Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

The willow is too close to the house.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

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

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

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

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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Start The Week Open Thread (Video Enhanced)

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This morning I got copied on an email blast intended to encourage our graduate students to finish their theses in the next few days.

Cruel, I call it.

But still, it works for me as a goad to push Monday up the rails.

 

(Credit where credit is due, dept: the vid came to my correspondent via Gawker, btw)

Chat about whatever, with bonus points for any discussion of impossible tasks to be done by Friday.  Mine?  Finish version 4 (a conservative estimate) of my damn book proposal.

Reader Interactions

45Comments

  1. 1.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Without compromising your proposal, Tom, can you give us an idea of the book’s topic?

  6. 6.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Tom Levenson: Golly, it sounds like you will have to travel to Florence, Venice, Amsterdam, and London among other places. You poor bastard.

    ETA: On Topic: Still waiting, more and more impatiently, for my formal offer letter. Fricking slow-ass gubmint processes.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    Perhaps a couple of Monday quotes are in order.

    On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks.
      -H. Allen Smith (journalist/humorist)

     
    I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8 to educate America. They couldn’t educate America if they started at 6:30.
      -Groucho Marx

  8. 8.

    Calming Influence

    Fix the lawnmower so I can mow the lawn. Normal inertia, squared.

    ETA: Actually, I have to get off my ass and go buy the parts for the lawnmower, so I guess it’s normal inertia cubed.

  9. 9.

    srv

    discussion of impossible tasks to be done by Friday. 

    Well, I just did the whole Louvre, so I’m Productivus Maximus. Or whatever that is in French.

  11. 11.

    Ben Franklin

    Pot/KettleKeller.

    Of course, there are important lessons to be drawn from our sad experience in Iraq: Be clear about America’s national interest. Be skeptical of the intelligence. Be careful whom you trust. Consider the limits of military power. Never go into a crisis, especially one in the Middle East, expecting a cakewalk.

    But in Syria, I fear prudence has become fatalism, and our caution has been the father of missed opportunities, diminished credibility and enlarged tragedy.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/opinion/keller-syria-is-not-iraq.html

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Golly, it sounds like you will have to travel to Florence, Venice, Amsterdam, and London among other places. You poor bastard.

    Yeah, the lengths you have to go to, the things you have to do in the name of research. A noble sacrifice for the edification of us all.

  13. 13.

    gbear

    Yesterday I saw a yellow 80’s monster Cadillac with a bumper sticker that read “What part of trick down economics don’t you understand?” I don’t even understand what they were trying to say by having that on kind of a dumpy Cadillac.

    On the same trip, I saw a monster Dodge Ram Hemi with a bumper sticker that read “When Obama became president, gas was $1.81 per gallon”. The stupid, it burned. I was surprised when the guy who got in the truck and drove away looked like Bobby Jindal.

  16. 16.

    EconWatcher

    I think we may have witnessed two big shark-jumpings in the last week.

    One, I think the NRA picked the wrong time to adopt a new leader who gives new meaning to the term nutjob. People who weren’t paying much attention before seem to be tuning in after the failure of background checks, and it seems to be dawning on them that their elected reps care more about the NRA than them. I’m hopeful that this could be the beginning of the end of the NRA’s ability to quietly control the votes in Congress.

    Second, maybe more trivial, but the defenses of Rogoff and Reinhart keep getting more pathetic (see today’s “Financial Times,” in which Larry Summers delicately notes that questions have been raised about their selection and weighting of data, and then goes on to defend their good faith, without addressing any of those questions). The fact that prominent people are still talking, trying to save them, suggests to me that they may have sustained a fatal blow.

  17. 17.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yippee!! Have I heard from the govt gig to which I applied? Why, no, no I haven’t, now that you mention it.

    Though I suspect it’s not a bad sign that the court administrator to whom vitae were to be sent by email replied (Mr. Thomas Ct Admin)with “Thanks Bella – good luck. ~ Tom.” I wasn’t at all certain if he remembered me from when I had a position that involved occasional representation of his staff.

    Wow, way more about me that I’d intended. Back to work.

  18. 18.

    Gex

    My life can be very strange. Would you be surprised to hear that only 3 of the 6 tribute shows for Kate have occurred already?

    Tonight’s is going to be one of the hardest. The show will be closing by playing the audio from the last set Kate ever did. I tracked down the audio for the guy putting on the show, but I couldn’t listen to it then, and I doubt I can listen to it tonight. But because not everyone in the comedy community was able to attend that show I do want to share it with them this way. Fortunately the guy running the show has set up an escape hatch for me to step out if anything gets to be too much.

  20. 20.

    jeffreyw

    Setting up a new grill, Weber gas jobbie. Gonna do a couple of steaks, corn, asparagus, potatoes. Need tips and hints for grilling veggies. Standing by.

  21. 21.

    Walker

    Why do they need to finish in the next few days? Isn’t it too late to submit a thesis for the current round of graduation? For us, a May graduation requires a thesis submitted in March. If you are submitting now, you are stuck with graduating in August (though you may be permitted to walk in May if the advisor can vouch for you).

  23. 23.

    Skipjack

    Man. Do pit bulls ever let go? I’ve heard many people say their reputation is unfair, but I can see why you wouldn’t want a kid near one. This video was both hilarious and after a time a bit scary.

  25. 25.

    ? Martin

    In today’s episode of ‘Fucking math, how does it work?!’, Jim DeMint tells us immigration reform will cost $2.6T. No, that was the last Heritage estimate, it’s now $6.3T. So it will cost more than universal healthcare. Fully 50% of one year GDP.

    Next estimate will be one hundred million trillion dollars, after they realize they can count in compensation for pain and suffering of white people.

  27. 27.

    Yutsano

    @? Martin:

    Next estimate will be one hundred million trillion dollars, after they realize they can count in compensation for pain and suffering of white people.

    Sigh. Will no one respect their poor wittle delicate fee-fees? Change is HARD!

    Also: why is no one asking the important question? DID TEH GOGGIE GET TEH STICK??

  28. 28.

    ? Martin

    @Skipjack: Pitbulls are unusually tenacious. That’s why the mixed view of them. They’re really not any more aggressive than other dogs, but when they do become aggressive, they don’t back down.

    The statistics get played all the time. Pitbulls are no more likely to bite than other dogs, which is why many people defend them as ‘not aggressive’. But when they do bite, they are much more likely to kill. Pitbulls and rotties are responsible for half of the deaths from dog attacks over the last number of years, yet they’re hardly common dogs.

    They’re the assault rifle of dogs.

  29. 29.

    Shinobi

    Speaking of awesome animal videos, a friend on twitter linked this video of a peregrine falcon stooping and killing a duck! (From the falcon’s perspective.) IT is so cool, just watching her fly around, I wish I were a bird.

    Last year I went on a trip to Vermont where we got to learn how hawks are trained and fly some Harris Hawks and it was really educational and awesome. Birds of Prey are fascinating.

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    @jeffreyw

    Grilled asparagus are yummy.

    Important thing is to marinate them in seasoned* olive oil for a few minutes before grilling.

    *Whatever seasonings tempt you. I generally use just black pepper and onion powder.

    A drizzle of lemon juice and olive oil and some shaved parmigiano on top when serving brightens them up nicely.

  34. 34.

    Nicole

    @Skipjack:

    Man. Do pit bulls ever let go? I’ve heard many people say their reputation is unfair, but I can see why you wouldn’t want a kid near one. This video was both hilarious and after a time a bit scary.

    If it reassures you at all, they used to be called the “nanny dog” because the general feeling about them was they were so safe you could leave them alone to watch the kids for you. Pit bulls do indeed have a high threshold for pain, but in a house with small kids, that’s usually a feature, not a bug. The predatory instinct towards animals is inbred, and owners have to be aware of it, but they really are not supposed to be aggressive toward people. Most pitbull rescuers will advocate putting down a pitbull that displays any aggression towards people.

    But most, even those rescued from fighting rings, are salvageable. Several of the dogs taken from Michael Vick’s ring went on to earn their Canine Good Citizenship awards and some do therapy visits and things like that.

    Here’s a nice article with a pretty funny video of the attempt to shoot a photograph of seven of the dogs, five years after the rescue:

    http://www.lifewithdogs.tv/2012/11/seven-survivors-of-michael-vicks-dog-fighting-ring-reunite-five-years-later/

  36. 36.

    Suffern ACE

    @? Martin: Cost whom? Wouldn’t that kind of cost lead to some kind of untold economic boom? Or do they just assume that immigrants all go to jail and have welfare babies?

  38. 38.

    gelfling545

    @Walker: From my experience grilling veggies, they always need more time unless they need less. Very fickle, those veggies. Also steam potatoes a little before grilling (or they take forever) & put them on the grill before other vegetables.

    Tip from my sister’s last weekend grilling experience – keep the garden hose handy, although rotisseried chicken that has burst into flame does taste surprisingly good after you finally extinguish it.

  39. 39.

    Tim F.

    @? Martin:

    yet they’re hardly common dogs.

    In the city, sadly, pitbulls (Staffordshire terriers) come cheaper by the dozen. If you want to choose something else from a shelter website you have to do a lot of scrolling. The problem is that assholes think they need a pitbull to look tough, and assholes tend to raise dogs badly. Back when dobermans were the big thing, you had a lot of unstable dobermans biting people. Fad dogs tend to dominate bite statistics because irresponsible breeders raise them without screening for temperament and incompetent owners buy them.

    @Shinobi: Pitbull jaws do not lock. They have a leverage advantage from relatively short jaws, but Max has a very long snout and he loves getting whipped around in circles while holding onto a stick. Holding on like that, especially for a 50-lb dog, is more about want than can.

    @Nicole: Seriously. I know a dozen rescue pits, and I’d dognap them all if I could. Those dogs are such lovers.

  41. 41.

    JR

    @jeffreyw: Zucchini and squash, cut lengthwise into thirds or quarters, marinated in a healthy dose of balsamic vinegar. Place on hotspots until char-marks appear.

    You’ll thank me some day.

  42. 42.

    Calming Influence

    @? Martin:

    “They’re the assault rifle of dogs.”

    I always pictured the hyper little yippy ones as the assault rifles of dogs. Smaller caliber but they can bite you 30 times before you realize you’ve been bit.

  43. 43.

    Calming Influence

    @Shinobi:

    “IT is so cool, just watching her fly around, I wish I were a bird.”

    Specifically a raptor and NOT a duck, one would assume?

  45. 45.

    Bruce S

    From today’s NYTs:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/us/politics/in-penny-pritzkers-08-answers-on-finances-hints-at-road-ahead.html

    Republican senators are likely to be interested in the Pritzker family’s reputation as innovators in the use of offshore trusts and foreign bank secrecy laws to shelter their wealth from income, capital gains and inheritance taxes. Even after tax code loopholes were closed, the family’s trusts were grandfathered in and it kept benefiting from them.

    Indeed, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, has called for scrutiny of her family’s trusts, saying she was “associated with the kind of tax avoidance activity that the president dismisses as fat cat shenanigans for others. It’s hypocritical to overlook tax avoidance when it’s convenient.”

    This is going to be an orgy of hypocrisy – can’t really see any upside for Dems or the President in this nomination. Fodder for increasing cynicism about politics, which always works against us…

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