Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

I really should read my own blog.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

We will not go back.

“woke” is the new caravan.

In my day, never was longer.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

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

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

Reader Interactions

58Comments

  1. 1.

    cain

    It’s been nice today. My wife had a relapse on her concussion. Still amazes me how women are treated by healthcare industry. Just crazy.

  2. 2.

    satby

    But, at least it’s not Friday.

    And our tornado warning expired without a tornado here anyway. The sirens went off, so a funnel cloud was sited, but not near me.

  3. 3.

    sentient ai from the future

    whats all this im hearing about the sheriff of something or other?

    hold on, gotta check my 401k balance.

  5. 5.

    xephyr

    Stormy weather here in mid-Michigan, dark all day long with pouring rain and thunder. Finally quieted down about a half hour ago. The weather in general just seems different around here anymore…

  9. 9.

    The Audacity of Krope

    Man, I used to keep jobs for years without incident. Now I find myself looking for the door at the first hint of, well, any hurtful practices by the business.

    So I find myself wanting to look for a new job half knowing at some point I’m going to find myself distrusting any employer.

    I just need to hold out til my lease ends on my apartment and Trump has the military fully reconfigured as a protection racket, then the walking hunger strike begins and I don’t have to worry about my ability to pay for shit.

  10. 10.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Seriously, I’m finally seeing my shoulder unfreeze yyyaaayyy! It finally looks like there a light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not an ongoing train. (Frozen shoulder is the latest in shoulder problems that have lasted more than a year.)

    OTOH, while I’m making good progress updating my LinkedIn and portfolio, to try to get back into my field again, the job market’s going to get even harder, which I didn’t think was possible.

  11. 11.

    RandomMonster

    Nothing going on, just a 6 trillion tax hike due to tariffs. Look away, nothing to see here.

  13. 13.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @RandomMonster: That’s ok, that will be 6 trillion out of the pockets of working people who should rightly be paying it; not billionaires who, let’s face it, could use a bit of a reprieve from the economic hardship they undoubtedly faced in the last couple decades.

  14. 14.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    I spent most of the day moving drum gear from one storage unit to another.

    My wife and I have become the new gear people for Girls Rock Denver, a camp for, well, girls and rock.  It’s not a ‘School of Rock’ setup in that it’s not about excruciating musicianship.  Instead it’s about campers 8-17 exploring their boundaries via music.

    I’m the only male involved and I do a lot of behind the scenes gear work with my wife but otherwise, stay in the background.

  15. 15.

    Fair Economist

    @Sister Golden Bear: A year is a fairly typical time for frozen shoulder to recover. I got it in both shoulders – thankfully not at the same time! Both took about a year to recover but in the end were almost the same as before (a little less flexible, but not much). Hope your recovery runs fast.

  17. 17.

    Danielx

    You may not have much to report but I can tell you the weather here in central Indiana is pretty damn sporty at the moment,

  18. 18.

    satby

    @Danielx: ALL DAY: gloomy and rainy with thunder and lightning. Feels like we had maybe a total of 60 minutes without rain in the last 24 hours here in S.Bend.

  19. 19.

    sab

    @Danielx: We have a flood watch until tomorrow morning. I am glad we moved from the valley to the top of the hill last summer. Next county over has a tornado watch.

  20. 20.

    TS

    @Sister Golden Bear:

     I’m finally seeing my shoulder unfreeze

    Mine took a year, I initially went to the doc who sent me to the physio who gave me some starter exercises, and started doing major painful manipulation – and then we had major floods and her office took months for repair so I kept up the starter exercises – a year or so later, it was suddenly better. Still not as good as the other arm, but no pain.

    I think it was someone on BJ who told me

    1.  If you have an operation it will take 1 year to recover

    2. If you do physio it will take 12 months to recover

    3. if you do nothing it will take 52 weeks to recover

  22. 22.

    Trivia Man

    @cain: I was getting a new blood pressure medicine and the doctor was reassuring me it was safe. “Its been too ut for a while and is well studied so i dont expect any bad side effects.”

    So i joked back with a straight face, “but has it been tested on older white men yet?”

    He very quickly assured me that yes, it had.

    He didn’t see the joke but when i told my wife what i said she laughed and told her sister and niece. They laughed. With a side of anger.

  23. 23.

    RaflW

    Looks like we got about 1.5″ of rain here in SE Wisconsin – some of which came in through the closed patio doors this morning due to intense winds. Not how I wanted to start the day.

    Fortunately the cabin has plastic ‘wood’ floors (they look pretty decent for what I believe to be 25 a year old installation), so cleanup isn’t onerous.

    Got one bedroom mostly painted today (will do the ceiling another trip) and did paint the ceiling in the other bedroom, which was enough of a refresh to make me not hate the wall paint. Prev. owners had painted the walls and ceiling the same hard-to-quantify taupe/gray with slight pinking overtones? Ceiling white just lifted the whole room pretty nicely.

    Other than that, well, there’s the general shitshow but I didn’t turn on any radio while painting, and then watched This Old House reruns after my body said “enough” to the painting. Man, Bob Villa was a dork. And Roku f’kd up and lost the ‘wrap up’ episode of a c. 1989 series on a ranch cum garrison house in the Boston area. Oh, well, whatever.

  26. 26.

    thruppence

    Putin rubs his hands and laughs and laughs. Who knew destroying America, always his goal, would be this easy?

  27. 27.

    patrick II

    The Signal chat’s big takeaway? Trump has built an effective team.

    Marc Thiessen, Washington Post.

  29. 29.

    karen gail

    I read blog by one of my favorite authors; seems that Meta is working on their own AI; they are using works of fiction to help build. Now instead of purchasing works and rights to use those works, they are pirating works of fiction; so authors are being encouraged to certify that their works are done by humans and not AI. Authors Guild is suing since Meta could well afford to purchase the licensing needed.

  31. 31.

    frosty

    @RaflW: ​ Painting. We painted over all the twee “Early American” stenciling in our Craftsman foursquare when we moved in … over 20 years ago. The whole first floor has to be redone. I’m writing a check this time.

  32. 32.

    frosty

    @Craig: Music jokes … Q: how do you tell a drummer is at your front door? A: The knocks get louder and faster.

    Q: What’s the difference between a saxophone and a chainsaw? A: vibrato.

    Q: What do you throw to a guitarist who’s drowning? A: His amp.

    I’ll be here all week, try the veal.

  35. 35.

    Eric S.

    @satby: I’ve been texting with a friend in Indianapolis. They had a boisterous night but it all turned out okay for them.

  38. 38.

    Pete Downunder

    @frosty: What’s perfect pitch with an accordion? When you can throw in the dumpster without hitting the sides.
    What’s the difference between  a Jaguar car and a banjo? With enough time and money you can tune a Jaguar.

  42. 42.

    Martin

    @karen gail: Meta has been releasing AIs for 2 years now – LLama. They didn’t intend to release it, I should say, it leaked out including all of the weighting and became the leading unintentional open-source model that researchers use. That leak yanked a lot of the value out of proprietary models.

    All of the models are trained on work they didn’t license. They are trying to get congress to change copyright law to allow them to do this (there are countless suits piling up against them for copyright violation).

  43. 43.

    tobie

    I started casually looking for jobs overseas. I’m really too old for this but the instability is getting to be too much to take.

  45. 45.

    Geminid

    A neighbor came by this evening scouting for turkeys (it’s Spring gobbler season). His turkey call was pretty neat: a slate disk in a plastic case with three different shaped holes in the top. He would move a wooden quill through a hole to make a turkey sound by scratching the slate. He didn’t get any answers,

    We remarked on how totally still the air was; a real contrast to the heavy weather in the Midwest.

  46. 46.

    Geminid

    @satby: I like John Stoerh’s work. He strikes me as a very level headed man with no particular axe to grind. I ran into him through Magdi Jacobs, aka Mangy Jay. She’s written pieces for Stoehr’s Editorial Board.

    I ran into Mangy Jay through Ragnarok Lobster. I haven’t checked those two characters out lately, so thanks for the reminder.

  48. 48.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Trumpian unpredictability on tariffs & everything else will be a huge headwind:

    John Arnold@JohnArnoldFndtn

    Imagine being a multinational trying to decide whether to respond to the tariffs by greenlighting a new plant in the US that is more expensive and won’t come online for years without knowing what tariffs will be in effect in 4 years, or even in 4 months.

    Trump might want to deal, but will any other country want to deal with/ him, other than as a stalling tactics to buy time to de-risk from the U.S.?

    Gerard DiPippo@gdp1985

    If this formula remains in place, countries’ tariff actions, either up or down, won’t affect the US tariff except with a major lag. That makes negotiations seem pointless. Maybe they aren’t the point then? 1/

    That said, my hunch is Trump will retaliate for any major retaliation, and he’ll want to make deals. I won’t be surprised by inconsistency. Or anything, at this point. Happy Liberation Day to all! 2/

    To be clear, the US “reciprocal tariffs” have nothing to do with other countries’ tariffs, non tariff barriers, or exchange rate. It’s simply a goods trade balance tax. Services don’t count. Negotiating over services won’t count either, if they stick to the formula. 3/

    Expected fallout in E/SE Asia:

    Evan A. Feigenbaum@EvanFeigenbaum

    I’ve been warning we’d be the Hessians of Asia for more than a decade – a security provider, sailing ships and flying planes around, but in an Asia that looks to itself on the other things that matter. Think that moment, which has been emerging gradually, is about to arrive.

    Over the medium term, bye-bye US influence in Asia. Was already being reshaped faster than the U.S. was adapting. Won’t be the same on the other side of this shit show. The three major pillars – demand driver and open market, standard setter, and security provider – all eroding.

    The U.S. is pretty much done strategically in Southeast Asia. The region is filled with pragmatists, who can and do navigate all kinds of crazy stuff from outside powers. But that depends greatly on those players being either principled or strategic—and Washington is now neither.

    C Nguyen@CNMNguyen

    On social media, Vietnamese people and diplomats are reacting to Trump’s tariffs with great sadness and disappointment. This month marks the 50th anniversary since the wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos with the US ended. All three countries today were among those hit the most.

    Enormous policy preparations had been laid down and new tariffs were already expected. But everyone in Vietnam is left shocked at the magnitude of the new tariffs, at a crucial stage of Vietnam’s economic growth trajectory. Perhaps the needed shock to re-model growth?

  49. 49.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Oh, & the announced TSMC investment did not let Taiwan off the tariff hook. But Russia & Belarus are exempt! Also, Canada & Mexico, but we’ll see how long that lasts.

  52. 52.

    YY_Sima Qian

    LMAO (video through the link):

    MeidasTouch@MeidasTouch

    Bloomberg reporter: Plans for conversations or a trip to Beijing?
    Bessent: N-nothing imminent when it comes to this negotiation.
    Reporter: April 9th, these tariffs come in place. Do you plan on having negotiations before that date?
    Bessnet: I-I-again, I’m not part of the negotiations. So you know, w–we’ll see.
    Reporter: Canada and Mexico, notably missing on that chart. Why is that?
    Bessent: Um. I’m not sure.

  53. 53.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Also LMAO (ChatGPT output through the link):

    Destiny | Steven Bonnell II@TheOmniLiberal

    I think they asked ChatGPT to calculate the tariffs from other countries, which is why the tariffs make absolutely no fucking sense. They’re simply dividing the trade deficit we have with a country with our imports from that country, or using 10%, whichever is greater.

  56. 56.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Isabella M. Weber@Isabella Weber

    Tariffs are cost shocks. Last time around, across the board cost shocks coordinated price hikes and triggered sellers’ inflation (see paper below). Get ready for the next inflation bout! This time courtesy of MAGA.

    & no cheap imports to soften the blow this time around.

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