Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

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

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

How stupid are these people?

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

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

When we show up, we win.

Stand up, dammit!

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

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

Consistently wrong since 2002

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

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

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Reader Interactions

98Comments

  2. 2.

    Elizabelle

    Hello Betty and family fowl.

    Heard “Kingsman” was good.

    Gonna stick with TCM Noir tonight.

  3. 3.

    Amir Khalid

    Badass killers in really nice Savile Row suits. Samuel L Jackson as a bad guy with a Daffy Duck lisp. An assassin with swords for feet. What’s not to love?

  4. 4.

    ThresherK

    Town pool opened today, and the water was a bit warmer than usual for June.

    Plus, they put new rubber mats down. The chaging / shower room is no-frills, has hot water, and is plenty serviceable.

    What more could I want?

  5. 5.

    khead

    So, Bill Raney is running for governor of West Virginia. His response to the Pope on environmentalism was posted on the Friends of Coal page this week. You should check it out for the comedy. The link I above is from Ken Ward who writes about coal in WV. In Ken’s post, he charitably used the phrase “It’s times like this that you have to wonder if West Virginians really understand the world” in describing the post.

    But the money quote for me was this one:

    I wish Pope Francis would have traveled to Logan, Mingo or any of our other West Virginia counties where miners have been put out of work because of the uncertainty created by polices that mandate impossible requirements that reach beyond today’s technology. The suffering of that unemployment is vivid, stark and extremely concerning.

    Yes, I wish Pope Francis would take the ride down US 52 with Mr. Raney through two of the poorest counties in the US so Mr. Raney could show the Pope what coal has done for southern WV. I suspect the Pope would not view the trip from Bluefield to Huntington through the same lens as Mr. Raney.

  7. 7.

    Baud

    @khead:

    Bill Cole is running for governor of West Virginia.

    Maybe if John Cole also ran for governor, West Virginia voters would get confused and elect John.

  9. 9.

    pat

    Has anyone else noticed that Pope Frank has not addressed the biggest threat to the earth and its environment…

    Unrestrained POPULATION GROWTH???

  12. 12.

    pat

    I should have added that not a single person lauding Frankie for this encyclical has mentioned population growth. Wonder why not?

  13. 13.

    Baud

    Anyone speak Newsmax?

    Trump: ‘Pretty Pathetic’ for Hillary to Blame Me for SC Shooting

  14. 14.

    jharp

    We had a feral rooster roaming on a small farm my Dad bought in the early 70’s.

    Had forgotten all about it.

  15. 15.

    Litlebritdirft

    We have some almost feral chickens two doors down. The fucking Rooster is insane, he starts crowing at 4:00am and doesn’t stop all day. My next door neighbor’s chickens are polite sane girls that give us eggs. The two doors down birds are just out of control.Apparently the two doors down people also have feral goats.

  17. 17.

    Mike in NC

    Alternating between ‘Orange is the New Black’ and ‘Lillihammer’ on Netflix. Saw ‘Spy’ last week in the theater and it was hilarious. Just rented ‘Selma’ and ‘Chappie’ from Redbox. When it’s 100 degrees outside for two weeks straight, watching movies and TV is the only thing to do.

  19. 19.

    gogol's wife

    I don’t want to see Colin Firth as an action hero.
    In the middle of Midsomer Murders. It’s great as usual

  20. 20.

    Iowa Old Lady

    I’m reading Hinton’s THE OUTSIDERS for the first time. Hinton is really good on voice, but what I find really appealing is the love, and loyalty, and pain in this small group of greaser boys, especially Ponyboy and his brothers.

  22. 22.

    Pogonip

    I’m building a world. My ambitions to Supreme Being-hood are being fulfilled at last.

    Has anyone read How the Chicken Crossed the World, a natural history of chickens? You owe chickens thanks for a large part of civilization!

  23. 23.

    Pogonip

    @Iowa Old Lady: I read that in high school (chiseled on stone tablets, of course). She wrote another book about the same cast that was also good. I can’t remember the name of that one.

  24. 24.

    RSA

    @khead:

    Yeah, I used Cole as a placeholder…

    I wonder how John feels about that? Me, I think it’s excellent.

  25. 25.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    Nice feral roosters. A police officer was killed in a shoot out in which the other shooter was also killed today. The event occurred 2 blocks from where we lived prior to moving here in 2012. The late officer and I started working for the city in the same year; I considered him a friend and colleague, although I’d not seen him since we moved.

    Between Charleston and today’s local events, I am shattered. Thus my large glass of locally, as in less than 1 mile away, produced wine. Which is not the most healthy or mature response, but it’s all I got. Thanks for listening.

  26. 26.

    Betty Cracker

    @jl: Mine are all doing fine. They’re a good bit larger than the ferals pictured above.

  27. 27.

    JPL

    A few days ago a friend mentioned that her grandson liked the crown polish rooster or chicken. The grandson is not yet three.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    I got a couple of emails from amazon and audible saying they are upgrading their apps on June 30 and that I should download newer versions. Anyone know if this is legit or a scam? Can’t find anything on the web.

  30. 30.

    khead

    My wife was a little stunned to find out that my grandmother killed chickens by hand. I told her it was the 1930’s and no one was delivering fresh chicken to southern WV back then.

  32. 32.

    Felonius Monk

    That’s funny — this thread has pictures of chickens, but the post below has all the chickenshit. Not one of those klowns has the ballz to stand up and identify racism and their perpetuation of it as the cause of this cowardly act of violence. And these assholes want to be President? Fuk them!

  33. 33.

    MazeDancer

    Conservative GOP SC State Representative Doug Brandon of Spartanburg is going to sponsor a bill to take down the Confederate flag.

    He phoned Dem SC State Rep Todd Rutherford to tell him that before Rep Rutherford went on the Chris Hayes show tonight. Hayes is reporting from Charleston, SC

    Then, in a follow-up segment, Hayes got Brandon on the phone. And, yes, Rep Brandon is introducing the bill. He said the reason why was because he had lost a friend. Clementa Pinckney.

    The phone call was actually quite moving. Rep Brandon clearly cared deeply for his friend.

  34. 34.

    Tree With Water

    @Howard Beale IV: The mention of the gaudy Stars and Bars reminded me of the account of Lt. Frank Haskell of the 6th Wisconsin of Pickett’s Charge:

    “..Some scores of venturesome Rebels, that in their first push at the wall had dared to cross at the further angle, and those that had desecrated Cushing’s guns, were promptly shot down, and speedy death met him who should raise his body to cross it again. At this point little could be seen of the enemy, by reason of his cover and the smoke, except the flash of his muskets and his waving flags. These red flags were accumulating at the wall every moment, and they maddened us as the same color does the bull. Webb’s men are falling fast, and he is among them to direct and encourage; but, however well they may now do, with that walled enemy in front, with more than a dozen flags to Webb’s three, it soon becomes apparent that in not many minutes they will be overpowered, or that there will be none alive for the enemy to overpower. Webb has but three regiments, all small, the 69th, 71st and 72nd Pennsylvania—the 106th Pennsylvania, except two companies, is not here to-day—and he must have speedy assistance, or this crest will be lost. Oh, where is Gibbon? where is Hancock?—some general—anybody with the power and the will to support that wasting, melting line?..”.

    Haskell was killed the next year at Cold Harbor.

    Better to read history than burn flags..

  35. 35.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @Pogonip: Yes, a pretty neat book. Didn’t know the English were all so hept up on the different breeds back in the day. Hoping the whole thing doesn’t get any more monoculture than it already is, or one virus can wipe sooo much out.

    (That was also my takeaway on the book about the banana.)

  36. 36.

    lamh36

    Saw Kingsman in the theatres. I loved it. The church scene was my favorite, but after the events of Wednesday night, thinking about it now makes me queasy.

    I plan to buy in on BluRay and I still will, but it’s gonna be a bit later than I was planning to.

    Still, I can appreciate the stunt choreography of the scene.

  37. 37.

    lamh36

    @MazeDancer: Meh…I know it cynical, but I”ve got reason to be. The legislature isn’t in session until Jan. So once the “outrage” dies down…we’ll see if it comes to pass.

    But, I won’t hold my breath.

  39. 39.

    JPL

    @MazeDancer: State Senator Grooms was visibly upset yesterday because like himself, Pinckney just wanted to do the best for the state. They were on the opposite side but neither concerned about bloviating to the extremes. I do think that Reverend /Senator Pinckney accomplished more during his short life that many of us will.

  41. 41.

    opiejeanne

    Nice chicken pix.

    Watching my baseball team trying to lose to Oakland. Eating tamales and homegrown cherries. We fussed in the garden most of the day and are tired and itchy.

    Ok, no outs, bottom of the first and it’s 3-0. Ugly start. We may watch Luther instead: 3 episodes to go.

  42. 42.

    Tree With Water

    I bought this print twenty five years ago somewhere in Virginia. It currently hangs in my office on the wall to my immediate right, and never ceases to cheer me up. The one glaring-if-commercially-understandable error is the inclusion of G.A. Custer inside the house. He actually waited outside the house on the front porch.

    flickr.com/photos/32245200@N00/4446867076/

  43. 43.

    serge

    I went to the prayer vigil this evening for the Charleston murder victims. Many people spoke well, Charleston’s mayor, Joe Riley, and the Rev.Nelson Rivers standing out. It was well-attended and predominantly white which surprised me.

    One jarring participant was the execrable, biologically defective Glenn McConnell. McConnell was a long-time state senator, and a long-time proponent of the confederate flag remaining aloft at the state house. He’s heavy into “heritage.” Of course, that’s his stock in trade, literally. He ran a business that sells confederate memorabilia, re-enactment uniforms, the whole lot for the unregenerate neanderthals who get into that stuff. Later McConnell was named to fill the term of the state’s lieutenant governor. He would have wanted to be handed DeMent’s senate seat, but he settled for lt gov so Nikki “That Fucking Whore” Haley could give that job to the vacuous, malleable Tim Scott. At one point, one of the ministers was giving a rousing call for the removal of the flag and the statue of “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman that also graces the statehouse. The arena exploded in applause with everyone rising to his feet. Everyone, that is, except Glenn McConnell. He sat there like Samuel Alito at a state of the union address, looking down, not clapping, and definitely not standing.

    Now McConnell is the new president of the College of Charleston, the oldest municipal college in the United States. He was named by the board of trustees over the near unanimous disapprobation of the student and faculty bodies. He’s a real peach. He is the problem, getting rid of him, finally, would be a major step forward toward solving the problem.

  44. 44.

    Brachiator

    A comedy sounds good. I’ll have to see if anything on Amazon Instant Video looks good.

  46. 46.

    MazeDancer

    @JPL:

    Clementa Pinckney, to my great loss, was unknown to me until his death. But all the clips of him these past days show a deeply remarkable man.

  47. 47.

    Steeplejack

    Good movie coming up at the end of TCM’s noir Friday: Get Carter (1971) at 3:15 a.m. EDT tonight. Michael Caine, Ian Hendry, Britt Ekland. Directed by Mike Hodges. Gritty and low-rent, just like noir should be. “Small-time London gangster ties his brother’s murder to a porno movie and a crime boss.”

    Overly long trailer here.

  49. 49.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @khead:

    I spent my childhood summers on a farm in Michigan. One of my jobs was feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs. The hens were always very sweet and docile, but there was one big ole rooster who was nearly as big as I was, and who had a serious attitude problem. He would squawk and flap his wings and fly at me, pecking away, and I was both terrified of him and hated him. He made that daily visit to the chicken coop pure hell for me.

    Well, at some point after a few years the decision was taken to slaughter him. I didn’t actually wield the axe, but I was the one who held his headless corpse by the feet and plunged his carcass into boiling water to loosen the feathers and plucked him until he was ready for the stew pot. He was tough as old shoe leather, but I want to tell you, I have never in my life enjoyed a chicken dinner quite as much as I did that one.

    I was, maybe, seven years old. Bloodthirsty little beeyotch.

  50. 50.

    Pogonip

    @ThresherK (GPad): You read the banana book too? I love you! I couldn’t PAY anyone I know to read the banana book, or Hodding Carter’s history of plumbing, and they were both fascinating. I just don’t understand my fellow citizens these days.

  52. 52.

    mainmata

    @Betty Cracker: Years ago, when I lived on Java (the island) I inherited a small flock of essentially feral chickens. They were very close to the Malaysian Jungle Fowl, which is the mother species of mooden chickens. So they were much more colorful than American chickens and preferred roosting in the large avocado tree in the backyard. All except what I gather are called “frizzies”. We called her Mimi. She was a beautiful russet hen with individually curled feathers like she had a perm. She preferred to spend the night in the house on a window sill and liked humans to stroke her unlike the other chickens.

  55. 55.

    khead

    I just could not kill anything I was hanging out with yesterday. People, critters, whatever.

    Wait, I could kill spiders. And ants. I currently want to kill every ant from Philly to Baltimore if it keeps them out of my house.

  56. 56.

    dogwood

    @schrodinger’s cat:
    Glad you liked The Americans. It’s my favorite. I’ll be interested to see what happens when the Emmy nominations come out. Critics had a conniption over the fact it received zero nominations for the first two seasons. Season 3 was the best one yet, and ends on an amazing cliff hanger. People who don’t watch this show are really missing out.

  58. 58.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steeplejack (phone): I have seen and love the original. I will throw myself on a grenade before I let my eyes touch the remake. Same with The Grinch. If the original is brilliant, you need a damned good concept to make a remake worthwhile.

  59. 59.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Remakes are almost never worthwhile. When I saw your previous comment I immediately thought of the Mel Gibson remake of Point Blank. Ugh.

  60. 60.

    NotMax

    @Steeplejack

    Supposedly, a remake of Zardoz is in the works. Very hard to imagine how it could be worse than the first one, but ya never know.

  65. 65.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steeplejack (phone): I am buying the grenade now. I regret my earlier comment. I don’t know what I was thinking except that it might be done by someone like Jay-Z. But you are right, Luhrmann is the bastard who will get it green lit.

  66. 66.

    Steeplejack

    @efgoldman:

    I binge-read all the Parker novels on my Nook in 2011. All of the “midcentury” ones are great. But the ones after the hiatus between 1974 and 1997 are a little weird, because Parker doesn’t really work well outside of that specific, Mad Men/Perry Mason-era background. Computers and even basic things like a credit-card economy knock out a lot of the plot points and details necessary to Parker’s milieu. Cash is king in Parker’s world. And it was a lot easier to create fake identities back then. Just two examples.

    But all the books are good. The later ones just have a “fish out of water” vibe about them. Sort of like the Perry Mason TV movies they made in the ’80s and ’90s. You get the characters, but the mise en scène is amiss.

  67. 67.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    That’s the whole problem with (Hollywooden) remakes: the wrong people get to do them. I can think of plenty of movies where you could do a great remake—such as your example with Jay-Z—but instead they always end up being some nitwit vanity project.

    But don’t be hard on yourself. The heart wants what it wants. I imagine great remakes all the time.

  68. 68.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steeplejack: No, Steep, if I did anything that could, down the road, result in another Baz Luhrmann movie, I deserve any abuse thrown my way.

  69. 69.

    Steeplejack

    Uh-oh, continuity problem on Law and Order. Army major is wearing silver oak leaves rather than the correct gold ones. I must away to the fainting couch.

  72. 72.

    Tree With Water

    @SiubhanDuinne: There’s a old cartoon of a hillbilly family and their barnyard animals all joyfully singing ‘She’ll Be Coming ‘Round The Mountain’ after getting word of an upcoming visit. When they get to the chorus, “oh we’ll kill the old red rooster when she comes”, the bird in question stops singing, and staring in terror (as if at the audience) shouts in a tone of abject horror, “Kill the old red rooster”!!?

  73. 73.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Correct. But they are repeatedly addressing him as “Major [somebody].”

    This reminds me of the lengthy, pointless conversation I had one time with a former boss who could not, would not believe that a lieutenant general outranks a major general.

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steeplejack: Some folks are idiots. I promised someone that I would get a comparatively early night, so I am going. Movie and music conversation is one thing. A promise is another. I am vapor.

  76. 76.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steeplejack: The weird thing is late night music and movies stuff is fun. Playing off random references is a great sport. I just need to get some sleep. As far as the rest, thanks. She’s lovely and demented enough to have a fondness for me. I need to be careful. Know what I mean?

  78. 78.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Yeah, I know.

    You said you told her about this blog. I would consider very carefully whether to tell her your nym (although possibly she could figure it out if she becomes a reader of the blog). I have told three people my nym. One doesn’t care about the blog. One reads occasionally and sometimes e-mails me about blog stuff, and I’m okay with that. But I kind of regret telling the third person, because later (and unexpectedly) I felt a little constrained in making comments that this person might read (although I don’t know how much this person reads the blog). Mostly in the “white people’s problems” area you were discussing earlier (and which this person seems to have a lot of, ahem). So it got me thinking that it is, or can be, an issue.

    My two cents.

  79. 79.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Technically I am, but my standard comment to friends and family is that my Facebook page is like the empty lot in the neighborhood with an old car up on blocks and a rusted-out refrigerator in the front yard. I haven’t updated it, or even looked at it, in ages. And, yes, that is one of the things on my (perennial) to-do list, to get it at least non-embarrassingly functional.

  80. 80.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steeplejack: I appreciate the advice. I am okay with with who I am here – which is largely who I am in meat space. OTOH, she makes me a better person with what I say.

  84. 84.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I, too, am okay with who I am here. “Steep” is very consistent with real-life me. I was thinking more in terms of, say, if I tell an anecdote about my friend bitching about one of the two dishwashers in his deluxe kitchen being on the fritz and acting like that’s a “crisis” 99 percent of us can relate to. And then him coming back with “Why are you mocking me on that blog?,” etc.

    Still a hypothetical, but food for thought.

  85. 85.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I doubted it. I haven’t explicitly “friended” anyone on Facebook in I don’t know how long. That’s another reason I want to clean up my page: there are some people that I would like to connect with and follow—er, at varying levels of detail, of course.

  86. 86.

    Steeplejack

    Don’t think I’m going to last until Get Carter. I stayed up way too late last night—5:00 a.m.—trying to process the racist bullshit (unsuccessfully), and I don’t want to perpetuate the bad habit (more than I already do). It threw me off all day today. Get Carter is going on the DVR anyway.

  90. 90.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Over and out.

    @NotMax:

    In a weird way, I think I do understand Boots. His needy mode bothers me much less than it seems to do most other people, and I am of an age where I get, if not actively enjoy, some of his more saccharine musical tastes. And I think he is good-hearted, which counts for a lot with me. And, as is true with all of us, some part of his on-line persona is an act. Always a good thing to remember.

  95. 95.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Thank you. I like that you get the demented thing.

    We’re generally OK with the demented thing.

    It’s the Cheesehead thing we don’t understand.

  96. 96.

    SFAW

    @NotMax:

    and don’t have much to say here at the moment.

    Never stopped me before.

    (And there are a number of commenters to which that could apply.)

  98. 98.

    marduk

    Kingsman, such an uneven movie. B grade action movie with some C grade special effects. Some good performances, some really bad. Incredibly stupid plot. BUT some simply fantastic fight scene choreography & directing. The church scene was an absolute revelation.

    vimeo.com/126552945 (WARNING SOMEWHAT GORY).

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