Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

This really is a full service blog.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Cole is on a roll !

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

You cannot shame the shameless.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

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

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

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80Comments

  4. 4.

    PurpleGirl

    My nap this afternoon was longer than planned and I did Chinese take-out for dinner. If you were in NYC, Chinese take-out is very traditional.

    How is your father doing? How is your mother holding up?

    I hope the rest of your weekend is better than the last two days.

  5. 5.

    Amir Khalid

    Still suffering with my swollen pinky. It’s surprising how much of an impediment a crocked pinky can be, when it’s on your good hand.
    ETA: It so happened that I arrived at the hospital clinic to get it seen to just after hours on 23rd December, after getting caught in crosstown traffic. They told me the clinic was closed till Monday; the Prophet’s birthday fell on Christmas Eve, not normally a holiday in Malaysia, so there’s a long holiday weekend here.

  11. 11.

    Randy P

    We had a pretty traditional Christmas (except that we didn’t bother with a tree or much decorating this year) with gift exchange followed by going out visiting. But then for lunch in between visits … we went to a Chinese restaurant.

    It was called “Xi’an” cuisine, which at first I took to be the abbreviation (Xtian) for Christian. Interesting. Different from what we’re used to.

  16. 16.

    Helen

    @Baud:

    Speaking of Boxing Day. It seems that the history of it is, um skewed. I was brought up to believe that boxing day was the day after Christmas where the very rich would wrap up the gifts that they didn’t want and give them to the servants. Does anyone know different?

    Also – the origin of the word “bloody” Was my Mom’s favorite word. When I asked her what it meant, she told me to STFU and not ask those types of questions. Her mom (my granny) 30 year later told me why. Can anyone tell me what they think “bloody” means?

  17. 17.

    Baud

    LGM

    We have been remiss in failing to announce that we have decided to add the beloved Shakezula as a permanent front-page contributor.

    I believe she comments here sometimes, so congrats!!!

  19. 19.

    beltane

    We had a traditional Christmas with all five kids. Tomorrow we will toss out the tree and go out for Vietnamese food.

  20. 20.

    Randy P

    @Helen:

    I was brought up to believe that boxing day was the day after Christmas where the very rich would wrap up the gifts that they didn’t want and give them to the servants. Does anyone know different?

    As a matter of fact, yes. We’re reading through a really interesting book called “Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas” by Ace Collins, borrowed from the church library.

    He traces Boxing Day back about 800 years, to the metal boxes for money for the poor, which are found in churches throughout England. According to Collins, those boxes were used by the Roman soldiers for gambling. The box was opened on Dec 26th, the Feast of St. Stephen, and the money given to the poor.

    Another theory is that it is connected with the riotous mobs that roamed England on Dec. 25th (which is how the day used to be celebrated until around Dickens’ time). The wealthy would give boxes of gifts to their servants in gratitude for the extra work of cleanup after the mob. Collins: “It is debatable whether or not this custom was the beginning of the boxing holiday, yet it probably did form the roots of another tradition that might have initiated Boxing Day”.

    Which is: “Three centuries ago, servants in England began to bring their own boxes to work on the day after Christmas. Probably due to the boxed gifts given to servants in earlier days, it became a tradition that all employers would put coins into the boxes as a special year-end bonus”. And the practice spread to putting gifts in the boxes of tradesmen they dealt with.

    Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (Collins says) established the current tradition of the upper-class giving to the poor on Dec. 26th.

  21. 21.

    MobiusKlein

    Still have the family at my place (west coast time), but it us pie time soon.

    Did a BBQ pork roast that kicked ass, so all is well in the house . Merry x to all!

  22. 22.

    Mike J

    @Helen:

    Can anyone tell me what they think “bloody” means?

    OED says it’s just a generic intensifier these days, and they dispute the origin story taht it comes from “God’s blood” or similar.

    they also say

    This word has long had taboo status, and for many speakers constituted the strongest expletive available. This is reflected in the regularity with which dashes, asterisks, etc., were formerly used to represent the word in print, and in the large number of euphemistic forms to which it has given rise, including bee n.3, bleeding adj. 5, blerry adj., plurry adj., sanguinary adj. 4, and perhaps blooming adj. 4. In the case of the adverb, the considerable public reaction to the utterance of the word on the London stage in George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion in 1914 (see quot. 1914 at sense C. 2b) gave rise to the further humorous euphemism Pygmalion adv. In most contexts the word’s taboo status has now been largely or entirely lost; the process of normalization seems to have begun earliest in Australia.

    Following the original use in England, Scotland, and Ireland, the sense spread to most other parts of the English-speaking world, with the notable exception of the United States, where it has apparently only ever achieved limited currency, e.g. among sailors during the 19th cent.

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    @Randy P:
    Another old Boxing Day tradition in Britain, dating back many decades, is a full programme of football matches on the telly.

  24. 24.

    Felonius Monk

    @Baud:

    Is Omnes now the official Keeper of the Holidays?

    Will Omnes be Secretary of Holidays in the coming Baud administration?

  26. 26.

    Helen

    @Baud: @Randy P:

    Thank you both. And to the word “Bloody” here’s what I heard. It is short for “God blind me” and it is the biggest curse in the history of curses in Ireland and England.

    I would very much like to believe my Mom used the biggest curse in the history of curses. In all the world.

  27. 27.

    MomSense

    Whew, it has been a long and happy day. Staying overnight with friends because I am too tired to drive another 4 hours home.

    Hope everyone here is similarly content.

  28. 28.

    Helen

    @Mike J:

    Thanks. See me at “30” When I move to Ireland I may have to do a degree in all of this. Seriously it fascinates me.

    Cuz Curse. I love curses.

  30. 30.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Helen: It is short for “God blind me”

    That’s what I heard about “(Cor) Blimey!”. My favorite is Zounds! (God’s wounds!)

  31. 31.

    SiubhanDuinne

    My Christmas was also postponed for a day, but I decided against Chinese for my dinner.

    Instead, being the contrarian that I am, I had sushi.

  32. 32.

    PurpleGirl

    @Randy P: Does Collins write about Queen Victoria beginning the use of the decorated pine tree because Prince Consort Albert wanted one as he knew them from growing up in Germany? I’ve been telling people that.

  33. 33.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Helen:

    And to the word “Bloody” here’s what I heard. It is short for “God blind me”

    I have heard that origin for “gorblimey,” (often shortened to just “blimey!”) but never for “bloody.”

  35. 35.

    Mnemosyne

    We survived making Christmas dinner for 7 despite a meat thermometer fail. Now everyone’s gone and we’re watching “The Thin Man” on DVD.

  37. 37.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @PurpleGirl:

    Yeah, Asian restaurants are the only places open today. I love sushi and sashimi (and sake!) and was delighted to find a place that served it.

  38. 38.

    Mnemosyne

    @Helen:

    I would very much like to believe my Mom used the biggest curse in the history of curses. In all the world.

    That’s “Belgium.” At least according to Douglas Adams.

  41. 41.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    I had someone say to me today, “You shouldn’t have to work on Christmas,” to which my response was, “If you want electricity for your Christmas lights, someone has to go to work.”

    I got here and found that there is a ham for me in the walk-in fridge in the cafeteria, courtesy of the client’s director of operations. I don’t cook and I don’t particularly like ham, so I need to find someone who wants one.

  42. 42.

    Amir Khalid

    @Helen:
    “Bloody hell” is so mild now that JK Rowling got away with Ron Weasley using it in the first few Harry Potters.

  44. 44.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @Mnemosyne:” Well now, the result of last week’s competition when we asked you to find a derogatory term for the Belgians. Well, the response was enormous and we took quite a long time sorting out the winners. There were some very clever entries. Mrs Hatred of Leicester Said ‘let’s not call them anything, let’s just ignore them’ …and a Mr St John of Huntingdon said he couldn’t think of anything more derogatory than Belgians.”
    —
    Adams wasn’t the only Brit who took those kind of potshots.

  47. 47.

    scuffletuffle

    Roast leg of lamb, persian herb rice and cucumber salad for xmas dinner, not bad for an inexperienced cook (me). My chef-level cook friend was impressed. She was tired of always having to do the cooking, so i gave her the day off to bike instead.

  48. 48.

    Anne Laurie

    @Helen:

    Cuz Curse. I love curses.

    When I was very young, I read that Old Gaelic had a whole separate case of the verb “be” for use just in curses.

    I have chosen never to try verifying this factoid, since it seems extremely suitable to me that the people for whom “Irish Alzheimers”* was named should take special care and effort with their curses.

    *you forget everything but your grievances

  49. 49.

    Mike J

    @efgoldman: My gfriend brought me breakfast on xmas morning. had a LP of music going, ran downstairs to open the door for her, and, well, you know what inevitably happens to vinyl at the worst possible time. [1]

    Bat phone was ringing because the PD was listening while opening presents.

    [1] The apocryphal story everyone has heard is playing a recording a preacher on Sunday morning, coming back into the studio to discover it stuck on :”go to hell, go to hell go to hell….”

  50. 50.

    Anne Laurie

    @SiubhanDuinne: Yeah, the version I heard was that the original curse was “God’s (Jesus’) blood upon you” — the idea being that the subject of your curse was the type who’d crucify Christ. And, secondarily, a throw-back to all the very ancient superstitions about blood; not just the danger of menstrual blood, but the belief that a corpse’s blood would flow again if touched by its murderer, or that the blood of a taboo’d individual (holy person, young child, royalty) could either wither crops or cure illness… not to mention the blood smeared on the doors at Passover… Blood was potent!

  51. 51.

    redshirt

    @efgoldman: What did you call yourselves? And how hard was the work?

    I was a college DJ for a couple of years with 2 3 hour shows a week, and it was a substantial time commitment as I’d spend another 10 or so hours at the station listening to the records I was going to play, both for selection purposes and to ensure they didn’t have bad words in the songs. The actual show was easier, but this was still the era of records (CD’s had just started coming to the station), so just getting that needle down in time sometimes was hard.

    I’d like to hear any cool stories you have.

  52. 52.

    srv

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Bristol Palin is a mother for the second time.

    Palin posted on Instagram Thursday that she gave birth to a girl, Sailor Grace, on Wednesday.

    “Our family couldn’t be more complete,” she wrote beneath a photo of her and her sleeping baby in what appears to be a hospital bed.

  59. 59.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mike J:

    The famous story in the Chicago area was the DJ who put “Stairway to Heaven” on so he could make a trip to the bathroom, and got back to the booth to discover that the phones were ringing off the hook because it started skipping less than a minute in.

  60. 60.

    Origuy

    I’m at my Dad’s in Indiana; my youngest sister lives with him. My other sister and her daughter came down from Indy. My niece is 16 so she got the chance to drive all the way down. My BIL seems to have the flu, so he stayed home, but he’s Jewish so his Christmas dinner was matzoh soup from Shapiro’s (kosher deli in Indy.) They took some ham back for him. He’s not kosher of course, and loves ham. We exchanged gifts (mostly gift cards) and my sister showed me what she’d found on ancestry.com. She’s traced one line back to 13th century Wales. I’m fascinated by genealogy and have done some work on it too. Since none of us are likely to reproduce (niece is adopted), the idea reminds me of what Tolkien wrote about the Fall of Numenor, “Childless old men muttering about genealogies in empty halls.” Still, it’s interesting and gives me a connection with history.

  61. 61.

    brettvk

    @PurpleGirl: No, she’s just unlucky enough to come from a family that thinks super-creative naming equals classiness, and is totally unimaginative when it comes to picturing what the kid’s classmates will make of that name by fourth grade.

  62. 62.

    Anne Laurie

    @redshirt: Vulgar reply would be that she was conceived on a boat by that name.

    (Back in college, in the mid-1970s, had an acquaintance named Mercury. Because he was not a bad fellow, we kept the back-seat jokes until after he left the room.)

  63. 63.

    Mnemosyne

    @efgoldman:

    Meh, I’m only five foot two, so I’m not that scary. Though my brothers still brag about me winning a fight against another girl in high school 20-*cough* years ago. She thought it was going to be a slapfight and didn’t realize I had 4 older brothers. Pretty much my sole moment of triumph. ;-)

  64. 64.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    “Our family couldn’t be more complete,” she wrote beneath a photo of her and her sleeping baby in what appears to be a hospital bed.

    My goodness, she likes to lead with her chin. Probably trying to provoke the very response I’m thinking of so she and her awful mother can whine and moan like Ted Cruz has been doing.

    She strikes me as unhappy as she is unpleasant. I hope for her sake and her kids’ she can overcome her origins someday.

  65. 65.

    Origuy

    @efgoldman: I corrected that after checking their website. It’s not kosher, although I think the meat is prepared kosher. They just serve both fleishig and milchig. It’s considered very good.

  67. 67.

    Felonius Monk

    @efgoldman:

    Some state this is. No Jewish delis

    I think they are now on the endangered species list. If you want to watch a fun flick, check out The DeliMan. It’s mouth-watering good, but also sad.

  68. 68.

    frosty fka Bro Shotgun etc etc

    @Origuy:

    (niece is adopted)

    It’s still her family, so the genealogy is worth it. A) a surprising percentage of us aren’t genetically related to the fathers/ grandfathers / etc we think we are, and B) my adopted son’s tattoo: “Families are not made by blood but by love.”

  69. 69.

    Anne Laurie

    @brettvk: In honest truth, just as we got a wave of Bradens/Kaidens/Jadens a few years after “Aiden” hit peak baby-name popularity, I suspect we’re due for a wave of “kree8if” not-exactly-Taylor baby girls. Poor little things!

  70. 70.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Helen: What I was taught when I lived in Scotland was that Boxing Day, as the day after Christmas, represented the wealthy boxing up their uneaten and unwanted food and any unwanted gifts and giving it to the help, and, occasionally, the needy.

    Its also important to remember that what we consider trick or treating actually occurred in Britain on Christmas Eve. It was called A’soalin/Asailing. The traditional drink and toast was called a wasoal (pronounced wasail) and the tradition of going around and demanding a treat is derived from that. Peter, Paul, and Mary did a song about it:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQE0qoVUwqE

    As for bloody it is actually short for His Blood and was originally pronounced S’blood. The His being that of Jesus. Another similar phrase was Strewth, originally S’truth – short for His Truth. The His being the same: Jesus.

  71. 71.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is correct for both, though the linguistic etymology I learned when over there was that it was His rather than God’s, but your mileage may vary as it worked out the same way. We were taught this stuff in one of my Arabic linguistic modules. The instructor was trying to draw a connection with exclamations using God. I think, in this case, he was using the Arabic phrase “fiqrah wallahi”: there’s an idea by God.

  72. 72.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anne Laurie: And this was always an interesting one. The reason that blood was potent, and often forbidden – hence the need to drain blood from a slaughtered animal in kashrut – is that consciousness is carried on/in the blood. So without an understanding of hemotology, they belief that energy, breath, spirit, and blood were all connected developed. And not just among the Semites. Also among the ancient Chinese, hence the concept of chi. What’s so interesting is that is not the understanding among the Greeks and Romans and ultimately Christianity in the West. In this different tradition consciousness resides in the arising of mind from brain and gives rise to the duality concept.

  73. 73.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: Japanese cartoons apparently. Lets see Sailor Moon? Taken. Sailor Mars? Taken. Sailor Jupiter? Taken. How about Sailor Grace? Sure, I didn’t see anyone cosplaying her at GlacierCon this year.

  74. 74.

    Helen

    me@Adam L Silverman: Thank you. My mom’s best fiend (they met here) is from Scotland. She says “It’s beautiful but you can’t eat the scenery”

    You were there as an American, yes? I would love to see Scotland. It is one of the few places in Europe I have not been to. Three? years ago when they voted about leaving the UK I stayed up to 3am to see what they would do. Because the effect on Northern Ireland (where my Mom is from) would have been um, interesting.

    And thanks for the confirmation that “it’s going to the staff” thing about boxing day.

  75. 75.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Helen: I go everywhere as an American. Yes, I was there from 92-95. I was one of the four Robert T. Jones’ Scholars in 1992. I went somewhat native. Been all over Scotland, a lot of England, parts of Ireland, Belgium, France, and Germany. Largely because I’d use my breaks to go to Brussels to do aikido with my senseis who lived there, I didn’t make it to southern Europe.

  76. 76.

    Helen

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I asked about the American thing because

    1. I LOVE touring Europe as an American. Europeans love us. I cannot tell you how many people have told me they were jealous and wanted to be an American

    2. I am retiring (well at age 53, maybe not really retiring) to Ireland. As an Irish citizen cuz my Mom was born there.

    Missed you in 1993. My first time there was oh hey 1993. I was 31 yrs old. Visited granny in Divis Towers. In Belfast.

  77. 77.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Helen: Yeah, the ability to claim citizenship is a major bonus for those that wish to pursue it.

    I enjoyed living there very much. And have been fortunate to be able to go back a few times. I will say that the British understanding of graduate/post-graduate education lives a bit to be desired and much to get used to.

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