Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

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

We still have time to mess this up!

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Come on, man.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

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

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Open Thread

Open Thread

by | 91 Comments

This post is in: 

Sorry I have been so cranky lately. Not sure what has gotten into me, so here is a peace offering. It got prematurely dark and started thundering, and my wind chimes changed from a lazy clanging to something sounding like the blue man group on meth, so I walked around the house to shut all the windows when I found this in the bedroom:

Lily was apparently crushed by a falling comforter and rendered immobile. It’s like the pampered canine version of 127 Hours, but with fluffy bedding instead of rock. And no, it did not require a pen knife to extract her- just someone yelling “Who wants to go for a walk?”

Reader Interactions

91Comments

  8. 8.

    Bret

    I honestly like it better when you’re cranky, John. It makes coming to the site much more entertaining.

  13. 13.

    Comrade Mary

    John gets cranky, then makes it up to us by offering chicka-bow-wow shots of his dog?

    Eh. Works for me.

  14. 14.

    TaMara (BHF)

    Wow, that picture pretty much illustrates my last two weeks. Luv it.

    Edit: as in crushed by large falling object, not safely tucked under a comforter.

  16. 16.

    MattR

    Sorry I have been so cranky lately.

    So you probably don’t want me to link to Frank Gaffney’s piece where he worries that our invasion of Libya is creating a “Qaddafi Doctrine” that will be used by Obama to justify military attacks on Israel?

    just someone yelling “Who wants to go for a walk?”

    I don’t believe it takes anywhere near this amount of effort. With Ellie, all I have to do is grab my pants off the chair and start putting them on.

  17. 17.

    Joe Beese

    Chris Floyd:

    Yet on the same day the Peace Laureate was drawing his first blood in Libya with his Zeus-like hurtling of a hundred and ten thunderbolts, his Secretary of State was publicly supporting the Saudi incursion into Bahrain, which enabled the murderous crackdown there. At the same time, American officials admitted that they did, in fact, know of the Saudi incursion in advance — despite their heartsworn denials just a few days ago. … The Peace Laureate and the bipartisan war-lovers in the American political and media elite tell us over and over that the assault on Libya is a “humanitarian intervention” aimed solely at “protecting the Libyan people.” Yet at the same time, the ever-bellicose but often brutally frank Clinton states plainly, in public: “a final result of any negotiations would have to be the decision by Colonel Gadhafi to leave.” How much plainer can it be? It is not a humanitarian intervention; it is a military operation to impose regime change — which is, needless to say, patently illegal under the international laws which the US and the UN say they are upholding. But who cares about that? The fact that anyone takes anything these compulsive, demonstrable liars say at face value, even for a micro-second, is one of the great mysteries of our age.

  20. 20.

    MattR

    @Joe Beese:

    The fact that anyone takes anything these compulsive, demonstrable liars say at face value, even for a micro-second, is one of the great mysteries of our age.

    I love that quote at the end of a paragraph that uses the words of Hillary Clinton as evidence of the author’s point. (ETA: given that Clinton is part of that group of liars)

  21. 21.

    me

    A retired General on the Snooze Hour just said the coalition is trying to stop Saddam Hussein from attacking his own people in Libya (twice!). Old habits die hard?

  22. 22.

    Keith G

    Lily sums it up nicely. March came in like an SOB and shows no intent of getting nicer (non-meteorologically speaking). I want to crawl under cover too.

  24. 24.

    soonergrunt

    Divisions erupt over NATO command in Libya
    The operation in Libya is about become out baby for the forseeable future, because our European ‘allies’ are about to try to bend us over planning table in NATO HQ and fuck us and yell in various cheesy B-movie villain accents “Squeal like a pig, you stupid americans!”
    I’d hate to say I told you all so. But really, I am just petty and smart-aleky enough to say “I fucking well told you all so!”
    And it only two days for our erstwhile NATO allies

  26. 26.

    Tax Analyst

    Sorry I have been so cranky lately.

    You think YOU’VE been cranky lately? HAH!
    Bet you didn’t just blow off a company meeting because you just didn’t feel like it, did you? Well I did. But only because it was scheduled 2 1/2 hours before my start time today and I’m retiring shortly anyway.

    Still didn’t get me many brownie points with my boss when I called on the phone this morning. Apparently, I’m still supposed to be part of some sort of “Team”. I thought about mentioning that team’s have “Disabled Lists” for when somebody just isn’t up to playing, but I thought that would just piss her off more.

    Anyway, I know how your puppy feels. I might even have an inkling about how you feel, but then again, maybe not.

  27. 27.

    joe from Lowell

    @soonergrunt: How did you get “The operation in Libya is about become out baby for the forseeable future” from a piece that says “Italy issued a veiled threat to withdraw the use of its bases unless the alliance was put in charge?”

  28. 28.

    JPL

    This month has sucked. April can’t come soon enough.
    @soonergrunt: I decided to give it a week to see what happens. Did you happen to see the Glenn Beck tape at media matters where he criticized Obama for not being involved in Libya and 20 seconds later criticized him for being involved in Libya? It’s hilarious.

  29. 29.

    Miss Kitkas's Comrade Wayne

    This an open thread? I watched Obama in Brazil via the Globo and GloboNews feed over the weekend for the stops in Brasílila and Rio de Janeiro. And then again in Santiago today, via EMOL.

    In Brazil the reviews raved.

  31. 31.

    BGinCHI

    @joe from Lowell: Italy has two major reasons to fuck the coalition over:

    1. They get a lot of their oil from Libya.

    2. Berlusconi will be the biggest dick in the world if Khaddafy gets killed.

  32. 32.

    Joe Beese

    And mainly just because it will piss you off, The Man Who Cost Gore The White House®:

    Barack Obama is committing the same crimes [as Bush and Cheney], in fact worse ones in Afghanistan. Innocents are being slaughtered, we’re creating more enemies, he’s violating international law, he’s not constitutionally authorized to do what he’s doing, he’s using State secrets, he’s engaging in illegal surveillance, the CIA is running wild without any kind of circumsribed legal standards or disclosure . . . why don’t we say what’s on the minds of many legal experts; that the Obama administration is committing war crimes and if Bush should have been impeached, Obama should be impeached.

  35. 35.

    joe from Lowell

    @soonergrunt:

    NATO’s participation in any military action against Libya would require the approval of all 28 NATO members. But Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal denied that his country was grounding NATO…”Turkey is not blocking NATO, Turkey has been contributing to the preparations with a positive approach since the beginning,” Unal told The Associated Press.

    OK, what, exactly, did you tell us from the beginning that you’re crowing about now? That there would be bickering among different governments in the alliance?

    That’s not exactly Nostradamus.

  37. 37.

    General Stuck

    @soonergrunt:

    That those clowns are being clowns is not a surprise to me. I care what the POTUS is thinking, and every one of his statements has been terse, matter of fact, and free of wiggle room.

    From Chile, President Barack Obama said the United States would transfer leadership of the military operation to other, unnamed participants within a “matter of days, not weeks.”

    We shall see, but my impression is that obama relishes this shit like having root canal at an all night dentist.

  38. 38.

    Joe Beese

    You’d think Obama would have learned his lesson about timetables after “I will close Guanatanamo in one year”.

  39. 39.

    lamh32

    Does any other BJ’ers still watch Fringe on Fox?

    If so have ya’ll seen last Friday’s episode?

    I had a really interesting thought, what if William Bell’s soul somehow leaves Olivia’s body, and comes back IN ALT-LIVIA’S baby????????

  43. 43.

    Anne Laurie

    @Brachiator:

    Is there a point here somewhere?

    If his momma let him play with the sharp scissors, he wouldn’t be around to annoy the rest of us, now would he?

  44. 44.

    jenn

    Awwww, puppy. Love her little nose peeking out.

    I am having a kick-ass awesomely productive day, and just found out that a project I’ve been trying to put together for a couple of years now, is actually going to come to fruition, and I am dancing ’round Starbucks. Wahoooooooooooooo! (Ok, the dancing part is not literal.)

    Have a great day, everybody!

  47. 47.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    I visualize Joe Beese as an internet version of the crazy drunk dude that wanders around every town muttering to himself, cleaning windshields for free by pissing on them and smearing it around with newspaper.

    That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

  48. 48.

    jl

    @losingtehplot:

    Wonder if that big white thing on top of Lily might be part of Tunch.

    Cole said it was a comforter, but what does that mean? (Time for another blogger ethics panel?)

    But, then, Lily was OK, so, probably not the Tuncher.

  51. 51.

    JCJ

    Wait, you’re sorry about being cranky? I’ve been coming here for only a few months and the crankiness and lack of civility is what keeps me coming back for more! I even got my daughter checking in from time to time. We don’t want milquetoast!

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    @jenn: I was afraid we were going to have to have “the talk” about anatomy, but I decided it would be wise to double-check the photo before saying “that’s not her nose!” Sure enough, Lily’s nose was sticking out toward the top of the photo, I had missed it earlier.

  55. 55.

    debit

    Remember the lamb white days of innocence when Cole blacked out Lily’s nipples in a photo? Now he’s showing us her lady bits.

  56. 56.

    soonergrunt

    @joe from Lowell: I get that all of this is theatre to force the issue. The French as operational/political leaders of this thing is an idea that appeals to precisely France and nobody else. It’s either the French, us, or the Brits can run an op like this for more than a couple days at a time without the whole thing collapsing.
    Nobody, and I do mean NOBODY wants the Italians anywhere near the command of this thing. They have a history of selling out, especially where Libya is involved. They say there is no reason to keep two headquarters and in light of that will review the use of their bases. Translation–put this all on our territory under a commander acceptable to us or fly from farther away.
    It’s us or the Brits then, and I don’t think the Brits can get all of Europe to follow them after decades of declaring that they aren’t Europeans.
    The Norwegians and the UAE turned their planes around instead of continuing on to Italy over the command issue. I wonder exactly who they thought would be in command.

  62. 62.

    joe from Lowell

    @soonergrunt:

    Nobody, and I do mean NOBODY wants the Italians anywhere near the command of this thing.

    But they’re not saying they want an Italian commander. They’re saying they want a NATO commander, operating under the aegis of the organization.

    The Norwegians and the UAE turned their planes around instead of continuing on to Italy over the command issue.

    This is exactly the shit Russ Douthat was talking about. I’ll still take it over the alternative every time.

  64. 64.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    When I wake up in the morning I put on my bath robe and shuffle in my slippers to the kitchen where I fill the kettle and plug it in to make my tea. When I return to the bedroom Judy has already snuck onto the bed and is just waiting for me to lift the covers for her to snuggle under them for the 40 minutes or so between me waking and me getting up and getting dressed. That forty minutes, with Judy under the covers and Cueball on top of the bed are the best part of my day.

  65. 65.

    debit

    Warning: Use of cats on keyboard while meshing in Milkshape may cause unpredictable results. Save your progress often. Or in other words: ARRRRRRRRRRRG!

  66. 66.

    asiangrrlMN

    Lily has a boo-tee-ful hindquarters. But, can a grrl get a picture of Tunchie up in here???? Nothing says you’re sorry like an action video of the Tunch cat.

  68. 68.

    WaterGirl

    @debit: There’s something my kitties have done twice while I was reading the BJ blog, one minute everything is normal and the next everything on my screen is HUGE and the computer has become virtually unusable. Now I mostly just put my laptop to sleep when they want to help when I am at the computer.

  71. 71.

    WaterGirl

    @WereBear (itouch): Nicely done! I will buy something as soon as the kitties and i get paid on the 1st. Am I right in thinking it’s not a mix and match situation, that you get 3 of whatever you choose?

  76. 76.

    jl

    @asiangrrlMN: My theory is that it may be (I do not claim certainty), it may be, possibly, some minor part of Tunch anatomy crushing Lily. A stray flap of midgut, perhaps.

    Cole chose to cover up the scandal, rather then be an honest journalist.

    Thank goodness Lily is OK.

  77. 77.

    schrodinger's cat

    @asiangrrlMN: Tunch Action Video = Tunch giving us his look of disdain and may be moving a paw. Not that I am complaining, I lubs me some Tunch and his paw of doom. Right now I will be happy with a Tunch pic too.

  80. 80.

    Paddy

    @lamh32: Did not think of that, but now you’ve got me nervous. Fauxlivia would have to die though, right?

    They have gotten me all into knots here lately with all the cliffhangers. Almost resorted to finding a fan board to vent. Almost.

  81. 81.

    WereBear (itouch)

    Am I right in thinking it’s not a mix and match situation, that you get 3 of whatever you choose?

    Put in your order, send me an email so I know you’re from BJ, and I’ll do you up on special. (I’m on my touch because Tristan spilled wine on my laptop keyboard. It’s not enough that the links are sometimes the same color as the background, now I can’t reply… Augh. )

    Use the contact tab at the site to send me your special Balloon Juice request for a One of Each sampler. The things I do for love.

  82. 82.

    WereBear (itouch)

    schrodinger’s cat: I have not tried that one. But what we offer is true peel-them-off-the-walls good.

    And why does the mobile version always forget my email? Tristan, get over here and fix Mommy’s keyboard!

  84. 84.

    tomvox1

    Wind chimes? Really? Somehow I had not pictured that as being part of the decor at the Cole household…

  85. 85.

    AAA Bonds

    Here’s a theory: you’re one of the few Americans left who’s genuinely emotionally impacted when we go to war.

    I feel you.

  87. 87.

    junebug

    Why didn’t you use MS Paint to black out her girly bits? Grown up, much like your views of war and when it’s a reasonable response and when it’s not?

    Naw, Sully must have told you it was silly to black out dog parts that people see every day and to oppose this UN non-bullshit sanctioned effort and to belittle the people it is meant to protect, nay imply that they are terrorist from the war of choice you once supported.

    Since you don’t watch the Snooze Hour, I guess you missed it that France recognized the opposition, that many military have defected, that the Foriegn Minister and their U.S. Ambassador left the government. But hey, yeah, it’s cool to call people terrorists randomly.

  88. 88.

    Jebediah, a Bruce

    Thanks for the fun pic. Pretty Lily definitely knows how to live. I am jealous.

  90. 90.

    Tunch

    That picture of serenity lasted about 3 minutes longer, then I totally kicked Lily’s ass. You should have heard that little freak yelping. Then that douchebag Cole runs in like he’s going to do something about it. I stared him down and he started to cry like a doughy baby.

    Don’t mess with me.

    And Cole, open up another can of tunafish for me, bitch.

Comments are closed.