Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

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

When we show up, we win.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

American History and Black History can not be separated.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

T R E 4 5 O N

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

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

The willow is too close to the house.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

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

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

In after Baud. Damn.

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

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Better Than Noway?

Reader Interactions

99Comments

  1. 1.

    c u n d gulag

    We Ukrainians and Russians look at that same glass, and yell, “HEY!!! Who drank half of my f’kin’ vodka?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!”

  3. 3.

    CJ in MPLS

    Boring, I know, but a large percentage of the non-organic stuff is probably a wax obtained in the petroleum refining process. Or PCB’s. It probably is PCB’s.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    The other half is people. The other half is always people.

    ETA: or maybe the first half is people this time.

  5. 5.

    PsiFighter37

    @Baud: Reminds me of when Tyler Durden’s slinging giant bags of disposed fat from a liposuction clinic in ‘Fight Club’.

  7. 7.

    Davis X. Machina

    @c u n d gulag: The version I heard:

    A Democrat sees a glass half full and says “That glass is only half-full”.
    A Republican sees a glass half full and says “That’s my f*ck*ng glass”, takes the glass and empties it.

  10. 10.

    Roger Moore

    @Davis X. Machina:
    TiO2 shows up in all kinds of unexpected places, like sunscreen and cake frosting. It’s supposed to be safe- they couldn’t use titanium in things like bone screws and dental implants if TiO2 were toxic- and it gives a really nice white.

  11. 11.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I read the post title as “Better than Norway/” and was very confused by the whole thing.

  15. 15.

    WereBear

    Haw! Next they will do “50% FREE” and we’ll see how many fall for it.

    I just ordered a Thundershirt for my 18 year old cat with dementia-related anxiety issues. Any experience, please share.

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    I need to get dressed and run errands, but I don’t feel like it. So there.

  18. 18.

    PsiFighter37

    Watching Nets-Raptors on TV. Being a New Yorker, I have a bias towards Brooklyn, but it’d be nice if there was a New York basketball team that did well (last year’s Knicks pissed away a golden opportunity). Also, the Nets are 4-0 against the Heat this year, and I’d take anything to have NY deal that ‘I’m taking my talents to the South Beach’ the knockout blow and the end of Superfriends (Wade is breaking down and Bosh has become a nonentity – this is their last hurrah in my mind).

  19. 19.

    ruemara

    Falling asleep. Again. Between BP meds and painkillers I feel ultra strange. tried to go for a walk and had to come back. yuck. supposed to be writing things.

  20. 20.

    Suzanne

    Here at Casa de Suzanne, we seem to be over the worst part of the stomach flu, but are all still exhausted and crabby. Laundry and chores are not done. I might take a sick day tomorrow in order to catch up. Oi.

  21. 21.

    Jimmi the Grey

    The problem is that neither the ‘half-full’ers or the ‘half-empty’ers ever think ahead. It is obviously time to get the attention of your bartender.

  22. 22.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    I keep missing you — you need to ICE YOUR FACE. No, seriously — it will bring the swelling down and make it less painful. 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off. Go get a bag of frozen peas.

  25. 25.

    WereBear

    @Mnemosyne: Thanks! I had a titanium screw put in my jaw for an implant (highly recced, BTW.)

    I’m on the tough side, but when the novocaine started wearing off, I dispatched someone with my pain med prescription to the pharmacy “toot sweet.”

    I get nothing done if I’m writhing around squealing, either.

  26. 26.

    WereBear

    Ack, something I said about implants and pain meds got me moderated. (I said farm-acey, I bet that’s it.)

    Short version: take the meds and deal with the lack of efficiency. Lots of nerve centers in the head.

    Seconded the ICING advice.

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @ruemara: Hope you plan to phone first thing on Monday so they can make sure you don’t have an infection. I was too active after oral surgery once and boom! I had been doing fine and suddenly got an infection. So resting is probably your friend. Second the ice. Did they give you any painkillers or anything for inflammation?

    Take care.

  29. 29.

    shelley

    Seconded the ICING advice.

    Thirded. It’s surprising how effective a little icing can be.

  31. 31.

    ruemara

    I hate down time. I did ice a bit, Mem, but it was so hurty this morning, I decided to take my painkillers. BAD IDEA. I wonder if thisis what heroin is like. If so, I don’t get the attraction.

  32. 32.

    WereBear

    @ruemara: I wonder if thisis what heroin is like. If so, I don’t get the attraction.

    I advanced a great deal in my understanding of addiction when I realized that so many people are so miserable that yes, this is an improvement.

  33. 33.

    Svensker

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I read the post title as “Better than Norway/” and was very confused by the whole thing.

    What’s confusing about that?

  34. 34.

    Suffern ACE

    @ruemara: yeah. I’ve been lucky in that the only time I’ve needed painkillers was after oral surgery. I hated how I felt on them. Hope you feel better soon.

  36. 36.

    NCSteve

    Of course it’s half “organic.” It’s made out of fucking petroleum. Don’t get much more organic than long chain hydrocarbons.

  38. 38.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    Our dog is hiding under the bed. The new parrot makes infrequent but very piercing screeches/whistles. It probably hurts the dog’s ears.
    The parrot is a fostered older Congo African Grey. If the dog doesn’t adapt, the bird will go to a grateful new owner. But I hope we can all get along. He’s a sweet bird.

  40. 40.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @WereBear:
    This one imitates a cockatiel and a telephone. If it stays here it will quickly learn the beep of the microwave oven’s ‘done’ signal, which is the sound in this house that annoys me the most.

  42. 42.

    Sly

    “Organic ingredients” has to be the one of the biggest marketing cons around. Something classified as organic doesn’t mean its good for you or even environmentally friendly. Strychnine is organic, for Christ’s sake.

  43. 43.

    Redshift

    There’s stupid infighting going on in my county Democratic committee. On the plus side, it gives me an excuse to skip meetings, and I can still work on the congressional campaigns where there is actually useful work to do, rather than meaningless power grabs.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    Moar ice! And if they cleared you to take something OTC like ibuprofen (Motrin) or naproxen sodium (Aleve), make sure you take it on a schedule (usually every 4 hours) rather than waiting for it to start hurting again. It keeps the swelling under control.

    And also sleep, like Suzanne said. If you can’t sleep, try turning on a bad movie or bad TV and zoning out.

  47. 47.

    gene108

    Cooking for the week. My goal is to not eat out next week. I’m trying to lose weight and get in shape and I hope doing this will help.

    One week into working out. I got three work outs in last week. Started the week off strong, but as work and the weekly grind kicked in I slid back to bad habits and bad eating.

    My goal is to get to sleep early. Work out in the morning and hopefully keep my diet in check.

  51. 51.

    WaterGirl

    @gene108: As I recall, there were about 6 of us, or more, who are trying to do the same thing. Like you, I do best when I have something I can just pull out of the refrigerator and heat up.

    I made my 10,000 steps on my fitbit more often than not, this week, and I added in 5 minutes a day on my new exercise bike. (Trying to ease into it.) I’ve lost 7 lbs. in the 2 weeks since Easter, but I can’t really count 3 of them because I lost those in a day once I got all the salty food from Easter weekend out of my system.

    I guess we just have to keep on plodding along in the right direction. The trick, I guess, is to get right back at it when we start to veer off course. I am weighing myself every day on my fitbit scale, and it records everything for me, so it’s good feedback.

    Wishing for good things for all of us who are trying to lose weight and get more fit. For those of you who can eat anything you want, I’m giving you the stink eye.

  52. 52.

    Elizabelle

    Oh Gawd. More platforms for Mark Halperin to be a dick on/fail upward/spew his political whatever. From the NY Times:

    John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, political journalists known for their detailed, gossip-filled books on the past two presidential campaigns, will join Bloomberg in the coming days to start a new site that will focus on American politics and policy.

    The new project, Bloomberg Politics, is part of a broader strategy put in place by Justin B. Smith, who was appointed chief executive of Bloomberg Media Group last summer after serving as president of Atlantic Media.

    Mr. Heilemann and Mr. Halperin, who are the authors of the best sellers “Game Change” and “Double Down,” are the “epitome of the type of quality journalistic talent that moves seamlessly between different kinds of platforms,” Mr. Smith said in an interview.

    They will anchor a daily television program that will also stream online, as well as write news articles and take part in live events. A start date for the site has yet to be set, but will most likely be months away.

    [Heileman and Halperin will continue their Morning Joe bloviating, providing raven with a reason to continue living …]

    [Per Heileman:] The two plan to “bring our reportorial and storytelling skills to all the platforms.”

    They will continue to write the kinds of in-depth stories they are known for, Mr. Halperin said. “We’re long past the point where the conventional wisdom says that people only read short stuff online,” he added.

    Because if any of us had a problem, it was too little Halperin.

    Linky: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/business/media/veteran-journalists-to-start-politics-site-for-bloomberg.html?hp

  53. 53.

    gene108

    @WaterGirl:

    For those of you who can eat anything you want

    Nobody over the age of 30 can really eat anything they want without repercussions. I will let the teenagers and early twenty somethings have their way for now, because there day will come when they too will become old with creaky joints and grey hair.

    As I recall, there were about 6 of us, or more, who are trying to do the same thing. Like you, I do best when I have something I can just pull out of the refrigerator and heat up.

    I made my 10,000 steps on my fitbit more often than not, this week, and I added in 5 minutes a day on my new exercise bike. (Trying to ease into it.) I’ve lost 7 lbs.

    Good luck with your program. 7 pounds is not to be taken lightly. Good Job!

  54. 54.

    Mnemosyne

    @gene108:

    If you do end up eating out, keep in mind that most restaurants give you two or three portions in every meal, so ask for a take-out box up front and put at least half the meal in it before you even start eating. Plus it’s more thrifty that way — you had dinner and now you also have lunch for the next day!

  55. 55.

    kindness

    Does anyone remember when Wonder Bread got caught adding sawdust to their bread while they billed it as ‘Extra Fiber’?

  56. 56.

    MattF

    Inorganic ingredients. I remember, some years ago, the ingredients list on a fancy jar of sorta-instant Euro-coffee included ‘Silicon Dioxide’.

  57. 57.

    Mandalay

    The perils of modern technology…

    A youth baseball umpire struck out Sunday at a man he thought had taken his cell phone and was arrested on charges of simple assault and disorderly conduct.

    Carl Ippolito, 52, of West Amwell Township believed that his cell phone had been stolen from his car, which had been parked on North Union Street.

    He used an application on his son’s phone to track his missing cell phone to the towpath between Elm and Cherry streets, police reported. Near Niece’s Lumber he found Brent Johnson, 27, of East Brunswick talking on an iPhone and confronted him.

    Police said that Johnson tried to walk away, but Ippolito grabbed his shirt, pulled the younger man to the ground and punched his head and body. Johnson’s chin was cut.

    Ippolito later learned that he had inadvertently left his cell phone in the snack shack at the baseball field, where he had been umpiring a youth baseball game, police said, and it was still there.

    How long before someone playing Charles Bronson kills the wrong guy over a damn phone?

  61. 61.

    Elizabelle

    @kindness:

    That is so believable, somehow.

    And Subway just removed the bread ingredient also found in yoga mats. (And bragged about doing so!)

  64. 64.

    PurpleGirl

    @ruemara: Did they give you a generic painkiller and not real codeine/acetophenamine? When I’ve had oral surgery I’ve had to ask the dentist to write the prescription as “dispense as written” to not get generic APAP. The generic stuff upsets my stomach terribly. I can tolerate the real stuff but not the generic. (At least the real stuff isn’t that expensive.)

  65. 65.

    Judy Bass

    At age 10, our small dog finally stopped panicking during storms once we got him a Thundershirt.

  66. 66.

    maya

    Obviously, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

    And wouldn’t everything be better with 50% Orgasmic Ingredients?

  67. 67.

    elmo

    Open thread is for venting!

    So the company I work for usually has a guy doing this, but he’s been overwhelmed and under the weather, so I’ve been asked to step in. I’ve been flying all over the country negotiating labor agreements. It’s fun, I enjoy it, but the travel is getting a little excessive.

    In April, it was Los Angeles – Salt Lake City – Las Vegas – Orlando – New York – Boston – Denver.

    This week – between now and Friday – it’s Philadelphia, Toledo, Chicago and then home.

    The following week is just Cleveland.

    At some point in early June, I need to put together a trip to San Francisco and Anchorage.

    Did I mention that my wife is disabled, we have six dogs, and our basement flooded last week? VENTING.

  68. 68.

    PurpleGirl

    @NCSteve: LOL. Yup, good ole Organic Chemistry. I was sorry not to be able to remain a chemistry major long enough to take OChem.

  70. 70.

    Roger Moore

    @MattF:

    I remember, some years ago, the ingredients list on a fancy jar of sorta-instant Euro-coffee included ‘Silicon Dioxide’.

    It’s a dessicant and anti-caking agent that’s used in a lot of stuff. It’s important for finely powdered foods so they don’t stick together in the jar.

  71. 71.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle: In the 80s or 90s I heard that there was only one ingredient different between cool whip and foam insulation, that ingredient being sugar.

    I liked that story so much that I have never googled to see if it’s true because I will be so disappointed if it’s not true. I don’t think they should even get to call cool whip food.

  72. 72.

    Fair Economist

    @Amir Khalid:

    Coffee with sand in it?! What the fish, man.

    It’s quite reasonable. Finely ground silicon dioxide, aka “sand”, is often added to things as an anti-caking agent. Generally any easily soluble powder will convert into one hard rock if even relatively small amounts of water get in – often the condensation from opening the jar a couple times will suffice. Something finely ground and insoluble slows the “rockification” process and sand is incredibly cheap and extremely safe.

  73. 73.

    another Holocene human

    @kindness: really just another scheme for undigestible bulk so you can get your glutton on. Cellulose, sure. Some ppl deliberately create and easy resistant starch. Bc they’re crazy.

  75. 75.

    PurpleGirl

    @WaterGirl: What kind of exercise bike did you get? Does it take up much room? (I live in a 3-room apartment. Space is important to me.)

  76. 76.

    another Holocene human

    @Elizabelle: If it’s GRAS who gives a fuck? Stupid people, that’s who.

    Who doesn’t walk into a Subway expecting anything but a triumph of American food science? Lord.

  77. 77.

    p.a.

    I remember the Steven Wright joke: I have a pack of powdered water but I don’t know what to add to it.

  78. 78.

    WaterGirl

    @gene108: I’m not sure I get to count the 3 lbs. I gained over the holiday weekend and then lost by Tuesday morning. But it was sure a shocker to get on the scale after easter.

    I’ll take the kudos for the other 4, so thanks for that! At the end of the day, I have been trying to take a minute to think of all the things I did right (exercising, eating) so maybe that helped me stay with it, too. For me, sticking with it for even two weeks is better than I usually do.

    I think it helped me to see so many people on that monday thread who were trying to do the same thing.

  79. 79.

    Roger Moore

    @Elizabelle:

    And Subway just removed the bread ingredient also found in yoga mats.

    Can we have less of the ignorant “found in yoga mats” crap? Lots of perfectly safe chemicals are found in unpleasant sounding industrial processes and products, and being found there doesn’t mean anything about their safety. Phosgene was used as a poison gas in WWI and in manufacturing polycarbonate plastic, but that doesn’t make polycarbonate unsafe. Chlorine and ozone are both highly toxic, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use them to treat drinking water. The list goes on and on.

  81. 81.

    scav

    The other thing is, we’ve apparently been missing the further development of the Metrosexual lifestyle as a Fine Art! Can International Competitions of Lip balm application be looming?

    A virtuoso (from Italian virtuoso, Late Latin virtuosus, Latin virtus meaning: skill, manliness, or excellence) is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in a particular art or field. This word is often used to refer to an individual with superior technique or execution in fine arts, or music, often singing, playing a musical instrument or composition.[1] This word also refers to a person who has cultivated appreciation of artistic excellence, either as a connoisseur or collector. Virtuoso’s plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine forms are virtuosa and virtuose.

  82. 82.

    Calouste

    @Mandalay:

    Hey, remember how someone got shot in a movie theater a month or two back for texting on his phone during the trailers? Getting shot over actual ownership of a phone would be a step up.

  84. 84.

    Elizabelle

    @Roger Moore:

    I take your point, but you have to admit it’s a difficult sell for a “health conscious” food purveyor.

    Believe I heard Europeans do not allow that particular substance in their foods?

    All for the application of science and chemistry to better our lives, but maybe we should get used to dumpier looking fruits and lumpier looking bread.

    ETA: I know, spoken like a libtard.

    But it’s comforting to see a short list of ingredients in the food one eats, and recognizable ones. Can understand adding some additives to make the food shelf-stable, but reading a food label is a great incentive to cook fresh and non-processed!

  87. 87.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    @Suzanne: “Don’t take so many painkillers that you get backed up.” This. Wish someone had warned me that time I broke seven ribs. Came home after a week in the hospital (cuz of pneumonia), and went right back in three days later thanks to the intestinal effects of pain meds.I had no idea how bad that could be.

  88. 88.

    Roger Moore

    @Elizabelle:

    I take your point, but you have to admit it’s a difficult sell for a “health conscious” food purveyor.

    Being a hard sell says more about the customers than it does about the product. People are afraid of chemicals with long, hard to pronounce names, especially if they can be tied somehow to some odd, non-food use. Neither of those things is terribly relevant to how safe they are. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t smart marketing to take those fears into account, but it does mean that the level of fear is not especially useful as a way of judging actual safety.

  89. 89.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: Hope he works out for you, and for puppy. Our son and his family recently adopted an African Gray – except for that time he bit my son’s finger, they’ve really been enjoying him.

  90. 90.

    Mnemosyne

    @The Fat Kate Middleton:

    I get the opposite effect — opiates make me throw up after about 24 hours, especially Vicodin. I usually can’t tolerate them long enough to get backed up on the other end, so to speak. ;-)

  91. 91.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    @Mnemosyne: Yeah, I get that with codeine. And, as someone noted above, I’ll never understand the addiction to pain pills, other than as a manifestation of the differences in response. On top of it all, there was really no palliative effect with them. The only time my ribs felt any relief at all was with Aleve.

  92. 92.

    MomSense

    @Mnemosyne:

    Yes, non stop throwing up for me until they are completely out of my system. I am having oral surgery next month and I have no idea what pain meds to ask for.

  93. 93.

    PsiFighter37

    TPM posting something that suggests Manchin might be willing to run for governor once Tomblin is term-limited in a couple years. Wonder how our blogmaster overlord feels about that?…

  94. 94.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    “All Natural!” = “contains no Technicium, Promethium, or TransUranics, everything else is fair game!”

  96. 96.

    Fuzzy

    @Mandalay: I’m sure it has already happened. I still use an old flip with built in camera and put up with smirks.

  99. 99.

    RollSound

    @maya:

    And wouldn’t everything be better with 50% Orgasmic Ingredients?

    That’s what I’d expect from a lip balm named “Virtuoso”.

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