Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

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

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

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

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

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Reader Interactions

137Comments

  2. 2.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    Good morning. I need to rouse and coffee Mrs. Thunder so we can walk Doglius before it gets too warm for the two of them.
    Have a good Saturday.

  3. 3.

    bystander

    Good morning.

    Who knew our French bulldog would have so much in common with a retriever? Hey, he had some fun and a few snacks along the way. What did the others get? A bite of a pink plastic chew stick?

  5. 5.

    Hillary Rettig

    Also, relatedly, I’ll bet a Juicer can answer this. I’ve heard that in some countries (in Europe and maybe elsewhere) your dog can take some kind of obedience test (the dog equiv of the marshmallow test) and if s/he passes gets a “passport” that allows her to stay with you in hotels. Is this true?

  6. 6.

    gindy51

    I love watching agility, but my Swissie thinks it is the stupidest thing in the world. She’s an ace at obedience, does stuff before you ask her just watching your body language but agility to her is literally the dumbest thing on the planet (besides her pack member, young male Swissie). I tried it with her and she did the course then sat asking wtf? She’s deaf and extremely expressive, bonded like a second skin to me, and devoted beyond any dog I have ever owned (she owns me in truth). I just could not get her to bother with it.
    She’d be like this guy… treats not that stupid course shit.
    Now my other pup, he’d be good at it if he’d ever wake up.

  8. 8.

    JAFD

    Greetings from New Jersey !

    We’ll be having our primary election on Tuesday (along with the other Garden State), and yours truly will be at ye local firehouse, taking names and signatures and firing up the voting machine. Some points perhaps of interest:

    The polls open at six. The District Board Workers are instructed to be there at 5:15, to get the machines booted up and the paperwork in place (Last local election we had 31 pieces of paper needing to be posted on walls. Will be off to Home Despot this weekend to get another roll of ‘blue tape’. As I’ll be working in firehouse, with door open, pumper parked across street for the day, and driveway up from the sidewalk, mayhaps the ‘handicap access’ arrows can be omitted ?)

    The polls close at 8 PM, and we’ll be there until machine is limbered and all the stuf is ready for return to the City Clerk’s office. We District Board Workers get an hour for lunch, but everybody must be there from 4:45 on. We make $200 for the day, which ain’t minimum wage but ain’t $15 either.

    If you have registered as ‘Unaffiliated’ (there are no ‘independent’ voters in New Jersey), you can declare at the polls that you want to vote in a party primary. That automatically makes you a member of that party unless and until you reregister at a future open registration period.

    If you’re here at the close to get the talley for your campaign HQ, we have to print out three copies for all the poll workers to sign, first. If you say ‘Please’, we’ll likely print out another for you. Or you can take a picture of the copy we print and tape to the polling place door, and zap that back to HQ.

    If you registered right before the deadline, and you’re not in the ‘poll book’, ask the worker to check the Supplemental Pages at the back of the book.

    Unless you’re taking pictures of a candidate casting her vote, don’t take pictures in the polling place.

    In NJ, there’s a ‘no electioneering’ zone for 100 feet around the polling place. Please don’t wear campaign buttons or hats or Tshirts or ??? to the polls.

    If you’ve gotten a mail ballot, and haven’t mailed it, take it to the County Courthouse before 8 PM election day. Don’t bring it to your local polling place – that does no good at all.

    When you’re finished picking your candidates, be sure to press the ‘Cast Vote’ button at the bottom right. If you’re bringing your child (Sorry, that doesn’t get you 1 1/2 votes) into the booth, have him stand at your left so he doesn’t press it by accident.

    Please don’t hang around the polling place after you’re finished. There are laws about ‘loitering’ at the polling places…

    If you’re a new voter and listed in book as ‘ID Required, the acceptable list is “such as (but not limited)”:
    Valid and Current Photo ID:
    NJ Drivers’ License
    Job or Student ID
    Store Membership ID
    US Passport
    Military / Government ID
    MVC Non-Driver’s ID Card

    Current document with name and address such as:
    Non-photo Driver’s License
    Govenment Check
    Paycheck
    Public Assistance Card
    Rent Receipt
    Sample Ballot
    Utility Bill

    If you have not something equally convincing, we have to give you a Provisional Ballot.

    If you are voting by Provisional Ballot, DON’T DETACH THE AFFIRMATION FROM THE BALLOT ENVELOPE.

    If you need assistance casting your vote, you can ask anyone except:
    a candidate
    your employer or a representative of your employer
    an official or agent of your union (but a co-worker or fellow union member are OK)

    When you sign the poll book, we have to announce your name and address, loud enough for the board members and possible Challengers – candidates and Official Challengers (go to County Board of Elections to get Challenger’s Permit) to hear. Voters can be challenged for Age, Citizenship, Residence, Criminal Disqualifications. Voters CANNOT be challenged on grounds of Expected Manner of Voting, Race, Ethnic Origin, or Residence in a particlar ward, housing complex, or neighborhood. You can present ID if challenged, and appeal to a Judge of the Superior Court if denied.

    If a voter is deceased or moved away, write that on the Sample Ballot, and drop it back into the mail.

    OK, it’s supposed to be a nice day here Tuesday, See You At The Polls !

  10. 10.

    Jeannet

    That run through the food bowls and toys is a wicked hard test of a solid recall!

    One of the first rally obedience competitions I entered with my ball-obsessed Labrador featured a figure 8 exercise station with two soccer balls as the distraction. All through the course, his eyes were on those toys! It was not a pretty performance, but somehow we made it through with a qualifying score.

  16. 16.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @JAFD:

    along with the other Garden State

    Huh? CA votes that day and we’re the Golden State, fucking GOLDEN!

    Thanks for posting, useful info.

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    Trivia:

    The distinction has been lost over time, but it’s technically running the gantlet – that is, dashing between two lines of people who would beat one with sticks or other weapons.

    A gauntlet is a mail glove, as in “throw down the gauntlet” (issue a challenge); idiomatically the terms have become nearly interchangeable.

  20. 20.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    For anybody with a genuine appreciation of 1970s cheese, there’s this link to a song about Ali.

    m.youtube.com/watch?v=gsDHi-vJCYs

    Hasn’t been hit real hard yet – There aren’t many of us who remembered it.

  21. 21.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @NotMax:
    Ha, I did not know that. I thought a gantlet was multiple sets of railroad tracks that cross and run parallel with each other so they are taking up the same space but each train stays on the same set of tracks though the whole thing.

  24. 24.

    Hillary Rettig

    @NotMax: thx for correction! I know about gantlets, but had them switched.

    there’s a lot of stuff I used to know that has somehow gone into the ether

  25. 25.

    Big Ole Hound

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Ali and I are the same age and I followed his entire life with great respect but my draft number was so low I immediately joined the Navy figuring that was fairly safe but they sent me to Nam in
    PBR gunboats on the Mekong river. I wish I had the guts to avoid it all like he did or not.

  27. 27.

    MomSense

    That is a great video! My dog is a combo of all three of those breeds which means she steals my stuff (sometimes the clothes off my body) and holds them ransom for treats.

  32. 32.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Some of those are great! Thanks!

    @Big Ole Hound:
    You should have had the good sense to be born defective then you could have been 4F like me. A lot of my friends had that discussion about serve/Canada/jail but I never had to face that decision so I don’t know what I would have had the guts to do. One classmate filed as a CO and ended up as a medic. One friend got drafted into the USMC (long story I have told here before), one joined the Air Force, a couple went when their number was called, neither ended up in country, a couple never got the call. My number was high enough I don’t think I would have been called but I don’t remember for sure.

  33. 33.

    debbie

    I hope Gowdy is very publicly shamed.

    The Benghazi committee, which was set up in May 2014, has been operational for longer than the 9/11 Commission was. It has dragged on longer than congressional investigations into the attack on Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President Kennedy, Watergate, the Iran-contra scandal, the 1983 bombing that killed 241 American service members in Beirut and the response to Hurricane Katrina.

    The committee has spent nearly $7 million looking into an incident that had already been the subject of an independent investigation commissioned by the State Department and nine reports issued by seven other congressional committees.

  35. 35.

    Scamp Dog

    I would like to relay my Border Collie’s answers to your questions.

    1) How many of us humans could pass the same test?

    Not enough! And I have some suspicions about my own human’s abilities in this area!

    2) Is it really a test worth passing?

    Yes! How can you trust a dog like that with a herd of sheep? And when is my human going to get me a herd like I’m supposed to have?

  36. 36.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    The back story is that the guy really is his African-American! Drumpf has the receipt to prove it. That is what W meant when he talked about an “ownership society” and how Drumpf thinks he can make America grate again.

    I never bought the idea that his campaign was meant as parody or meant to help Hillary but the longer this goes on the more I cannot believe it is not one of those two things. I can hear Colbert doing the same bits just as seriously as Drumpf. If this is not a parody act then parody is dead for all times.

  38. 38.

    Baud

    There is no god

    Scientists have suggested that oral sex may be yet another possible way Zika can be transmitted from person to person, raising concerns that more cases of the virus may be transmitted through semen.

  40. 40.

    Baud

    NBC

    WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama shortened the sentences Friday of 42 people serving time for drug-related offenses, continuing a push for clemency that has ramped up in the final year of his administration.

    Roughly half of the 42 receiving commutations Friday were serving life sentences. Most are nonviolent offenders, although a few were also charged with firearms violations. The White House said many of them would have already finished their sentences if they had been sentenced under current, less onerous sentencing guidelines.

  42. 42.

    PurpleGirl

    Two draft/lottery stories I know of: 1) an ex-boyfriend declared as a CO, he worked as a medic. 2) friend who was born in Italy and had become a US citizen, his lottery number was so high he’d never be called. However, Italian felt they still had claims on him and drafted him. Took a bit of paperwork but he got out of it.

  43. 43.

    StringOnAStick

    I went to watch a friend’s border Collie at an agility meet; when I walked in a mini dachshund was running course and obviously having a blast.

    I’ve been recovering from knee surgery, and just as I came out of surgery my FIL passed, so my husband had to go help. I’ve been dependent on friends, and wow do you find out who you can count on in these situations. My husband got home yesterday, and today I can hobble about without crutches finally; both are a huge relief. I can actually go look at my veggie garden today for the first time in 10 days!

  44. 44.

    satby

    Good morning, morning crew!
    Last weekend for all three of us to be together, the girls graduation is tomorrow night and the Qunoot heads for a program wrap up in DC before heading for home at 0:dark hundred Wednesday morning. So we’re thinking of going to the 57th Street Art Fair today.

  46. 46.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: No, that is proof that these is a God and that he only approves of procreative sex.

  48. 48.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: Ufta — you made me work to go find that on my own. What horse shit Gonzales spreads. Trump is not questioning the fairness of the judge in the only place that matters — namely by motion in that case. No, he is smearing all ‘Mexicans’ as unamerican and biased. The stab- the-back theory. Maybe Gonzo is Trump’s “Mex?”

    Button pushed! I hate Gonzales. I hate him from his days killing people in Texas before most of you knew his oozing brand of mushy evil existed. So I’m not gonna link it either.

  51. 51.

    Immanentize

    PS. Good morning all! I am looking forward to a nice Saturday of gardening and walking in the Middlesex Fells (with a Costco run in there somewhere).

    PS. Have the scientists determined whether Zika can be spread by Middlesex?

  52. 52.

    Immanentize

    @satby: Have fun these last few days. It must be a bittersweet happening. Things are going to get real quiet Chez-Satby.

  53. 53.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    It’s almost like Mother Nature wants us to stop making more humans. She’s probably not wrong. We are a pretty destructive bunch.

  54. 54.

    Schlemazel Khan

    HERE is the story on Drumpf’s African-American, it is worse than I imagined. The clown is running as a Republican in CD1. He bills himself as “an 1856 Republican” which, particularly for a black man, shows a level of historical ignorance that would cause normal people to go blind. Apparently he refers to the Drumpfenstein monster as “Uncle Donald”

    Seriously, parody is dead, dead, dead

  57. 57.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @satby: Good morning to you! I still have some artwork from the 57th Street Art Fair, the first “real” art purchases I ever made, back when the world was young.

    I hope you and the girls have a wonderful time together and a good send-off. Here’s to lifelong friendships!

    And, thanks for the wonderful products. The doggie soap worked great. Little floofy dog loved the bath massage and was transformed back from ecru to white…And smells good to boot!

  61. 61.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Iowa Old Lady: New Mexico’s primary is Tuesday too. Have been working on GOTV for Hillary. We’re too small in numbers for major pollsters to bother, so the outcome will be interesting. Lots of Bernie signs in the Santa Fe area, but pace Noonan, bumper stickers and yard signs don’t vote.

    Who are the dem candidates in Iowa? Anyone with a credible chance to beat that snake in the Grassley?

  64. 64.

    Emma

    @Schlemazel Khan: According to the grammarist both versions are correct when it comes to the obstacle course meaning but not to the challenge meaning. One of those meaning shifts that make English such a fascinating language.

  65. 65.

    Glidwrith

    @Schlemazel Khan: I had wondered if the Deadbeat was pulling an elaborate scam, but once I learned the back story on Paul Manafort, I decided he was absolutely serious.

  66. 66.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Emma: Correction: One of those meaning shifts that make English such a fvcked up language to learn.

  67. 67.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    Ugh – looks like the Ali funeral is Wednesday and my plate is full for chunks of the morning and early afternoon, so it’s unlikely I’ll be able to attend if it’s in those slots. If anybody is coming to it and wants to do an impromptu lunch meetup, hit me up, though.

    Half of the office parks in the Ali Center garage – I park across the street. Those lots will be full to busting, unless I get there before 7:30 am.

  70. 70.

    Elizabelle

    @satby: That’s gone so fast, hasn’t it?

    Have fun with the girls, and happy jet trails to them as they head back to their families. They had a good stay.

  71. 71.

    Emma

    @OzarkHillbilly: I suppose so. My brain seems geared to language, so I found English fairly simple to learn, but it is at best a maze. My father says English was invented by a Saxon, a Welshman and an Frenchman on a three day bender.

  72. 72.

    Elizabelle

    @Iowa Old Lady: And may that Democrat prevail against Grassley.

    I’d love to see that old coot go down for his intransigence against Merrick Garland, among other bad actions.

  73. 73.

    MomSense

    In ObamaGreat news, Michelle delivered a tour de force commencement address at City College in New York yesterday. Her Instagram feed was an inspiration as she shared photos and stories of some of the graduates.
    And POTUS commuted 42 more sentences bringing the total up to almost 350. America is a nation of second chances.

  74. 74.

    Elmo

    @debbie: Nitpick: that wasn’t a German Shepherd. It was a Belgian Malinois, which is also a herding breed but not called a “shepherd.”

    Think of them as compact German Shepherds on speed.

  75. 75.

    RSA

    How many of us humans could pass the same test?

    If the test involves walking by a hotdog without stopping, no problem.

    If it’s getting through the workday without surfing the Web or visiting FB/Twitter/BJ/etc., then I think most of us are golden retrievers.

  78. 78.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Emma:

    My father says English was invented by a Saxon, a Welshman and an Frenchman on a three day bender.

    Heh. I grew up with the language but learned the rudiments of Spanish in Mexico. That was fairly easy. My Mallorca born wife knows 4 languages and says English was by far the worst for her (grew up speaking Spanish and Mallorcan, a dialect of Catalan). She is hilarious when she gets tired. Starts mixing languages and grammars when she talks.

  80. 80.

    debbie

    @Elmo:

    Apologies. The only Shepard I’ve ever known was the one my brother rescued after being tossed out of a car in front of him on I-71. I didn’t even know there were different sizes!

  81. 81.

    Ken

    @JAFD: These all seem reasonable rules. So I’ll only offer 8-5 that some candidate uses the word “rigged” after the results come in.

  82. 82.

    Emma

    @OzarkHillbilly: I do too. You would think it would be Spanish/English, but no. It’s a random mishmash of all the languages I know something about, from minimal (Welsh) to Italian (fairly fluent). Gets me a lot of “translate, please!”

  86. 86.

    scav

    Via Obama’s Ali statement, we can tie the two threads together:

    “I am America,” he once declared. “I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me – black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own. Get used to me.”

    The treats on the side may actually be the greatest destination.

  87. 87.

    Iowa Old Lady

    I scan GOS every day and today there are fewer diaries about the D primary and more about the GE. Maybe we’ve reached a turning point, possibly because Clinton’s speech pushed us there.

  88. 88.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I love that video! And let’s face it, “Yakity Sax” always makes anything just that much funnier, right?

  94. 94.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    Awesome fantasy about a Hillary-Trump debate.

    m.youtube.com/watch?v=AS8X2Qp_6aA

    She should channel Walter. Actually, she should close every stump speech with the attack line

    “Shut the fuck up, Donnie…”

  96. 96.

    raven

    Prince on meeting Ali for the first time:

    He could have said, ‘Mow the lawn,’ and I would have been down with it. Muhammad’s my hero. He has been since I was a child. As you can see, he’s such an inspiration to many people.”

  98. 98.

    Carolyn Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly: @Emma:

    My father says English was invented by a Saxon, a Welshman and an Frenchman on a three day bender.

    Don’t forget about the Viking influence (bit.ly/1Pug7mh). I’ve been watching a lot of mystery shows on MHZ. In the ones that are Swedish, Norwegian, or Danish, I can recognize words from time to time, especially very basic words.

  99. 99.

    Scamp Dog

    @Emma: The line I like is that English is the result of Norman knights trying to pick up Saxon girls.

  100. 100.

    rikyrah

    @Schlemazel Khan:

    HERE is the story on Drumpf’s African-American, it is worse than I imagined. The clown is running as a Republican in CD1. He bills himself as “an 1856 Republican” which, particularly for a black man, shows a level of historical ignorance that would cause normal people to go blind.

    This is why Harriet Tubman and her gun are still needed

  102. 102.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @rikyrah: Thing is, why waste the bullet? Obviously the brother is filled with so much self-loathing that it would be a mercy to shoot him.

  104. 104.

    dmsilev

    @Scamp Dog: My favorite line about our language is this one: “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”

  105. 105.

    Amir Khalid

    @Carolyn Kay:
    Well, those are all Germanic languages like English, so some of the words you recognise might reflect a common origin rather than later influence. Have you heard Frisian? It’s the descendant of the language of the Saxons who went to England, and one can sometimes catch strong echoes of English in it.

  109. 109.

    germy shoemangler

    In fifty years English will be 75% emojis.

    20% will be YouTube links.

    5% will be balloon-juice pup and kitteh pics.

  110. 110.

    PurpleGirl

    @raven: Yep. His parents went to Italian Consulate with him and there was some paperwork to fill out and then he wasn’t drafted. Apparently is was not very common but happened enough that the Consulate had a routine for it.

  112. 112.

    D58826

    Bernie just can’t give up

    . He has no plan to work with Capitol Hill obstructionists
    As far as the transcript goes, Sanders seemed brusquely realistic about his inability to affect legislative gridlock.
    “What are the specifics about how I, personally, all by myself, do what nobody in American history has done?” he said. “And I’m being criticized? Why don’t you do it? Why doesn’t the editor of Rolling Stone do it? … With all due respect, that’s an absurd question.”
    Instead of acting on the pipe dream of reforming the system from within, Sanders said he plans to bring his grassroots strategy with him into the Oval Office.
    “The strategy – which is unprecedented, and this is where we’re talking about thinking outside the box – is to have a president who actually, vigorously goes around the country and rallies the American people, who are in favor of this idea,” he explained. “And [the president] rallies the American people and makes it clear that people in the Republican Party – or Democratic Party – who are not sympathetic will pay a political price

    In 2012 47% of the voters made it clear they liked Romney’s ideas. How does he plan to change those minds. In 2016 58% of the voters in the democratic primary like Hillary’s idea better. And for the past 8 years Obama has just sat about the WH playing catch with the dogs. And if the democratic party doesn’t see his light then he will turn his revolution loose on them as well.
    msn.com/en-us/news/politics/he-feels-bad-for-hillary-5-things-we-learned-from-bernie-sanders%e2%80%9…

  113. 113.

    Shell

    Have you heard Frisian? It’s the descendant of the language of the Saxons who went to England

    That old PBS documentary, The Story Of English, (you ca n find it on Youtube) is still one of the best.

  114. 114.

    Stella

    @Hillary Rettig: when I lived in Germany, my dog went everywhere. She wasn’t able to go into grocery stores, butcher shops, pastry shops and the like, but a place to tie your dog is always provided outside in those cases. She certainly went to hotels, restaurants, and department stores in multiple countries. The first question the waitress asks in a German restaurant is whether your dog would like a bowl of water. Then they come back with the water and take your drink order. My late dog, an elderly German shorthair, was treated like a movie star in hunting-mad rural Bavaria which she accepted as her due birthright.

    In general, though, while European dogs are very well behaved in public, there’s no test that I know of. It’s just expected behavior.

  117. 117.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    Am rewatching “In The Heat of The Night” – it suffers a few fatal flaws:

    1. In the real world, Tibbs may not have survived the beating incident to the arrest.

    2. In the real world, they wouldn’t have cared about his badge or job, and proceeded to a trial and execution that week.

    3. The marketing tries to make Tibbs the central role, but that is wrong. The far more interesting character is Gillespie; he is the one who has to overcome a lifetime of cultural conditioning to complete a task.

  119. 119.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    How many of those plates had people food on them? And the dogs didn’t even have to go to the kitchen tabletop!

  120. 120.

    Amir Khalid

    @D58826:
    Bernie still believes he, not Hillary, should be the one to take on Trump. It’s like an American football team losing a conference championship game and then claiming that it has a better chance of winning the Super Bowl than the conference champion, so it should get to play in the Super Bowl. Special pleading with a vengeance.

  121. 121.

    moonbat

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: I always thought of it as the most uncomfortable buddy movie of all time. Yes, Gillespie’s journey is a lot longer than Tibbs’, but that is part of the film’s charm. It’s like a nudge to everyone raised that way, “Hey, buddy, we’re moving on. If you have any integrity at all, you’ll come along.”

  122. 122.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @D58826: “The strategy – which is unprecedented,

    That may be the saddest and funniest part of the whole quote, and frustrating, because so many people seem to be buying into it.

    I remember in the run up to the 2010 midterms Obama had huge rallies in WI and OH, thousands of cheering supporters cramming into stadiums. Then the elections came and we got Walker, Johnson, Kasich and Portman.

  123. 123.

    Brachiator

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: It’s a movie, not the real world. I like the description of the other poster that it is an uncomfortable buddy film. And to focus primarily on Gillespie’s struggle would make the movie into another lame movie about white people using black people for their own personal moral enlightenment.

  125. 125.

    CaseyL

    @Stella: When I was in Prague about 10 years ago, I saw perfectly behaved dogs walking with their humans – often with no leash – and noticed the boy dogs weren’t neutered. Still well behaved. It amazed me. How do they raise dogs in Europe, to turn out such model canine citizens?

  126. 126.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    Arguing with a high school classmate over the Ali draft dodger thing.

    *sigh*

  132. 132.

    Percysowner

    @Schlemazel Khan: I’m female so I didn’t have to do anything to avoid serving. My brother-in-law joined the National Guard. He was lucky because he wasn’t sent to Kent State during the riots. He was sent to some other campus where things were calm. HIS brother got drafted. He rented a coffin and got six friends together. His mother dressed in black with a big black veil. They arrived at the draft board with the coffin being carried by the friends and his mother “crying” profusely. They set the coffin down, he pushed the lid open and declared “I hereby give my body to the U.S. Army. For some reason they decided that he would probably be more trouble than he would be worth and they rejected him for the draft.

  134. 134.

    PhoenixRising

    @Elmo: Or, as we like to call my sister’s Malnois: “Jesus! Really!…come back here, who’d a thunk she could climb that…”

    An intelligent and athletic animal with this dog’s impulse control is a curse.

  135. 135.

    PhoenixRising

    @Carolinus: Jersey. Is where they’re trying to drive up Sanders’ numbers with another (I’m sure specious because track record) claim that their candidate lost because FRAUD and THEFT and VOTER SUPPRESSION.

    Jersey is chock full o Puerto Ricans. California and NM, not so much.

  137. 137.

    Tehanu

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Oh, come on. Imagine my surprise when after four years of French I picked up a copy of Elle, the French version, and could not understand one single sentence because the actual way they speak is so slang-filled and coded that it resembles the formal language about as closely as Swahili. Sure, English spelling is mostly historical — not that most people seem to care any more whether they spell anything right — but the grammar is far simpler than any other Indo-European language.

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