Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Let’s finish the job.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

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

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

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

T R E 4 5 O N

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

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

The words do not have to be perfect.

“woke” is the new caravan.

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Open Thread

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I thought we could use something somewhat pleasant, so here is a picture of crowd favorite Rosie, on the rug in the foyer, working overtime to relax while avoid making eye contact with the god damned camera:

I have a big pot of corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and carrots cooking, and I intend to spend the night playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker, which is another game along the lines of Pillars of Eternity and Divinity: Original Sin that I enjoy so much.

Reader Interactions

106Comments

  5. 5.

    SenyorDave

    I’ve been playing online bridge today, and it just occurred to me that the strongest bid you can make in bridge is “no-trump”. The American public could learn a thing or two from bridge (which is a dying game, not too many people under 50 play bridge these days).

  8. 8.

    trollhattan

    Oregon can do a lot better than this, and ought to.

    After reports of Canadian tar sands moving through Portland surfaced last March, a small group formed to try to track local oil train shipments by visiting the terminal and writing down what they saw. Since then, the group has watched the terminal expand in front of their eyes, as Zenith adds new rail spurs and retools the facility to increase export capacity. The watchers know about the risks of oil-train spills and explosions across the Northwest. By bearing witness to the trains and their dangerous cargo, they aim to fill the gaps in public knowledge left by limited official information — and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the threats it poses to their communities, and to the climate.

    The public is largely in the dark when it comes to what’s moving through their towns. In Washington, the Department of Ecology issues quarterly reports on oil trains; between October and December of last year, it said, 24,693 oil train cars and more than 16.8 million barrels of crude oil travelled the state’s rails. But that undercounts the total: Trains that merely pass through the state aren’t included. And Oregon has significantly less transparency. While the Oregon Fire Marshall publishes some information on Bakken crude oil train traffic, the state does not share comprehensive quarterly crude oil by train reports with the public. That’s because they are “security sensitive,” according to Jennifer Flynt, an Oregon Department of Environmental Quality public affairs officer.

    Since 2016, when an oil train exploded in Mosier, Oregon, along the Columbia River, some state legislators have tried to institute stronger monitoring standards and safeguards, most recently this year. But so far, their efforts have fallen short. State Rep. Barbara Smith Warner, D, who represents communities in northeast Portland, sponsored oil-train safety bills in 2017 and 2018. She said part of the reason Oregon hasn’t regulated the shipments is because, unlike other states, Oregon doesn’t have in-state refineries from which to collect fees or information.

  9. 9.

    satby

    The old girl is looking good ?.

    I’ve been preparing for a demonstration of soap making at the market tomorrow. It’s something I’ve done before, but the “community room” where I am giving the demonstration is really just a wide area of the hallway, so conditions will be…challenging ?.
    And it sounds like lots of people are coming.

  11. 11.

    jl

    Thanks for Rosiepic. Dog with corned beef vapors on its mind, IMHO. I wouldn’t take it personally, if I were Cole.

  14. 14.

    trollhattan

    Kids gathered outside the state capitol today, joining the international chorus to fight climate change.

    Guns, sexual abuse, education debt, affordable housing, social justice, income distribution, environment…they have lots on their plate.

  16. 16.

    satby

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: hopefully. I preweighed and packed everything, and will probably check it ten times before I leave at 6:30 tomorrow. The last time I did a demo, I did all the weighing live and my digital scale acted up. I knew it wasn’t accurate, and fortunately the batter worked for showing all the steps involved, but the whole batch was ruined. My audience never had a clue.

  17. 17.

    lamh36

    Hey, anyone with young video saavy kid filmmakers?

    This is a great opportunity. Maddie might be too young. But if ya know any young video saavy promising filmakers…this could be a good opportunity?

    @littlethemovie
    Big or little, every voice counts. We wanna see what you can dream up ✨ Create a short film on how life would be if you woke up big and send your submission to –>

    https://twitter.com/littlethemovie/status/1106616862454898688

  18. 18.

    Miss Bianca

    Ah, Rosie…sigh. I tend to have a soft spot in my heart for those opinionated bitches, the ones that either through their beauty or their brains or their sheer brassiness or some ineffable combination of those qualities tend to demand your tribute, if not your abject adoration, rather than beg for it. Seems like my Husky girls were both a lot like Rosie that way, if a bit more affable in their general demeanor.

    Missing Luna dreadfully. But Roxy the husky-wolf seems quite determined, in her quiet way, to become a part of the household. Not actually coming into the house yet, but serving as a watch-wolf on the deck. I just bought her a bed. Let’s see how long it takes for her to drag it out of the crate I set up for her and curl up on it in plein air, like she did with my old quilt.

  19. 19.

    Gin & Tonic

    @SenyorDave: My dad was a Senior Life Master. He taught me to play, I got to college and the guys there were just too good, with some weird synthetic bidding. I kind of gave up, and then my dad died shortly after I graduated so I never got back to it. I have a couple of his trophies

  21. 21.

    PsiFighter37

    It’s Friday, I’m drunk, and I have a dinner to go to in less than an hour. I’d rather just stay in and go to sleep.

    PF37 +4

  24. 24.

    FlyingToaster

    Rosie’s attraction is in her rarity; she doesn’t seem to want to be photographed. I know exactly how she feels…

  25. 25.

    Josie

    I just love Rosie. Her attitude toward the camera reminds me so much of my big dog Teddi. Most of the pictures I have of her are of her butt as she left the room. I had to sneak up on her with the camera behind my back, only bringing it out seconds before I snapped the shot, She eventually got wise to that and would leave if my hands were not showing.

  26. 26.

    Miss Bianca

    @SenyorDave:

    not too many people under 50 play bridge these days

    Heck, this 55-year-old can attest to the fact that back when I was in my 20s, I only knew *one* person of my generation who routinely played bridge, and *he* was complaining about that fact back then!

    I remember my mother being quite the demon bridge player – that was my parents’ principal way of socializing with the neighbors. Always rather sorry that I didn’t get her to show me the basics.

  28. 28.

    Miss Bianca

    @Josie: My Stella was like that. My niece and my friend D are the only ones I know of who were able to take decent photographs of her – that is, non-blurry ones that didn’t feature her butt rather than her face!

  29. 29.

    Brachiator

    There are always studies “proving” that video games, comics, violent movies, erotica, whatever, “dsensitizes” people or something. But even though it is not my kind of music by a long shot, I enjoyed this BBC story about a report on Death Metal Music. Love the counter-intuitive headline.

    Death metal music inspires joy not violence

    The lyrics of death metal band Bloodbath’s cannibalism-themed track, Eaten, do not leave much to the imagination. But neither this song – nor the gruesome lyrics of others of the genre – inspire violence.

    That is the conclusion of Macquarie University’s music lab, which used the track in a psychological test.

    It revealed that death metal fans are not “desensitised” to violent imagery.

    A little something pleasant after a trying week.

    I blame Daylight Saving Time

    ETA: Rosie, very cool doggie!

  30. 30.

    Miss Bianca

    @opiejeanne: I just got Luna’s ashes back today. Don’t really know a cause of death – I could have asked for a necropsy, I suppose, but I was just too shattered to deal. I’ve been waiting for the appropriate time to call the vet who found the body on her doorstep and ask if there was any visible sign of what caused her death – and by the appropriate time, I mean “when I can get through that conversation without going into strong hysterics.” Probably not till next week.

  31. 31.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    I have had an emotionally very rough week and have spent today in basically mindless recovery, starting with sleeping about 11 hours last night.

    Nothing personal, I got picked for a jury. I won’t go into details but it was very serious, a lot of ugliness on display and the damage in lives ruined, including the defendant and his friends, was appalling. Maintaining a hyper focus on testimony to not miss a second was exhausting, and deliberations were long and extremely emotional. I’m wrung dry. I went to sleep every night obsessing on testimony and woke up still obsessing. I’ve spent the day just slowly feeling the poison and ugliness seep away.

    A weird thing about our legal system is that a jury has to be untrained amateur judges. Much of the prolonged deliberation was due to two different interpretations of a critical paragraph in the statute. And when we asked the judge he said sorry, he couldn’t add any words of clarification, we had to go on the statute and nothing else.

    Anyway I’m finally back in the healing world of snark here. Thanks for being you, jackals.

  33. 33.

    lamh36

    ‘Sup BJ.

    How was ur day?

    I saw some MAGA folks linking Lori and liberal hollywood, but I’d always thought Lori was one of those “quiet Hollywood Conservatives” like Patrica Heaton…so of course her husbands Chump-ite

    @UPROXX
    Lori Loughlin’s husband is apparently a vocal Trump supporter who complains about people not ‘carrying their own weight’ https://uproxx.it/nqhmy5x

  37. 37.

    debbie

    Fucking shithead.

    In wake of mosque attacks, Trump downplays threat from white nationalists: ‘I think it’s a small group of people’

    In the wake of a deadly attack on two New Zealand mosques, carried out, according to police, by a white supremacist, President Trump downplayed the danger posed by white nationalism.

    Trump spoke to reporters on Friday afternoon, shortly after issuing the first veto of his presidency, which preserved his declaration of an emergency over the threat to American safety from immigrants from Central America.

    Asked whether he saw white nationalism as a rising threat, Trump demurred.

    “I don’t really, I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess. If you look what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that’s the case. I don’t know enough about it yet … but it’s certainly a terrible thing,” the president said.

    He wants something to happen.

  38. 38.

    lamh36

    LOL…why is Beto always on top of a table or something…LOL

    @BetoORourke
    Follow Follow @BetoORourke
    More
    Regardless of any difference that could divide us, we are going to come together at this moment of truth. I’m convinced of it.

    53s53 seconds ago
    More zellie Retweeted Beto O’Rourke
    Get off the table before you hurt yourself
    https://twitter.com/zellieimani/status/1106703882279940097

  39. 39.

    Sab

    @Miss Bianca: I am so sorry for you. I have lost three dogs in the last three years, but they were all old with medical issues. To lose one who was young and vibrant would be really dificult.

    I hope you keep that wolfish girl. She’s safer with you than elsewhere.

  45. 45.

    khead

    Re: bridge. Once upon a time back in ’92 – before the poker craze – my roommate and I won the bridge club champeenship at Va Tech. Well, actually we tied for first. It was a bit like a street chess hustler going into a chess club and winning a tournament. We had played a shitload of contract bridge in the four years we’d been there, but we had never played duplicate. Anyway, turns out the first night we decide to check out the club it was tournament night and since anyone could enter we jumped in. We ended up winning because we knew each other really well AND we overbid EVERYthing because we really didn’t know what the hell we were doing AND we actually made the overbids. Now I want to start playing again.

  47. 47.

    lamh36

    When I went to Australia last year…I went to Sydney for 5 days. One of those days in Sydney, I went on a day tour to the Blue Mountains and other places. It was a group of about 10 people. I was only 1 of 2 solo travelers. The 2nd solo traveler was a young woman from NZ
    Can’t remember her name, but I do recall she was an interior design student who’d moved to Sydney to attend school. She was really nice and we had a great coversation about NZ and NOLA and Sydney. I remember her telling me that I’d love NZ and I told her she had to visit NOLA
    When I heard about the terrorist attack in NZ, I thought of that young lady I met. New Zealand is still on my travel bucket list, and I’m hoping to go one day. Hoping the student I met and her family are safe, and sending good thoughts and feelings the the family of those lost.

  48. 48.

    opiejeanne

    After that ridiculously snowy, blizzard-y trip from Seattle to SoCal to the mountains and then all of the idiocy attending having a cabin in the mountains with two feet of snow and a water heater that would not start up but the plumber couldn’t come for three days, and then beating ourselves to death for the past three weeks cleaning and clearing out and donating and staging the place, we’re heading home now. The cabin listed on MLS today and tomorrow the agent is holding an Open House. She’s very excited and thinks it will sell right away. We’ve noticed that cabins take about a year to sell but she says they’re really moving this winter, even when there was so much snow on the ground.

    I’m sad that we’re selling but we’re getting too old to make that drive four times a year, let alone taking care of the maintenance. If it doesn’t sell by May we’ll be back to paint the deck and put the screen door up and do some other chores. The neighbors are sad and we should have such nice neighbors where we live in Washington.

    The photos are so good I hope people who come to see it aren’t disappointed. It’s come a long way in the 11 years we’ve had it but there’s always something that needs painting or some little repair.

    Listing: https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/2085400105_zpid/34.26775,-117.182537,34.220922,-117.244335_rect/13_zm/1_fr/
    Video tour.
    https://www.qwikvid.com/realestate/go/v1/mls/?idx=ckuqhAqzD518SsqKGrjW66o3e9QKdkRz

  49. 49.

    KithKanan

    @Miss Bianca: I’m 37 and I used to play bridge back in high school – one of my friend groups was in to it (along with tabletop RPGs – we’d alternate between Bridge and Arduin).

    I was never all that good, but I remember it being fun and I’m kind of sad I haven’t had a friend group to play it with in almost two decades.

  50. 50.

    khead

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I got to college and the guys there were just too good, with some weird synthetic bidding.

    Yeah, this is where we gave it up. Once we kept going to the club we realized we were using our own personal Goren and some of the folks in the club were speaking in tongues.

  51. 51.

    Immanentize

    On a plane back to Boston from Houston. An hour late as per usual for this flight. But I’m on my way home, amirite?

    The Immp got his first Stetson. It’s a beauty. A Skyline. In silver grey.

  52. 52.

    Joy in FL

    @Miss Bianca: I knew Luna was missing, but I didn’t know what had happened. I am so sorry about her death. And I so understand the power of your grief. You lost a precious friend.

  54. 54.

    Mnemosyne

    Our middle cat Annie was throwing up for a couple of days, so we took her to the vet this morning. $1K later, we know what’s been ruled out, but not much more. Argh. It may just be that she skipped too many doses of her steroid.

  56. 56.

    Amir Khalid

    @Miss Bianca: You need to choose the right time to hear the answer. Take as long as you need.
    Somehow it doesn’t seem all that long ago that John Cole posted to grumble about a stranger dog who got into his car one day and refused to leave.

  60. 60.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Miss Bianca:

    I learned to play as a freshman at Northwestern, but was never very good. Both my mother and my husband had brilliant card memories — could literally go back to some earlier game and say precisely which position had played which cards in what order. I did not have that gift, or anything close to it. I am serious when I say that Bridge, if it wasn’t wholly responsible for breaking up my marriage, was at least a contributing factor.

    But thinking of my mom playing Bridge reminds me of one of her favorite (single-panel) comics: Mrs Mitchell is playing Bridge with three friends, and Dennis peers over her shoulder at her hand and says “Look at all the little valentines!”

  63. 63.

    delk

    Seven years ago today I did something I never thought I would be able to do in my lifetime: I legally married my husband.

  64. 64.

    Aleta

    @Sab: So Tues. and Wed. we drove Charles to a radioactive treatment place for his thyroid. He got treated Thursday. Apprehensive about the 2 week confinement period after he comes back. He likes to go wherever he feels called to be at that moment.

  65. 65.

    lamh36

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I decided that next time I do another long flight like for Australia, I’d save up to try to get better seat rather than economy, so New Zealand may not be in the cards right now…but I’m actively working towards it.

  66. 66.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Miss Bianca:

    I continue to be shattered for your loss. I hope you get some answers when you’re ready, and I hope they are of a nature that will comfort you a bit.

    But I am happy that you’ve been adopted by a wolf :-)

  68. 68.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @delk:

    Happy anniversary to you both! And forget all that shit about “the seven-year itch” — just good for movie titles, nothing more.

  70. 70.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Steeplejack: Well, do your jury a favor. Check the statute for your felony and if there are multiple elements that need to be proved, document them all nicely.

  78. 78.

    Pete Downunder

    @lamh36: Premium Economy on Qantas is actually pretty good; not the lie flat beds of Business but a lot better than regular economy. When you’re ready you might check it out.

  81. 81.

    opiejeanne

    @Dorothy A.Winsor: heading home tomorrow. Will lie down there on Monday. Going to spend the night with my sister tonight, off the mountain. Will lie down there, but first a trip to In n Out.

  84. 84.

    Miss Bianca

    @SiubhanDuinne: it’s the “coulda-shoulda-woulda” litany beating in my brain that’s the worst. “If I woulda posted a flyer HERE the guy who saw her might have seen my phone number” “I coulda taken her with me to the theater that day” “I shoulda got her ID tag made sooner” blah blah blah. I make myself crazy with it sometimes.

    You and all the other jackals here can relate, I am sure. But yes – I had a long talk with Roxy’s person – the one who is moving and can’t take her with – and I think we have determined that she is staying. The lady was weeping, she was so happy. I confess I was a bit weepy myself.

    And thanks to you and all the other jackals for your sympathy. Knowing that you are all out there grieving for a dog you never met, just because that’s who you ARE, dammit – that’s what I love about this place.

  88. 88.

    frosty

    @Miss Bianca:

    I had a long talk with Roxy’s person – the one who is moving and can’t take her with – and I think we have determined that she is staying. The lady was weeping, she was so happy. I confess I was a bit weepy myself.

    Seems to be some dust in the air here.

  89. 89.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca:

    it’s the “coulda-shoulda-woulda” litany beating in my brain that’s the worst.

    Try not to do that to yourself.* It gets you nowhere.

    *Yeah, I know. Easier said than done.

  91. 91.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Miss Bianca:

    it’s the “coulda-shoulda-woulda” litany beating in my brain that’s the worst. “If I woulda posted a flyer HERE the guy who saw her might have seen my phone number” “I coulda taken her with me to the theater that day” “I shoulda got her ID tag made sooner” blah blah blah. I make myself crazy with it sometimes.

    I know you know this intellectually, although not emotionally, but: please, please, please try not to beat yourself up. You did everything and more that you could possibly be expected to do to find and recover Luna. You are in no way at fault. IN NO WAY.

    Big huge hugs to you. It is so fucking tough.

  94. 94.

    NotMax

    @WaterGirl

    Remember that bread I had mentioned which uses canned peas as an ingredient for the bulk of the liquid component? In deference to your sensibilities, I decided to experiment and substituted canned carrots, adjusting everything else accordingly. Good loaf resulted, can see it being better the next time if I increase the yeast by about a third.

  95. 95.

    NotMax

    @KithKanan

    Made beer ‘n’ booze money in college playing pinochle. Also various versions of canasta. Expect it is far easier today to find bridge players than pinochle players.

  96. 96.

    LivinginExile

    @Mnemosyne: Twice I’ve had cats do that. One of my cats at home and a cat at the shelter I was taking care of. The vet I took them to said that a cat can get stuck in a cycle of throwing up, I think, if I remember right he gave them an injection to stop the nausea, and break the cycle. They were fine after that. He was an old country vet, and knew the shelter didn’t have much money so he always tried the simple cure first. A few years later, when one of my cats had the same problem it worked on her too.

  97. 97.

    TomatoQueen

    @Miss Bianca: Somehow there is a symmetry here, if Luna must go on, then Roxy must stay. Others have said not to blame yourself for what happened and it’s hard to do but the best thing is to just love our four-legs and do what we can for them. You’re helping a neighbor too. Thinking of you.

  98. 98.

    TomatoQueen

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Thank you for your service. In one of my previous lives I was a jury clerk in Federal court. Hell on wheels, and I hope in your jurisdiction you’re excused from further service.

  99. 99.

    Bonnie

    Rosie is looking good. My beloved cat, Nadine, died yesterday. She was 17 and a half years old. She was truly a great cat.

  100. 100.

    Mnemosyne

    @LivinginExile:

    One of the several things the vet did (in addition to hydration and catching Annie up on her missed steroid) was give her an anti-nausea shot, so they must still be teaching that in vet school. She’s one of the newer vets but she seemed very nice.

    ETA: And by “newer” I mean I think she’s fresh out of her residency and just starting out as a full veterinarian.

  104. 104.

    WaterGirl

    @NotMax: Dead thread so you will likely never see this, but thanks for the circle back on the bread. The bread with carrots sounds very interesting, as opposed to the one with the vegetable that will remain nameless.

  106. 106.

    Bonnie

    Thanks to all the condolences. Sorry, I am so late with the thank yous. Nadine was truly a terrific cat who loved me a whole lot. I have already committed to take a cat from a friend who has had problems with this cat beating up on her other cat. She will probably prefer being an only cat. She is eight. I don’t like rattling around in my big house all alone. Thanks, again.

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