Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

This fight is for everything.

In my day, never was longer.

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

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

The revolution will be supervised.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Cancel the cowardly WaPo and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Let me file that under fuck it.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Second rate reporter says what?

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

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

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / Wednesday Night Open Thread

Wednesday Night Open Thread

by | 79 Comments

This post is in: 

Day three of the heat wave from the heat dome and it has not really been so bad- upper 80’s to mid 90’s, with 70% humidity. I mean, it’s not my first choice, but it is not as bad as I have seen it elsewhere. Could be worse, I guess.

Have developed quite a gang out front at the feeders- every local variety of bird, chipmunks, squirrels, the rabbit who lives under the front porch, etc. I have added peanuts to the rotation and am slowly positioning the peanuts closer and closer to the house. On the outside, I may look like a fat, gruff, hillbilly, but on the inside I am a Disney princess and I will have a gang of crows and squirrels eating out of my hand.

***

I see that Louisiana has now decided to display the ten commandments, and your guess is as good as mine as to whether or not the Supreme Court will uphold that nonsense. Although I am not sure why it matters, given Republicans say our teachers are too busy teaching critical race theory to teach the kids how to read, anyway.

I’m fatigued by everything these days, and these motherfuckers never quit. It’s like fighting an army of undead- they just keep coming and coming and coming with no end in sight. And I just do not know what exactly they are fighting for or why they think all the bad ideas that were rejected before are the key to the future. It’s just maddening.

***

I ordered a new book last week and it arrived today, and apparently I misclicked and it came in large print, and I gotta tell you, it’s kinds nice that way. I don’t like how thick it is because it needs to have more pages because of the bigger font, but it is nice to not have to tilt my head in just the right direction to read.

Oh, it’s the Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs. I’ll let you know what I think.

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  2. 2.

    dlwchico

    I have a bird feeder right outside my office window, which faces the street in front of the house.

    Our two cats are allowed in the backyard.  They were strictly indoor cats for the first 3 years or so of their life and have only been going out in the backyard for a few years now.

    They don’t stay out long and they stay in the backyard.  They are a couple chunky boys and so far the only thing they have caught were these lawn bugs that come up on the back patio.

    A couple weeks ago though, we found a bird in the house.  One of our California Scrub Jays.

    Thought it was dead but when I picked it up, it turned it’s head in the paper towel and looked at me.
    I took it out front, set it on the ground and it ruffled it’s feathers and then flew off squawking.

    I assume it a young bird, probably just got all it’s feathers in.

    Anyway, I ordered a 25lb bag of peanuts in the shell and have been putting them in the bird feeder up front as compensation to the Scrub Jays for the assault on one of them.

    The Jays are liking the peanuts and I assume they are stashing them in hiding places all over the area.

  3. 3.

    Betty Cracker

    On the outside, I may look like a fat, gruff, hillbilly, but on the inside I am a Disney princess and I will have a gang of crows and squirrels eating out of my hand.

    I want to see Wes Anderson’s take on that story so bad!

  4. 4.

    lowtechcyclist

    Jesus gave just two commandments – love God, and love your neighbor as yourself – that he said summed up the Law and the Prophets.

    So why these people who unquestionably identify as Christian and not Jewish insist on posting the Ten Commandments…oh hell with it, I know: Jesus is just plain too ‘woke’ for them. Not enough of a hard-ass. “Love your neighbor as yourself” raises uncomfortable questions when they’re harassing gay and trans persons, immigrants, pregnant women, etc., etc. So the Ten Commandments it is – more appropriate for an exercise in dominance. Which Republican Jesus said all good Christians should aspire to – dominance.

    Lord, I despise these fuckers.

  5. 5.

    twbrandt

    It turns out that the text of the Ten Commandments mandated by Louisiana does not appear in any translation of the Bible, but is instead a pastiche created by the Fraternal Order of the Eagles and publicized by Cecil B. DeMille as part of a movie promotion.

    You can’t make this shit up.

  11. 11.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud: ​

    I hope they put up a picture of Trump next to “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

    And next to “thou shalt not steal,” “thou shalt not bear false witness,” and “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s stuff.”

  12. 12.

    Ken

    on the inside I am a Disney princess

    I recently saw a meme “Disney purchased the rights to M*A*S*H in 2019, so Klinger is now a Disney Princess,” with a picture of Jamie Farr in one of his gowns.

  14. 14.

    lowtechcyclist

    @dmsilev:

    I trust they will title it “Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money”, as predicted in the original.

    I’m still waiting on “History of the World, Part 2.”

  16. 16.

    JaySinWA

    @twbrandt: I wonder if the F.O.E Commandments can escape the Catholic SCOTUS under the 1ST amendment by claiming it isn’t really religious.

  18. 18.

    Unabogie

    @Baud: This was my thought. I’d tee up an entire lesson plan on every sin in the ten commandments and how Trump violated them. Then I’d maybe do a bonus lesson explaining adultery in detail for the little tykes. After all, if we can’t talk about gayness or transness and Trump is basically Jesus returned, a detailed discussion of his life and times would be very appropriate.

    Right?

    …Right…???

  20. 20.

    Redshift

    When I was growing up and we went to a lake in Maine for vacations, we used to train the chipmunks to take peanuts out of our hands. It didn’t take long; we were only there for a week or two.

    And a good friend used to befriend squirrels when she was a teenager. They would come and knock on her bedroom window to beg for treats.

  23. 23.

    mrmoshpotato

    How long?  How long until the birds, chipmunks, squirrels, and the rabbit who lives under the front porch start to conspire with the willow?

    Best of luck, John.

  24. 24.

    KM in NS

    The heat wave made it to Nova Scotia…WTF?!?! It’s way too early for such temps and humidity!

  29. 29.

    trollhattan

    “Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom under a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry on Wednesday,” the AP reports.

    “The GOP-drafted legislation mandates that a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in ‘large, easily readable font’ be required in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities.”

    All you Comic Sans haters, what sayeth you now?

  30. 30.

    JaySinWA

    @trollhattan: I think wingdings would be appropriate.

    Okay not easily readable. Comic Sans is supposed to work better for dyslexia, so you have an argument.

  34. 34.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    What sort of heat dome temps are people seeing predicted? Because we here outside of Philly are supposedly in the moderate zone and I’m seeing predictions of 95, 97 and 97 for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

  35. 35.

    Martin

    @Ken: 10 commandments are best appreciated in the original Klingon.

    In an easily legible font, of course. Antiqua is pretty legible.

  36. 36.

    Steeplejack

    @Cole:

    A Kindle (or the Kindle app on a tablet, or another e-reader) is excellent for doing the “large print” thing, because you can customize the font style and size for any book, as well as the margins and line spacing, exactly to your taste. And there’s no bulky physical object left to take up space when you’re done.

    I love physical books, but I try to keep the acquisitions to classics or probable keepers. The Kindle has greatly streamlined my reading.

  37. 37.

    Martin

    So, 922 confirmed deaths at the Hajj so far – heat related. Another 500 suspected. Go to the mall if you have to – get out of the heat one way or another.

  38. 38.

    NotMax

    Have developed quite a gang out front at the feeders- every local variety of bird, chipmunks, squirrels, the rabbit who lives under the front porch, etc.

    To quote H. Solo: “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
    ;)

  39. 39.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: ​
     

    What sort of heat dome temps are people seeing predicted? Because we here outside of Philly are supposedly in the moderate zone and I’m seeing predictions of 95, 97 and 97 for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

    90, 93, and 95 in my neck of the woods (northern Calvert County, MD, about 40 minutes south of Annapolis)

  41. 41.

    MomSense

    I always find it so bizarre that these Christianists are obsessed with the first version of the 10 Commandments.  Moses smashed them to pieces when he saw that his people had fallen for a golden calf false idol while he was away.  So he had to trudge back up the mountain, take dictation from his God and then chisel new stone tablets with new Commandments.  The second set are the ones that are in effect – covenanted and everything.  My personal favorite is #10 Don’t boil a kid (baby goat) in its mother’s milk.

  42. 42.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: HIgh of 97 predicted for here in Massachusetts tomorrow, and I think that’s the end of it–after that it starts raining and the temp goes down.

    Today it seems to have gotten into the high 90s. Felt like it.

  43. 43.

    Jeffro

    OT BUT: I am thinking of having bumper stickers (or similar) printed that say “I was one of the 300!”

    (VA-05’s Bob Good is losing his GOP primary by about 300 votes, and VA has open primaries, hint hint)

    Whaddya think?  Too much inside baseball?  I might just Sharpie it onto a t-shirt or something.  =)

  44. 44.

    Jeffro

    @Martin:So, 922 confirmed deaths at the Hajj so far – heat related. Another 500 suspected. Go to the mall if you have to – get out of the heat one way or another.

    It’s tragic.

    Unfortunately, I think much larger numbers await us in the years to come, a la “The Ministry for the Future”

    Last year I was telling folks to enjoy the summer, “…it’s the coolest one you’ll have for the next 30 years”.  Yuk yuk that joke is already way old and not funny.

  45. 45.

    NotMax

    @MomSense

    Soupy Sales playing Moses in And God Spoke/em>: “I bring you these ten commandments… and this six-pack of refreshing beverage.”

  46. 46.

    Matt McIrvin

    @lowtechcyclist: Some form of the Golden Rule seems to appear across a lot of world philosophies. Sometimes it’s negatively phrased–don’t do anything you wouldn’t want done to you. Sometimes it is extended to positive obligations: DO to others as you would want done to you. Jesus’s version is pretty strong: a summons to love other people as yourself is hard.

    They all do have the shortcoming that you can get around them through sufficient masochism. Be mean to yourself so you can be equally mean to everybody.

  47. 47.

    satby

    Historian Kevin Kruse wrote about the latest travesty in Louisiana:

    When I saw today’s news that Louisiana has become the first state to mandate the display of the Ten Commandments in all public school classrooms, I thought it sounded a lot like the 1950s campaign to put the Ten Commandments in classrooms that I chronicled in One Nation Under God.

    But I didn’t realize until I read this post that Louisiana is literally using that exact campaign as its model.

    Which is hilarious because that model was developed as a promotional campaign for the Cecil B. DeMille blockbuster film, The Ten Commandments.

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    Dang it. Fix.

    @MomSense

    Soupy Sales playing Moses in And God Spoke: “I bring you these ten commandments… and this six-pack of refreshing beverage.”

  49. 49.

    geg6

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Same 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.  It’s horrible.  Air conditioning on the fritz.  HVAC guy has been here 3 times.  Each time he gets another part and each time it doesn’t work.  He says the unit isn’t that old, so not sure what the problem is.  He’s supposed to be back tomorrow.  Ugh.

  51. 51.

    Ken

    @MomSense: One of James K. Morrow’s “Bible Stories for Adults” is in an alternate timeline where God didn’t replace the tablets after Moses smashed them. After centuries of effort, the fragments are reassembled, and everyone is puzzled — what do they mean by “murder”? And “theft”?

    (Purest fantasy, of course; humanity invented those sins hundreds of thousands of years before anyone could write laws against them.)

  53. 53.

    Ken

    @Jeffro: “Tell Bob. I want her to know it was me, and 299 of my friends.”

    (Or have we stopped doing Game of Thrones memes?)

  54. 54.

    satby

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Northern IN, and probably the Chicago region too, 93° Thursday and Friday, 96° Saturday. Heat wave breaks Sunday with temps going back down into the 80s and overnight lows finally going below 74° after five days.

  55. 55.

    Scout211

    @Steeplejack: I love physical books, but I try to keep the acquisitions to classics or probable keepers. The Kindle has greatly streamlined my reading.

    I was about to post a comment about the Kindle and all the adjustments you can make to the font and spacing, etc.  But then I realized that the book he is reading may have full color illustrations of the dinosaurs and that is one of the negatives of e-readers—photos and illustrations are really awful on a Kindle.  Reading on a phone or tablet is better for illustrations but my eyes prefer the Kindle over the Kindle app on a phone or iPad.

  57. 57.

    Darkrose

    Have we already discussed the passing of the Greatest of All Time? I have my colored lights orange today, and I’m wearing my Giants shirt with the old script logo. Tomorrow I’ll watch the game at Rickwood Field in the Mays shirt I got at the African American Heritage Night game earlier this month.

  59. 59.

    JaySinWA

    @Matt McIrvin:

    They all do have the shortcoming that you can get around them through sufficient masochism. Be mean to yourself so you can be equally mean to everybody.

    A different interpretation of “this hurts me more than it hurts you”

  60. 60.

    Ruckus

    And I just do not know what exactly they are fighting for or why they think all the bad ideas that were rejected before are the key to the future. It’s just maddening.

    They want, or think they want, such as their “thinking” is, the good old days. As an old fart I can tell you that while there were a lot fewer people when I was a kid, the world is still a better place today than it was 70 + years ago. Look what we are doing here and have been for almost 2 decades. Look at pretty much anything but rethuglican politics – it’s likely better than it was. Communications, travel, vehicles, TV, electronics, health care, food choices, Even the risk of war is less – not gone away of course, after all – human beings. But US politics? Conservatives have lost so much ground because what they want is complete control – but they are horrible/shitty/worse than useless at the modern world because the modern world takes away some of that complete control that they want so they can fuck the country up and over. They do not want the world that was envisioned when this country was formed, they want the world they think existed then. But they are full of shit, the founders wanted better, and not just for themselves but for everyone. Conservatives want a world that is better for money, and fuck most of the humans, especially the ones that do not agree with them. That wasn’t why this country was formed, it isn’t the basis of a democracy and it makes most people’s lives far worse. They don’t want black people to be equal, they don’t want/think anyone but the pasty themselves should be equal.

  62. 62.

    Anotherlurker

    Here at the Oakland Coliseum,  it is a cool 60ish. I feel for my east coast friends.

  64. 64.

    Matt McIrvin

    @JaySinWA: I think it’s one of the reasons why fascist and other right-wing regimes go in so hard for valorizing suffering and heroic death. It makes you easier to exploit, yes, but it also makes it easier for you to inflict cruelty on others. You’re just being “tough” and expecting everyone else to be equally tough. They like to beat kids too.

  66. 66.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @smith:

    And the right wing nutjob that has been pushing this is gleeful about getting this issue in front of their hand-picked majority on the Supreme Court. He thinks they will win this time.

    If they are going to allow this I hope they require the Catholic version…lol!

  68. 68.

    sab

    @lowtechcyclist: The Catholic version skips the Jewish and Protestant second commandment (no worshipping idols) so the Catholic version has to split the covet one into two to get to ten.

    A lot of more observant Jews probably would consider the ostentatious ten commandment displays as a violation of their second commandment.

  69. 69.

    ascap_scab

    Okay, go ahead and post “The Ten Commandments” in every classroom. Just post them in Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, French, Persian, German, Malay, Portuguese, Italian, Turkish, Lahnda, Tamil, Urdu, Korean, Hindi, Bengali, Japanese, Vietnamese, Telugu, and Marathi, every other language except English.

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ken: Similar to Robert E. Lee’s “yes, owning slaves is a terrible moral stain on my soul, but I’m willing to make that sacrifice for the sake of the spiritual benefit they will receive”.

  72. 72.

    Another Scott

    APNews.com:

    Under the law, state funds will not be used to implement the mandate. The posters would be paid for through donations.

    The law also “authorizes” but does not require the display of other items in K-12 public schools, including: The Mayflower Compact, which was signed by religious pilgrims aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and is often referred to as America’s “First Constitution”; the Declaration of Independence; and the Northwest Ordinance, which established a government in the Northwest Territory — in the present day Midwest — and created a pathway for admitting new states to the Union.

    Not long after the governor signed the bill into law at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School in Lafayette on Wednesday, civil rights groups and organizations that want to keep religion out of government promised to file a lawsuit challenging it.

    […]

    Similar bills requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms have been proposed in other states including Texas, Oklahoma and Utah. However, with threats of legal battles over the constitutionality of such measures, no state besides Louisiana has succeeded in making the bills law.

    Legal battles over the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms are not new.

    In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law was unconstitutional and violated the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The high court found that the law had no secular purpose but rather served a plainly religious purpose.

    It’s so important that we have to do it!! But (because it would be easier for us to lose in court) we won’t use any state money for it.

    It’s raw politics. They really don’t care if they get slapped down in the courts – they’ll just try again in the future.

    In a sensible US court system the case would be dismissed with prejudice. “We addressed this exact same issue in 1980 in Stone v. Graham. Read the ruling. The Louisiana law is struck down. It’s so ordered. Yada yada yada.”

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  73. 73.

    J. Arthur Crank

    Looking back, I have in the past (on a few occasions) coveted my neighbor’s wife and my neighbor’s goods.  Had I been properly educated in elementary school, I would have known coveting is a sin and I would have avoided doing it as an adult.    There is no hope for adults living in Louisiana since they were never told what is against the rules, but going forward I expect to see steady and sustained drop in coveting in that state.

  74. 74.

    wjca

    @J. Arthur Crank:  going forward I expect to see steady and sustained drop in coveting in that state.

    Not sure how this squares with the “Prosperity Gospel.” Not that manifest contradictions seem to bother these folks much.

  75. 75.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jeffro:

    (VA-05’s Bob Good is losing his GOP primary by about 300 votes, and VA has open primaries, hint hint)

    Since y’all don’t even register by party, it would be really hard to have a closed primary!

    (After 25+ years in Maryland, I think I’m finally starting to think of myself as a Marylander rather than a Virginia expat, but it’s taken this long.)

  76. 76.

    Rugosa

    why they think all the bad ideas that were rejected before are the key to the future

    This.  Everything the right proposes leads to human misery, from supply side economics to Trump’s ridiculous tariff plan to the abortion ban.  The countries where people are happiest are the “socialist” republics of Europe, with their health care and family subsidies and all that.

  77. 77.

    Rugosa

    @lowtechcyclist:

     

    @twbrandt:

     

    @Matt McIrvin:  I was raised pre-Vatican II catholic.   The emphasis on how unworthy we all are and what sinners we are does not cultivate healthy self esteem in people.  If I’m a sinful wretch who deserves any suffering god sends me so are other people.  Why should they be coddled?

  78. 78.

    Rugosa

    There are so many good comments here!  John, could we have an upvote button?  If you want it to be an emoji, OK, I’ll deal with it.

  79. 79.

    Kevin Schultz

    Four of my notes from The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World (2018) by Stephen L. Brusatte (audiobook via Libby app & local library):

    1) T-rex smart as chimps (?)
    2) T-rex started in Mongolia
    3) Cats fighting dinosaurs (i.e., birds)
    4) Land masses moving as fast as fingernails grow

    Enjoyed it! Hope you like it.

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