Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Cancel the cowardly WaPo and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

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

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

A norm that restrains only one side really isn’t a norm – it’s a trap.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

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

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

People are complicated. Love is not.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Let there be snark.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

No one could have predicted…

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

So many bastards, so little time.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

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94Comments

  3. 3.

    Max

    I am surprised no The Who is honor of their Superbowl halftime gig.

    I don’t know much, but I guarantee that my Bills will be watching the halftime show from their couches in Western NY.

  5. 5.

    Yutsano

    Late night dinner brag: rib roast with garlic-parmesan mashed potatoes and corn. Read it and weep bitchez.

  9. 9.

    Corner Stone

    @Max:

    I don’t know much, but I guarantee that my Bills will be watching the halftime show from their couches in Western NY.

    Wow. Daring you are.
    What’s next? You predict water’s wet? Sun rises in East? Dog bites man?

    (This is a joke btw)

  18. 18.

    MikeJ

    Holy shit! CBC is telling me about something called, “pot, grass or weed.” It’s the success the story no one wants to talk about, BC Bud!

    Ahem. Carry on.

  26. 26.

    MBSS

    all the libertarian bashing from earlier makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. or maybe that was the mimosa. +1

  28. 28.

    Anne Laurie

    @Yutsano: Just replied to your Shiba-vs.-Dane comment on the Lily thread.

    Keep writing food pr0n, and one of these days I’ll show up on your doorstep looking to be adopted…

  30. 30.

    MBSS

    food prons?

    pesto pasta with potatoes and green beens, along with a rye bread topped with sweet local farmers market tomatoes sprinkled with salt and pepper, and a mimosa.

    i am stuffed, but there’s always room for ice cream.

  31. 31.

    Svensker

    @Morbo:

    Following up on my previous medieval metal entry:

    I still can’t get over bagpipes in a German metal band. And singing in Latin. Mind bent.

  32. 32.

    Anne Laurie

    Sleepytime music: Fireflies

    I’d like to make myself believe / That Planet Earth turns slowly / It’s hard to say that I’d rather stay awake when I’m asleep / Because my dreams are bursting at the seams…

  35. 35.

    gwangung

    Am trying a marinade of brown sugar, liquid smoke, lime juice, soy sauce and minced garlic. We’ll see how it works (or doesn’t work….).

  36. 36.

    MBSS

    this question has haunted me for years. maybe you guys can help.

    how can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?

  40. 40.

    JK

    @Cat Lady

    Everyone learned something from the Beatles.

    Absolutely, the Beatles are the Mount Everest of rock bands.

    I can’t wait to see how Mad Men deals with the Beatles’ arrival in the US.

    Two of Us – The Beatles
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1Y3PlmwnRM

    Wolf Blitzer and David Gregory are two of the biggest fucking morons on cable news.

  42. 42.

    Yutsano

    @Anne Laurie:

    Keep writing food pr0n, and one of these days I’ll show up on your doorstep looking to be adopted…

    Oh when it comes to food pr0n I am a rank amateur next to jeffreyw. In fact half this conversation is an attempt to tease him out of the lurkwork to report on his dinner plans. Plus he has two puppehs.

  44. 44.

    tams

    for those of you who didn’t see this in the other post…. ”

    vodka tonic and laphroiag… seems like a good night to me… although, it does make me miss the hubs as laphroiag is his drink of choice. i had the great fortune to have Cole as my date this evening as he is my surrogate hubs… wine, beer, and too many laughs and smiles to count make for a great night.
    many of you bloggers love john for his brilliance in writing, his honesty about news and daily life events, and more… i simply love him for just being himself. i’m lucky to know him. i’m lucky to have known him for almost 10 years now, i’m lucky to have him as my bestest friend, surrogate hubs, and the one i can count on… many of you don’t know how spectacular he is, and for that, i’m sad for you. his dedication to his work, pets, and friends (and bloggers!) is unmatched… you’ve gotta a stellar guy here people… even if his dog bites me and his cat shits in my pumpkin. (=:=)

  45. 45.

    Anne Laurie

    @Yutsano:

    Plus he has two puppehs.

    You want a half-sized imitation Border Collie bitch who’s so alpha she lifts a back leg when she pees? Our new rescue papillon Gloria is driving the Spousal Unit crazy, not so much by humping his leg as by pestering our aging ex-feral cats relentlessly. At 17lbs, almost 16 inches at the shoulder, she’s probably Too Much Dog for us, but she’s five years old and I’m praying she’ll settle down… eventually…

  47. 47.

    Splitting Image

    Even the Floyds themselves seem to have ended up hating it, but one of my favourite albums of theirs is Atom Heart Mother. I enjoy the title track even if Roger and David don’t, and “If” and “Summer of ’68” are two of the best songs the group ever did.

    I also think Meddle is probably the best of the lot.

  49. 49.

    hamletta

    @JK: Not impressed by Beck’s Bolero. I much prefer Ravel’s, cheesy as it is.

    It also times perfectly with my ride to work, as I found out one day when it came on the radio: I thought my valves were clicking when I started up my old truck, but it was just the drums at the start. The piece built and built as I drove up Nashville’s best kept secret in the glorious bloom of spring, and it reached its climax as I pulled into my parking space in the near-deserted office park.

    I like songs that dispense with the verse-chorus-verse structure for one long crescendo, like “White Rabbit.”

    But it has to be done well. If you’re going to stab the king, you must kill the king.

  50. 50.

    hamletta

    @tams: Hey, tams!

    You sure are lucky to know John in real life. I’m one of those flamin’ libruls who got to know him online in the early days.

    He’s a beautiful cat. And he opens himself up on this blog in a way that I couldn’t do. We all love how he loves Tunch, Lily, and you guys.

    We love him bunches, even us lurkers.

  51. 51.

    asiangrrlMN

    @tams: Aw, so very sweet. What a nice tribute to our bloghost.

    Cole, we must be mind-melding because my next CD for mah listening pleasure and writing inspiration is…The Wall. The writing, it goes so slowly tonight. Sigh.

    @Yutsano: Yum. I knew there was a reason I fake-married you (and it’s not for your hot bod because, sadly, you don’t swing my way).

  52. 52.

    Anne Laurie

    @Yutsano: Ha! Did you miss the line about how “Papillons are built for movement, and most do not need any encouragement to apply their energy to athletic activities”? Gloria is within the metrics of “backyard” Papillonhood — she’s twice the size of a show specimen, and her head is more “collie-nosed” than the standard, but she’s got the proper structure, pretty good ears, excellent markings and a better Papillon coat (silky & with no undercoat) than our first three Paps, all of whom were from a top breeder & one of whom had points towards her confirmation championship. And much as I love the Butterflies, it needs to be said that the girls especially can be bossy godsdamned dogs. She’s just a Big Healthy Girl, who ideally would be living with a more active family that could channel her energy into agility or flyball, especially since she’s REALLY SMART (she can’t work doorknobs, but she knows to paw the knob instead of the door, something not many dogs figure out). But since the alternative to staying with us, at the end of August, was euthanasia… well, we’re her third home in six months, and she’s not so old or so damaged that she can’t learn to adapt. Although if her “perfect home” were to appear in the next couple of months, we’d miss her but we’d still let her go…

  53. 53.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: Don;t fret about the writing, that will only make the idea block worse. I know this might be heretical, but you might just try leaving it alone for a day. Let your brain refresh.

  54. 54.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Yutsano: I have the ideas; I just am worn out from my spate of production yesterday. And, I would love to give it a rest, but my CDO (Compulsive Disorder Obsessive) won’t let me. I set a daily goal for myself, and I am going to meet it, damn it. I had to write extra yesterday to make up for two days before. Yeah, it’s gonna kill me, but what a way to die!

  55. 55.

    Yutsano

    @Anne Laurie: The big issue there (and why I’m leaning towards a puppy vs. an adult dog) is that I have animals, specifically chickens, that dogs have a habit of funning to death. So she’d have to be taught that unless my parents would be willing to take her. They have a horse ranch, she’d NEVER get bored there.

  56. 56.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: You know dying is not the best way to get FH #1 over here to meet you. He more than likely would, but, uhh, yeah, funerals are not good ways of meeting folks.

  57. 57.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Yutsano: This is true. And, I wouldn’t really get to MEET him, would I? And, you two would hit it off fabulously WITHOUT the Asian meat in the middle of the gay-boy sandwich. Which, by the way, would really piss me off. So, no dying for me. I am two-thirds of the way to today’s goal, so I’m gonna gut it out.

  58. 58.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: Trust me hon, inasmuch as we would be happy to get pissed just on our own, it definitely would be lacking a distinct zip without your faboo presence. So how’s about a well-wish whilst you type?

  61. 61.

    Steeplejack

    Hey, I’ve got my own earworms tonight. Have queued up a slew of MP3s from my research over the past few months and put them in shuffle mode in Windows Media Player. Currently listening to “Go All the Way” by the Raspberries.

    Just before was “Sometimes I Can’t Keep from Crying Sometimes” by Deirdre Wilson Tabac, which somehow I missed back in the day (circa 1971). Laura W will cry eek!, but I have always liked this mashup of it with a snippet from the film I Am Cuba.

    Ooh! “Back Stabbers.” O’Jays. Gotta blow.

  68. 68.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Nah, I’m sucking down suds and getting caught up on the Balloon Juice threads after another late night at the part-time gig. Just listening to (wildly various) music in the background. Interesting that you post “Maria Maria,” because my current song is “My Maria,” B.W. Stevenson. Synchronicity? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

    Want to give you props again for banging out 50,000 words in the NaNoWriMo thing. You are my hero.

  70. 70.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Steeplejack: You said you gotta blow, so I thought you meant leave. Didn’t know you meant, ahem, something else.

    Fanks! I’m kinda proud of myself. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m aiming for over 100,000 words for NaNoWriMo after tomorrow night. Shhhhh!

  74. 74.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    One hundred thousand! That’s positively Proustian. Are you sure the dilithium crystals can stand the strain?!

    Nice vid for “Slippery When Wet.”

    (Current song: “Jessie’s Girl,” Rick Springfield.)

  77. 77.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Steeplejack: Oooh! Guilty pleasure of mine (RS’s Jessie’s Girl). I had to look up dilithium crystals because I am not a Trekkie.

    I just wanted to set an ambitious goal for myself this NaNoWriMo to see if I could do it. So far, so good.

  78. 78.

    Steeplejack

    You said earlier that you have been successful by harnessing your OCD CDO tendencies. How is that working out? And do you think you can sustain it (through revision, rewriting, editing, etc.) after NaNoWriMo?

    Current song: “Union Man,” the Cate Brothers. These guys aren’t black, but they should be.

  79. 79.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Steeplejack: CDO works very well for NaNoWriMo because once I set a goal, I pretty much reach it. It’s also good for editing, revision, and rewriting. Where I haz a big fail is submitting my stories and actually getting published. CDO not so good there.

    Plus, I am very verbose, as is obvious by my posts here. Writing lots is pretty easy for me.

    P.S. The Cates Brothers are black; they just don’t know it.

  80. 80.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Where I haz a big fail is submitting my stories and actually getting published. CDO not so good there.

    This is where writers need agents. Someone to actually take the talent and get it to the money-type peoples. That pretty much frees you to indulge your CDO and write your tuchas off.

  81. 81.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    So are you writing stories rather than a novel? Are they (it) in a particular “genre” or just fiction? (I don’t mean “just” in a negative way.)

    Ooh! Gotta blow. “2 + 2 = ?,” the Bob Seger System. One of the great neglected antiwar songs of my youth.

    (“Gotta blow” means that some songs require heavy listening inconsistent with simultaneous Balloon Juice posting.)

  82. 82.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Yutsano: Yes. I need an agent. Then, I won’t have to sully my pure mind with the dirty end of the business. Snort.

    @Steeplejack: This is a novel. For NaNoWriMo, I write one full novel and start two other novels. (This is my third NaNoWriMo). I write mainly mystery novels, but I also write what most people would call contemporary fiction. Some people call my writing noir, but I have NO idea why. I write short stories as well. No genre. Just whatever I feel like writing. I have also done ScriptFrenzy twice. Wrote a full screenplay the first year (plus about half of the quintessential Asian American woman musical), and one screenplay last year–which turned out to be the first of a trilogy. I haven’t written the other two parts yet.

    Plus, I blog (linky in my username), but I have been lax on that during NaNoWriMo.

    Oh, and I do freelance editing for my day job.

  83. 83.

    asiangrrlMN

    All right, bitchez. I met my daily goal, so it’s time for me to pretend to sleep. See y’all on the flip side. Last one to leave turns out the light. Night!

  84. 84.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    This is my third NaNoWriMo.

    So do you consider the stuff you did in the previous ones “completed”? As in they’re done and they just need that elusive agent to get them out there and sell them?

    My issue is that I write a lot, but I end up with unconnected pieces that don’t connect into a whole work. Like I have designed and constructed the world’s greatest cloverleaf interchange, but the highways only go off three miles in each direction. Can’t get to Dayton from here. D’oh.

    Ooh, you gotta blow. This could be one to add to your stripper set: “Flesh for Fantasy,” Billy Idol. Mamacita!

  87. 87.

    burnspbesq

    If you like wild parties, Wellington, New Zealand is the place to be today. NZ qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1982.

  89. 89.

    Yutsano

    @Steeplejack: I am right now seriously considering job hunting just to be a short drive away from Vancouver and the Winter Games. It also happens to be a decent career move that could eventually take me to another country job-wise, but that factoid alone would make it worth it.

  90. 90.

    R-Jud

    @asiangrrlMN: Have no idea if you’ll see this but others might find it useful:

    Query Shark

    Literary agent gives aspiring writers gratis notes on their query letters.

    Read through the whole blog and do what she says. I’ve had three requests for a full manuscript after following her advice (in general, I mean; I never submitted a letter to her).

    One agent is due to get back to me next week, but I have a feeling she’ll say she probably can’t take the project.

    Whatever, I’m getting pulled off the pile.

  91. 91.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Oh, joy! Another retirement-age has-been megaband whose best years occurred when I was a child playing the Super Bowl halftime! Yay! Just what I wanted!

    /snark

    I guess I should be at least grateful that the Beatles didn’t get the opportunity to engage in the reunion/retirement home tour mania that goes on these days.

  92. 92.

    asiangrrlMN

    @R-Jud: Thanks, R-Jud. I bookmarked it. It should be really helpful. I love how the BJ community reaches out to each other.

    @arguingwithsignposts: Yeah, WTF? They are before my time! How about Duran Duran, just to bring it into my teen years? Sheesh.

    @Steeplejack: Rrrrrowr! How could I have forgotten this song? Definitely added to my stripper list.

    I have one completed novel from each of the last NaNoWriMo endeavors. I have many things that are completed, revised, and just need to be submitted. I have some that are completed, but a bit rough. I have some that are not completed at all.

    My short stories are not connected at all. Well, I do have certain themes that run throughout my work, but they are loose themes. I do not particularly care about tying my pieces together. If I ever published a book of short stories, it would pretty much be a mishmash.

    I have not seen Yi Yi, but I have added it to my Netflix Queue and made it number one. Of course this means I had to get rid of a movie because I have to have 50 movies in my Queue (thanks, CDO), but I really want to see this movie. Thanks for the suggestion.

  93. 93.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I saw Yi Yi in the theater when it first came out, don’t think I have seen it since then. But it made a tremendous impression, so much so that I have been thinking about buying it, and I rarely buy DVDs. Something jogged my memory the other day. Barnes & Noble is having a half-price sale on all Criterion titles, and I found myself wondering if they publish Yi Yi. So I was thinking of the movie last night. Criterion does publish it, and it’s a bargain at 20 bucks. I think I’ll order it today.

    It’s a big, messy portrait of several interrelated Taipei families. Nothing super dramatic, just totally engaging and feeling very real. I like the world that Edward Yang puts up on the screen, and part of the real-ness for this honky was that he somehow got me past the knee-jerk “Ooh! Asian people–exotic!” reaction that comes up all too often. He just immerses you in this world that is very different for me but that I think will speak to you directly.

    It reminds me of another movie that I like a lot, Gillian Armstrong’s The Last Days of Chez Nous. Totally different. Australian. A portrait of a much smaller, odder family, but there’s the same feeling of being dropped into a world that is very real but very strange. Not available from Criterion, alas. It shows up on Sundance or IFC occasionally.

  94. 94.

    JoyousMN

    We went to the movie when it came out. I’d forgotten this, but my husband just reminded me. Before we went we ate some psychedelic mushrooms. You know, to enhanced the experience. *smile*

    Problem was the move was so trippy we didn’t even feel them. Nope, not a bit. It wasn’t till we came out of the theater that we both realized that we were tripping. LOL

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