Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Consistently wrong since 2002

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

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

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

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

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Evening Open Thread: There’s A Boehner Joke in There Somewhere…

Monday Evening Open Thread: There’s A Boehner Joke in There Somewhere…

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Artist's impression of a blue-eyed hunter gatherer

DNA taken from the wisdom tooth of a European hunter-gatherer has given scientists an unprecedented glimpse of modern humans before the rise of farming. The Mesolithic man, who lived in Spain around 7,000 years ago, had an unusual mix of blue eyes, black or brown hair, and dark skin, according to analyses of his genetic make-up…

And, yes, the blue eyes/mahogany skin combo isn’t that uncommon today — even though most of the people I’ve known with that phenotype claim a German background, one of my own siblings stands out in a tribe of otherwise stereotypical skim-milk-pale freckled Irish-Americans.

Apart from Mesolithic political jokes, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

138Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Was the hunter-gatherer a job creator or a moocher? With the blue eyes and dark skin, it’s all so ambiguous.

  2. 2.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Cool. How long till we get aurochs and mastodons?

    Tweety just closed his show singing the fulsome praises of the Clintons in response to Rand Son Of Ron’s revival of the Clenis. I wonder if Tweety has any recollection whatsoever of his red-faced, spittle-fleced rants about what THAT MAN! did in THE PEOPLE’S HOUSE!

  3. 3.

    maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor

    “I’m just a caveman legislator… Your world frightens and confuses me. When I see your tall buildings and flashing neon signs, sometimes I just want to get away as fast as I can, to my country club bar.”

  4. 4.

    Baud

    FTA

    The Spanish team started their work after a group of cavers stumbled upon two skeletons in a deep and complex cave system high up in the Cantabrian Mountains of northwest Spain in 2006. The human remains, which belonged to two men in their early 30s, had been extremely well preserved by the cool environment of the cave.

    In modern times, those two men would have been married on the Grammys.

    Progress!

  5. 5.

    gbear

    Johnny get angry, Johnny get mad,
    Give me the biggest lecture I ever had
    I want a brave man, I want a cave man
    Johnny show me that you care, really care for me

  7. 7.

    Litlebritdiftrnt

    I have always been attracted to men with black hair and blue eyes, my DH has such traits (these days it is grey hair and blue eyes) but whatever. I was also attracted to a blonde brown eyes type in my youth, that didn’t last long once I discovered that he had a tendency to be unfaithful. All of the loves of my life have had black hair and blue eyes. Take of that as you will.

  11. 11.

    Elie

    When I traveled in Sicily last year, observed the blue/green eyes, dark hair and skin not infrequently… very beautiful combo

  14. 14.

    JPL

    Tomorrow I have the opportunity to serve on a jury in Atlanta. Most likely I’ll sit and read and at some point get sent home. Since we are expecting frozen precipitation, getting home should be fun. There is nothing like driving in the South during winter storms. My neighbor is excited because if I get stuck downtown, she gets to keep the pup overnight. good times.

  15. 15.

    monkeyfister

    Celtic blood, perhaps. The Celts settled first in the Salzberg, before being driven further on, to what are now the British Isles.

  18. 18.

    Origuy

    A few days ago, I mentioned that the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s comedy The Bible: The Complete Word of God (Abridged) had been cancelled at a theater in Northern Ireland. This was due to pressure from some fundamentalist politicians and ministers. Well, after getting all kinds of flak from Irish, British and other sources, the local council unbanned it and the show will go on. Having the front page of of the Belfast Telegraph say “We’re a Laughing Stock” probably didn’t hurt.

  20. 20.

    catpal

    open topic question – why are military Generals, etc. still able to keep their jobs after this horrible behavior

    the Army found Roberts guilty of assaulting the first mistress on one occasion and committing adultery with her over a nine-month period. He was fined $5,000 and issued a written reprimand but retained his rank as a one-star general…
    More than an hour later, Schweitzer responded with an apology for the delay, saying he had masturbated “3 times over the past 2 hours” after the meeting with the congresswoman.

    Seriously these aholes are still working in the pentagon.

  24. 24.

    Alison

    @Baud: LOL, touche.

    Okay, so…did they ever address the idea of Holodeck-addiction, or talk about why wouldn’t people just live in the Holodeck forever? Were there any, like…negative side effects from staying in a Holodeck program for too long? Because you can be whatever, wherever, whenever you want, you can have whatever reality you want, so it seems like it would have been easy for people to become obsessed with it and never want to leave. Did that ever come up and did they explain how or why people don’t do that?

  26. 26.

    Baud

    @Alison:

    I recall an episode where Barkley had a holodeck addiction involving Troi. The issue was explored, but not in any depth.

  30. 30.

    Origuy

    @monkeyfister: There’s no evidence that the Celts got to Spain that early. From what I read, the hypothesis is that the blue eye mutation occurred before the pale skin mutation. Of course, the current thinking among anthropologists is that “Celtic” is an ethnolinguistic classification rather than a genetic one. The culture and language spread ahead of the progenitors of them. That was about 800 BC or so.

  31. 31.

    The Pale Scot

    From Prof. Pierce;

    More than half of Afghan girls and boys suffer damage to their minds and bodies that cannot be undone because they are poorly nourished in the crucial first two years of life, doctors and other experts say. The finding raises serious questions about the legacy of more than 10 years of western involvement in Afghanistan. “After the age of two years, stunting is largely irreversible, and has an impact on growth and development and cognitive function,” says Carrie Morrison from the World Food Programme.

    I have read that the soil over there is lacking in some essential minerals that makes the crops shitty…..

    So basically there are gangs of imbeciles running around Afghani loaded with weaponry.

    Sounds like the American South but with opium.

    And yes I live in FL.

  32. 32.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Alison: So, technically, it would have been redundant for Comic Book Guy to wish for an hour in the Holodeck with Seven Of Nine? (Do I have her name right? I never saw it, but that was Jeri Ryan, right?)

  36. 36.

    Ken

    @Baud:

    I recall an episode where Barkley had a holodeck addiction involving Troi. The issue was explored, but not in any depth.

    Not on the show, but betcha a nickel that two minutes with Google will turn up a meg of fanfic slash pron “exploring” that episode.

  37. 37.

    Baud

    @Alison:

    so it seems like it would have been easy for people to become obsessed with it and never want to leave. Did that ever come up and did they explain how or why people don’t do that?

    Holodeck addiction is covered by Obamacare.

  38. 38.

    Belafon

    @Alison: Barclay, who was portrayed by the guy who played Murdoch in the A-Team TV series, was the one mentally unstable guy in the entire 23rd century. His neuroses gave Troi a reason to be a counselor.

  39. 39.

    mainmata

    My father and his siblings (and father) were called “Black Irish”: stark blue eyes but otherwise Greek-looking: densely curly, black hair, darkish skin I think the original Celts came from Spain, right? My mother was fair-haired freckly Irish so us kids are a real mix. Both from MA like you, I believe.

  40. 40.

    WereBear

    @Alison: negative side effects from staying in a Holodeck program for too long

    It wasn’t thoroughly explored, but there was some discussion of how one could not truly eat or otherwise perform normal functions there, thus creating a self-limiting check on such activities.

  41. 41.

    jibeaux

    Caveman Hottie!

    I love the dark skin, green eyes combination myself. My kids didn’t get my green eyes, a fact which makes my husband pump his fist about his killer dominant genes.

  42. 42.

    Botsplainer

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I don’t know if you can call me a Trekkie, since I haven’t seen all of TOS, Voyager and Enterprise. But I do like Trek, especially DS9 and the middle years of TNG.

    Always love Klingon Civil War plots.

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Alison: I’m a Simpsons geek, not a trekkie. If the Holodeck is your ultimate fantasy made real, then 7/9 would already be in the Holodeck for him. Like wishing for all the money in the world, and a Rolls. Bad joke.

    Chris Hayes is interviewing Richard Sherman, if anyone is interested in that. HE’s very diplomatic in addressing that jackass McCain. It’s not like Sherman called Erin Andrews a trollop and a c**t.

  47. 47.

    MikeJ

    @Roger Moore:

    Because bigfoot is myth, unlike these early hunter gatherers.

    Every small town in Washington is required to have a coffee shop or tire store or chiropractor, SOMETHING with a chainsaw carved bigfoot out front. Usually not too far from their slice of a tree pointing out the ring where Columbus landed, Declaration of Independence signed, etc.

  48. 48.

    WereBear

    @Alison: similar to drug addiction or something? Like, yes this thing is fun but too much is bad for you and can ruin your life, etc etc?

    Yes, the above quoted episode. The most interesting thing to me, which I don’t think was touched on too much, was how you would have to mentally adjust back and forth; this facility is what really would start getting messed up, seems to me.

  50. 50.

    Belafon

    @WereBear: If you wondered what was going on inside Dexter’s (Michael Hall) head, watch Cumberbatch as Sherlock. Scary, and glad he’s on your side.

    “How many times did he jump out of the window?”
    “After a while it was just a blur.”

    (Paraphrased)

  53. 53.

    The Pale Scot

    @mainmata: “Black Irish” are usually considered the result of wandering Roman centurions.

    ETA: In old photos (1800s) from Ireland sometimes you can see some guy with a face that belongs in a gladiator flick, They’re usually from a certain part of Erin but I don’t remember where.

  55. 55.

    Villago Delenda Est

    who lived in Spain around 7,000 years ago,

    How can that be, when the world is only 6,000 years old?

    /Ken Ham

  57. 57.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @The Pale Scot: I always heard Spaniards washed up after the wreck of the Armada

    @mellowjohn: the short memories the American media, and voters, drives me crazy. Now fucking Willard is being rehabilitated by that fucking movie and an appearance on one of the Jimmy shows.

  59. 59.

    Botsplainer

    @Baud:

    For the record, I would be addicted to the holodeck.

    Eventually, even threesomes with Troi and Seven of Nine get tiresome.

  61. 61.

    cckids

    @mellowjohn:

    tweety has no memory of anything (viz. his drooling over w being landed on the uss abe lincoln) other than tipandthegipper.

    And the T & G show he is so taken with is largely a figment of his imagination, as well.

  63. 63.

    geg6

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    That’s me here, raising my hand. I find him repulsive. He looks like a damn salamander. So, not only ugly but creepy in a cold-blooded slimy creepy way. Ugh. Can’t even fathom being attracted to him. Can’t and won’t watch anything he’s in, he creeps me out so much.

    But to each their own, I guess. Several people have found Rush Limbaugh attractive enough to marry him, so there’s someone out there for every taste.

  66. 66.

    geg6

    @efgoldman:

    Agreed on Q. And I think you’re right about an episode about the holodeck being on the fritz and endangering people. Been years since I’ve seen much TNG, but that rings a bell.

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    @geg6:

    Several people have found Rush Limbaugh attractive enough to marry him, so there’s someone out there for every taste.

    I apparently found that idea so repulsive that I found myself literally pulling back from the screen as I read it. What did I do to make you punish me like this?

  70. 70.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Alison:

    Do we have any trekkies here? Is the Pope an Argentine? Does a bear shit in the woods?

    Wait..strike that…reverse it…

  71. 71.

    WereBear

    @geg6: Rush has bribed women to marry him, plain and simple.

    And I never found the blonde, Aryan, surfer-type attractive at all. Fabio leaves me utterly cold; might as well date a Ken doll.

    But millions of women disagree! As the elderly Jewish ladies back in the neighborhood used to say, There’s a lid for every pot.

  72. 72.

    geg6

    @WaterGirl:

    That’s kind of the same way I react when people swoon over Cumberbatch. I suppose he’s a good person and all, but it’s a visceral reaction that I have to him. Just…gross.

  73. 73.

    Kiko

    @The Pale Scot: Basques and Irish appear to be linked genetically and linguistically in the paleo past.

    @Origuy: Blue eye mutation has been tracked to an individual born near the Black Sea around 10,000 years ago.

    Also, Genghis Khan had red hair and green eyes. Why don’t they ever show him like that in movies?

  76. 76.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Alison:

    That technically wasn’t a holodeck episode, that was Q messing with the entire crew.

    But it was great…especially the nod to Animal House with the mandolin.

  77. 77.

    geg6

    @WereBear:

    Ken dolls and muscular types are not attractive to me either. The only actor I can think of that I find really attractive is Clooney. When I was young, I used to go for skinny dark haired guys like Jagger and Tyler and Mercury. Thankfully, I outgrew that and can’t understand what I was thinking. But it was the 70s, so it might have been the acid.

  78. 78.

    WereBear

    @geg6: It’s my theory that people are attracted to a different genetic mix from themselves. Connected to the don’t-sleep-with-your-relatives brain template, and a good help to hybrid vigor.

    It can work culturally, too. I’ve been around New Yorkers my whole adult life, and a great many of the women adore the “Southern guy”… they find him exotic. While I grew up with that, and such holds no charms for me… I liked the urban, “ethnic” type which they found boring and un-alluring.

  79. 79.

    WereBear

    @Kiko: Blue eye mutation has been tracked to an individual born near the Black Sea around 10,000 years ago.

    And he seems to have been catnip to the ladies!

  84. 84.

    Pogonip

    @Elie: There’s been so many invasions of Sicily over the centuries that darn near every ethnic group on earth contributed to the gene pool, and I would not be a bit surprised to learn of Sicilians who have a Klingon or two in the ancestral woodpile.

  86. 86.

    Ken

    @efgoldman:

    Also, weren’t there episodes of TNG in which the holodeck programming got out of control and put crew members in danger?

    You know how they say there are only seven basic plots? That was one of TNG’s seven.

    (Still better than Voyager and Chakotay’s vision quests.)

  90. 90.

    JGabriel

    mainmata:

    My father and his siblings (and father) were called “Black Irish”: stark blue eyes but otherwise Greek-looking: densely curly, black hair, darkish skin

    That was my understanding of the traditional definition of Black Irish, although I think straight, but still thick/coarse, black hair is also common.

    I think the original Celts came from Spain, right?

    The Irish Celts are believed to have migrated from Portugal and NW Spain. I think there’s still some debate over whether British Celts (Welsh, Cornwallish) migrated from the same area or from an area roughly encompassing Normandy to Belgium. The Celts in Brittany are a back-migration from Britain.

    The original Celts probably started out somewhere in Austria or further east-southeast.

    .

  93. 93.

    Pogonip

    I had copper-colored hair (gray now), green eyes, and a light complexion but no freckles. Is there a catchy name, e.g. Black Irish, for that combination of genes? We’re assorted types of whites + Cherokee on both sides. No Klingons, Asians, or Africans in the family tree that we know of.

  96. 96.

    JGabriel

    Pogonip:

    I had copper-colored hair (gray now), green eyes, and a light complexion but no freckles.

    Not that I know of off-hand. Sounds like there’s some Viking in there, though.

  97. 97.

    Mnemosyne

    test

    ETA: Apparently FYWP will brook no criticism of Cumberbatch. But I still prefer Martin Freeman.

  101. 101.

    ruemara

    Cave dude looks like … pretty much every serious boyfriend I’ve ever had. Slender, a bit pale, dark hair, light eyes. And Cumberbatch looks like newt. Sorry. I do not get the attraction. Since it seems my inner sexy times arrow is faulty, I shall now only go for meaty blonde types with dark eyes who enjoy sports.

    I decided to spend a bit of my -$16 of flea market ‘profits’ on a celebratory dinner for passing my web class. Go me. Yay.

    Also, AMA re: Trek & Philosophy.

  102. 102.

    jl

    @Origuy:

    ” the pale skin mutation ”

    But now I wonder whether pale skin is a mutation or a matter of gene expression. I read that mesolithic genome caveman story earlier today. It said that he had genes for light skin that were common to modern Europeans and that originated in Africa.

    So, even European pale skin, in some sense, has an origin in Africa. That is nice, something else to upset the white racists.

  103. 103.

    Anne Laurie

    @mainmata: I was always told that true ‘black Irish’ had very pale, blue-veined, usually-freckly skin to go with the dark hair & blue eyes — like Richard Nixon, the men with this phenotype have ‘five o’clock shadow’ beards by lunchtime. YMMV…

  106. 106.

    Ignaz Playel

    @Alison: OMG. No. The holodeck malfunctions all the time. I think that is a built in failure programing to prevent people from staying in forever. It’s kind of like Fantasy Island that way. If you stay in too long, eventually the computer gets all judgemental and fixes your simulation to teach to a valuable, moral, life lesson. And then when you want to leave, it won’t open the doors.

  107. 107.

    WereBear

    @jl: One of my anthropology classes pegged it as a matter of Sexy. In Northern climes, pale skin was an advantage, which in Southern ones, dark skin was. Both promoted proper Vitamin D in the different environments; leading to healthier, and more attractive, people with the environmentally friendly skin color.

  108. 108.

    NotMax

    @Ken

    Yup. It was a lazy fallback after they wore out the ‘Wesley single-handedly saves the ship’ plot. Plus a convenient budget saver, as they could use the holodeck as an excuse to have present day sets (or locales) and clothing.

    Also too, the NSA monitored all holodeck usage. (Made that up, but would set off a flame war or two on a Trek site.)

  109. 109.

    Pogonip

    @Baud: I doubt it. Human nature being what it is, after a while you’d think, “Holodeck AGAIN? Doesn’t anybody have a Tickle Bee game?”

  110. 110.

    Anne Laurie

    @Betty Cracker: You’re in my postive thoughts.

    Don’t forget to take care of yourself — even if you have to force yourself to eat something & lie awake in the dark…

  112. 112.

    Anoniminous

    @jl:

    Mutation. Light skin allows more vitamin D to be produced in low light conditions so it would have an evolutionary advantage.

    @Betty Cracker:

    I hope things turn out well.

  115. 115.

    Anne Laurie

    @Pogonip:

    We’re assorted types of whites + Cherokee on both sides. No Klingons, Asians, or Africans in the family tree that we know of.

    So, you know the 1970s ‘folk theory’ that the Cherokee origin legends about a local man marrying ‘the sky god’s red-haired daughter’ referred to a lost Viking heritage?

  116. 116.

    Pogonip

    @href=”#comment-4839755″>JGabriel:I knew the Vikings were doing something besides distributing white cats and orange cats! There’s a Viking in the woodpile sure as you’re born, that doggone Sven’s been a-shuckin’ my corn!

  118. 118.

    BruceFromOhio

    Oh, Alison. Look what you’ve done.

    … and, though it’s been answered, why do you ask? I remain curious.

    A favorite dinner table topic (of mine, anyway) was the latest ST:TNG episode featuring either that damned android, or that damned holodeck. C’mon, people, you go into deep space with technology your only barrier against death! If these two appliances were so repeatedly problematic, why didn’t you either unplug the Gaia-damned things, or leave them at home?

    ETA: the drawring looks like a police artist rendering of the latest bad guy that everyone is currently looking for. Yeah, I dunno who he is either.

  120. 120.

    Pogonip

    @Anne Laurie: Hadn’t heard that one, but I am familiar with the legend of the grumpy man who came from the stars and impressed the Cherokee people with his ability to grate cheese on his forehead…no, wait. That was the other grumpy-man legend I was thinking of, about He Who Shaves Cats.

  121. 121.

    diana

    @mainmata: yeah, I was just thinking “sounds like black Irish” myself.

    Well if that’s the original Celtic European stock that lays to rest the myth that the black Irish are the survivors of the Spanish Armada. Due to isolation Irish are actually one of the purest and oldest european lineages.

    Which means the Irish should be some kind of master race, right? But for some reason no-one ever seems to think us of that way. Must be the 800 years of oppression and all that….

  122. 122.

    trollhattan

    How many ways are there to say holy fvck? I’d like to use all of them for this.

    This time out our Second Amendment Hero is Mr. Rodney Black of Barboursville, West Virginia, who protected himself from a home invasion by shooting two men dead because he thought they were on his property and breaking into his shed to steal all his worldly goods. And property, as we all know, is a sacred right in our Constitution.

    Oh sure, there are a couple of teensy details that the gun-grabbers will inevitably fixate on, like the fact that the two men were not actually on Mr. Black’s property — in fact, one of the men, Garrick Hopkins, had just bought the land and was showing it to his brother Carl at 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon — and also, too, the shed was not actually Mr. Black’s either. And he shot them from about 50 yards away.

    http://wonkette.com/540420/responsible-gun-owner-shoots-new-neighbors-for-standing-on-their-own-ground#more-540420

    Am beginning to understand why Cole is such a homebody.

  124. 124.

    max

    @Litlebritdiftrnt: I have always been attracted to men with black hair and blue eyes, my DH has such traits (these days it is grey hair and blue eyes) but whatever.

    When I was a late teen, I got hit on by all the gay guys. It mystified me at the time. Then, for completely unrelated reasons, I dyed my hair, going from blond to jet black. Suddenly the ladies liked me a lot better and the gay men did not hit on me. (I realized this in retrospect, some years later.)

    My ex (blonde/red) liked that. Then, as my hair retreated, I stopped dying it, and (as I noticed in retrospect), my ex pretty quickly ceased to be interested in me. Later, after we split up, she hooked up with another guy with black hair, and then married a different guy with very dark hair.

    Seems to be common.

    At any rate, I would take these tales of people crossing the seas in relatively recent times to breed and produce dark-haired children with an entire dump truck of salt.

    max
    [‘The study itself is interesting, but not conclusive of anything. Excepting the existence of blue eyes much earlier than suspected.’]

  126. 126.

    Pogonip

    @max: I have a gay colleague who says the “blondes have more fun” idea started with gay men and stayed with them till Clairol picked it up.

  128. 128.

    scav

    @Mnemosyne: Nothing at all wrong with John Hamish or Gavin/Graham/ Gertrude/Greg Lestrade, but for conversation it’s definately the Holmes boys, and he of the cheekbones moves well despite some distinctly odd individual parts. As a package deal? Done. The other odd combination of parts that works is Tovey, so allons-y alonzo pour le chien.

  131. 131.

    Botsplainer

    @Gravenstone:

    You do remember that threesomes with 7/9 is what helped get Obama elected to the Senate, right?

    Oh, yeah, I remember.

    I always figured that as a bona fide hottie, Seven was willing to play games a bit, but that Ryan carried it to extremes and things got unhealthy.

  136. 136.

    Yatsuno

    @Betty Cracker: Oh man. :: hug :: Hopefully you have a readily available support system nearby and ready to act. And FWIW I’ve been in an ICU. It mostly means you need to be watched pretty much constantly. She’ll be taken care of.

  138. 138.

    WaterGirl

    Oh, Betty. Pulling for you and your mum. Hold her hand whenever you can.

    A friend of mine who nearly died of a brain clot told me that when things were touch and go, even though he was completely out of it, he could feel the life force when people held his hand.

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