Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

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

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

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

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

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

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

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

We are aware of all internet traditions.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

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62Comments

  4. 4.

    Comrade Mary

    Been there, John. I dropped a couple of books on my foot from a weight bench a year or so back, and I was limping so badly that I took myself to the ER — by CAB! — but it was just a bad bruise. So if you didn’t go to the ER, you’re ahead of me.

  8. 8.

    Tokyokie

    [W]hen pouring yourself a refreshing beverage you just don’t expect 4lbs of frozen pork to the foot.

    What? You’ve never had Tunch rub against your shin then flop on your foot while getting something from the fridge? Although I guess that’d be more than four pounds. And probably not frozen, either.

  11. 11.

    Antonius

    “when pouring yourself a refreshing beverage you just don’t expect 4lbs of frozen pork to the foot.”

    Speak for yourself, John. I live in expectation of this very occurrence during any activity, including contemplation.

  12. 12.

    Heliopause

    when pouring yourself a refreshing beverage you just don’t expect 4lbs of frozen pork to the foot.

    Actually, I’ve had similar things happen to me a few times in my life. My attitude with freezers is to trust but verify.

  13. 13.

    Carnacki

    Safety, safety, safety. Honestly, John, at this stage you need to wear steel-toed boots, hard hat, shin guards, kevlar gloves, safety goggles, and attach your self to a safety harness and rope line even when walking because you are one accident-prone motherf…::shutyourmouth::I was just talking about Cole.

  14. 14.

    Comrade Mary

    Life is full of odd coincidences department: I bought 3.5 pounds of frozen pork eye of round yesterday afternoon and roasted it for supper. I did not drop it on my foot.

    The rub was my fresh rosemary and thyme from the backyard, plus some dried sage, sea salt and pepper, mixed with some olive oil and some leftover piri piri sauce. After slashing, rubbing, and searing, I slow-roasted the meat at 325F on a bed of sliced onions. It was pretty damn good, and would have been fucking awesome if I had cooked to 160F instead of 180F. The onions and the pork juices were allowed to reduce on top of the stove while the pork was resting, and the resulting mess of sweet umami helped ameliorate the dryness of the meat.

    I shall go back once again this week to buy more pork and this time I shall Do It Right.

  15. 15.

    Corner Stone

    I just don’t get it. I sometimes drop an ice cube when grabbing a couple from the top level freezer. But I actually move my feet so the damn things don’t land on my feet.
    I think this explains your fundamental clumsiness. You have the slowest synapses and response time in the history of upright hominids. Did you wonder for a few seconds why your foot hurt?

  18. 18.

    JPL

    Last night while cooking on the bbq, my son walked on a hot coal. Actually it adhered to his foot for a second and he prayed to God. Well maybe the word was Jesus recited several times.

  19. 19.

    maya

    Already this open thread has been hijacked by vertically flying pork and JC. Why do we even bother?

    Today I discovered a cute little baby rattler hiding under some old tree bark that I was about to move. Hadn’t seen a rattler around here in about 28 years, though they are indigenous to the area. Thought it was a gopher snake at first – they do look very similar except for tell-tale triangular head.
    Also means there are other babies around. I feel like Romoney may feel in a few months: No more flip-flops, boots on the ground.

  20. 20.

    cathyx

    @Corner Stone: I’ve actually done this myself. Frozen meat is very slippery in the freezer and if the freezer is at all full, it slides right out and falls on what’s directly below. Ones feet.

  25. 25.

    Corner Stone

    @cathyx: Maybe it’s just me. I drop shit, I catch shit. I can’t catch shit, I got nothing betwixt shit and the floor.

  26. 26.

    dr. bloor

    you just don’t expect 4lbs of frozen pork to the foot.

    Given your injury history, Cole, you probably should.

  28. 28.

    p.a.

    i’ve survived some freezer attacks myself. JC seems to be a target for anything hard, heavy, with an edge or moving parts. John, when you were in the service did they clear the range so you would be out there alone? I understand officers hate those friendly fire accident reports.

  30. 30.

    quannlace

    Coulda been worse. Could have been the frozen Thanksgiving turkey. You’d have been on crutches for a week.

  31. 31.

    Comrade Mary

    @JPL: Did I mention garlic? There was also garlic. Just whirred everything the fuck up in my mini-blender and rubbed it all over the pork.

  32. 32.

    Suffern ACE

    I’m in Amsterdam after spending the day in Bruges. My hotel location is bad. I arrived at 1030 and the only things still open in the area outside if hotel restaurants were the hard rock cafe and Murphy Mary O’Generic’s expat Irish pub.

    I’ve had enough now to say something that shouldn’t be said and isn’t fair. But I’ll do it anyway. I hate Irish food, fake pub food and Guiness.

  33. 33.

    rikyrah

    It’s Not “Swift Boating” If It’s True

    Outlining the growing controversy about the timeline of Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital career, CNN’s Jim Acosta recently asked the candidate if he believed he was “being swift-boated in this campaign.” Later that same evening, reporting on Anderson Cooper 360, CNN’s Tom Forman forged a tighter connection, suggesting “Republican analysts fear Mitt Romney could become the second politician from Massachusetts swift boated out of the presidency.”

    Here’s how Forman describe the Swift Boat affair [emphasis added]:

    FORMAN: He’s talking about the Swift Boat campaign, in which President Bush’s challenger John Kerry was demonized over what his campaign considered an attribute. His decorated service as a soldier in Vietnam. The Swift Boat ads, backed by a group of pro-Bush veterans, questioned the Democratic challenger’s conduct in the war, his anti-war activities later and his patriotism.

    Kerry was slow to respond and never very effective in refuting their claims even though his critics offered little in the way of proof. He lost the election of course. And for many Democrats, swift-boating became a catch-all term for any unfair, untrue, personal assault on a candidate.

    Trying to tie contemporary questions about Romney’s Bain past with an infamous GOP smear campaign is an exercise in false equivalency. “The Swift Boat campaign was completely a lie,” Esquires’ Charles Pierce recently reminded readers. “Nothing the Swifties said about John Kerry was true.” And yet, despite the cavernous gap between the Swift Boat affair and the ongoing Bain story, the comparison continues to gain currency

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/07/17/its-not-swift-boating-if-its-true/187167

  34. 34.

    JPL

    @Suffern ACE: My son was in a small town near Bruges for months. Once he adjusted to the six o’clock closing times he loved it. For me it was fortunate that it was during the tulip season. He took the most amazing pictures.

  38. 38.

    Nellcote

    Coburn Supports Manchin’s Re-Election

    Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) crossed party lines and gave a $250 contribution to Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) re-election campaign “because he believes Manchin is not beholden to short-sighted political interests,” The Hill reports.

    Said Coburn: “I think he votes thinking about the long-term interests of the country. We don’t agree on everything but he’s a good guy.”

  39. 39.

    muddy

    My mother used to stuff little twisted balls of this and that, un-labeled into the freezer. None of these were ever used again, but were not allowed to be chucked. Every time she’d open the freezer there’d be a minor avalanche of these little twists and balls of cling wrap. My dad would always say, “*What* are you trying to do?” At which point she’d get really mad that he would say it.

    A decades long game played to the hilt, and beloved apparently by all but the bystanders.

  40. 40.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    @Suffern ACE: Google Maps shows that there appear to be a few good rijsttafel restaurants within a 10 minute walk. Amsterdam’s so tightly packed together, you don’t have to go far to escape for better cuisine.

    That being said, better cuisine is relative. I have no idea of what the mystery meat in krokets that are served from the FEBO automats around the city, but they sure are tasty after a night of drinking or cafe visiting.

  42. 42.

    daize

    @Comrade Mary: Oooooh, yum! I shall bookmark your recipe and subsequent suggestions for my husband, aka “he who cooks with more patience than I”. We love a good roast pork. Thanks!

  43. 43.

    maven

    @Steeplejack:

    The gout stool…….I hadn’t taken time to name it yet but since the Favorite Chair is already named why not move on to other furniture……..

  45. 45.

    daize

    @muddy: During my kidhood, my Dad used to say (regarding our freezer), “It looks like a g*d*mn silver mine in here!” As a result, my freezer today is full of foil-wrapped goodies tucked in size-appropriate plastic bags labeled with Sharpies.

  48. 48.

    j

    I feel for ya. A sore tootsie makes everything worse. You’ll eventually favor that foot up to the point of screwing with your back muscles and then your back will hurt.

    Mr. “Doom & Gloom”? NO. Just speaking from personal experience.

    I got up at the usual 5:00 am and went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee to brew while I took a shower. I opened the cabinet door and picked up the can by the top using my right hand (like palming a basketball). The full can separated from the plastic cap and landed square on the top of my right foot. YEOUCH!!

    So I bent down to pick up the can and try to scoop up the spilled grounds (while chasing the cats away) and I stood up with the can in my right hand.

    What I didn’t know was that the cabinet door was drifting back to its closed position, so when I stood up I smacked my head into the botton corner of the door and knocked myself out.

    When I woke up in a pool of blood and coffee grounds and a bleeding foot I decided to call the ambulance. I told them to meet me at the Arby’s on the corner, where I went to GET A CUP OF COFFEE! They caught me at my front door and took me to the emergency room. (bastards!)

    At the hospital they stuck everything that could find into me, but would NOT let me have any coffee (because they claim it is a blood thinner, as if I cared.).

    The billing line was 2 stitches on my head, 2 broken bones in my foot, 2 pounds of coffee grounds and blood mixture on the kitchen floor, 2 cats who have tasted human blood and 2 hours late for work.

    And when I got to work..the EFFIN coffee machine was broken!

    (And I got docked 2 hours of pay, even with the doctor’s bills as proof.)

  49. 49.

    Corner Stone

    @muddy:

    Every time she’d open the freezer there’d be a minor avalanche of these little twists and balls of cling wrap. My dad would always say, “*What* are you trying to do?” At which point she’d get really mad that he would say it.

    I simply refuse to believe there wasn’t some kind of tried and true Muddy family saying that describes this entendre du parentis.

  50. 50.

    WereBear

    Glad to hear it wasn’t as bad as you thought!

    Damn freezers are treacherous; if something’s going to fall, I just back up and let it.

  51. 51.

    Atticus Dogsbody

    when pouring yourself a refreshing beverage you just don’t expect 4lbs of frozen pork to the foot.

    I guess you’ve never spent time in New Zealand.

  53. 53.

    Comrade Mary

    @daize: Oh, that looks great! We don’t have much of a Cuban presence in Toronto, so I basically prowl blogs and other sources for ideas. Must seek out some Cuban ideas …

    Back to the roast: that’s a bastard Italian-Portuguese approach that I whipped together on short notice. And in general, I would go for a slightly fattier cut, as it’s more forgiving of accidental overcooking.

    A more purist Portuguese pork approach would be something like this. This is one of the classic Italian approaches, which includes fennel, which really makes this distinctive. You just need to gently pound the fennel a bit with a mortar and pestle. I usually add sage and rosemary, too.

  55. 55.

    Comrade Mary

    @j: I am torn between pity and laughter, but this …

    2 cats who have tasted human blood

    … worries me. How big are your cats?

  56. 56.

    Comrade Mary

    @j: I am torn between pity and laughter, but this …

    2 cats who have tasted human blood

    … worries me. How big are your cats?

  57. 57.

    Comrade Mary

    @j: I am torn between pity and laughter, but this …

    2 cats who have tasted human blood

    … worries me. How big are your cats?

  60. 60.

    muddy

    @Corner Stone: This is very late and you probably won’t see it, oh well..

    “What are you trying to do?” *was* the saying. We all still say it whenever someone drops something. I know it’s not up to my usual level of oddity, but then it was the old P’s saying, not mine. Mine are the deeply strange ones.`;-)

    These were people who could get a good argument going about whether you stir the tea after the sugar and again after the milk, or do you just stir it once.

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