Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

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

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

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

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

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

I was promised a recession.

I really should read my own blog.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Everybody saw this coming.

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

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

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

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sunday Afternoon Open Thread

Sunday Afternoon Open Thread

by | 94 Comments

This post is in: 

Well, my internet is still down, but my neighbor across the street has boosted his signal for me, and my open wireless network on his router.  He named my new temporary wireless Henry, which I loved.

So I am now catching up on work for my clients, but here’s an open thread, with an image I found.

Sunday Afternoon Open Thread 19

That’s the full version, but I’ll probably going with this one.  Looks like we may have occasion to use that one a lot.

Sunday Afternoon Open Thread 20

Open thread.

Update: on a more positive note, here’s my first tomato of the year!

Sunday Afternoon Open Thread 21

Reader Interactions

94Comments

  1. 1.

    DarbysMom

    Pretty sure that blonde in the pic is Claudia Conway, George and Kellyanne’s daughter.  (HA!)

     

    Frist!!?  Me!?

  5. 5.

    Scout211

    This is my world today:

    Affected Area
    Northern and central Sacramento Valley, Northern San Joaquin Valley, Northeast Foothills and Motherlode

    Description
    …EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 11 PM PDT THIS EVENING… WHAT…Dangerously hot conditions with high temperatures of 105 to 112 expected. WHERE…Northern and central Sacramento Valley, Northern San Joaquin Valley, Northeast Foothills and Motherlode. WHEN…Through 11 PM PDT this evening. IMPACTS…Extreme heat will significantly increase the potential for heat related illnesses, particularly for those working or participating in outdoor activities.

  6. 6.

    Central Planning

    @WaterGirl: ​That pic is on her Instagram page, so it might very well be her.​
    ETA: NY Post says she turned 18 and is now a Playboy Bunny

  7. 7.

    WaterGirl

    I have never grown this variety of tomato before.  Here’s wwhat Laurel’s website says about them.

    Succulent, sweet, perfect. Gorgeous, fruity, juicy and sweet, Dragons’ Eye tomatoes average about 3 to 4 ounces, salad size, grow in incredible delicious bountiful clusters.
    Perfect for fresh eating and roasting–make the best salsa, too!
    Beautiful pink-rose fruits have green streaking that turns gold at full ripeness.  They appear shimmery and luminescent as they ripen on the vine –inside, the flesh is deep dark red.  A real workhorse of a tomato, huge production!  This strong plant does beautifully in containers.
    I am going to walk on the treadmill for a bit, and then I will toast some cheese on a bit of bread, topped with the first tomato!  It’s not even as big as a baseball, but it’s pretty!  If there are any tomato lovers here, I will let you know how it tastes.
  10. 10.

    TaMara

    @WaterGirl: I’m jealous of your first tomato! I won’t see any until a) I visit my NE family and steal some of theirs in a week or so b) mid-August at this altitude

  11. 11.

    Alison Rose

    @RepubAnon: Yeah, I get the sentiment for sure, but it does feel unfair to Sotomayor, Jackson, and Kagan.

    I wish there was one more last name starting with a vowel among the Stinker Six, so we could try to make a lil’ acronym for them.

  14. 14.

    MagdaInBlack

    @WaterGirl: For me, the first tomato of the season is always “the best tomato I have had in my whole entire life”….and then I want 10 more.

    Enjoy 😊

  16. 16.

    Alison Rose

    @WaterGirl: Oh, I’m sorry if it sounded like I was being critical of you! Not at all, and believe me, I’ve said variations on the phrase many times. I just feel a bit bad about those three ladies getting hit with the shrapnel, you know?

    I would definitely love to be a fly on the wall in a room where the three of them were knocking back a few drinks.

  17. 17.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Alison Rose:”I wish there was one more last name starting with a vowel among the Stinker Six, so we could try to make a lil’ acronym for them.”

     Hmmm.
    Alito Gorsuch Thomas Roberts ConeyBarrett Kavanaugh….
    AGTRCK? Pronounced “Agg-TRUCK”, to rhyme with you can guess. :)

  19. 19.

    Jeffro

    That’s a pretty cool neighbor, WG!

    Someone with far more Photoshop talent than me (meaning any at all) could put the Slimy SCOTUS Six’s faces on the villains on the cover of Amazing Spider-Man 337, to make a true “Sinister Six”

    (I guess then we would need Spidey, standing there in peril, to be…America?  I dunno)

  24. 24.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Scout211:”TRAGCK ?
    pronounced tragic, of course!” That’s pretty good too!
    Or we could use ARGTC(B)K, which sounds sort of like hawking and spitting.​
     

    …Gonna go offline and punch down my bread dough: the only kind of punching down I approve of. I can pretend it’s the craven bellies of the Sad-Sack Sicks/Six. :)

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    How does one boost a router signal? Fiddle with the floppy antennae? I’m at a loss as to the tech side.

    Good god it’s hot.

  29. 29.

    laura

    @trollhattan: It’s hotter than two squirrels getting it on in a wool sock behind the dryer.

    I feel for our unused people and animals- there’s almost no where to go to cool down.

  31. 31.

    Central Planning

    @trollhattan: ​Most WiFi has an ability to turn up the power so you can get longer range which might over-ride the auto-adjust capability it has.
    If your WiFi can run at lower power, your clients can also usually run at lower power which saves battery.

  32. 32.

    WaterGirl

    So, podcast peeps.  What are you using for your podcast apps?

    I use Sticher, and that’s going away on some magic date in late August, so I need to find a replacement.  Not fond of Apple podcasts.

  34. 34.

    trollhattan

    @Central Planning: ​Ah, okay.
    It must depend on the console–mine (tp-link) doesn’t offer anything resembling a signal strength control, other that switching between 2.4 and 5 GHz (more reach/wider bandwidth).

    As it is, think I’m investing in a mesh system because the house has dead spots and we both WFH.

  37. 37.

    Kelly

    @trollhattan: A TP-link powerline wifi extender works well in our house. It uses the electric wiring to communicate between the base and the extender. Kinda depends on how your house is wired. Wifi 6 devices seem to reach further if both the router and the device are wifi 6.

  38. 38.

    Central Planning

    @trollhattan: ​There’s always a few things to do with WiFi in the home that can help:
    1. Make sure your client drivers are up-to-date
    2. Make sure your WiFi firmware is up-to-date
    3. Try to place your WiFi device in the middle of your house
    4. Make sure your 2.4Ghz channel(s) are set to 1, 6, or 11 ONLY.
    5. 2.4Ghz signals go further than 5Ghz signals (they penetrate things like walls and people better)
    6. The 2.4Ghz spectrum is filled with shitty devices. Try to force devices to use 5Ghz
    7. If your WiFi device lets you disable data rates, disable anything less than 12Mbps.
    8. If you’re going to start making changes, change one thing at a time and verify your changes with something like speedtest.net
    9. Use wired connections instead of wireless.
    10. If you can enable Quality of Service (QoS) on your device, do that. It might help your interactive voice/video work better.

  40. 40.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: Her insta pics remind me of when my niece came from LA and got the Egyptian Symbol of Life tattooed between her boobs and then got really pissed because people were looking at her boobs!!!!

  41. 41.

    Miki

    @WaterGirl: I’ve been using Pocket Casts for, hmmm, over 5 years.  They changed the color of their icon for Pride, if that matters (to me it does). I find everything I want and it’s easy to use.

  43. 43.

    Jay

    Watched the birb channel for a while today. A juvenile Golden Eagle, ( basically just a fledgling) trying to figure out how to fly around 25 story apartment buildings and hunt pigeons in the parking lot. Trying to figure out glass railings, patio doors and what purpose a lounge chair has.

  45. 45.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @WaterGirl: I, at first, saw an apple until I read then took notice of the vineage on top. That is a beautiful fruit.

  46. 46.

    Tony Jay

    Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas, ConeyBarrett, Roberts, Kavanaugh. Mmmmmmmm…

    ALGOROCOKATH?

    KAALTH GOROCO?

    KAAL ROCO GOTH?

    ALCO THRO KAGO?

    “KAGO ALCO THRO, WE WANT YOU TO GO! KAGO ALCO THRO, OUR COUNTRY TELLS YOU NO!”

    Needs more work.

  47. 47.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Tony Jay: ALGOROCOKATH?

    KAALTH GOROCO?

    KAAL ROCO GOTH?

    ALCO THRO KAGO?

    You’ve decoded the evil summons. We need a containment team before this moves past a top 10,000 blog.

  49. 49.

    The Moar You Know

    I was reading through some of my old psych textbooks and noted that the old definition of “sadistic personality disorder” has been removed: apparently there was quite a bit of concern that the diagnosis would be used as a criminal defense.  I think that concern is legitimate, but I also think it needs to be revisited, because “sadistic personality disorder”, subtype “enforcing sadism” fits Ron DeSantis a little too well.

    Bad people, people rotten to the core with literally not one redeeming value, people who are a danger to society and everyone around them, are out there.  And he is one of them and he is looking for power.

    ”tyrannical sadism” is what he’s looking to level up to.

  53. 53.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Tony Jay: I’m pretty sure that that thing in the cupboard isn’t a dog.

    One of the scariest phenomena associated with the curse upon the Supreme Court, an involuntary transvaginal ultrasound.

  55. 55.

    Anyway

    Tragic Six doesn’t connote the evil and reactionariness that is the hallmark of the SCROTUS Six.

  56. 56.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @trollhattan: if you’ve the money to buy new equipment, a mesh router set up is you’re best bet.  It acts similar to two cell towers where you Wifi connection is seamlessly handed off between routers, so to your Wi-Fi-connected device it all looks like part of the same network.

  58. 58.

    Tony Jay

    @Highway Rob:

    I’m already regretting it. Alito’s sneering head just manifested in a jar of pickled cucumbers, a rat with Thomas’s face ran off with all the bacon, and every time I go into the kitchen Kavanaugh’s disembodied voice starts tearfully demanding beer and asking where the drunk college chicks are.

    I need Combat Exorcists. Stat!

  59. 59.

    prostratedragon

    The funeral scene should start here, and it runs for about 9 minutes until the chorus leaves the stage. There is a little sync problem, but audio and visual are still in phase.

  61. 61.

    Jeffro

    Btw I know there are Klein haters out there, but this is really good: Biden is Running Right At trump’s Greatest Strength

     

    Trump said that elites had sold you out. They traded your job to China. They let your bridges and roads and buildings crumble. They respected the work they did — work that happens behind a computer screen, work that needs fancy degrees, work that happens in offices rather than factories and cities rather than towns — and dismissed the work you did. They got rich and you got nothing. Exit polls found that Trump won large majorities among those who thought the economy was “fair” or “poor.”

    Trump did not, during his presidency, turn that critique into an agenda. There were islands of action — trade policy foremost among them — but the order of the day was incoherence. Infrastructure weeks came and went. Tax cuts were tilted toward the rich. There was no strategy to restore America’s manufacturing prowess or rebuild bargaining power for workers without college degrees.

    But Trump had the good fortune to take office during an economic boom. And he kept that boom going. He worked with congressional Republicans to tax less and spend more, budget deficits be damned. He appointed Jay Powell to the Federal Reserve, and Powell kept money cheap and the labor market hot. Unemployment, in February 2020, was 3.5 percent. Wages were rising and inflation was low.

    Then Covid hit, and Trump worked with Speaker Nancy Pelosi to flood the economy with trillions of dollars in support payments. Joblessness spiked, but workers overall didn’t suffer. This is Trump’s deepest well of strength in a 2024 rematch. Only about a third of voters approve of the job Biden has done on the economy. Polls show Trump is the more trusted economic manager, by far.

    On Wednesday, in Chicago, Biden previewed the counterargument he’ll make in a much-hyped speech defining “Bidenomics.” Biden’s case is this: What Trump only promised, I delivered.

    Biden set his economic policies in contrast to “40 years of trickle-down.” Trickle-down economics usually describes the theory that tax cuts at the top will lead to prosperity at the bottom. Biden is using it to describe a more expansive economic order — what sometimes gets called “neoliberalism.” Trickle-down, in his telling, was the philosophy that “it didn’t matter where you made things.” It “meant slashing public investment” and looking the other way as “three-quarters of U.S. industries grew more concentrated.” Forty years, as alert readers will note, encompasses not just the administrations of Donald Trump and George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, but Bill Clinton and, yes, Barack Obama.

    This is a point worth dwelling on. The Biden administration is thickly populated with veterans of the Obama and Clinton White Houses. But it doesn’t see itself in comfortable continuity with those legacies. It sees itself, in key ways, as a break with them.

  62. 62.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Tony Jay: It’s an evil spirit. It could be a spiritual vagina.

    @Tony Jay: I need Combat Exorcists. Stat!

    That would be a good show or movie. Like some kind of Rest in Peace Department, out there bustin’ ghosts.

  63. 63.

    Jackie

    @WaterGirl: My first garden tomato is always a sandwich. Bread, mayo, tomato with salt and pepper, eaten over the kitchen sink as the juices drip. Alas, ours aren’t ripe for a few more weeks; I’m already anticipating though! 😋

  68. 68.

    Tony Jay

    @Jay:

    I’m not sure what it’s doing in there, but when I went to get some cheese it started jabbering about ‘textual constitutionalism’ and ‘the Major Questions of legislative overreach’ so I just opened a tin of tuna and sat in the corner until it went quiet.

  74. 74.

    WaterGirl

    @Anyway: All my neighbors (directly across or right next door) have gone to I3 broadband instead of comcast.

    I haven’t done that because i LOVE my Tivo box that records shows, and when I looked into it when I3 first came out, I wouldn’t have been able to use Tivo. sigh

  75. 75.

    Tenar Arha

    @WaterGirl: I bought Overcast by Marco Arment years ago. I can make playlists, remove pauses, listen at higher speeds, there’s also an annual Premium level that I don’t use, but probably should bc you can eliminate banner ads on the playback screen that way ;)

  76. 76.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @WaterGirl: What constitutes an awesome summer tomato. What properties should it have that you might appreciate less in the winter?

    @Tony Jay: It might also be the name of my new meditative practice.

  77. 77.

    The Moar You Know

    don’t we call that being a psychopath

    @Jeffro: they are very much different things.

    Psychopathy is merely a lack of emotional/empathic responses; there are plenty of psychopaths out there who have never and will never harm anyone.

    Sadistic personality disorder people do harm and actively enjoy doing harm.

  78. 78.

    trollhattan

    @WaterGirl: Our ISP decided to get out of the cable teevee business entirely and pushed us into Direct Stream. As a result, our DVR went bye-bye and it’s been rasslin’ with the Medusa head that is the collected streaming services. EVERY ONE has different controls, features capabilities, reliabilities, quirks and of course, content. A couple have virtual program recording, but it’s a tiny sliver of the total.

  80. 80.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Tony Jay: Oh, my spiritual practices are, at present, entirely for my own edification and no one else’s.

  84. 84.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: I think Klein is overthinking this. For one thing, I do not think the economy is a very strong issue for Trump. It was middling during his presidency.

    On the other hand, the economy is Biden’s strongest issue, and he’d be crazy not to run on it. This is the best economy in decades.

    I guess Klein is suggesting other good issues to run on, and there are, but Biden can walk and chew gum at the same time.

  86. 86.

    gene108

    @Geminid:

    For one thing, I do not think the economy is a very strong issue for Trump. It was middling during his presidency.

    Trump seems to have a hard floor of support somewhere between 40% to 45% of the electorate. Doesn’t seem to matter to them what he does. These are the same people, who felt the economy was terrible on January 19, 2017 and made an unbelievable turnaround on January 21, 2017.

    These folks don’t use facts to reach an opinion.

    Trump’s probably more trusted on the economy.

    What has Biden and his crime family done for people, besides pocketing millions in Chinese bribes? Set record highs on inflation, created all kinds of instability in the labor market with “Great Resignation”, and ran trillions of dollars of debt. // MAGA/Republicans view of things.

  88. 88.

    Geminid

    @gene108 

    It’s been a while since I cared about the MAGA view of things. There are not enough of them to win an election.

    But what exactly are you saying anyway? That Biden shouldn’t run on the economy?

  89. 89.

    Geminid

    @Geminid:

     

    @gene108: To put it in a maybe less confrontational way, Biden does not need MAGA votes to win, or even votes from the wider pool of Republicans. He can win with votes from Democrats and Independents.

  90. 90.

    sab

    @DarbysMom: Ohio husband was watching Ron Burgundy movie today. I had to laugh when the tv anchors couldn’t describe their actual audience. Glad to see an actual San Diegan describe them. as San Diegans. My sister is retiring to La Jolla where she already has housing.

  92. 92.

    BellyCat

    Voting for “the full version” of the FUCK SCOTUS image. The look on both of their faces says far more than the sign.

  94. 94.

    Mousebumples

    @WaterGirl – late to the thread, but 2 comments

    1. My android app of choice for podcasts is Podkicker. I use it enough that I paid 1x for the Pro version. Not a ton of features, but it works for my needs. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ait.podka
    2. When I bought my house (almost 10 years ago!), I bought a Tivo box and a lifetime subscription to the service. I have no cable and just over the air tv, but I can use it to record stuff like Jeopardy, Daniel Tiger, and sports. No idea what I3 is/offers, but even if it doesn’t come *with* a Tivo, you might be able to add it on yourself.

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