Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This fight is for everything.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

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

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

I really should read my own blog.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

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

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

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

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

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Second rate reporter says what?

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

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

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

T R E 4 5 O N

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / I Brake for the Rapture: Open Thread

I Brake for the Rapture: Open Thread

by | 98 Comments

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I’ve been binge-watching “Six Feet Under” lately and came across this scene last night. SO not safe for work (just the first part):

I think I read a joke with this premise quite awhile back, but kudos to the SFU peeps for committing it to celluloid (back in aught-three).

Please feel free to discuss whatever.

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  1. 1.

    Yatsuno

    It’s RedKitteh’s Birfday today! Maybe we can get her to peek over to congratulate her or something.

  4. 4.

    Amir Khalid

    @Yatsuno:
    I’m here, working on my Spanish and following Liverpool at home to Bolton Wanderers in the FA Cup. Feliz cumpleaños, Redkitten!

  7. 7.

    Howard Beale IV

    Hmmm….AVN awards are held in Vegas, and the roadkill’s plates were from California.

    Just sayin….

  9. 9.

    jayboat

    I miss that show…

    no linky, but some of you may remember the video by Ugly Kid Joe, I Hate Everything About You… 8-]]]

  10. 10.

    Peale

    I’m off to see Louis CK tonight but until then, I’m hiding from the snow. I plan to use the tried and tested “wait until spring. It will melt” method of clearing the driveway.

  11. 11.

    Mustang Bobby

    Wow, do I miss Six Feet Under. I remember the first time I saw it, sometime in the second season, and I wasn’t hip to the teaser being the corpse du jour, so it took a while to figure out that the dead guy wasn’t part of the storyline other than as a prop later on.

    The final moments of the last episode made me laugh/cry uncontrollably.

  12. 12.

    Peale

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: St. Cloud ain’t nowhere. But if you go a few miles out of town, might as well be nowhere at all. I think it would make a good place to achieve zen enlightenment. May you be free from the roots of suffering.

  15. 15.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    Peter Krause. I liked him a lot, and after SFU sought out Sports Night and The Lost Room to watch.
    I hate TV but I make an exception for him. Interesting actor.

  16. 16.

    marindenver

    The hubbie and I loved that show. The “stiff of the week” opening was always the best part. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall where the writers discussed what they were going to do this time.

  19. 19.

    raven

    In 1965 was taking the bus from Hawthorne to Manhattan Beach when I saw a woman just like the one in the video dash out in the middle of the boulevard with people racing after her. I have no idea what it was about but I have never forgotten it.

  20. 20.

    22over7

    My favorite stiff was the guy at the breakfast table, droning on and on about his lousy job, until his wife smashed his head with a cast-iron pan. Not that I’ve ever thought about doing that myself…

  21. 21.

    Howard Beale IV

    @buddy h: In the inside album cover from the KBC Band was a picture of a road and sign that said the following:

    Life is a test. Had this been a real life, you would have been told where to go and what to do.

  22. 22.

    Gene108

    Anybody have dreams that are very vivid, but are so weird it is hard to explain?

    I have been having a lot of those lately.

  25. 25.

    Randy P

    @Gene108: Oh yes. I love those. I hate dreams where I was at work with the usual work people. I wake up from those saying “How could my brain waste precious dream time with WORK?”

    Last night’s dream was kind of Stephen Kingish actually. The world was sort of ending. It involved just kind of going white and disappearing. But only in one direction. The other was fine, temporarily. But there were these little tiny monsters swarming in the air…

  28. 28.

    gogol's wife

    @Randy P:

    Last night I had a dream about a name of a student on my classlist for a class that doesn’t meet until Monday. His name was in the dream the name of my cat, who was Orson Welles’s long-lost son for whom he was searching.

  31. 31.

    Suzanne

    @RedKitten: HAPPEH berfdeh!

    We have a family membership to the Desert Botanical Garden (one of the best things in PHX–check it out if you’re ever here), and they had a Dogs in the Garden event. So we took our Luna! I’ve been a bit wary of taking her to events with lots of other dogs, but she was awesomely behaved and we all had a great time. So much fun seeing everyone’s dogs!

  33. 33.

    Trentrunner

    @raven: I know it’s probably just a metaphor and a pose, but it’s factually untrue that we are “born alone.”

    In the vicinity, usually:

    A mother
    A health care worker

    And if you are here reading this, you had some help immediately thereafter, whether from
    mother
    father
    midwife
    wet nurse
    sibling
    babysitter
    pediatrician
    nurse
    et al.

    You may die alone (also difficult, but technically possible), but it’s horseshit to say “you’re born alone.”

  38. 38.

    max

    but kudos to the SFU peeps for committing it to celluloid (back in aught-three).

    If it hadn’t been for the Bush administration, the early part of the 21st century would have been pretty good years.

    max
    [‘Whereas these days, if it wasn’t for the Obama administration everything would be truly awful instead of pretty awful.’]

  39. 39.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mustang Bobby: The final moments of the last episode made me laugh/cry uncontrollably.

    Yeah, that was great. I thought the last couple seasons were weak– how the hell do you manage to make Rachel Griffiths’ character from the first season evolve in to boring?– but the ending was terrific. I was reading a TV blog the other day, and someone said Justified and Mad Men are the two shows of the new golden age that have a chance to “stick the landing”. I liked the end of Breaking Bad, and didn’t hate the end of the Sopranos, but I think SFU would be a tough finale to beat. The Wire’s was pretty good too.

    I think I watch too much TeeVee

  41. 41.

    Roger Moore

    @Trentrunner:

    In the vicinity, usually:

    A mother

    I would say that a mother is an “always” part of a birth, not a “usually”. That said, dying alone is at least moderately common. I’ve known one person I know for sure died alone, and I can’t imagine it’s that rare.

  42. 42.

    raven

    Better?

    You know Tyrannosaurus Rex was destroyed before
    By a furry little ball that crawled along
    The primeval jungle floor
    He stole the eggs of the dinosaur
    CLOSE YOUR EYES & CREATE THE SOUND
    OPEN YOUR HANDS & REBUILD THE GROUND
    We are egg snatchers –
    flashin’ sunshine children
    Bunch of diamond thieves

    You unleash the dogs
    of a grade-B movie star governor’s war
    While you sit in the dark –
    insane with the fear of dying
    We’ll ball in your parks
    – insane with the flash of living

  44. 44.

    scav

    @Roger Moore: I suppose we could dance out on the edge of “from her womb untimely ripped” and allow for for few cases in which the mother is technically dead. In which case, a health care worker (or at least person handy with a knife) is inevitably nearby. Hi ho McDuff. Dying alone, sure, and sometimes even unnoticed for a few years, and that’s just in cities. Car crashes. All depends on where one draws the line for “alone”.

  47. 47.

    WereBear

    @scav: I picked a fine time to read Between a Rock and a Hard Place, about the hiker who had to cut off his own arm when he was trapped in a remote canyon in Utah.

    Not that’s alone.

  51. 51.

    Caprice

    Haiku from my friend Rabbitearz:

    Our next president,
    Jeb Bush is just Dubya with
    a gut and pig snout.

  54. 54.

    Pogonip

    @Roger Moore: My cousin died alone; he choked on a tough broccoli stalk. Now I only eat the florets, and save the stalks for soup where they’ll become harmlessly soft.

  61. 61.

    Howard Beale IV

    @tybee: I went to the Jefferson Airplane tour in 1989-got third row seats at Pine Knob. Caught the panda the Grace Slick threw in the the audience. I still have it. Kaukonen and Casday played their acoustic act on the side of the age where were are sitting.

    When compared to live acts, CD’s suck.

  62. 62.

    Howard Beale IV

    @trollhattan: Tossup, but’d lean more twords Starship losing their grip-when Journey got Steve Perry it was Game Over. But then again, different times and all. Both bands are seminal in their own ways.

  63. 63.

    opiejeanne

    Can someone from California tell me how the high speed rail project is going? I found this: http://www.cahsrblog.com which is some help, but I’m wondering if those of you who live here have some insight.

    I’m in the San Bernardino mountains and the guy doing some work for us on the cabin went off on the subject, about how it’s not ever going to be faster than what we have now, and that there is no more money because the Republicans in Congress have said so (big surprise), and only a very short section of it in the central valley will ever get built, etc. I dug around and discovered that what he was talking about came from Breitbart and from a ridiculous op-ed by a far-right Congressman from the Fresno area. Almost word for word. (I don’t understand why this area is such fertile ground for tea party idiots, but that’s another issue.)

  64. 64.

    opiejeanne

    There is no snow in the mountains in SoCal, at least not at 5280 feet. This is January 28, there ought to be snow. It’s in the 60s and sunny, and a bit windy, but no snow.

  65. 65.

    Betty Cracker

    @Pogonip: Jesus, that’s awful. If that’s the way I gotta go, please Jeebus let it be a cannoli or chocolate croissant!

  66. 66.

    trollhattan

    @opiejeanne:
    Don’t happen to know anyone working directly on the project, but certainly know it’s the End of Civilization in RW circles. Presumably because brown people will be allowed to use it.

    Here’s the official web site. IIRC some budget is from bond financing, some from federal matching funds, some from carbon tax, but there are probably others.

  68. 68.

    Tommy

    I think that first year of Six Feet Under, where the focus was on the actual funerals was maybe the best season of television ever made. Just saying.

  69. 69.

    JCT

    And my youngest just bought his first car (with a little help from us) – I feel *really* old. Sigh.

    And Happy Birthday RK. Enjoy those little ones before they get big on you!

  71. 71.

    NotMax

    @scav

    One time whilst playing Charades, the phrase on the slip of paper I pulled from the hat was “Macbeth was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped.”

  72. 72.

    rikyrah

    she can build her own phucking list.

    just sniffs of that ENTITLEMENT doesn’t it?

    ……………….

    Obama, Clinton tensions build over email lists ahead of 2016

    Getty Images

    By Amie Parnes and Niall Stanage – 01/24/15 06:02 AM EST

    New tensions are emerging in the relationship between allies of President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

    At issue is the fate of the political equivalent of gold dust — the enormous email list, comprised of many millions of supporters and donors, that the Obama team has compiled over the course of his two presidential campaigns.

    The Clinton camp would dearly love to get its hands on the list, but there is no promise as yet that the president’s aides will comply.

    There are “large concerns” about the lists among Clinton supporters, one Hillary ally told The Hill.

    To the Clintons and their friends, it’s near unthinkable that a Democratic president — who has plenty of reasons to want a member of his party to succeed him — would withhold such a valuable commodity.

    But Team Obama has long believed that the president’s support is built upon the bedrock of his personal qualities rather than mere party identification. His people are loath to be seen as treating the passion of his supporters in a cavalier fashion.

    “There’s a lot of data — voter data, massive email lists — that Obama built and there are a lot of people who want to make sure that he spreads that wealth,” the Clinton ally said. “They want to make sure he doesn’t take it in a suitcase back to Chicago and move on. No one wants to see it disappear or have it used just to build a library.”

    http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/230622-obama-clinton-tensions-build-over-email-lists

  74. 74.

    Tommy

    I just love start-up companies. Oh and stellar customer support. I also happen to be something of a coffee snob. I spend money on coffee the way some spend money on fine wines. I signed up for this service, Bean Box, where they send me coffee each month. But as anybody that likes good coffee knows, getting those beans right after roasting is key. So the monthly package of coffee beans was almost a month away.

    I go out to check the mail today and I find this waiting for me:

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/webranding/16170409438/

    They sent me a gosh darn care package with candy included. Oh and tea with a note to enjoy. How freaking cool is that!

  75. 75.

    opiejeanne

    @trollhattan: thanks.

    Up here they had a heart attack because CalTrans was about to put in a signal on 18 at a big, scary intersection. Boy, were they mad! It was going to destroy the sanctity of the mountains, etc. who cares if someone dies because it’s foggy and there’s no traffic control om 18. They were ranting about how CalTrans should be privatized and expected us to agree with them. Uh, no, because we understand how both taxes and CalTrans work. Dave worked for them for several years in the 70s and went on to work in both public and the private sector on public works projects.

  76. 76.

    scav

    @NotMax: Clearly taken from a modern re-interpretation of the play, where the inevitable self-defeating mindset of the individual psyche was deeply explored, problematized and embodied. Original sin, Catholic guilt, the rhetorical conflation of hand washing and baptism all blah-di-blahed . . . That would indeed have been a Charade to watch.

  77. 77.

    trollhattan

    @opiejeanne:
    Heh. So predictable, so confused, so wrong. It’s little wonder they evacuate to the hills to be around people “just like them.” No cognitive dissonance in the whole county!

  79. 79.

    Villago Delenda Est

    If only we could get all of these god-bothered nutjobs to do what that woman did.

    The world would be a much better place.

  80. 80.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @MattF: She’s just trolling the marks for more $$$.

    The stupid motherfuckers deserved to be separated from their money in this way.

  81. 81.

    Tommy

    I am watching The Nightly Show w/ Larry Wilmore from last night. He is ranting on Cuba. One of my best clients is a Cuban American living in Miami. He and his family have been very successful here. They lived the American Dream! And he is a raging liberal, so he has that going for him. For years we’ve talked about Cuba. I tell him time and time again I don’t understand why we have the policy we have.

    I called him, so not work related, to say hey dude we are normalizing relations with Cuba. He was almost in tears. He just kept saying he could go home without restrictions. He could go home.

    Seeing the quotes from Rubia on the Nightly Show makes me want to hit him. He ought to call my friend Mario and talk to him for a few. Maybe he’d have a different opinion.

  82. 82.

    Keith G

    @rikyrah:

    But Team Obama has long believed that the president’s support is built upon the bedrock of his personal qualities rather than mere party identification. His people are loath to be seen as treating the passion of his supporters in a cavalier fashion

    Dear god I hope that is a misquote. If not, it goes a long way in explaining some of the problems we have been having. It would be a fucking awful/shitty way for a PARTY LEADER to conduct business.

  83. 83.

    Jay C

    @opiejeanne:

    It seems to be political “given” in this country that even the vaguest mention of government support for anything to do with passenger rail triggers Pavlovian-style paroxyms of hysterical oppositionalism in most conservatives/Republican (dunno why, maybe it IS that “brown people” thing); but from from what I’ve read, it’s odd to hear it coming from a Fresno Congressman – Fresno is right at the center of the first-phase building for CA HSR, and is supposed to provide five-six years of jobs for the local area (farming country suffering from the effects of drought, IIRC): oh well: Republicans, what can you do…?

  84. 84.

    Roger Moore

    @opiejeanne:
    The future of CA high speed rail is very much up in the air. They’ve actually broken ground on the first segment and started serious planning on another, so the serious money spending phase has actually gotten started. That said, they haven’t actually built anything worth keeping on its own, so it plausibly could still be killed at this point. I think the opponents- and they aren’t all wingnuts by any means- are worried that it will be harder to kill the longer it stays alive. That’s both for institutional reasons- once there’s an established construction bureaucracy, it will have people fighting to keep their fiefdom alive- and because a partially completed system will invoke the sunk-cost fallacy and people will feel obligated to complete it in some form to avoid wasting the money that’s already been spent. That’s especially true if it can stay alive for long enough for Democrats to get some power in Congress.

  85. 85.

    rikyrah

    Does anyone else watch Grimm?

    I loved last night’s episode. The last 15 minutes completely rocked!

    All the frustration with leaving WU out has paid off. With him doing all of the investigations and finding all the stuff that just ‘ didn’t add up’ – once they told him, it was like full throttle!!

    Juliette…all I can say is…WTF?!?!?!

  86. 86.

    Roger Moore

    @rikyrah:
    I think Hillary is being presumptuous. If those lists are as valuable as they’re being made out to be, handing them over would give her an unfair advantage in the primary campaign. Until there’s an actual Democratic nominee, the lists should go to all candidates or to none. They certainly shouldn’t go to someone who is acting coy and refusing even to declare her candidacy.

  87. 87.

    Corner Stone

    @Roger Moore:

    I think Hillary is being presumptuous. If those lists are as valuable as they’re being made out to be, handing them over would give her an unfair advantage in the primary campaign.

    This whole story is a massive troll by TheHill.com.
    Do you honestly think it’s rooted in anything but fantasy?

  89. 89.

    catclub

    @MattF: So being out of work for 6 years makes her more qualified than being out for only 2. Grift indeed. Will her competitors mention she was too scared to run against the black man. I will if they won’t.

  92. 92.

    opiejeanne

    @Jay C: Whoops, his district is centered on Modesto. Jeff Denham. It was an op-ed in the Sacto Bee.

    When we lived in Castro Valley, east bay/SF area, people screamed when it was announced that BART was going to build an extension to our fair community, mainly because “those” people would come to our mostly white and Asian bastion of all that is good and holy. I hated that place and was glad to move to Orange County, which was surprisingly sane in comparison, but only that. We lived in Anaheim about two blocks from Carl Karcher’s house, so let that sink in.
    Anyway, the extension got built and we used it to go into SF and to Oakland A’s games and appreciated the heck out of it. Before that we had to drive a bit to get to a station, so this was a real boon.

  94. 94.

    trollhattan

    @opiejeanne:
    Jeez, yeah. How many decades was it between first approving BART and extending the line into San Mateo County and SFO?

    Morans.

  95. 95.

    opiejeanne

    @trollhattan: Yes! That was a really painful wait. We first rode BART in the 70s, and it didn’t go under the bay to SF yet.
    It was bad enough that you needed to take a shuttle into the Oakland airport from BART, but extending it to SFO took forever. I think they were working on that bit when we left. The extension south on the east side, the one that brought it to CV, was in the 90s. We loved it. I think the nearest station before that was in San Leandro which was kind of a pain, but we still used it.

  98. 98.

    JR in WV

    Regarding Grimm and Juliette, don’t forget the episodes where the floor in the front room (and other places) disappeared, and strange icy black diamondy things were flying down.

    I think she is some kind of fey creature that isn’t aware of her heritage, and such a rare fey that the Grimm people don’t have a clue what she could be.

    I missed the TV show, went to dinner and the orchestra concert. Worth it.

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