Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We still have time to mess this up!

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

The willow is too close to the house.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

You cannot shame the shameless.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

The revolution will be supervised.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Everybody saw this coming.

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

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Let there be snark.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

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Reader Interactions

41Comments

  1. 1.

    Violet

    Hope you feel better, John. Drink plenty of fluids and rest.

    You sure this isn’t the German E Coli attacking in WV?

  2. 2.

    FFrank

    John,

    with your luck, don’t worry it’s probably not the flu probably just lyme disease or West Nile Fever. Take care

  4. 4.

    Carnacki

    “Y’all are on your own for the rest of the day.”

    Judging from past experience, onslaught of blog posts from John Cole will begin in 5, 4, 3…

  6. 6.

    PurpleGirl

    Violet is right — rest and drink plenty of fluids. Lots of tea with lemon. I’d add in stay warm (not hot but not cold either, comfortable).

    Hope you feel better soon.

    ETA: It’s also possible that you have what the rest of us will get later in the fall. Isn’t it nice to be an incubator?

  8. 8.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    I’m just getting over that flu. It started up Friday and wasn’t too bad and continued that way for Saturday and Sunday. When I woke up Monday I felt significantly worse with heavy congestion and a cough – but still not real bad. ‘Real bad’ kicked in on Tuesday where everything seemed to be stuffed between my eyes and above my nose. I started to feel better yesterday and today is better than that but it’s been a pain in the ass because I have to pack for a move on Monday.

    Anyhoo, it seems to take a week to run it’s course. I’ve taken Nyquil the last 3 evenings before bed and have slept through the night, so I have that going for me, which is nice.

  9. 9.

    MattR

    No flu for me, but I think I would’ve been better off staying in bed. Already spilled a full glass of juice and a full glass of soda. Only good thing was that I managed to miss all the electronics. Now I am just waiting for Ellie to puke/pee/shit on the carpet to make my day even better.

  10. 10.

    urbanmeemaw

    Take care, John. I’ve been battling summer crud for the past 3 weeks. Maybe there’s a surfeit of despair in the air that’s triggering my malaise.

  11. 11.

    cleek

    i fought a cold for three fucking weeks, last month. what a drag. it’s still lingering in my sinuses, too.

    that’ll teach me to fly after swimming.

  12. 12.

    jrg

    Fox news is reporting that the Polish have invented a zombie-resistant house (no house is zombie-proof).

    I wonder if this house will also protect my family from gay marriage?

  13. 13.

    gogol's wife

    Well, I would be on guard about Lyme disease. Chills and aches are a symptom, especially violent chills in the middle of the night followed by sweats. You don’t necessarily have to have seen the tick or had a rash. If it is accompanied by really serious fatigue and neck ache (beyond the usual flu), you should see a doctor. Since having Lyme, I’m really wary about flu in the summer time.

  15. 15.

    jwb

    @jrg: All Weiners! All Zombies! And it’s only June. Given that we seem to be already well into the silly season, I’m seriously worried about what’s in store come August.

  17. 17.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Y’all are on your own for the rest of the day.

    You go heal, John. I’ll loom large here.

  18. 18.

    taylormattd

    Ugh, I just had something similar I think. And yes, it involved the trots. Sadly, the congestion has lingered on for more than a week now.

  19. 19.

    OzoneR

    Just got told an exciting story about how we can protect Social Security and Medicare and solve the deficit issue by electing Ron Paul president because he’d abolish the IRS.

    God this country is stupid

  20. 20.

    AAA Bonds

    @jrg:

    It will certainly protect your family from being energy efficient, 100% guaranteed.

    Anytime I see something like this it makes me a little sick myself. It’s a fortress for rich, paranoid lunatics.

  21. 21.

    JGabriel

    John Cole @ Top:

    Y’all are on your own for the rest of the day.

    Feel better soon, John. I assume the “Y’all are on your own…” means you’ll be posting another 8-12 times here today out of sheer boredom with being sick. We’ll be here to keep you company.

    .

  22. 22.

    JGabriel

    @taylormattd:

    Ugh, I just had something similar I think.

    There is something that seems to be going around in the Northeast Corridor. A few friends came down with something similar about 2-3 weeks ago. Seems to run its course in about 4-7 days, assuming its the same thing.

    .

  24. 24.

    p.a.

    @gogol’s wife: everyone, pls take Lyme Disease seriously. I recently lost a coworker to it. The day they (finally) diagnosed it he was told there was nothing they could do. He died within days.

  25. 25.

    JGabriel

    @Admiral_Komack:

    I hear you can be hard up for three fucking weeks…that’s what I hear.

    Only if you take the whole bottle at once after UPS delivers it from the Canadian pharmacy.

    .

  28. 28.

    R-Jud

    @JGabriel:

    There is something that seems to be going around in the Northeast Corridor.

    Seems to be going around the West Midlands as well. Husband and kid had it last week, friends at a party were just getting over it; I succumbed over the weekend and finally feel okay after getting 13 hours of sleep last night.

  29. 29.

    JGabriel

    schrodinger’s cat:

    Only if he is able to pry away from Tunch who is sitting on his chest.

    Archimedes once claimed that, given a large enough lever, he could move the world. I don’t think he ever envisioned how the equation might be complicated by a world-size object with claws.

    .

  30. 30.

    jurassicpork

    I’m sorry to hear that you’re feeling under the weather, John. I hope you enjoy a speedy recovery. I got sick on Easter and it took me a few days to shake it off. I never get sick so I don’t handle illness well.

    That’s one thing had to contend with this week. Monday, my laptop came back from the shop after a 2 1/2 week wait and the used HD died within hours. That same day, we dropped off the other laptop for repairs (a 22 mile trip, one way) so we have no computers. Tuesday, I found out my $650 rent check bounced because the Massachusetts DOR ordered my bank to clean out my account so now I have no way of paying the rent in full and we’re looking at eviction.

    Yesterday, I found out the DOR put a hold on all my assets because when they vacuumed my account, they didn’t get the final $25 they demanded and it required a lot of phone calls and fancy footwork to release what little money I had in there. Details are here.

    But at least my loved ones and I have our health, something for which we ought to be grateful.

  31. 31.

    JGabriel

    @jrg:

    Fox news is reporting that the Polish have invented a zombie-resistant house … I wonder if this house will also protect my family from gay marriage?

    Only if they’re married gay zombies.

    .

  32. 32.

    RossInDetroit

    Feel better soon, John. Or at least provide lurid details.

    I’m finally getting over bronchitis. 8 more days of meds to go. It would probably have ended sooner but for the 70 hour week I spent doing heavy labor in an over-air conditioned building. That’s hell on the lungs. The recent high outdoor temps and high humidity here have helped once I got out of the dry, chill indoors.

  33. 33.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @gogol’s wife: That’s good advice. Be aware that the standard test for Lyme doesn’t pick it up every time.

    Check Stranded Wind at GOS, who has links to their Lyme Disease community.

  34. 34.

    UncertaintyVicePrincipal

    Okay this is clearly divine intervention, because you know otherwise I thoroughly expected to read about how well there I was last night chasing Tunch to come inside and having forgotten about the freshly dug post holes, promptly stepped in one, wedging my foot in the two-foot deep hole alongside the post which was loosely propped standing in it, at which point Rosie, jumping around and barking furiously at all the fun, knocked over the bag of post-hole ready-mix and it started pouring into the hole burying me knee-deep. “Well, at least it’s dry concrete” I thought, just as I noticed the first raindrops start to fall…

    Followed by near-starvation, hallucinations, eventual rescue by the police, fire department, and Army Corps of Engineers, in that order, followed by months of “damn my foot hurts” blogging, conspiracy blogging about Rosie acting intentionally, or not, new tags, entries in the glossary….

    I’d go with the flu. Seriously.

  35. 35.

    JohnR

    Yeah, there was some sort of ‘stomach flu’ going around here at the mouth of the Patapsco a couple weeks ago. Unpleasant fever, flu aches, significant digestive upheavals. The good thing was it only went 24-48 hours for the worst parts.
    About Lyme, yeah, think about it; the rule of thumb up in New England 20 years ago was “If you’re outdoors much, assume you’ve got it.” The symptoms are a bit variable, and the famous bull’s-eye rash isn’t always apparent. Plus the baby Deer Ticks are really easy to miss. They’re like a pencil-dot in size, and I never felt any of the ones I had crawling on me, unlike the old favorite Wood Ticks. The antigen test doesn’t always pick it up; my doc was persistent and sent my sample back for another workup when the first one came back negative. The second test lit up, which wasn’t too surprising; I had major symptoms. Luckily, mine had held at stage 2 for a long time (Lyme (spirochete) is like Syphilis except you don’t get to enjoy yourself getting it – stage 3 is King George III territory.) Takes a good long whacking with antibiotics, and then it seems (depending on who you talk with) either it can come back, never gets completely eradicated, or some sort of secondary ‘lingering-of-symptoms’ effect goes on. It’s a bugger, and still not very well-understood.
    Anyway, arthritic ache in one joint, periodic exhaustion/uncontrolled sleepiness, these may be Lyme signals.

  36. 36.

    geemoney

    I seem to have missed it, so I will ask on this open thread. Whatever happened to the big Wikileaks dump on a major American bank that was supposed to happen in January?

  38. 38.

    ellie

    Me too! I thought it was food poisoning at first but it feels like the flu. I am feeling a bit better now, but geesh, this morning was awful. It makes you appreciate the times when you do feel good.

  39. 39.

    Linnaeus

    I’ve been battling some kind of late-spring cold or low-grade flu since last Tuesday. The worst is over, but I’m still dealing with sinus congestion. There’s definitely some shit going around.

  40. 40.

    2liberal

    Cole, maybe you will get lucky and Tunch will choose today to put you out of your misery when you fall asleep from an overdose of cold drugs and alcohol.

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