Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Bark louder, little dog.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

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

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

“But what about the lurkers?”

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Republicans in disarray!

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

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

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

Let there be snark.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Decline & Fall

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Decline & Fall

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Some days, one can only hope that new Lindisfarnes will be ready before the No-Ice Age and the technologized Vikings are.

Anything on the agenda for the evening that isn’t February-doldrums depressing?

Reader Interactions

44Comments

  4. 4.

    The Dangerman

    First spring training games in one week (also, just noticed first buds on apricot tree in backyard, which I’m not sure is good news as it feels too damn early).

  5. 5.

    TaMara (BHF)

    Hey if anyone is in the Denver/Boulder/Front Range area and does Quickbooks and general bookkeeping, I have a company that needs someone either full time or on a 4-6 week contract. They are really desperate. Nice people, good benefits, pretty flexible with hours and time off. Work has to be done on site because of Hipaa regs.

    I don’t even have enough time to help them out temporarily but I told them I’d get the word out. Email me (whats4dinnersolutions at live dot com) and I’ll put you in touch with the company if you’re interested or know someone who might be.

  9. 9.

    Violet

    I have a workers’ rights story. A friend’s teenage son got his first job. It’s at a fast food restaurant. She was saying they were going to help him open a checking account so he count get direct deposit for his paycheck. I said, “I don’t know if they’ll let him do that since he’s only part time. Don’t be surprised if they pay him with a debit card.” She didn’t believe me, and I proceeded to tell her about the whole debit card paycheck thing, and the percentage the debit card providers take every time the card is used. I also told her about the crappy scheduling fast food workers get–the show up with fifteen minutes notice, work an hour, get sent home, no set schedule, etc. She didn’t believe me about that either.

    Just so happens I was at their house when her son came home. He pulls out this envelope, opens up the contents, which include a debit card and the accompanying legal notices, and says, “They’ll pay me on this card.” I look over at her and her eyes are wide, and her jaw has dropped. After he explains the whole thing to his mom, he heads to his room. She turns to me and says, “I didn’t believe you.” I reminded her of the crappy scheduling. She said, “Isn’t there some law that says you can’t work less than three hours at a time?” I burst out laughing this time and replied, “A law for workers’ rights? In this state?” I don’t think she knew what I was saying, but I’ll keep after it.

  10. 10.

    Comrade Mary

    Toronto is getting a few above freezing days — huzzah! — but also a lot of wind and rain and potential flooding — sigh. Back in the deep freeze next week.

  12. 12.

    lamh36

    Catching up on things I missed online while as work today.

    For example, what manner of fuckery is this. Has the election of a Black President cause white bigots to “come out” of the closet or what??

    A public official responds to a black man’s complaint by telling him a lynching story. Just making conversation, you know how it is. http://trib.al/tXJ7ma5

    Here’s the News story on the official.

    State Investigator Loses Job Over Lynching Story

    ALGOOD, Tenn. — A veteran investigator with the Tennessee Department of Health was forced to resign or face termination last month for his conduct during a racially charged case.

    William Sewell was an emergency medical service investigator, assigned to the Upper Cumberland Region, who had been with the state more than 40 years.

    Last summer, Sewell began investigating a case involving the Algood Fire Department in Putnam County.

    In an interview with the man who filed the complaint, Shun Mullins, Sewell began telling a graphic story about a black man who was lynched near Baxter, Tennessee, many years ago.

    The state claimed Sewell’s conduct in that interview could be perceived as a “form of intimidation” toward Mullins.

    “If he was doing that to me, how many other people has he done that to?” Mullins asked…

  13. 13.

    RobertDSC-PowerMac G4 Dual 1.25

    Anything on the agenda for the evening that isn’t February-doldrums depressing?

    Nope.

    I’m in an incredibly foul mood right now. I have to go pay bills and don’t want to go. Just tired of everything going on in the world.

  16. 16.

    Dee Loralei

    Made Goulash for dinner tonight, since it’s one of my dad’s fav things. Got up to 60+ today. Not a good day for a hearty Hungarian soup. My son, his best buddy and I are playing in a P0K3r tourney Sat. night for the Memphis Humane Society. It’s a hell of a lot of fun, big buffet and open bar. And all proceeds go to the center. If anyone is in the area and wants to come it’s $50 in advance and $60 at the door, though their website. Last year I think there were 120 players.

  18. 18.

    Violet

    @Baud: I know that. But from what I’ve read about it, the fast food companies tell their employees this is how they’ll get paid (by card). The employee has to know to ask about other ways–check, direct deposit, whatever. If the employee doesn’t ask and do whatever needs to be done to change it then they get the debit card.

    Also, It may be illegal, but in practice employees are discouraged from changing their payment method and I read of one woman who was fired shortly after changing to a paycheck. Was it because she changed her payment method? Not provable, but she felt it was the reason.

  19. 19.

    Suffern ACE

    @lamh36: people are just too sensitive. I often tell my lynching story during retirement dinners and during performance evaluations when I’m giving a top box rating. It’s my way of saying ‘job well done. Keep it up. People working together can move mountains and a jouney of 10,000 steps starts when god opens a window.”

  21. 21.

    Svensker

    @Comrade Mary:

    Saturday into Sunday looks like great potential for black ice.

    And I thought this thaw was a harbinger of spring. Didn’t wear a hat or long johns today, first time in months!

  22. 22.

    Steeplejack

    Saw some significant snow melting today, finally. I took some trash to the dumpster and noticed what I hadn’t seen before: water running down the street gutters and parts of the pavement wet with melted snow. It was sunny and got up to 61° today here in NoVa, and it should be close to that through the weekend (highs in the 50s). Maybe cold again in the middle of next week, but this is a nice respite. I got so excited I made a bunch of trips to take accumulated recycling stuff to the bins. It felt good to be outside without running the risk of taking a header. I couldn’t find my YakTrax anywhere last week. I think they’re still in a box somewhere.

  23. 23.

    ruemara

    Sorry, can’t say there’s no doldrums here. I have 4 months of employ after February, 5 months of housing and then I have no idea where or what will be. It would be nice if those in power would recognize that they could not outsource my job, suck up the ego and reinstate my position. However, the commitment to the grift of public office, currying favour and the upsettednes I caused by being a lowly (brown) person being right, is probably too much for them. And I have so much stuff to get rid of… Nope, way too much doldrums here.

  24. 24.

    Pogonip

    @Comrade Mary: My area has the same forecast. At least neither of us is suffering alone. On the bright side, I saw new red twigs sprouting on some osier trees yesterday.

  25. 25.

    ruemara

    @lamh36: Maybe I really should leave the country. It’s like there was a crazy explosion and the radiation fallout is finally starting to land everywhere.

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    Dropped the car off at the mechanic for a long,l ong overdue oil change/coolant change/timing belt change and ‘give everything a once over and fix/replace what you find that needs it’ visit.

    20-year-old ride, and not yet at 50,000 original miles.

    Walked back from there (slow pace, took maybe 40 minutes) and am totally enervated.

    Not gonna walk back to pick it up when it is ready – the bad leg doesn’t handle going uphill at all well anymore,

  28. 28.

    Anne Laurie

    @schrodinger’s cat: You know, I thought about linking to that story last night, but figured the TWiB crew would do a better job.

    “Modesty” is part of WRybczynski’s (the op-ed writer’s) shtick, but the suggestion that the first African-American president should be the one to “bring it back” is extremely tone-deaf. President Obama deserves an archive/museum that can represent how much of a difference his election meant to so many Americans, of all colors & conditions!

    Unless the Dubya Library is razed, and rebuilt as a records bunker next to a twenty-four-hour, mega-multi-stall pissoir… then we can talk about “downsizing” future presidents’ libraries.

  29. 29.

    gbear

    Temps made it up into the mid-40s in the Twin Cities today just so that the weather could slap us in the face with a ‘wintery-mix’ storm that may dump 8-10″ before the weekend. Blizzard warnings for south-central MN and WI.

    Fuck winter. Fuck everything. I put some money onto my bus card this evening so that if the roads suck too much I can wade a block to the bus stop.

  30. 30.

    Howard Beale IV

    Just had an interesting telemarketing phone call with Comcast.

    They hung up on me when I told them my land-line replacement was only $10/month.

  32. 32.

    gbear

    @Howard Beale IV: I recently had a telemarketer who was trying to sell me an extended warranty for my car hang up on me after telling me I obviously had a bad attitude about the call and was a wasting her time. Christ.

  33. 33.

    Howard Beale IV

    @gbear: What’s pissing me off is that the NWS is issuing a Winter Storm Warning and not triggering a Specific Area Message Encoding Alert alert to let weather radios and cellphones know that the shits coming down in the next 24 hours. SAME has a code for Winter Strom Warning (WSW) and NWS Chanhassen isn’t issuing it.

  34. 34.

    Howard Beale IV

    @gbear: I was about to go all ballistic on Comcast, then I realized that the poor gal who called me is working for some third party telemarketer firm making minimum wage. But at least I had fun poking holes at Comcast when I repeated stories about them throttling Netflix, knowing that they were in all probability recording the conversation.

    I just wish that Google would have built their fiber network out our way; that would have made Comcast and CenturyLink shit their drawers (I always have fun when the CenturyLink salescritter comes to my door and I throw my ‘Fiber to the Node or Fiber to the Premesis’? question to them..)

  39. 39.

    catclub

    @Anne Laurie: He said that in a time of austerity the library should be smaller.
    Of course in 2009 when W’s Library was being made, was the time of austerity. 2017? Not so sure.

  40. 40.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    I know people are trying to make a living but my usual answer when someone cold calls me and I tell them no and they call back is to turn on sailor swearing mode but in a soft spoken manner. Don’t lose your temper but swear every other word.
    Freaks em out.

  42. 42.

    karen marie

    @catclub: What moron thought a flashing gif was the best way to present information that’s not kitties? I gave up trying to make sense of it and just read the article. It, unfortunately, renders the article unshareable.

  43. 43.

    SFAW

    @efgoldman:

    Snow’s piled so high on the sides of the street and our driveway, reminds me a little of ’78.

    Yeah, yeah, sure … “when I was a kid … walk 20 miles to school, uphill both directions … blah blah blah”

    Funny, I never would have taken you to be a Yorkshireman.

  44. 44.

    boatboy_srq

    @gbear: Snake-oil salespeople don’t like informed customers. One more reason the education system is such a big target for the Reichwing.

    Could be worse. I have a recruiter trying to headhunt me for a big law firm that just can’t seem to get it through its collective head that I’m a fully-employeed professional and can’t just drop everything to talk (or Skype, as they first suggested) with them whenever it’s convenient. The job sounds interesting, but the lack of respect they’re exhibiting in the process is getting inexcusable – and they weren’t the ones who needed to be sold to begin with.

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