Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Bark louder, little dog.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Not all heroes wear capes.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

In my day, never was longer.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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82Comments

  2. 2.

    harlana

    i’m going to be a little depressed if the whole Newt vs. Romney thing plays out too soon

    ((sigh))

  5. 5.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Blog hiatus?

    Does this mean the suits are thinking of cancelling you? To be replaced by some prison show, featuring a very hefty guard-cat named MISTER Tunch?

  6. 6.

    cathyx

    Then I’m on a hiatus too. Unless something interesting is discussed. Then I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut.

  9. 9.

    Calming Influence

    Your blog hiatus?!? Who the hell authorized that?? Get back to work dammmit! We’ll tell you when you get to go on hiatus!

    [Shee-it! Nice guy, but as sharp as a sack of wet mice!]

  12. 12.

    Baud

    Since this is an open thread, here’s my question. Is there anything more pathetic in professional sports than the NFL Pro Bowl? And I love the NFL.

  14. 14.

    Calouste

    Hiatus? I assume Cole means that he is working on one of those “Mutually Benificial Arrangements”?

  15. 15.

    RossInDetroit

    Did we do something bad to make John sulk in his tent? Whose fault is it?
    Or does he just get an extra week of vacation after 10 years of blogging?

  16. 16.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Baud: There’s definitely something much more amiss and half-hearted about it than any other all-star game. I’m not sure why that is.

  18. 18.

    dance around in your bones

    ♪ ♫ Silence is golden, golden, but my eyes still see ♪ ♫

    Don’t let the hiatus getcha.

  19. 19.

    cckids

    I’m sitting here with my Pomeranian, Pixie, on my lap. He just got back from the vet; went in for a teeth/gum cleaning & they had to pull 12. He has had bad teeth for as long as we’ve had him, but this was an unwelcome surprise. He is wiped out & very clingy.

    To make matters worse, as we were paying, another client walked by us with her REALLY BIG potbellied pig. Pixie was completely freaked out; I think he thought he was having an anesthetic-induced hallucination.

  22. 22.

    Calouste

    @Baud:

    The FIFA Intercontinental Cup, or whatever they call it so that New Zealand can play against Brazil occasionally. No one is interested in an 8 team tournament where half the countries participating barely have a professional competition.

  24. 24.

    geg6

    Hiatus? WTF, Cole?

    I do not remember you turning in the paperwork for any such thing. You, sir, are AWOL and must be made to pay the price. Lily and Rosie pix. Immediately, if not sooner.

  25. 25.

    The Dangerman

    List of reasons why our Leader doesn’t post:

    Hiatus: a voluntary break in posting

    He-ate-us: a involuntary break in posting caused by forgetting to feed the cat.

  28. 28.

    Canuckistani Tom

    Hunh. Naked car girl is gone, replaced with excessive cleavage girl.

    OK John, admit it. Ever since you put up your photo you’ve become WV’s hottest bachelor, and you’re rubbing our faces in it by posting some of the photos the ladies are sending you. Amirite?

    ETA: and Naked car girl is back.

    ETA2: looks like my ads are flipping back and forth between the two ladies.

  29. 29.

    Suffern ACE

    Hmmm. A hiatus? Or has this blog been offshored and the real writers are off on a mandatory public holiday? The real Cole would never have posted a picture. Someone wants us to think this place was still made in the USA. Sri lanka independence day is this week. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

  30. 30.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Baud: True, but it’s funny that risk aversion would ruin football more so than it ruins basketball or hockey, whose all-star games are actually entertaining. Those turn into some other kind of game, while all-star football just turns into boredom.

  32. 32.

    Lyrebird

    Why can’t I see the two newest posts usually when I’m on the main page? (Find them by clicking what I can see and then following links to the next post.

    (using new version of Safari)

  35. 35.

    Svensker

    So, um, how long is this hiatus going to go on? (Assuming lack of actual death, of course.) Ya didn’t mention that, didya?

    Also, too, Cole, hugs. Big hugs.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    @Lyrebird: I think it’s a Word Press problem. I used Firefox and have the same problem. I find that clicking on the tag line usually updates the website.

  38. 38.

    ruemara

    Open thread? Then I’m going to bitch. My portable media drive is missing. It is either the Mr in a fit of, “I don’t clean much, so look how well I can clean by picking up random shit and tucking somewhere that even I can’t recall where it is”, or it is the 2 visitng imps from China. Since the last time I saw it was when I put it down on my table with my work dvds on Friday, I’m not sure where it can be. And it’s a work drive, so I may be ponying up from the first miniscule surplus I’ve had since last summer, to replace my office drive. Fucking pocket drives need one of the key fobs with the security beep thing. And I really, truly need to either start drinking or take up boxing.

  39. 39.

    Elie

    You need a good foot massage with accupressure and then a stong exfoliant treatment. You will sleep like a baby and think life is good. It IS, babu…it is…

  41. 41.

    kdaug

    @srv: Similarly, I’m remodeling my orphantooth countertops, but having trouble deciding on the gold or platinum inlays.

    Might go with iridium. I hear that’s coming into vogue.

  43. 43.

    MikeJ

    Anybody else unable to get the comments to open on Edroso’s blog? Yes, I have javascript on and adblocking off and checked it on ffox, chrome, and even the browser that shall not be named.

  45. 45.

    Mnemosyne

    @efgoldman:

    My brother and I grew up in a similar town, only we were the token gentiles on the block. “Tuchus” still rolls more trippingly off our tongues than “gobshite” ever would.

    ETA: Heck, if you’re in the Chicago area, it may have been the same town. Highland Park?

  46. 46.

    slag

    @kc: I stopped paying him at all just thirty seconds ago as I installed Adblock.

    Enjoy your hiatus John! Although, let’s be honest…it’s been going a lot longer than 2 days.

  47. 47.

    dance around in your bones

    I’d just like to say it’s cool to see a graph on the Rachel Maddow Show and at the bottom it says ‘Source: Steve Benen, Maddowblog’.

    Nifty!

  49. 49.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Is this hiatus thing somehow related to the weekend depression post?

    @Mnemosyne: The North Shore is odd that way. WASPy or Jewish, almost never both.

  51. 51.

    4jkb4ia

    8:40 pm–OH SHIT, THE PITT-WVU GAME.

    But Pitt won, so it was all good, and there may actually be hope for the season in the person of Trey Woodall.

    (How many more of these do I have to rag on John about?)

  53. 53.

    4jkb4ia

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I certainly hope not.

    John, the mere idea of idol worship of John Cole himself or anything under parts of his name is an absurdity. Don’t get that into your head.

    Now that I have disposed of the very unlikely cause, the quite likely cause is something in John’s off-blog life.

  54. 54.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @4jkb4ia: Tunch worship does seem like a distinct possibility though. Not by me; I am allergic to cats. Ironic for a Leo, yes?

  55. 55.

    Steeplejack

    @ruemara:

    [. . .] the last time I saw it was when I put it down on my table with my work dvds on Friday [. . .].

    Were the DVDs still there, or did they disappear too? If they’re gone too, I suspect spousal cleaning. If only the drive is missing, I suspect the sticky-fingered wee ones.

  56. 56.

    RalfW

    @Lyrebird:

    I’ve been having reload problems on both Safari and Firefox of late with the Juice.

    I rarely use Safari but BJ was such an ungodly mess of slow/no loads on Firefox last week that I fired up Safari. And I’ve since noticed that I sometimes have to refresh by clicking the masthead link to see the newest posts. Just hitting the circular arrow in the browser bar is 50/50 as to worky-worky.

    May be total coincident, but seems to have started when the spellcheck appeared. Huh.

  57. 57.

    burnspbesq

    @Calouste:

    The world championship in lacrosse has to be a close third. I don’t think anyone but the US or Canada has ever made the final.

    The leading scorer in the last world championship was Josh Coveleski, who had zero starts in four years at Duke but played for Poland by reason of his grandparents.

  58. 58.

    burnspbesq

    @Calouste:

    Confederations Cup. It’s warmup tournament to make sure the World Cup facilities and security arrangements are in place. Which they absolutely won’t be in Brazil in the summer of 2013.

  59. 59.

    Cain

    Man, this blog’s speed has become shite. I have no idea why it takes so long to load. I literally have to walk away and come back 20-30 minutes later.

  60. 60.

    burnspbesq

    @ruemara:

    My portable media drive is missing

    I keep mine on my key chain except when it’s stuck into a port.

    And it’s encrypted because I sometimes have attorney-client privilege stuff on it.

    Just making a couple of suggestions.

  61. 61.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Cain: People wanted spell check and embiggen. They didn’t realize that everything comes with a price. Just be happy it wasn’t your soul this time.

  62. 62.

    burnspbesq

    I’m gonna go commiserate with Zandar. The Duke women absolutely sucked against UConn tonight.

  63. 63.

    dance around in your bones

    @piratedan:

    ♪ ♫ I met him at the bloggy store.
    He turned around and snarled at me.
    Ya get the picture? (Yes, we see)
    That’s when I fell for the leader of the pack….♪ ♫

    Vroom Vroom.

  64. 64.

    Lyrebird

    @Baud:
    @RalfW:

    Thanks muchly! Will try clicking on the masthead henceforth. I also noticed the glitch around the same time as the new edit/spellcheck/etc improvements appeared.

    Thanks again.

  66. 66.

    dance around in your bones

    @piratedan:

    ♪ ♫ Imagine Cole and you…we do
    We think about him day and night
    It’s only right
    To think about the blog you love
    And hold it tight
    So happy together ♪ ♫

    Hahahahahaha – this is fun

  68. 68.

    burnspbesq

    Maybe Cole disappeared because he has an Appointment in Samara.

    Oooh, that’s an ugly thought.

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Restrictive covenants, most likely.

    Though we did move to the far reaches of the North Shore when I was in fifth grade, which is very Roman Catholic, so there’s that. And there are pockets of non-WASPs on the North Shore proper. Highwood is still very Italian — when I went to the local church with my grandmother 20 years ago, kids were still speaking Italian to each other (technically, Ital-glish).

    My North Shore brush with fame: the original Steppenwolf Theater was in the basement of my grade school in Highland Park. We used to go down there during the day and play with their props until they started locking the door. If I ever met John Malkovich, I would be tempted to tell him, except that I’d be afraid of him still being pissed off about it 30 years after the fact.

  72. 72.

    YellowJournalism

    He’s on hiatus ever since TMZ got wind of his pic being posted. Now it’s nothing but papparazzi asking about his sex life and trying to catch him coming out of a cab while he’s going commando in men’s coolots.

  74. 74.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    Since you’re taking a little hiatus, you should read this account of a young man who took a three-month hiatus from everything, including cell phones. He wrote letters! He dropped in on friends! And (truth) he got back together with his ex-girlfriend.

    People save letters. I still have all the ones friends wrote me when I was off in college. I don’t print and save emails.

    http://news.yahoo.com/90-days-without-cell-phone-email-social-media-015300257.html

  77. 77.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @FlipYrWhig: Does it matter that the Pro Bowl is played after the season is over, as opposed to the All-Star game smack in the middle of baseball?

    I know nothing about basketball and hockey seasons, BTW.

  78. 78.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @ruemara: Sorry. Nothing is ever where you left it. And if I could have the time back that I spent looking for the stuff the boys misplaced I’d be 40 years old again.

    Arrgghhh.

  79. 79.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @dance around in your bones: Shangri-las! My favorite girl group. Although, this was my least favorite of their songs.

    You could get a good clinch dance going on “Walkin’ in the Sand”. If your partner was amenable. If you know what I mean (and I think you do). Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

  80. 80.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I think it’s just that a football game without willing self-destruction is not much of a football game. When basketball and hockey give up on collisions and defensive effort, you can still watch the players’ skills. The Pro Bowl should be more like a backyard football game, with no line play and a mississippi count for the pass rush. That way we could watch the fun players doing fun things instead of a forgettable football-ish product.

  81. 81.

    Paul in KY

    @Calouste: Watched Manchester City – Tottingham game last nite. Excellent game, wild ending with a PK to win in OT.

    Anyway, I got a look at the Tottingham coach/manager & he’s the spitting image of that guy in Blade Runner who ran the club where the replicant with the snake danced. Could be his brother.

  82. 82.

    Paul in KY

    @burnspbesq: That big French girl is one of the worst free throw shooters I’ve ever seen. Right up there with Alex Gilbert of Indiana State (that’s a name out of the past, google his stats).

    That didn’t get them beat, of course.

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