Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Republicans in disarray!

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

This fight is for everything.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Night Open Thread

Reader Interactions

69Comments

  5. 5.

    cathyx

    Even though I’m pessimistic about the near future, I’m quite optimistic for the long run. I think everything will come out in the wash eventually.

  12. 12.

    Linda Featheringill

    I see that Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Marciopa County, Arizona is being criticized for not investigating complaints of sexual assault, especially towards children. Some of them were preschoolers. Many of the victims were children of illegal immigrants.

    http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/critics-tough-sheriff-botched-sex-crime-cases-15083848#.Ttz8d3MbVlM

    Fucketyfuckfuck! Damn him and all his helpers to hell!

    Yes, I am biased. I was raped when I was 3 1/2 years old. This was not touchy-feely, it was forced entry. The trauma has haunted my life for decades: The memory of the physical pain, the fear, the helplessness, the broken trust.

    Damned son of a bitch of a sheriff.

  14. 14.

    Phylllis

    I only have one Monday left until Christmas break, so I’m not so down on the Monday. When I have to haul back in on January 2nd while the hubby gets to stay home and watch the Carolina/Nebraska game, I’ll probably be a little cranky, though.

  15. 15.

    Judas Escargot

    And 620 years from now, some fungoid cloud-octopus may be watching early Seinfeld reruns.

    It all evens out.

  17. 17.

    JPL

    @Linda Featheringill: Last Friday a little girl went missing in a city north of me. Today the local police finally called in state help. She was found in a dumpster in the apartment complex where she lived, raped and beaten to death. Her mother did not speak English. The state of GA has a missing child alert system but the police did not think it was appropriate in this circumstance. It goes without saying she did not have blond hair and blue eyes. Arpaio is a sick disturbed man but imo, there are a few other sheriffs that need investigating also.

  19. 19.

    Punchy

    A lightyear is not a unit of time. It’s a unit of distance.

    Caption FAIL.

    Edit: beaten to the punch by like 34 other commentors.

  23. 23.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @JPL: I heard that on the radio this evening, my heart broke. What kind of sick fuck rapes then beats to death a 7 year old? What kind of sick fuck?

  37. 37.

    xanax

    It’s not the star that grants the wish, it’s the magic of the star beam falling on you. The magic light of stars long dead ricochets across the universe spreading wishful properties willy nilly. The caption fail has nothing to do with distance vs. time, but a basic misunderstanding of the science of magic.

  39. 39.

    jl

    @PurpleGirl:

    No pet pix yet? After depressing the BJ audience (and goodness knows we are depressed enough as it is).

    Harrumph.

    May John G. Cole undergo 100 billion kalpas of rebirth on an ocean covered super earth, in the habitable zone, as a delicious slow moving soft bodied sea creature, among a teeming population of ravenous alien shark life forms, with fricken laser beams on their heads.

    Edit: on second thought, Cole did register as a Democrat, long after he was of age and presumably mature judgment, so, I probably need to think up a better curse. He’d be down with the weak sauce I just dished out.

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack

    Light-years: distance, not time.

    Justin Bieber in a Barbarella spacesuit, can no one make a “play on words” in a joke?!

  42. 42.

    Steeplejack

    @jl:

    Emerging Internet tradition of using “Justin Bieber” instead of “Jesus Christ” in exclamations. So, instead of “Jesus Christ on a pogo stick!,” what I said above.

    If it is offensive, I’ll stop as soon as everyone else stops using “also, too” in every other comment.

  44. 44.

    RossInDetroit

    If our universe is a 3 dimensional surface of a 4 dimensional realm and space is finite but unbounded, the star you are looking at may be our own sun.
    I dunno what that means in terms of dreams, though.

  45. 45.

    Raven

    @JPL: “Authorities did not issue a Levi’s Call — the state’s version of an amber alert — because officers didn’t have any information about the girl’s abductor, which is a requirement for issuing such an alert”

  46. 46.

    Raven

    Activation Criteria

    Before Levi’s Call can be activated, the following “Alert Criteria” must be met:

    Law enforcement officials have a reasonable belief that an abduction has occurred.
    Law enforcement officials believe that the child is in imminent danger or serious bodily injury or death.
    Enough descriptive information exists about the victim and the abductor for law enforcement to issue a Levi’s Call: Georgia’s AMBER Alert.
    The victim of the abduction is a child age 17 years or younger.
    The child’s name and other critical data elements – including the child abduction (CA) and AMBER Alert (AA) flags – have been entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) system

    Activation will not be granted for:

    Non-custodial abductions where no danger exists to the child
    Runaways

    Over use of Levi’s Call will cause the program to be ineffective.

  47. 47.

    Boxer

    A solid piece of journalism with more to come regarding how incredibly awful police can be in Florida yet retain their badges. I’m kind of glad they’re releasing one story per day, because I don’t think I could handle reading it all in one sitting….

    http://cops.htcreative.com/

  48. 48.

    David in NY

    Let me be the fourth (or maybe fifth or sixth) to object that “lightyears” are a measure of distance. At least Cole could have made a footnote about it, or something.

  49. 49.

    Glen Tomkins

    Whatever the philosophic merit of the sentiment, the astrophysics is all wrong.

    You can’t see any stars with the naked eye that are anything close to millions of light years distant. The closest, Alpha Centauri, is only 4.5 ly away, and furthest at all bright stars, ones that you are at all likely to notice as individuals and wish upon, are no further than about 2,000 ly away.

    Now, the two thousand years that it takes for light to reach us from these 2,000 ly-away stars is indeed a long time in human terms. But in terms of the lifetime of the stars, it’s the blink of an eye. Even the millions of years mentioned would not be very long to a star. It is almost a certainty that none of the stars you might conceivably have ever wished upon has died since the light from it that you see left it.

    Hopefully your dreams are as alive as all those stars.

  50. 50.

    dmsilev

    Wow. Triple fail.

    (a) As noted by many, light years are a unit of distance, not time. Assume whoever made this actual meant ‘years’.

    (b) Naked-eye visibility distance for individual stars is just a few thousand light-years, so for millions, substitute thousands, unless you’re wishing upon a star using the Keck Telescope or something.

    c) Main sequence stars live for multiple billions of years, so if you *were* wishing upon an object millions of LY away, the chances are pretty good that it’s still there.

  51. 51.

    suzanne

    The baby has had a cold for over a week now, and last night decided it would be awesome to stay up until midnight, then get up at 3 to fight for her right to PAAAAAAR-TAAAY! I’ve also started having a weird side effect from my anti-seizure medication: abnormally low blood pressure. So I randomly feel faint and disoriented and like I’m gonna hurl.

    And now the baby is asleep on my lap. Whaddya bet she decides to go for 3AM Part II: The Revenge? FUUUUUCK.

  52. 52.

    Cap'n Magic

    And in the alternate universe that is known as the GOP road to nomination, Phyllis Schalfly endores Michelle Bachman.

  53. 53.

    Steeplejack

    @suzanne:

    Condolences on that. The worst part of being sick and/or nursing someone who is sick is that it’s so tiring. You feel like you’re never going to get back to “normal” energy level.

  54. 54.

    licensed to kill time

    Thanks to all the actual scientists who pointed out that stars have a life span unimaginable to us puny humans and that we can still safely wish upon a star, no matter where we are, and have a reasonable expectation that it might make a difference. Or at least make us feel better for a nano-second.

    (I have no idea what a nano-second is, or might be, or if it is even a term. I just like the way it sounds.)

  55. 55.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @SP: Comment #7 for the light-year vs. year correction. I kind of thought BJ’ers would have jumped on it a little earlier than that.

  56. 56.

    suzanne

    @Steeplejack: Thanks. It kind of sucks. I was driving home last week, and I suddenly felt so awful and dizzy that I thought for a little while that I was actually having a seizure and I had to REALLY concentrate on not throwing up all over myself. I mentioned it to my mother, who suggested taking my blood pressure, so I did: 93/66. Rut-roh. Couple that with a whiny, needy infant, and I’m THRILLED.

  57. 57.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @licensed to kill time: Nano — one billionth. Or an iPod. Whatever

    Going smaller:
    deci: one tenth
    centi: one hundredth
    milli: one thousandth
    micro: one millionth
    nano: one billionth
    pico: Really? you want to go that small?

    Going bigger:
    deca: ten
    hecto: hundred
    kilo: thousand
    mega: million
    giga: billion

    This has been another episode of Too Much Boring Information from Another Pedantic Asshole

  59. 59.

    Steeplejack

    @suzanne:

    I mentioned it to my mother, who suggested taking my blood pressure, so I did: 93/66.

    Did you have a pulse? LOL. Remimds me of that Groucho Marx line in A Day at the Races, taking the pulse of someone who has fainted: “Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped.”

  63. 63.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @licensed to kill time:
    More Pedantic Info:

    Did you notice, you classicly trained non-engineer geeks, that the smaller prefixes are from the Latin and the larger ones are from the Greek?

    A-and when they’re abbreviated, the larger ones are capitalized (Kg for kilograms, KW for kilowatts) and the smaller ones aren’t (mg for milligrams, mW for milliwatts).

  64. 64.

    licensed to kill time

    @Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:

    I recognized the Latin (from my phar.macy tech days reading scrips) and vaguely recognized the Greek…but this is one of the things I love about BJ; the arcane side-trips threads take, informed by knowledgeable people. I learn a lot and I like it!

  65. 65.

    Glen Tomkins

    @suzanne: You need to change seizure meds, or at least dosages. Even if the regimen you’re on now has been the only one that has worked well so far at preventing seizures, it sounds like your hypotensive episodes are nearly as disruptive as seizures, specifically in the sense that it sounds like it’s not safe for you to drive on these meds. And unless you know exactly what effect of the meds is driving the BP down, it’s possible that the low BP is just a symptom of something inherently dangerous, like a heart rhythm problem.

  68. 68.

    Paul in KY

    That’s a stupid poster, since the vast majority of stars are in our galaxy & are no farther away than 100,000 years.

    Yes, I’m pendantic ;-)

Comments are closed.