Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, it’s door #2)

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

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

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

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

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

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Another Open Thread

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You’ve all been good, so treats for everyone:

treats

Actually not sure where Ginger was in this pic, since she is such a chow hound, she never misses treats. Rosie, of course, is throwing shade at the camera. Such a bitch.

Here are Thurston and Lily taking a nap:

sleepingpups

Thurston is such a ham- as soon as he knows there is a camera, he eyeballs it. Notice how they form perfectly to the contours of my belly. Also note that my formerly beautiful terry cloth robe now resembles a ghillie suit after six weeks of puppy claws have shredded the hell out of it.

I’ve been waking up the puppies all afternoon so they sleep throughout the night. We’ll see if that works.

Also, the new Forte comedy the Last Man on Earth was actually pretty amusing.

Reader Interactions

85Comments

  3. 3.

    Mike E

    I would imagine a treat for Steve would be ‘alone time’.

    That’s some serious side-eye from Rosie.

  5. 5.

    lamh36

    Nice…

    Ok, so is this a deal or not…$139…

    Samsung 24″ Class (23.6″ Diag.) 720p LED HDTV.

    I’m looking for a tv for my second bedroom. So it doesn’t have to be large, just adequate. I also like that it’s a Samsung as it’s my preferred brand.

    I have a 51′ Samsung in my living room and both my blu-ray players are Samsung.

    My tv I bought for my bedroom, I bought in texas and it was a steal for a 40′ Vizio so I bought it quick

  6. 6.

    jl

    Thanks for ultra cute pet pix.

    And as long as the topic is treats, perhaps I had some precognition of the previous Garcia themed post. Saw some shelled hemp seeds at Trader Joe’s earlier today, and something just made me buy them.

    Directions say you just sprinkle them on whatever you want like oat bran or wheat germ, and I thought it would be a nice change of pace for the morning mush. (yeah, I make me some hot mush and eat it every morning. People got a problem with that? No, they do not.)

    But, will I get busted if I have to get a blood test for some reason?

  7. 7.

    RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac)

    Rosie is just rolling her eyes at the disgusting Ravens slippers that Shawn has on.

  8. 8.

    Punchy

    Those hands dont look near fat enough to be JGCs….who’s the mystery dog feeder in su casa?

  11. 11.

    Elizabelle

    This is some of the best photojournalism I have ever seen on Balloon Juice.

    The pups all sitting politely for their treats is getting bookmarked. Rosie sighting, and fair Lily in both pics.

    Thank you!

  14. 14.

    jl

    @Omnes Omnibus: I interpreted it more as :”Hey, what? Those other punk dawgs are getting treats? That one’s mine too.”

    Edit: Or maybe ‘If that fat white cat was still here, he would help me snag that one over there.”

  15. 15.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @jl: I know Mythbusters did a test with poppy seeds, and if you eat enough, YES.

    ETA: Both my wife and I had oatmeal and raisins this morning, nothing wrong with mush in the AM.

  17. 17.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    Impressive that the wee ones have learned to sit for treats already.

  20. 20.

    Mary G

    Rose’s glare cracked me up. “You KNOW I hate having my picture taken, Cole. You’ll get payback when you least expect it.”

  22. 22.

    Gian

    what kind of treats do they get to help change a video card? (those are for a power supply, right?)

  24. 24.

    Origuy

    It’s funny how memory plays tricks on you. I moved to California after graduation in June 1978. I remember going to a concert at Spartan Stadium in San Jose and coming back to find the rear window of my rental car smashed. I have long remembered that the headliner was the Grateful Dead, but I couldn’t remember the other bands. The previous thread got me wondering, so I tried to find out. Turns out the Dead didn’t play there in 1978; the concert I went to had to have been Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, and Jimmy Buffett. I must have gone to the Dead concert there in 1979 and gotten them mixed up.

  30. 30.

    Steeplejack

    I ended up (semi-accidentally) watching The Last Man on Earth, which is something I would have sworn I would not do. Not convinced that I didn’t hate it, and yet I couldn’t look away. I could see Kristen Schaal’s character potentially getting unbearable really fast.

    Also watched Battle Creek, Vince Gilligan’s new show. Kind of hard to get a read on it, but I think it’s got potential.

  32. 32.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Omnes Omnibus: I didn’t sleep well last night, must have been guilt about your Mickey Mouse joke.

    ETA: Then again, it could have been being jazzed over getting my code to work, or my neck hurting due to moving my neck between my code and the debugger.

  35. 35.

    cckids

    I spent a big chunk of the day making beef bourguignon, mostly with Julia Child’s recipe. We had a rare chilly & rainy day here in Vegas, so it fit well. Yum x 1000. Well worth the time & effort.

  37. 37.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @cckids:Do you have leftovers? I have a car that can do a steady 100+mph. I can be there, let’s say, Tuesday morning-ish.

  38. 38.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    I got my code working this evening, so it’s all good. I still have to make the web page not look so dump truck ugly.

    I have no idea what that means, but I hope it is a good thing.

  41. 41.

    lamh36

    Aww yeah, Idris Elba back on the set for a new season as John Luther!

    Is it sad how excited I am about it!

    Love Luther and last series was really good. Can’t wait for this one.

    Allegedly some US net is supposed to be trying to bring a version of Luther to the US, ala Broadchurch, but honestly, John Luther is Idris Elba. It would be like hiring another dude as JR Ewing other than Larry Hagman…it’s the man that made the character!

  46. 46.

    ThresherK

    On the mend (and at my most blah feeling this weekend was feeling nowhere as poorly as some around these parts), just in time to bake some cocoa stout cupcakes.

    Last time I tried putting some left-over batter in a sprayed disposable mini-loaf pan, only to find out the insides would not finish while the extremities were quite done. I chalked that up to the non-circular shape of the pan and the slightly higher level of batter than in a cupcake or layer cake pan.

    So I’m asking all fellow BJers who have one “dress” apron and another one with the chocolate or tomato stains which will never come out: Is this mini loaf pan idea worth trying again, or should I just go get a couple of 6″ mini-cake pans? What’s different about cake batter v. a quick bread which might cause this?

  47. 47.

    Schlemazel

    @jl:
    Let me know how they taste please. I have oatmeal a lot (make big pot of steel cut because I love the heartier texture. I’ll freeze doses of it to microwave if I want ‘instant’). I change up additions to the mush, nuts, seeds, berries and fruit so it’s never the same thing.

  48. 48.

    Schlemazel

    @ThresherK:
    Not sure about the consistency of your batter but you could try a water bath, Put the cake pan in a larger pan & fill the larger pan with an inch or two of water then bake about 25 degrees lower. It will take longer so timing with be trial and error till you figure it out but a bain marie is the classic way to deal with the problem.

  49. 49.

    ThresherK

    @Schlemazel: Hmm, sounds worth a try. (And I like throwing around culinary French to boot.) Will update with results in a couple days.

    (As far as consistency, this is hand-mix only recipe and I take care to not beat too much air into it.)

  50. 50.

    BD of MN

    When we bake cakes we use baking strips, soak them in water and wrap around the edge. Levels the cakes out and keeps the edges from drying out…

    I’m spending my waking minutes looking at Aurora pics from northern MN on the facebook, apparently there was quite a show last night. One professional photographer has a great shot of dancing auroras taken over a snow covered field with an old tractor in the foreground, and I thought “Hey, when did Cole buy a tractor?”

  51. 51.

    Raven

    6am swim and now an nice vegetarian breakfast at Southern Adventist U. The demon pretty committed to whatever they are committed to but no one has bugged me.

  53. 53.

    Elmo

    Why has nobody told me about Peaky Blinders?! It’s like Downton Abbey meets Boardwalk Empire, but with an artistic sensibility more like The Wire.

    Stumbled across it yesterday during the ice storm, and zoomed through almost the entire first series. Amazingly good!

  54. 54.

    MomSense

    @Elmo:

    It really is good.

    The puppehs are so sweet all together. Are they as calm as they look in the photos? I’ve only got one and she is tearing it up all day long.

  55. 55.

    WereBear

    Love those little pupcakes, sitting for their treat.

    If I were to be in the market for a puppy, I would pick Thurston. Those bright and mischievous eyes get me every time.

  56. 56.

    Ben Cisco

    New week, looking at a potential provider change for our cell phone contract, and looking at the various model phones we would use. I’m dreading the word getting out b/c i know i’m going to wind up dealing with a bunch of whiny gits that will scream for the highest of the high-end models until their throats crack. They seem not to understand the phrases “limited budget,” “basic functionality,” “not your personal toys,” and “you ain’t at home.” As far as the bosses are concerned, the phone only need do the following:

    – Dial out when you dial
    – Ring when someone dials in
    – Access your voicemail
    – Send and receive texts
    – Send and receive emails

    All the rest is fluff and with a list price of (for example) ~650 bones for an iPhone 6 (750 for the 6 Plus), I’d be a moron to suggest them. Ugh.

  57. 57.

    Patricia Kayden

    What happened to Ginger? I must have missed when she got a forever home.

    Anyways, such lovely photos of the doggies.

  58. 58.

    JPL

    @Patricia Kayden: From John’s post
    Actually not sure where Ginger was in this pic, since she is such a chow hound, she never misses treats.

    Maybe John will post additional pics later of Ginger. I wouldn’t mind an update on how she is doing.

  59. 59.

    gogol's wife

    Great way to start the day before going out into the gd snow. What a change of pace, snow on a Monday morning.

  62. 62.

    debbie

    @ThresherK:

    i would think the consistency of the batter would be the problem. The air bubbles in the thinner cupcake batter would collapse sooner than in a quick bread. I wonder if lowering the temperature would help.

  70. 70.

    Baud

    @MomSense:

    Don’t wait too long. In the Village, Fox is a legitimate news channel, except when they need to be held to ethical standards.

  71. 71.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    Right. I remember all of a sudden there was this distinction on Fox about what is opinion and what is news and apparently anchors are really opinionators which means they don’t have to be accurate.

  72. 72.

    JPL

    @MomSense: Even local fox news channels are under the entertainment division in order to thwart lawsuits.
    If memory serves me, and these days it might not, Canada won’t allow Fox news because of that. Maybe one of our Canadian friends will pipe in.

  73. 73.

    NotMax

    Quite some toothsome offerings coming up soon on TCM:

    The Artist Tuesday, 8:00 p.m.

    The King’s Speech Tuesday, 10:00 p.m.

    The Queen Wednesday, 2:45 a.m.

    Also, at 10:00 a.m. today is The Hurricane – a product of its time, certainly, yet the special effects of the storm (from 1937!) compare more than favorably with what can be done today. Oh, and hunky, shirtless Jon Hall for those whose tastes run that way.

  74. 74.

    Amir Khalid

    @debbie:
    Late, so I don’t know if you’ll see this reply. But if Bill O’Reilly can’t tell having seen a photo of something from a memory of the actual incident, doesn’t that give Fox News medical grounds to dismiss him?

  79. 79.

    The Moar You Know

    They seem not to understand the phrases “limited budget,” “basic functionality,” “not your personal toys,” and “you ain’t at home.” As far as the bosses are concerned, the phone only need do the following:

    @Ben Cisco: I do. Moto G or E. I have the first gen Moto G and it does all you need and more for $200. The new Moto E is almost as good as the first gen Moto G. Really like my Motorola.

    But really thinking about jumping another rung down the ladder. I want a dumb phone with no camera that can text. Does that exist any more?

  82. 82.

    Joel Hanes

    @jl:

    But, will I get busted if I have to get a blood test for some reason?

    Well, you might, because false positives are far more common than the drug test champions would have us believe.

    But the plants from which those toasted seeds came are probably actually “hemp”, the ultra-low-THC cultivar that was widely planted during WW II for rope fiber. My, uh, friend who grew up in an agricultural state can tell you from repeated experience that such hemp has so little psychoactive content as to be a complete waste of time — unless one is making rope.

    I believe that such seeds, sterilized to prevent germination, can legally be sold as bird seed.

  84. 84.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Joel Hanes:

    Somebody posted a story a few months ago about a nice old lady in the UK who contacted a botanist about a strange plant growing under her birdfeeder. It turned out that the hemp in the birdseed had not quite been sterilized enough. The local bobbies stopped by to pull the weed for her, but there was no talk of prosecution since it was so obviously innocent.

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