Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

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

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Let’s finish the job.

After roe, women are no longer free.

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

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

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

This really is a full service blog.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

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

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

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

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

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

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

“Squeaker” McCarthy

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Friday Morning Open Thread: The Countdown Continues

Friday Morning Open Thread: The Countdown Continues

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At least this year I know where my treasured (unbreakable!) ornaments are… unless the Spousal Unit decided to move them again. And after forty years, he should know better than that!

Reader Interactions

102Comments

  2. 2.

    satby

    Good morning all! I was hoping to sleep later than 4:30, but nope. Full day with work and the kids, who better be planning on coming for a second Thanksgiving dinner tonight. Plus they’re taking food home whether they want to or not.

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby:   It’s not easy for a committed atheist to survive the “holidays”. First there is the food fight known as “Thanksgiving”… Whatever the fuck that means. Immediately followed by Black Friday, that uniquely American celebration of over consumption of cheap plastic shit from China, which doesn’t even have the decency to wait until “Thanksgiving” is done fucking up my world before piling on. And don’t even get me started on Sordid Saturday and Sacrilege Sunday.

  6. 6.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: see, that’s why I’m agnostic… Less commitment.

     

    No, I get it, and when I left retail eons ago for desk jobs one resolution I stuck to for more than 20 years was avoiding the whole “festive” retail season as much as I could. Today is *literally* the first time in more than a decade that I will leave the house on Black Friday (shudder), and I can’t believe it’s to work retail even if it is my own business.t

    edit to add: plus enduring the horrors that is Clear Channel “Christmas music”, guaranteed to make me homicidal by December 8th.

  12. 12.

    geg6

    Going to see “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” at the early show (11:30 am!) and then lunch with my younger sister. Since the theater is nearby, I want to go to the Sewickley Hotel. My sister, who lives less than 10 minutes away from the place, has never been there, so I want to introduce her to one of my favorite places.

  15. 15.

    WereBear

    @rikyrah: Good morning!

     

    I’m with @satby: on retail. I never even considered it, because I knew I couldn’t handle weeks of non-stop Christmas music when 20 minutes in the store badly influenced my mental state.

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Ohio bill orders doctors to ‘reimplant ectopic pregnancy’ or face ‘abortion murder’ charges

    In addition to ordering doctors to do the impossible or face criminal charges, House Bill 413 bans abortion outright and defines a fertilized egg as an “unborn child”.

    It also appears to punish doctors, women and children as young as 13 with “abortion murder” if they “perform or have an abortion”. This crime is punishable by life in prison. Another new crime, “aggravated abortion murder”, is punishable by death, according to the bill.

    Like bad pennys, these assholes keep turning up.

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby:   And people wonder why I hate them.

    Came across this piece of silliness the other day: People Don’t Realize You’re An Introvert

    Introverted people often behave in ways that can seem rude or blunt to others, especially if they don’t know that you are just shy and not trying to be offensive. Understanding introverted behavior is the first step to forming life-long relationships with introverts. Here are 7 things introverts frequently do which people do not understand.

    Which kinda made me laugh, because I’m not shy and really don’t care if people think me offensive due to what they consider rude behavior. As far as bluntness, if one is afraid of the answer then one shouldn’t ask the question.

    All that said, of the 7 behaviors:
    1) Avoid phone calls
    2) Go traveling alone
    3) Read books or work from a cafe
    4) Have a small group of friends
    5) Spend time alone to recharge
    6) Leave parties early
    7) Frequently cancel plans

    I am guilty of all but the last one. I rarely cancel plans because I don’t make plans I don’t want to follow through on. #3 is a thing I used to do but don’t anymore, not sure why.

  29. 29.

    Raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: I hadn’t had a hit all day and we were just chillin when one of my rods flew out of the holder and took off for Davey Jones locker. I dove out of my chair, landed on my knee and basically crawled as fast as I could and got the rig. It was a mighty fight that took me way down the beach in front of tons of onlookers! When I got it close in I could see it was a ray so I landed it, de hooked it and sent it in its merry way. A lady next to us videod it and I love the commentary!

  30. 30.

    bemused

    So I overheard some people talking about trump tweeting image of his head on Balboa/Stallone. One said something like trump is clearly nuts and a huge stain on our country. Another guy asked if it occurred to them that he did it to just piss them off and probably succeeded. I couldn’t hear what the others replied but what the heck would anyone say to a guy who seems to think it’s amusing nor appears to to think trump is any kind of problem for the country.

  35. 35.

    debbie

    @satby:

    Plus they’re taking food home whether they want to or not.

    Heh. Long ago, I returned to college after Thanksgiving, opened my suitcase, and found a half-turkey heavily wrapped in foil. I never trusted my mother after that.

  36. 36.

    bemused

    @Baud:

     

    Good one although I’m not sure that people who think like that guy would get it. Pissing off liberals seems to be the top motivation for trump supporters and they loved to piss off liberals before trump ever came on their radar.

  41. 41.

    debbie

    @bemused:
    Can’t find it now, but one of his supporter groups posted that the Washington Post alleged “without evidence” that the photo was fake.

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:   Yep, I rather expect a higher incidence of introverts among blog commentators than there is among the general public.

  47. 47.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly:  As a young child I was so painfully shy and introverted that at least one teacher was concerned I was on the spectrum. I learned to be very social, but it’s an acquired skill and my natural inclination is still pretty solitary. I do all seven of the listed behaviors, though I try not to cancel plans anymore because it’s discourteous to the other people involved. I often feel like canceling though.

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Interview: Edward Norton and Thom Yorke: ‘The last thing we wanted was for it to get bloody’

    In the end I think I liked Motherless Brooklyn for the same reasons others didn’t (the reviews have been mixed and the box office grim): because it’s lengthy and knotty and longingly romantic as only a dyed-in-the-wool cynic can be. Norton is aware of the problems. He admits that the tale’s clashing ingredients can be both a blessing and a curse. “I’d describe this film to people and say: ‘Well, it’s a big period epic about dark things in the vein of the best noir. But by the way it’s also got Rain Man at the centre of it.’ People go crosseyed. It’s like you’ve offered them an olive and a piece of chocolate. They think: ‘I might like them both, but they don’t go together.’”

    After watching the trailer, I’m gonna have to see this one.

  54. 54.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby:

    As a young child I was so painfully shy and introverted

    Same here, and sensitive. I remember getting pushed into a fight in the 4th grade. Beat the fuck out of the poor kid, and then cried all the way home. I hadn’t wanted to hurt him but ‘honor’, or whatever the fuck it is, demanded it of me.

  60. 60.

    bemused

    @OzarkHillbilly:

     

    So much for “family values”! The legislators who are pushing this monstrosity of a bill are too stupid or too hard core to imagine that the women in their own families could have an ectopic pregnancy emergency. The again, if they were faced with that issue, they’d probably secretly send their wives, daughters, sisters to be treated out of state.

  61. 61.

    satby

    Well, everyone have a good day! I’m off to see what kinds of crazy fuckers would shop at a farmer’s market on Black Friday. I’m expecting “not many”, which will let me head out with my son and his gf a bit earlier.

  64. 64.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @eclare:   I am interested in the book too. Movies can never hold to the impossible standard set by books, too different a medium. It’s why I prefer to see the movie before I read the book. They each get to stand on their own merits that way

  65. 65.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @bemused:   For people who spend so much time talking about family values, they sure don’t place a very high value on families.

    @Baud:  Dingdingding… We have a winner.

  66. 66.

    eclare

    @OzarkHillbilly: There were several really potent descriptions of Tourette’s and its effects in the book, it will be interesting to see how that translates to the screen.  I just hope the movie plays here in Memphis.

  71. 71.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Turns out Puh-tooey (actually spelled Ptuj) is a town in northeast Slovenia and is home to Slovenia’s oldest winter festival,  Kurentovanje:

    Kurentovanje, Ptuj, 14 February-25 March 2020
    Whip cracks split the slate-cold February sky. You hear their echo before you see the whippers themselves: a gaggle of men dressed in 19th-century costume. They have puffy white shirtsleeves, embroidered vests and leather britches, their bullwhips are in hand but there is an incongruous abundance of brightly coloured flowers bedecking their hats. They are here to chase away winter, but they are not alone. They clear the path for a special sort of monster: a benevolent demon who strikes terror into the evil winter spirits and drives them away. Following them are villagers dressed as kurenti. Kurent is the protagonist of Slovenia’s oldest holiday, Kurentovanje. It is a holdover of ancient Slavic rites of spring, which were adapted into Christianity’s timeline, linking pagan spring rituals with Shrovetide and Lent.

    The north-eastern town of Ptuj (puh-tooey) crowned by a castle and ringed with Roman ruins, hosts the most famous kurentovanje parade. The ritual looks primeval, tribal, eerie. The costume for kurenti involves a long-haired sheepskin suit that rises above the head into a fearsome, towering mask, decorated with bull horns, a wooden face, bristly moustache and lolling leather tongue. A belt of cowbells clangs as they dance, and they wield maces made of hedgehog spines. Then this monster parade leads to a street party involving homemade schnapps, mulled wine and giant doughnuts stuffed with apricot marmalade.

    Maybe some day I will return to the motherland and take it in. 9 other traditional European winter festivals at the link.

  73. 73.

    MomSense

    Morning, Jackals.  It’s thanksgiving here for us. Kid and SO are just leaving CT and headed this way.

    The dog is pre-napping.  She is going to go nuts when she sees her boy walk in after so many months.  Usually she starts crying and then her legs give out and she starts flopping like one of Raven’s fish.  Next she jumps up and has a frantic tear in circles around the room going up and over the couch and chairs and up and down the stairs. Then she cries and flops like a fish again and repeats this crazy scene until whatever it is is out of her system.  I really should try to get this on video.

     

    Hope everyone has a great Friday.  Fuck the malls and Black Friday nonsense.  Hope Satby gets through this ok and home to rest.

  78. 78.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Sab:   I hope so.

    On a lighter note: Police called after automated vacuum sucks up dog in Ballwin

    Ballwin officers received the call Friday morning from the Oak Tree Farm neighborhood. A whirring robot vacuum had sucked up the tail of an unsuspecting shih tzu mix as it napped in a front room, Ballwin police spokesman Mike Burgoyne said.

    When officers arrived they could hear a dog yelping, a woman screaming and a newborn baby crying, Burgoyne said.

    Police were able to cut some fur off the dog’s tail to free it from the vacuum’s grip. The dog was shaken but not injured, Burgoyne said.

  81. 81.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @mrmoshpotato: @snoey:   I haven’t had any problems with wild pigs yet but they are in the area. MDC says don’t shoot them for the reasons snoey stipulated, and I won’t…. As long as they stay out of my garden. I do have limits after all.

  82. 82.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MomSense:   My son’s Aussie has the exact same reaction every time I walk thru the door. It would be a great ego booster except for the fact that he reacts that way no matter who walks thru the door.

  83. 83.

    zhena gogolia

    @MomSense:

     

    Oh, please video it!

     

    I’m back online! I have missed the jackals sorely. I am totally addicted. It’s like if I can’t monitor whatever evil stuff Drumpf has been doing with you guys, I get very, very anxious. Thanksgiving conversation: “Who cares about Russia invading Ukraine? Did you care when they invaded Syria?” “Bill Clinton LIED TO CONGRESS!” Then when I tried to rebut, “STOP TALKING ABOUT POLITICS!”

  84. 84.

    Immanentize

    Happy day after Thanksgiving!

    I am one of those crazy people who hates anything Christmas before Thanksgiving.  But it now cannot be avoided, but I can still hate it!

     

    But yesterday was the day that Santa arrived at Macy’s so I am digging out my Xmas CDs and gonna listen to my favorites:  by the group Low, Tracie Thorne, Sufjan Stevens and Nick Lowe.  While I clean up yesterday’s epic mess.

     

    Stay away from the malls!!  And feral pigs.

  87. 87.

    germy

    The $11 Million Dollar Medicare Tool That Gives Seniors the Wrong Insurance Information
    https://www.propublica.org/article/the-11-million-dollar-medicare-tool-that-gives-seniors-the-wrong-insurance-information

    The federal government recently redesigned a digital tool that helps seniors navigate complicated Medicare choices, but consumer advocates say it’s malfunctioning with alarming frequency, offering inaccurate cost estimates and creating chaos in some states during the open enrollment period.

    Diane Omdahl, a Medicare consultant in Wisconsin, said she used the tool Friday to research three prescription drug plans for a client. The comparison page, which summarizes total costs, showed all but one of her client’s medications would be covered. When Omdahl clicked on “plan details” to find out which medicine was left out, the plan finder then said all of them were covered.

    So she started checking the plans’ websites, and it turns out there are two versions of the same high blood pressure medication. One is covered. The other is not. The difference in price: $2,700 a month.

  88. 88.

    J R in WV

    @eclare:

     

    There were several really potent descriptions of Tourette’s and its effects in the book,

    So a few months ago I was shopping at the big Kroger’s we drive by to get into town. I heard yelling in the aisle one or two over from where I was. Thought it was a drunk, but soon learned it was a young man in a wheelchair with his older brother. Had Tourette’s for sure, according to all I’ve read about the syndrome.Was talking about food he wanted or liked, but surrounded by choice obscenities so that it was hard to tell he wasn’t just cussing a blue streak.

     

    Probably some other physical issues, also, hence the chair.

     

    Older brother was running the wheelchair with one hand and a grocery buggy with the other. Doing a good job. I was embarrassed to have suspected a drunk after seeing them…

  89. 89.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Immanentize: Sufjan has produced some of my Xmas favorites too. I don’t know the others; will have to check them out.

     

    We had a wondrously relaxing Thanksgiving getaway in Taos. I made green chile lamb stew, baked bread and my killer truffle brownies ahead of time to bring with us and we feasted yesterday, nicely supplemented with a bottle of our favorite red wine. With snow outside and a fire inside our casita…twas perfect.

  90. 90.

    Kathleen

    @OzarkHillbilly: Columbus Dispatch had searing editorial chastising Republicans in Ohio legislature for their fixation with pandering to extreme right wing evangelicals instead of passing legislation to benefit Ohioans and it called out this bill.

  91. 91.

    J R in WV

    @Amir Khalid:

     

    When I worked at the Dept of Env Protection, there were a ton of engineers and biologists. You would be surprised how many of them collected interesting flashlights. Bright, odd ball light spectrum, specialty batteries, all kinds of variations.

     

    I personally like headlights, little LED lamps with a strap, and with a red illumination, for getting around at night without wrecking your night vision. Or big rechargeable lamps for working on a car at night fixing a flat, or plumbing under a sink, etc.

  93. 93.

    mrmoshpotato

    @zhena gogolia:

    It’s like if I can’t monitor whatever evil stuff Drumpf has been doing with you guys, I get very, very anxious.

    Strength and support in numbers. :)

  94. 94.

    laura

    @bemused: with an ectopic pregnancy there is No Time to pull a runner. It is a sudden unexpected emergency and occurs before a woman may even suspect she is pregnant. I almost lost a very dear friend to an ep. The ridiculous idea that it would be possible to reimplant an ep let alone consider it when the actual task at hand is to save the very life of the woman. So as with many if not all the other “pro-life”  issues they Do Not Care if women die.

    Also, Ed Norton is a jewel and this movie looks lush, infuriating and demanding of the viewer. I am here for it.

    Lastly, spouse is either an introvert or shy extrovert. I never met a stranger. Our marriage is his worst nightmare. I really make an effort to only demand he attend a very few social engagements and he goes knowing he gets a pass on the majority -and then proceeds to have a grand time and says we should do it more often until he resets to his factory specs. We throw two parties a year -Day of the Dead house party with a dj and dancing -the does not dance, and a breakfast party the weekend before the superbowl. He spends the entire party squeezing oranges and tidying up as the crowd comes and goes in waves. If I had my way, we’d have a friendsgiving every Sunday afternoon. He’s an anchor on my social aspirations and I’m his tow-chain on solitude.

  95. 95.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @J R in WV:  

    When I worked at the Dept of Env Protection, there were a ton of engineers and biologists. You would be surprised how many of them collected interesting flashlights.

    You should try hanging out with cavers. They are obsessed with lights, especially headlamps.

  97. 97.

    bemused

    @laura:

     

    So irresponsible of legislators using these horrific bills to crank up their wingnut voters but I truly believe they enjoy making people suffer and even the threat of making people suffer gives them a rush. Sick and twisted.

  99. 99.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @RobertDSC-Work:   I used to travel a lot more than I do now, not always alone tho it happened often enough. The thing I suddenly saw about myself when reading that little bit of nothing was that no matter the group, no matter the destination, whether the trip is one day, a week or a month, I have always, always, always gone off by myself. I just thought it was because I wanted to go see/do different things than everybody else, not that I had a core need to see/do things by myself.

    Interesting.

  100. 100.

    RobertDSC-Work

    @OzarkHillbilly:

     

    As I worked alone on graveyard shift for many years, I have always been a self-starter. My job these days is mail delivery and I have to be up-close and personal with the people I deliver to. There are times when I get home that I need to be alone. Even yesterday with family, once the kitchen was clean, I went off to be by myself. I was overloaded with talking and closeness and people, so I was able to find a spot in the house where I could not be bothered.

  101. 101.

    debbie

    @Kathleen:
    I know you’re long gone, but screw the damn Dispatch. They’ve been jonesing for tighter controls over abortion. Had they tempered their words earlier, we might not be where we are today.

  102. 102.

    Miss Bianca

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    I made green chile lamb stew, baked bread and my killer truffle brownies ahead of time to bring with us and we feasted yesterday, nicely supplemented with a bottle of our favorite red wine. With snow outside and a fire inside our casita…twas perfect.

    OK, *definitely* have to arrange another Jackal Moot in New Mexico with you and your charming spouse and Cheryl R…at *your* place! : )

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