Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

đŸŽ¶ Those boots were made for mockin’ đŸŽ”

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

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

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

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

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread – This Ain’t No Holiday

Reader Interactions

123Comments

  1. 1.

    Dave C

    Not sure if it’s been discussed yet, but San Diego, California is currently on fire. Yesterday, we had 9 wildfires burning simultaneously. I think that number is currently down to five, but the conditions favoring more wildfires are still ripe. I personally know of at least one family that had their home damaged yesterday. So far, it’s not as bad as the 2007 fires, but this is very, very early in the fire season (so early that it’s not even supposed to be fire season yet!).

  2. 2.

    D58826

    The program at the 9/11 memorial was changed today when someone noticed that the performance of ‘Bridge over troubled waters’ immediately after Gov. Christie’s remarks might be a bit awkward (funny as ….. but .still awkward.)

  4. 4.

    Tommy

    @Dave C: Yeah I was wondering about that. Since when is May the start of wildfires in CA. I thought it was later in the summer. With that said I feel for you. Stay safe.

    BTW: I am not far from the Mississippi River and every decade or so it floats. I mean really floods. Head to small towns around the area and you see the marks put on buildings, often ten feet high of where the water eventually reached. Reading some excerpts from the recently released climate report and they say we can expect more flooding. Worse flooding. Honestly as bad as it has been in the past, it is hard for me to process it being worse.

  6. 6.

    satby

    I was out of yesterday’s morning open thread too soon to see the kind wishes for good luck in my job hunt from several juicers, so let me thank them now.
    It’s day x (I’ve lost track) of rain here in Michigassippi, and the continuous chilly grey weather is sapping all motivation from me big time. Temps going down to 33 tonight, so I have to cover and pull plants inside that were just planted 3 days ago to escape frost. But at least we’re not on fire

  8. 8.

    Dave C

    @Tommy:

    Thanks, Tommy. Yeah, I grew up in Minnesota (though not particularly close to the Mississippi), and I very well remember seeing the periodic but devastating floods that occurred. It was not close to me, but I vividly remember the really bad flooding that occurred in Grand Forks in the late ’90s. Scary to think that climate change is just going to make all this shit worse.

  9. 9.

    gogol's wife

    Just venting — I’m still rather upset by the hostility shown to me by Anne Laurie last night in response to a fairly bland comment I made about the editing talents of Jill Abramson. Given that I don’t stay up all night, Anne Laurie’s threads are the ones most available to me, but now I don’t want to go near them. It makes me sad. I’m not sure why she dislikes me, unless it’s because of my lack of enthusiasm for another Clinton presidency.

  13. 13.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @gogol’s wife: Sometimes people just overreact to something or read into a comment something that isn’t there. I, of course, have never done it, but I have heard of it happening.

  14. 14.

    gogol's wife

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    It’s not the first time, though. I ignored it the first few times, but now it seems to be a pattern, and I’m not interested in sparring with her.

  20. 20.

    SectionH

    The Pixies are in concert in San Diego in September. My son is very excited. He’s all “I haven’t been to a concert in 10 years, but I’m going to this one!”

    Yesterday was pretty tense for many ppl in San Diego County. I spent a lot of time streaming news. Another fire. And another, and another… It was pretty freaky. Afaik, no damage to any friends’ places, but there were quite a few people we know who had to evacuate, and more who thought they might need to.

    We are so glad that we got the house out by the Wild Animal Park sold 3 months ago. Now we just have to get the Air Conditioning in this condo working. It stays tolerably cool here until the afternoon, but we’ll probably need to find somewhere more comfortable to hang out for a few hours. It’s supposed to be 96° here today. Gah.

  24. 24.

    Roger Moore

    @Tommy:

    Since when is May the start of wildfires in CA.

    Since we’re in the middle of a record-breaking drought. The fire season usually starts a couple of months after the end of the rainy season and ends when the rainy season starts again. No rainy season means no end to the fire season.

  29. 29.

    gnomedad

    @Roger Moore:
    My point exactly. In reality, he probably has trouble deciding whether he more enjoys executions by the state or by citizens “standing their ground”.

  30. 30.

    chopper

    @Tommy:

    Since when is May the start of wildfires in CA.

    since we’ve gotten shit for rain for the last 3 years and it’s hot as balls outside. it’s been 95-100 out this whole week here.

  40. 40.

    SectionH

    @SatanicPanic:

    the new library? I’ve been meaning to check that out

    Me too. I could look for my granddaughter’s brick. (For non-SDians, it was a fund raiser for the new central library.) But we’ll probably just end up at Fathom again. It’s a good thing that place doesn’t have wifi, because we hang out there too much as it is.

  43. 43.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Roger Moore: Further proof that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by greedy scientists out to get more Federal grant money to study it!

    This message brought to you by the Koch brothers who have absolutely no financial interest whatsoever in bringing it to your attention, you betcha!

  44. 44.

    The Thin Black Duke

    Kim Deal is a very underrated bassist. She ain’t just pounding out root notes. Deal’s sense of timing is superb.

  45. 45.

    ranchandsyrup

    They are so young in that video! Pixies are great to see live. Try to get a good view of Joey. He does tons of interesting stuff. I esp. appreciate his use of a beer bottle as a pick and a slide.

    Just working from home today, one fire to the west of us and one to the east. Helped a bunch of people pack up their vehicles to get ready to gtfo if the evacuation order came. Winds are much better today so it looks like the firefighters will have an easier time. Still hot as balls, though.

  46. 46.

    SectionH

    @SatanicPanic: Well, no, not lightning. Sparks? Possibly some or most of the fires. But natural causes in every one of those fires? Wellll… we weren’t the only ppl who’d already wondered about that before it was brought up at the press conference last night.

  47. 47.

    Eric U.

    I understand why AL gets sensitive about the comments, she gets trolled a lot. Some in this very thread.

    @SectionH: someone I know that lives in San Diego said she saw a motorist throw a lit cigarette into the weeds. This was on the way home from helping her sister evacuate from one of the fires.

  49. 49.

    The Moar You Know

    Welp, there’s your “net neutrality”. Thanks, lobbyists!

    @Comrade Mary: The vote, broken down by party line:

    3 Democrats – yes
    2 Republicans – no

    Democrats once again sticking up for the little guy! Actually, they’re huge telcos, but we’ll call ’em “the little guy”.

    Christ, people, somebody needs to kick our party into order here. Being “the lesser of two evils” isn’t going to play well with the public for much longer.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, too, though I’m a little sad I was unable to ride my bike to work on official Bike to Work Day (I had an early-morning doctor’s appointment), I’m a little less sad since the predicted high today is 101 degrees. Fahrenheit. Ugh.

  51. 51.

    scav

    @raven:

    What head?

    Why limit ourselves to one? We could distribute them severally across the nation. Get a bidding war going. Possibly even sell it to them along those very lines: it was a status enjoyed by kings and saints of old, no?

  52. 52.

    SatanicPanic

    @Eric U.:

    someone I know that lives in San Diego said she saw a motorist throw a lit cigarette into the weeds. This was on the way home from helping her sister evacuate from one of the fires.

    Wow. That’s depressing

  53. 53.

    Dave C

    @Eric U.:

    Jesus, really? The fine for littering is already ridiculously high here (several hundred dollars last I checked), so you’d think that people would be smart enough not to toss cigarettes out of their cars for that reason alone. But to do so during weather like this? That shit should be a felony.

  55. 55.

    Mnemosyne

    @SectionH:

    It’s definitely hot enough to naturally spark fires right now, especially after the dry winter we had, but, yeah, I’m guessing that there were also at least one or two campfires or cigarettes involved.

    Or, as happened with one of the Griffith Park fires up here, stupid kids with firecrackers.

  57. 57.

    The Moar You Know

    someone I know that lives in San Diego said she saw a motorist throw a lit cigarette into the weeds. This was on the way home from helping her sister evacuate from one of the fires.

    @Eric U.: This does not surprise me, not even a little. Non-natives don’t fucking get it (and usually don’t want to). We live in the equivalent of a giant box of shredded newspaper soaked in gasoline.

    To make it worse, it looks like this is going to be one of those rare years where we get Santa Anas all through the spring and summer. If so, that is going to suck.

  58. 58.

    MomSense

    This morning Tommy linked to an article about the terror and intimidation tactics the various Bundy supporting militias are engaged in against BLM workers, ordinary people in the area, and some of the protected Native American sacred sites. It is a disturbing situation. A friend sent me a link to an article at Mother Jones about how gun extremists target women.

    When can we acknowledge as a society that this is terrorist behavior? Do we have to wait for them to do more than threaten and intimidate? The problem is that I’m sure a lot of us, especially females, will not feel safe being involved in any kind of organizing to deal with them.

    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/guns-bullying-open-carry-women-moms-texas

  59. 59.

    scav

    @The Moar You Know: I’m not even sure all the “natives” get it. Growing up in the San Gabriels leads one to firmly believe that the solid majority of flatlanders are idiots. At least the ones climbing up scree slopes in heels or using avalanche warning signs as sleds are predominantly suicidal idiots in contrast to the homicidal ones playing with lit objects.

  60. 60.

    The Moar You Know

    For those of you familiar with San Diego, I give you this: yesterday, temperature in Cardiff, CA at 1:30pm: 101 degrees. 1 mile from the beach.

    I’m not going to say I’ve never seen it this hot here, but I’ve rarely seen it this hot here.

  61. 61.

    some guy

    @MomSense:

    I just read that MoJo piece, via bateman at Daily politics. it made my stomach churn. we the people need to stomp the shit out of these bullies. the Alex Jones getting ij the face of the father of an Aurora victim had me seeing sideways. Gun Nuts can’t be reasoned with, they can only be outlawed.

  65. 65.

    Ben Cisco

    I only recently found out that Sandy Hook “troofers” were a thing. I didn’t know it was this fucked up.

    Calling folks like this mentally ill seems disrespectful to actual mentally ill people. This is just evil, period.

  68. 68.

    MomSense

    @some guy:

    It really is crazy. It starts with paranoid conspiracy theories used as justification for aggressive behavior. I have noticed that women tend to get much worse treatment by these gun fanatics.

  69. 69.

    cckids

    @BGinCHI:

    I highly recommend the Bobby Bare, Jr. cover of “Where Is My Mind?”

    As a Mother’s Day song? Just the title alone recalls my early days of motherhood. :)

  71. 71.

    Betty Cracker

    @cckids: Hi. Just wanted to pass along my condolences to you on the loss of your dad. I saw your comment in a thread I started over the weekend, but I was traveling a bit and didn’t get to it until it was paved over with new posts. I’m truly sorry.

  72. 72.

    The Moar You Know

    or using avalanche warning signs as sleds

    @scav: That’s a new one on me. Jesus, this place is crawling with idiots.

    There’s sometimes a week or too in July that will flirt with the high 90s, but 100 in MAY? That’s not normal.

    @SatanicPanic: No it isn’t. Last time I recall weather like this was in 1975, and I think that kicked off or was the first year in a three-year period of essentially no rain at all.

  74. 74.

    cckids

    @Betty Cracker: Thank you. It still hasn’t quite sunk in; I keep thinking “oh, I should make those spice cookies Dad likes”, or something similar. The busyness & emotions of the funeral week have ebbed & now we are trying to get used to a new normal. Mom is especially lost. Yesterday would have been their 49th wedding anniversary.

  75. 75.

    Eric U.

    @MomSense: women get treated worse in just about any situation. A lot of men bully women without even realizing it. They usually have their justifications.

  77. 77.

    Calouste

    @MomSense:

    These guys who need big metal phallic symbols to compensate for something, and they have issues with women? You don’t say.

  78. 78.

    raven

    @Southern Beale: I just went to our corner eatery and was shooting the shit with my buddy. A young hipster looking kid came back from the bathroom and was adjusting his t-shirt and I saw that he was packing.

  79. 79.

    Roger Moore

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m a little less sad since the predicted high today is 101 degrees. Fahrenheit.

    Just be glad your AC is still working. My condo has central chilled water AC, and the central chiller is out of service until tomorrow. I think I need to go home at lunch time to check up on my cat.

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    @cckids: Aw, man. I know what you mean — it’s almost easier when there’s stuff to do related to the loss that keeps you putting one foot in front of the other. When you’re expected to just get on with your life, go back to work, shop and prepare meals, etc., it’s almost worse.

    Someone here (I forget who) said the Victorians had it right when they prescribed formal mourning periods, even though the way they actually did it was pretty awful. But in theory, it’s a recognition that the person you’re dealing with isn’t exactly in her right mind. Which is true.

    I don’t think you can really “get over” something like this, but you can integrate it into your life (since you have no choice) and find joy and happy memories that see you through, eventually. Here’s hoping.

  81. 81.

    Roger Moore

    @The Moar You Know:

    To make it worse, it looks like this is going to be one of those rare years where we get Santa Anas all through the spring and summer

    My understanding is that the same ridiculously stable ridge of high pressure that’s keeping wet weather away is also responsible for the Santa Anas, so the drought and the terrible fire weather are related.

  85. 85.

    Trollhattan

    @Roger Moore:
    A repost from yesterday, but since we’re again flirting with 100 on a day it’s normally 80 or so, it bears repeating that while the RRR broke up after a 14-month reign of terror, it may be re-forming. If so–ugh.

    It’s pretty unusual to have multiple strong Santa Ana wind events this late in the spring–typically, these events are most common in the early spring and particularly during the late fall months. The recurrence of hot, dry, and windy conditions over California over the past month or so stems from the persistence of a high-amplitude atmospheric flow pattern over much of the Pacific Ocean and North America. This pattern is reminiscent of the one associated with the incredible California dry spell that lasted from January 2013 through early February 2014–associated with the “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge”–which also brought highly anomalous weather conditions to much of North America, including prodigious snowfalls in the upper Midwest and the advection of frigid Arctic airmasses over the eastern half of North America for much of the winter. Interestingly, the eastern Rocky Mountain region just experienced one of its more impressive late-season snowstorms in recent memory.

    Is this the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge Redux? Well, the key factor in driving the tremendous atmospheric anomalies associated with the “RRR” pattern was the persistence (over many months) of a specific atmospheric configuration. We have a long way to go in order to match the observed persistence of the large-scale atmospheric pattern observed in early 2013 and then again in late 2013 and early 2014. On the other hand, various numerical models are currently suggesting that above-normal temperatures over California will continue more or less for the foreseeable future–certainly for the next couple of weeks, and likely into the first part of summer. The models are also suggesting that geopotential heights over and northwest of California will continue to be above average, though not to the degree experienced during the heyday of the RRR.

    http://www.weatherwest.com/archives/1474

  86. 86.

    Belafon

    @SatanicPanic: Being a resident of Texas, I was hoping there was a place called Florida, so we’d know where to send the bombs fire ants.

  91. 91.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Betty Cracker:

    When you’re expected to just get on with your life, go back to work, shop and prepare meals, etc., it’s almost worse.

    Life must go on,
    Though good men die;
    Anne, eat your breakfast;
    Dan, take your medicine;
    Life must go on;
    I forget just why.
    — from Lament, Edna St. Vincent Millay

  92. 92.

    gogol's wife

    @Mnemosyne:

    I understand that when I say something obnoxious, people can get obnoxious back. But this was not such a case. It just annoys me that I feel as if I have to avoid her threads, which are sometimes interesting. But I guess it means more time to grade papers.

  94. 94.

    gogol's wife

    @Bob In Portland:

    You mean the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact? I think it goes back a lot farther than that. Ukraine was occupied by the Russian Empire much earlier.

  97. 97.

    catclub

    @gogol’s wife: “But this was not such a case.”

    I have recognized, that what I have just read (quickly, expecting a certain meaning) is not what the other person has actually written. And likewise, the other person never seems to draw out the meaning that I had intended ( and thought was perfectly clear).

  102. 102.

    Bob In Portland

    @gogol’s wife: Not interested in America’s part? That’s being a good citizen. There’s another big coincidence in the article that I bet you can’t find.

  103. 103.

    Bob In Portland

    @Omnes Omnibus: News travels slowly in these parts. Maybe you’ll hit the link or you can wait until someone slaps you in the face with it.

    Surprisingly, with dirt on Biden you’d think that it would get a mention in the right-wing media, but I haven’t seen it. Bloomberg, not the NYTimes. NY Daily News, not WaPo.

    In the meantime, avert your eyes.

  104. 104.

    Bob In Portland

    @Omnes Omnibus: But America’s involvement didn’t start then. Or maybe you don’t care about America’s involvement.

    Ah, Balloon Juice, love it or leave it.

  105. 105.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Bob In Portland: I read the link. Abednego was funny; you should just admit it.

    @Bob In Portland:

    The roots of today’s situation in Ukraine started in WWII.

    Your words. If you had said the roots of the US’s involvement in Ukraine started in WWII, you might have a point. History is long. You can’t just point to some actions in 1945-50 and say that everything stems from that.

  106. 106.

    Gin & Tonic

    Is Romania next?

    “At one time, the West cut out Romania as a buffer between itself and Russia. We also need a buffer in this very same place, and we raised this idea even earlier than did the West. Is it not time to repartition Romania? Again, of course, after the repartition of Ukraine?”

  107. 107.

    A Humble Lurker

    @Bob In Portland:

    Surprisingly, with dirt on Biden you’d think that it would get a mention in the right-wing media, but I haven’t seen it. Bloomberg, not the NYTimes. NY Daily News, not WaPo.

    You don’t think maybe the fact that it hasn’t is a bit of a…I don’t know…hint maybe that it’s bullshit? If there was something better than Benghazi out there, don’t you think they’d leap on it?

  109. 109.

    Bob In Portland

    @Omnes Omnibus: I guess you could say that the roots of Ukraine started at the Big Bang. It’s just a diversionary tactic. Don’t follow the links.

    Balloon Juice, love it or leave it.

  110. 110.

    Bob In Portland

    @A Humble Lurker: You read the link, right? And you don’t think that the VP’s son landing on a Ukrainian gas company’s board isn’t a little suspicious? Then I guess Cheney making money on the Iraq war wasn’t suspicious either. Funny how no one at Balloon Juice actually comments on the content of Susie Madrak’s post. As she wrote, “Just move along.” You know, nothing to see here. Nice safe strategy for intellectual lightweights. Or maybe that’s morality lightweights.

  112. 112.

    Bob In Portland

    @Gin & Tonic: Gee, you never got around to say where you picked up these eastern European languages. Spanish class full in high school? Language Institute at Monterey? On papa’s knee?

    You didn’t have any complaints about chopping up Yugoslavia. Now it looks like a map from 1942. You might want to go back and read about General Petain’s Cordon Sanitaire.

  113. 113.

    Betty Cracker

    @Bob In Portland: I didn’t read it since I consider Madrak an insufferable firebagger. I just appreciated Omnes’ comment since I remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from Jesus camp.

    You should really stop speculating on the opinions of people who have not made their views known. It does the cause you claim you care about no good — in fact, you may be actively undermining support with your relentless trolling.

  114. 114.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Bob In Portland: That article was in Russian, by the way, since you don’t know your languages very well. Did you know that there are over three dozen university departments of Slavic and Eastern European languages in the US and Canada?

    You didn’t have any complaints about chopping up Yugoslavia.

    I wasn’t commenting here in the early 1980’s, sorry.

  116. 116.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Omnes Omnibus: I think the breakup began with the death of Tito. The suppression of the 1981 protests in Kosovo, the rise of Serbian nationalism in the mid 80’s, lots of factors came into play prior to actual dissolution.

    “Seven frontiers, six republics, five nationalities, four languages, three religions, two alphabets and one Tito.”

  117. 117.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Gin & Tonic: Nice save.

    Seriously though, you are right that the wheels didn’t just suddenly come off in the early ’90s. Things were brewing for quite a while. The wall coming down just provided the final impetus.

  118. 118.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Omnes Omnibus: It was either that, or some lame line about the “8” and “9” keys being too close.

    I do believe that those who focus on the wall’s coming down as the beginning of something are really misguided. The Andropov-Chernenko line of the gerontocracy was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union, and Gorbachev took that ball and ran with it starting in 1985, but I think his rise was enabled by the behind-the-scenes people who managed to remain somewhat calm through the KAL007/Able Archer period. If the world didn’t end in the fall of 1983, it wasn’t going to.

    That said, I always viewed Yugoslavia as being completely different, and its cohesion and later dissolution were due to largely independent factors.

  119. 119.

    Gin & Tonic

    Andrew Kramer in the NYT.

    MARIUPOL, Ukraine — In what could represent a decisive turning point in the Ukrainian conflict and a setback for Russia, thousands of steelworkers fanned out Thursday over the city of Mariupol, establishing control over the streets and routing the pro-Kremlin militants who seized control several weeks ago.

    By late Thursday, miners and steelworkers had deployed in at least five cities, including the regional capital, Donetsk, though they had not yet become the dominant force there that they are in Mariupol, the region’s second largest city and the site just last week of bloody confrontations between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian militants,.

  120. 120.

    Bob In Portland

    @Betty Cracker: Ah, but Betty, that’s all people here do of my opinions. And what cause am I promoting? America stop making wars and destabilizing countries around the world. So I should just shut up? Got it.

    Betty, how about Bloomberg? What about the story run there about Hunter Biden? Or you didn’t catch that one either? True or not true?

  122. 122.

    Bob In Portland

    @Gin & Tonic: And I agree. Cut out the middlemen. Just have the oligarchs supply the muscle in the streets.

    The workers are employees of Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man and a recent convert to the side of Ukrainian unity, who on Wednesday issued a statement rejecting the separatist cause of the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic but endorsing greater local autonomy.

    And, as I’ve said, the majority of people in the east don’t want secession. They want greater local autonomy. So does the power go to the people or to the richest man in Ukraine?

    So what’s the next step? A roundup by the fascists? Knocks in the night?

  123. 123.

    Betty Cracker

    @Bob In Portland: There you go again, attrIbuting words that weren’t said. Can you fucking STOP? You’re like the dude on the subway car no one wants to make eye contact with. You seem to imagine it makes you a brave truth teller. It doesn’t. Advocacy. You’re doing it wrong.

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