Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

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

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

The revolution will be supervised.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

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85Comments

  2. 2.

    Robin G

    I find this whole thing terribly amusing. The kids are going to be in school until July.

    In terms of general openthreadness, my friend has STILL not had her baby. I think the kid is waiting on the Joe Mauer contract. There was someone here (I can’t remember who, because I am an idiot) whose wife was about to pop — any word on that?

  3. 3.

    Morbo

    We got three inches or so overnight; that’s nothing severe but enough to make the roads a little slick this morning. Sales manager almost hit someone who was spinning out apparently.
    In other news, we have more paczkis in the building than employees. I intend to do my part to fix that.

  6. 6.

    lamh31

    Happy Mardi Gras ya’ll

    Just had to share what happened. I’m home in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I went to the Orpheus parade Monday night. Sean Payton (the Saints head coach) was the Grand Marshall! He was on float number 3! Well he wasn’t on the float, he was actually walking the parade route (which most people don’t do) with the Vince Lombardi trophy! The ACTUAL Vince Lombardi Superbowl trophy. A friend and I actually touched the Superbowl trophy!!! I have a smudgey pic of Sean Payton, but it really happened.

    In case ya’ll wanna see the party, here’s a local tv station livestreaming the Mardi Gras festivities:
    http://www.fox8live.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=62&navCatId=4

  7. 7.

    beltane

    I’m laughing at everyone getting snow right now. Once again, the storm will bypass us and stay well to our south. This morning it’s sunny, above freezing, and there are bare spots on the ground. We’ve been basking in all that balmy air from Greenland this winter.

    Just hoping we don’t suffer through a drought this summer. The lack of a snowpack is worrying.

  9. 9.

    Cat Lady

    It’s snowing here too in the paradise known as greater Boston. Is there any other baseball town that has a day referred to and widely known locally as Truck Day? Maybe because February is so bleak weather and sports-wise, but to celebrate the equipment truck leaving for spring training has to be one of the more pathetic yet oddly quaint late winter events in America, or perhaps just a statement on light deprivation.

    ETA: Al Gore: still fat.

  10. 10.

    Mike Kay

    That’s it, I’m startin my coal-fired hover craft!

    Climate Change is soooooooooooooo ovah!

    Groundhog is a Golden God!

  13. 13.

    MattR

    Anyone have any suggetions for disposing of a broken big screen TV? I am pretty sure I can’t just toss it in a dumpster.

  14. 14.

    burnspbesq

    @Cat Lady:

    What are you, one of them pinko DFHs? Any right-thinking Real American will tell you that February is full of Big-Ass Sporting Events. You got Signing Day, Daytona, the Scouting Combine, and the Bassmasters Classic. Shee-it.

    /snark

  15. 15.

    R-Jud

    @Robin G:

    In terms of general openthreadness, my friend has STILL not had her baby.

    Ugh. How overdue is she? I went to 40 weeks + 17 days. Several West Wing box sets provided some distraction. The house was damn clean, too.

    Weather: We cracked 45 degrees F this weekend. I know this because there are crocuses starting at the bottom of my garden, and because the ice cream truck driver was out and about Saturday.

  16. 16.

    Eric U.

    in the “worthless anecdotal evidence of global warming” column, we have word from Vancouver that it has been too warm to have the scheduled downhill skiing competition.

  17. 17.

    burnspbesq

    @MattR:

    Google “electronics recycling” and you should get a list of places in your area. Or when you shop for a replacememt, ask the sales person whether their delivery guys will haul away the old set and recycle it.

  18. 18.

    Robin G

    @R-Jud: Ten days overdue, and no sign of progression at all in the ladyparts department. She’s burning her maternity leave and is NOT happy about it. For my part (because I’m the nanny), I need the kid to come to establish the the bassinet belongs to her, not my cats.

    I can’t believe they even allowed you to go 17 days. Don’t you start running into some serious risks at that point? Placental death, or whatever?

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    @MattR: If it’s at all vaguely fixable (even if it isn’t economic to do so), there’s probably someone on Craigslist who would take it.

    Failing that, check to see if your local municipality has an electronic-waste program or similar. You may have to tote the thing down to a warehouse or something, but at least you can get rid of it.

    -dms

  20. 20.

    Misplaced Parisian

    Cat Lady, I had no idea there was a truck day, but I love it! I’m ready for spring & baseball!

  22. 22.

    MikeJ

    The annual tulip festival north of Seattle is going to be a bust this year. It’s not until April and the tulips are already coming up. They’ll be gone.

  24. 24.

    General Winfield Stuck

    Blue sky, lots of sunshine. Temps in high 50’s and low 60’s with no end in sight. Suffer beatches.

  25. 25.

    zzyzx

    @MikeJ: My friend who was a reporter for the Mt. Vernon newspaper used to call that the Traffic Fest.

    yeah the 10 day forecast is insane. After today’s rain is gone, nothing but sun and mid-upper 50’s…

    Good weather to drive to Vancouver in.

  26. 26.

    MattR

    @burnspbesq:
    I am not buying a replacement since I am planning on moving in the near future and I still have a working big screen in the apt. But Google is always a good suggestion and I am a bit sheepish that I did not do that first.

    @dmsilev: Craigslist is a good idea. I am 95% sure I know the problem (color wheel needs replacement) but I dont feel like spending the $150 -$300 (depending on if I replace the part or pay for someone else to do it) on a five year old TV. Maybe I can find a charity to donate it to.

    I am really hoping to find someone to come take it off my hands since it is too damn big to fit in a car and my brother in law sold his van a few months ago.

  27. 27.

    geg6

    Fuck, fuck, fuckety fuck this goddam snow. Enough already. The Pittsburgh metro area has had more than 3 feet of snow (as of 11pm last night) in a week. And overnight we got another 3″ with a projected 4-6″ into tomorrow am. There is a pile of snow on each side of my apartment’s driveway entrance that is taller than I am (I am 5’6″). I just had to replace the radiator on my car (another $350 I didn’t have) because it got crunched while I was trying to navigate my car through the tracks in the snow/ice buildup on the roads and big chunk of ice got wedged under the car the other day. Not a single road on my way to work was plowed or salted this morning, not even the state highways. And I’m supposed to go give a FAFSA completion workshop at a VERY rural high school tonight.

    I am extremely grumpy about this, as you may have noticed. Snow usually doesn’t get under my skin much in the usual course of a Western PA winter. But this is in some ways even worse than 1993, the worst winter of my memory. At least in ’93, we had the one big storm and it was over. It has snowed at least 2″ every single day for 2 weeks (and usually quite a bit more than just 2″). I can’t take it any more.

  28. 28.

    BenA

    It’s snowing here in the Lehigh Valley (PA)… it’s only sticking to places we already have snow… which is everywhere except the streets.

  29. 29.

    JenJen

    Yeah, meant to warn you about that yesterday. You’re basically due east from here, and while they were predicting we’d get 5-7 more inches yesterday, we ended up with another foot of snow.

    I am so f’n sick of living on Ice Planet Hoth. :-(

    Took this pic through the kitchen screen so it’s not too great, but here’s a look at my deck table/non-scientific snow measuring system yesterday morning as the THIRD ROUND of SnOMG started falling:

    http://twitpic.com/13f128

  30. 30.

    slag

    Envious. Sorry, but it’s been spring here since the end of January. No snow all winter for the first time in recent memory. I want some of what you got.

  32. 32.

    S. cerevisiae

    OH, the denialism chorus is singing loud, but they still sound like crap. Yesterday I happened to accidentally catch the beginning of the 700 Club (I know, Iknow, but the Olympic coverage ended and I wasn’t near the remote) and ol’ Pat was going on and on about how the existence of snow disproved global warming. I listened to the whole segment going “wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong” on each point. I despair that this (and Faux) is the only information a large chunk of the public gets on the real threat of climate change.

  35. 35.

    Ash Can

    @Cat Lady: I see nothing at all “pathetic” about celebrating Truck Day. In fact, I think it’s a perfectly splendid idea.

    PITCHERS AND CATCHERS REPORT TOMORROW!

    ::happy-dances out the door and down the street::

  36. 36.

    Remember November

    @S. cerevisiae:

    what these asshats don’t get, in their parochal mind-set is that it’s GLOBAL warming.

    Not New York warming…or East Bumfook Arkansas warming…

    I say we drop ol Pat off in Churchill, Manitoba for a chat with the polar bears.

  37. 37.

    R-Jud

    @Robin G:

    Don’t you start running into some serious risks at that point? Placental death, or whatever?

    I thought this too, but my midwife explained that 40 weeks’ gestation is an average. The healthy range seems to be about 38-43 weeks, and first babies generally dawdle. The NHS doesn’t like to induce if there’s no clear medical need.

    Once I was a week overdue, they sent a midwife around every day to check baby’s vitals and mine, and at +14, they scheduled an induction. Naturally, labor kicked off of its own accord 6 hours before I was supposed to go in.

    Maternity leave/family leave in the US, BTW, is a scandal. I hope your friend’s labor starts soon and goes smoothly. And I hope the cats don’t give you too much hassle once the bundle turns up. Ours were pretty chill about the new human.

    Now that she crawls and (kinda) walks, however, they’re less enthused.

  40. 40.

    WaterGirl

    @geg6: Maybe you could contact them now and let them know you won’t be able to make it because of the snow? It’s not like you cancelled last time; they did. Right?

  41. 41.

    burnspbesq

    Y’all are creeping me out with this snow talk. I am sitting on a plane that is supposed to go to O’Hare, with a connection to Washington Reagan. I’m starting to think I’m going end up someplace like Spartanburg, South Carolina.

  43. 43.

    JenJen

    @geg6: Last time we had a storm this bad, it all came in one day, Christmas Eve 2004. And then it was over.

    But this tri-storm is just insulting. Every couple of days, another foot of snow. And below-freezing temperatures the entire time, so nothing melts, it just piles on. At this point I am out of room to put the snow, I can’t even shovel it because the driveway is piled to the brim on both sides. Have I mentioned they’re predicting a fourth storm by the end of the week?

    The invisible cloud being is laughing at me. :-(

  44. 44.

    Sentient Puddle

    Tech question for the technologically involved…I brought some CDs in to work today to rip, but apparently, the drive insists on spinning at light speed, and so my computer sounds like a 747 during takeoff while ripping. It was amusing when the cubemate asked if my computer was on fire, but now it’s just annoying.

    Anyone know how I can go about slowing down the read speed?

  45. 45.

    Keith G

    @MattR: If you live in a town of any size, they may have a heavy trash day and some places make arrangements for such items as they do not want them left in a lot or alley. Call your council, if Google doesn’t help.

  46. 46.

    feebog

    What is this “snow” you speak of? We have a whole week of weather in the mid-70s planned for SoCal. Gonna do some yard work and wash the car today. Maybe play a little golf tomorrow. Summer in February. Love it.

  47. 47.

    Ash Can

    @Cat Lady: PS: Those are great pics!

    Leave it to the Red Sox fans to come up with something super-cool like Truck Day. We should have the same thing here in Chicago.

    ::continues to happy-dance::

  48. 48.

    MaximusNYC

    Jgabriel, Chopper: Speak for yourselves! I’m in Brooklyn, where the snow is a thick wet mess on the ground, and still coming down at a good pace.

    Slogged to the F train station for my commute into Manhattan, and after much waiting, got kicked off of 2 different trains that shut down due to a power outage. Slogged home again. It’s now officially a “working from home” day for me.

  49. 49.

    GReynoldsCT00

    Snowing here too but fortunately the roads look clean in spite of it being 30 out. We’ve been lucky on snow this year but I will want spring to get here quick like a bunny. And nertz to the fat rat who saw his shadow.

  50. 50.

    PurpleGirl

    MattR: Please don’t try to find a charity to give the tv to unless it works. They will only have to get rid of it somehow and that will cost them money. Charities don’t get discounts on stuff like disposing of used and not working equipment. And besides any charity probably doesn’t have a way to pick something up (they’d have to hire a truck) and they probably don’t have the money to get something fixed. I used to work for an educational non-profit and the stuff people tried to give us was mostly worthless and we declined to take things but it still meant our office manager had to go to inspect the proffered donation. One time the computers were OLDER than what we currently had.

    I understand that you don’t want to take the tv with you, but please find out how your locality handles disposing of electronics and follow their policy. It may cost you some money, but it is better. (I’ve found organizations in NYC who take old electronics for recycling or paid for the proper disposal. )

  51. 51.

    cintibud

    Got about 9″ in Cincinnati yesterday, now have well over a foot in my yard. Been doing a lot of XC skiing this year, but when I went out last night for a quick spin the snow was so deep I sunk past my ankles even with my skis on and I couldn’t see my ski tips. I ended up going in the street, which is usually a big no no because the salt and slush tracked in by cars is bad for the skis, but the roads weren’t treated and traffic in and out was very light. Will be going to a nearby park after work today, but it will be a bit of work. It would be nice to have groomed trails.

    Speaking of wonderful groomed XC trails, folks in WV, DC and West Pa interested in XC skiing ought to check out this excellent place – http://www.whitegrass.com/report.html – if the DFH’s opened a ski resort this would be it

  55. 55.

    PurpleGirl

    In Woodside (Queens, NY) it’s been snowing again for a few hours. Mostly just sticking where there was still snow from the other day. My terrace is clean but north-facing terraces are getting snow. (I’m south/south-west facing.)

  56. 56.

    Cat Lady

    @Ash Can:

    Yeah, it’s kind of a big goof – I hope. Since Fenway is right in the middle of the city surrounded by college kids there’s always an audience for anything that goes on there, and I think Wrigley would be ripe for the same kind of “festivities”. Anything to hold out hope for warmer weather.

    Someone near me has an inflatable palm tree on their front lawn all wrapped with Christmas lights. We’re getting punchy here.

  57. 57.

    Randy P

    Well, it may have snowed but neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night… my wife just got on her hour-delayed Amtrak back to NYC (she teaches up there) from Philly, and I’m sitting here in the federal courthouse on jury duty. Not only is it open for business but I think they must be stacked up from days of previous cancellations, because all prospective jurors were called in and 3/4 of them have already gone to courtrooms.

  58. 58.

    Catsy

    Please ship some of your excess snow to Seattle. On this coast, it’s been the shittiest excuse for a winter in a decade.

    Kthx.

  60. 60.

    JenJen

    @cintibud: Hey, fellow Cincinnatian! Where have you been going to XC? That sounds like fun, but I can’t imagine finding groomed trails anywhere in this city. Eden Park or Devou would be awesome. Alt Park even better.

  61. 61.

    Molly

    I’ll take some of that snow here in Houston. For us, snow is cause for a party.

    Of course, so is pretty much everything else.

  62. 62.

    PurpleGirl

    I’m watching the History Channel right now. Their current show is about Buffalo (NY) and the blizzard of 1977 when they had over 120 inches of snow by mid-January. (Their usual is like 93 for the season.) A 9-county area was declared a federal disaster area — first time that ever happened due to snow.

  63. 63.

    geg6

    @WaterGirl:

    This is not considered acceptable from the powers that be around here. I am to die, if need be, for the cause of the Blue and White (don’t wanna name my employer, but do wanna hint because they are douches) and their image in the community. And my boss wonders why, after 12 years of employment here, I still won’t cheer for the football team.

    Go Panthers! Pitt is it! The cow college suxors!

  65. 65.

    cintibud

    Hi JenJen,

    Nope, no groomed trails in town, just have to go back and forth in one’s own tracks multiple times. Once that is done the snow has a very nice glide.

    I go skiing in Mt. Airy Forest. Can’t think of a better place in town once there is enough snow to cover the rocks in the trails – like now. Some of those trails will also be “Pedestrian groomed”.

    If you XC ski, you gotta check out Whitegrass in WV

  66. 66.

    MattR

    @PurpleGirl: I was thinking more of a tech school type of charity where they would actually do work on the television. I would not use a charity just to ditch the TV, I would only give it to one that knows the condition and can still get some use from it.

    Snow update – I am about 25 miles west of NYC and we have an inch or two on the sidewalks and grass but the roads are mostly clean.

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    @geg6: Sorry to hear that. Wow, I’ll bet that makes you just want to jump out of bed every morning and head to work. Not. I miss the days when loyalty was a two-way street. You were expected to be loyal to your employer, and they were loyal to you, as well.

    We’ll just have to hope your presentation gets cancelled, then, like last time.

  68. 68.

    Bill H

    Um, 78 degrees here yesterday. A mere 75 forecast for today. There was a little cloud out over the Pacific early, but it burned off by noon. I forgot to close my windows when I went to bed last night, and the furnace came on.

  69. 69.

    WaterGirl

    @MattR: Or maybe you could arrange for a repair place to donate the repair to a charity? I have successfully arranged for that kind of thing before.

  70. 70.

    PurpleGirl

    MattR — thank you for your clarification. I hope you are able to do that. Besides Craigslist, have you thought of Freecycle. It’s a sore point for me because I hear people talk about donating stuff and they don’t always consider these other issues (or maybe they do and don’t care).

  71. 71.

    Darkmoth

    @geg6:

    Fuck, fuck, fuckety fuck this goddam snow. Enough already. The Pittsburgh metro area has had more than 3 feet of snow (as of 11pm last night) in a week. And overnight we got another 3” with a projected 4-6” into tomorrow am

    I’m in the PGH area too, and this most recent forecast (8″ is what I heard) actually brought a tinge of fear. We are barely able to travel after the recent snows, and with another 8 we’d have been completely stuck.

    People have given up doing their sidewalks in my area, which makes my wife’s daily walk to work look something out of a Jack London novel.

  73. 73.

    MattR

    @WaterGirl: That is a very good suggestion. I will definitely look into that possibility.

    @PurpleGirl: Freecycle looks like another good option. My real goal is for somebody to get some kind of use from this TV. It seems like a waste to completely discard a 50 inch TV because a rotor is out of balance (or at least that is my understanding of the problem from surfing the web)

  74. 74.

    geg6

    @Darkmoth:

    We are barely able to travel after the recent snows, and with another 8 we’d have been completely stuck. People have given up doing their sidewalks in my area, which makes my wife’s daily walk to work look something out of a Jack London novel.

    Yay! Another Yinzer! If you don’t mind my asking, whereabouts in the Pgh. area? I’m in Beaver County.

    And yeah, the snow removal has not been stellar, I must say. This morning was actually worse than it was the day of the blizzard. Not even an attempt to clear the roads overnight and no trucks at all on the way to work. Forget sidewalks. We won’t see them until April probably. Though I’d love to be like your wife and walk to work. It would have saved me the $350 I just put down on my radiator.

  75. 75.

    JenJen

    @cintibud: Thanks for that link, and I agree it looks like DFH Winter Wonderland in West By-God Virginia!

    Too hilly and forested for winter, but when spring finally breaks, trek out to French Park for some of the best strenuous hiking in the city. It’s almost always empty, and I love going there for a good hike and to let the dogs off-leash.

  76. 76.

    mclaren

    Which just goes to prove…global warming is bunk!

    Breaking news: rain expected this spring, will disprove the discredited “theory” that deserts are dry.

  78. 78.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’m not going to link you to WaPo, but Tom Shales thinks that NBC is just doing a groovy nifty cooleo job of covering the Olympics. His commenters, for the most part, disagree.

  81. 81.

    Charity

    Not a word yet about Mitt Romney being “assaulted” on a flight from Vancouver to Los Ambeles? From Bloomberg News:

    Feb. 16 (Bloomberg) — Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was assaulted yesterday on a flight from Vancouver to Los Angeles, his office confirmed.The incident occurred after Romney, a Republican presidential candidate in 2008, asked a passenger sitting in front of his wife to move his seat upright during takeoff, a spokesman said. Romney, who was in Vancouver attending the Olympics, was not injured“The passenger became physically violent,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for Romney. “Governor Romney did not retaliate, but instead allowed the airline crew to respond to the incident.”The plane then returned to the gate, and the passenger was arrested, Fehrnstrom said.

    Jesus Christ. I don’t agree with the man, but I’m sure as hell not going to slug him over an AIRLINE seat.

    And you know this happened in first class; I doubt Mittens was getting his Common Man on. What the HELL?

  82. 82.

    Darkmoth

    @geg6:

    A bit late on the response, but I’m in Pittsburgh, Brighton Heights.

    Or, as we prefer to call it lately, the Great White Northside.

  84. 84.

    BruceFromOhio

    @feebog:

    Sure, it’s all fun and games, until the San Andreas shrugs its shit and dumps you, your car, your clubs and your sunny disposition into the Pacific. Allasudden snow don’t look so bad. :P

    No, seriously, enjoy it. I would if I were you.

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