Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

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

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

All hail the time of the bunny!

Everybody saw this coming.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

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

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

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66Comments

  3. 3.

    Crashman

    Saw some great bathroom graffiti when I was out at a nearby bar on Sunday. It said:

    “Who is John Galt… I mean, besides a pompous windbag.”

    Bravo, anonymous Cantabrigian. Bravo.

  4. 4.

    jackie

    I agree John, pansies are charming and it is sad when it gets hot and they give up the ghost.

  5. 5.

    mr. whipple

    I see that Olberman has replaced his nightly signoff of ‘it’s been x number of days since mission accomplished in Iraq’ to ‘it’s been x number of days since the oil began spewing from Deepwater.’

    Because, you know, these two things are exactly the same. Just shoot me.

  6. 6.

    licensed to kill time

    That looks like a basket of butterflies. Pansies look so happy, they have little faces, almost.

  7. 7.

    Carnacki

    Via Nico Pitney, RIP AquaMan. Prince Namor wouldn’t put up with this shit. He would have invaded and taken BP execs prisoner already to try them for crimes against the world.

  8. 8.

    demkat620

    Its only tuesday and the news is completley depressing.

    The Pansies are beautiful, though.

  9. 9.

    HumboldtBlue

    Prince Namor wouldn’t put up with this shit.

    Do you realize the tools over at ESPN did not include him in the greatest super-hero bracket during March Madness?

    As for pansies, love’em, even the human kind, well, unless they’re pansies in the Bill Kristol/SauerKrauthammer species.

  10. 10.

    SIA

    When my dad was alive he used to say that the pansies were smiling at him when he got home.

    Ours already gone here. Too hot.

  11. 11.

    robertdsc

    or I will -spontaneously combust in a ball of incoherent rage and angst- become Tunch.

    Fixed.

  15. 15.

    MikeJ

    Unusually strong and wet Pacific storm to impact western Washington tonight and Wednesday…A very strong late spring Pacific jet stream will aim an unusually moist band of moisture[wtf?] at western Washington tonight and Wednesday…

    Floods. Snow level 7000′. Dogs and cats, living together. Mass hysteria.

    Bleh…

  16. 16.

    QuaintIrene

    Beautiful pansies. Good choice. My least favorite bedding flower? Impatiens.

  17. 17.

    QuaintIrene

    @MikeJ:
    Add a near constant stream of thunderstorms here in New Jersey. Every other day, another storm warning…”Could be heavy at times, drenching rain, flooding, high winds, even hail !!!!!”

    I blame Al and Tipper Gore splitting up.

  18. 18.

    Three-nineteen

    I would just like to say a nice big REALLY, YOU BASTARD? to whoever spilled the results of the Federer/Soderling match in the SCOTUS thread earlier.
    You know, the thread that is abso-fucking-lutely nothing about tennis?
    There I was, trying to figure out whether or not Scalia had just ordered us all
    shot in the head if we’re within 5 miles of either a crime scene or a police officer, and BOOM, my entire evening is ruined.
    Just a tip, some of us pretend to work during the day and have to record sports events to watch later, when we’re home.
    Save that bullshit for the open thread, where unsuspecting tennis lovers can avoid spoilers.

    In conclusion, FUCK YOU VERY MUCH.

    Sincerely,

    Three-nineteen

    (Edited to try and make my comment fit on the page)

  19. 19.

    Violet

    Ooh, gorgeous! Pansies were my grandmother’s favorite flowers. I always think of her when I see them. Pansies are winter flowers where I live. They’re pretty much done by late March/April. Don’t forget to water them.

  23. 23.

    Mocha Dem

    Pansies and petunias are such drama queens. Miss one day of the watering cycle and they collapse. Unlike geraniums which will survive the apocalypse.

  27. 27.

    PurpleGirl

    John: The pansies look wonderful.

    JeffreyW: Dinner looks good… I think I have most of those ingredients, now I know what I’m cooking tonight.

  31. 31.

    joeyess

    I will spontaneously combust in a ball of incoherent rage and angst.

    I’d pay good money for that. I would have a fire extinguisher handy, though.

  33. 33.

    joeyess

    BTW, if i hear that fucking shutter ad one more time I’m going to spontaneously combust in a ball of incoherent rage and angst.

  35. 35.

    asiangrrlMN

    Aw, I can see why they make you giggle and twirl around in glee laugh. Cutest flowers, ever! Cole, I just caught up on the threads! Now you’re going to post like ten of them in rapid succession.

    @jeffreyw: Is that before your cuppa or hers? And, Toby looks great. And, so does the fusilli.

  39. 39.

    Cat Lady

    My youngest daughter used to name the pansies I planted when she was 4 and 5 or so. Her favorite one was always named Baby Carol, which struck me so funny because I thought they all looked like Cossacks or walruses.

  40. 40.

    WereBear

    And I have to tell my pansy story now:

    I got a new little rug for in front of the sink; with a picture of a huge pot of pansies.

    Our cat Puffy was asleep until I called them in for dinner, so the first time he saw it was when he rounded the corner, spied it for the first time… and scrambled out of the kitchen like we had a dragon on the floor.

    We wound up feeding him in the bathroom.

    Now Puffy was logic challenged, so I wound up looking and looking at the rug… until I knelt down, and realized that from Puffy’s angle, it looked like a good dozen eyes staring at him.

    We shook it to show him it was a rug, and he was fine with it after that.

  42. 42.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @kommrade reproductive vigor #29:

    Have you never watched the old Disney animated *Alice in Wonderland*? There’s a whole scene (and song, “Golden Afternoon”) with many giggling twee flowers, naturally including pansies.

  45. 45.

    Larkspur

    I do not have a pansy story, but this past weekend I puppy-sat for a wee 4-month old Boston terrier. She was the sweetest little thing. The pool was covered so that she wouldn’t jump in and drown, but she was able to run around on top of the pool cover and I think she was totally thrilled that we essentially set up a big water bed for her to play on.

    Then she got tired and climbed up on me and tucked her head under my chin and fell asleep. I have no photographic evidence, though.

    Another little job I did was weeding and re-endirtifyng a bunch of big planter containers so that the homeowner can plop in the posies. There will be no pansies, as they are not well-liked in that household. But impatiens, yes. And they are pretty. There’s no accounting for taste. But my favorites are their tomato plants. If there is a cologne that smells exactly like the new flowers on a young tomato plant, will somebody buy it for me please? Thx.

  46. 46.

    WereBear

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Way back, we were gifted with those slippers that look like animal paws, with claws?

    It made my cat Myron do a backflip off the bed, land on his feet, and pile up three area rugs during his getaway.

    We put them back in the box, and regifted.

  47. 47.

    Tattoosydney

    @Larkspur:

    I have a scented candle that smells like being in the middle of a tomato patch at the height of a warm spring day.

    Unfortunately, it’s made in a tiny little shop in Portugal which doesn’t export, so unless a European trip is on the cards….

  48. 48.

    Anne Laurie

    @QuaintIrene:

    My least favorite bedding flower? Impatiens.

    I vote petunias. At least impatiens are pretty in the shade, but petunias turn to “shredded post-prom tissue streamers” five minutes after they’re planted out.

    The old English name for pansies is heartsease, which I understand referred to their medicinal attributes, but looking at them always eases my heart!

  49. 49.

    MikeJ

    Is there a plugin here that handles markdown? (punctuation in place of html) If so, please, please, please, nuke it. It’s more trouble than it’s worth. The guy, fred fnord, who screwed up the next thread, appears to have screwed up some others because he feels it necessary to add a sig line even though his name is right above his comment. There was another commenter here with asterisks in his name that fucked everything up on every comment too.

    Whether intentional or not, it’s annoying. Lose the buggy markdown, save yourself some headaches.

  50. 50.

    BC

    I love pansies – they are so hardy in cold areas. In Colorado, they bloom in January in the snow. Such a sunny flower, seeing it peeping through the snow.

  51. 51.

    HRA

    Very nice pansy arrangement, John. Did you ever plant the miniature pansies? Mine came back for a few years after winter here and I believe they are probably hidden by the jungle (plants gone big and wild) now.

    Ummm – some of the comments have spread out and some have not spread out. It happened after I clicked and went to see the irises. Speaking of which – some irises are bloomed and some are not bloomed here. We have had 80s for the past few weeks here. Everything is ahead of schedule.

  52. 52.

    QuaintIrene

    There’s a whole scene (and song, “Golden Afternoon”) with many giggling twee flowers

    That’s in the original book as well. The sequel rather, ‘Through The Looking Glass.”

  53. 53.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    What time is it?

    Still on my three-day “holiday” weekend. Courtesy of another “screw you” from the Man. If you work the actual holiday at the Big Box Bookstore, you get time and a half. If you work that week but not the actual holiday, you get a little prorated extra vig to be “fair.” But the Man cuts costs by dealing out unpaid “holiday” off days. So I am working only four days this week and actually making less than a regular week. And the fact that my “holiday” is contiguous with my regular off days is completely by chance.

    Which is not to say, however, that I am not enjoying the extra time off.

    ETA: Thnx for the h/t. Mavericks rule!

  54. 54.

    CaseyL

    Back when I made a point of planting things, pansies were my favorite because they gave so much cheerful prettiness for so little effort.

    I don’t know how hard dahlias are to grow, but I’d like to have some of those, too: they’re so huge, and their petals so perfectly furled and arranged together, they make me think of Mandelbrot sets. (Sunflowers, which are also huge but weird looking, make me think of insectoids from outer space sent here to spy on us. No, really. I get a really interesting, not unpleasant, frisson whenever I’m in a field of ’em.)

    I finally cleared some old junk off my main balcony, so if I ever have a job and disposable income again, I want to put together a bitchin’ container garden, with miniature trees and flowers and maybe even some veggies. The balcony’s quite large, and I’ve always wanted to fill it with enough plants that it’s a mini-jungle. I think the kitties would love that, too.

  55. 55.

    bemused

    @CaseyL:
    The kitties also love to poop in flower pots & flower beds. Hey, lookie, new litter boxes just for us!

  56. 56.

    Steeplejack

    @MikeJ:

    Can someone get the no-hyphen, no-sig-line message to Fred Fnord? I keep looking for him, but this last week I was reading the threads so late I couldn’t catch up to him.

    We did successfully catch and neuterize the Master of Accountancy. Took a tranquilizer dart gun, but there were no lasting ill effects.

  57. 57.

    WereBear

    @CaseyL: Dahlias are easy. You just need big pots (at least a foot square per tuber) and use a very coarse, fast draining mix. They do not tolerate soggy soil.

    They sure are dramatic!

  59. 59.

    RedKitten

    Bears! I just looked out the window 20 minutes ago, and there was a mama bear and cub, munching the clover in our yard. I got video of the the little fart scampering around — cute as can be!

  62. 62.

    cmorenc

    John, that must be some pretty good shit you’re smoking, mind sharing a joint of it so the rest of us can get pansy-giggles too?

  63. 63.

    cmorenc

    John, that must be some pretty good shit you’re smoking – how ’bout sharing a joint so the rest of us can get the pansy-giggles too?

  64. 64.

    Platonicspoof

    @MikeJ:
    Thanks, if you’ve spotted the problem.
    I don’t expect any site to be bullet proof, but it gets unreadable, and my OS, etc., haven’t changed in years, yet the last couple (?) of weeks comments outside the lines has been almost a daily problem.

  65. 65.

    Steeplejack

    @Platonicspoof:

    I don’t think the margins problem is caused by a commenter. I think it is being caused by one of the new ads that has come into the rotation.

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