Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

We’re not going back!

Everybody saw this coming.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

In after Baud. Damn.

I really should read my own blog.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

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

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

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

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Their freedom requires your slavery.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Let’s finish the job.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

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54Comments

  6. 6.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    I’m appreciating the virtues of old monk rum, but my gift wrapping is starting to look sloppy for some reason.

  9. 9.

    lamh35

    OMG!!! Sound of Music is on ABC right now. I own it on DVD, but I still can’t help but watch it.

    Fav song: http://vimeo.com/4143597

    Christopher Plummer actually sang the song himself, but they dubbed it for the film release. Here is the version without dubbing, it’s the original voice of Plummer.

    Hearing Plummer’s version, I think the film makers made a mistake. Plummer version woulda fit the emotion and tenure of the scene perfectly.

    Anyway, if I remember correctly, this is also one of DougJ’s favorite.

  12. 12.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    I just typed out my christmas list for the DH who always goes shopping on christmas eve. There are lots of things on the list, mostly relating to the garden and birds. At the bottom of the list I wrote this in all caps.

    DO NOT BUY ME JEWELRY, I HAVE NOT WORN JEWELRY FOR THREE YEARS, IF YOU BUY ME JEWELRY I WILL RETURN IT AND BUY WILD BIRD FOOD.

    I hate the fact that he has been convinced by the ads that in order to prove to me that he loves me he has to buy me something sparkly. I would rather have a compost bin.

  13. 13.

    Mr Zip

    I’m in the news biz (don’t jeer), so there are no days off — someone has to work. Xmas will be slow, but that’s fine with me. I get my holiday at the end of the week.

  14. 14.

    j

    What? Work on Christmas???

    McDonald’s is forcing their minimum wage slaves to do it because McDonald’s hates the baby Jeepers.

    http://www.franchiseherald.com/articles/3331/20121223/mcdonalds-urges-franchises-open-christmas-day.htm

    Bit, on the bright side, McDonald’s forcing their wage slaves to work on a Holiday means that they won’t have to work 550 years to equal the annual pay for their CEO.

    http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/12/13/mcdonalds-income-inequality-fast-food-retail-ceos/

    Why doesn’t FOX go after McDonald’s for killing X-Mas?

  15. 15.

    debit

    I have to go in for an hour tomorrow morning, then I’m off to my parent’s house for the big family gathering. Christmas day I plan to spend quietly, just me, my daughter and the pets. We get prime rib and all the fixings, Chloe gets the prime rib bones.

    My current ear worm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkOKCWDJ4iA Not holiday-ish, but seasonal.

  16. 16.

    Raven

    Back in the room in Lynchburg after dinner with the in-laws. The sister is a prof with two college grad kids. The brother lost his construction business an is hanging on the best he can. His kid is in college but into the “country” sort of lifestyle complete with a gun fascination. I continuously steered the conversation away from religion and politics and got the big “thanks, you did great” from my bride. It pisses me off even more that I got attacked by my half brother after repeatedly telling him I did not want to discuss this shit with him. Gotta kill another day up here and drive home xmas day.

  17. 17.

    lamh35

    @efgoldman: not hearing ya…lalalalalalala…can’t hear you with my fingers in my ears..lalalalalalala.

    Seriously though, I do love this musical. I’m a sap I guess.

    Besides which whenever I watch it, I just feel so sad that Julie Andrews will never again see the heights of her range ever again and has chosen to no longer really sing a note anymore. All cause of a surgeon knife if I remember correctly.

  19. 19.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @lamh35: 20 years ago on this date I arrived in Salzburg for Christmas. I had two Japanese kids who I picked up in a youth hostel in Nuremburg with me and a French kid we had met on the train. We had a blast through Christmas, then parted and I never heard from them again. We were all there for the sound of music. Who is visiting Oklahoma to go on the Surrey with the Fringe on Top tour?

  21. 21.

    lamh35

    @Raven: I’m one of the many who has to work Christmas day, which I hate not because I have anyone to celebrate with (I’m single and childless) so at the very least from a purely financial point of view, I get paid holiday pay for working both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so at least I’ll have my money to console me after the holidays are over.

  23. 23.

    Politically Lost

    I get to visit an elderly woman tomorrow who may or may not be competent to see why (or if) she wants to revoke a power of attorney that she gave to someone, not of her family, a few years ago.

    Her elderly suitor pestered us at the elder law clinic to the point where someone had to investigate his claims about the damage being done to her financially. I drew the short straw. However, don’t tell anyone but that is the part of the law I like the best…actually meeting people, investigating the claims and providing real help to those in need.

    I spend too much time with middle aged siblings who are fighting over stuff like turkey platters and beer steins. I truly hate those people.

  24. 24.

    lamh35

    @efgoldman: True, but I would think that Patti Labelle, Aretha Franklin, Barabara Streisand and any number of other singers may have something to say about being older and still singing their asses off.

    At the very least though, Julie Andrews still have a good bit of singing in her, it’s the idea that her voice was lost through no fault of her own and just a twist of fate (a number of singers I believe have had the same type of surgery on vocal cords and what not and have come out unscathed, Adele comes to mind).

    It’s kinda of like my grandmother who died from Hurricane Katrina related stress (a heart attack). She had a bad heart already, was a diabetic (soon to be put on dialysis), a partial amputee due to her diabeties and also had glaucoma. We were discussing the last time I went home if she would have even still been alive today without Katrina. Maybe she wouldn’t, but damn it sure woulda been great to have her for just a few more years before she was taken.

    That’s where I’m coming from when I think of Julie Andrews losing her voice

  26. 26.

    gbear

    I’m going in to the office tomorrow but it would be a joke to call what I will do ‘work’. 90% of the office is taking a vacation day and there won’t be anyone at the other end of phone calls I need to make. My biggest hope for tomorrow is that the guy in the upstairs office who comes around and tells us to take off early isn’t taking the day off.

    Walgreen’s drug stores are open Christmas eve and Christmas. The 24 hour stores will be open 24 hours. I wrote a note to customer relations saying that I wouldn’t set foot in their stores until next year because of making their employees work on Christmas. They pulled the same thing on Thanksgiving.

  27. 27.

    lamh35

    @efgoldman: gotcha. True about Julie Andrews range.

    I kinda think of Mariah Carey a bit who doesn’t have operatic range, but she did used to sing with a higher octave. As she’s gotten older though, she just doesn’t hit those high notes or hold them as long as she used to.

  28. 28.

    Karen in So Cal

    I have to work every day except Tuesday but that’s okay. I only get paid when I’m there, so this week I’ll only lose one day’s pay. No raise in 3 years, no holiday pay or benefits of any kind, but I’m lucky to have a job.

  30. 30.

    Raven

    She say, never have I known it when it felt so good
    Never have I knew it when I knew I could
    Never have I done it when it looked so right
    Leaving FOR Louisiana in the broad daylight
    It’s just an ordinary story ’bout the way things go
    ‘Round and around nobody knows but the highway
    Goes on forever, that ol’ highway rolls on forever.

  32. 32.

    Maude

    @gbear:
    Walgreens is very anti union. They are franchises and not at all well run. They have an anti union lecture in their tests for emplymentthat are run on computers at the stores.

  33. 33.

    skippy

    i’m in show biz in la, which pretty well closes down this week, but long, long ago, when i was a kid working in my parent’s drugstore, we worked every christmas.

    this was in the 60’s, in beautiful denver colorado, which was a time when hardly anything was open on xmas (before 7-11’s and walgreens franchises). in fact, my dad’s drugstore was one of 4 or 5 stores open in the whole metropolitan area.

    quite the opposite of being a drag, my family enjoyed the day. since hardly any other store was open, we always had our biggest day on xmas. folks who needed last minute gifts, as well as usual sundries which they forgot to stock up on, would flock to southwest denver to patronize our establishment.

    and since it was so busy, the day flew by. and our family felt close that day (don’t ask about the other 364) as we had a common goal. plus, all the good holiday wishes that folks gave out when you were the answer to their last minute problems! (tho at the time, denver had blue laws, so no booze coukd be sold that day, nor on sundays. but we had a big liquor section for the other days!)

    my family would actually celebrate the holiday on xmas eve, so it was actually a win-win for everyone. oddly enough, though i pretty much hate my childhood memories, and think my parents were very poor at parenting (hell, they were pretty poor at being adults – mom was bipolar, dad was passive-agressive, both were alcoholic) my remembrances of working on christmas bring me joy and warmth in an otherwise dry desert of childhood comfort.

  34. 34.

    JCT

    I always take over the service on Christmas Day so my colleagues who celebrate the day can enjoy it without their beepers going off all day long. I don’t mind and often the patients all have mini-holidays at their bedsides so it can actually be fun.

    One of the nurses this morning was “gearing” up for tomorrow because most of us make a concerted effort to discharge patients in time for the 25th so they can enjoy the day at home with their families.

    But after clinic on Wed I ‘m free to head home and hang out with all of the family flying in to check out our new digs and the nice SW weather!

  35. 35.

    Raven

    @skippy: Yea, the music calendar pretty much sucks in LA at that time but I did get to see Love in Anaheim one year at one of those weird supper club/rock and roll joints ya’ll got out there.

  36. 36.

    gbear

    @Maude: There are still a few independent drugstores left in St. Paul. I’ll have to look into them to see if my insurance will accept them.

    I saw Mary Martin in the touring company of The Sound Of Music live it the theater of the St. Paul Auditorium when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I had my choice between a play or the circus and my gay gene kicked in. The other play I saw back then was the touring New York cast of West Side Story. That one knocked me out.

    Edit: The next thing I saw at the St. Paul Auditorium was The Monkees performing live. I was in 8th grade.

  37. 37.

    JoyfulA

    @j: Our local newspaper did a story on nearby McDonalds outlets. Most will be closed. The one the reporter found that will be open has mostly Egyptian staff who are Coptic Christians and celebrate the Orthodox Christmas, so it’s any other day to them, and they welcome the hours.

  38. 38.

    Maude

    @gbear:
    There is nothing else like West Side Story.
    I use the Shoprite pharmacy. They are great.
    Especially since i went through three new doctor and am staying with the third. Two of them called to check the prescribing history on the pain med.
    I had a really bad time getting a new doc. The pharmacy was wonderful.

  40. 40.

    Lojasmo

    Also a hospital worker. Working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day NIGHTS.

    Will be pretty lonely unless somebody has an ST elevation myocardial infarction.

  41. 41.

    Lyrebird

    @debit: Thank you , both the song and the animation are lovely.

    re: schedule, I can take tomorrow off, so I may spend the morning on cover letter writing (am trying to get a permanent job, am thankful for the one I’ve got temporarily), then off to visit family. That used to be much harder work than work, even though my family is pretty great, until I threated to take my little single/childless self off to a mountain hut in Colorado or something for the holidays if they didn’t stop leaving me every single dratted chore they hadn’t gotten around to yet, 12 hrs a day of it was too much…

    Peaceful travels to all of you and happy day of random whatever to efgoldman! Is going to the movies on the 25th too traditional for you or something? (/joking)

  42. 42.

    Raven

    Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.
    They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can’t go on.
    And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song.
    Oh I hope you run into them, you who’ve been travelling so long.

  43. 43.

    The Sailor

    Hi skippy!
    As a sound engineer (previous career) there were always holiday shows and I would volunteer to work them so my colleagues with families would get the day(s) off. It also allowed me to tell my family “Sorry, I have to work.” Win-win.

    I’m working tomorrow at my research job, but I’m taking the rest of the week off. Tomorrow will be correcting some figures for a book chapter, but it shouldn’t be too bad.

    I will spend Xmas alone, which I prefer, and then try to get my truck repaired and run personal errands the rest of the week. There may be alcohol involved.

  44. 44.

    Anne Laurie

    @skippy:

    i pretty much hate my childhood memories, and think my parents were very poor at parenting (hell, they were pretty poor at being adults – mom was bipolar, dad was passive-agressive, both were alcoholic)

    You sure we’re not siblings? No, wait — my mom didn’t drink. Nor did she take her meds, of course.

    I’ll give my parents this: they told us they were crappy parents, who shouldn’t have been permitted to breed, except God didn’t want Catholics of their generation to use birth control. When I escaped to college & started comparing notes with other castaways, at least I didn’t have to work through endless preliminary rounds of ‘But my parents must’ve known better! Maybe it was all my own fault!’ before resolving never to be like them…

  45. 45.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    I made it to Phoenix in one piece and fortunately my dad is improving. They’re going to give him a round of dialysis tomorrow and if he does well, he’ll get to spend Christmas Day at home. Still, this is probably the beginning of the end. When your health problems start piling up like his are, it’s only a matter of time.

    Oh, and if you smoke, please fucking QUIT for the sake of your family. Every health problem he has now can be directly attributed to his 50 years of smoking. Call it your holiday gift to yourself, but do it.

  46. 46.

    mainmati

    My previously pretty cool professional services firm was suddenly acquired by a defense contractor that wanted to be relevant to the development world so we are now part of Wall St., which now apparently means radical reduction of employee benefits and basic software and equipment tools so that we can be “lean and mean”. With the result that we will totally fail as the smart employees walk right out the door, including me eventually and very reluctantly.

    Modern American corporatists are manifestly idiots and lacking both soul and imagination, especially in Federal services. They are the new zombies.

  47. 47.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @JCT:

    G works for a home infusion company, which is why he’s flying out here on Xmas Day and flying back the following day. It wouldn’t bother him so much if his company was not also on a calendar year schedule, which means that he ends up doing inventory on New Year’s Day a lot.

  48. 48.

    Bill Arnold

    The Guardian is worked up about an interesting audio interview (from 2011) of D. Petraeus talking off the record with a Fox News person; the key bit is at the very end of the recording, about Fox (the big boss) offering to bankroll a Petraeus candidacy, led by R. Ailes who would have quit Fox.

    The whole recording (which is crystal clear) is interesting. The Fox person (Kathleen T. McFarland) misunderstood a couple of Petraeus’s comments (I thought he was pretty clear, and clear-headed.). Audio in second link.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/20/bernstein-murdoch-ailes-petreaus-presidency
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/fox-news-chiefs-failed-attempt-to-enlist-petraeus-as-presidential-candidate/2012/12/03/15fdcea8-3d77-11e2-a2d9-822f58ac9fd5_story.html

    (Via ritholtz.com)

  49. 49.

    JCT

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): Yes, I have a few patients getting CRRT and plasmapheresis and this week can be pretty complex with the scheduling – I can imagine your guy is in demand.

    Hope your dad holds up OK.

  50. 50.

    Origuy

    My father worked for 40-odd years as a heavy equipment operator (Still a proud member of the IUOE.) In the winter he would push snow around on parking lots. If it snowed Christmas Eve, it meant that presents on Christmas would be late until he finished clearing the hospital parking lot. The shopping malls would just have to wait as far as he was concerned.
    He’s retired now; my sister works Christmas Eve as a taxi dispatcher.

  53. 53.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @efgoldman:

    I was pretty sure that was the case when I saw Simon and Garfunkel and realized that Garfunkel (NB: in his 60s!) had lost some of his range and power. He was still *good*, no questions asked, but they wouldn’t have written Bridge Over Troubled Water to take advantage of his talent if they wrote it then.

  54. 54.

    Rebecca E Allen

    Thanks to our President, who 53% of us (including me) had the good sense to vote for, I’m not working today. I was supposed to, but Obama kindly declared today a federal holiday, and I’m a federal worker (yes, one of those parasites feeding off of the Galts), so I’m home listening to Christmas carols, typing on this computer, and basking in the warm memories of the Seahawks’ 3rd consecutive blowout win yesterday, along with going to a benefit last night that featured a bunch of great blues musicians. I usually have to leave these things early on Sunday night in order to get to bed early prior to going to work on Monday, but not this time. Knew there was a reason I liked that guy….

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