Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

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

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Let me file that under fuck it.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

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Chuck Open Thread

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Got the garage cleaned out and scrubbed, got the spider plants potted, house is cleaned, got those beautiful pictures I had framed hung, and picked up a Composter. I went through all the suggestions but just decided this was all I needed for clippings and the like. When it fills, I will just pick up another one. Finally going to get around to getting the garden plowed and put in. I’m late this year.

Almost had an amazing picture of a male and female cardinal chilling on the birdfeeder next to the rhododendron, and then Lily barked and sent all the birds scattering into the wind.

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  2. 2.

    Joel

    Speaking of composters, has anyone tried a Naturemill?

    I live in Seattle where they do curbside composting, so it’s not an issue right now, but my next move will be out of town, so I’m thinking about one down the line.

  4. 4.

    Martin

    @Joel: Naturemill falls in the same category as bottled water for me. Why take something that is so cheap and easy to do and screw it up with money, energy, and waste.

  5. 5.

    joe from Lowell

    You’d be surprised how long it takes for that thing to fill up. A lot of stuff turns into a surprisingly little dirt.

    Also, green lawn clippings that aren’t mixed with plenty of other stuff really, really stink. They’re incredibly dense.

  6. 6.

    Steeplejack

    Man, what a human dynamo. I played some Wii golf, had lunch with my brother and his entourage, helped them look for an overflow refrigerator for the garage, then wussed out before they made a pilgrimage to Costco. Just got up from a nap and am shuffling around in a fog. Hey, it was rainy and this is still my weekend.

    Warming up the TV for Chuck with Red Sox-Yankees in the background.

  9. 9.

    moe99

    City of Seattle lets us turn over all our greens to them and they get a fee for processing it and turning it into compost. The temperature used for composting is so high that we can even throw meat and bones into the mix and they take them. My garbage can is never full anymore. It’s great!

  10. 10.

    Eric U.

    I don’t even compost properly, and the yard waste never manages to fill up the container I throw it in. But my neighbors would all agree I need to work harder at it.

  11. 11.

    Phyllis

    Thought about starting a compost pile, but instead I plan to pick up a container of this while I’m in Columbia Wednesday for a meeting.

  12. 12.

    Comrade Kevin

    just saw Oliver WIllis post about this… you know that raid where the Detroit cops shot the 7-year-old girl, about how the gun “discharged” in a confrontation with police? Well, video shot for The First 48 suggests otherwise.

  14. 14.

    soonergrunt

    Job interview today didn’t go well. flubbed the first question, all downhill from there.
    Well, at least I didn’t puke on his shoes.

    soonergrunt +3

  15. 15.

    jl

    Is Tunch set free yet? Has he taken his revenge for the horrid indignity of it all?

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @jeffreyw #7: Geez, that kitteh with the glowing red eyes could star in a Carly Fiorina ad.

  17. 17.

    David in NY

    Re: naturemill and other such.

    I vote for a compost pile fenced in with something sufficient to keep it piling up and not spreading. When you read the fine print with naturemill and such, it says things like “For best results, cut items into small pieces.” Well, I don’t have time for that, and I want to throw big clumps of sod, occasional long stems of stuff, etc., in there. And that gets heavy fast.

    Maybe you can use these gadgets if you are composting only kitchen scraps (and then you won’t get much compost), but if you’re dealing with real biomass, just throw it in a pile, water it, turn it if your back is strong and you’re energetic (or don’t), and you’ll get compost.

  18. 18.

    Bad Horse's Filly

    I know it’s been said before in other threads, but don’t compost your grass clippings, mulch them into your lawn as you mow. Your grass will thank you for it and you’ll reduce your fertilizer needs by half or more. No, it does not create thatch – urban myth started, I’m sure by lawn maintenance services and lawn mower companies.

  21. 21.

    Anne Laurie

    When it fills, I will just pick up another one.

    As Joe says, unless you have a hella LOT of clippings, it’ll never fill. When you think about it later this summer, or before you start the fall cleanup, you can slide open the door on the bottom and rake out any “dirt”, i.e. compost (black gold!) that’s accumulated.

    Thirty-two tomato plants “potted out” today… cleaned out the acorn bunkers planters, found the tomato ladders & set them up, used up four bags of ‘planter booster’ and two 2-cubic-foot sacks of new potting soil with hydration crystals to top everything off. Then came much swapping the starters around while I figured out how to cram too many plants into the available sunlit area and got everybody settled in for the rest of their lifetimes. I even raked up the mess afterwards. Tomorrow, assuming I survive the “patch-up” on the four-figure dental work from last week, I have to go out with pencil & paper and make a schematic before all the labels get lost or overgrown… and then drag out the hoses & nozzles & find out which bits have disappeared, broken, or shrunk over the winter.

  22. 22.

    Anne Laurie

    @soonergrunt: Sorry to hear that. Who knows, maybe the other candidates will do even worseat their interviews… and you do have the right credentials. If not this job, still sending positive thoughts your way that the next interview will be golden.

  23. 23.

    trollhattan

    The stuff of gen-you-wine nightmares.

    http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/large_moran_collider_part_2/

    Also, too, the wisdom that is Meg Whitman (somebody’s going to have to collect a Whitman’s sampler before this campaign is over).

    Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is holding a town hall-style meeting at the Roseville Theatre in Roseville, where she’s proposing putting together a statewide grand jury to look for “waste, fraud and abuse.”
    __
    She proposes appointing an inspector general to look into the matter and report back to a grand jury with subpoena and indictment powers that can start criminal and civil prosecutions. She hasn’t specified how the grand jury would use such powers to look for such waste, fraud and abuse.
    __
    She estimated the state loses $7.5 billion a year in fraud in in-home supportive services, Medi-Cal and welfare programs and told the audience of about 150 people tales of the state wasting millions of dollars on highway rest stops and education planning.
    __
    “This is not as difficult as the career-minded politicians in Sacramento make this out to be,” Whitman said. “We will take back Sacramento and we will make sure we are spending your taxpayer dollars exactly as you would spend them if you were sitting in Sacramento.”

    Seven-and -a-half Bill-yun Dollars! Welfare queens in Cadillacs are back, baby! I guess her limo haz a crapper, since she thinks highway rest stops are for leeches.

  25. 25.

    Bill Section 147

    @soonergrunt: I hate it when everyone tells me, “Everything happens for a reason,” so I won’t give you the platitiude.

    Interviews are such weird animals. I hate being interviewed for a job. I am a designer so it is really more look at my work, talk to my clients and please let me talk about something that we share in common.

    I hate giving them. I always try to talk about something else other than the work with the interviewee. Baseball, movies, anything. I want them to be comfortable and let down their guard. Not to stick it to them but because in my field it is more about getting along with people.

    Sometimes the interview doesn’t go well because you aren’t comfortable. If you really feel the job is for you, don’t hesitate to follow-up with an honest conversation with the person. Sometimes you can only email them or call them and let them know you felt like you blew it in the interview. It isn’t like they can double not-hire you. I don’t mean beg for another chance (nobody wants a whiner) but be honest about your skills and your desire for the job.

  26. 26.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Since this is an Open Thread:

    Does anyone know why Keith Olbermann has started calling Sarah Palin “little miss bendy straws”? I can usually figure out the Palin epithets, but this is a leeetle too subtle for me. Anybody know what KO means?

  27. 27.

    beltane

    @David in NY: I second your vote regarding composting. Life is too short and the garden is too big to devote a lot of time prepping materials to be composted. A big pile decomposes all. A commercial composting operation near me takes anything that is biodegradable and non-toxic, including the carcasses of dairy cows that died in a barn fire last year.

  28. 28.

    beltane

    @SiubhanDuinne: Like other pop culture divas, Palin’s contract requires that she be provided with bendy straws when performing at venues. One wonders what her groupie scene is like.

  29. 29.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @beltane: oh fer god’s, is *that* what it is?

    I dunno, somehow I feel a liitle cheated.

    Bbut thanks.

  32. 32.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    One of the requirements for her to speak at an engagement (other than bazillions of dollars of course) is bendy straws, apparently Bible Spice would poke herself in the eye with a straight straw.

  33. 33.

    tt crews

    Leaves, leaves, leaves. And coffee grounds. Your garden will love you even more than the birds do. It is a joy to rake out the compost, it smells so good.

    My strawberries are ripening and we are eating our fill. Sweet and juicy.

    tt +3

  35. 35.

    WereBear

    @jeffreyw: I want that! Please!

    Well, got Mr. WereBear up to three cats. In our microapartment, that is probably our limit. But then, he used to say two was the limit :) Bwahahahaha!

    @soonergrunt: Dang! I really feel for you. And I was mentally rooting for you today… sigh. I agree, give them a followup call and try to do some making up.

    How you handle adversity can impress a smart company. And if it’s a dumb company, you did dodge a bullet.

  36. 36.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @litlebritdifrnt:

    apparently Bible Spice would poke herself in the eye with a straight straw.

    One can but hope.

  37. 37.

    HRA

    @Comrade Kevin:

    There is always more to the story in these situations. Reading the 1st reports told me something was not being told about it. What a mess and most importantly what a tragedy for the family.

  40. 40.

    RedKitten

    @RAM: That was pretty awesome.

    “You have the hips of a 6-year-old girl.”

    And it’s great to see Bakula! again. Is it just me, or is the show getting a wee bit darker? The two-hour season finale next week is going to be epic.

    AND, the show has been renewed for a fourth season! w00t!

  41. 41.

    soonergrunt

    Thansk to all for the good thoughts and positive energy. I’ll call them tomorrow and ask to re-interview. The worset they can say is no, right?

    soonergunt +7

  42. 42.

    David in NY

    @beltane:

    I’m always amazed by the composting process, or really the way it’s linked to seasonal change. We throw stuff in the pile, mainly kitchen remains, all Winter, and on the first couple of warm days toward Spring it all reduces to a little pile of compost a couple of feet high, and I move it to the next compartment, leaving the first empty. Then one fine day in May all hell breaks loose in the yard and everything, not excluding the weeds, quadruples in size. Or more. And the next couple of weeks are spent pulling and whacking and making flowers that are trying to encroach on their neighbor retreat, and this leads to piles of biomass all over the place that get hauled to empty compartment of the compost pile, which is suddenly overflowing. With luck, this process will slow by June and we can again watch it slowly turn into a bigger pile of dirt.

  43. 43.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    Since this is an OT, will someone explain why I had to dig out my winter jacket today?

    And the next time I hear some jackass say “Whut global warming? Hur, hur, hur” I’m going to punch that fucker right in the neck.

    This is not normal in a totally sucktacular way.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @soonergrunt: Please don’t be discouraged. If this is the jib for you, I promise it willhappen.

    Iu lost out on the job that made my heart sing, in 1987. But a few puzzle pieces shifted, I got a different (better) job, and I just celebrated 22 years in a job I love.

  46. 46.

    mikey

    A pair of mourning doves decided to raise their family on my back deck. Man, they are the crappiest engineers in the bird family, that nest is shameful. But she’s camped out, with the big scared eyes, but she ain’t moving, bless her feathers. He comes round some, but I reckon we’ll see more of him when they hatch and are hungry.

    Dude, I haven’t even been able to get an INTERVIEW in months. So don’t think of it as anything but a huge win. The world changed while we were busy thinking it was business as usual. And now it doesn’t seem to have room for some of us. The future is murky at best, and I don’t have enough money to live forever, and I don’t know what to do about it. Yay for cut-throat capitalism…

    mikey

  47. 47.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SiubhanDuinne: LOL, looking at all the tipoes, I guess I should have put Siubhan +2.

    Uh, soonergrunt, assume you knew I was trying to say “job” not “jib.”

    Also too, intended to indicate that my job (or jib) of 22 years is with the employer that initially rejected me. That fact is kind of important to my point, so I guess I prolly should have mentioned it.

  48. 48.

    sukabi

    When it fills, I will just pick up another one.

    Ummmm, the whole purpose of composting and composters is to make compost, which you TAKE OUT of the composter to use in your garden / plants to improve the soil… keep it stirred and it will decompose faster and you’ll have compost for your flower beds… you shouldn’t have to buy another composter…

  49. 49.

    Anne Laurie

    @mikey:

    A pair of mourning doves decided to raise their family on my back deck. Man, they are the crappiest engineers in the bird family, that nest is shameful.

    You may never have seen the nest of the ‘rock dove’, aka ‘urban pigeon’, aka ‘flying rat’. A few scraps of dead stuff, maybe a half-handful of leaves or weeds or even torn newspapers, stuffed into a gap between two brick apartment buildings or in the torn flashing atop an asphalt roof-edge. At least mourning doves are nice to listen to… when I left my childhood home in the Bronx for a nice midwestern cow college, it took me months to figure out what all those “owls” were doing out during the day!

  50. 50.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    picked up a Composter.

    We used a few bucks worth of wire fencing and some t-posts and it easily holds everything we and our neighbors throw in it. At the end of each year we get a decent amount of dirt. It’s not pretty but birds come for the eggshells and other treats and Baltimore Orioles have come two years in a row for the ornamental grass.

    The only problem: A nearby maple tree keeps sticking its roots in it, even after we put a wooden board on the bottom.

    And we can’t stir it between October and April because we don’t want to disturb/kill hibernating snakes.

  53. 53.

    Dollared

    Jesus John. A $99 plastic composter.

    The point is to make free dirt. Not $99 dirt.

    Composters are made of broken pallets. Any real earthman knows that.

  54. 54.

    Mnemosyne

    @WereBear:

    But then, he used to say two was the limit :) Bwahahahaha!

    That’s what G used to say, too. Then he found Charlotte in a parking lot.

    Now he says, “The third one is always a surprise.” :-)

  57. 57.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    @David in NY: And you want a second parasitic maple tree to keep yours company! Come on down. Just wave a bucket of manure at this thing and it’ll follow you home.

    Don’t get me wrong. I really like trees on the property, but this one pisses me off.

    It was cold and rainy today, and it’s supposed to rain tomorrow. In Los Angeles. In the middle of May

    .

    I’m right outside of D.C. Not that I want the summer heat attack with attendant smog to start, but mid-50s and rainy is not an acceptable alternative.

  58. 58.

    Steeplejack

    @kommrade reproductive vigor:

    I’m right outside of D.C. Not that I want the summer heat attack with attendant smog to start, but mid-50s and rainy is not an acceptable alternative.

    Wrong. Fellow D.C. suburbanite here, and anything is preferable to that steam-broiling summer heat. Cool and rainy in May is just fine with me. Whatever delays the inevitable.

  59. 59.

    Sheila

    Cardinals are usually seen in pairs, though at this point in time, you can sometimes spot the young ones, because there are often 3 or 4 together, sometimes all males or all females. They flutter around the ground when they are learning to fly and their landings are unsteady. Very endearing.

  61. 61.

    Stogoe

    I for one will be upset if the writers of Chuck brought Anna Wu back for a grand total of three scenes just so Morgan could reject her. She needs to be part of Team Bartowski in Season 4. Seriously.

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