Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

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

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

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Open Thread

by | 118 Comments

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Was nowhere near the computer all day, so sorry for that. While I was gone, dad came down and walked the dogs. He also did me the “favor” of turning off my ac. Except he went one notch too far, and turned on the heat, which was still set for 90 since the furnace was just installed a month ago and we had it on 90 to test it.

When I got home, the house was 88 degrees and the furnace was sounding like a NASCAR engine, the dog water bowl was empty, and all three animals were lying on the living room floor actively shedding.

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  2. 2.

    geg6

    Pictures or it didn’t happen, Cole.

    You really are a walking disaster area, aren’t you? And dad is not helping. Hilarious.

  5. 5.

    JWL

    Face it, Cole. You’re not clumsy, much less forgetful. You’ve got a death wish. And you intend to take your animals with you.

  8. 8.

    Felinious Wench

    I am confident the Dark Feline Overlord was not pleased. Do you know your dad’s blood type for when Tunch unleashes his revenge in the dead of night?

  10. 10.

    Yutsano

    I just stared at a case for ten minutes before I figured out what the hell to do with it. It’s been that kind of day.

  11. 11.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    That story explains quite a bit, actually. I hope the animals are feeling better.

  12. 12.

    PurpleGirl

    Poor critters! I hope they are doing better now.

    I had my living room AC on this afternoon because it was so humid.

  13. 13.

    licensed to kill time

    So, those pobre animalitos were just about at the boiling point?

    Yikes. 20 lashes/wet noodlies for your dad!

  14. 14.

    burnspbesq

    At least you got home before they busted out through a window.

    Wild card update: Mets got six in the ninth to beat St. Louis, so the Braves lead by two. Tampa got three in the first at FTFY. Angels underway in TO, no score.

  15. 15.

    Quaker in a Basement

    If your weather stripping was a little tighter, the whole joint might have lifted off like a hot air balloon.

  17. 17.

    Shlemizel - was Alwhite

    isn’t family great? My dad was cat-sitting & managed to shut his garage door on my poor Kittie. By the time he realized what was going on it was too late.

    God has a high-larry-us sense of humor.

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Yutsano: If the case was open, close it. If closed, open it.

    BTW, on a previous thread, you mentioned peeling sweet potatoes in bed; please tell me that was a euphemism for something – nay, anything – else.

  22. 22.

    Allen

    Wouldn’t just turning the T’stat to 70 accomplish the same same thing as 90?.

    And as I sit here reading the posts I just heard a blurb on Oregon Public Radio stating they received funding from Fox. To dumbstruck to even have a reaction to this news.

  25. 25.

    burnspbesq

    @MikeJ:

    “Except for who gets the wild card, the Devil Rays or the Sox.”

    Wrong on both counts. There will be October baseball in Anaheim.

  26. 26.

    JPL

    @efgoldman: I beg to disagree. The Sox are in a major slump but if they make the playoffs, they are contenders and the evil Yanks know this. Who would you rather face…

  27. 27.

    Litlebritdifrnt2

    I finally decided to join the 21st century and upgraded my very simple “phone calls only” flip phone to an android today. I am hooked. I told the rep at US cellular what my interests were and she hooked me up with a couple of apps while she programmed the phone, first one UK News which is basically every newspaper in the UK available online and then some sort of app to allow me to listen to BBC World Service on the phone, set my weather.com app to my area, she programmed it to access my e-mail, set up my gmail account, hooked up my twitter feed and helped me set up my contacts and create unique rings for each of them. Have I told you folks how much I LOVE the people at US Cellular? They are the best.

    So what other apps should I be downloading?

  29. 29.

    MikeJ

    @JPL: My sucker’s soul, which is well and truly a Sox fan, knows that anything can happen in the playoffs. As an older and wiser fan, I know that what is likely is crushing disappointment.

  35. 35.

    Violet

    Poor critters! I hope they’re okay now. And I agree, pictures or it didn’t happen.

    Was just at the gym and saw a bit of Tweety’s show. He had some guy from Freedomworks on named Matt Kibbe. The guy looks like a German bad guy from a WWII or James Bond movie. He’s got these really weird sideburns or facial hair or something in between. If I were casting “bad German-looking character” I’d pick him. Not sure that’s the look Freedomworks, in all their lily-white glory, wants to go for.

  38. 38.

    MikeJ

    Hard to believe that the Mariners have two teams further in the basement than they are. A mere 22 games back while the O’s are 22.5 and the Twins (who they play tonight) are 27.5.

  40. 40.

    John Cole

    Wouldn’t just turning the T’stat to 70 accomplish the same same thing as 90?.

    Not when it is August and 85 degrees when the thing is installed…

  41. 41.

    Litlebritdifrnt2

    @efgoldman:

    I have a stupid question (asked over at LGF by someone else and stolen by me). When stocks go up, you know through the roof and hit like 13K is that real money? I mean is that backed by actual real, honest to FSM currency or is it just money “on paper” by the same token when stocks tank, like today, is that a real “loss” in than it is money going out of the system or is it just a loss “on paper”. It seems to me that all of this so called “money” is just like monopoly money, it doesn’t actually exist in the real world. It exists “on paper” but it doesn;t actually exist in the real world.

    My point being that all of these people who thought their 401Ks were worth “X” was based on “fantasy money” it didn’t actually exist, because the minute the 401Ks began “profit taking” and selling off their stocks the stocks themselves would tank and would be basically worthless. Am I wrong in this?

  43. 43.

    JPL

    @burnspbesq: I was raised in MA and in the olden days you listened to the Sox on the radio day in and day out because they might have a chance and then Sept. came. If I wanted continuous updates, I’d have a sports site up on the web.
    Now I live in GA and we have our own problems.
    .

  45. 45.

    Darkrose

    @MikeJ:

    Hard to believe that the Mariners have two teams further in the basement than they are. A mere 22 games back while the O’s are 22.5 and the Twins (who they play tonight) are 27.5.

    And after the last week, they’re back to being the lowest scoring team in the majors, since the Giants remembered they’re supposed to use those sticks to hit the ball flying at them (but NOT when it’s two feet in front of the plate!)

    Sadly, it’s too late.

  46. 46.

    burnspbesq

    Tampa tacks on the conversion after the try, and it’s 7-0. The New York ruck looks in total disarray.

    Oops, this is baseball, not rugby.

  47. 47.

    Nevgu

    “Was nowhere near the computer all day….”.

    That would explain why Chicken Little Cup Half Empty Cole didn’t have a “see…the stock market is diving so that proves that [insert todays shiny object of gloom here]”.

    I’m sure he will make up for it tomorrow and of course the stock market will just go back up in a week or two and Captain Doom will conveniently ignore that and move on to the next shiny object of gloom.

  48. 48.

    4jkb4ia

    @burnspbesq:

    If the Cardinals, however improbably, make the playoffs, the thought of Jason Motte as the closer is enough to induce heart failure. You do not blow games like this.

  49. 49.

    Quaker in a Basement

    @JPL: UP part II.. Rosie saves the day.

    Well, I suppose. But who would play the part of the cranky old guy?

    Oh! Yeah.

  50. 50.

    MikeJ

    Ok, I have sausage, beans, San Marzano tomatoes, totillas and pasta.

    Do I want some sort italiany thing or some sort of mexicany thing? The other option is Red Robin, but the one near me has gone way downhill and I don’t feel like driving all the way to Dick’s.

  55. 55.

    MTiffany

    the dog water bowl was empty, and all three animals were lying on the living room floor actively shedding.

    Furpocalypse!

  56. 56.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @efgoldman: No chit.

    Well my friends are gone and my hair is gray
    I ache in the places where I used to play
    And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on
    I’m just paying my rent every day in the tower of song

    I said to Hank Williams, “How lonely does it get?”
    Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet
    But I hear him coughing all night long
    Oh, a hundred floors above me in the tower of song

  57. 57.

    Alison

    Texas is doing its damnedest to, well…be damned.

    tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/texas_abolishes_last_meal_requests_for_death_row_i.php

    The Texas prison system ended the tradition of offering death row inmates a last meal request, apparently in response to white supremacist Lawrence Brewer’s particularly elaborate request before he was put to death Wednesday — a meal that he then declined.

    The meal he ordered “included a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, a meat-lover’s pizza, a big bowl of okra with ketchup, a pound of barbecue, a half a loaf of bread, peanut butter fudge, a pint of ice cream and two chicken-fried steaks.” – which, I don’t know, is probably what plenty of Southerners (fuck, plenty of USians) eat for dinner on a regular basis, isn’t it?

    But seriously. “We’re going to kill you and get away with it, and you don’t even get to eat what you want first”? Do they get a bowl of gruel and a glass of pond water? Crusts of bread? Dog kibble?

    The level of meanness some people are capable of is really frightening. And yeah, Brewer was a piece of shit, but come the fuck on. It’s not going to hurt America to let even pieces of shit have their bacon cheeseburgers and ice cream, for the love of fuck.

  58. 58.

    lamh34

    alright when is this BS debate supposed to begin and how long is it supposed to be?

    Ugh, nevermind, I’ll be watching X-factor anyway.

  60. 60.

    Hill Dweller

    So the wingers are attacking Michelle Obama for wearing “bling” at a black tie event last night.

    Never mind that it was borrowed.

  61. 61.

    kdaug

    @Yutsano:

    I just stared at a case for ten minutes before I figured out what the hell to do with it.

    Hit it with the crowbar – there’s a power-up inside.

  62. 62.

    MikeJ

    @Alison: His suooper dooper elaborate last meal might have come close to $100, and they’re pissed he wasted it.

    Any last meal that isn’t washed down with Cheval Blanc isn’t worth bothering with.

  63. 63.

    eemom

    don’t mean to be a downer on this pleasant Cole disaster thread, but I want folks to know something: contrary to what what being said in various places last night, including here, NOBODY knows how the individual Supreme Court Justices voted on the petition for stay. There was no written dissent filed: that’s all. There is NO reason to believe it was unanimous.

    I have confirmed that with a reliable source.

    And contrary to my usual practice, this time I AM willing to bet what the vote actually was.

  68. 68.

    Allen

    @John Cole: You mean it gets hotter inside while you install a furnace. I’ll have to let the mechanical engineers I know this amazing bit of news.

  69. 69.

    Baud

    @eemom: This is what the Court’s order states:

    The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied.

    If there were a dissent, it would be indicated.

  70. 70.

    lamh34

    So I’m a bit of a tv addict when I’m not going to see the latest movie at the theatre, plus I don’t have much of a life…whoa is me…

    Anyway, this week is “premiere” week on tv, so I’m like a pig in slop.

    I’m looking forward to returning shows, but I’m also pscyhed to see some of the new offereing.

    So are there any returning or new shows ya’ll are looking forwrd to?

    BTW, I caught the first hour of X-Factor and maybe it’s cause I wasn’t much of an American Idol fan, but I gotta say, I don’t hate it.

  75. 75.

    eemom

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    and I would EVEN be willing to guess who voted which way.

    Anyway. I just didn’t want people to assume that the GOOD Justices went along with that abomination.

  77. 77.

    eemom

    @Baud:

    WRONG. There was no WRITTEN dissent filed, that’s all. Which isn’t surprising under the circumstances.

    Can you fucking read? I said that I confirmed with someone who actually knows how the Supreme Court works, unlike you, that the lack of dissent shows NOTHING about what the vote was.

  78. 78.

    John Cole

    @Allen: Allen, this is not rocket science. It was 85 degrees outside (and inside since my ac was dead) when the furnace was installed in August. In order to test the furnace, we set the thermostat to 90, which is 5 degrees hotter than the thermostat was reading. Now why did we do this? Because if we set it to 84, it would not kick on!

    So we set it to 90 to test it. Then, after we tested it, we promptly switched to the AC, where it has stayed since, as it has never been cold enough to require heating. So, when my dad moved the switch from COOL to HEAT, accidentally skipping off, it went back to the 90 we had it when we tested the machine.

    Criminy.

  80. 80.

    patrick II

    He also did me the “favor” of turning off my ac. Except he went one notch too far, and turned on the heat, which was still set for 90

    Freudian slips can be manifested physically as well as verbally. Do you and your father have unresolved issues?

  82. 82.

    Baud

    @eemom: This is how the order would read if there were a dissent:

    No. 06–11103 (06A1052). Workman v. Bredesen, Governor of Tennessee, et al. C. A. 6th Cir. Application for stay of execution of sentence of death, presented to Justice Stevens, and by him referred to the Court, denied. Certiorari denied. Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, and Justice Ginsburg would grant the application for stay of execution. Reported below: 486 F. 3d 896.

  83. 83.

    brutishandshort (formerly known as blogbytom)

    Hey, y’all. This is completely OT and I haven’t read the thread (nor do I comment here often, avid reader though I am), but does anyone know where I can get a live stream of the Republican debate tonight? Go time is twenty minutes, I’m half in the bag, and I feel like tweeting. Any help would be much appreciated. #nocable

  88. 88.

    lamh34

    Posted this in another thread, but since someone mentioned SCOTUS/Davis case I’ll post it here to.

    Just some food for thought:

    Killer spared from death hours before execution, by Matthew Bigg ATLANTA | Thu May 22, 2008 7:49pm EDT

    (Reuters) – The parole board in the state of Georgia spared a convicted killer from execution hours before he was due to die by lethal injection on Thursday and commuted his sentence to life in prison.

    The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles made its decision less than three hours before Samuel David Crowe, 47, was to be executed, according to a spokeswoman for the state’s prisons…

    “After careful and exhaustive consideration of the requests, the board voted to grant clemency. The board voted to commute the sentence to life without parole,” the parole board said…

    Crowe was not present at the parole board hearing in Atlanta. He had already eaten his last meal and was preparing to enter the execution chamber at the prison in Jackson, Georgia, Mallie McCord of the Georgia Department of Corrections said.

    In March 1988, Crowe killed store manager Joseph Pala during a robbery at the lumber company in Douglas County, west of Atlanta. Crowe, who had previously worked at the store, shot Pala three times with a pistol, beat him with a crowbar and a pot of paint…

    Crowe pleaded guilty to armed robbery and murder and was sentenced to death the following year.

    “David (Crowe) takes full responsibility for his crime and experiences profound remorse,” according to Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, an advocacy group, who welcomed the board’s decision.

    At Thursday’s hearing, his lawyers presented a dossier of evidence attesting to his remorse and good behavior in jail, according to local media reports. The lawyers also said he was suffering from withdrawal symptoms from a cocaine addiction at the time of the crime…

    this is from 2008 but it only being what…3 years ago. It’s interesting in the very least, because the idea that the dude’s execution was stayed because he was a “model” inmate, as was Mr Davis, and yet unlike Mr Davis, there was no “reasonable” doubt that he killed the victim, nor, it seems, was there any new evidence or recanted statements unlike Mr Davis. Of course, the alleged victim was not a police officer in the white guy’s case. and this guy pleaded guilty, Mr Davis who maintained his innocence refused to admit guilt because he claimed to admit guilt for the crime would in essence say he actually committed the crime…hmm, boggles the mind doesn’t it?

  89. 89.

    Bmaccnm

    @Nevgu: Nevgu, honey. There’s a whole big world out there. You could go out for a beer. You could go out for a walk in the park.. You could meet an old friend for a beer. You could make a new friend at the park. Why stay here when it makes you so unhappy?

  90. 90.

    eemom

    @Baud:

    No. That’s how it was recorded in that case.

    On what authority do you purport to know jack shit about this procedure?

  91. 91.

    Roger Moore

    @Litlebritdifrnt2:
    You need to get Angry Birds; I think there’s a law somewhere requiring it to be downloaded onto every smartphone that supports it. I also like gReader, which lets me get RSS feeds so I know when there’s a new Balloon-Juice posting. Wunder is good for checking your local Weather Underground weather station. Google Earth and Google Sky Map are very cool. And you probably need some kind of note taking app. If you’re on some social media site, you should probably get their associated app. And you should get Tweetdeck to replace the official twitter app.

  93. 93.

    MikeJ

    @eemom: Was there actually a vote? Thomas could have ordered it to go to the full court by himself. Did he?

    Did it ever get to the point where others could vote on it? It only takes 4 yea’s to grant cert.

  94. 94.

    joel hanes

    @kdaug:

    > hit it with the crowbar

    The delay in releasing Half-Life 2 Episode 3 is IMHO unconscionable.

    (full disclosure: I have a Black Mesa parking permit on my car, and a “What Would Gordon Freeman Do?” bumper sticker on the van)

    I don’t really care about shooting an infinite number of zombies, so the Left For Dead series didn’t do it for me.

  96. 96.

    dmsilev

    @Roger Moore:

    You need to get Angry Birds; I think there’s a law somewhere requiring it to be downloaded onto every smartphone that supports it.

    Some days, I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who tried Angry Birds, said ‘meh’, and promptly filed it in the “apps to consider running only when extremely bored” folder.

  97. 97.

    Southern Beale

    No good deed goes unpunished, as we say.

    Here’s the latest death penalty douchetude from Texas. I know y’all will be shocked.

    I’m going to dumb down and watch Project Runway tonight. I really can’t handle any more asshattery and I sure as shit don’t give a crap about the Republican debate tonight. Christ, I almost wish there was a primary field of Obama just so we could get our fucking talking points out there. I really do think all of these GOP debates are really just opportunities to spread the conservative worldview.

  107. 107.

    opie jeanne

    @burnspbesq: Angels tied at 3 with the Twins in the 8th inning. Weird game, and the ump at home just lost the strike zone, for both teams. It’s a mess.

  114. 114.

    dww44

    Thanks, John, for providing me the first out loud laugh I’ve enjoyed since before yesterday’s trauma and stress.

  115. 115.

    dww44

    @lamh34: yep, as Jeffrey Toobin said on CNN last night: “Contrary to popular perception that more blacks than whites are executed in these United states, that is not the case. However what is true is that the death penalty is applied more frequently in black on white crimes/murders.” The foregoing is a parapharase rather than an actual quote.

    As a lifelong Georgian, I’ve maintained all along that had the victim not been a white policeman, the outcome might very well have been different.

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