Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

I really should read my own blog.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Let me file that under fuck it.

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

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

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

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

When I was faster i was always behind.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

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A Word of Caution

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I just spent an hour trying to figure out how to get a five piece queen-size metal bed frame together and still ended up with an extra piece. Anyone who thinks I have any idea what I am talking about regarding the financial crisis should keep that in mind. I am clueless and frustrated and just trying to figure things out, which is harder and harder to do because nothing stays still long enough to get a feel for things and as soon as you think you have an idea as to what is going on, things change dramatically.

Unlike the bed frame, which was stationary, and I managed to make a hash of that anyway. I really hope this extra piece was optional.

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Open Thread

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For the whiners. All you have to do is ask, you know…

Also, bad news for Tom Friedman:

A possible General Growth Properties bankruptcy could happen in the next few days.

Actually, I guess that is bad news for all of us, since the market for dull platitudes will never dry up, and this means he most likely won’t retire young. Damnit.

Also, I am watching the Sarah Connor Chronicles or whatever it is on Fox, and it appears that in the future, all the freedom fighters have had collagen implants in their lips. I find that odd.

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Mine Was A Scientist’s Autobiography That Went Out Of Print In The 60’s, But I’m Weird That Way

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Sadly, yesterday I spent most of the day looking for time to write a four paragraph post and still almost got in trouble with the boss twice. In the end I decided that it was pedestrian and deleted it (shorter version: I wonder why UAW line workers who saw their contractually guaranteed pensions hosed did not get a front page tongue bath at the Washington Post). It looks like these days the best that I can do is steal quotes from around the internets.

So, Bob John Rogers.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Indeed. Open thread.

***Update***

By demand, the book was Lady With A Spear, by Dr. Eugenie Clark. Good luck finding a copy.

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Inside the Madoff Operation

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This insider description of life inside the Madoff operation is a fascinating read, but this stuck out:

Did he think something was fishy? “It never dawned on me that Bernie was running a criminal operation down on the 17th floor. I thought he was just a quirky guy. Now, in hindsight there are a lot of things that point to illegal activities. The emails, for instance, were clearly handled that way so that nobody could access them. They didn’t want any record if someone got suspicious and wrote so to a colleague, for instance, or you pressed the search bar and the word Ponzi came up.”

The salaries, said the employee, also in hindsight, were so large because Madoff wanted to keep people happy; he wanted allies in case they found out what was really happening. “Nobody left because they could never get another job that paid as well as this one. Some people, after his arrest, speculated that it was kind of like hush money; nobody asked any questions because the Madoffs were nice, protective, generous.

“The Madoffs had all of us out to Montauk for yearly weekends. We didn’t go to their houses but they put us up in hotels. They had a barbecue lunch on the sand and a formal dinner under a tent at the yacht club. On Sunday they took a small subset of employees on a fishing trip.

I can’t be the only one who immediately thought of this.

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A Garden At The White House

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This is interesting:

On Friday, Michelle Obama will begin digging up a patch of White House lawn to plant a vegetable garden, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II. There will be no beets (the president doesn’t like them) but arugula will make the cut.

While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at time when obesity has become a national concern.

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The Obamas will feed their love of Mexican food with cilantro, tomatilloes and hot peppers. Lettuces will include red romaine, green oak leaf, butterhead, red leaf and galactic. There will be spinach, chard, collards and black kale. For desserts, there will be a patch of berries. And herbs will include some more unusual varieties, like anise hyssop and Thai basil. A White House carpenter who is a beekeeper will tend two hives for honey.

I honestly don’t understand how people can dislike beets, but overall this is pretty cool. I’m actually throwing in a small garden at my brothers house this summer, and we talked about it tonight at dinner.

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