Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Peak wingnut was a lie.

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

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

In my day, never was longer.

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

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

When we show up, we win.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

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

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

Their freedom requires your slavery.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

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Weekend Reads: Slop World vs. Deep Reading

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A lazy Saturday is drawing to a close here in the UK. It began with the discovery of a surgically detached mouse head tenderly placed on the living room carpet by the cat. I appreciate him trying to bring me snacks, but I begrudge him the bloodstains on the rug. As my mother used to say to me and my siblings when we were raising hell as kids: “It’s a good thing you’re cute.”

Anyway. I had planned to spend the day dismantling several pallets friends brought me so that I can make planters with them, but it was raining. Instead, I read two articles: “Welcome to Slop World: How the Hostile Internet Is Driving Us Crazy” by Jacob Silverman in the Financial Times (paywall-free Archive.is link here), and “Ultra-Processed Minds: The End of Deep Reading and What It Costs Us” by University College London scholar Carl Hendrick, who studies the science of learning (it’s a Substack, sorry). It seems to me these two go well together.

Silverman’s column goes over ground that Anne Laurie has covered for us here for years: the “enshittification” of the Internet and how that has accelerated in the age of Generative AI slop and confident misinformation. (Take this gem, for instance:)

I am watching the movie Heat and I wanted to check if the actress is a young Angelina Jolie so I went to google and-

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— Nicholas Kole (@nicholaskole.bsky.social) April 19, 2025 at 5:41 AM

Anyway. Silverman bundles together AI slop and enshittification and misinformation under the label “the hostile internet”. He talks about the toll it is taking on us as individuals and as members of online communities:

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Butter Lamb 2025! (Open Thread)

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Ladies, gentlemen and friends beyond the binary, I present to you this year’s butter lamb!

Lamb made out of butter

As usual, I only see the flaws — I fucked up that one ear a bit. But Bill says it looks great and will be tasty on tomorrow’s dinner rolls, so I’ll take his word for it. (Butter lamb tutorial and origin story here.)

Here’s the nekkid lamb when construction was in progress:

Butter lamb sculpture without the curly cues.

I almost had to drop everything and trek into town when it came time to do the eyes. The eyes are either peppercorns or cloves, and it’s super important to find a pair that match in color and size or the lamb will look psychotic.

I’d forgotten that when we returned home from the flood last November, I went through the pantry and ruthlessly discarded 70% of the spice collection and have slowly been reconstituting it. I couldn’t find whole cloves or peppercorns at first, and I was panicking.

But then I found a bottle of fancy gourmet MIXED peppercorns we received as a holiday gift. There were red ones and green ones and black ones, and I was sorely tempted to make a DEMON lamb with red eyes.

But then I decided it would be cruel to do that to the in-laws, so I went with traditional black.

***

That dilemma reminded me of a story about my little brother. He used to have a pet mouse that was white with black eyes. The poor little rodent died one day while my brother was at school (kindergarten, I think), and my stepfather noticed and rushed out to buy a replacement mouse. He told my mom, sister and me but intended to pass the new mouse off as the original when my brother came home.

Only the mouse stepfather purchased had red eyes. Little bro didn’t say anything about it at first. But when he tried to take the mouse out of its cage to play, it bit him, and when he let go of it, the mouse made its escape.

My brother started wailing and ran to Mom.

“He never bit me before, but this time he had RED DEVIL EYES!” he sobbed, clinging to mom.

Mom looked daggers at my sister and me to stifle the uncontrollable giggles welling up in us both (we were teens, i.e., assholes).

Little bro wouldn’t learn about the deception for many years. We never saw or heard from the mouse again.

For all I know, that mouse is still roaming a golf course in Tampa, though it would be extraordinarily long-lived if it were, like the mouse in The Green Mile. 

The end.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread

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Today is butter lamb construction day! The sticks of butter that contain this year’s lamb have been shifted from the freezer to the fridge. When they reach the correct level of chill, I’ll get started.

Is anyone doing a No Kings protest today? After I cook breakfast and make the lamb, I plan to swing by one in a nearby town for at least a few minutes. Wish I could stay for the duration, but I’ve got a lot going on today.

I have a No Kings bumper sticker on my car. (The full text is: No Kings in America since 1776.) The other day, I dropped the rattletrap Jeep off for service. While waiting in the garage bay, a fellow customer who was a large MAGA dude asked me what my sticker meant. I replied that it means I’m in favor of democracy and against monarchy.

I could tell the answer dissatisfied him because he couldn’t very well argue with that. I think he wanted me to say it means FUCK TRUMP, which it does, so he could defend his orange idol.

Anyhoo, open thread. Back later with the butter lamb!

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Overnight Open Thread: A Bit of Fun To End The Week

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Here we are once again, night owls and early risers.

Exhausted for a day I didn’t do too much. Snowed all day, not sticking, so that’s good, but made for a lazy day if you didn’t count all the Great Dane feet I had to wipe mud off of all day. They do love to play in the snow.

A bit of fun to end the week:

 

The dogs were good again this week:

 

 

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War for Ukraine Day 1,149: From I Alone Can Fix it To I’m Going To Just Take a Pass

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Trump on ending Russia’s war on Ukraine: “If for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just gonna say, ‘you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re just gonna take a pass.”

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 18, 2025 at 12:47 PM

From The BBC:

Donald Trump said the US will “take a pass” on brokering further Russia-Ukraine war talks if Moscow or Kyiv “make it very difficult” to reach a peace deal.

The US president told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that he was not expecting a truce to happen in “a specific number of days” but he wanted it done “quickly”.

His comments came hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the US would abandon talks “if it’s not going to happen”.

“We’re not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end,” Rubio said, adding that the US had “other priorities to focus on”.

When asked about the deal between Russian and Ukraine, Trump said: “We’re talking about here people dying. We’re going to get it stopped, ideally.

“Now if, for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘You’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re going to just take a pass.”

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has placed a number of conditions on any potential ceasefire.

Despite the Trump administration’s initial confidence that it could secure a deal quickly, attempts to reach a full ceasefire have yet to materialise, with Washington blaming both sides.

Following a meeting with European leaders in Paris about a potential ceasefire on Thursday, Rubio told reporters on Friday: “We need to determine very quickly now – and I’m talking about a matter of days – whether or not this is doable.”

“If it’s not going to happen, then we’re just going to move on,” he said about truce talks.

He said it was clear that a peace deal would be difficult to strike but there needed to be signs it could be done soon.

Trump had said before he re-entered office that he would stop the fighting in the first 24 hours of his presidency.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked to respond to Trump saying he expected an answer from Russia on a ceasefire, said “the negotiations taking place are quite difficult”.

“The Russian side is striving to reach a peace settlement in this conflict, to ensure its own interests, and is open to dialogue,” he said.

The comments come as Russian strikes on Ukraine continue. On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X that Russia had launched a volley of missile attacks that killed two people.

More at the link.

There was never any ceasefire endeavor to the ceasefire endeavor. Putin never had & never will have any interest in a truce, ceasefire, or negotiated settlement that doesn’t achieve his objectives or set the conditions for him to achieve them in the future. Trump and his team never understood this and got played.

REPORTER: Do you think Russia is playing you?

TRUMP: No. Nobody is playing me. I’m trying to help. This is Biden’s war.

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 18, 2025 at 12:50 PM

If you look around the table and can’t tell who the mark is, you’re the mark.

All of this from Trump and his team as Putin and Russia attack Ukrainian civilian targets on Good Friday.

On Good Friday morning Russia hits Kharkiv with three missiles carrying cluster munitions. One killed, dozens injured. Why is no one talking about holding Russia accountable for war crimes anymore?

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— Maria Avdeeva (@mariainkharkiv.bsky.social) April 18, 2025 at 12:23 AM

There is no address from President Zelenskyy posted. Nor any other new videos. His office did announce a new national resistance training initiative today.

Centers for National Resistance Training to Open in Every Region of Ukraine

18 April 2025 – 14:09

Centers dedicated to preparing citizens for national resistance will soon be operational in every region of Ukraine. The Cabinet of Ministers has approved a resolution outlining the procedures for establishing and operating these centers, along with the requirements governing their activities.

This initiative follows a directive issued by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a meeting with representatives of civil society.

The document was developed under the coordination of Deputy Head of the Office of the President Iryna Vereshchuk. Working sessions included representatives from the Ministry of Defense, the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the Territorial Defense Forces, regional military administrations, as well as civil society and volunteer organizations.

Center heads will be appointed by regional councils based on nominations from regional military administrations, which will also be responsible for oversight, monitoring, and quarterly reporting to the Ministry of Defense.

The Territorial Defense Forces will approve a standardized training program, and the centers’ leadership and instructors will primarily be selected from among military veterans. Instructors for national resistance will undergo training and certification at higher education military institutions.

“The preparation of civilians to resist the enemy is an integral component of our defense capability and one of the factors in deterring the enemy. It is also a driving force behind societal resilience and unity,” emphasized Iryna Vereshchuk.

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Squishable Evening Open Thread

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What’s everybody up to this weekend?  I didn’t even realize this was Easter weekend until one of my client’s offices was closed for the afternoon.

Got 3 of my 4 tomato plants in the mail yesterday.  It’s way too early to plant here, so I put them in some smallish pots so they can spend the next 2 or 3 weeks growing up before they get potted in the real location.  They are living on the screened in porch where they can get sun during the day and then covered up at night.

I also got one of my favorite tropical hibiscus today, and 5 night sky petunias.  I put them on the front deck, but guess I need to check the weather to find out if they need to be on the porch in back, too.

Open thread!

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