Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

Let there be snark.

Not all heroes wear capes.

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

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

When I was faster i was always behind.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

In my day, never was longer.

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

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

“woke” is the new caravan.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Evening Open Thread: Embrace the New Dystopia…

Monday Evening Open Thread: Embrace the New Dystopia…

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… Or at least crack jokes about it. Humor isn’t a cure, but it’s a very useful palliative while we’re working on the cure.

Apart from jests, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

74Comments

  1. 1.

    hedgehog the occasional commenter

    (looks around) Erm. Escapism tonight–filling out the bracket. Girding myself for tomorrow to call the congresscritters and scream bloody murder, as my mom would say, about Republicare.

  4. 4.

    Robin G.

    I have searched MY ENTIRE STORE for this sign. No luck. We’ve settled for “Fiction Everyone Should Read”

  11. 11.

    Mom Says I'm Handsome

    Fox News just reported that the cleanup of the Dakota Access Pipeline protestor camps could exceed one MILLION dollars.

    Christ, the fucking balls on these people.

  14. 14.

    dmsilev

    A convention center filled with ~12,000 physicists is a deeply disturbing place. I speak from both long experience and first-hand observations.

  20. 20.

    dm

    I can’t find it now, but I’m sure the Bernie-Deranged here will be “amused” by the irony of Wisconsin 17-year-olds voting by mistake in the Wisconsin primary (thinking it was okay to vote in the primary if they’ be 18 by election day).

    …Only about 60 of them, though.

  22. 22.

    Roger Moore

    I guess when the Republicans said that nobody was going to lose their insurance, they were saying that poor people are a bunch of nobodies.

  23. 23.

    Anne Laurie

    @raven:

    No ammo?

    “It’s Canada. Hosers are probably planning on sharing their emergency rations, after the Trumpocalypse!”

  25. 25.

    dmsilev

    @Baud: Old joke…

    Let me put it this way: This conference moves around from year to year; a while back, it was in Vegas one year. After it was over, we were politely but firmly told never to come back.

    (visualize casinos filled with physicists doing odds calculations on the backs of cocktail napkins and then loudly telling everyone in earshot just how bad the odds were…)

  30. 30.

    Schlemazel

    @Roger Moore:
    Do most people know that Mormons keep a years food supply on hand? Probably a remnent of being chased out of every town East of SLC in the 1800’s

  34. 34.

    sukabi

    @Roger Moore: that’s been the theme of ALL the legislation they’ve pushed for decades…except now they’ve increased the pool of “nobody’s” to include everybody they don’t like…which is pretty much anybody that can’t buy them.

  36. 36.

    Это курам на смех

    Current Canadian dollar is worth only 0.74 of a U.S. dollar, which partially explains that price. The prepper market for massive quantities of storable food is a lot bigger than the traditional Mormon practice of keeping a year of food on hand. The LDS folks I knew when I lived in Utah kept it all in the form of normal canned goods that they rotated into their daily meals. But if you really want to be ready for the post-apocalyptic hellscape, freeze-dried is the only way to go.

  37. 37.

    tobie

    @Schlemazel: I would think that if you’re anticipating flight, you wouldn’t want to weigh yourself down with a year’s worth of canned food. Seems like a weird way to prepare for being on the move.

  38. 38.

    JaneE

    Here in California, the survival food shows up in the online special mailer. Some packages are smaller, and would probably make a good family earthquake kit (they are supposed to keep for 20 years, unopened). Freeze dried kernel corn is just a slightly healthier candy.

  39. 39.

    PaulW

    Huge shoutout to Major Major Major Major.

    He majorly helped with a major short story that will get submitted tonight to a major online publication.

  42. 42.

    Major Major Major Major

    @PaulW: Aw shucks, glad it was helpful! Love to read what you ended up with.

    @dm: I would’ve sworn that this was okay. I’m almost certain I heard during the primary period that it was okay. Note that this of course does not make it okay. Good to know.

  44. 44.

    Roger Moore

    @Это курам на смех:

    But if you really want to be ready for the post-apocalyptic hellscape, freeze-dried is the only way to go.

    Actually, I’d think the “buy canned stuff and rotate it through your daily meals” would be a better plan. Freeze dried stuff is great if you just want to prepare and forget, but that’s not a serious way of being prepared. Cycling your emergency supplies through your daily means has three big advantages: A) it keeps your stock reasonably fresh B) it guarantees you know how to cook your emergency food when the time comes and C) it means you have food you know you’re happy to eat.

    FWIW, my understanding is that the Mormon requirement to have food for the event of an emergency isn’t just about natural disasters. It’s about being ready for all the kinds of things like can throw at you, like a medical problem or job loss. It’s more or less about the kind of personal responsibility conservatives are always talking about. Mormons are expected to help each other when one of them needs it, but part of making that work is requiring everyone to do their best not to require help. Requiring everyone to prepare for disaster- natural or financial- is part of that.

  45. 45.

    Leto

    When my wife and I were in London last weekend, the Waterstone’s bookstore had the entire front street display filled with Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here”. My wife and I thought it was a warning that came too late.

  46. 46.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Open Thread? Excuse me for verbosity, but I feel the need to share.

    Twenty-four years ago on this day, the “Storm of the Century” was battering Atlanta — indeed, was battering most of the South, and just about all of the Eastern Atlantic Seaboard.

    At the time, March 1993, I lived in an apartment in Doraville, a northern suburb of Atlanta. The power went out early Saturday, the 13th; alas, because my apartment complex was proudly advertised as “All-Electric,” a power outage meant no lights, no heat, and no way to cook or microwave-heat anything, or even boil a kettle to make a hot chocolate or cuppa tea.

    No electric power also, of course, meant no radio or television, no record or CD or tape player for entertainment. NOTHING.

    Even reading was a non-starter. Heavy, wet snow stuck to all the windows and outside screens and blocked all ambient sources of light — no possibility of reading, or even playing solitaire, or working a jigsaw or crossword puzzle, or stitching a needlepoint canvas. Nothing. (And of course, in 1993, there was no such thing as an iPad or iPhone for those digital entertainments we call Apps.)

    The roads were ice-slicked and almost impassable with snow, so I didn’t even dare try to drive the mile or so to my dad’s house, although (thank you, land-lines) we were able to stay in touch by phone.

    Anyhow, there was basically nothing to do but smoke cigarettes. Which I did, out of sheer boredom, both hands, all day on the Saturday. Hungry, thirsty, starved for entertainment and stimulation, I lit one cigarette after another until I got tired. Then I’d take a nap. Then I’d wake up and start smoking again.

    About 11:00 a.m. on the Sunday, I started to feel a bit panicky and short of breath. At first, I thought I was just weak with hunger. Then, because I had recently read about “panic attacks,” I figured I might be having one of those. But at some point, after a few hours, I twigged to the fact that I was quite likely having a full-blown heart attack (yes, it turned out I was), needed to get to an ER, stat, and called 911 for an ambulance (hoping desperately that they could traverse the icy streets).

    In the short time between my placing the call and the arrival of the paramedics, I became a FORMER SMOKER. Haven’t had nor even been tempted to have a cigarette since that moment.

    So, although I have had additional coronary issues since then, I remember the weekend of March 13-14, 1993 as a pivotal time in my life, not least because i said goodbye forever to my addiction to nicotine. I observe this date every year, the way alcoholics note their anniversaries of sobriety, or long-term lovers remember their first dates.

    Next year at this time, when I will celebrate a quarter-century of non-smoking, I’ll share a couple of funny stories on FB and BJ about the existential challenges to quitting. In the meantime, whatever terrible choices I’ve made in my life — and they are legion — I do believe this was the single most important to my long-term well-being.

    If you’re an ex-smoker, congratulations. I know what that took. If you’re a current smoker, I promise I won’t annoy you about it, because I know the challenges in quitting. And if you never started smoking in the first place, I admire you lavishly and would like to borrow some self-discipline from you.

    *******

    (Sorry for the length and detail. I’ve never really learned to “write short.”)

  47. 47.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Wow, I know it was long, but I’m not seeing what my forbidden word was. Nevertheless, I am in moderation. Grateful if some compassionate FP can spring me.

  48. 48.

    beth

    @Raoul: I let them know that since Obamacare eliminated lifetime and annual limits on coverage for cancer treatment my family will never experience the joys of bankruptcy court which I know the President very much enjoys. Sad! I hope they get nothing but comments like ours.

  49. 49.

    Roger Moore

    @JaneE:

    Some packages are smaller, and would probably make a good family earthquake kit (they are supposed to keep for 20 years, unopened).

    I got one of those smaller kits specifically as an earthquake kit. I also have a couple of 5 gallon water containers so I have a halfway decent supply of water.

  50. 50.

    Pogonip

    @Roger Moore: It allows the 4 people 1300 calories/day each. That’s going to be a looong year. If I were anticipating a year-long disaster, I’d shop elsewhere.

  51. 51.

    ThresherK

    @SiubhanDuinne: At one of my workplaces a client had a devil of a time receiving emails with the subject line “New Milford Zoning Meeting”, as they went straight to the cloud-based spam dumpster.

    I’ll let you figure that out.

  55. 55.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @ThresherK:

    Haven’t the patience. I’m getting a bit pissed off. My totally innocuous (although long! I admit!) comment has now been in mod for about 40 minutes. That seems excessive.

  63. 63.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @XTPD:

    Yeah, no. Naming no names, but there are a few regular commenters here who outdo me regularly in terms of comment lengths.

    Steep @ 61 nailed it.

  64. 64.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Eh, front-pagers pop in and out like commenters. I don’t think there’s one “on call” all the time. That goes beyond “full-service blog” to “concierge blog.” Which we ain’t.

  65. 65.

    Raoul

    @beth: One can hope. The framing is of course ham-handedly over the top with the Obamacare Victims bullshit.

  67. 67.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack (tablet):

    Oh, I know. I don’t expect any of them to be hovering around waiting for our plaintive bleats.

    Well, except Adam. I do expect him to monitor the comments 24/7.

  68. 68.

    Aleta

    My comment never arrived over on John’s post. No links, no bad words that I can figure. Maybe 4 blocks of quotes. No ‘in moderation’ message. I got a comment number but it never showed.

  69. 69.

    Jay Noble

    Canned food rotating has one very big advantage vs freze dried. Freeze dried is well . . . dried. Most canned food comes with enough liquid to at least cook it or to skim off to cook other things. Potable water is the one thing that got fast in any disaster.

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Aleta:

    Thank you. In all truth, it’s probably not very interesting to anyone but me — but because it was a hinge moment in my life, I like to share :-)

  71. 71.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Aleta:

    Maybe 4 blocks of quotes.

    Did they all include links? I’m not sure since the upgrades, but I think there may still be a limit on number of links per comment. Not sure, though; you’d have to ask Alain.

  72. 72.

    J R in WV

    @dm:

    There are a lot of places where you can vote in a primary at 17, if you will be 18 for the general election. Thinking Betty Cracker’s spawn was able to vote at 17 in Fla. under those conditions. IIRC, of course. Which is increasingly less likely as I age… dadburn it.

    Regarding the physicists at Las Vegas, I worked with an EE from Texas El Paso U, who went into software. He worked his way through school by going to Las Vegas and counting cards at the Blackjack tables. He also got banned eventually. But since he wasn’t doing it for fun, he didn’t care about that.

  73. 73.

    J R in WV

    @XTPD:

    Naw, I write really long posts, usually on the end of dead threads, because I can express my opinions freely then. Well, not really, I don’t care whether a thread is dead or not to plug in a really long comment.

    Longevity is one of the good things about B-J… no limits!!

  74. 74.

    PaulW

    @Major Major Major Major:

    …and it got rejected.

    That was fast. This was the second-fastest rejection I’ve ever gotten. The fastest rejection I’ve ever gotten was from Target Stores back in 2011 when I applied for Seasonal work around Turkey Day. THAT came back in 15 minutes. This rejection took… hmmm… seven hours.

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