Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

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

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

You cannot shame the shameless.

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

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

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

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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

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Reader Interactions

70Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    Trying to figure out what the heck I want to eat later. I seem to be burned out on all my usual options.

  2. 2.

    ArchTeryx

    @Corner Stone: Could be worse. Right now, my grand feast is some saltine crackers and they taste as good as a $300 meal. After throwing up continuously for two solid days, I’m not picky!

  3. 3.

    ArchTeryx

    Love the “disaster movie” sign. It doesn’t say that the scientist are ignored, mass death follows and the survivors all go around crying, “Whocouldanode?!”

    I recommend the disaster epic Deep Impact. The scientists-including an amateur astronomer!-get taken deadly seriously there, and while their planning can’t stop it, it does mitigate it to the point where Earth is still habitable to the majority of humanity afterward.

    Not to mention it had Morgan Freeman as President, who does a great turn sounding a whole lot like President Obama would some years later.

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    On my way to the LA Book Festival. I have an empty backpack, and will be disappointed in myself if it isn’t filled with reading material by the end of the afternoon.

  5. 5.

    Corner Stone

    @ArchTeryx: Nice! But I think I’ll pass, thanks.
    I have been gradually losing my appetite over the last several months. It’s gotten to the point that some nights I will just go to bed rather than figuring out what to do about food.
    I would blame it on Trump as it’s gotten acutely worse recently, but the start pre-dates him.

  7. 7.

    Corner Stone

    @dmsilev:

    I have an empty backpack, and will be disappointed in myself if it isn’t filled with reading material by the end of the afternoon.

    Make sure you actually pay for them this time.

  10. 10.

    ArchTeryx

    Along the lines of good movies where science is actually treated with respect, Contact is one of the best, though it is not a disaster movie. The faith vs. science subplot does rub some people the wrong way, but it goes a place where few in this country dare to tread – it shows, quite openly, a fundamentalist Christian suicide bomber, as well as the open cynicism with which some people use faith as a means to political gain. The end message – by a dedicated atheist (Carl Sagan wrote the original novel) is that faith and science need not be oppositional or even incompatible, but can be two sides of the same very human coin.

  12. 12.

    oldster

    It was a really good march, despite the fact that DC was ridiculously rainy.

    I have never been a marcher before. But after the Women’s March and the March for Science, I am down for the next one. It’s incredibly encouraging and strengthening to see our side out in force. We are going to win.

  14. 14.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @ArchTeryx:

    Good point, although Sagan referred to himself as an agnostic. Said he’d love nothing more than to see his late parents again but had no proof or expectation that he would. Said he could not prove there was no god just as no one can empirically prove there is.

  15. 15.

    ArchTeryx

    @Corner Stone: That sounds like a possible medical problem more then depression or ennui. Talk to a doctor about it if you can…a symptom which doesn’t get better over a long time is always one to be concerned about.

  18. 18.

    ArchTeryx

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): That’s a very good point, and one I’d forgotten about. I’m classed the same way, and for exactly the same reasons. Questions of faith generate a whole lot more heat then light to me, so I sidestep them for the most part.

  20. 20.

    ArchTeryx

    @schrodingers_cat: Now you’re just being mean to me.

    I’ve HAD really good goat curry before, made by Priya, and wow, she could do it wickedly well. There’s also a halal Pakistani restaurant nearby that does some of the best Naan you can imagine, and an Indian restaurant (where a lot of the local Indians actually go) that does things like add peppers and curry to make *spicy* Naan.

  23. 23.

    ArchTeryx

    @Iowa Old Lady: You aren’t just kidding.; The source was a truly nasty stomach bug that basically married my Crohn’s. The result was nausea so intense that it burned right through my medical marijuana like it wasn’t even there. Hard-core anti-nausea drugs, that I keep for emergencies, STILL weren’t enough to stop it.

    I’m gonna be sore in the tummy for a while, but at least I can hold food and liquids down again.

  26. 26.

    StringOnAStick

    @ArchTeryx: Contact was one of the few times I’ve read both the book and seen the movie, and loved both. They were not the same in many ways, but both shone equally to me.

  29. 29.

    Corner Stone

    @schrodingers_cat: I’m not ready to give my local place another chance just yet. I was actually trying to talk myself into a brunch or a buffet or a brunch buffet today and scrolled through Yelp. The local place has a weekend buffet but when I read the reviews I was laughing at how similar they were to my recent experiences there. Rude, sometimes hostile service and the food was described as being really spicy with no flavor behind it. Exactly what I have seen over the last few months.

    ETA, I would love some lamb though, now that I think about it. There’s a Greek takeout place not too far…hmmmm…

  30. 30.

    ThresherK

    How many years ago did the last Unaffiliated Moderate White Man (Who Isn’t Really A Republcan) actually die?

    Stop me if this sounds familiar: A not-young white guy you know shares a link from a website you’ve never heard of. He praises it for being “equally disrespectful of everyone and everything”.

    Right before then he posts something about “Keeping politics out of the science march”. And earlier this month, Bothsides playing an April Fools joke where both the Dems and the GOP pretend to represent the People of America. The joke: “We’re here for the money!”

    Some people are too fcking stupid to live.

  32. 32.

    Brachiator

    What’s on your agenda this fine Sunday? Open thread.

    I mentioned this in the Writer’s thread and would like to note it again here.

    I spent a nice Spring day at the Huntington Library and Gardens. Currently on display is an exhibition devoted to Pasadena, California native and science fiction author Octavia Butler. The exhibit gives a chronological overview of her work, showing her school girl journals (I so recognized that notebook paper), works-in-progress, letters and other materials.

    Information about the exhibition can be found here.

    There is a guided tour of the exhibition in early June.

    I have a fascination with how writers see themselves and approach their work. And so I really related to Butler’s declaration of her calling:

    Why do I write? Because I can’t expect anyone else to tell my stories.

    Butler had to write herself into science fiction. She not only had to deal with the biases of the publishing industry, but the internalized defeatism of some well meaning relatives, such as an aunt who told her, “Honey, Negroes are not writers.” Fortunately her mother was wonderfully supportive.

    I also appreciate the general notes Butler made for herself as she wrote her stories. General reminders rather than specific story points

    Tell stories Filled with Facts.
    Make People Touch and Taste and KNOW.
    Make People FEEL!
    FEEL!
    FeeL!

    The importance of facts in her fiction is underscored by a letter that she wrote to her aunt, with some very specific questions about burn wards and burn patients. I get frustrated with the sometimes reductive focus on “world building” in science fiction stories and films, and chuckled at Butler’s possible rejoinder to an undue focus on this kind of thing: “Build a World with Selected Detail.”

    Ultimately, it is the story that matters, and the story must move, not be a pretty imagistic travelogue.
    Because, in the end, as Butler notes:

    No Entertainment On Earth Can Match A Good Story Compellingly Told

    The biographical information you pick up while walking through the exhibit space is well chosen. There is a wonderful photo of a young teen age Butler. I did not know that Harlan Ellison, who could be a huge pain in the ass, was an early champion of her development as a writer. This was a nice bit of serendipity, since Ellison’s story and Outer Limits episode, “Demon With a Glass Hand,” has always been one of my favorite works of fiction in any genre. And it was cool to be reminded that Butler was the first science fiction author to win a Macarthur Award “Genius” grant.

    The Huntington also had on display the usual suspects. A Gutenberg Bible, a Shakespeare First Folio, one of the copies of the Declaration of Independence. Stuff like that.

    And after visiting the library, it’s just odd to realize that we live in a world where we have to have protest marches for science and the search for the truth. I thought the imposition of religion onto policy that we saw under Dubya was as bad as it could get. But this new tyranny of ignorance is truly frightening.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @ThresherK:

    He praises it for being “equally disrespectful of everyone and everything”.

    Including not-young white guys who supposedly hate both sides?

  35. 35.

    debbie

    This Trump Tweet is getting the extra attention it deserves:

    Eventually, but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall.

    That’s some writing!

  36. 36.

    ArchTeryx

    @opiejeanne: It could be, but there’s a really nasty stomach bug going around in upstate NY with the same symptoms, and my Crohn’s already makes me susceptible to inflammation in the gut. Either way, it’s passing…but all too slowly for my tastes.

  38. 38.

    ThresherK

    @schrodingers_cat: No. Guy X is a TruePrincipled, FiscallyResponsible Independent, the kind which exists solely in David Brooks’ imagination, but there, numbers about a hundred million. Example: The website Guy X linked to is ThePoliticalInsider, and it calls out the liberal media, like NBC, for perptrating Fake News. He’s also big on term limits for Congress, but not K Street.

    I can’t blame you for confusing FernieFros with TPFRIs WAVR*. Looking at my original post, it’s an easy thing to think. Says more about FernieFros than it does you, however.

    (*Who Always Vote Republican.)

    (PS Can any website which calls itself The Political Insider, and not sarcaslically, be more pathetic than Politico? I don’t want to know.)

  39. 39.

    Sébastien

    First results in France: Macron and Le Pen. The less horrible possibility, I’d say. Now the right has to do what the left had to do against Le Pen-father, that is showing civic sense and call to vote for the democratic side.

  42. 42.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Michael Bersin:

    That sounds like a respectable gathering. My local NPR station said there were about 4,000 in Atlanta. (If I hadn’t had a conflict, would have been 4,001.)

  43. 43.

    Ruckus

    @opiejeanne:
    If it was food poisoning wouldn’t there be fever? I’ve gotten food poisoning twice, from the same fast food chain in 2 different states, both times while I was traveling for work. The first time I had a temp of 104 and made Linda Blair look like an amateur. In a work space restroom. I not only thought I was going to die, I was almost looking forward to it. I am smart enough to learn though and haven’t eaten anything from that chain since. The second time. Didn’t say I was a fast learner.

  44. 44.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    Macron/Le Pen into the second round in France, pretty definitively now. French exit polls got released now, confirm what the Belgian ones showed, and the actual results will be soon, but will be the same.

    This means he’ll be President, not her. The only real uncertainty was what might happen in the first round.

    Beeb

  45. 45.

    ArchTeryx

    You know, this whole morning was something of an abject lesson to me. That, underneath rational argument there does indeed lie a Trump supporter waiting to get out of my lizard brain. It’s something I thought I’d gotten over and left behind, but my own rather extreme economic insecurity leaves those demons all too close to the surface.

    Just don’t call me one. I voted for Hills and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I told one rather apolitical person “I’d be proud to have her as my President” and her response is, “Despite the fact she’s a crook?”

    My flabbergasted response was, “And Trump isn’t?!!?” That pretty much ended the conversation.

    White, of course. Always white. Whiteness is, indeed, a hell of a drug.

  46. 46.

    ThresherK

    @Baud: Oh, how can someone like Guy X suffer the wrongness of be on anyone’s side? I told you, he’s Independent, Unaffiliated, and hasn’t made up his mind about anything yet, because he’s continually weighing all the input from everywhere!

    (Jeezus Christ, that above paragraph sounds like it’s the goddamn NPR ombud’s job description.)

  47. 47.

    ArchTeryx

    @Ruckus: I had a fever, though not so extreme, and for 24 hours I would have welcomed death, the pain and nausea were so intense. My medical cannabis basically got laughed off by this bug, whatever its source. I was perilously close to calling for an ambulance for only the second time in my life.

    Stupid thing was I hadn’t eaten out or had any other real obvious source of food poisoning, but sometimes shit just happens that way.

  50. 50.

    Ruckus

    @ArchTeryx:
    You sound like a friend of mine. Lives here in blue CA, registered R, pale as a white sheet, calls himself a racist, votes consistently Democratic because while he may be all those things, he’s not crazy.

  51. 51.

    ArchTeryx

    @Ruckus: Other then the “registered R” part, maybe. I’m registered D and make no bones of that fact. I’ve actually considered registering R on occasion just to get on the enemies’ mailing lists to keep tabs on them, but the thought nauseates me too much to take such a leap.

    Really, sounds like this guy is a tribal voter. There’s a fair few Southerners I know that register D and are very liberal-sympathetic, but vote R every time because That’s Just What You Do in the South. Voting down there is almost 100% racial and has been for a very long time. The Midwest is just starting to Southernize in its own voting patterns, and that’s what gave us Trump.

  52. 52.

    Ruckus

    @ArchTeryx:
    In both cases the timeline for me was textbook perfect for food poisoning. I figured that the first time was an anomaly but the second time ended that concept. The second time was not nearly as bad as the first but I still would not wish that on anyone. OK, maybe a few someones. OK quite a few someones.

  54. 54.

    trollhattan

    Sunday soccer on a fine spring day now that winter has retreated, along with the infernal rain. NASA informs us California had as much rain as the previous five years combined.

  58. 58.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @debbie: If you look at that chart, first and second are actually pretty similar historically.

    At this point polling shows him at 63% in the second round and her at 37%. You’ll still hear a lot of people trotting out Brexit and Trump votes with “Hey those were surprises so who knows!” but those two were both fairly close to what the polls were saying, a few points off basically. No one got 25 percentage points higher than what polls were saying. And the polls were pretty much right on the money for the first round.

    Scroll down to round 2 here for Macron Le Pen

  59. 59.

    Ruckus

    @ArchTeryx:
    Defiantly not a tribal voter. He really just isn’t crazy. Opinionated yes but his heart is in the right place. I’d bet he’s registered R because he was at one time an R voter. But he hates drumpf with the heat of a nova, as he did GWB. He not only voted for President Obama, he thought he did a great job. He is what I call a selective racist. He would freak out ridding public transportation and listening to the 2 young black gentlemen that I sat across from on Friday. Two fine young men who both proclaimed to have taken advantage of the free lodging provided by our government, one of them having just checked out of one of the counties fine establishments while discussing ways to avail himself of returning. I did get the impression that the other gentleman was not interested in returning, not seeming to have enjoyed his stay quite as much. I know I sound like I’m making fun of these two men but it has been quite a while since I’ve heard/seen anyone use both the spoken and body language these two fellows did. And I’m not sure it was for the public performance, they seemed real.

  60. 60.

    Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian

    @oldster: I was there, too! Totally agree with you about the thrill of being surrounded by a throng of smart, decent, like-minded people. I could have done without the rain, however.

    My sign:

    Vaccines
    Cause
    Adults

  61. 61.

    Bill Arnold

    The disaster movie sign (“At the start of every disaster movie, there’s a scientist being IGNORED“) is laugh-out-loud sweet. Does anyone have a recommendation for a custom bumper sticker supplier?

  62. 62.

    J R in WV

    @Ruckus:

    Alright, now, don’t you owe your fellow B-Jers a hint, a clue, something, to help us avoid the dreaded empty-out diseases?? Really!?

  63. 63.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Tom Nichols‏Verified account @ RadioFreeTom 12h12 hours ago
    Tom Nichols Retweeted SalenaZito
    Hearing Trump voters evaluate the first 100 days makes me think that my condescension was justified but not nearly deep enough.

  66. 66.

    efgoldman

    @ThresherK:

    I told you, he’s Independent, Unaffiliated, and hasn’t made up his mind about anything yet

    He’s nine years old, maybe ten, right?

  67. 67.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    It is possible to be other things. Depression is another possibility. That can sap the desire to eat right out of you.
    I eat but care little about what as I have lost my sense of taste and smell over the last few years. Cooking and food have lost attraction. I really only care about not starving any more. And for that you don’t need near as many calories as the average American gets.

  68. 68.

    efgoldman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Hearing Trump voters evaluate the first 100 days makes me think that my condescension was justified but not nearly deep enough.

    Well that means another ten or twelve deep analysis pieces in the NYT about how we have to understaaand them.

    Fuckem

  69. 69.

    efgoldman

    @Ruckus:

    It is possible to be other things.

    I assume he’s not old enough yet, but appetite also diminishes as you get to our age and older. I was amazed and later alarmed about how little my (otherwise) healthy mom ate as she wended her way thru her 80s. No pathology, just age.

  70. 70.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @ArchTeryx: Armageddon came out just 5 weeks after DI (July 1 vs May 27, 1998) with a remarkably similar disaster McGuffin…& I remember wondering if someone had swiped an early draft of the DI script & thought, Hey! We could throw together a goofball parody of this flick, maybe hire Bruce Willis, & make those clowns into laughingstocks! Because that’s what for all the world it looked like to me…

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