Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

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

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

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

In after Baud. Damn.

Everybody saw this coming.

Let there be snark.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

This really is a full service blog.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

Let me file that under fuck it.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

The lights are all blinking red.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

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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

Dustin, Quinn. Mazel tov to Dustin and Mrs. Dustin for delivering a healthy baby at 27 weeks, 2:09 EST yesterday! Quinn is curerntly 1 lb 15 oz (870g), and he’s 13.5 inches long (34cm). For more Quinn pics go here.

feet

Mario Piperni, Mother and Son.

mother-and-son

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.

Click on the photos for a link to the photographer’s website. To see all photo threads, click on ‘photo blogging’ at the bottom of the post.

If your computer cannot read our email links at top right, my email is (remove the zeroes): portus0jackson0ii at yahoo dot com.

Reader Interactions

35Comments

  2. 2.

    Moonbatting Average

    I just now, like 20 minutes ago, bought a Canon G11… Charge, battery, charge!!! I’m so excited, it seems like exactly what I want… I hope I’m right! Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Dustin, as well!

  4. 4.

    MikeJ

    I like to go just like the rest, I like my sugar sweet, but jumping queues and making haste just ain’t my cup of meat.

  5. 5.

    asiangrrlMN

    Sending positive vibes to Quinn and his family. And, a white light to shield you from harm.

    The second pic makes me teary-eyed for some reason.

    P.S. I need a new lung. Anyone have one to spare?

  7. 7.

    R-Jud

    Oh, Dustin, I’m so glad the delivery went all right. I was thinking of you while bathing my baby earlier. Mrs Dustin has given you one heck of a birthday present. Here’s hoping that Quinn grows like a weed.

  11. 11.

    Xenos

    OMG. The Quinn photo, toward the top… is that an… ACORN!

    Somebody get Hoffman on the phone… they are canvassing and recanvassing uteruses now!

  12. 12.

    Xenos

    @Xenos: Sorry for jesting there before looking more closely at the text… Wishing the speediest of recoveries, growth and good health health for the Quinns.

  13. 13.

    licensed to kill time

    Wow, sonograms are hard to read. That looks like two babies and a pair of feet to me.

    My very best wishes and waves of good vibes for the Dustins.

  14. 14.

    Common Sense

    Thanks you guys for the photo and rescue threads. They break up my day and make it tolerable.

    What a wonderful addition to Balloon Juice.

  16. 16.

    mai naem

    Congrats and mucho positive thoughts to the Dustins. Also too, hope you taped the birth to make clear that he’s an American with a red,white and blue American birth certificate because I don’t wanna see a 90 yr old Orly Titz whining about a fake birth certificates and all.

  17. 17.

    David

    My best to Dustin and family.

    Wow, the 27 week birth really brings it home for me. My wife is currently at ~28 weeks, and we still have roughly three months to go. I’d better get cracking.

  18. 18.

    Martin

    Holy crap, best of luck to Quinn and the Dustin family. We had two preemies, and 27 weeks is just frightening, but I can’t say anything bad about the NICU care in this country. He’s in good hands.

    Our preemies recovered wonderfully, are in perfect health and are at the top of their classes.

  22. 22.

    ellaesther

    For reasons that I cannot fathom, my comment does not appear! I don’t think it’s in moderation….

    Well, the jist of it was what everyone else is saying: Congratulations, and good luck! That is very, very tiny, but that’s how my godson came out and he is today strapping and in high school — all my best wishes as your wee one aspires to do the same!

    And a lovely photo by Mario Piperni, too!

  23. 23.

    Dustin

    Thanks for all the well wishes, they’re appreciated. I figured I’d bugged you guys often enough with open thread downer talk of hat was going on that it was only fitting to also bug Tim about posting the pictures. Everyone’s doing well. Hell, everyone’s doing very well. Quinn’s in the NCU and breathing on his own with no complications. SuperWife’s already in the postpartum wing recovering and looking to be 100% by tomorrow. And me? Let’s just say I’m tired as hell and could use a beer, lol.

    @ Xenos

    No acorns, though he’s not much bigger. And Hoffman’s welcome to try and get near the womb, I’m feeling a bit of “protective daddy” complex already. Those wingers like to talk tough; I’d actually like the chance to mess one of them up right about now (especially given out close, intimate, dealings w/ insurance the last couple days). ;-)

    @ mia naem

    No worries, his mom and dad are both atheists so I doubt we’ll have to worry about any elected office campaign problems. Unless of course that stops being an issue, but I doubt it.

    @ David

    Yeah, if I were you I’d plan for the worst and hope for the best. Have an emergency bag packed (deodorant, underwear & socks, a spare phone charger, copy of your house key, etc) for both you and Mrs. David. Get your classes done asap (ours started next week, oops). Generally, plan like you’re having the baby next week because you never know if you will. My wife was fine literally up until the day we took her to the hospital following a bad test result on her last monthly checkup, so it’s not something you can see coming.

    @

    That’s good to hear and yeah, 27 weeks is frightening. Luckily we caught it a few days before delivery so he had time for steroids to do their work. They were most worried about his lungs and they’re doing great. I have to admit I am/was worried about recovery, especially neurologically. It’s good to hear that your children are doing well.

  24. 24.

    Dustin

    Hrrrmm.. that last comment reply was to Martin. My bad, I must have screwed up the a href formatting

  25. 25.

    Bad Horse's Filly

    So glad Quinn’s stats are so good at 27 weeks. May he have grow like a weed and be home before you know it.

  26. 26.

    CynDee

    I wish all the best to the early-born child and its family, but Is there anyone else out there who thinks it inappropriate to be showing the private world of a fetus to complete strangers all over the world?

    I would not have looked at this page if I had known there was an ultrasound image of a child on it; it makes me feel like an unwholesome voyeur. It is not for me to be looking at the body of a poor little tyke before it is born. Nor is it for me to tell the happy parents they shouldn’t show their child’s image, but I don’t want to be one of the outsiders peering at it. That is the way of things these days; so many Americans Show All.

    Is nothing sacred? I guess not, because 20 miles from home there is a billboard showing an unborn human being as part of an ad for an imaging center. The little person was not asked permission, just exposed for commercial purposes. Privacy for the unborn is my preference.

  27. 27.

    Dustin

    The way I see it CynDee, those pictures are the same as showing someone a JC Penny or Sears photo from my wallet. There’s nothing inappropriate about it, especially not when there’s no commercial gain to be had. If you prefer Tim could have always posted the picture I sent to him of Quinn minus the breathing tube. Sure he may look like an overripe tomato and the picture’s not really safe for work, but at least he’d have no longer been unborn.

    People show off their newborns to friends and the community all the time, this is no different; especially considering it’s something that the commenters might have been wondering about because they knew my wife was in the hospital.

  32. 32.

    wag

    As parents of premmie twins (born @ 30 weeks), my heart and my wife’s as well go out to Dustin, Mrs Dustin and Quinn. You will face challenges that you cannot imagine, but there are vast rewards as well. Keep your hearts (and eyes) open.

    Keep in touch

  33. 33.

    Boney Baloney

    I wonder if there’s some kind of statistical overlap between people who think inoculations cause autism and people who think bombarding embryos with 170 decibels of ultrasonic energy is a nifty way to get pre-partum baby pictures.

    It’s interesting that radiologists and military radar techs share the term “FLK,” as in “you might wanna stand behind the thick black line — on the floor, stretching across the room? — unless your future family planning specifically includes Funny-Looking Kids. Your call, but I’m gonna stand waaay over here.” No, radar is nothing like ultrasound, but I’m not crazy about kids sitting a foot from a big-screen CRT, either.

    Bah! Enough! Mazel tov, etc. Hope the wee’un is healthy as a horse. I just wonder about these things. …Crack babies, remember them? They don’t seem to have grown up into a generation of carrion-eating orcs, do they? One never knows.

  34. 34.

    Nick

    @CynDee: you’re not a parent, are you?

    I only ask because I know when my daughter was born, I had the sudden urge to blow up the first picture I took of her and hang it from the George Washington Bridge.

  35. 35.

    AAAndrew

    Congrats on the baby! My son was born at 29 weeks and since 16 weeks they had been saying 90-some-percent chance he’d be born without lungs. Within an hour of being born he was breathing on just room air. He was about a pound more than their baby, but still scrawny as a soviet-era chicken.

    He’s now four-and-a-half and a rambunctious, normal, kid. He’s over 3-feet tall, almost 40 pounds and a sharp as a tack. But that time that they’re in the hospital (my son was in for six weeks) is kind of draining. Enjoy it as much as possible, benefit from the incredible nurses in the NICU and special care nursery where they’ll move him once all he needs is to feed and grow, and take this time to get your life in order so that you’re ready for him to come home.

    Congrats!

    AAAndrew

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