Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

So very ready.

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

The National Guard is not Batman.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

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

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Finding joy where we can, and muddling through where we can’t.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: If We Had A Spare Billion or So…

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A Swisherfied Post would be better than a Bezos one, but I’m not sure how much better.

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— Ed Zitron (@edzitron.com) December 20, 2024 at 12:33 PM

Possibly because he’s got a $600 million wedding to finance (ha!), Kara Swisher thinks Jeff Bezos might be open to the right offer for his stake in the Washington Post:

Tech podcaster Kara Swisher told Axios this week that she is attempting to round up a group of wealthy investors to put together a bid to purchase The Washington Post amid its ongoing turmoil under Jeff Bezos’ ownership.

Even though Bezos has not expressed any willingness or interest in selling the paper, Swisher believes that the ultra-rich Amazon founder will look to unload the Post due to the compounding headaches swirling around the outlet – many of which lie at the mega-billionaire’s feet.

Swisher, the host of popular podcasts Pivot and On with Kara Swisher, began her career working in the Post’s mailroom. She eventually became one of the most influential tech journalists in the industry, moving on to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. She ultimately launched the Recode website, which was acquired by Vox Media in 2015. Since then, she was named editor-at-large at New York magazine and joined CNN as an on-air contributor.

Due to her deep connections in Silicon Valley and her star status at Vox Media, Swisher believes that she can drum up enough capital to convince Bezos to dump the paper. In her opinion, he’d eventually want to unload it not just because of the recent difficulties surrounding the Post but also because his financial interests conflict with owning the paper…

“The Post can do better,” she told Axios. “It’s so maddening to see what’s happening. … Why not me? Why not any of us?”

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Time & Space Capture in A Pacific Northwest Garden

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: 30
 
Framing nature’s beauty, from master designer & landscaper Dan B:

I worked on a garden project in Bellevue, Washington over at least ten years. They’re a wonderful couple from India. One year they purchased a number of things from India.

Their front yard was small and the back yard steep with a breathtaking view the length of Lake Sammamish to glacier clad Mount Baker. The hillside was covered with weeds.

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: 31

These photos are from Fall, when leaf color is at its peak. We made paths that switchback down the hillside. It descends to a teak pavilion mid slope that they purchased from India. It came in pieces with no plans so we had to figure out how to assemble it and then carry it by hand down the side of the house and reassemble it in place.

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Time & Space Binding in A Pacific Northwest Garden

There are masses of Beautyberry, yellow leaved Lonicera nitida, and clumps of Kousa Dogwoods in color.

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Time & Space Binding in A Pacific Northwest Garden 1

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Saturday Night Open Thread

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As usual, another lovely day here in Tempe. Absolutely nothing eventful has happened in days, just the way I like things. I did manage to spill a drink in my keyboard and ended up having to run to Best Buy on a weekend a few days before Christmas, and that experience was as awful as you can imagine it would be. The good people of Arizona clearly need a block of instruction on 4 way stops without stop lights and I think my next vehicle needs a blood pressure cuff installed in the driver’s seat.

Since we have not gone out or are going out for quite some time and because Frye’s had a sale on standing rib at 7.99 a lb, I picked up a big bonein standing rib. I’m going to use my dad’s herb coating to season it, and we are going to have prime rib with horseradish, some potatoes with herbs, and something else and a nice salad for Christmas. And hot roast beef sandwiches the next day. Then I’ll make a vegetable beef soup. I’m excited.

In other news, I see that Donald Trump is not covetous of… the Panama Canal:

It's going to be a rough four years.

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— Joyce White Vance (@joycewhitevance.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 7:46 PM

How long before he tries to trade the Panama Canal to China in exchange for Taiwan. It would be the perfect Donald Trump thing to do- give away something that is not his in return for something else that is not his but to which he feels entitled. Add to it that this would be detrimental to the US- we gain nothing from “owning” the Panama Canal and would lose a huge strategic and industrial and regional ally in Taiwan, would be disgraced in front of the entire world, and all of our allies will know that we will fuck them over at a moment’s notice, which, to be honest, is something they should fucking know by now, anyway. And it will suck all the oxygen out of the room because that’s all anyone will talk about on the cable news because you can have an endless supply of pundits and pols and experts on to babble about, all while they are looting us and selling off the post office and who knows what else.

Feh.

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Saturday Night Poo-Flinging Open Thread: The Chaos Monkeys Among Us

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This headline would never have been approved by the NYTimes…
The Chaos Monkeys Have Already Taken Over the Zoo open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug…

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— Julia Coronado (@jc-econ.bsky.social) December 20, 2024 at 1:24 PM

Paul Krugman’s Substack is a font of inspiration:

… I have an embarrassing admission to make. I thought that Muskaswamy’s obvious problems with getting DOGE going would have inspired, not humility — never that — but at least a bit of caution. That is, I imagined that Musk would by now have at least an inkling of two things.

First, finding big-ticket examples of government waste is hard, because the government mostly spends money on things people want…

Second, you shouldn’t trust claims about the budget coming from Some Guy on the Internet. You might have imagined that the world’s richest man could have a couple of fact-checkers on retainer to help ensure that he isn’t making clearly stupid assertions. But nooo.

In a barrage of posts on X Musk pushed misinformation about a more or less routine, place-holding bill that was basically a way to keep the ship of state afloat until Trump takes charge. Maybe this was in part a power play, an attempt to make Republicans in Congress show fealty to a man who clearly imagines that he’s the real president — and Trump, by meekly endorsing Musk’s position, did in fact convey the impression that Musk is leading the guy who is supposed to be in charge by the nose. But this political theater will have real consequences, for America, for Trump, and for Musk himself…

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War for Ukraine Day 1,032: Another Day Another Russian War Crime – Targeting the Oncology Hospital in Kherson

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Russia attacked the oncology hospital in Kherson as part of last night’s attacks.

“The horror! People are alive. We evacuated the patients.” – Iryna Sokur, director of Kherson Regional Oncological Center.

“It took 25 years to build it. One second to ruin.”

Yesterday, Russian guided aerial bombs (KABs) destroyed the hospital.

There will be tribunals.

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— Zarina Zabrisky (@zarinazabrisky.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 6:26 PM

Ruins of the Kherson oncology hospital

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— Iryna Voichuk (@irynavoichuk.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 6:13 AM

russians dropped 2 aerial bombs on a cancer hospital in Kherson last night.
Fortunately, patients and medical staff were not hurt.
Targeting…

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 8:16 AM

Russia, however, is trying to make hay over drone strikes in Kazan earlier today.

Kazan, Russia – This morning, the city was attacked by drones, with several hitting high-rise buildings. A total of 6 to 8 explosions were reported across the city. One possible target was the Kazan Helicopter Plant.

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— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 3:43 AM

“The “Greenwich” residential complex, situated next to the “Azure Shores” skyscraper in Kazan, which was struck by a drone today, may house an apartment belonging to Timur Shagivaleev, the CEO of the “Alabuga” Special Economic Zone”

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— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 4:53 AM

It seems plausible that the intended target was a high-ranking war criminal. However, it remains unclear whether the strike was successful.

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 4:53 AM

This get’s to a question from last night’s comments about targeting civilian governmental officials. The answer is it depends who the government official is and what their role in the war is. It also depends on where they are going to be targeted – as in what is the facility and what’s around it – and how they’re going to be targeted – are you using a drone with a small amount of explosive or are you dropping a bunker buster on them while they’re dropping their kid off at daycare. If this individual was involved in committing war crimes in Russia’s genocidal re-invasion of Ukraine then he was most likely a legitimate target. If the weaponeering was done to mitigate civilian harm, then the strike should be within the Law of Armed Conflict.

It is is important to keep in mind that you can do every bit of target development, the weaponeering, the deconfliction and adjudication and still have something go wrong. Which may have happened with this strike. It is also important to remember that whomever the approving authority is for the strike can determine that military necessity makes the strike necessary even if the facility is dual use, purely civilian, and/or there is a chance for collateral damage and civilian casualties. We will have to wait for more, and quite frankly more independent reporting that what we’ve got right now before we have the answers to those questions.

That said, the Ukrainians have gone out of their way for almost three years to mitigate and minimize civilian harm while the Russians commit war crime after war crime after war crime. Such as targeting the oncology hospital in Kherson last night. Which, just off the top of my head, is at least the tenth hospital they’ve targeted over the past three years.

For more information on how we do and think about these things, I recommend you read Annex A of Joint Publication 3-60: Joint Targeting.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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It looks like I’ll have a not-shitty Christmas after all

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So after President-Elect Musk blew up the Continuing Resolution deal, and the Placeholder-Elect Trump jumped in a couple hours later, it looked like I was going to be furloughed over Christmas again.
The last time around, 35 days in 2018/19, I took a big chunk out of my savings to make two mortgage payments, 2 gas payments, 2 electricity payments, four car payments, groceries and so on, so that the auto-debits didn’t blow us up. It took almost a year to replace all that in the savings account–which, admittedly, was made easier to an extent by not being able to travel anywhere or really do anything because Trump fucked up the COVID response.
I want the Dems to make things as hard for the GOP as possible, and I think one way to do that is let them keep ratfucking each other. But of course, I and a lot of other people would have gotten hurt.
As it is, they partially appeased Musk and Trump by taking away money for pediatric cancer research. Because of course they did.
I seem to recall something about Trump and pediatric cancer hospitals in the past.
It seems that letting sick kids die is his thing.
We spent this week in contract negotiations cleaning up areas where we had not settled articles earlier, so we didn’t break new ground, but we did fix some holes so we’ll be in good shape to startup again after the holidays. 
I just cut out a whole paragraph here because while I think you guys are interested, and there’s nothing illegal about telling you what’s happening, I think it’s probably prudent to not get into details.
President Biden gave everybody in Federal service Christmas eve as a paid day off. Our current secretary, Tom Vilsack, likes to give out 2 hours here, 4 hours there, and occasionally a full day.  He did that when he was Obama’s SecAg, too. His successor/predecessor, Sonny Perdue never did that stuff and neither did Trump. I’m going to miss it.
What does everybody have on tap for the week?
Oh, and Freddie wants to show off his new flannel sweater.

It looks like I'll have a not-shitty Christmas after all 5 It looks like I'll have a not-shitty Christmas after all 6

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Drunken Aunties Cookie Night Report: TNG

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I had intended to sorta live-blog DACN, but it got away from me.

This bumble happened:

Cookie decorated with coconut and blue icing to resemble the abomnable snowman.

Jesus.

But the real action was a profound change in the event’s dynamics: The kids stepped up this year.

We aunties basically told them what we had already baked, where the decorating supplies and equipment were, where the recipes lived, etc. Then we retired to the patio fire pit with snacks and cocktails in hand and let the kids get to it. They made us proud!

An array of festive cookies arranged on a truck-shaped Christmas cookie plate.

Above is a small sample that does not capture the wide array of confections. They got creative!

For example, the kids innovated with a plate of my failed camel cookies. Let me explain.

My spritz cookie gun has a mold that supposedly makes camel-shaped cookies:

Round metal cookie mold.

I had not tried it before this year. The resulting cookies look like “obese tauntauns,” as my sister put it:

Blob-shaped golden brown cookies.

The kids elevated these pitiable blobs by adding chocolate and toasted mini marshmallows to create a s’mores-like sandwich cookie. Clever!

We’ll have to change the name of the annual baking event when we pass the torch to the next generation for real. Genders in the teen/young adult set participate in equal numbers. That makes me happy. Progress!

Open thread.

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