Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Bark louder, little dog.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

In my day, never was longer.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

This blog will pay for itself.

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

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

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

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today.

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Reader Interactions

132Comments

  2. 2.

    Yutsano

    WELL IT’S ABOUT TIME LADY! :P

    I’m five minutes from leaving work anyway. Gonna be packing up the computer for home here in a bit.

  6. 6.

    SomeRandomGuy

    Yikes! Did you think we all ran away from home?

    Well, the legs sticking out from under the house, and the celebrating Munchkins, *did* support that theory. What really happened?

  7. 7.

    SteveinPHX

    Wow! Happy Birthday!

    Now I see I’m two days early, but you’re right. Better than late.

  8. 8.

    scav

    Yikes! Did you think we all ran away from home?

    Better still, I assumed you’d all run away to join a better circus!

    Jealous as hell.

  12. 12.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Happy early birthday, WG!

    There’s a special election today for Ohio’s 6th congressional district, formerly held by Bill Johnson, who’s now the President of YSU who was corruptly chosen for the post imo. The Republican candidate, Michael Rulli, is of course scum. Anyone who willingly joins up with the GOP today is. Special mention to how he threatend to shoot minors that were on his property years ago. His family owns a local grocery chain, so he has name recognition and he is a state politician. I suspect he’ll probably win given his name recognition and the fact that the district is gerrymandered to hell. It’ll be interesting to see his margin of victory though. Who knows, maybe there will be some kind of upset?

    I even got a postcard in the mail reminding me of it a few weeks ago. I’d forgotten it was going to happen today, so postcards absolutely work

  20. 20.

    BethanyAnne

    The new Dragon Age game had a gameplay trailer come out today. It looks so fun! I’m looking forward to playing it this fall.

  22. 22.

    jackmac

    Unsettling report from Axios that the number partisan-backed outlets designed to look like impartial news outlets (print and web) has officially surpassed the number of real, local daily newspapers in the U.S. The ones here in Illinois are affiliated with right wingers and funded by those of that ilk.

    axios.com/2024/06/11/partisan-news-websites-dark-money

  26. 26.

    Mousebumples

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I even got a postcard in the mail reminding me of it a few weeks ago. I’d forgotten it was going to happen today, so postcards absolutely work

    Awesome! Glad it helped remind you to vote.

    I think H. E. Wolf mentioned it in the am thread, but Postcards to Voters has a campaign for the open CO-04 special election happening now if anyone has postcarding supplies and free time to spare. Postcardstovoters.org has a how to, if you want to join in!

  28. 28.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Gemini ♊️: (May 21 – June 20)

    Gemini, the third sign of the Zodiac, is often described as curious, communicative and intellectual. An air sign, Geminis aren’t afraid of change and will gladly – and easily – dish on a variety of topics. Represented by twins, the sign is deeply independent, yet also in search of a lifelong partner.

  30. 30.

    Jackie

    Speaking of books…

    “Fred C. Trump III, the nephew of former President Donald Trump and the older brother of Mary Trump, will publish a memoir about the Trump family,” the New York Times reports.

    “The memoir, titled All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way, is set to come out on July 30 from Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster — just a few months before the 2024 presidential election.”

    The book is described as a “candid and revealing” account of what it was like to grow up in the Trump family, and noted that the book will include “never-before-told stories” that shed “a light into the darker corner of the Trump empire.”

    So… Fred III will become the newest Trump to spill new beans on his book tour to all the media outlets for at least the first few weeks of Aug. What timing!

  31. 31.

    Scout211

    Some good news out of Florida.

    A federal judge on Tuesdaystruck down parts of Florida’s restrictions on transition-related medical care for transgender minors and adults, declaring several statutes that ban such care unconstitutional.

    The law, championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, made Florida among the most restrictive states for transgender care in the nation.

    “Transgender opponents are of course free to hold their beliefs,” Judge Robert L. Hinkle of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Tallahassee Division, wrote in his opinion. “But they are not free to discriminate against transgender individuals just for being transgender. In time, discrimination against transgender individuals will diminish, just as racism and misogyny have diminished. To paraphrase a civil-rights advocate from an earlier time, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

    Hinkle added, “The State of Florida can regulate as needed but cannot flatly deny transgender individuals safe and effective medical treatment — treatment with medications routinely provided to others with the state’s full approval so long as the purpose is not to support the patient’s transgender identity.”

    . . .
    Hinkle wrote that “it is clear that anti-transgender animus” motivated sponsors of the law, pointing to inflammatory public comments made by some of the bill’s supporters, including one Florida House member who accused doctors of cutting off body parts of “little children” and throwing them in the trash.

    “Probably about as far removed from reality as any statement by any legislator ever,” Hinkle wrote. “Nobody who voted for the bill expressed disagreement or called these speakers out.”

    The state plans to appeal, of course they do.

  32. 32.

    NotMax

    Digital things we don’t need. #211,033 in a continuing series.

    Mobile driver’s licenses are coming to New York state starting June 11th

    … there are inherent privacy concerns that surround digital IDs: they can potentially be tracked and leave a more detailed trail of where you’ve been (and for what purpose) than traditional physical IDs. Storing all of that data with a contracted third-party vendor comes with its own set of risks, and privacy advocates have called for safeguards like strong encryption and giving residents tight control over what data is shared where. Source

  33. 33.

    Steeplejack

    As part of the decluttering and streamlining before the Sighthound Hall mob’s move to London, my brother had a company digitize and clean up about 300 slides. He got them back yesterday and has been torturing my other brother and me with various dorky pictures from our past. But one gem is the picture of other brother and me sitting on one of the stones of Stonehenge circa 1959. Back then you could just drive up. My extremely vague memory is that it was deserted on the day we visited.

    How the tempus does fugit!

  34. 34.

    VFX Lurker

    The vet prescribed a bitter medicine to my 14-year-old cat. She can’t stand it straight, mixed in food, compounded into a chewable “treat”, compounded into a fish-flavored liquid, or hidden in treats.

    I ordered some empty gelatin caps from Amazon. Yesterday, I stuffed one of the “regular” pills into a gelatin cap, wiped it off with a dry paper towel to ensure no “pill” flavor stuck to the outside, and used a pill popper with a bit of water so she wouldn’t have to dry-swallow it. Instead of fleeing to the next room, this time she stuck around long enough for me to give her treats as a reward.

    Hoping this new approach keeps working.

  40. 40.

    JaySinWA

    @Redshift: It’s a catastrophic deadline, missing the deadline surely means missing the catastrophe. //

    Avoiding Armageddon should be a good thing.

  43. 43.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Redshift: the proper callback would have been “Cat-astrophe!”  Boots, Tiger, Mittens, and Mongo are severely disappointed in you.  They may not get greenlit now!

  45. 45.

    WaterGirl

    @VFX Lurker: What a relief!  It was a nightmare with Mr. Bear this year until I figured out that I could open up his cosequin capsule and stuff the tiny pill in there with the yummy fish-flavored cosequin.

  46. 46.

    dmsilev

    @Nukular Biskits:

    Should we dare ask what the consequences are of not meeting that deadline?

    ‘Publish or perish’ is rather less metaphorical than most people realize.

  49. 49.

    PaulB

    I’ve been busy going down a rathole trying to permanently disable/remove the Adobe Acrobat Reader Update service, along with its CollabSync service. I’m sort of fine with the reader itself, although I find these days that it’s big and bloated, with about 90% of its features completely worthless to me, not to mention some really unfortunate UI decisions.

    Unfortunately, pretty much everything I have found gets overridden if I use the Reader for any length of time, as it will reactive/reenable the update service, setting it to Automatic, and will add a task to the Windows Task Scheduler to do this every time I start up Windows. I think I have a way to prohibit the CollabSync service from ever starting up, but not the update service.

    Can anyone recommend a fairly simple, easy-to-use, non-bloated, non-intrusive PDF reader? I’m really sick and tired of Adobe.

  51. 51.

    piratedan

    just one of those things that you come across and you think its an anomaly but perhaps its actually a harbinger…

    in one of those places where Dems didn’t bother (Nebraska) to field a viable candidate for the Senate seat, I’ve been reading that polling is showing that Deb Fischer is only posting a within margin of error lead on her independent opponent.  Not saying that Nebraska is gettable, but I wonder if its a sign that with folks at the home; that the GOP House debacle and the Conviction of DJT have shown is that the GOP is in serious trouble.

    DJT convicted – on supposedly the “weakest” case and also now legally tabbed as a sexual predator

    Bipartisan Immigration reform scuttled by the GOP itself – after decades of the GOP screaming “caravans” and immigrants coming to rape our white wimmins on every outlet, now it’s something that can wait.

    economic recovery apace – infrastructure week realized by the Dems, whocoulddanode?

    GOP fuckery over Ukraine – placed firmly at the feet of the GOP

    Dobbs – and the GOP at the state level have gone full fash and now they’re after birth control too as the religious right goes full “speaking in tongues” mode.

  52. 52.

    JaySinWA

    @PaulB: For simple stuff the built in pdf reader in Chrome or Edge works for me. I haven’t had Adobe reader installed for years.

    There was a case that required Adobe reader for some business shared PDFs that used an obscure feature I can’t recall, fortunately I don’t have to deal with that anymore. I think recent updates have even included form filling options.

  68. 68.

    karen marie

    @NotMax:   Makes one’s hair positively stand on end.

    I’m at the point where I have given up on the idea of living in a rational world.

  69. 69.

    karen marie

    @Steeplejack:  How does one find such a company and is it very expensive?

    I have boxes and boxes of slides and negatives that I’d love to have at least some portion digitized.  I sort of looked into it about 15 years ago but was told it would be prohibitively expensive.

  72. 72.

    Scout211

    @Omnes Omnibus: No girl stuff. Just sweaty heterosexual men being sweaty & heterosexual & male with each other. No femmes.

    They’re just scared of girls like these girls from England.

    They went undefeated in a boys’ football soccer league and now are sports celebrities.

  73. 73.

    Jay

    @karen marie:

    There are online services that do digitizing en mass, where it used to be a Mom and Pop service, it has brought the price down a fair bit. Rather than 1 guy with a scanner, it’s a bunch of mixed media auto feed machines.

    Just do a google search but check online reviews.

  74. 74.

    frosty

    I didn’t know you ran away from home. I’m in a Michigan State Park on Lake Superior with no cell service. B-J just popped up! it’s a miracle! I reckon I can read all the valued comments if it goes away again.

    Don’t feel like reading any Hunter Biden news. Maybe I’ll get the harmonicas out finally after 10 days on the road.

  75. 75.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Omnes Omnibus: back when the guitarist was the drummer!

    Sat next to them once while having breakfast at the Bluebird on Athens, a vegetarian joint.

  77. 77.

    Steeplejack

    @Baud:

    Does anybody ever look at the goddamn links?! Yes, Sage—@trans.bsky.social—is trolling off of the NBC News story. But thanks for pointing it out, Sherlock.

  80. 80.

    piratedan

    @Baud: in theory, but I didn’t go deep into it, just thot it was strange that even Deb Fischer is having issues considering she’s not a public loon, just a private one.

  91. 91.

    Eyeroller

    @karen marie: ​If you’re OK with mediocre to not-bad quality, you can get “scanners” from e.g. Amazon that really just takes a picture of the slide or negative. For a negative they have software of varying quality to invert the image. I used this one a.co/d/fB3JNsY to scan a bunch of slides and some negatives. It is very fast. I found its quality for slides was better than for negatives. I have a fairly old and much slower dedicated slide and negative scanner so if I want a higher-quality scan I can use that. There are several comparable “scanners” at Amazon.

    If you have a lot of slides and negatives it is well worth purchasing the add-on slide and negative long-tray holders. All in all it costs about $200 and a certain amount of your time.

  97. 97.

    Gloria DryGarden

    denverpost.com/2024/06/09/lauren-boebert-deborah-flora-colorado-4th-congressional-district-republica…

    Cd4 is highly republican, but deep in this article it says it has 44% independents.

    If it’s going to go republican in the final vote, I sure wish it could be not boebert, but rather someone else. Looks like that’s difficult. She raised her money over in west Colorado, no doubt rich ranchers and republicans in aspen, a center for the very rich. Thus a huge disparity in funds raised.  It also says she’s bombastic but ineffective.. which has been gruesome to have in national congress.

    Are postcards sent to independent voters, as well as to dems? Is there some hope from that angle? It sounds to me like the big mistake is the other 4 candidates didn’t decide between them to narrow the field. Dang it.

    btw, I don’t care so much about her physical “congress” activities in the theater, but her vaping indoors (illegal, and vapers don’t seem to know, but it smells like tobacco use), disrespect and rudeness for other theater goers, her recording the show which is against copyright laws, those all bother me more. Almost everyone has gotten extra friendly w a date, at the show, though it’s more often at the movies, when one was under 25…

  98. 98.

    Steeplejack

    @karen marie:

    My brother went to KH Art and Framing in Arlington, VA, which he has used before to frame some of his expensive prints and posters. They have several offshoot businesses, e.g., custom printing, and they also sublet space to an outfit called Advanced Photo Inc., which does photo restoration, passport photos and various other things. It appears to be a one-man operation, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, “they” get extremely good Yelp and Google reviews.

    I go into this circuitous explanation because it can be hard to find these outfits. Art and framing places can be good leads, because people often get photos made of their artwork, if only for insurance purposes. After talking with my brother and getting on the Google, I think you want to search for “photo restoration.”

    You’re in Phoenix, I think, or somewhere in Arizona, at least? A quick search of the Phoenix area shows Phoenix Photo Lab, Grant’s Photographic Restoration and Williams Photography, all highly rated on Google.

    I think Bro’ Man paid about $1 a slide for them to be converted to digital and cleaned up (via Photoshop or something similar, I presume). I think the guy told him it could be done cheaper if Bro’ Man just wanted a basic assembly-line conversion.

    My brother is happy with the results, and the images he has sent me look very good (dorky content aside). And it’s one less batch of physical junk to be stored or transported overseas.

  99. 99.

    Ruckus

    @Jackie:

    HBD!

    It’s sort of difficult not to share a BD with both good and bad humans – there are just too many humans and not all that many dates – only 365. (Except leap year…)

  102. 102.

    Jay

    @karen marie:

    Keep in mind that not all old photo’s, slides and film are not worth keeping.

    eg. Xmas am, descent down the stairs, as a child, often required 6 or more “takes”, 35mm Kodachrome, and 8mm.

    So a pre-sort keeps the costs down if paying for it, time down if doing it yourself.

    A couple of decades ago, for Xmas, I went through 8 file folder boxes of slides and negatives, to find 4 iconic childhood photos each of my siblings and cousins, had them printed and framed.

    I would say that 55% of the content of the boxes, was “not worthy”, and 45% were train photos of the CPR.

  105. 105.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Jay:

    I think I mentioned this a while back:

    After my mom and my aunt (they lived together) passed away, we were going through things and came across a stash of 8mm “home movie” tapes and the projector (Bell  & Howell, I think, circa early 1960s).  My sister and I assumed these belonged to my aunt but my cousin (who was older than me) said he’d never seen them before.

    The labeling on some of the boxes indicated they were from 1963-1966 but had very little other information on them.  I was tempted to load them into the projector (which still worked) but was afraid it might “eat” the tapes.  So, I sent them off to one of those companies that convert them to MPEG/AVI.

    Lo and behold we had come across a window into a time just before I was born, when my older sister was still alive.  And I saw relatives I haven’t seen in over 55 years and many my sister had never seen.

    It was a wonderful find.

  111. 111.

    Spanky

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Cowboys, Construction workers, Cops, Leather Bound Bikers, Firefighters, Wrestlers, and Sailors.

    Wouldn’t it have been  shorter to just say Village People

    I should have known.

  115. 115.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Mousebumples: yes, everyone, please help w postcards. Co-04 is important.

    Everyone, gosh, re the M4M manly gathering in Idaho, heterosexual awareness …

    don’t most white heterosexual cis men recognize that white man awareness and representation has dominated government, industry, medicine, science, and history books for centuries? Are they upset because a few people different than them exist, have a voice, and have ceased to accept erasure?

    how fragile can some people’s egos be? Other people exist. I’m pretty sure their testosterone levels are not diminished by it, either.

    Btw, I had a client, w a Mexican last name, used to love to go to Idaho for fishing, but he said he changed his name to a white sounding one, when he went up there, because of the racism.

    (sorry for double posting, my older tablet isn’t great about this interface, and it’s too old for updates. The less old refurbished tablet has to get charged)

  119. 119.

    Gloria DryGarden

    Miss WaterGirl,

    happy upcoming birthday. I hope you have lots of joyous things planned. Thank you for all you do here.

  125. 125.

    lurker

    drive by quick comment –

    did you not all run away from home? … thought that was all over the news…

  126. 126.

    lurker

    @WaterGirl: my kid would probably say something like

    (imagined) “Ha!  That’s nothing! My parent helped build Stonehenge!

    ETA: (notably the kid only makes those comments about me, not my spouse … hmmm…)

  129. 129.

    sab

    @NotMax: I only have two internet addresses. One is for general contact for the world. The other is only for family and secure government stuff.

    I let Ohio government into my secure family and government stuff and they sold it to the world.

  131. 131.

    karen marie

    @Eyeroller: Nice! Thanks!

    Unfortunately, my negatives are mostly 2-1/4. I was a photographer for a time and liked that size for my personal stuff.

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