Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

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

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

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

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

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

The revolution will be supervised.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

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

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

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

People are weird.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

He really is that stupid.

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Late Night Open Thread

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About an hour into the Hobbit, much later than I wanted to start it but I had to watch the Pens and then had to walk the dogs, so I may not finish the flick tonight, but I’ve come to the horrifying conclusion that even though I love the Elven enclaves, I probably would be happiest with a bunch of drunken dwarves.

In a short life, the dwarves have the right attitude.

Reader Interactions

80Comments

  3. 3.

    Highway Rob

    Dwarves are fine if you just want beer, but if you want the best stuff, it’s at the House of Bombadil.

  5. 5.

    Highway Rob

    Sorry about the double (now triple) post. First time using the FYWP mobile version, and I botched it.

  7. 7.

    MoeLarryAndJesus

    It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart. The Return of the King, 360 (App A)]

  9. 9.

    Redshift

    Well, the elves don’t have to worry about that whole “short life” thing, so it stands to reason their culture would be less accessible.

    “Still the prettiest!”

  10. 10.

    Highway Rob

    @Comrade Mary: It’s not Bombadil’s fault Tolkein’s a lousy lyricist. But what I’d forgotten was that he goes around with Goldberry, aka Riverdaughter, a name forever tainted by association with a puma deadender. So on second thought, let’s not go to Bombadil’s.

  11. 11.

    Mike in NC

    Screw a bunch of hobbits. I’m going through Seasons 1 and 2 of Game of Thrones to tide me over for the start of Season 3 on the 31st.

  14. 14.

    wmd

    Short life is why dwarves are more fun. When you’re an immortal elf no reason to carpe diem.

  16. 16.

    Punchy

    I see Cyprus’ legy just bounced their Legalize Theft bill idea. Yup, the Cyprus Hill group just went sane in the membrane.

  17. 17.

    ArlingtonRob

    John,

    It makes me smile that you’re a hockey fan.

    Greatest sport ever.

    Perhaps we’ll meet in the Cup final…
    …Blackhawk fan here.

  18. 18.

    James Hare

    Chimera can’t score goals anymore AND he gives you guys the power play that won the game. Anybody want a slightly-used winger with low-ish miles and no puck luck?

  20. 20.

    Suffern ACE

    @RobertDSC-eMac 1.25: hobbits are a bunch of gossips, but dwarves are a bit too sloppy. But both seem to have these metabolism a where you eat 8 meals a day. I don’t know if I could handle that for more than a weekend. Humans living there are bound to develop gout at the least.

  22. 22.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Nah, I’d still be an elf. I mean, mining? Farming? BLARGH! Sitting around with all your lovely pretty friends in lovely pretty buildings and NEVER DYING? BOO-YAH! Plus you can just head West when things get ugly.

    I may lack the necessary dignity and grace, though.

  23. 23.

    scav

    Admit it. Dwarves would be all over the mustard (and vice versa). Not quite sure what the Elf condiment would be.

    ETA, oddly enough, I’m getting a horseradish vibe for hobbits. Maybe only certain families.

  25. 25.

    Suffern ACE

    @scav: I’m not certain elves would need condiments. For some reason I’d expect them to believe that the food they made was perfect for you and wouldn’t bother to place condiments on the table. I think they might find it odd that you would want to alter the food.

  28. 28.

    Suffern ACE

    @Suffern ACE: actually, elves might go in big for stuff called “special sauce” or “secret dip”, but would get very angry if you said “this is thousand island dressing with bacon bits” if you guessed correctly right off the bat.

  31. 31.

    Chris

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    “You can just head west when things get ugly.” LOL. I always thought the Elves were the Americans of Tolkien’s universe; yeah, they’d fight in the wars, but even if all was lost, they could still pack up, get onto their ships and go to the other side of the ocean while Middle Earth burned.

  34. 34.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Suffern ACE:

    For some reason I’d expect them to believe that the food they made was perfect for you and wouldn’t bother to place condiments on the table. I think they might find it odd that you would want to alter the food.

    Elves are French?

  42. 42.

    ruemara

    I couldn’t live with dwarves, too sloppy. A decent hobbit home sounds about right, but I wouldn’t turn down the Last Homely House at all.

  47. 47.

    TheMightyTrowel

    Dwarves do it in the dark?
    Dwarves do it in deep shafts?
    Dwarves do it dirtier?
    Dwarves do it with big swords?

  54. 54.

    PeakVT

    Question for any physics buffs or teachers. I’ve been trying to understand the current state of cosmology – dark energy, the metric expansion of space, and the like. While it may be true, I must admit it I find it decidedly weird compared to what I first learned in the late 1980s. Are the newer theories being taught to high school students?

  55. 55.

    MikeJ

    @Yutsano: You don’t like aioli?

    Good mayonnaise is good. Most mass produced condiments don’t taste anything like they’re supposed to.

  56. 56.

    magurakurin

    @PeakVT:

    I think the only cross-”species” relationships were human/elf.

    Weren’t the men of Bree shorter than most and suspected of having halfling blood in them?

    Also, too, the Uruk-hai were suspected to be a product of the breeding of orcs with men.

  58. 58.

    Suffern ACE

    @Yutsano: I think they’d go with miracle whip. They live under a volcano. The mayo would spoil quickly in the radiant heat.

    @Omnes Omnibus: not exactly French. I mean, elves just eat salad. I think French elves would have more than one course. At the same time, they apologize to the dwarves for only having salad. Although you can kind of tell they don’t mean it and take pleasure in the way the circumstances have made their guests suffer. They might be German.

  59. 59.

    ? Martin

    @MikeJ:

    You don’t like aioli?

    I never expected that the world would reveal a hipster mayonnaise, but it did. I should have expected it after McBargle revealed hipster salt. I’ll know better next time.

  62. 62.

    Yutsano

    @MikeJ: One of these days I MIGHT make my own. It’s not exactly hard, but I don’t really have a decent blender to do it with. It’s on the list of things to buy once I have a bigger kitchen. Which might be sooner rather than later. Aioli is okay but it’s never garlicky enough in restaurants.

    @? Martin: To be fair, aioli is a classic Italian condiment. It’s just massively bastardised in the US.

  63. 63.

    Anne Laurie

    @Redshirt:

    Hey, Tolkien buffs: Did an Elf and Dwarf ever hook up?

    I vaguely remember, from the mid-1970s, a very serious German article in the very serious Tolkien studies journal arguing that JRR intended the hobbits to be the ‘debased’, naturalised-to-common-clay descendants of the dwarven-species, just as humans were the ‘debased’ descendents of the elves. This was before the Silmarillion, of course…

  64. 64.

    ? Martin

    Curious. Suspicions that NK has launched a cyber attack on SK news outlets and banks. Man, I hope that’s not true.

  66. 66.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    After reading the 10 years post by Soonergrunt it made me wish that Steve Gilliard was still alive to deliver a literary katana-like evisceration of all those who still feel that the invasion was correct.

    His writing style of “I said what I meant and I meant what I said” is a motto to live by.

    I loved his work, and he was prescient on everything about the Iraq invasion.

    Gilliard dead but Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz et al. still alive…there is no justice.

    RIP Steve

  67. 67.

    ? Martin

    @Yutsano:

    To be fair, aioli is a classic Italian condiment.

    No, I fully understand that. Been eating it since I was a kid in NYC but nobody ever pointed out ‘hey, we put aoili on this. Oooh.’ You just didn’t slap it on every goddamn thing just to prove you’re too hip for mayo, which is pretty much what’s happening now.

  69. 69.

    MikeJ

    @? Martin:

    You just didn’t slap it on every goddamn thing just to prove you’re too hip for mayo, which is pretty much what’s happening now.

    Which is why I always point out aioli when the uncultured start talkin’ smack about mayo.

  70. 70.

    scav

    @MikeJ: And actual mayo still gets lost in the shuffle. I’ve made it, but had some Spanish friends just whisk it up in a copper bowl, Properly done there is nothing wrong with it. Copper bowl not necessary, It just is possible.

  72. 72.

    Schlemizel

    The dwarfs were screwed over by bad PR. They did all the work of mining the precious metals but the elves cheated them out of it and then wrote songs about how bitter and mean the dwarves were. The elves stand in the back and shoot arrows while they send the dwarves armies up front to hack and hew with close up weapons that do the real work of defeating the enemy. Then they pen epic poems about elvish bravery and tell humiliating jokes at the dwarves expense.

    The dwarves are greedy? Gee, do you think after getting screwed out of your hard labor by people who think they are better than you their desire for a fair shake is greed? The dwarves are sullen & angry? Gee, do you think after generations of doing the dirty work while the pretty boys get all the glory their might be some PSTD mixed in with resentment for not being recognized?

    Of course you would have a better time with the dwarves, once they got to know you and trusted you were not about to steal from them or get them killed unnecessarily they would be great fun to be with. Hard workers make hard partiers.

    BTW – I am working on this as a premise for a fantasy novel – what do you think?

  75. 75.

    Feudalism Now!

    Wood elves would be best. Not too hotly toity, but willing to party in different random spots of an evil haunted wood. All the parties are invitation only, however, and their bouncers are giant spiders.
    The House of Beorn would rock too, if I were a vegetarian.

  76. 76.

    Schlemizel

    @Highway Rob:

    I may steal that concept if I ever figure out how to tell the story that is half-formed in my head right now!

    I desperately want to write an alternative history that contradicts the comfortable images from popular lit. The decent dwarf’s struggle against underhanded, elitist elves who happen to be ‘prettier’ is one. I have another from the viewpoint of a kid who joins the space marines to save the empire from the violent terrorist and religious fanatical Jedi (who take children away from their families very young to be indoctrinated in schools) is another.

    My problem is making them complete stories.

  79. 79.

    Matt McIrvin

    @PeakVT:

    Question for any physics buffs or teachers. I’ve been trying to understand the current state of cosmology – dark energy, the metric expansion of space, and the like. While it may be true, I must admit it I find it decidedly weird compared to what I first learned in the late 1980s. Are the newer theories being taught to high school students?

    I don’t know if they are or not. But, actually, the fundamental physical ideas involved in all this new stuff were already well-known by the late 1980s: it’s 1915 general relativity and something similar or identical to Einstein’s cosmological constant, used in a way that resembles inflationary cosmology, which emerged in the 1980s. The ideas didn’t filter down to introductory classes, though.

  80. 80.

    2liberal

    @Matt McIrvin:

    You’re not supposed to want to be an elf. The elves have got the wrong idea; Tolkien was pretty clear on that.

    Pratchett doesn’t like elves either.

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