhere that Tunch didn’t want to be took to.

  35. 35.

    jharp

    And I had smoked whitefish from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Fantastic.

    Along with some tomatoes and basil from the garden and buffalo mozzarella.

  37. 37.

    geg6

    Mark S.: “Nixonland” is a great book. In fact, all of Perlstein’s books are great. You will understand where we are today and how we got here after reading his stuff. As for me, weather hasn’t been quite as nice here. Very humid and some showers this evening. Just watched “Tropical Thunder.” Robert Downey, Jr. Is a truly fearless actor. No matter how pedestrian the material, he never ceases to amaze me. I also had some delicious chocolate frozen custard from a legendary local stand. And tomorrow I’m off to my sister’s to loll around in her pool. It’s supposed to be sunny and 90 here tomorrow, the first ridiculously hot day of the whole summer. A day in the pool and then home to some AC and pasta for dinner. No news with the sole exception of CBS Sunday Morning while I drink coffee, read the Sunday paper, and do laundry. Quiet weekend, much needed. Didn’t even spend the night with my John, I’ve been so stressed out. I just need some alone quiet time after the crunch at work and all the craziness in our public affairs. It’s good for me to do that once in a while, though I think it bugs John just a bit. But he deals with it. He’s a good man.

  39. 39.

    RedKitten

    @RedKitten: Ooh, new books. I could use some new recommendations, I finished the ones I bought due to the book thread in what was it, June? Btw, how are you feeling? If you feel an urgent need to clean and straighten up, even if you don’t need to, you’re probably about 36 hours from starting labor. My nesting instinct worked every time I was pregnant as an indicator.

    I bought Love in the Time of Cholera and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. I’ve been wanting to read both for quite awhile now.

    And my urge to clean and straighten up is no more crazy than usual. I have been a little more on top of keeping things tidy, but I think that’s just because I know that we could have to go to the hospital any day now, and I don’t want to come home to crumbs on the counter or dishes in the sink.

  40. 40.

    JK

    @JGabriel:

    If Jenny had dumped Mark when the Hiking the Appalachian Trail scandal first broke, he would have faced much greater pressure to resign. The State newspaper had an article a few weeks back stating that Republicans were heavily influenced by Jenny Sanford’s reaction in their decision not to call for Sanford’s resignation.

    As far as I’m concerned, Mark and Jenny Sanford can both go fuck themselves. They’re obnoxious, self-righteous assholes.

  41. 41.

    Francis

    On Wicked: the book is interesting, but the musical play is much better. It’s a quick read, though.

  42. 42.

    geg6

    RedKitten: “Wicked” is excellent. I love Maguire’s fractured fairy tales. I probably would have loved fairy tales as a kid if there had been fairy tales like his. An aside, George Lopez is kicking some GOP ass on HBO right now.

  43. 43.

    Laura W

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Nice to see some of the starry eyed romance rubbed off on you.
    What’s it take to make you happy anyway? Some Russian lesbian cyber stalker of mine? (I’ve not heard from her today. I think she broke up with me. Or is playing hard to get.)

    How were the nuptials? Did you cry?

  45. 45.

    JGabriel

    @Cliff:

    Merriam-Webster, Blanch:

    c : to make ashen or pale “fear blanches the cheek”

    Of course, ‘blanch’ also means to whiten by lightly parboiling.

    I guess you need to have a childhood that included reading a lot of books where people “blanched in fear” to get the joke. Ah well.

    (shrugs)

    .

  46. 46.

    Seebach

    Yes, read Nixonland. It’s in paperback now: there’s no excuse. The only excuse for not reading Nixonland is “I want to read Before the Storm first.”

  47. 47.

    JGabriel

    JK:

    If Jenny had dumped Mark when the Hiking the Appalachian Trail scandal first broke, he would have faced much greater pressure to resign.

    Of course. That’s why Jenny Sullivan Sanford had to wait until things cooled down before moving out. Couldn’t risk the Sullivan family’s financial and political investment in Mark’s career by forcing him into a resignation.

    They’re obnoxious, self-righteous assholes.

    Yep, but you forgot ‘hypocritical’. Although, I guess that goes without saying, once you realize they’re Republicans.

    .

  48. 48.

    Max

    I saw Julie and Julia today. It was a lovely movie and Meryl Streep was incredible as Julia. French cooking has always intimidated me, but after seeing the movie, I might give it a try.

  50. 50.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    I cannot get this site to stay stable. It keeps switching out to a site that says it can’t find whatever-ad. I’ve tried to post this comment several times and right in the middle of it, it’s switched over to this weird screen/

  51. 51.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Laura W: I like yer stalker, she’s pretty hot.

    I missed all but the last five minutes of the wedding ceremony thanks to traffic. But the food at the reception afterwards was excellent.

    I drove through a Brew-Thru for drinks on the way back home. The kids got a real kick outta that even though the employees of the Brew-Thru nearly fainted as I negotiated their tiny establishment with my giant truck.

  52. 52.

    geg6

    I’d just like to say that all the Yankee/Sox trash talk the last two days has moved me to weigh in. And as a Pittsburgh fan, a pox on both their houses. They are both everything that’s made baseball a fading game. Baseball is less important to the young around here than soccer is. MLB and the stranglehold the big market teams have on it are killing the game’s future. That said, I won’t miss it. They already killed it for me long ago.

  54. 54.

    parksideq

    @JGabriel: The fact that Jenny Sanford wasn’t standing on stage next to her hiker extraordinaire soon-to-be-ex husband was proof enough to me that their marriage was pretty much over. She just needed to wait long enough so that her peacing out wouldn’t torpedo her investment his career.

  55. 55.

    Betsy

    Watched Episode 2 of Dexter, season 3 tonight. The bad thing about not seeing cable is that we have to wait a year before seeing each season; the good thing is that we get to watch all the episodes within a frenzied 3-day period.

  56. 56.

    Adolphus

    I just had to check out the story of the puppy with the cooking fork in his head… it was an accident, and he’s supposed to make a full recovery.

    But for FSM’s sake, I now actually prefer the three armed woman pic.

    Seriously. If it’s between a dog with a fork in his skull and Pam Anderson, I’ll take Pam. I also get this a lot over at Cute Overload. Kinda detracts from the Cute.

  57. 57.

    Adolphus

    I thought I was blockquoting WereBear and my post starts at “Seriously”

    Sorry WereBear and everyone else. I thought I had that tag tagged.

  58. 58.

    WereBear

    Can’t say enough nice things about both Nixonland and Before the Storm. But if you get the chance, read Before the Storm first, to keep the chronological order.

    I just got The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, from a rec here, and I’m looking forward to that.

  59. 59.

    RedKitten

    Read quickly.

    Always do, always have. That’s why I rarely buy myself new books anymore. Instead, I get them used, or borrow them from the library. It just gets way too damned expensive to keep paying $10 for a paperback when I finish them so quickly.

    I also have Pillars of the Earth on my nightstand. I’ve enjoyed it thus far, and keep meaning to get back into it, but my brain just isn’t in the place right now for anything too in-depth, I’m afraid. Ah well, that’s the beauty of books — they don’t expire. :)

  60. 60.

    Betsy

    @RedKitten:
    Enjoy them! I haven’t read Love in the Time of Cholera, but I did read 100 Years of Solitude, which was gorgeous. I’m about to start A Farewell to Arms, because I’ve never read Hemingway. Faulkner either. I’m deeply ashamed.
    And yeah, I never buy new books. Although I’ll have to for a few; I was given a gift card for barnes and noble and you can’t put that toward their used books grumble.

  61. 61.

    cbear

    Is that disturbing pic of the forked puppy a harbinger of things to come under the Obama Health Care Plan?

    “First they came for the puppies, and I said nothing…..”

    BTW, any fresh news on Obama’s devious plan to pull the trigger on young Trig?

  62. 62.

    MBSS

    if they come for the puppy’s, me, and a lot of little girls are going to cry and make a big stink. there must be a limit to obama’s evil liberal fascism.

  63. 63.

    Calming Influence

    Had some onions from the market baked with a demi-glace and bacon and topped with chives, some blanched green beans, some sauteed mushrooms, some browned new potatoes, and a Chateaubriand that was perfectly cooked.

    No brie and quiche? Quelle surprise!

  64. 64.

    Sentient Puddle

    On an entirely different note, I poured a glass of my first homebrew to taste and see how it turned out this evening. Back when I bottled it, I named the brew “Dead Shit” because I didn’t have the highest of hopes for it. And…yeah, it turned out to be an appropriate name.

    Here’s to the next brew hopefully turning out a little better.

  66. 66.

    Ash

    Had some onions from the market baked with a demi-glace and bacon and topped with chives, some blanched green beans, some sauteed mushrooms, some browned new potatoes, and a Chateaubriand that was perfectly cooked.

    I had EasyMac. FML.

  69. 69.

    Mark S.

    All right, you guys convinced me. And to think, I almost got the Michelle Malkin book instead.

  70. 70.

    The Main Gauche of Mild Reason

    I concur with Nixonland just being a fantastically written, compelling, and illuminating look at the dark heart of the Nixon-era GOP.

    But on an unrelated topic, I think THIS is pretty brilliant politics.

    The drug industry has authorized its lobbyists to spend as much as $150 million on television commercials supporting President Obama’s health care overhaul, beginning over the August Congressional recess, people briefed on the plans said Saturday…

    The drug industry has authorized its lobbyists to spend as much as $150 million on television commercials supporting President Obama’s health care overhaul, beginning over the August Congressional recess, people briefed on the plans said Saturday.

    I mean, yeah, I’m as anti-corporate as anyone in the mainsteam democratic party. But I never expected to get much out of this first healthcare bill and always saw it as a stepping stone to better policy and ending this “third rail” attitude toward healthcare. I think, in this environment, with the GOP and media seemingly in cahoots to concern troll healthcare reform out of existence, managing to get one of the main industry opponents to fervently support it is a neat trick.

  71. 71.

    MBSS

    i’ve been meaning to read “nixonland”. i recently read most of a book about joe mccarthy. so i want to make sure that i have complete knowledge about all the paranoid freaks in our glorious political history.

  74. 74.

    SIA aka ScreamingInAtlanta

    @burnspbesq: That must have felt great, seeing your kid perform well. Congratulations!

    Mr Screaming gave me the full set of PBS’ “Foyle’s War” for my b’day, and we watched another one tonight. Really good acting and engrossing plot. And some fabulous 94% fat free popcorn.

  76. 76.

    steve s

    Just saw the G I Joe movie. I don’t think I’ve ever had that much fun in a movie theater (without another person involved). And Scarlett was 10 lbs of hot in a 5 lb bag. I still think Trinity in the matrix has the best motorcycle scene ever, but the one in Joe is pretty cool too. Just less so, because it was much more CGI. The one in the Matrix was done with real cars, and was extremely dangerous for the stuntgirl involved.

  77. 77.

    steve s

    Wait, lemme reformulate that into Balloon Juice Speak: Cobra Commander was totally concern trolling the Joes.

  81. 81.

    Steeplejack

    @WereBear:

    Just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire in semi-rapid succession. Very, very good. You do have to allow some leeway, especially in the second one, for the fact that apparently it’s a law in Sweden that every thriller has to reference a Big Social Issue. I (mostly) made my peace with that in Henning Mankell’s Inspector Wallander series (first one: Faceless Killers), recently dramatized with Kenneth Branagh on PBS. But I digress.

    In Dragon Tattoo the social issue is very timely: corporate financial shenanigans and the complicity of the suck-up financial press. In Played with Fire it’s sex trafficking. That’s fine as an issue, but the novel takes a little longer to get going than the first one. But, jeezy-creezy, once it gets going it’s a roller coaster ride. The second is a direct sequel to the first, so it’s better to read them in order.

  82. 82.

    Steeplejack

    @Betsy:

    [. . .] I was given a gift card for Barnes and Noble and you can’t put that toward their used books grumble.

    That’s because their used-book service is a pass-through to independent vendors. You’re not really buying them from B&N.

  87. 87.

    JGabriel

    parksideq:

    [Jenny Sanford] just needed to wait long enough so that her peacing out wouldn’t torpedo her investment his career.

    Bingo. That’s exactly the point I was trying to make.

    .

  89. 89.

    Linkmeister

    @Steeplejack: I’m in about Chapter 5 of “Played with Fire.” It’s a credit to the translator that the books work as well as they do, considering a large chunk of the English-speaking audience hasn’t a clue about Sweden.

  90. 90.

    Steeplejack

    @John Cole:

    Okay, Mr. Bulletproof, let’s see some pics or video of you mouth-wrestling Tunch orLily over a piece of leftover Chateaubriand.

    I have some good facial-reconstruction surgeons on speed dial for later.

  91. 91.

    GregB

    Nixonland and The Eliminationists should be on everyone’s short list.

    Jonah Goldberg and Bernie Goldberg should be on everyone’s shitlist.

    -G

  94. 94.

    stibbert

    i saw the recent ‘Inspector Wallender’ series on PBS, so i’m sure i’ll have to pick up H. Mankell’s work.

    for hardboiled action down under in Oz, y’all have got to check out Peter Temple’s ‘The Broken Shore’ (Oz-speak glossary included) & ‘Black Tide’, which is 2nd of a series. i’ve not looked at his newest ‘Identity Theory’ yet, it’s an int’l thrilla, touted as his break-in to the USA market.

    there’s a series of 5 books by expatriate-yank Olen Steinhauer, the 1st is named ‘The Bridge of Sighs’. A wonderful series of procedurals set behind the Iron Curtain. a bit weird, though – at the end of the 5th book, pert’ much all the earlier characters have been killed off.

    then in his 6th book ‘The Tourist’, he ices the 5th books sole survivor early on. his writing takes no prisoners, neither.

  95. 95.

    Ash Can

    Went to an estate sale today in Munster, IN, and learned that Munster has a noon whistle. My childhood hometown used to have a noon whistle. Boy, did that take me back.

  99. 99.

    Steeplejack

    @Linkmeister:

    Yeah, the translator (I presume) does a good job of throwing in discreet little modifiers to clue you in to cultural nuances, e.g., “He pointed the car toward the yuppie enclave of Snordeberg.” I made up that town name because I forget the real one, but presumably a Swedish reader wouldn’t have to be told that. Sort of like an American reader would come to the table with some prefab associations about, say, “the Hamptons” or “Haight-Ashbury.”

    There are some clunkers, though. One police officer tells another that he has “made a rendezvous” for the following morning at a magazine office; probably that would be better as “made an appointment.” And in the early going I was struck by some faux precision in numbers. Somebody is looking at an office and mentally notes that it’s a cubicle 6½ by 10 feet. What’s with the ½?! That jangles. Then I realized the cubicle is probably 2 by 3 meters, and the translator translated that a little too literally. In another place a character says a small town is “about 24 miles” away, or something like that. Who is that precise with “about”? Usually you estimate by 10’s, maybe by 5’s. But 24 miles is 40 kilometers. “About 40 kilometers” makes more sense.

    For myself, when I’m reading a foreign novel, I don’t mind if they use meters, kilometers, etc., rather than converting them. It actually adds to the foreign vibe. One place where I could have used some help, though, was with the value of the Swedish krona. In both books there is a lot of money flying around–one character pays 25 million kronor for what is obviously a Manhattan-level luxury penthouse–but it was hard to get a handle on the smaller amounts: someone’s savings account, how much was paid for a motorcycle, etc. I guessed about 10 kronor to the dollar, which was not too far off, but I looked at a currency conversion Web site tonight, and the krona is about 7 to the dollar. Would have been nice to have a quickie footnote in the early part of the book(s) to tip off the reader.

    Incidentally, this same thing drives me nuts in 19th-century novels. E.g., “I am reliably informed that Mr. Figby has an income of three hundred [pounds] a year.” So is he set for life? Is he barely scraping by? What? Again, toss me a footnote to give me a clue.

    Er, my apologies if this got a little too OCD copyeditor-y.

  100. 100.

    Linkmeister

    @Steeplejack: Re exchange rates: just remember Mr. Micawber.

    “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

  101. 101.

    Steeplejack

    @stibbert:

    There’s actually a Swedish Wallander TV series that I liked better than the Branagh one. Have seen various episodes on MHz WorldView, an obscure cable channel that shows up on some cable systems (chart on the Wikipedia page).

    There’s an anthology series, International Mystery, on Sunday and Tuesday nights that shows various European mystery series: Wallander, Montalbano, The Octopus and Homicide Squad (Italian), Maigret (French), Scene of the Crime (German). Worth checking out if you get the MHz channel.

  102. 102.

    JGabriel

    stibbert:

    at the end of the 5th book, pert’ much all the earlier characters have been killed off.

    Yeah, a similiar thing happens in Angel. By the last episode, pretty much every major character is either dead (Angel, Doyle, Cordy, Wesley, Fred, Spike, Harmony, Darla, Lilah, Lindsey, Hollis, etc.) or dying (Gunn). Of course, as vampires, Angel, Spike and Harmony start off dead, so an argument can be made that they don’t count, but there’s still a remarkably high death toll on that series.

    I think the only characters that survive are Angel’s son, Connor, and Lorne, the singing empath demon.

    .

  104. 104.

    Steeplejack

    @John Cole:

    Cole!

    Must acknowledge your stab at late-night clip-linking, although you do lord it over us peons by embedding the video in the actual message. That song takes me back. Haven’t listened to it in ages.

    Go ahead, have another mojito, sleep in tomorrow and forget to feed the pets in the morning. See how that works out for you.

  107. 107.

    Fencedude

    @Mark S.:

    Megan McCardle’s head just exploded. (Mine did too, actually.)

    A point was made on Marketplace a while back that Healthcare reform is a net gain for drug makers, because even if the prices go down some, if everyone who is uninsured becomes insured, MORE DRUGS WILL BE BOUGHT.

  108. 108.

    MediaGlutton

    I come here for the political coverage, but I stay for John’s daily stories. There’s a little epiphany in each one that always delights me.

  109. 109.

    Comrade Kevin

    At what hour, Eastern time, will John Cole’s first coherent blog entry be tomorrow?

  110. 110.

    Steeplejack

    @John Cole:

    ZOMG! Cole is in rare night-owl mode and there’s no one left awake. I know Laura W is a lightweight, but where is Fuckhead. Where is AsiangrrlMN?

    Good clips, man. As I mentioned a while back, I picked up Ghost in the Machine recently after not listening to it in a long time, and it really holds up.

    Here’s a night-night clip for you. I know you like James Brown, so you must like the J.B.’s. “King Heroin.”

    Steep out.

  111. 111.

    Linkmeister

    What is the geographic distribution of the BJ bloggers (not the commenters), anyway? John’s in WV, but where are Tim and Doug and Anne?

  113. 113.

    Ash Can

    @Comrade Kevin: Maybe he should do like my husband does: stay up late on Saturday night enjoying good food and drink, get up at the buttcrack of dawn on Sun. for 18 holes of golf, and then spend the rest of Sunday napping.

    Then again, the pets might not be too thrilled about that. Tunch would probably be teaching Lily what to do with John’s shoe rack and shirt drawer after that, and it could get pretty ugly.

    OK, scratch the golf.

  115. 115.

    steve s

    “Yeah, a similiar thing happens in Angel. By the last episode, pretty much every major character….”

    please, Mr. Cole, delete everything this douchebag said. Those are serious spoilers.

  116. 116.

    Steeplejack

    @Linkmeister:

    I can only go by my experience. I’m on the East Coast, regularly get home late at night from the part-time gig (health insurance!), and most of the threads are dead or dying by 1:00 a.m. my time. How many pithy, insightful posts have I launched into the void, only to have them die unanswered as the last one in a thread? Rhetorical question.

    I have wondered about the West Coasters, but there doesn’t seem to be a big groundswell from them. Midnight here would be 9:00 p.m. on the West Coast. Dinner over, kids in bed or calmed down, should be an ideal time to get on the Intertubes and blog away.

    Doug is in New York state. I think Tim is in Atlanta. I have no idea about Anne. Maybe Pennsylvania?

  119. 119.

    steve s

    Attention Douchebags: lots of people watch tv shows on DVD now. Don’t give away the major fucking plot twists for at least a few years.

  125. 125.

    Steeplejack

    @Linkmeister:

    I would have thought you would have typhoons in the Pacific, but I guess if they’re American they’re hurricanes. Leave those foreign-sounding typhoons to the goddamn Japanese.

    I figured you must be in Alaska (EDT – 4). I have a friend in Fairbanks with whom I talk regularly. So are you on a ship between Hawaii (EDT – 5) and the West Coast? Can’t think of any island groups between Hawaii and California.

  126. 126.

    Mrs. Peel

    I think the only characters that survive are Angel’s son, Connor, and Lorne, the singing empath demon.

    Plus Gunn and the Fred/Illyria morphy thingy.

  127. 127.

    Steeplejack

    @Linkmeister:

    Oh, right. I was adding an hour the wrong way. You’re EDT – 6, not 4.

    I guess it’s time for me to go to bed.

    But I do always check the late-night threads the next morning to see what happened overnight.

  128. 128.

    Mrs. Peel

    @steve s:

    Get over yourself. Angel went off the air 5 years ago. Pretty self centered to think no one would ever talk about it between then and now.

    Now don’t get your panties in a bunch, but Miss Fine married Mr. Shefield and they had twins.

    And Will and Graces kids got married! ! To each other! !

    Gasp!

    Also.

  129. 129.

    MikeJ

    ” And in the early going I was struck by some faux precision in numbers. Somebody is looking at an office and mentally notes that it’s a cubicle 6½ by 10 feet.

    I remember watching the Simpsons when I was working in Stockholm. In the ep where Lisa Kudrow voices the new kid in school, she tells Lisa that she “could drop five pounds.” Except when they translated to Swedish she said Lisa should “drop 2.5 kilos.”

  131. 131.

    bago

    I am biking across town racking up points on foursquare. I brought backup batteries for my iPhone and headset.

  132. 132.

    Chuck Butcher

    As a construction worker I would loath working in metric, a meter isn’t too bad but then the units go to hell for eyeballing. Centimeters are too small or large and millimeters are rediculously precise, for framing a 1/16th inch is immaterial.

  133. 133.

    Mrs. Peel

    @Mrs. Peel: And even they were alive at the end of the series, you’re supposed to understand that they were all wiped out about 5 minutes after the camera goes dark.

  134. 134.

    cliff

    @JGabriel:

    Meh.

    I still don’t get wth red wine has to do with tenderloin other than as a nice reduction glaze.

    ..color me clueless..

  135. 135.

    OriGuy

    I’m in Carson City tonight, after orienteering at Lake Tahoe. Dinner last night was Jameson salmon with an Ichthyosaur IPPA from Great Basin Brewery. Tonight’s was Cajun shrimp at the Doppelganger brewpub with the pale ale and the amber.
    Another day of orienteering tomorrow, then back to San Jose.

  137. 137.

    2th&nayle

    @Steeplejack: Not to worry, Jack. The moderation keeps a constant vigil to keep the alternate political system advocates and the male sex drug peddlers at bay. No way your pithy insights go unappreciated.

  139. 139.

    OGB

    Pretty sure my girlfriend broke up with me via text last night….oh well. Went to dinner and dancing with a different ex-girlfriend (now very good friend) tonight. About 250 mls into a bottle of Dewers and listening to Beirut (http://www.beirutband.com/) now. Feeling good, and happy to be in San Diego. Feels strange to be happy, given the teabaggers, and general Republican insanity this week…
    Also, excited to get my new painting from my friend Pete in a few days (http://peterhalasz.com/toc/NEWWORKTOC/NEWWORKTOC.htm). “Some days we’re all alone on the banks of the Rhine….”

  141. 141.

    JGabriel

    @steve s:

    Attention Douchebags: lots of people watch tv shows on DVD now. Don’t give away the major fucking plot twists for at least a few years.

    Attention Moron: Angel (1999-2004) went off the air five fucking years ago. That’s half a decade. I think that counts as “at least a few years”.

    .

  142. 142.

    Meyer

    I never expected to get much out of this first healthcare bill and always saw it as a stepping stone to better policy and ending this “third rail” attitude toward healthcare. I think, in this environment, with the GOP and media seemingly in cahoots to concern troll healthcare reform out of existence, managing to get one of the main industry opponents to fervently support it is a neat trick.

    I never expected healthcare reform to be anythng but a stepping stone. If we get out of this with guaranteed issue (including pre-existing conditions) and no lifetime cap, that’s a hell of a start.

    As for Pharma, they are facing a very real import problem. They simply cannot keep selling drugs for a fraction of the price overseas. They are already seeing smuggling, and a huge percentage of their population is a quick drive, or boat ride, away from a pharmacy that – given the price differential – is willing to sell them the goods for a small fraction of the domestic cost. If that’s too onerous, we’re already seeing mail order solutions and are likely to see more – and smuggling, if it’s not already prevalent, will soon be.

    And, seriously, who wants that kind of a trial. “I needed XXXX to stay alive and my insurance company would not cover it, so it was die or smuggle. ” Eh?

    I’m not thinking *anyone* wants that. Not the pharma company, not the insurance company, not the feds. Nobody.

    Someone on Kos made an excellent point, BTW. If our medical system is so fookin’ great, where are the people lining up to set it up in their country? WalMart, Coke, McDonalds – they operate around the world. Why not Blue Cross? Hmmm?

    Where are the people coming to this country for treatment? They exist, sure, but given the dollar’s weakened state, they should be here in *droves*. Where are they? Hmmm?

    Why are U.S. citizens heading to Costa Rica or New Zealand or India or China or Thailand for relatively routine treatments. Hmmm?

  143. 143.

    RedKitten

    BTW- I’ve had 4 mojitos now. I’m bulletproof.

    Mmm…mojitos.

    Cole, I had a weird dream last night that you and I went from WV to New York…on a bicycle. (And yes, I was still 9 months pregnant in this dream) You were a perfect gentleman, though, and let me sit on the bicycle seat while you stood and pedaled.

    I must be spending way too much time here.

  144. 144.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Steeplejack: I love, love, love Henning Mankell’s books. I really do. I have Girl with the Dragon Tattoo at the recommendation of many friends, but I haven’t read it yet. I didn’t know there were cinematic versions of the Mankell books. I will have to check it out.

    I crashed early last night. I have been getting four hours of sleep a night, which is fine, but that means that my sleep cycle is really screwy now. I’m sorry that I missed ya!

    And, everyone knows that Anya died in the last episode of Buffy, right?

  145. 145.

    asiangrrlMN

    @RedKitten: Great dream, Krista! I dreamed of a BJ party in real life once. Very weird because nobody in my dream looked like I imagine you guys in real life.

    Mojitos are teh yummy, but they are also very sneaky. “Ooooh, no alcohol, no alcohol, no alco–wooooah, alcohol!”

  147. 147.

    RedKitten

    @asiangrrlMN: No kidding. I once bought a bottle of that pre-mixed mojito (no, I know it’s not the same, but at least I added my own fresh mint), and well, the 750ml bottle really seemed to disappear quite quickly. In other words, I drank the entire damned thing. It made for a very happy drunk, though, until I found myself lying on my bathroom floor, with my head resting on the bathroom scale. Hey, that was the precise location and position in which I was comfortable, so woe be upon the person who tried to move me, right?

  148. 148.

    MR Bill

    Good morning from Trendy Blue Ridge GA, 70 degrees, 90 expected..
    Me and the son got given tickets to community theater The Fantasticks, this afternoon and we’ll go to the lake to swim first.
    Pancakes for breakfast. Life is good.

  149. 149.

    asiangrrlMN

    @RedKitten: Damn right! I am a lightweight, anyway, so drinking half a mojito in five minutes just about did me in. The problem is, they are so tasty and refreshing, it really doesn’t feel like there is any alcohol in ’em until, whoops! I can’t walk straight.

  150. 150.

    Demo Woman

    Morning! It’s going to be another hot day and I have yard work to do which I plan on doing early.
    John is a tad late with his Sunday Morning open thread.

  153. 153.

    Comrade Darkness

    @Currants: Interesting. Must be where you live. We came back from two months abroad and are pleasantly surprised by how nice everyone is to one another. (Aside from one guy at the farmer’s market a few weeks ago who was whacked out on anger about something incomprehensible.)

  154. 154.

    Comrade Darkness

    We’re halfway through prep of pork hocks. Never made them before, but a pack of three these things was only 2.40 in the mysterious animal parts sections of the meat case. They’ve braised for 3.5 hours in an anise mushroom broth (which just got filtered off and frozen for reuse), cooled down to gel the pectins, and tonight they get dropped in the deep fryer to turn the skin to crackling and heat them back up.

  157. 157.

    Steeplejack

    @Linkmeister:

    Yeah, I figured it was the date line. But I’m so old-school I still think all storms should be named after women. “Hurricane Bob”? Just doesn’t sound right.

  158. 158.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Yeah, the Swedish Wallander just feels right. I mean, Christ, they’re speaking Swedish and everything! In Sweden! Who’da thunk it? The police station looks like an ad for IKEA office furniture, the countryside and towns look interesting when they get out and about, and you get the feeling that there is a different (non-USA/British) sensibility at work.

    In one episode the federal police send down some politically savvy dude to take over a sensitive case about racial hate crimes. Turns out the government is trying to “manage” the case to protect a rising politician. The big confrontation: Kurt Wallander talks to the federal cop at the train station and basically says, “You think you’re a good policeman? Then try acting like one.” No Pacino histrionics, no brawling in the squad room. All very understated, but the point gets made–you can tell the fed is really hit hard by the accusation–and you don’t feel like Swedish cops are p*ssies because they aren’t always crashing their cars at 90 mph (oops!–I mean 150 kmph) or blasting away at the slightest provocation. And the presence of women on the force–a lot of women, and in positions of authority–is taken for granted.

  159. 159.

    Steeplejack

    @Laura W:

    Further thoughts on “December’s Boudoir”: I have always admired Nyro’s ability to really put herself out there in raw emotion. Joni Mitchell does it too, but usually in a more cryptic (and therefore protected) way.

    Also woke up this morning thinking that this song reminds me of CSN’s “My Lady of the Island.”

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