Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Second rate reporter says what?

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Let’s finish the job.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

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

This fight is for everything.

Let there be snark.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

I was promised a recession.

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

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Late Night Open Thread: Pre-Brexit, I’m Guessing

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  1. 1.

    Mnemosyne

    We’ve started watching Christmas movies and will probably put the tree up tomorrow. We started with Christmas in Connecticut and now we’re watching a old George Raft picture called Christmas Eve.

  3. 3.

    CaseyL

    @Mnemosyne: A George Raft movie in which he doesn’t play a gangster? Sounds interesting!

    It has just occurred to me that Jon Stewart looks a little like George Raft.

  5. 5.

    Steeplejack

    I’m about to eat the last of the T-day food I brought home from my brother’s: pork roast, dressing, maybe a little piece of jalapeño cornbread. It wasn’t a traditional meal, but there were only two of us and it was fine. The roast was particularly good: he did it semi-Latin style, and there was some sort of pepper-tomatillo sauce involved.

    Might have to go back over there tomorrow. Kid number two is coming home from being with relatives, but Bro’ Man is still on call all day and might have to go to the clinic on short notice. I can handle some light babysitting for a chance at more roast.

  6. 6.

    Jeffro

    For once (at least in the past few years) we managed to get the tree up and decorated, and might even get holiday cards printed sometime before the new year. I chalk it up to focus rather than having any actual additional time on the schedule.

  7. 7.

    Ajabu

    Thanksgiving Day was great. Friends & family However… shortly after dinner, our son & his wife bailed and left us with a 4. 6 & 7 year old. Till tomorrow!! My wife was fine with having “the grands” around but personally, I can do about 2-3 hours of nice to have them here and then I decide I’m too fucking old to be a grandparent.
    And. of course, Grandma is all “why don’t you get off that computer and help with the kids?”
    The answer, of course, is “I already raised their daddy. No more.” Then she shames me into it.
    It’s over tomorrow. Till next time. Humbug…

  8. 8.

    Schlemazel

    At a bar enjoying Davina and the Vagabonds. Check them out on YouTube. A good time! blues/new orleans jazz group.

    With the kids gone we don’t go crazy with decorations any more.

  9. 9.

    Schlemazel

    @Ajabu:
    I love our grandkids dearly. I love to send them home a lot too! There is a very good reason parenting is thrust on the young.

  10. 10.

    Villago Delenda Est

    You know one of those Weedon ads from before the election? The one with the Brit pleading with Americans to make the Brits look better about Brexit by electing the shitgibbon?

  12. 12.

    Beautifulplummage

    If Dance Around In Your Bones is around I’d like to know the reference for your name.

    In September I listened to my tapes of local Seattle bands from the ’80s during a cross-state drive and re-fell in love with Varient Cause, and one of their songs is titled “Dance Around In Your Bones”.

  13. 13.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mnemosyne: I’m going to try to catch up on movies I haven’t seen, first up “Chinatown”.

    ETA: I think the Noir Los Angeles thing I’ve been reading has had an effect on me.

  14. 14.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Vaguely Walter-related message:

    Remember the bartender in Atlanta who was so touched by Walter’s story back in August that he donated to the vet-bills-and-moving-to-Debit’s-forever-home fund? And remember that when I shared the story, and mentioned that he and his fiancée were expecting their first child, our wonderful MomSense knit a beautiful sweater for the baby?

    Well, just got news tonight that Emily is in labor and young Austin Henry Jones should be here very soon. I hope by the time he’s old enough to pay attention we will have managed to give him a world he deserves.

    Just wanted to bring that story full circle.

  15. 15.

    CaseyL

    I’m back home after spending Thanksgiving with friends in Ocean Shores. We ate the traditional meal yesterday, and a fine meal it was. Very traditional – turkey, ham, potatoes, root veg casserole, two kinds of stuffing, and five different pies plus my cherry crisp for dessert. There were dishes we didn’t even get around to cooking, much less eating.

    I brought home some turkey for the kitties, but they’re not usually interested in human food and they turned up their noses. My two previous cats, Jazz and Ariel, would mug me at the door if I had turkey. They were nuts for the stuff. Not Jeannie and Oscar. Fine: leaves more for me!

  16. 16.

    Mnemosyne

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Don’t forget to add “LA Confidential” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” to the list. And if you want a 1950s classic, watch the Joan Crawford version of “Mildred Pierce,” where she lives in the horrible, soul-sucking hellhole of … Glendale.

  17. 17.

    Pete Downunder

    As an ex-pat yank living in the land downunder I do Thanksgiving each year and introduce the Aussies to the wonders of pumpkin pie. That said when it’s 29 C (about 84 F) and cricket is on the TV and summer is coming on I just can’t do Xmas. Fortunately Mrs Downunder (a native here) feels the same way. It is weird hearing Christmas carols about snow when we’re sweltering in the heat. Our Christmas song is by Aussie Tim Minchin

  19. 19.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mnemosyne: They’ve mentioned “Mildred Pierce”, I’d never heard of it. I’ve seen “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, I think I have it on DVD. I’ll have to check to see if “LA Confidential” is on Amazon Prime for free(Chinatown is), it just came up on the page I was just reading(a house near Vista Hermosa park was in the movie). Funny thing about Roger Rabbit, though the movie was LA based and much was filmed here, the Ink Factory scenes were filmed in London a stone’s throw from the hotel we stayed at on our trip to London(Kensington Hilton, right by Shepard’s Bush).

  21. 21.

    Dadadadadadada

    I’ll lead with the good news: Scalia is still dead.
    The bad news: now, so is Florence Henderson.
    What’s the longest we’ve gone this year without a beloved celebrity dying? Eight days?

  22. 22.

    Suzanne

    I did some purging around here today, and I got out the hacksaw and trimmed up the enormous juniper bushes in my front yard. Got all the low branches out of there, and it no longer looks haunted. We have a split-entry house, so the lower floor is about three feet below grade, and the bushes were blocking the front bedroom window. Now you can see the window and the path to the front door is clear. However, I chopped so much off that it will take about three weeks of trash pickup to dispose of it all.

    Also put up my new Xmas lights in the front of my house. I got two of those projection lights, because I hate climbing on the ladder to put them on the roof gables, and Mr. Suzanne hates inflatables.

    I hate clutter. Hate it so bad.

  27. 27.

    Bumper

    @CaseyL: Heh. Ocean Shores is right across the harbor from me. We mostly stayed in due to the weather but I did take my youngest to see Fantastic Beasts (we loved it!). Tomorrow is Moana. Oldest spending every day working on college and scholarship applications. He’ll be glad to get back to school on Monday I think.

  29. 29.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @NotMax: The interiors for Sunset Boulevard were filmed in the old Getty Mansion on Wilshire and Crenshaw before they razed it.

  31. 31.

    Yoda dog

    @Major Major Major Major: great pics!

    Had some winger family come in today unexpectedly. My family are the types that can’t just keep it to themselves; they all have fucking bumper stickers. Never bothered me before but now I can’t fucking stand to have a shitgibbon sticker on a car in my driveway. Wouldn’t blame our neighbors for wondering if we’re closet fascists.

    I let it go and we had a nice time anyway. They complimented my baby and never mentioned trump. I told them I loved them.. (sigh) there’s good in these people, I just can’t understand what the fuck..

  32. 32.

    hitchhiker

    Wait! I just realized that since we downsized last year and now live in an awesome little apt there aren’t any gutter lights to hang! There’s no goddamn gutter, even.

    Holy crap, this is fantastic.

  35. 35.

    seaboogie

    @Pete Downunder: My colleague was born and raised in Australia until a teen, and is most adamantly NOT a Christmas person. In discussion today, we came to the same conclusion that you have: a winter solstice festival based on pagan seasonal rituals and co-opted by Xtianity doesn’t really apply in the summer season of the southern hemisphere.

  37. 37.

    Suzanne

    @Bumper: We took the Spawns to see Moana last night. They loved it, as did Mr. Suzanne, and I tolerated it well enough that I’m sure I will endure the first forty or so repeated viewings with fairly good cheer.

  38. 38.

    Librarian

    I can’t believe nobody has mentioned Kiss Me Deadly, from 1955, with Ralph Meeker as Mike Hammer.

  42. 42.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Steeplejack (tablet): Probably 30’s to 60’s, LA with a Bunker Hill. Glad you like the S2, it’s really a nice tablet. I spent last night getting my Note Edge up to current updates, since it’s rooted it wasn’t trivial. It’s all good now, though the SIM card is having problems and I may need to get a new one(SIM card, not phone).

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    for LA noir, I’d vote for The Grifters, Anjelica Huston’s shoulda-been Best Actress Oscar

  46. 46.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    I finally made the husband move the chickens from the mudroom to their coop. Of course, we had a mini-squall today, and chilly temperature. A foot of snow, about 500′ elevation above us. But they are all snug in the coop, huddled under their heat lamp, and seem to be settling in.

    He put a little swing in there in case they want to perch and rock back and forth. He keeps checking on them every hour, and I’m waiting for the “it’s too cold, they need to come back inside” move. I swear, we just need to open a home for wayward animals.

  48. 48.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @efgoldman: I probably won’t go on a movie watching marathon, I really don’t like movies very much. What I’ve liked about the Noir LA site is the pics going back to the 1850’s and forward to see the evolution of the city. Remember up until maybe the 1920’s LA was a pretty small town.

  55. 55.

    Mnemosyne

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    One more you might find interesting: Gun Crazy (1950), which has a very famous bank robbery scene that was shot in Montrose. I think the bank is now a ladies’ clothing store that’s across the street from the new(-ish) Starbucks. Plus it’s a great movie..

  58. 58.

    Mnemosyne

    @efgoldman:

    Oh, please, like A Christmas Carol isn’t full of molasses.

    And all right-thinking people know that the best version of that story is A Muppet Christmas Carol with Michael Caine.

  59. 59.

    Suzanne

    @efgoldman: My favorite genre of movies are spy/mystery/thriller/action. There aren’t a lot of those with a Christmas focus.

    I also really dislike most romantic comedies, but “While You Were Sleeping” is a cute holiday movie. I have heard that “Love Actually” is also cute, but I’ve never seen it. “L.A. Story” and “Four Weddings and a Funeral” are my favorite romantic comedies, but most of them are just dreadful.

  60. 60.

    Yoda Dog

    @seaboogie: I needed to read that, thank you.

    Its so tough right now. We just watched hate and arrogance and anger…win. Its too absurd. Im not going to pick a fight with my family, but the fires in my mind, I fear, will never extinguish. I’m trying. I have 2 babies, so I don’t have any choice but to be calm and push on, I suppose.

    ETA: I don’t mean to be such a bummer… Patrick Stewart Christmas Carol FTW.

  64. 64.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mnemosyne: I’ve seen the scene that was filmed in Montrose, you’re right the bank in the scene is Faye’s Department store at Honolulu and Ocean View.

  66. 66.

    Yoda Dog

    Grandpa used to love watching Christmas Vacation every single year when we came to visit. We have continued the annual tradition here.

  68. 68.

    normal liberal

    @Suzanne:
    Love Actually is from the same mindset as Four Weddings, with some of the same cast, I.e. Hugh Grant. Also with Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, whatsit, the Mr. Darcy guy, and lots of others.

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne

    @normal liberal:

    My spouse can’t stand Love Actually. I suspect it’s because Alan Rickman makes Emma Thompson cry, and G would leave me in a hot minute if Thompson showed up on our doorstep and asked him to run away with her.

  74. 74.

    Miss Bianca

    snow blowing, lots of wind, and I have to go see (and pssibly ride) a strange horse this morning, who’s likely to be squirrely not just from the weather but from not having been worked the past couple years. Yee-haw! Then I may go in to the office to deal with Amazon customers, or I may just say “screw it” and head home to tend the woodstove.

  75. 75.

    Miss Bianca

    @efgoldman: Muppet Christmas Carol. Not the most faithful, but my favorite. And Michael Caine holds his ground surprisingly well against Gonzo, Rizzo, Kermit, and Miss Piggy.

  77. 77.

    JetKestrel

    A Muppet Christmas Carol is a pretty good movie all around, but when it comes to Christmas watching material, our household sticks with the X-Files episode “The Ghosts who Stole Christmas.”

    Due South‘s “Good for the Soul” Christmas episode from the third season is pretty good, too.

  79. 79.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @efgoldman: The first one takes place on Christmas Eve. It’s a pretty major part of the plot, since the whole thing happens concurrently with an office Christmas party. That’s good enough to qualify it as a Christmas movie for me. Plus, Alan Rickman. Fuck 2016. (The second one also takes place on Christmas Eve.)

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