Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Giving up is unforgivable.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

All hail the time of the bunny!

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

The words do not have to be perfect.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

T R E 4 5 O N

You are here: Home / Site Maintenance / Well, That Was Fun Open Thread

Well, That Was Fun Open Thread

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This post is in: ,

Well that was exciting.

Thanks to everyone who wrote to say that comments were going into moderation.

I just saw those messages a few minutes ago and headed to the site to see what was up.  A couple minutes later, the site crashed.

Anyway, the problem was related to plugins and we are back up now.  Obviously, or you wouldn’t be reading this!

Totally open thread.

Reader Interactions

116Comments

  1. 1.

    Scout211

    Thanks, WaterGirl!  I thanked you downstairs but you deserve another big THANK YOU.  You’re the best.  😊

  2. 2.

    SFAW

    I can read this post, I just can’t leave a comment.

    Or maybe it’s the other way around?

    Or maybe this is an Arby’s? [As in. “I’m sorry, sir, but …”]

    I get so confusicated sometimes

  3. 3.

    Suzanne

    THANK YOU for all that you do here! I know that sometimes we are…. not the kindest. Please know that you are greatly appreciated.

  14. 14.

    Anonymous At Work

    Internet twitchy today here, may be more than just my machine.  Second~third day of storms in South Florida.

  16. 16.

    WaterGirl

    The picture in the sidebar is dedicated to my sweet Tucker.   I always get a shrub or a bush in honor of my dogs when I lose them.  I got that beautiful hydragea, which I called the “Tucker hydrangea” in honor of Tucker.

    Sadly, it didn’t make it through that winter.  So I don’t get to look at it every day and be reminded of my sweet boy, but his birthday was this week, so this is the next best thing.

  18. 18.

    Anonymous At Work

    Okay, open thread bait:

    I hope the WSJ reporting keeps up and brings down Trump.  For the obvious reason, including JD Vance has negative charisma.  Worse than Mittens Romney’s “uncanny valley” robotic reactions, like a real hidden sociopath faking emotions but not being too subtle about it, vibe.

    The OTHER reason is a giant EFF YOU to the New York Times.  I’ve maintained that the NYT went hard after the Clintons each and every time possible because the Sulzbergers were jealous that the Washington Post brought down Nixon.  So, the WSJ bringing down Trump would be at least a two-fer, if not three-fer.  Another paper beat “the nation’s paper of record” to the next Presidential resignation plus another NEW YORK CITY paper beat to it, plus possibly, depending on how WASP-ishly nativist Arthur Sulzberger is “A Scottish/Aussie [fuzzy-ferner] beat me to another President’s resignation.”

  19. 19.

    Tony Jay

    @WaterGirl:

    He means it in the Venetian sense. You’re here to wear opulent gowns, oversee trade with the Supreme Turk and every so often dive into the Grand Canal to recover a golden tiara and reconsecrate our covenant with the Sea Spirits.

    I mean, probably.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    @Tony Jay:

    Maybe I should have specified a non-evil DOGE. Someone who makes the system work for good instead of evil.

    I assumed that was implied.

  23. 23.

    Melancholy Jaques

    Apparently I missed some difficulties this morning. All to the good for me.

    I only watched the first ten minutes of the Hunter Biden video linked in the previous thread. I note that some people are outraged & offended that he should dare to speak. Why? It’s not like he incited an attack on the Congress or anything seriously wrong. If he were a right-winger, he’d probably have a popular podcast.

  25. 25.

    mrmoshpotato

    @SFAW:

    Or maybe this is an Arby’s? 

    I can’t decide between the Beef N Cheddar and the Philly cheesesteak.  I’ll take one of both please.

  26. 26.

    WTFGhost

    @WaterGirl: I’m sorry your living memory didn’t work as well as it should have, but I’m glad you have fond memories.

    Also: I’m glad I learned that there are always two photos, so I’m not confused about the one regarding the cat doing a better job running the country… one protest photo, one pretty photo, the latter of which is mixed with love, and thereby more beautiful today.

  28. 28.

    Tony Jay

    @Baud:

    Is there a saying about you thinking you implied, but really an Imp Lied?

    I guess there isn’t. And now we know why. On the plus side we all learnt something today.

  32. 32.

    RevRick

    @WaterGirl: Am I reading this right? Or is it just my imagination?

    Speaking of fuck yous, the first photograph of someone giving the finger to the camera was of Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourne, pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, in 1886.

  36. 36.

    Soprano2

    Thanks WG, I e-mailed after it did it on my phone too. I saw some kind of “blip” on the site right before it started happening. Then I realized no other comments were showing up and thought “uh-oh”.

  37. 37.

    Tony Jay

    @Baud:

    I was plied once. Woke up three days later in the hold of a Bermudan trawler covered in shrimp and sporting a medal with Fidel Castro’s face on it.

    Oh, to be 50 again.

  38. 38.

    Citizen Dave

    @RevRick: So the Billy Ripkin middle finger baseball card was a tribute!

     

    WG is highly valued for sure!   But the G in DOGE is “government ” , right?  So that is not here.  Would be DOBJE.

  39. 39.

    Tony Jay

    Anyway, glad I missed all the kerfuffle. I’m off for an early evening meal on the southern Turkish coast where everyone is lovely and the humidity could make even Prince Andrew sweat like an Epstein co-defendant.

  40. 40.

    JWR

    @Baud: I type all my comments, especially the ones with links, in the Text, now Code mode, so the name change jumped out at me.

  42. 42.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Tony Jay:

    Oh, to be 50 again.

    Fuck that, if I were 50 I’d still have to work another 20 years!  Instead, I’m sitting on my back deck, enjoying a surprisingly pleasant late July early afternoon, with the sun shining down on me as I look out into the trees.

    After having enjoyed a very pleasant hour-long nap while the site went haywire.

    Which reminds me, THANKS, WG, FOR ALL YOU DO!!!!!

  43. 43.

    Trollhattan

    Dissatisfied with his Nobel prize, Booker prize, unified heavy weight crown, George Santos goes on to weightier matters.

    New York Post: “George Santos — the onetime Brazilian drag queen-turned-politician-turned-convicted liar — revealed his biggest fear about reporting to prison Friday to start his 87-month stint behind bars.”

    “The bloviating former Long Island Republican congressman admitted that he’s had so much work done on his face that it’s currently about 30% ‘filler’ — which is likely to “migrate” during his up to 87 months behind bars.”

    The horror, the horror.

  44. 44.

    Jackie

    Since this thread is about silliness… From the NY Post:

    Post: “George Santos — the onetime Brazilian drag queen-turned-politician-turned-convicted liar — revealed his biggest fear about reporting to prison Friday to start his 87-month stint behind bars.”

    “The bloviating former Long Island Republican congressman admitted that he’s had so much work done on his face that it’s currently about 30% ‘filler’ — which is likely to ‘migrate’ during his up to 87 months behind bars.”

    I thought it would be being raped – for obvious reasons, but his vanity is akin to FFOTUS’s! LOL

  46. 46.

    Ohio Mom

    @Trollhattan: I’m not interested in getting filler but I can understand someone getting filler in advance of a big happy event — you want to look good in your granddaughter’s wedding pictures, or whatever. But in advance of going to prison?

    I’d forgotten all about Santos. So thanks for the reminder?

  47. 47.

    tobie

    I’ve been at my job for over two decades. I just got a message this morning that I have till July 31 to complete my I-9 forms proving my eligibility to work in the US…or I won’t get paid, I guess. This is so crazy. The Trump admin is surveilling and strong-arming all of us.

  50. 50.

    hueyplong

    @Jackie: I’m starting to think Santos is what Trump would have been if nothing had been handed to him. At least in non-sexual aspects. Sexually, I’m not sure there is much worse than Trump, which is some kind of cosmic joke in the context of holier than thou “protect the children” conspiracy theorists who keep looking for demons hiding behind the monster right in front of them.

  51. 51.

    WTFGhost

    @JWR: Alas, “code” is becoming computerese for “just plain text, without markup language (e.g., HTML, XML, JSON)”.

    This is especially annoying to me, as a database guru (well, former database guru) because most people don’t know what “code” means in this context (plain text, meant to be compiled or interpreted, so NO CHANGES or it might not compile/interpret).

    @Baud: The position *has* been known to come with a chainsaw, and a doctor’s note suggesting cutting back on the vitamin K for a bit.

  53. 53.

    JML

    @tobie: sounds like your HR office is crap for record-keeping, as they should have made you fill that out when you started. Doing an I-9 isn’t exactly a new requirement!

  54. 54.

    WTFGhost

    @Anonymous At Work:Okay, open thread bait:

    Sorry – the open thread was too heavy and snapped the line. But wow, that was a 2-and-a-half-footer, 40 pounder, easy!

    @Tony Jay: Venetian sense? He’s trying to make her go blind? That’s either horrifying or extremely perverse and I want nothing to do with it!

    @Baud: Imma go with WG on this one: a good version would have refused to use the name. It’s like, those Nazis who insist they said “YOU will not replace us” instead of “JEWS will not replace us!” Any decent person would refuse to say anything that sounded close to “jews will not replace us” because it sounds bigoted and full-blown Nazi. Only evil people would insist that they have an excuse to shout out bigoted phrases, because they don’t really believe they’re bigoted. I mean, it would be like doing a Nazi salute look-alike ,trying to look like you’re doing a Nazi salute to trigger the libs, but having an excuse “no, I’m just throwing my heart out to the crowd, in a way it looks like a full blown Nazi salute, shame on you libs for thinking I’m a literal Nazi, when I’m not even German!”

    (For what it’s worth, I never called our head Muskovite a literal Nazi – I used a small n, because, true, he’s not German, nor mature enough – old enough, I mean – to be a literal Nazi.)

    Maybe Watergirl is a gold double eagle, instead of a DOGE – something real, able to purchase things, and, in fact, *useful* if you don’t want to use it for cash, unlike DogeCoin, which you can’t even literally light on fire if you need kindling.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @WTFGhost:

    In the old days, we used to call people soup nazis or grammar nazis.

    It’s only with the resurgence of fascism that we’ve grown more reticent about the term.

  57. 57.

    Geminid

    @Tony Jay: Man, I envy you. I really want to visit Turkiye. If I do though, I guess I should time it it so I see the southern coast in Spring or Fall.

    Do you happen to be anywhere near Chimaera(sp?), that natural gas vent that burns constantly? It’s up in the mountains somewhere not far from the coast. It was pretty famous back in the day.

  60. 60.

    WTFGhost

    @Gin & Tonic: Well, imagine if a boob job was just supposed to add, like, an extra inch to your breast size. Then, instead of shoving a bag of silicone or saline inside you, they’d take out a device not unlike a caulk gun, only with a much finer needle on the end, and squeeze in some filler.

    So, Santos has had a lot of mini-boob jobs on his face, and he’s afraid the caulk – excuse me, “filler” – won’t stay where it is.

    There’s a reason I’m referring to it as a boob job, in this case.

  62. 62.

    WTFGhost

    @zhena gogolia: Gawd, just don’t mistake the two!
    “Nurse, I asked for filler – we’ve just killed the patient!”
    “Uam ill a-i(b)e!”
    “Did you hear that doctor?”
    “This is no time for jokes!”
    “AAAY! uam ill ai(b)e!”
    “Probably a cat in heat or something….”

  64. 64.

    Old Man Shadow

    Today is honestly a “try to focus on work and don’t curl up in a fetal position and let the depression win” kind of a day.

    The kitten who jumped into my lap and is purring has helped a lot.

  65. 65.

    tam1MI

    @Melancholy Jaques: I only watched the first ten minutes of the Hunter Biden video linked in the previous thread. I note that some people are outraged & offended that he should dare to speak. Why?

    What he has to say screws up the Holy Narrative.

  66. 66.

    tobie

    @JML: I  started my job almost thirty years ago! No one had to fill out an I-9 then. My employer has 50,000 employees. I can’t imagine they messed up on this across the board.

  68. 68.

    Suzanne

    @Gin & Tonic: Filler is all of the synthetic goop that people have injected into their faces to fill in wrinkles. Lip filler is how everyone has gotten the Kardashian look, for example. It moves around over time and looks lumpy.

    ETA: This is just one reason I have kept my face filler-free! It’s soooooo weird.

  71. 71.

    WaterGirl

    @buggrit: Thank you.

    To me, it’s the prettiest hydrangea I have ever seen.  That’s why I wanted it for Tucker.  But sadly, it wasn’t happy here, even though I pretty much have a green thumb with everything that isn’t a cactus.

    But I think of the image in the photo as the expression of my love for Tucker.  Special flowers for a very special boy.

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    @Tony Jay: Well I’m so glad to see not just one but several Tony Jay comments today.   I miss you when you’re not here.

  73. 73.

    WhatsMyNym

    @tobie
    It was mandated in 1986 in the by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

  75. 75.

    Harrison Wesley

    It’s probably just because I’m a confused Olde Farte, but I feel sorry for Santos. If he tries to get right in jail, I would let him out after half his sentence and make him spend the remainder on some sort of supervision. I’m not a lawyer, so rather obviously I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about

  78. 78.

    Jeffg166

    I baked and iced a cake for my neighbor who’s birthday was last Friday then napped for two hours.

  84. 84.

    jonas

    @zhena gogolia: Filler is what women who want to fit in at Mar-A-Lago inject their lips and cheeks with (see, e.g. Kimberly Guilfoyle, Kristi Noem, et al.). Botox is actually a form of botulism toxin that temporarily paralyzes facial muscles, thereby reducing the appearance of wrinkles.

  85. 85.

    lowtechcyclist

    @zhena gogolia: ​

    It’s worth watching the whole [Biden interview].

    I just watched the first 24 minutes, all at one sitting. Which is about five times as long as I usually last with something like this. I’ll be coming back to watch the rest.

  87. 87.

    debit

    @tobie: don’t take it personally. I do payroll and this is something our HR dept audits on a regular basis. If we don’t have a valid form, the company suffers the consequences. They just want to make sure they have their ducks in a row.

  88. 88.

    Suzanne

    One thing I will note…. women (and men, too, more than you think) of all ages are getting fillers and Botox, and most of them don’t have the Mar-a-Lago or Kardashian face. When done well, it looks natural, and that person just looks like they age more slowly. Some dermatologists even advise “preventative Botox” for people starting in their mid-20s.

    Every medspa is doing this and they’re in every city in the country. So you might want to be careful out in the world if you make an inadvertently disparaging comment.

  89. 89.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud: 

    ​In the old days, we used to call people soup nazis or grammar nazis.

    It’s only with the resurgence of fascism that we’ve grown more reticent about the term.

    As long as Nazism was something in the distant past that hadn’t represented a threat for the entire lifetimes of most people then living, you could poke fun at ‘grammar nazis’ and the like and it wasn’t a big deal. Or jokes like John Goodman’s line in The Big Lebowski about nihilists (“say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it’s an ethos”) could be funny because it was something powerless.

    So much for that, alas.​

  90. 90.

    tobie

    @debit: I don’t take it personally. But given that the admin has decided to wage war on my industry (education), I’m sure HR has been told to dot every i and cross every t. The one-week deadline did take me by surprise.

  91. 91.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @tobie: I  started my job almost thirty years ago! No one had to fill out an I-9 then. My employer has 50,000 employees. I can’t imagine they messed up on this across the board.

    I can. A lot of HR workers are lazy ass clowns. We had to resubmit our proof of right to work three times because the HR managers couldn’t be arsed to put them in the correct folders.

  93. 93.

    lowtechcyclist

    @me: ​

    Donny to Detroit “Drop Dead”.

    Since all I can see at your link is the headline and a photo caption, is this really “Donny to Detroit, ‘drop dead'” or “Donny has no idea WTF he’s doing, or how any one thing he’s doing affects any other thing he’s doing”?

    Personally, I’d bet decent money it’s the latter. Any normal Administration would have people considering all these implications before a policy change was proposed to a Cabinet undersecretary, let alone the President. But Trump just goes off half-cocked and clueless. But he’s ‘authentic.’

  95. 95.

    WTFGhost

    @Baud: You’re not wrong – it might also be a desert topping, and a floor wax, but we haven’t tested it on either, yet.

    (Once again: do not mix up the Botox and the filler – one might be a desert topping, but only if your desert topping is in a can that’s swelling up from internal pressures caused by anaerobic bacteria. The other… might be safe for human consumption, according to Trump’s FDA.)

    @Suzanne: yes, except, the Novocain wears off, and you stop feeling like your lips are swollen and pus-filled, in a few hours.

    @Old Man Shadow: Good luck, and may you have more good kitten energy to help you along!

    @Baud: Wow… good point. I just remember, in 6th grade, being resoundingly lectured about how, we could put anything we wanted on a gravestone for our art project, but *no swastika*, it was a symbol of a murderous regime and the death of millions of Jews. That was in the mid-70s, when everyone agreed (or pretended) that nazis and the swastika were evil.
    (Also: classy handling of the DOGE issue, as best as I’ve seen in such awkward scenarios.)

  96. 96.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @zhena gogolia:

    On your rec, I watched the entire Hunter Biden interview.

    Totally agree with his remarks on immigration. I believe the entire Democratic Party needs to develop a set of immigration policies that are based on reality & morality.

  97. 97.

    Steve in the ATL

    @tobie: it’s a pretty painless process these days with e-Verify.  Unless you are old enough, like many B-J posters, that (1) you were birthed in a log cabin by a mid-wife and there are no official records of your birth, or (2) the parchment confirming your birth was lost when the courthouse burned down and/or flooded.

    Still manageable–I know a guy who can you get a passport that scans.  DM me!

  99. 99.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Baud: You’re not wrong
    …
    @Baud: Wow… good point.

    Someone has a new groupie!

  100. 100.

    lowtechcyclist

    @tobie:

    But given that the admin has decided to wage war on my industry (education)

    Which reminds me of a question I have for the legal eagles here: whatever happened to the ‘major questions doctrine,’ and wouldn’t the Supreme Court’s go-ahead to Trump to gut the Department of Education run smack into it?  I mean, if Congress can’t delegate decisions above a certain level to the Executive Branch because they’re ‘major questions’ so the Executive’s hands are tied, wouldn’t that apply just as much to decisions that Congress didn’t delegate?

    Yeah, I know: Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.  But has the Seditious Six even tried to make sense of this seeming contradiction?

    ETA: Also Wilhoit’s Law, of course. Democratic Administrations are tightly constrained, but Republican Presidents can do whatever the hell they want.

  101. 101.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Suzanne: Also, there’s permanent fillers and temporary ones. The latter obviously need to be redone periodically, but avoid the problems of unwanted “migration” that can happen with permanent fillers. But there’s definitely a price tag required for doing this sort of regular tune-up.

    As you said, like other cosmetic procedures, while they can be done “Mar a Lago face” excess, fillers can, and are mostly, be done subtly. Jackals would be surprised how many women (and some men) get them done.

  102. 102.

    lowtechcyclist

    @WTFGhost: ​

    but *no swastika*, it was a symbol of a murderous regime and the death of millions of Jews.

    But just remember, being against genocide is anti-Semitic…

  103. 103.

    Suzanne

    @WhatsMyNym: Well, yeah. Capitalism is at work, preying on our insecurities. ‘Twas ever thus.

    @Sister Golden Bear: Yes thank you. This stuff is incredibly common and usually not really visible. There’s shifting attitudes around this stuff, partially generational. I haven’t done it myself, but I know many, many people who do.

  104. 104.

    ruckus

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Worked from 12 well into 73. So over 6 decades. Now I’m making furniture – simple stuff, mostly for me. I’ve made all my furniture. Working on my last project for anyone else and then have one simple project left, for me.

    Various jobs over the years, one was a full time job in professional sports for a decade, longest job concept was making a wide variety of things out of metal. That was first and last. 

    One of my jobs (long ago!) was part time, local city mental health counselor. That was, no fun is not the answer, interesting possibly, informative yes, a view into humanity for sure. Changed my direction it did. Had wanted to be a doctor. The concept of doctor was acceptable, the variety of human behaviors and the defense of some of them woke me up. Still, I have the concept that doctor would have been an interesting career. In some ways though glad things have gone the way they did.

  106. 106.

    ruckus

    @hueyplong:

    There is/are worse than shitforbrains.

    Humans are human, in all their forms, levels and bullshit. Some are good, fewer are great, and a not insignificant number are pure shit walking. shitforbrains is not good at a lot of things, but he seems to have a knack for getting money. Not earning it, getting it. He also seems to be able to give it up rather easily. I wonder if that is because he doesn’t earn a paycheck but because he comes across money, in various ways. He is once again being paid a not insignificant paycheck for a job far out of his reach. And he got that because a lot of people seem to think that money makes one smart.

    It doesn’t. It can make one comfortable, it can make one far more than comfortable. It can also make one into a rather pompous, arrogant jackass. Of course they might have been that jackass all along. I’ve known some with money, not the level he claims but not  insignificant amounts. Very few of them pompous arrogant assholes because they actually earned at least most of their money.

    Has shitforbrains EVER earned the money? I’m going with not bloody likely.

  107. 107.

    Tony Jay

    @Geminid:

    Not this holiday, though I’ve heard of it. We’ve just spent a few days in Istanbul doing the tourist thing (Hagia Sofia, Basilica Cistern, street food and Efes beer) and then flew down to the south coast just outside Alanya so the boy can have a beach holiday.

    I can tell you that every Turk we’ve interacted with has been super nice. Willing to jump in and help out confused English people whenever required. It might be punishingly hot and stunningly humid, but that’s just the price we Fog Country Folk have chosen to pay for the sins of Empire.

  108. 108.

    Tony Jay

    @WaterGirl:

    I’m often here. I’m even more of a jackal than Damian Thorne.

    One day soon I may even finish this rant about British politics and we’ll be back to normal.

  111. 111.

    ruckus

    @tobie:

    I was an employer about 30 years ago (old fart now…) I searched for the concept and it only came into existence about 30 years ago. Now I didn’t have one for my last job, which ended a bit under 3 years ago, or the one before that, and I started that job about 30 years ago.

    IOW, I’ve never seen an I 9 form.

  112. 112.

    m.j.

    I know why Donny is afraid of the Epstein files. He killed one of Epstein’s sex slaves.

    Trump has a known history of abuse. I think it was Katie Johnson (right?) who sued in 2016 saying she was both raped and beaten when she was 13. I believe Trump has been accused of beating at least one of his wives. These sorts of things can get out of hand and they did. He killed someone and someone else cleaned up.

  116. 116.

    leeleeFL

    I am a bit confuzzled! Have we lost an entire day? I know there was issues yesterday, but are we catching up?

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