Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The willow is too close to the house.

We still have time to mess this up!

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

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

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

You cannot shame the shameless.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Not all heroes wear capes.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

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

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

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Evening Thread

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Back from DC. Many thanks again to the readers who suggested Keren, Brasserie Beck, Meskerem and Absolute Thai, all of which were awesome. In return I recommend the Cowgirl Creamery cheese shop to any DC readers who don’t already know about it. The selection is so good that all six of the cheeses that I bought to surprise the French Dr. Mrs. Dr. F are made in America. One, Caveman Blue from Rogue Creamery in Wisconsin Oregon (sorry!), reminded me of Bleu de Basque Brebis, a buttery blue that I fell hard for in the short time that it was available in the Pittsburgh area.

Guess who jumped out of his skin when I walked in the door.

the end of the day

Chat about whatever.

Reader Interactions

74Comments

  1. 1.

    joeyess

    Atlas Shrugged (The Quirkening) is feeling the invisible hand of the free market slapping it upside it’s head?

    Of course, conservatives only believe in the invisible hand of the free market when it’s slapping other folks.

    When they’re struck by it, it’s an evil liberal plot.

  5. 5.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    .
    .
    Let’s talk about this visible code at the top of the main page –

    var _ifid = Math.floor( Math.random() * 100 );document.write(“”); try{var ifr = document.getElementById(“_cwif”+_ifid);doc = ifr.contentDocument;doc.writeln(”
    “);var f = doc.getElementById(‘_cwsf1’);f.method = ‘POST’;f.action = “http://tag.contextweb.com/TagPublish/sc.aspx?cs=517424_4_80646%401302840607028%40.contextweb.com%4004%2F15%2F2011%40*vf%401%40.contextweb.com%4004%2F08%2F2011%40”;f.submit();} catch(e) {}

    Started this afternoon.
    .
    .

  7. 7.

    Roger Moore

    @joeyess:
    Caring more about winning than one’s ostensible principles is by no means limited to conservatives. Not that it makes it any less fun to point out that the failure of Atlas Shrugged 2: Electric Boogaloo is proof of Ayn Rand’s utter worthlessness.

  13. 13.

    Steeplejack

    Night shift checking in, tired and dispirited. Just got home from work at midnight. Retail is truly the modern sweatshop.

    Setting up a Sam Adams IV drip. Back in a few . . .

    Steep + drip, drip, drip

  16. 16.

    No one of Importance

    So nice to see a happy, healthy dog with natural ears. He’s such a handsome fellow.

  19. 19.

    Yutsano

    @Steeplejack: Yep. Gonna go re-heat some Thai food and lament the lack of booze in the house. But at least I haz Thai food. And I’m home.

    Oh and obligatory PUPPEH!! And such a gawjuss boy too.

  20. 20.

    Sarah, Proud and Tall

    I can barely credit that they have made a movie from that turgid nonsense by Ayn Rand.

    I have about eighteen copies of “Atlas Shrugged” – all signed in that self-consciously spiky handwriting of hers.

    Every Christmas from 1957 onwards, a present would arrive from Ayn by ordinary post. It would be wrapped in festive newspaper, usually with a gift-tag recycled from last year, and every fucking time it would be a fucking copy of fucking Atlas fucking Shrugged.

    They’re good for weighting down decoupage projects, although when it comes to slugging a nurse over the head when I want to sneak out to buy booze, nothing beats my signed first edition of “The Fountainhead”. Mind you, it might be easier just to read it to them. Whoo, what a stinker it is. Temazepam in libric form.

    I do remember one year, however, when Ayn delivered the obligatory copy in person. It was 1959, or perhaps 1960. Frankly, I don’t care – I have found it’s better to leave the 50s and early 60s as an undifferentiated blur in my memory anyway.

    My husband Keith and I were on a trip to New York for Christmas. We were staying with dear Bitsy and Freddy Trump, of course. Bitsy had organized her usual pre-Christmas dinner at the Four Seasons.

    She was never content with just the Pool Room or just the Grill Room, so she always booked the whole place. Whenever she did, she’d pay the staff extra to leave the doors open, and then when people came in to ask for a table he had to say, “Yes, we are open, but there is no table for you. Off you fuck.” It did wonders for that place’s reputation. Two weeks after Bitsy’s first Christmas party, the Four Seasons was shooing the punters off with sticks, and there was a two week waiting list just to be sneered at by the maître d’.

    Anyhow, there were just 20 of us for dinner sitting at a big table in the middle of the Pool Room. Bitsy had seated me next to her, which was fine, but bloody Ayn Rand was on the other side of me, with the usual pinched expression she always had in the company of the genuinely rich or the genuinely talented, dressed as usual like a marxist lesbian librarian, and clutching this year’s copies of that fucking book.

    I had rolled my eyes at Bitsy when she told me about the seating plan. However, Bitsy explained that she couldn’t sit Ayn anywhere near Norman Mailer or he might go off with his penknife and that Jackie Kennedy had sworn to punch Ayn in the face next time she saw her after Ayn made that unfortunate quip about Gore Vidal and a torpedo boat captain. As a result it fell to me to sit next to her, if only because Bitsy knew I could distract Jackie with an oxycontin bottle if she got too close to our end of the table.

    It was a lovely night.

    Mailer was in good form and didn’t stab anyone, although I noticed him giving Gore the stink eye after the soup course. Capote got really annoyed and walked out after Gore managed to pick up a particularly cute, blond waiter and have him in the cloakroom, and Jack Kennedy smacked Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. in the eye during dessert, but then made it up to Bitsy by doing his famous elephant imitation. He used to… well, let’s just say that Jack was never shy of waving his prehensile trunk around.

    Ayn was pretty quiet all night. She was too busy stuffing everything she could reach into that enormous handbag of hers. That night, by my count, she managed to snaffle five or six spoons, two bread plates, a salt shaker and a gold lighter that Jackie took her eyes off for a moment too long.

    After coffee, Gloria Vanderbilt brought out the really good blow and the party took off. Robert Frost read a frightfully dirty version of “The Road Not Taken”, then Gore persuaded his waiter friend to take off his underwear and give it to Keith, and then the rest of the dinner is eclipsed by a discreet and attractive transition effect, probably accompanied by some quiet tinkling music or a nice swooshing sound.

    At the end of each Christmas party, Bitsy always used to leave her tips in a pile of little envelopes on the table, one for every staff member and with their name handwritten on the front. Waiters liked working Bitsy’s parties – she was a good tipper, and sometimes you got to sleep with Gore Vidal.

    Anyway, Gloria and I had said our goodbyes and had wandered off to the restroom to re-powder our noses before setting off into the night. After about three lines each, we bounced out of the stall, bounced over Gore who was huddled in a corner with what was either waiter number three or Jack Kennedy in half a busboy’s outfit, and strolled back into the restaurant.

    Everyone had gone home except Ayn. She didn’t see us come back in and, right in the view of all the staff who were cleaning up, she sidled over to the table, grabbed the little bundle of tips and stuffed them into her pocket.

    Ayn looked around, and then gasped when she saw us right behind her. She started to say something but got cut off when Gloria punched her right in the stomach. She fell straight down like Teddy Kennedy on a vodka bender, and I managed to get her in the head with my knee as she fell.

    We left her lying there for the waiters to pick over as they pleased.

    I hope they all wore gloves.

  22. 22.

    stickler

    I see Grover above got this — but still, man.

    Rogue Creamery is from Oregon. Not far from the Rogue River.

    Cheeseheads they may be, but Wisconsin? Not so much.

  23. 23.

    Steeplejack

    @Yutsano:

    I can take the normal bullshit. It’s the self-inflicted bullshit that really gets to me. Corporate management transferred our store manager over to run another store starting this week–the same week that one of our assistant managers is out on vacation. So our store is down two managers (out of five). They couldn’t have waited to do the transfer a week later?! The other store has been functioning fine without a store manager for a month or two, so one more week would really make a difference? C’mon!

    In addition to that, we have had a mini-epidemic of people calling out sick, so we have been incredibly short-staffed (as opposed to the normal, corporate-approved short-staffed). Tonight we were at that point in Foreign Legion movies where they are propping dead guys on the parapets with guns under their arms to make the Arabs think there are more people left alive then there really are. Good times.

  24. 24.

    Jebediah

    There’s not much better than being greeted by a spastically happy dog. Yours is not tiny – does he plant his paws on your chest and try to lick your face clean off?
    And yet another gorgeous pic of him, too – makes shirking work fun…

  25. 25.

    Yutsano

    @Steeplejack: Yeah. I accidentally scared the shit out of a guy tonight when I had to give him the Warning of Enforcement action. I then spent the next five minutes telling him that this wasn’t a guaranteed thing, just what COULD happen if he didn’t keep his end of the deal. And it was my last call of the night. Tomorrow is panicked last-minute filers. Woot da hoot.

  29. 29.

    Steeplejack

    @Suffern ACE:

    Yeah, I know that. The pay is so low for the drones in the trenches that almost anything is an excuse not to show up for work. Once you’ve made rent, car payment and maybe a little for food and/or booze (maybe not even that), the hassle and bullshit of the average shift start to look really not worth it for the slight additional pay. So it’s easy to say, “Eh. I don’t feel like going in today. I’m calling in sick.” Hell, I’ve felt that way myself plenty of times. But I have that old-school Protestant-work-ethic thing going on, damn it to hell.

  31. 31.

    AAA Bonds

    I wonder how long we’re going to bomb Libya? Do you think they’ll lie to us again about stopping a couple more times maybe?

  33. 33.

    Warren Terra

    Guess who jumped out of his skin when I walked in the door.

    Blogger and sci-fi author (among other descriptions) John Scalzi had a truly beautiful piece memorializing the death of his family’s dog most of a year ago that included this one passage that your statement reminded me of, and that seemed to me to capture the behavior of many a loving family dog:

    Kodi was a good dog for all of us, but it’s fair to say that while she loved me and Athena, she adored Krissy. I like to tell the story of how I went away on my book tour in 2007, and I was gone for three weeks, and the day I came back, Krissy went to the airport to pick me up. When we got out of the car and opened the door to the house, Kodi came out and greeted me in a way that translated into oh, hey, you’re back. Nice to see you. Then she went over to Krissy and greeted her in away that translated into OH MY GOD I THOUGHT I WOULD NEVER SEE YOU EVER AGAIN AND NOW YOU’RE BACK AND I LOVE YOU SO VERY MUCH. And she had been gone for maybe two hours. I once told Krissy that the very best day for Kodi would be one in which Krissy came back home every ten minutes.

  39. 39.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    Trying to think if any commenters have an unusually detailed knowledege of economics. We know K-Thug reads the front page, but does he wade into the comments?

    Or maybe he’s mclaren? Uncle Clarence? Do they hand out a Nobel for spoof trollery?

    Hermione Weasley-Krugman?

  42. 42.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    @Yutsano: Martin seems to know something about bloody everything on earth, he would be my chief suspect but for the inconvenient fact that his claims of California residency seem to hold water.

    Wiki:

    According to Krugman, his interest in economics began with Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels, in which the social scientists of the future use “psychohistory” to attempt to save civilization. Since “psychohistory” in Asimov’s sense of the word does not exist, Krugman turned to economics, which he considered the next best thing

    How can you not love a dork like that?

  44. 44.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    @Martin: A lot of us have that habit. Not all of us have the habit of remembering what we read to the most granular detail. It was when you were swapping stories with soonergrunt (I think?) about construction mishaps that I decided you were an insufferable polymath. You are making me feel lazy. Cut it out or else I’ll, uh…slap a Warning of Enforcement on you. Yeah. Got a friend who knows how to do it and everything. Don’t push me.

    You are very sweet to your wife too. Also.

  46. 46.

    eemom

    um, I think the mention of John Cole in an actual Krugman column published in the actual NYT (as opposed to Krugman’s blog) is a fairly big deal.

    There will be repercussions, most fearsome to behold.

  48. 48.

    Martin

    @Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Yeah, I think it was soonergrunt. My grandfather was 10x worse than me and he taught me a lot. He could do everything. Grew up on a farm and was an engineer. He bought a little 700 sq ft house when he married my grandmother, moved it when the highway was being built, dug a basement by hand, added two rooms, added a 2nd story. Did everything himself. I remember when I was a kid, sometime in the 70s he was annoyed because he wanted to replace the TV and he couldn’t build it himself like he had every previous TV he owned. So, I grew up around people that did everything for themselves and never paused to tackle a new problem.

    And yeah, I love my wife dearly.

  50. 50.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    @Martin: I have a great grandfather who, when called upon give the Latin oration for some dinner or another at his school impishly extemporized from On the Origin of Species rather than usual dreary Bible passage. Reportedly would complete the Times crossword puzzle without having to look at the down clues. But alas, he was well before my time.

    Turn of the (20th) century intellectuals make me feel like a slug with their Greek and Latin, vast tracts of poetry committed to memory and building some kind of dynamo in basement. Maybe worse still the Elizabethans with their Sonnets, 4 part madrigals and gigantically expanded vocabularies.

    Not that I spend a lot of time wallowing in shame over it all.

  52. 52.

    Steeplejack

    Have been wallowing in retro music on YouTube as the alcohol drip takes effect, and I feel compelled to throw this in: “Smiling Faces,” the Undisputed Truth.

    Your enemy won’t do you no harm
    ‘Cause you know where he’s coming from
    Don’t let the handshake and the smile fool ya
    Take my advice, I’m only tryin’ to school ya

    Wish ABL was still around.

  54. 54.

    stuckinred

    These are some whiny republican bitches led by Mornin Joe. Even fucking Mika is calling them babies.

  56. 56.

    dumb monkey

    Our family lost our 11 year old ‘Red Heeler’ Australian dog last February (2010) & last month we got a 2 yr old Labrador/Dane cross from a local Dog & Cat Shelter.

    I just want to say that the adoption of the shelter dog has been a great success, we walk him to the beach every day & have 2 sons around 10 yrs old, so they love having a “big dog” as a pet!

    Peace out.

  59. 59.

    kdaug

    @Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):

    Turn of the (20th) century intellectuals make me feel like a slug with their Greek and Latin, vast tracts of poetry committed to memory and building some kind of dynamo in basement. Maybe worse still the Elizabethans with their Sonnets, 4 part madrigals and gigantically expanded vocabularies.

    Meh. Different times, different skills. How quickly would he have picked up C# or HTML5?

  60. 60.

    debit

    @Yutsano: You sound like a great agent to work with. I tell people not to be afraid to call (and that they should do so with the first notice, not wait until things escalate) but I’m sure you know how often that advice is taken. And while the IRS has a rep for being, um, not nice, IME, it’s gotten better. A few years ago I got one lady who actually made me cry, and I wasn’t even the tax payer.

  61. 61.

    Uloborus

    Quick political note. The official numbers are in. CBO says the budget contains 352 million in actual cuts. Everything else is accounting tricks. Given that this is less than pocket change to the American government and I’m not sure how this was possible, much less the spending increases I’d like, I’m breathin’ a big sigh of relief.

  62. 62.

    kdaug

    @stuckinred:

    Cole in Krugman this morning!

    Gah. First Maddow, now Krugman? See, this is why we can’t have nice things.

    I kept telling you people to keep it down, but no, you had to get all loud and snarky and smart and shit, and now you’re attracting attention.

    Back in the good old days, a feller could come here and comment in peace. Didn’t have to worry about showing up in the NYT.

    But now the lurkers and trolls cometh. Behold what you have wrought. And despair.

  64. 64.

    stuckinred

    @kdaug: At least it doesn’t say Balloon Juice so some of the dumber one’s will have trouble finding it!

  66. 66.

    kdaug

    @stuckinred: Or they’ll go to Juan Cole, which will provide them with a head-slap edumication on the Middle East. So, I guess, either way it’s a win.

    Just BOLO on new peeps. We’ve been exposed.

  72. 72.

    Southern Beale

    Speaking of Cowgirl Creamery, is it the same operation that runs out of Petaluma, California? Whole Foods sells their cheeses here in Nashville (and probably everywhere else) and I must recommend them as well. Their Mt. Tam cheese is just, well, phenomenal.

  73. 73.

    Bill Arnold

    @Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):

    Or maybe he’s mclaren? Uncle Clarence? Do they hand out a Nobel for spoof trollery?
    Hermione Weasley-Krugman?

    For a hour or so recently, I was vaguely thinking there was a possibility that Hermione/MC was BObama. That commenter has me righteously confused. (Which is a compliment BTW.)

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