Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’m just a talker, trying to find a channel!

Found liable for massive fraud, is required to post a massive bond, gets a break, then files a *fraudulent* bond!

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

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

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

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

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

This really is a full service blog.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

“woke” is the new caravan.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

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Archives for December 2018

Joyful Noises!

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I love this meme — it’s been around for a while, but was only recently shared with me by my music-professor sister:

OK…so it’s a little harsh.

Anyway, on this Christmas afternoon, I thought I’d share a lovely scene from a movie I’ve never actually watched the whole of, just because boy sopranos, when they’re good, are surreal:

And just because we can’t have it all be sickly sweet, how about a little rougher edge…

Well, not that rough.

Gonna leave this one with what remains one of my favorite bittersweet-to-bitter Christmas songs:

This came on the radio the other day while I was driving somewhere with my son, and he couldn’t believe that Shane MacGowan was anyone’s idea of a singer. More fool he.

Top of the day to  y’all. My sprout and I have finished our ritual (and delicious) Chinese lunch, and will be heading down (w. the spouse) to more family south of the Athens of America.  Roast beast and red wine, and a day w. four generations.  I wish your preferred company (self and others) to all my fellow jackals.

Over to y’all.

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Merry Christmas from Zooey and Ric!

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Ric KNOWS that those chicken liver treats must still be in the bag, while Zooey enjoys the afternoon sun.

Here are some other things now in progress.

Every Christmas, Brandon Friedman does a thread of photos of people with their Christmas guns and their fingers on the trigger, in contravention of gun safety. Looks like this is the first tweet.

Greetings from your love interest in North Korea

And a memory of better days

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Open Thread: BE WORST – The Grinch Who Stole Santa

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If their lawyers have any smarts, this clip will feature prominently in the Trump kids’ eventual “How could we know all that stuff was illegal, look at the guy whose genes we inherited” defense…

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On the Road and In Your Backyard

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Good Morning All,

On The Road and In Your Backyard is a weekday feature spotlighting reader submissions. From the exotic to the familiar, please share your part of the world, whether you’re traveling or just in your locality. Share some photos and a narrative, let us see through your pictures and words. We’re so lucky each and every day to see and appreciate the world around us!

Submissions from commenters are welcome at tools.balloon-juice.com

 

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and a wonderful day to all!

 

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Merry Xmas, Earthlings

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From the Washington Post:

The astronauts had spun around the moon a few times already, their gaze pointed down on the gray, pockmarked lunar surface. But now as they completed another orbit of the moon on Christmas Eve 1968, Frank Borman, the commander of the Apollo 8 mission, rolled the spacecraft, and, soon, there it was.

Earth, this bright, beautiful sphere, alone in the inky vastness of space, a soloist at the edge of the stage suspended in the spotlight.

“Oh, my God,” exclaimed Bill Anders, the lunar module pilot. “Look at that picture over there! There’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!”

Anders knew black and white film wouldn’t do it justice. But he also knew he didn’t have a lot of time if he was going to get the shot.

“Hand me a roll of color quick, will you,” he said.

“Oh, man, that’s great,” said Jim Lovell, the command module pilot and navigator.

“Hurry,” Anders pleaded. “Quick!”

Anders loaded the color film into his Hasselblad camera and started firing away while his anxious crewmates remained transfixed by the blue and white vision outside their windows…

Two days later, the film was processed, and NASA released photo number 68-H-1401 to the public with a news release that said: “This view of the rising earth greeted the Apollo 8 astronauts as they came from behind the moon after the lunar orbit insertion burn.”…

“As I looked down at the Earth, which is about the size of your fist at arm’s length, I’m thinking this is not a very big place. Why can’t we get along?” Anders said during a video played during a ceremony at Washington National Cathedral recently celebrating the 50th anniversary of the mission. “To me it was strange that we had worked and had come all the way to the moon to study the moon, and what we really discovered was the Earth.”

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A Beary Merry Christmas Eve

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My family does presents and the big dinner on Christmas Eve, so today we did the traditional Czech goose/dumplings/kraut meal my grandma always used to cook. All went well. Present-wise, I got socks and a new set of Switch controllers. And throughout it all, we were accompanied by my mom’s very good boy, Bear.

As a result of the Christmas Eve preëminence, I often travel on Christmas, and indeed, I’m heading back home to NY tomorrow (I almost typed SF just then!). But perhaps some of you are staying up late waiting for/being Santa, so I figured we could use an overnight open thread. Hope your Christmas Eve was as Bear-y as mine!

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A Nativity for Our Times

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Sometime last year, right around Christmas, I came across the following drawing:

(Jose y Maria by Everett Patterson)

The drawing was done in 2014 by comics artist Everett Patterson. Since I came across this in a tweet or someone’s blog post after last Christmas had come and gone, I saved the image knowing I’d likely, and unfortunately, have a chance to use it this year. Here’s Patterson’s description of his drawing (emphasis mine):

This was our Christmas card for 2014, depicting Jesus’s parents in a modern setting. I was inspired by a number of evocative “imagine what it would have been like”-type sermons I heard earlier this year, and also (as usual) by the work of Will Eisner, who so often depicted, with religious reverence, noble individuals enduring the many minor discomforts and petty indignities of urban America.

The main goal of this illustration was to pack as many clever biblical references into the scene as possible. I won’t list every one (there are at least a dozen), but a few that I’m proudest of are: the verse from the prophet Ezekiel in the graffiti on the phone kiosk, the way the “Save More!” behind Mary’s head looks kinda like “Ave Maria!,” and the two ads for “Glad” and “Tide” on the newspaper (get it?).

A word on perspective: for this image, I chose very, very wide vanishing points. The result is what I occasionally call “middle-class white people perspective.” Rather than feeling immersed in the scene, the viewer is looking at it as if from across the street or from the warmth and safety of his or her passing car. I have a small hope that this Christmas image will come to mind when we see other “down and out” people huddling outside of gas stations, reminding us that our Savior’s parents (and indeed, Jesus himself) were at one time similarly troubled.

As I’m sure everyone is aware by now, I’m not a Christian, but it seems to me that all of the winter holidays – Diwali, Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa – of 2018 are being celebrated by many in what seems to be the twilight of America. A twilight that has brought the rudest, meanest, smallest in terms of their ethical and moral stature, small minded, and bigoted people to power who seek, for a variety of reasons, to rule not to govern. Some, like the President, his family, the Secretary of Commerce, and the former Secretaries of HHS and Interior, and the Director of the EPA, seek merely to enrich themselves. Some, like the Vice President, the Secretaries of Education and HUD, the former Attorney General, the Acting Attorney General, and the White House Press Secretary, seek to impose a white, largely evangelical* Christian herrenvolk democracy. Some, like Senator McConnell, Leonard Leo, Stephen Miller, John Bolton, and far too many others, seek to manipulate the President into fulfilling their own personal revanchist, anti-liberal democracy agendas. These men and women, some true believers, some merely opportunists, would have turned away Joseph, Mary, and Jesus as they fled from the danger of Herod through the dangers of the desert to the dangers of being strangers in the Land of Egypt even though most of them profess to be the most devoted followers of Jesus and his teachings.

There is, however, always hope. There are people who are doing good things for others. Who are trying to make a difference one good act, act of kindness, and/or act of charity at a time. Who are doing their best to embody the real meaning and ethic of the Christmas holiday season.

Hope is not a strategy, but it is essential for survival. And America is not simply an outline on a map, it is an ideal. So keep the faith and hold the line.

Merry Christmas to all those Juicers and jackals who observe it!

Open thread!

* The coalition of religious conservatives is, of course, larger than just those from the evangelical Christian denominations that we refer to as Evangelicals, Charismatics, and Fundamentalists. It also includes traditionalist Catholics, some members of the Church of Latter Day Saints, and some ultra-Orthodox Jews. The reality, however, is that if the goals of religious conservatives are ever achieved in the US, the evangelical Christians will turn on the traditionalist Catholics, the Mormons, and the ultra-Orthodox Jews. Then they will turn on each other as the Evangelicals, the Charismatics, and the Fundamentalists don’t actually agree on matters of theology and dogma. The pursuit of doctrinal purity can only lead to purge after purge.

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