Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

“woke” is the new caravan.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

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

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

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

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

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

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

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Very Cool

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Just got off the phone with one of my army buddies from Germany, and he only lives next door in Maryland and works seasonally, and has a couple weeks off, so he is coming here on Tuesday and hanging for a couple days. It’s been 22 years since we last saw each other, and talking to him on the phone the past few days, it really is funny how you can be separated from a friend for decades but after two minutes of talking it’s like you were never apart and the 22 years seems like a bathroom break.

Reader Interactions

70Comments

  2. 2.

    Alison

    Hey JC, sorry if you’ve mentioned it and I didn’t see the post, but how are you doing with the crazy water shit going on there? Are you in the affected area?

  3. 3.

    aimai

    So nice! I bet you guys will have a blast. There are lots of people from my life, 22 years back, who I’d love to see again.

  6. 6.

    John Cole

    @Alison: Nope. I am in the northern panhandle and our water comes from the Ohio river and deep well springs along the Ohio. I studiously analyze the yearly report the water company sends me and compare their samples and analyses with national standards, and we have really good water.

    Having said that, now that they are putting a plant a mile upstream from the water intake on the Ohio that is for cleaning fracking byproduct, I am reasonably sure in a couple years I will be forced to drink bottle water for the rest of my life, unless I move to a state that gives a shit about clean water and sell everything to Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, who can then live here and give each other water enemas while fellating the free market.

  7. 7.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @John Cole:

    and sell everything to Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, who can then live here and give each other water enemas while fellating the free market.

    Why would you put that image in people’s heads?

  9. 9.

    JWR

    I just recently hooked up with a cousin that way. We grew up together, (he’s two years younger), then spent a lot of time together in our early twenties, a bit in our early thirties, did some traveling, but it’s been 23 years this time, and we’ve been having a ball!. But it’s just as you say. Talk for two minutes and it’s like you were never apart. Good for you!

  10. 10.

    MikeJ

    Disaster is striking Seattle. There must be 1/8th of an inch of snow piled up outside! It’s still falling.

    Please, somebody organize an airlift.

  12. 12.

    Alison

    @John Cole: Well, I’m just glad you’re okay for now. Reading about what’s going on there….good lord. I realize this isn’t feasible for many folks but if it were me, I’d have just packed the fuck up and left. Especially when they started doing that “Oh it’s FINE to drink, ignore the smell, it’s totally okay, except for you pregnant ladies, but really it’s aaaaalllll good”. NOPE NOPE NOPE.

  13. 13.

    lamh36

    Ok, I just noticed that this movie was just recently released on DVD. My sister and I saw an advanced screening of it. The shortest review I got, if you loved Love Actually, go out and get About Time on DVD and check it out. And if you don’t like Love Actually, then do it cause you love Bill Nighy, and who DOESN’T love Bill Nighy. If you don’t like Bill Nighy then watch it because it is a great movie that’s not just about romance, but also about the enduring love between a father and a son and between sisters and brothers!

    http://youtu.be/7OIFdWk83no

  15. 15.

    CaseyL

    @MikeJ: Hey! I’ll have you know there is at least one-third of an inch outside my door! I’m going to alert my neighbors; we might have to organize a dog cat-sled team to forage for provisions.

  17. 17.

    mainmata

    I have a Facebook mediated (nowadays) friendship with a close Peace Corps friend back in the day (we were both located in Ethiopia). It’s been a nice dialogue even though we live on opposite coasts and have very different lives – but we have significant connections and similar life philosophy. It’s part of my life’s richness.

  18. 18.

    Cassidy

    Women are funny. Breast feeding, formula, drugs, natural childbirth….it’s like the species exist to shank the shit out of one another.

  20. 20.

    Comrade Mary

    @Omnes Omnibus: We all have our terrible, secret sins. We all deserve that kind of punishment.

    (I bought salt instead of sand for my front walk today. I’m going to hell.)

  21. 21.

    lamh36

    Well shhhh. I can’t sleep. I guess I could read a book but the I only book I have is the latest Bridget Jones novel but I’ve had it since Oct and it’s just sitting in my nightstand drawer. I can’t even bring myself to read it since the author killed off my favorite character before the time period in the book even began. I still seriously can’t even believe she did it.

    The “gimmick” backfired though there was so much backlash Fielding has begun to hint that maybe the character isn’t dead after all. Well too late for that the damage has been done and cant be taken back.

  22. 22.

    Cassidy

    @efgoldman: Got some know it all acquaintances on FB; new parents who automatically know everything and feel no remorse shaming other women who made different birth choices.

  23. 23.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Comrade Mary:

    Ooh, I know what you’re doin’.
    I know where you’ve been.
    I know where, but I don’t care,
    ’cause there’s no such thing as an original sin.

  25. 25.

    MomSense

    Ugh teenager is out with a friend tonight. – a friend with whom he has gotten into trouble before. It wasn’t big trouble but just enough that I will not be able to sleep until he is home.

  27. 27.

    pseudonymous in nc

    it really is funny how you can be separated from a friend for decades but after two minutes of talking it’s like you were never apart and the 22 years seems like a bathroom break.

    I’m like that with my college friends. When you spend 3-4 years living in each others’ sock drawers, then you can pick up a conversation where you left off half a decade ago, and put it down for another half-decade. Some friendships need cultivating regularly or they wither, but others stick around no matter how much time passes.

  29. 29.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @pseudonymous in nc: I noticed that at my 25th reunion. My best friend showed up at the last minute because he found out I was coming. Wen caught up a bit and it was like we had seen one another everyday for the past 20 years. At first, I avoided any political subjects just because I didn’t want to find out he was a Republican, but he kept going there. He is a hard core D and a complete union thug (in a good way). He is an airline pilot and his wife is a teacher. He spends much of his spare time taking advantage of his free flying privileges to go to picket lines across the country. Not bad for a a rich kid soccer/hockey player.

  30. 30.

    jl

    You cannot beat this for Saturday night family entertainment. Family’s pet squirrel tries to hide a nut in the fur of family’s pet dog.

    Pet Squirrel hides his nut in the fur of a Bernese Mountain dog
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTPOSdyA7Uo

    Edit: If I ever had the space, and time required for exercising it, and home compatible with lots of dog slobber, I would like to get one of those big old mountain dogs, or a mastiff. I love the expression on that dogs face as it impassively watches the squirrel trying to do silly things. Though, I could probably only afford a mutt with lots of mastiff in it.

  32. 32.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I just got an email saying that the Kickstarter project that Aji publicized here and AL broadcast made its goal and is being funded.

  36. 36.

    bago

    @Comrade Jake: Running in it? Shit, when the Snowpcalypse hit DC that was all I could do. Now that I’m back the the proper washington, You know the one with Gey marriage, Legal weed, Software and REAL HILLS AND MOUNTAINS, I am doing some urban snowboarding tonight.

  40. 40.

    Suzanne

    I spent the day studying. This is my last one. If I pass, then I’m done and that’s it: LICENSE. If I fail, I have to wait six months before I can do it again. Argh. Pressure. Test is April Fool’s Day.

  41. 41.

    Alison

    @Suzanne:

    Test is April Fool’s Day.

    That seems mean of them.

    For real, though, best of luck! I don’t know if that long to go is a good thing – because you have lots of time to study – or bad because maybe you just want to get it over with already… :)

  43. 43.

    Keith P

    Most people I’ve known that long are all on Facebook, but don’t actually communicate with each other beyond FB. It’s one of the reasons that I don’t FB any more…there’s just a kind of laziness about it.

  45. 45.

    Violet

    @Alison:

    Hey, do we have any Scottish BJers? Or ones with Scottish friends/relatives?

    I’ve got relatives who live in Scotland. Why?

  46. 46.

    Suzanne

    @Alison: I want to take it after 11am, and that was the first slot that was not at 8am. EIGHT?! Fuck that. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad that I have almost two months to go. I’m scared.

  47. 47.

    Alison

    @Violet: Oh, I just saw an article today about the British PM asking Scotland not to leave the UK, and I was just curious…is doing so a popular thing among regular folks in Scotland? And what the reasons were for wanting to, and such.

  49. 49.

    Suzanne

    Yes, I passed the other six. I just want to be done so bad. I remember actually going out for lunch once in a while, and reading fiction books for pleasure.

  55. 55.

    MikeJ

    @Alison:

    is doing so a popular thing among regular folks in Scotland? And what the reasons were for wanting to, and such.

    The plan is to claim all the north sea oil and become rich like Norway.

    There are the equivalent of red staters in Scotland (by no means all, and I don’t think even a majority) who think that since they;re part of the UK all their tax dollars are being sent to layabouts in London and if they just got rid of social safety net and foreign aid they could get rid of all taxes and all be rich. This is, needless to say, and very uninformed view of the Scottish economy.

    I don’t think devo will pass, but I don’t live there and just know what the sane-ish people I know say.

  56. 56.

    xenos

    You get red-staters/tea partiers everywhere. It is a combination of nativism and welfare-state grift – “only authentic people like me deserve to get all the sweet fruits of socialism”, effectively.

    The weakening of national borders seems to be encouraging it in many parts of Europe. Like in the US, it is just a farcical regurgitation of some of the tragedies of the 20th century, except when substantial resources are at stake. I find it a bit amusing the the UK could be robbed of its most lucrative natural resources, though. How long until they nativists in England start crying about those nativists in Scotland stealing their oil back?

  59. 59.

    Yatsuno

    @xenos: Europe is pretty much a patchwork quilt settled only by wars and treaties. Going by language the borders of Europe would be a total mishegas.

  60. 60.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @MikeJ: the other side of that coin is that Scotland leans further left than England, and likes to use is money for things like free universities and prescription drugs. The left snp who are currently in power are spearheading this independence vote in large part because they see a future for Scotland where the country looks more like Scandinavia and less like Centre right anglo America.

  61. 61.

    Robert Sneddon

    @TheMightyTrowel: That’s about right. The only Red in Scotland is the memory of Red Clydeside. There are damn few right-wingers at all in Scotland, nobody as right-wing conservative as, say, Obama or Clinton. A few years back we elected no Conservatives to Parliament at all out of 70-odd constituencies. Today they hold only one out of 59 Scottish seats. They used to take 20 or 30 seats, almost all in rural constituencies with Labour taking the cities and industrial areas.

    The problem is that Scotland is generally poor as a nation. We’re rich in culture and people but that doesn’t pay the bills other than with tourism and sales of “tartan tat” made in China. Wee Eck (First Minister Alec Salmond) has plans for things like renewable energy and the like but we’ve been there before, shiny new factories making things nobody wants at prices that bankrupt the nation. Our other big earners are things like, surprisingly, finance and banking but that’s connected umbilically to London and if we cut the cord then that’s going to take a nosedive.

    Oil. We’ve got oil reserves in the North Sea and some located elsewhere but the glory days are gone, most of the cheap easy-to-get oil has been pumped up and burned already. Exploration continues but the press reports of major new finds are usually followed by the news that the reserves found were not exploitable at current prices. The areas being drilled now are out in the open Atlantic rather than the comparatively less-rough North Sea, a much costlier proposition to develop.

    The one thing we’ve got that we could maybe parlay into money to pay the bills is an excellent educational system. We punch way above our weight there with world-class universities, especially in the sciences (my hometown boy, Prof Higgs got the physics Nobel this year for example). The problem is that education was always seen as a way out of Scotland to somewhere more prosperous — the “high road to England” usually.

    I don’t yet know how I’ll vote in the upcoming referendum; lots of sound and fury at the moment, accusations and needling going on and “what if” games – what if an independent Scotland doesn’t get admitted to the EU as of right, what are the plans for a Scottish currency, what share of British capital debt will accrue, breaking up the military, basing of nuclear weapons in Scotland etc. etc. We’ll probably keep Liz on as Head of State although there is a push to become a Republic rather than having a nominal monarchy.

  63. 63.

    Sourmash

    @Omnes Omnibus: It never stops surprising me how many of my old friend who I reconnect with after many years turn out to be hardcore Dems if not socialists. Even the rich ones turned out pretty good and the few who didn’t turn out, upon reflection, to have been marginal people in my life. Besides patting myself on the back I think it proves that good people really are just good people no matter tidier circumstance or when you meet them.

  64. 64.

    oldster

    “22 years seems like a bathroom break.”

    I grant you it takes me a long time, with the prostate troubles I got, but aren’t you a little young for this already?

  66. 66.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Omnes Omnibus: The Tony wasn’t Scottish. Even his anointed successor Hector (Gordon Brown, extremely Scottish joke/reference there) wasn’t as conservative-with-a-small-c as Tony was but he had to take the fall for the economic collapse in 2008 and lost to the big-C Conservatives in 2010. Labour increased its number of seats in Scotland that year by recovering two seats it had lost in by-elections whereas it lost 90 seats in more conservative England.

  69. 69.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Omnes Omnibus: The Tony was born in Edinburgh but ping-ponged back and forth between Scotland and England as his father moved around. He eventually took the high road to Oxford and never really looked back vide his accent. Hector was always a Scottish lad and ended up representing a Fife constituency (the one building our two new aircraft carriers by total coincidence you understand).

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