Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Second rate reporter says what?

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

We’re not going back!

I was promised a recession.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You cannot shame the shameless.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Consistently wrong since 2002

People are complicated. Love is not.

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Open Thread

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

Comrade Luke, Paris.

paris1

Shawn, Stockholm Harbor.

stockholm

Email me a link to your one or two favorite pics on a photo site like Flickr (do not send the image itself please) and I will put up favorites in open threads. Send a short caption if you want one.

***Update***

To view all of the photo posts at Balloon Juice, click the ‘photo blogging’ tag at the bottom of the post.

Reader Interactions

87Comments

  4. 4.

    slag

    I must say that Jon Stewart has been on absolute fire this week. The first couple of segments mocking the media on Tuesday had me on the floor. Tears. Tears were streaming. It’s no wonder people in the media don’t like him. Cuts like a knife.

  7. 7.

    Atanarjuat

    Love the framed symmetry of the first shot, and the second shot has that nice vintage postcard look to it.

    Shawn, I take it that you did a little HDR, or the photo just turned out that way after postprocessing?

    -A

  11. 11.

    R-Jud

    The hedgehogs are dying off. I has a sad:

    Dr Pat Morris, the grandfather of all hedgehog scientists, reckoned that the British hedgehog population in the mid-90s was, very roughly, about two million. Today, that figure might be down to a million. As nobody has any idea of the population dynamics once the overall numbers are so radically depleted, there is no telling what will happen next. And apart from Bright’s work, almost nothing is being done to find out.

    Sgt. Prickle, who lives at the bottom of our garden, is doing fine. But he must be pretty lonely.

  14. 14.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    Behold the Doomsday Tea Party:

    For more than a decade Dr. Igor Panarin, a Russian academic, has been predicting that sometime around 2010 the United States will collapse, splintering into separate states, some of them controlled by foreign powers. Outside of Russia, no one’s put much stock in his crackpot and stereotype-based theories—until now, that is. Who are the newest members of the Igor Panarin fan club? Tea partiers who’ve rallied against the Obama administration’s policies and blasted the president for pushing a “socialist” agenda. And he’s especially big among tea party activists in Texas, who have hosted Panarin and promoted his work.

    I think we now have confirmation that TimF was right. We aren’t anywhere near peak wingnut. As a matter of fact I would argue that it doesn’t exist. Not even in theory. I won’t waste your time with my rationale but some of these people are literally insane. Also. Too.

  15. 15.

    flukebucket

    Might I say that I absolutely love these picture threads.

    All of you Juicers are so suave and worldly.

    That is why I love coming here. For a man who rarely leaves the county this site makes me feel well traveled and damn near intelligent.

  18. 18.

    Shawn

    @Atanarjuat: Yes, it was an early attempt at HDR, using Photomatix. Handheld with a Nikon D200, because I was walking all over the city and didn’t want to drag a tripod around.

  19. 19.

    Betsy

    Both of these are gorgeous! I am also loving these picture threads. Who knew there was so much photographic talent around here?

  24. 24.

    Joel

    stockholm is a beautiful city, especially around christmas.

    i have pictures stashed somewhere, but it’s mostly of me and some friends drinking in public and making vulgar poses with the statues around town.

  27. 27.

    GregB

    Do we have any similar beautiful pictures of US architecture? Perhaps a strip mall or a a series of stucco fast food restaurants?

    -G

  34. 34.

    catclub

    OT: tropical storm Ida is likely to be Obamas Katrina.

    And you thought his mismanagement of H1N1 vaccines
    was bad!

    Maybe God’s wrath for Gene Taylor (D- Blue Dog, MS)
    (Federal flood insurance is fine for houses, but federal health insurance for people? That’s crazy talk.)

  36. 36.

    R-Jud

    @jeffreyw: Awwwww. He’s totally playing the cute card there. “Yes, I ate all your shoes and widdled on the heater, but lookit my BIG PUPPY EYES!”

  37. 37.

    BombIranForChrist

    I think I am opening myself up to ridicule here, but here’s a question:

    Let’s say HCR goes down in flames.

    If it does, I think one reason would be due to the disproportionate voice that people in rural, low population states have in the Senate. Essentially, a small bad of Blue Democrats from small places can derail the needs of millions upon millions of people.

    I wonder if there is a way to bypass all this mess and use the power of numbers to get what we want (assuming you want HCR). Namely, could a confederation of states (insert ridicule) like California, New York, the Northeast, the Northwest, etc. come together and create a sort of loose partnership where they all pass similar laws reforming healthcare, and due to the size of their markets, most everyone else either follows suit or gets some of the benefit?

    And yes, I am from the South, but I am not suggesting the blue states secede …

  42. 42.

    smiley

    The teabaggers must be so disappointed. Even Fox news is only covering today’s event in D.C. intermittently. You have to go all the way to CSPAN3 to see it live.

  44. 44.

    ellaesther

    @R-Jud: O.M.G. That is one insanely adorable child! And I say this as someone whose own offspring used to stop traffic, too, so I know of what I speak! (Sadly, now they’re too big to be truly adorable. I occasionally ask them why the heck they aren’t cute anymore? Then they laugh at me). I very rarely get that “golly, wouldn’t another baby be nice” feeling, but your wee one could be the poster child for human reproduction.

  48. 48.

    linda

    capitol hill teabaggers keeping it classy – via tpm:

    On the other hand, in the crowd Boehner is speaking to, there’s a rally poster with images of corpses from Dachau denouncing “National Socialist Health Care.”

  53. 53.

    Dreggas

    According to TPM AARP is now a supporter of soshulism and has endorsed the Dem’s healthplan hoping to decrease their membership since republicans say it will kill seniors.

  54. 54.

    ellaesther

    @asiangrrlMN: Iz tru! In the best of senses (sensez?)!

    But, in an aside, may I say: Better to have had an edit function and to have lost it, than to never have had an edit function at all. I know not of this “edit function” on Balloon Juice of which you all speak with such fond memory.

    Not, of course, that I’m bitter.

  56. 56.

    ellaesther

    @asiangrrlMN: (Mind you, on the “verbose blog” front, for the two of us, it is kind of a case of the pot calling the kettle black…. Or, you know, verbose. “You’re verbose, you pot!” “No, you’re verbose, you kettle!”)

  63. 63.

    Tom Hilton

    Both lovely. And I love the addition of these photo threads to break up the tedium of politics. I myself have been focusing much more on the photoblogging than on political blogging, and I’m having a lot more fun at it.

  65. 65.

    Ash Can

    @ellaesther:

    “Health care reform is the “the greatest threat to freedom the fiction that the GOP is still a serious political party in the last 19 years.”

    What he was thinking.

  69. 69.

    RedKitten

    @R-Jud:

    Current favorite offspring photo. Butter wouldn’t melt.

    Sam highly approves of his affianced. He was bawling his eyes out, and then upon seeing that photo, just stopped. His eyes got big, and one corner of his mouth went up in his “aren’t I charming?” grin.

  70. 70.

    licensed to kill time

    I am loving these photo threads, and thanks for the tip on photo blogging tag. I also secondy thirdy eleventybilliony the sentiment “Open Threads Good” as a relief from the political swamp. I really rely on this site for sanity in wading through the gas emitted from said swamp.

    @ellaesther: I have heard so many similar comments, like Rep. Virginia Foxx who thinks ” health care is more of a threat than any terrorist right now in our country” and the usual gasbags Beck and Limbaugh. WTF is WRONG with these people?!

    Purely rhetorical question.

  71. 71.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @R-Jud: Givz me a sad, too.

    I love hedgehogs. I’ve collected them for years (ceramic, glass, carvings, pinecones, etc. — not real ones). Something I would love to do on my next trip to the UK is visit Saint Tiggywinkle’s http://www.sttiggywinkles.org.uk/ which takes care of abandoned/orphaned/injured hedgehogs and other small creatures.

  72. 72.

    arguingwithsignposts

    I am sick of the constant fundraising e-mails. Already today, I’ve received e-mails from DFA, IAVA and BoldProgress. Yesterday it was Chris Dodd. STFU people. I am not an ATM.

  74. 74.

    Comrade Luke

    Thanks for posting my pic, and all of the compliments in the comments. Except for the one that said it’s vaguely pornographic. I’ll never be able to look at this picture the same way again :)

    This was taken around 10:30 or so at night, after having walked all around town (about 10hrs at that point) with a Nikon D700 kit. It was really heavy and I don’t know if I’d do it again, but it was worth it.

    I’d been in line to get into the Tower for 2+ hrs, then came back down and was walking way when I happened to look up. I thought it was a pretty amazing view, so I bent way back and took the picture. No tripod, just handheld. I damn near fell over :)

    I ended up taking almost 2000 pictures on my trip (Croatia, Rome and Paris) and my favorite is one where I just bent backwards, snapped it and left. Go figure.

    Anyway, thanks again for the mention.

  79. 79.

    Fergus Wooster

    Thanks! I keep trying to focus on landscapes and textures, but she’s such a good muse, I can’t resist.

  81. 81.

    gex

    Not for nothing: I accidentally ended up on a Brett Favre article over at the American Spectator. Please don’t ask me to explain. I do think it interesting that some of the commenters believe that problems in the NFL are caused by ACORN and social ism. Incredible.

  82. 82.

    Origuy

    I haz no Flickr site. When I come up for air after this weekend, I’ll set something up. I’ve been meaning to for a long time. Until then, for some dramatic USA architecture, google “sundial bridge redding”.

  86. 86.

    Shawn

    Thanks for all your kind words and comments. Never thought about making that Stockholm picture a jigsaw puzzle, my mom would love it.

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