Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

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

“woke” is the new caravan.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

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

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

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

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

The lights are all blinking red.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Fight them, without becoming them!

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

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61Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    I feel your pain. I couldn’t find anything reasonable that would fit the space I had, so I solved the problem with some raw materials (couple of pieces of plate metal, and a bunch of rod stock) and some quality time in the machine shop.

    May not look fancy, but it works wonderfully for holding pans and cutting boards and racks and the like.

    Edit: http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h272/dmsilev/DSC_0101.jpg

  4. 4.

    The Dangerman

    Fascinating pair of articles; this one places the blame squarely on the House (and rightfully so, of course), and this one, a link from the previous, should scare the shit out of you. Some of these dumb fuckers apparently really do want to burn it down, figuring that something better will come from the smoking crater where we will find ourselves.

    I truly did pick a bad week to stop sniffing glue.

  5. 5.

    MikeJ

    I was at the DMV today. There’s a guy leaning on the unstaffed info desk when I approach it to take a number. he says, here, take one that somebody left behind. I tool it, but alone took a fresh number from the machine. No harm in it, right, and the previously used number may have already been called.

    The guy becomes indignant. “You’re calling me a liar!” I responded that no, I wasn’t calling him a liar, I was calling him stupid.

    As I was leaving he made a point of approaching me and said he was trying to be nice, and therefore he had “won”.

  8. 8.

    lamh34

    Boehner’s Boners

    by BooMan

    Speaker Boehner is hilariously incompetent. He’s trying to round up votes from his raucous caucus and he’s screwing everything up. First he got kneecapped by the Club for Growth and the National Taxpayers Union. Then he got caught trying to punk his caucus with a misleading PowerPoint presentation. And now the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has given a crappy score to his bill that shows it would save a mere $850 billion over the next decade. He’s making George W. Bush look like an able administrator. I’m sure the Tea Party appreciates his efforts to pull the wool over their eyes.

  10. 10.

    DarrenG

    A: Restaurant supply store

    This.

    Also good for stock pots, sheet pans, and such. Much cheaper, sturdier stuff than consumer-grade.

  12. 12.

    Keith

    Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a simple, solid, plain baker’s rack?

    Grocery stores usually have a lot of female bakers (although in fairness, the bakers there tend to have large, floppy racks, which is not what you are looking for…yet)

  14. 14.

    JCT

    Sometimes it is worth your time and scratch to find a local craftsman and have something made for you.

    I’ve wasted tons of time trying to find the “right” simple piece of furniture…

  15. 15.

    dmsilev

    @lamh34: It’s even better than that. According to TPM’s coverage, the CBO scored Boehner’s plan as cutting the deficit for next year by all of one billion dollars. On the scale of the national budget, that’s a rounding error. Accordingly, Boehner’s staff is frantically trying to rewrite the bill to more properly appease the nutjobs.

  16. 16.

    Roger Moore

    @The Dangerman:

    Some of these dumb fuckers apparently really do want to burn it down, figuring that something better will come from the smoking crater where we will find ourselves.

    Which is sort of like starting your home remodeling project by setting your living room on fire in the belief this will clear out space to redecorate. It theoretically might work, but only an idiot or crazy person would actually try it.

  17. 17.

    Sly

    @lamh34:
    The Heritage Foundation and FreedomWorks have also piled on.

    Conservates hate Nancy Pelosi because they can only dream of having as effecting a congressional leader. Boehner can’t even keep his people together during a fight that they started. It’s increasingly likely that any plan that will pass will have Harry Reid’s name written all over it, and gets through the House with a united Democratic Caucus and a few Republicans that are scared shitless of what’ll happen to them after a default.

  18. 18.

    jl

    @3 yeah, me too, I was ignorant and wish I still was. I looked it up, thinking Cole was looking for something to put bread on while it cooled.

    It’s some damned huge useless piece of furniture to hold nic nacks and useless stuff that people are almost certainly better off with out.

    Cole needs to be stocking up on dried beans, jerky, hard tack, a water purifier, non hyrbrid seeds, and gold suitable for daily transactions. And guns and ammo. One of the survival heat tents things.

    But he is too busy looking for bakers racks, and armoires, and bergers, and canapes and dingbats, and pooftons and wasteys du spaces vastes, and whatnot.

    Cripes.

    Edit: Cole, hey, those things collect DUST. Did you know that? They collect dust. Dirty dirty things to have in the house. (maybe that will bring him to his senses).

  19. 19.

    MikeJ

    @dmsilev:

    CBO scored Boehner’s plan as cutting the deficit for next year by all of one billion dollars. On the scale of the national budget, that’s a rounding error. Accordingly, Boehner’s staff is frantically trying to rewrite the bill to more properly appease the nutjobs.

    And had it actually passed we would have heard from “our” side that it was the worstest thing ever in the history of the world, even when he was being self punked.

  20. 20.

    LarryB

    John,

    Canvas your friends and relatives for broken toaster ovens and scavenge the wire shelves from same. They make great cooling racks.

    Larry

  21. 21.

    nellcote

    Why don’t you shop at restaurant supply houses? That stuff is actually designed to be functional.

  22. 22.

    KB

    This shows up at Home Depot online. Looks like a less expensive version of what is found in restaurant kitchens. Claims to hold 3600 pounds, though, so it might be reasonably strong.

    http://tinyurl.com/6yqpxb3

    I don’t own one, so YYMV.

  24. 24.

    The Dangerman

    @Roger Moore:

    It theoretically might work, but only an idiot or crazy person would actually try it.

    It’s probably closer to redecorating by taking an axe to the house, hoping that one can stack the resultant pieces into something nicer.

    Insane is being kind. Surely, the Republicans have some adults remaining. Right?

  25. 25.

    Pauline

    I haven’t been here in a while. It is SO GOOD to read the tone in these current posts. Thanks!

  27. 27.

    FlipYrWhig

    @ MikeJ:

    And had it actually passed we would have heard from “our” side that it was the worstest thing ever in the history of the world, even when he was being self punked.

    Anything that can be called a cut, over any time frame, makes Baby Flying Spaghetti Monster cry.

  28. 28.

    jl

    @13 I’ll take it. I love that stuff (if it’s corn beef and cabbage).

    Edit: and if Cole is looking for a bakery cooling rack, my apologies. That is sensible useful item. When I goggled ‘baker’s rack’ I saw pictures of monstrous space wasters.

    Get some U-haul boxes, book size, and stack those suckers up, and throw stuff in there. That’s what you do. If you don’t use anything in a couple of years, you just fold the lids down, and give it away. Very modular and efficient system.

  30. 30.

    lamh34

    So wait, TPM reporting that Boehner’s office are “rewriting” the bill. What?? Boner really is a joke isn’t he. So they’ve scuttled the voter that was “scheduled” for tomorrow and they are gonna what, find how many more cuts that they couldn’t even find before in oh what 2 days??? How the heck did Boehner get the job a speaker anyway? Say what you will about Nancy Smash, but she held her caucus together…period!

  35. 35.

    jo6pac

    Oh sorry look for wooden ones with metal shelves this what my Baker friend used in his bakery

  38. 38.

    jl

    @37 OK, that one’s sensible. I take back my ranting. I was rash. In a bad mood. My country’s going crazy and it is wearing on me.

  39. 39.

    debg

    While I hate to further Walmart’s agenda, they’ve got a simple black baker’s rack in my local store for about $70.

  41. 41.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    I have a boat load of bakers racks cause I am a hoarder. I get mine from thrift stores cause people buy them then don;t use them. The latest addition is one in the bathroom, stacked to the gills with body wash, TP, shampoo, and toothpaste. Us extreme couponers are going to be the winners in this whole meltdown.

  42. 42.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Somebody (Will Rogers? Twain? Mencken?) once said something to the effect that “I have never actively wished for a man’s death, but there are obituaries I have read with unalloyed pleasure.”

    GA state legislator Bobby Franklin died was found dead today.

    The one who introduces a punitive anti abortion bill at the start of every legislative session.

    The one who wants the government to get out of the driver’s license business.

    The one who attempted to make having a miscarriage a felony crime.

    Yeah, that Bobby Franklin.

  43. 43.

    TooManyJens

    @jl:

    Cole needs to be stocking up on dried beans, jerky, hard tack, a water purifier, non hyrbrid seeds, and gold suitable for daily transactions.

    That reminds me — the staffer we met with at my congressman’s office today, when pressed on the question of where the money to pay our debts would come from if the debt ceiling wasn’t raised, said, “Well, we have $700 billion in gold in the reserves …”

    He tried to walk it back, but apparently this is the kind of thinking that goes on in the office of someone who was previously considered a “moderate” Republican.

  45. 45.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @jl:

    …bakers racks, and armoires, and bergers, and canapes and dingbats, and pooftons and wasteys du spaces vastes, and whatnot.

    Oh, do I wish I could have come up with that! Pooftons? Pooftons!! But of course.

    BSoSR +2

  47. 47.

    Anne Laurie

    Cole, if you don’t want to pay shipping charges, try Target. (The model second from the left on the second row has worked very well for us.) If you’re actually planning to use it in your kitchen, I recommend a model with a solid (wooden or metal) counter, because it’s frustrating to juggle spice jars, chopped veggies or small blender attachments and keep them from droppping through a wire shelf. Of course, you may not plan to use the counter, but when you’re in the middle of a cooking project that’s taken over every other square inch of counter space is the worst time to find out the cap on the balsamic vinegar drops neatly through the shelving wire, especially if Rosie immediately grabs it & runs away.

    (I like the concept of Cooking.com, but it seems like they double the price of everything, possibly on the grounds that people who’ve been searching frantically for simple, functional kitchen goods will be too overjoyed to price-check.)

  49. 49.

    MonkeyBoy

    If anybody is going to use open wire shelving in their kitchen I first insist that they have an adequate range exhaust hood that runs whenever cooking that contains any fat occurs. Without such an exhaust a fine varnish of grease builds up on everything exposed in the kitchen and I would think that a wire mesh rack would be about the most difficult thing to clean.

  50. 50.

    Abby

    i ENDED UP WITH A METAL RACK FROM THE HARDWARE STORE, 5 SHELVES, GOOD WIRE FOR 40.00 BUCKAROOS. AS YOU CAN SEE I’M NOT FRENCH.

  52. 52.

    keestadoll

    John–the rack psedonymous posted looks EXACTLY like one I just saw in COSTCO today. They do online ordering, ps.

  53. 53.

    JG

    I use a basic Ikea shelf – unfinished pine (you could pretty it up if you want). I have put in nails and screws of various kinds off of all sides of it to hang loops of twine with measuring cups, cookie cutters, various utensils, etc. I rigged up one up side with a metal grate-like rack to use S-hooks on to hang other gadgets, small saucepans, and frying pans.

    It cost me $39 I think….and I don’t care if it gets a bit wounded, it holds EVERYTHING, it’s sturdy, etc. etc. It is from the GORM line at Ikea…lots of things to mix and match, several different heights, anyone can put it together.

    Or with a drill, and handful of hardware, and a small bit of lumber you can make your own and attach metal grids, shelves, racks, etc. to make it custom.

  54. 54.

    meander

    The products from InterMetro recommended by Bex and pseudonymous in nc above are great. Not only are they well built, but they are modular, flexible and expandable. I bought enough for two shelving units a decade ago at The Container Store in the DC suburbs, used them in two place in my apartment there. Then they went into the garage for a few years until I did a major rearrangement of the kitchen which included making those two separate units into one long unit that holds many of my dry goods, my mixer, food processor, a bunch of pots, and so forth. And when I move, I could divide it into two or three units.

    If you get tired of its service as a baker’s rack, perhaps with a few more shelves and poles and what not you could make a new cage for Rosie or a playland for Tunch.

    They might have the equipment at industrial shops too like Grainger, as many small warehouses use Metro shelving.

  57. 57.

    Paul in KY

    All iron is by definition older than our solar system (since the only way iron can be made is in the core of a supergiant star getting ready to go supernova), thus ‘aged iron’ is a bullshit marketing term.

  58. 58.

    Cindy

    i got mine from bakersracks.com. they have a good variety and often have free shipping. usually some assembly is required, but it’s not difficult.

  59. 59.

    x

    I got a Stainless Steel BR from Target. Its sturdy enough, light enough, & IIRC, cost maybe $150.

  60. 60.

    pseudonymous in nc

    I was actually thinking about the Container Store’s commercial-looking line, except that I couldn’t remember its brand name, and got stuck in Elfa closet configurators. Turns out it’s InterMetro too. Definitely agree, though, that chrome mesh shelving needs to be in a well-vented area: it’s a grease magnet, and plastic-coated mesh is even worse.

    IKEA has a cheap commercial-looking line (OMAR), though not in a bakers’ rack config, and I wouldn’t bet on its sturdiness.

  61. 61.

    terry chay

    I got one, years ago, from (ironically) Sur La Table. (No b.s. crap. Just a cheap folding stainless steel rack that gives about a half inch underneath for airflow). I think you can get them (and other things) from King Arthur Flour. If you don’t have their catalog yet, John, you should do so immediately.

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