Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

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

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

The revolution will be supervised.

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

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Republicans in disarray!

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread

Reader Interactions

160Comments

  2. 2.

    dance around in your bones

    I HEAR you. Nothing much matters in the long run, REALLY.

    Watching Harold and Maude for the bazillionth time and not worrying about frack all.

  4. 4.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    So…Congress can’t be arsed to stop dicking around to finalize budgetary stuff or wring out enough ‘compromises’ to satisfy the GOP so they can deign to allow the payroll tax holiday extension.

    But…they ARE willing to have the Judiciary Committee reconvene this Wed. for a super special session to finally hash out SOPA and get it shoved through because it’s really really really super extra important.

    Fuck them all with a bundle of rusted audio jacks.

  5. 5.

    henqiguai

    Tired of arguing.

    Wit’ who? About what? And where? Dammit, I’m missing another BJ freakout?! Well, scraw-it; time to start getting ready for Primeval. Yeah, I watch that show, I’m easily amused. Might even stay up to catch Graham Norton.

  6. 6.

    Yutsano

    Oh I dunno. Watching another CS meltdown never gets old.

    Other than that, I’m just tired. I decided the major cleaning stuff in the house can wait until tomorrow.

  7. 7.

    lamh35

    2 more days and I’ll be back in NOLA for Christmas. Woot wool.

    Right now I”m catching up on “Once Upon A Time” this show has slowly become one of my favorite new shows. It seems very well thought out and it’s some pretty good storytelling.

    I def recommend it for anyone who loves them some Disney fairytales like I do.

  8. 8.

    cathyx

    Tomorrow I start making Christmas cookies. I like to give a variety as gifts. It’s a nice gift to give people when you don’t want them to feel obligated to give something in return.

  9. 9.

    henqiguai

    @lamh35 (#7): Right now I”m catching up on “Once Upon A Time” this show has slowly become one of my favorite new shows.
    Funny, I’m going just the opposite. Started out with high hopes for both “Once Upon a Time” and “Grimm”; can’t really watch either one now, ‘specially “Grimm”.

  12. 12.

    RossInDetroit

    Can I complain too?

    Lots of people like to chat on the phone. They should find each other and chat on the phone together. People who don’t like to chat on the phone? They should not call them to chat.

    Nature gave me 80 years +/- on this planet. I own that. Don’t pick my pocket yammering away an hour of my time for your own amusement.

    /rant

  19. 19.

    Raven

    Started 2 weeks off Thursday. Got a truck load of compost, shoveled it out and promptly came down with a nasty fucking head cold. 70 degrees in December and I’m a zombie. The princess is of on the 1st of three nights with “the girls” and me and the mutts are sitting here in misery!

  23. 23.

    TooManyJens

    Tired of arguing.

    My four-year-old (“four and eight twelfths, Mom!”) argues with me all the time. I told her I was getting tired of it and she said, “But why? Arguing is fun!”

    Of all the ways for her to take after her dad…

  28. 28.

    RossInDetroit

    @cathyx:

    tell aunt Cathyx who wanted to talk a long time to you on the phone?

    Seemingly everyone. All the electronics hobby guys want to do their technical stuff on weekends. And they need questions answered. I’m the guy with answers. So my phone starts ringing before breakfast and never stops. This means instead of doing my *own* hobby stuff I do everyone else’s instead and make zero progress on my own priorities. It’s maddening.
    I always respond to emails promptly and in detail. I’ve been supported by generous and polite techs all my life and I take that as my own responsibility when I have something to offer. But I’d like to do it in my own time, and not when I’ve just sat down with an omelet and toast.

    Some weekends I just shut off the phone. It gets that bad.

  29. 29.

    TooManyJens

    @RossInDetroit:

    Lots of people like to chat on the phone. They should find each other and chat on the phone together. People who don’t like to chat on the phone? They should not call them to chat.

    I feel you, man.

  33. 33.

    Steeplejack

    @henqiguai:

    I’m still hanging with Grimm, although it is treading water. The new show that I thought I wouldn’t like but that has been hooking me in more and more as it picks up speed is Person of Interest. Go figure. But maybe I’m just still in mourning for Human Target.

    And don’t get me started on The Good Guys. Loved that show.

  36. 36.

    Yutsano

    @RossInDetroit: Bill them. You certainly have the right to have your time compensated for the intrusion on the weekend. Whatever rate you think is fair. And if they complain, tell them good luck.

    @Steeplejack: Oh I know. I’m just being a slight git because I feel like it.

  37. 37.

    RossInDetroit

    @cathyx:

    Uh huh, go on…
    ETA: Still patting

    Wanna know how bad it is? I have a keychain clip on my cell phone so I can hang it around my neck and go on trying to do stuff that takes two hands while people yammer at me.

    I hang my phone around my neck so they can talk at me.

    And begging off doesn’t work:

    “What are you doing?”
    “Up to my elbows in a dangerous live high voltage circuit. I really need to concentrate on this.”
    “Really? What are you doing?”

    *headdesk*

  38. 38.

    dance around in your bones

    Harold and Maude are just getting pulled over by the police. hahahaha.

    motorcycle cop’s motorcycle just crapped out.

    uh-oh, here he comes again….

    frack. some movies are so perfect….

  39. 39.

    RossInDetroit

    @Yutsano:

    Bill them. You certainly have the right to have your time compensated for the intrusion on the weekend.

    That’s the conclusion I’ve come to with customers. I’ll log the phone time and bill 50% of my very reasonable hourly bench rate. It’s still a bargain.

  40. 40.

    aliasofwestgate

    I dunno. Once Upon A Time, i liked the idea but the execution of it wasn’t impressive to me. Grimm, i find is better in execution even if the plot is thin as can be. I also like that i’m not just handed everything on a platter or shown it in flashbacks. But i like some aspects of mystery and Grimm has that.There’s some exposition,but its never a lot. i get my fill of those in my scifi shows. Fantasy? Can be dallied about with a bit more.

    Also, the twists on the cop procedural have some major potential in a lot of directions. Not just in the main characters personal life, but his work ethics (which have already been pushed a bit but can go a LOT farther if they want to). My only thing is the psuedo german, which mostly makes me vastly amused. I dont’ know the language at all, and i can tell it isn’t the correct stuff. It adds to the atmosphere in the end, which works.

  43. 43.

    Steeplejack

    @dance around in your bones:

    I have no idea. The humor was a little off the beaten track, and it got off to a slow start–the later episodes were much better than the first ones–so maybe people gave up on it. But episodes like the one where Dan Stark tased everybody and fell for the visiting FBI agent were gold.

  45. 45.

    magurakurin

    general pot stirring, but…my beef with guys like Greenwald is that they are real good at pointing out what they see as flaws and injustices in the system, but they never seem to offer any suggestion as to what they or anyone else should do to correct it.

    Outrage for outrage’s sake doesn’t seem very helpful or healthy. An amendment in this years defense appropriation bill is odious. Okay, got it. So, step two is…what? Feinstein has already introduced a Guarantee of Due Process bill. Is Greenwald helping to get passage of this? He may be, I don’t know. I hope he is. Has he identified the members of Congress who voted against it and asked his readers to consider supporting them with actual money? Al Franken will be up for reelection in two years…is he straight enough for Greenwald?

    Outrage without an action plan seems like a recipe for mental health issues to me.

    and for the record “vote Green for President” does pass muster for me for a valid action plan.

  46. 46.

    dogwood

    @cathyx:

    Tomorrow I start making Christmas cookies. I like to give a variety as gifts. It’s a nice gift to give people when you don’t want them to feel obligated to give something in return.

    So true. It also makes me think of my mother who would start to make Christmas cookies, candies, and fruitcakes in November. My family was working class all the way. Neither of my parents went to college; in fact, my mother was the only one of 8 siblings who graduated high school. But, despite that reality, I’m a bit ashamed to admit that when it came to fishing and Christmas cookies, my parents were complete snobs and it rubbed off on the children. I cannot hear the terms “fishing pole” or “bait” without cringing. I also cannot call a chocolate chip, oatmeal, or peanut butter cookie a Christmas cookie. Alas, discreet elitism among the lower classes does exist.

  47. 47.

    Steeplejack

    @lamh35:

    It has really picked up speed the last few weeks, as they introduced potential supervillain Elias and started filling in the characters, especially the policewoman Carter and not-just-a-bad-cop Fusco.

  49. 49.

    Steeplejack

    @Yutsano:

    I was going to go out and do a few things, maybe pick up some Thai takeout, but I couldn’t summon the mo’ and packed it in for the night. Whittling stuff off the DVR and ate the last of some leftover pizza. Good times.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    Should finally be done with Christmas shopping. I still have to put the finishing touches on the gifts I’m giving my co-workers tomorrow, but at least I have everything.

  51. 51.

    dance around in your bones

    @Steeplejack: Gads, I know….his crappy little trailer and his porn-star moustache and his sad lil dog…I just loved that show. They never keep the goodish ones.

  54. 54.

    PurpleGirl

    I have one “friend” who will call and want to talk… For me she is really an acquaintance. At some point in the phone call I will tell her that xyz has happened and I have to hang up. I’ve done it for years. Maybe not entirely civil but it saves my sanity.

  57. 57.

    henqiguai

    @Steeplejack(#34):

    Human Target and Person of Interest

    Yep, same here. And it’s just not right, the actor from Human Target showing up as a lawyer on Harry’s Law

  58. 58.

    burnspbesq

    @sb:

    Keep Manchester City in your thoughts tonight.

    Would that be the same Manchester City whose arse is going to get a richly deserved kicking tomorrow?

  60. 60.

    cathyx

    @dogwood:

    I also cannot call a chocolate chip, oatmeal, or peanut butter cookie a Christmas cookie.

    I guess I’m a snob too because I can’t either.

  61. 61.

    Steeplejack

    @henqiguai:

    And it’s just not right, the actor from Human Target showing up as a lawyer on Harry’s Law.

    Aw, hell, no! You mean the main guy, Chance?! No way!

    . . . IMDB says way. That is just . . . wrong.

  66. 66.

    Yutsano

    @burnspbesq: This is the exact rationale for why my younger brother wants to go. I can’t say I disagree with his logic. Just gotta get him over his Ron Paul curious thing.

    @cathyx: Did you eted him?

  69. 69.

    burnspbesq

    @Yutsano:

    Just gotta get him over his Ron Paul curious thing.

    It’s tempting to be hands-on, but I think you just have to let him be seduced and abandoned, all by his ownself.

  73. 73.

    burnspbesq

    Stream-of-consciousness, no-list Christmss shopping once again proves equal to the task. Found stuff for both spouse and kid that they don’t realize that they want, but will love when they get it. Surprise is fun!

  75. 75.

    Steeplejack

    @efgoldman:

    Yeah, I know, but this is a case of an actor dropping back a level after being big. Big! And in a completely different (and better) role.

  77. 77.

    Yutsano

    @burnspbesq: I know. I have that damned protective streak in me. I fully realize in a few areas I’m a total mother hen. Ask any Dawg I know. I lectured one yesterday about his eating habits. I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW!!

    And yeah he’ll figure it out eventually. I just hope it’s before the JD and not after.

  78. 78.

    dogwood

    @Raven:

    No, just fishing and Christmas cookies. Pick ups, jello salads, Velveeta, and Tang were an integral part of my childhood.

    Oops, I forgot. If you couldn’t play a decent game of cribbage or bridge you were a bit suspect in my family as well.

  88. 88.

    Steeplejack

    @cathyx:

    Actually, a calendar would be funny. And as long as you’re doing it for profit! it’s probably okay. I just thought you were working out some weird fetish that the Japanese probably have a very specific word for. Vegetakken?

  90. 90.

    Raven

    @efgoldman: Aw man, I’m really sorry to hear it but glad it seems like the prognosis, and more importantly, your attitude is good! Hang tough.

  91. 91.

    burnspbesq

    Steve Musher is the Associate Chief Counsel (International) of the IRS. This year he was every tax lawyer’s Secret Santa, dropping off a 202-page set of cost-sharing regulations at the Federal Register yesterday. I know what I’ll be reading all fucking day tomorrow.

    Thanks, Steve. And Happy Hanukah to you.

  94. 94.

    Raven

    @cathyx: Open your flickr and click on the thumbnail. Put your cursor on the image and you’ll see it as a magnifying glass. Click on that and then click on the “View all sizes” in the upper right hand corner. You should then see the image with something like this across the top

    Sizes Square (75 x 75) Thumbnail (100 x 75) Small (240 x 180) Medium 500 (500 x 375) Medium 640 (640 x 480) Large (1024 x 768)

    Click on the desired size.
    Right (control on mac) on the image and you should get a popup. Select “Copy image location” That will copy a “blind” url. To post it here type a description like “Your Onion Ring” Higlight that text, you to the “link” button above on the text box and paste it in.

  95. 95.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @cathyx: Well of course you can’t, either one of you. Because they’re not. I guess that makes me a cookie snob as well.

  97. 97.

    dogwood

    @efgoldman:

    Possibly all at the same meal, I bet.

    Nah, I’m exaggerating. The Velveeta was reserved for grilled cheese and jello molds for holidays. The Tang was pretty ubiquitous though.

    But, in all seriousness, I hope you recover quickly and completely. All the best.

  104. 104.

    dance around in your bones

    @dogwood:

    Good gawd-how did we all survive? We ate crap, all our parents drank and smoked, no one watched us every second of our lives…..and yet, we survived, possibly even thrived.

  105. 105.

    Yutsano

    Mmm…pizza.

    @Raven: I have a friend at the game right now. My guess is he’s bored because he keeps putting up random pictures on Facebook.

  106. 106.

    cathyx

    @dogwood: I’m not from Idaho, and I make lemon meltaways, spritz(family favorite), Brickle crunch, Mocha pecan balls, apricot envelops and striped icebox cookies.

  108. 108.

    Raven

    @cathyx:

    I had a garden but my flowers died.
    There ain’t much living here inside.
    And lately, I don’t know what I’m holding on to.
    But I’ll never make it up to Couer d’Alene.
    There ain’t no chance of me forgetting my name.
    And easy’s gettin’ harder every day

    And it feels like easy, just keeps on gettin’ harder every day.

  109. 109.

    dogwood

    @dance around in your bones:

    all our parents drank and smoked

    Hell, our mothers drank and smoked while they were pregnant. No car seats or bicycle helmets either. In terms of food there certainly was some bad crap. But my mom cooked three square meals a day, and we didn’t have snacks around. So even if the quality of the available food was inferior to what’s available today, the eating habits were superior.

  110. 110.

    Renie

    Love reading the post on everyone’s favorite/unfavorite Christmas songs and movies. Can we do one on everyone’s most annoying relative they see at the holidays? Reading about others would help in dealing with my own. lol

  111. 111.

    RossInDetroit

    @dance around in your bones:

    all our parents drank and smoked

    They used to bundle us up in heavy winter clothes, pack us in the car, crank the heat and all fire up cigarettes, with the windows up. We got ‘motion sickness’ and barfed on the floor. Wonder why.

  112. 112.

    Raven

    “all our parents drank and smoked:

    Most maybe. My old man was a runner in the early 60’s. He ran in Chuck Taylor’s and galoshes in the winter in Chicago. He was nuts but a different kind of nuts.

  113. 113.

    RossInDetroit

    I have a new favorite Christmas ‘song’. This is the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies. You’ve heard it a million times. But probably not played on tuned wine glasses in a 900 year old Italian valuted cloister. The resonance and sustain in this room is just gorgeous.

  115. 115.

    RossInDetroit

    @Yutsano:

    Charmed is a good word. It’s delightful in a way that familiar symphonic music almost never is.

    I’d have ignored this but it was posted on FB by a guy who has excellent taste in music. I need to find more by this group.

  116. 116.

    dance around in your bones

    @Raven:

    I love all these reminiscences about our childhoods in the 60’s (well, for ME anyway)

    But I have to say that some of my friends in the 60’s were the first people I knew who ‘jogged’ and got laughed at all the time. People would yell out of their car windows ‘have a beer!’ and shit like that.

    I forget what the guy’s name was who popularized jogging/running but he died of cancer or something when he was relatively young. Ya never know what’s gonna get ya.

  119. 119.

    Cain

    @Steeplejack:

    I’m still hanging with Grimm, although it is treading water. The new show that I thought I wouldn’t like but that has been hooking me in more and more as it picks up speed is Person of Interest. Go figure. But maybe I’m just still in mourning for Human Target.

    The problem is that the guy doing the lead role just seems teh wrong person for the part. Everyone else is great. He is the weakest link. They need to replace him with someone else…

  122. 122.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Yutsano: Younger brother? You never grow out of trying to protect the little bastards, even when they are 40 and larger than you are.

  123. 123.

    Mike in NC

    @Cain:

    The problem is that the guy doing the lead role just seems teh wrong person for the part.

    “Grimm” is sorta dumb unless you want to see werewolves every week, but the reformed “blutbad” character (Silas Mitchell) is very entertaining.

  127. 127.

    TooManyJens

    @dogwood:

    Hell, our mothers drank and smoked while they were pregnant.

    My mother-in-law’s doctor advised her to smoke when she was pregnant with my husband so that she wouldn’t put on too much weight. This was 1968.

  129. 129.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @TooManyJens: I was transported for the first year of my life on my mother’s lap in a seatbelt-less two-seater Austin Healey 100-6. Yeah, Dad was going to sell that just because he had a kid. Also too, I do not dispute his reasoning.

  130. 130.

    Yutsano

    @Omnes Omnibus: Two of us are gigantic monsters, two of us are more reasonable size. But I’m the shortest and the smallest. And the meanest. It’s not my fault I was born in late October. :)

  132. 132.

    Steeplejack

    @Cain:

    The problem is that the guy doing the lead role just seems teh wrong person for the part.

    You mean in Grimm, right? I don’t have a big problem with him so far; he’s just sort of a cipher. They need to move his character in some direction–any direction. He constantly gets upstaged by the “reformed” werewolf–can’t remember the word they use–who does Pilates and works on clocks. He’s a great character.

    @Mike in NC:

    That’s the guy I’m talking about.

  135. 135.

    burnspbesq

    Weird. I’ve been in classic-rock mode all day today. Had “Who’s Next” on in the car while I was running around this afternoon. Now it’s Led Zep. Next up is probably “In the Court of the Crimson King.”

  137. 137.

    Yutsano

    @Omnes Omnibus: The hair issue is a dangerous discussion in my household. We have prematurely graying genes. Except it hasn’t hit me nearly as badly (and I’m almost 40 anyway) but my brothers are all in various stages of gray. My youngest brother even colors his hair. But he’s a househusband too.

  139. 139.

    Southern Beale

    The last U.S. troops have just crossed the border into Kuwait. We’ve officially left Iraq, militarily, kinda sorta. I know, it’s never gonna be over but it’s as over as we can expect. That’s something to be grateful for.

  141. 141.

    Yutsano

    @Southern Beale: Oh frabjous day! Calloo! Callay! I chortle in my joy.

    Now let’s have the State Department cancel all private contractor agreements unilaterally and dare them to sue. That could get fun.

  144. 144.

    Anne Laurie

    @dance around in your bones:

    But I have to say that some of my friends in the 60’s were the first people I knew who ‘jogged’ and got laughed at all the time. People would yell out of their car windows ‘have a beer!’ and shit like that.

    My dad, in the first half of the 1960s, was the first jogger probably ever in our working-class Bronx neighborhood. Don’t remember him getting abuse from bystanders, probably because it was an article of faith among all local religious persuasions that one should never mess with a blatantly crazy person….

    And I’ll add another name from the forgotten past: Euell Gibbons. Stalking the Wild Asparagus, among other titles. My dad was a biiiig Gibbons fan, so I got exposed to “wildcrafting” two generations before the hipsters would make it A Thing. Unfortunately, most of what I remember of those recipes would later be encapsulated by Calvin Trillin as “Just because you can eat something, doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily want to.”

  145. 145.

    BruceFromOhio

    The thieves are ripping copper from the air conditioning units. While the snow falls, the mall has a constant traffic jam.

    I hide inside and wait for the DET-OAK and NE-DEN outings.

    Way back there in the past, I remember when things were new, like the pilot of Person of Interest.

  147. 147.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @BruceFromOhio: Over ten years ago while I was clerking in federal court, I worked on a habeas case where the underlying conviction was based on people stealing veterans brass out of graveyards.

  148. 148.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @burnspbesq: I am back to Lana Del Rey. I discovered her a week ago and have been somewhat obsessed ever since. I am sure I will get better.

  149. 149.

    BruceFromOhio

    There are *four* AFC 10-3 teams.

    There are two NFC 10-3 teams, and the oh-Gaia-still-my-beating heart Packers. Its an NFC SB to lose, but Gaia have mercy, it is the AFC playoffs that are going to yield some of the best “don’t you square up and hit that QB with your head down, Mr. Defenseman” football of the year. Wrap and scrap, the defenses of the AFC North have been put on notice: the kinder, gentler sack is in the offing. Its merely a matter of how to transcribe bone-crunching hits into suitable stats that stands in the path of the victory. Fifteen yard penalties and ejections await.

    January beckons, a sultry castaway on a wide sandy beach, lit from the side by the rakish angle of the winter sun, leading to an AFC wild card contest where the Broncos are crushed like discarded beer cans in the hands of boy scouts and street people.

  150. 150.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @BruceFromOhio: The Packers are the only thing that matter. I am not actually concerned about the perfect season; it would be great, but I want a repeat SB win more. AR is having an almost perfect season; as a fan of the team, it has been wonderful to watch.

  151. 151.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Omnes Omnibus: They are reading from the book of magic, but the defense allows too many points. This is the Achilles heel, if one exists.

    The key to Mr Rodgers: he pops up from the sack and throws 20+ yard strikes. Nothing appears to rattle the man. I consider the possible existence of telepathic connectivity between Aaron and Brett. And Zeus.

    They (GB) are a treasure to behold.

  153. 153.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @BruceFromOhio: Defense allows too many yards, not too many points. They have generally stiffened when necessary. Of course, I speak from behind green and gold colored glasses.

  155. 155.

    burnspbesq

    @BruceFromOhio:

    leading to an AFC wild card contest where the Broncos are crushed like discarded beer cans in the hands of boy scouts and street people.

    Sorry, not going to happen. The Broncos are losing tomorrow.

  156. 156.

    Yutsano

    @Omnes Omnibus: That be him. I think he’s an inch shorter but he’s more compact built. I haven’t heard much about his skills except he was the starter last year and he’s in his senior year. Mid-round draft pick holding a clipboard like his brother did for a couple years might work wonders. I’d even take him as a Seahack. :)

  157. 157.

    burnspbesq

    @Yutsano:

    51.5 percent completions, 1500 yds., 9 TD, 9 INT.

    Sean Renfree has much better numbers on a much worse team, and he’s got the size that NFL scouts want. He’s a lot more likely to be drafted.

Comments are closed.