Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

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

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

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

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Let there be snark.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

The lights are all blinking red.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

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

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

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

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Fundamental Human Rigths / Everything You’re Unhappy About Can Be Someone Else’s Fault

Reader Interactions

68Comments

  1. 1.

    guachi

    So good I watched it twice yesterday. My mom was feeling gloomy about the state of things vis-a-vis Palestine/Israel and I made her watch it without telling her exactly what it was about.

    It made her feel better knowing powerful voices like this were out there speaking.

    Go watch. Now.

  5. 5.

    Brachiator

    Very powerful. Arnold breaks things down in a way that makes it easy for people to relate to and to understand.

  11. 11.

    Another Scott

    He’s very good at this – I remember one from a few years ago, I think it was after Charlottesville.  I hope lots of people listen and keep it in mind.

    Thanks for the pointer.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  14. 14.

    Raoul Paste

    Regardless of attention span, it’s hard to stop watching
    Well done Arnold, and if you wrote all of this, it’s an outstanding essay, delivered with impact

  15. 15.

    Scout211

    As the video says, everyone deserves a chance to look at themselves and make changes to become a better person.

    Sadly, my immediate response to this video was to discount the message because of who Arnold was as a governor and the people he hurt due to his policies.  It was a long time ago but I still have resentments.   Sigh.    

    But . . .the message of the video is indeed powerful and I guess I will just work on letting go of resentments.  It’s kind of the message in the video, right?

  16. 16.

    VeniceRiley

    I’m sure regrets his “when you’re famous, you can grab Em by the pussy” past. Unlike Donny Dollhands.

  17. 17.

    Daddio7

    Can be?  Everyone here knows it is people who think and vote wrong who are making them unhappy.  However I am one of those voters and am happy.  Biden is in the White House but his voters are the ones who are unhappy, that makes me happy also.

  24. 24.

    WaterGirl

    @m.j.: I don’t know.  Do you have a link?

    edit:  Apparently, that’s a NO, dated in 2016.

    Arnold Schwarzenegger: ‘I Will Not Vote for the Republican Candidate for President’

  27. 27.

    lamh36

    Count me in as someone who rarely watch these types of videos, but I gave it a shot and once I started I actualy watched the entire thing.

    Well done Arnie!

  31. 31.

    zhena gogolia

    NYTimes Sunday magazine: “In Search of Kamala Harris. After nearly three years, the vice president is still struggling to make the case for herself — and feels she shouldn’t have to.”

    FUCK YOU NEW YORK TIMES I HATE YOU

    Now do Pence.

  32. 32.

    lamh36

    Since this is an open thread…wanted to share a video that I found myself watching despite not planning to…LOL.

    Still can’t believe me and the fam LITERALLY walked the streets of Tokyo in May! Shoot we def gotta go back cause we missed so much.

    🇯🇵 TOKYO WALKING TOUR – WALK THE STREETS OF JAPAN DAY & NIGHT [ 4K HDR -… https://youtu.be/28ZjrtD_iL0?si=DH3I-Rq2wq6gngOZ via @YouTube

    Hmmm is it too early for me to want to go back to Japan… I mean I missed so much during the trip cause of the pain I experienced over there. I was essentially laid up half the trip..

  34. 34.

    Almost Retired

    This was really, really good.  I get that Arnold has a book to sell and he is in burnishing his legacy mode.   But it was powerful.  I’m skeptical of his implication that some of the Germans and Austrians of his father’s generation saw the errors of their ways in later life (I know that’s not exactly what he said).  But his message that the path of hate leads to destruction for the hater as well as the hated is very well stated.  Great post.  I needed this today.   Thanks.

  36. 36.

    trollhattan

    That was Good Arnold, a parallel to Good Janet on The Good Place.

    Kind of wish the micro horse or donkey was around but I can understand why he didn’t include them. One of my little pleasures during covid.

  38. 38.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Meanwhile, Elno has made an offer to Wikipedia: I’ll pay you a billion dollars to change your name to “Dickipedia”.

  39. 39.

    MazeDancer

    Assume that everyone who donated to Larime’s GoFundMe 8 months ago just got an update about Sylv having maybe a heart attack. Terrible news. So, Larime needs help, literally. Has to hire someone to take care of him.

    Except he disabled the GFM, months ago, so people can’t donate now.

    I emailed and tweeted Cole. Who knows if he’ll get either.

    But if anyone has Larime’s contact from hiring him or something, could you please alert him that he has to either restart the GFM or start a new one.

  40. 40.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, your tax dollars at work: Phys.org:

    Little of the mixed consumer plastics thrown away or placed in recycle bins actually ends up being recycled. Nearly 90% is buried in landfills or incinerated at commercial facilities that generate greenhouse gases and airborne toxins. Neither outcome is ideal for the environment.

    Why aren’t more mixed plastics recycled? It’s usually easier and less expensive to make new plastic products than reclaim, sort and recycle used ones. Conventional recycling of mixed plastics has previously meant manually or mechanically separating the plastics according to their constituent polymers.

    Addressing the issue, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory used carefully planned chemical design, neutron scattering and high-performance computing to help develop a new catalytic recycling process. The catalyst selectively and sequentially deconstructs multiple polymers in mixed plastics into pristine monomers—molecules that react with other monomer molecules to form a polymer. The process offers a promising strategy for combating global plastic waste, such as bottles, packaging, foams and carpets.

    The researchers’ analysis, published in Materials Horizons, compared using the new multipurpose catalyst to using individual catalysts for each type of plastic. The new catalyst would generate up to 95% fewer greenhouse gases, require up to 94% less energy input, and result in up to a 96% reduction in fossil fuel consumption.

    “Our approach involves a tailored synthetic organocatalyst—a compound comprised of small organic molecules that facilitate organic chemical transformations. The organocatalyst can convert batches of mixed plastic waste into valuable monomers for reuse in producing commercial-grade plastics and other valuable materials,” said Tomonori Saito, an ORNL synthetic polymer chemist and corresponding author. “This exceptionally efficient chemical process can help close the loop for recycling mixed plastics by replacing first-use monomers with recycled monomers.

    “Today, nearly all plastics are made from fossil fuels using first-use monomers made by energy-intensive processes. Establishing this kind of closed-loop recycling, if used globally, could reduce annual energy consumption by about 3.5 billion barrels of oil,” Saito added.

    […]

    More information: Md Arifuzzaman et al, Selective deconstruction of mixed plastics by a tailored organocatalyst, Materials Horizons (2023). DOI: 10.1039/D3MH00801K

    (The paper is open access – no paywall.)

    This could be a really, really big deal. And this is what government labs are really good at – building a strong team and working on a problem for years or decades, really understanding the issues until a breakthrough is made. The “if you’re not breaking everything, you’re doing it rong” brainiacs don’t understand this.

    Here’s hoping that it (or something like it) works as well as imagined.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  42. 42.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Meanwhile, Elno has made an offer to Wikipedia: I’ll pay you a billion dollars to change your name to “Dickipedia”.

    That is so preposterous I just knew you were joking, so I looked it up.

    OMG, you weren’t joking.

  43. 43.

    Citizen Alan

    @Villago Delenda Est: It is a testament to how shitty this timeline is that I thought “This is an Onion article or a NYT Pitchbot tweet.” Then, I thought “Maybe Elmo is that much of a piece of shit.” So I googled it. And then realized upon reading the Yahoo article that, of course, it’s true. Because Elmo is the biggest piece of shit in the history of shit.

    And this is why I support confiscatory tax rates. Because wealth beyond a certain level always — ALWAYS — turns people into narcissistic evil assholes who view people who have less money than them as mere monkeys who can be made to dance for their entertainment.

  44. 44.

    HumboldtBlue

    @WaterGirl:

    I hope we get more light fodder for the weekends, we spend all week on hard news and after a while it can get tedious, and tense, particularly with hot-button issues such as Ukraine and Israel.

    More respite threads are welcome any time.

  45. 45.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @lamh36: I love those sorts of walking-in-foreign-cities videos on YouTube. Walking Alice is one of my faves.

    I really want to go back to Japan, since I was severely jet-lagged (unusual for me) all four days I was in Tokyo. Plus it was unseasonably hot, i.e. 90s and muggy. So not that enjoyable.

  47. 47.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Speaking of everything you’re unhappy about being someone else’s fault, CA Rep. Tom McClintock — who’s otherwise a POS Republican — released a wonderfully snarky letter to Chaos Eight who toppled McCarthy, which he signed off with “your secret admirer”:

    Dear Wayward Colleague,

    Your letter of October 20, in which you graciously offer to martyr yourselves as long as you can get your way, is perhaps the most selfless act in American history.

    We truly don’t deserve you.

    Your sacrifice is not in vain. You have succeeded in replacing the outdated concept of majority rule with an exciting new standard that a Speaker must be elected by 98.2 percent of the Republican conference. Someday, a messiah will be born unto us who can achieve this miraculous threshold, and on that day your judgment will be vindicated and you will be hailed as the geniuses that you are.

  49. 49.

    Princess

    @MazeDancer: As it happens, a common fb friend just posted about them. I have access to their Zelle and PayPal and CashApp contact info. Should I post it here?

  50. 50.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: I think Schwarzenegger is right about centering the question on about how people can move forward from this 56 year-old conflict. It’s really a 75 year-old conflict; the families of many of the people in Gaza and the West Bank were displaced from their land during the war fought 1947-1948.

    A lot of commentary about the current war centers the history. That’s important to know, but when all it leads to is moral judgements, it can obscure the path needed for people to get beyond this mess.

  51. 51.

    Geminid

    @Sister Golden Bear: Rep. McClintock has made some half-way intelligent comments on the Republican House mess. So has Ken Buck (CO). I guess I would call the two “Old School” Republicans.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    @MazeDancer: Larime wrote to me and John.  John is very protection of Balloon Juice peeps and not going to the well too often.  If we do that, then folks will be less inclined to help when we do ask.

    If anyone who received an update is inclined to help in some way, perhaps Larime will supply Venmo or PayPal Information on his website or on his social media.  I suggested that as an option for him but I do not know whether Larime has done that, or will do that.

  58. 58.

    MazeDancer

    @WaterGirl: Don’t think Larime understood. He sent an update to everyone who gave. .Sounded dire.

    And now everyone has already been “asked” to go back to the well. But has no way to give.

    Backing away, now. But if Sylv is having a heart attack and Larime doesn’t know how he is going to be able to pee and eat and just sent that to the entire BJ list. Feels like we are already involved.

  61. 61.

    WaterGirl

    @MazeDancer:  Yeah, not ideal.

    Don’t think Larime understood. He sent an update to everyone who gave. .Sounded dire.

    That was an accident on Larime’s part.  He was trying to write that to me and John and he somehow ended up with it as an update.  So my first job was to figure out how to take down the update, which I did.  But the automated emails had already gone out.  Not sure if they went to everyone who donated, or if they just went to people who had clicked the box to say they wanted to receive updates.

  64. 64.

    lowtechcyclist

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Can we deport this horse’s ass back to South Africa?

    I’ve got a better idea: let him be the first human to set foot on Mars. I bet we can get him there with current tech. Just not back again.

  67. 67.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Another Scott: The “if you’re not breaking everything, you’re doing it rong” brainiacs don’t understand this.

    There would be no internet at all if these blockheads were running DARPA 40-50 years ago.

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