John has the flu and for some reason that old bumper sticker (Jesus Is Coming. Look Busy!) keeps flashing through my head. What’s going on that doesn’t involve ports?
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
The worst democrat is better than the best republican.
It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.
Usually wrong but never in doubt
Republicans don’t trust women.
The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.
I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.
Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.
The lights are all blinking red.
In after Baud. Damn.
“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”
One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.
The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.
The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.
When we show up, we win.
JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?
Be a traveling stable for those who can’t find room at the inn.
Let’s not be the monsters we hate.
“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”
This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.
It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.
When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.
Not all heroes wear capes.
Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.
In my day, never was longer.
rilkefan
Iraq’s about to melt down? Muqtada al-Sadr to pick up the pieces? Ice is slippery?
Lines
how dare you link to Juan Cole! One time he got a detail wrong about the sequence of a series of battles in the Middle East and now everything he claims to know about the Middle East is suspect.
And he is a liberal!
rilkefan
Actually, I think he’s an idiot on stuff outside his immediate expertise, but on topic he’s ok.
SeesThroughIt
One of the architects of neoconservatism admits it’s a failure.
tb
Anyone catch this tit-bit over at Atrios? Frigging amazing, ain’t it? These are the people Bush wants to control our ports.
jg
Well I’m pushing 35 and about to get braces. How’s that for a story?
Steve
I had braces twice, once in high school, once in college. It wasn’t my favorite thing. At least modern technology has done something to obviate the full-blown metalmouth look.
LITBMueller
“Fat Couple Making Out In Shower Causes Pub Roof to Collapse!” – that’s my own headline with apologies to large people ;)
Cyrus
“Jesus paid for your sins – be sure to get your money’s worth!”
GOP4Me
Jesus is coming. Look busy!
Also, Ward Churchill’s birds are finally coming home to roost:
Those of you who bedazzled the rest of us with statements like, “If Bush wins in 2004, I’m moving to New Zealand” might want to take this opportunity to honor your promise.
SeesThroughIt
“Jesus love you long time!”
capelza
Oh hahahahahahaha….GOP4me wrote about Ward Churchill. Put down the cliche and step away from the strawman…
Bruce in Alta California
How about if America just buys all the world’s greatest athletes for the next Olympics? This article explains how congress passed a special bill and Bush signed it into law that waived certain provisions to allow Olympic athletes to obtain US citizenship.
Paul Wartenberg
Well, parking is horrific at UF, my novel’s stuck on the third chapter, I haven’t had a date in 17 years and there’s a dent on the backside of my PT Cruiser that needs fixing. Other than that, everything in the universe is fine…
jg
Married?
ppGaz
This is the lead piece from MSNBC’s Eric Alterman today:
It just get better and better. And don’t worry … these incompetantlying sonsabitches are only in there for three more years.
GOP4Me
Did you actually read the article yet?
Pb
GOP4Me,
Thank you for proving once again that townhall.com is not a news source. The New York Times, however, is, and they covered this three years ago.
Those of you who bedazzled the rest of us with statements like “I think we’re all freaking out over a naked pyramid and a dog leash” might want to take this opportunity to humbly apologize.
jg
GOP4ME is a free republic plant. Don’t bother trying to engage him. He said the other day there’s no point to arguing with him anyway, he’s here for amusement. Everyone of his posts are meant to incite. Its a Coulter trick.
GOP4Me
No, only liberal news sources count, right?
I never said that. I realize that some people I agree with did, and I apologize on their behalf. Abu Ghraib was a serious mistake. We can argue about the scope of the problem, but I don’t think anyone is seriously arguing that it isn’t a problem, and those who did argue that should apologize.
Now you do your part, and get on that plane. I tell you this because you seem like a nice enough person. Townhall.com today, legislative floor of Congress tomorrow.
jaime
I’m trying to get Stormy, Gop4me, and Darrell out of the cult of Bush and into here
jaime
crap…How do you hyperlink here?
Anyway…I meant here: http://www.scientology.org
Don Surber
How nice of Huffington to prove she is as shrill and rabid as Hannity the other night. Why do I put up with that show?
Larry King. Oh yea. I forgot
GOP4Me
Whereas you’re only here for intellectual enlightenment, no doubt. Come off it, you pompous fool. Who among you is here for anything other than amusement? What is life, but spiritual questing coupled with down and depressing moments when you mark time with amusement while you’re waiting to die? And what’s wrong with any of that? The important thing is that Jesus is coming, so look busy; and anything else that happens is only distraction.
Jack Roy
What else is happ—
Spring Training, bitches! Manny’s not reporting until March 1! Bonds may retire, maybe not! Pedro’s toe is hurty! Will Clemens pitch one more season? Will Dontrelle be as good? Will Delmon Young get a shot?
What else is happening, he asks. Sheesh.
GOP4Me
Well, okay, John Cole might be here for the money. But does anybody else have that excuse?
capelza
There’s got to be some “Godwin’s Law” counterpart for bringing Ward “who noone ever heard of until the wingnuts found him and gave him all the free publicity a nutbar could dream of” Churchill.
Davebo
GOP4ME
I don’t care whether it’s a liberal or conservative news source.
It just so happens that only TownHall.com cares about the opinion of Virgin Ben.
Maybe when he reaches drinking age..
jaime
American Idol, bitches!!!!!
JWeidner
And now…Deeeep thoughts. By Jack Handy…I mean GOP4Me
Davebo
Come to think of it, GOP4me may be a problem.
He claims to fight gay pederasts at every corner, while simultaneously singing the praises of young Virgin Ben.
Should someone contact Ben’s legal guardian?
Steve
Is there anyone out there who actually wants Bonds to break Aaron’s record? Just curious.
GOP4Me
Battlefield: Earth was a truly horrible movie. I think we should punish people in jail by forcing them to watch it nightly, but no doubt your Amnesty International would whine and complain too much about that. Still, it would be an effective interrogation threat, and arguably it isn’t torture. Arguably.
JWeidner
Hells yeah! I love this time of year almost as much as the fall. A couple months without baseball and I’m a jittery freak.
Of course, my Angels couldn’t manage to bring in some offensive pop during the offseason, so I’m reduced to hyping our insane rotation and bullpen and left hoping that we either find someone in the club, or make a trade somewhere to bring in a good bat!
GOP4Me
Sure. Why not declare anything detrimental to your side to be off conversational limits? Then you can claim victory by default in any political debate, and we can talk about nothing but sports all the time.
Actually, come to think of it, that might not be such a bad thing.
We were all young once, you know. Even Presidents and whatnot.
F-ck you, too.
Yeah, good idea. If Ben’s not careful, he might wander into some blue state where they let the pederasts roam free-because apparently, the rights of a child molester are more important than the rights of the child. And you wonder why we don’t elect people from New England states President. (No, Bush doesn’t count. He was governor of Texas, see.)
capelza
Jesus…GOP4me, you miss the entire point. Yeah, I know Churchill was the key note speaker at the last Democratic convention and Clinton regularily had him in the Oval office in an advisory capacity, John Dean has him on speed dial and Hillary is hanging on his every word.
jaime
Does Fred Phelps encapsulate the conservatives stance on gay marriage?
Does Ann Coulter represent your side on dealing with “ragheads”.
Are you sure you don’t want to be a Scientologist? All the Cult-y goodness of the current Republican party…plus you get to wear military type uniforms so you can still pretend to be a warrior.
zzyzx
Anything that makes it harder for A-Rod to do so works for me.
Davebo
Nope, too liberal.
capelza
Don’t forget that GOP politican down south somewhere who admitted having sex with a mule…anyone else recall this?
He was talking about how wrong gays were.
demimondian
W00t! We have a new DougJ mimic in Gop4Me!
I love the idea that Gore should apologize for telling the truth, by the way. That’s the best parody I’ve heard in days — just take the Bush administration’s doctrine and stretch it to its logical conclusion. You’ve got real potential as a conversation-starter over at RedState.
jaime
I’m a liberal who loves the Yankees. You may check out the Yankee Blog I write for at http://www.pinstripealley.com. It’s part of a whole sport blog network and practically every team has their own blog. Sorry for the self promo, last I’ll mention of it.
chopper
jesus is coming! get a towel!
Davebo
Warrantless spying on American citizens? Vital to national security.
Cross referencing a list of known terrorists with a list of firearm purchase applications? Bad.. Big brother can take my gun from my cold dead fingers.
Meet the GOP America. It’s curious, but hardly funny.
Lines
Don Surber doesn’t fail to amaze, yet again.
How can anyone, even a hack journalist like Surber, watch the Hannity episode with Huffington and decide that Huffington was the one with the screw loose?
She asked a simple question and was screamed at, repeatedly. You think thats winning, Don? Maybe in your backwards world of acceptable incest.
Perry Como
This makes me sad. I’m not a big one for religion, but destroying historic architecture is always a time for pause.
RSA
But according to David Horowitz,
You can tell by all the academic honors and recognition Churchill has—oh, wait. . .
rilkefan
You like Damon leading off? And you’re batting A-Rod 5th for the Sheffield “the guy who swings the hardest puts the most fear in the pitchers” factor?
Wonder where I’m going to find the time to follow the games.
rilkefan
Above in response to jaime‘s comment.
Krista
A PT Cruiser? That might be your problem right there.
ppGaz
Surber is paid to be here.
Seriously, why else would he hang around here? It’s not for the enjoyment. His every utterance brings a roar of laughter from the gallery.
John is desperately afraid that unless he has some OP-ED representation in the comments, he will lose his RINO standing, and I figure he pays Surber and a few others to hang here and drop the Limbaughisms on cue.
scs he can get for ice cream cones, but I figure Surber is going to be getting a per diem and meal money, at least.
Paul L.
Question for the antiwar liberals who scream Bush “lied” us into war in Iraq with WMDs.
How come no comment (other than this story) on Clinton “lying” to us into war in Kosovo with the mass graves?
Another Case of Mass Deception?
ppGaz
Best retort of the day so far.
Most of the PT cruisers around my part of the world are parked outside the dialysis clinic.
Pb
GOP4Me,
Your pants are on fire.
Just how many of you are there?
I await your apology.
Pb
Paul L.,
Obviously the mass graves were there, but they secretly moved them to Iraq before we had time to find them all. Or something.
neil
Battlefield: Earth was a truly horrible movie. I think we should punish people in jail by forcing them to watch it nightly, but no doubt your Amnesty International would whine and complain too much about that.
Sometimes I think I’m too emotionally involved in politics, but this guy is really out there.
Krista
They just strike me as a bit of a…neutermobile.
Lines
Paul L:
Somehow, I think your simplistic approach to Kosovo is a telling story into your partisanship and useless debate capabilities.
NATO, bitch.
Perry Como
Good point Paul L. I can’t believe Clinton sacrificed the lives of 2,000+ US soldiers and 15,000+ wounded all based on a lie. The half trillion dollars Clinton threw away on a war was just disgusting. The bad will Clinton fostered in that war, that will haunt us for decades, is clearly a problem.
Did you hear about the Clenis? That was real outrageous.
Don Surber
Lines:
You have so brilliantly put me down that you have convinced me that I was gravely in error in asserting that Huffington and Hannity sounded like a poodle and a chihuahua arguing over the last croissant
Pooh
Whatever else is said, that’s a good line. Well played sir.
Davebo
Don,
Hannity decrying bombastic speech while sitting next to Mr. Coulter was probably one of the funniest things he’s ever done.
And would you buy Coca Cola if there was a label on every bottle explaining that drinking it won’t kill you?
Don Surber
ppGaz
Another ad hominem attacker. I take it you also thought Huffington outwhined Hannity in the battle of the witless
Paddy O'Shea
Anybody notice that the Bush admin scandals are starting to come in at a one per week clip?
In the last three weeks: Constitutionally dubious domestic spying, followed by a possibly drunk Dick “Elmer Fudd” Cheney nearly blowing the head off a Republican lawyer, and now the selling of our ports to folks who have been tied to the financing of 9-11.
One can only wonder what they have planned for the week of the 27th ..
Perry Como
Has anyone been watching Cheney? Has he shot anyone else in the face?
Lines
So Don, you ignorant slut, do you believe that Huffington owns and should be responsible for 100% of the content on a community blog?
And do you think that Hannity’s refusal to answer her challenge about Ann Coulter’s inflammitory past statements is indicative of someone with superior discussion and debate skills?
Jesus, Don, you’re such a partisan hack. I sure hope you are getting paid by your party for the crap you write.
RSA
I can’t understand either, given the current state of world affairs, why we’re not still obsessed with Clinton. After all, it’s only been six years since he was President, and not much has happened since then. . .
Don Surber
Davebo
Not defending Hannity. “How nice of Huffington to prove she is as shrill and rabid as Hannity the other night.”
I am sure in real life they are swell people and all, but their TV persona would shame a rat terrier
Don Surber
Lines
I ain’t arguing with what Hannity or Huffington said. It was all foamy mouthed garbage
Come to think of it, I turned channels toward the end, before Colmes awarded the bronze to Coulter, and decided which of the two remaining contests got the gold, which the silver
Ancient Purple
Thank you for providing a link to statistics supporting your idiotic claim.
Don Surber
“Constitutionally dubious”
LOL
Yea, it must really bite to have Dems re-read FISA and decide the issue is a dry hole, and move on
Perry Como
Speaking of pederasts, has Michael Jackson shot anyone in the face recently? Nevermind. He’s in the UAE.
What happens in Dubai, stays in Dubai.
Steve
Pretending it’s a partisan issue, and pretending it’s over, all in the span of a single sentence. Wanna go for strike three?
The Other Steve
SeesThroughIt…
Holy Crap! From the Fukuyama article…
Now why do I have to go to Scotland to read that? Media bias perhaps?
jaime
Rilkefan
The views expressed on the blog posts are mine and John Amato’s. I’m not sure if I expressed a position on the lineup.
Lines
What the hell are you drinking? Bad moonshine?
jaime
Seriously, can someone tell me how to hyperlink on Balloon Juice?
Mike in SLO
Hey Surber and Lines!
Get a room, will ya?
Don Surber
Lines:
No such thing as bad moonshine
The only bad moonshine is an empty glass
Mr Furious
Well the PT Cruiser exchange made this thread worth reading, at least…
SeesThroughIt
I dunno, The Other Steve–maybe media bias? (And by “media bias,” I mean, “the media are raging wusses.”) Whatever the case, this story needs to be pushed far and wide. Even a primary architect of Bush’s ideology thinks it’s a shit sandwich. Now we just need to get Bush and that one-third of the public who are slavishly devoted to him to see the light….
As for this:
That’d be Neal Horsely. While pansy-ass Rick Santorum merely equates homosexuality with bestiality, Horsely uses bestiality to attack homosexuality. Now that is some grade-A lunacy!
rilkefan
jaime, that was “jamato”, assumed it was you under a different handle.
To link, highlight the text in question, hit the “link” button over the comment box (hit the arrow if you don’t see buttons), paste in the url, et voila.
Paul L.
So Lines your retort is elitism and self-righteousness. I am unimpressed.
PB read the link.
“In alleged ethnic cleansing exercises by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, as many as 100,000 to 200,000 civilians said to have gone missing or been killed in Kosovo, many of them buried in mass graves”
Found 3,272, where are the rest? We found a couple of old shells with nerve gas. So using your standard we found WMDs in Iraq.
I love Clinton. He just exposes the hypocrisy of liberals. And when you bring him up the liberals point out he is no longer President. But that does not stop liberals from using Reagan/Nixon – Watergate/Iran-Contra. Hypocrites.
Jack Roy
Sweet, Jaime. I’m a reader of overthemonster, so… our blog-family allegiences are the same, at least. A-Rod fifth is insanity; Damon is going to help you guys alot but Crisp will probably be better within 3 years; and using [a href = “url ” ] description [/a] always worked for me.
Paddy O'Shea
Denial Don Surber: Karl Rove has now instituted the fiendishly clever “scandal fatigue” defense. Aware that he can no longer contain the damage brought about by some of the more celebrated Bushie blunders of the past 5 years, and seeing the brutal effect all of this is having on Kenny Bunkport’s approval numbers, Karl has decided to unleash a scandal a week until the media and political junkies can stand no more.
That Karl, he really knows how to think out of the box.
rilkefan
The Fukuyama essay was in the NYT Magazine, not exactly under a rock, and it’s been discussed at Obsidian Wings and here in the comments and at Yglesias’s TPM blog and …
jaime
Just practicing with this
neil
No such thing as bad moonshine
Don, have you had your eyesight checked recently?
jaime
Great. Thanks. More self promo. Sorry. Had to practice with something.
jaime
Sweet, Jaime. I’m a reader of overthemonster.
Cool. We had the first little rumble of the season on PA a week ago with you guys. Someone tried to inject politics into it, too. If they want to do that, they can go to Amato’s other blog.
Pb
Paul L.,
Not that I care about your distraction, but why don’t you first show us where and when Clinton actually said that there were 200,000 civilians buried in mass graves or whatever? And apparently there were at least “thousands”, which is way more than “a few shells”. FYI, learn to count.
Pooh
The ABA thinks the wiretapping is illegal, but what do they know?
Lines
The only answer to Paul L is:
NATO, Bitch.
If you don’t like NATO, say so, otherwise your partisan Clinton sniping is just that and has little to no bearing on anything happening today, such as a blundering civil war that the blundering boy king created.
The Other Steve
LOL! He’s linked to commondreams.org.
BWAAHAHAHAA!!!!
Pooh
Crisp was better last year when you remove the 81-games at Fenway effect. And he’s $11mil/yr cheaper. And he doesn’t throw like a girl. Yes, JD is dead, very dead, to me now.
The Other Steve
Impossible!
chopper
i don’t, but i’m sure starting to miss his presidency.
funniest thing is the one-trick pony conservatives have turned clinton into. like he’s some kind of kryptonite that ‘kills liberals dead.’ which is hilarious, i and every liberal i know barely tolerated the guy. when conservatives bring him up, we usually shrug our shoulders and say ‘clinton was a scumbag, so what?’
hell, i wasn’t too warm over the kosovo deal, but i was at least put at ease by the lack of US casualties and the general low cost of the whole thing.
what i find supremely funny is conservatives who support the war in iraq going back in time to the clinton years to try to whip up excuses to ignore the lack of facts on the ground to justify the 30000+ dead and piles of dead US soldiers. “dude, ther weren’t mass graves in kosovo” has to be the funniest attempt at a spin-job i’ve heard in weeks.
bravo, sir.
jg
Jaime, you’re gonna love Damon’s arm. Everyone on base will advance on any hit to center. I don’t think you upgraded much from Bernie.
jaime
#1 Cleveland ain’t exactly Busch Stadium circa 1984.
#2 Yankee Stadium has a Yankee Stadium effect, you trade the monster for the the short porch.
#3 Johnny Damon had an injury and Tres Jolie Coco doesn’t throw much better.
#4 I’m sure getting Crisp was your plan all along. Just like losing your short stop.
VidaLoca
“What’s going on that doesn’t involve ports?”
OK, folks, here’s a topic that I’m curious about and perhaps some of you can shed some light. And I’m sure the rest can at least shed heat. :)
I lived for the last 28 years or so in Milwaukee Wis. It’s a city with a large, or actually two large, Latino populations, one mostly of Mexican ancestry and the other Puerto Rican. As in most cities there’s been some history of crime and gang violence but not at any level that ever seemed extreme or unusual by your average urban standards. Basically, I’d say it’s people working hard to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and actually having some success doing so — not that different from the experience of any other immigrant group that came to the US.
I’m currently living in Salt Lake City for the last (almost) two years, and what I see here is essentially the same thing. I’d say that the Latino population here is maybe a little larger as a fraction of the whole, but again the situation is essenially similar: people just working to get by and have some kind of a future.
So when I see a fairly large amount of media bandwidth being taken up by politicians bloviating about “sealing off the border”, building a wall, etc.; middle-aged white guys driving around in their pickup trucks calling themselves “minutemen”, ballot initiatives to keep people from getting driver’s licenses — I have to think, WTF?
This has the old familiar smell of the clever use of wedge issues, coupled with the small-town small-time tactics of the Klan. Myself, I don’t see any real problem here that hasn’t been going on for many years.
A lot of you live in the western part of the country. You’re probably aware of some things that I’m not. Am I right, or am I missing something?
jaime
Seeing as how Damon is a heck of a lot faster and could cover a lot more ground and can play a lot more shallow and he’s recovered from his injury…I’m not so worried about his arm.
Paddy O'Shea
You know things are getting bad when Shrub’s handlers have to fall back on the “Bush didn’t know” defense.
I guess they decided it’s better to have the President of the United States perceived as being a clueless and disinterested nitwit rather than a duplicitous amoral whore.
MSNBC: Bush Unaware Of Port Deal Until After Approval
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11494815/
You’d think Dick would have given him a call on this one as well …
Lines
If Bush didn’t know, that means that this is the fault of one of his crony appointments. Do we need to track down said crony and give them another Presidential Medal of Freedom?
Steve
When you’re so desperate to bash Clinton that you go around claiming “only” a few thousand innocent people were slaughtered in the Kosovo conflict, it’s just possible you’ve abandoned the last vestige of a moral compass.
If you read the linked article from commondreams, you might just get the idea that our intervention in Kosovo was on the exact same scale as the Iraq war. That’s pretty mindblowing. One of the things that made Kosovo such a success is that we halted the killings and brought some wrongdoers to justice WITHOUT losing thousands of American lives, as we have in Iraq, or overstretching our armed forces for years and years when we have more pressing issues elsewhere.
It’s truly amazing that anyone would offer up Kosovo as an example of LIBERAL hypocrisy.
For effect, I would gladly bring out all the Republican “wag the dog” quotes from the time Clinton attacked bin Laden’s training camp, but I think the point is clear. Republicans never really opposed Clinton’s efforts to fight terrorism and stop the genocide in Bosnia, as we see from their diametrically opposite opinions in the here and now. They just saw it as an opportunity to score political points against Clinton rather than as a serious issue.
I’m not sure what Republicans do take seriously, frankly, other than winning elections.
jaime
There was even a movie called “Wag the Dog”; also Primary Colors; which put Clinton and his actions in an unfavorable light. Hell, even Michael Moore was critical of him during Kosovo.
Why is it that Righties forget these things? I think the punditry must go to bed at night praying that their audience is as stupid and malleable as they hope they are.
chopper
profit.
Pooh
The only reason that Renteria wasn’t the most decrepit everyday player in the league last year was because y’all still ran Bernie out there on the near-daily. And if you think Damon’s arm was due to an injury, you must have missed the sustained mockery he’s received from Harold Reynolds for the last 5 years. (Cue Damon fielding highlight, voice over: Ravy describing the play, HR chimes in “don’t throw like a girl!)
jg
There’s a reason the Sox didn’t offer him more money. Its not because they’re cheap. Its because he has maybe two good years left, after that he’s stealing his paycheck. Why offer the money to keep someone you’re going to want to get rid of in two years when you know someone else will offer the money and take him now?
Good luck with him. He’s a great guy and will die to win but you overpaid for him and he’s in his decline.
rilkefan
I was strongly in favor of the Kosovo intervention, but my casual understanding is that our post-war presence there was in fact a notable strain for logistics and personnel reasons mysterious to a civilian. A smidge of my opposition to Iraq was that bit of data.
rilkefan
I’m not looking forward to the 2008/9 Damon, but Crisp isn’t a center fielder either.
Still gnashing my teeth over not signing Beltran, but if he continues to underperform maybe I’ll recover.
Steve
I could swear I’ve heard this one before.
Pooh
That’s a low blow Steve. Plus there’s something Faustian about Clemens that JD doesn’t quite match. Unless you count the Queer Eye appearance.
Paddy O'Shea
Nice to see our so-called conservative friends wallowing in the past. They usually do that when things get as bad for Kenny Bunkport as they are today.
Any insights on how Ike would have handled this?
jaime
That’s the same line the Sox used when they lost Pedro, and couldn’t get A-Rod, and got rid of Meuller.
We aren’t the Milwaukee Brewers. We’ll just get another center fielder.
Pooh
Jaime, you’re the kind of guy who plays a season as the West All-Stars on NHL ’94, aren’t you? Or do you just create new players, name then Jaime, Jaime1, Jaime2, etc. and give them 99’s across the board, just to see if you can score 1000 goals in a season?
Lines
At the time, Democrat’s questioned Washington’s crossing of the Delaware, looking at the specific timing of the crossing, and the overwhelming odds against Washington, as well as the risk that Washington placed those men in the boat.
Isn’t now time to look back and ask ourselves what the Democrats would have prefered? Maybe we would be speaking Queen’s English today if it hadn’t been for Washington’s crossing, did you ever think of that, you lame moonbats?
jaime
LOL! No. I actually got too good with the Giants on Madden, and switched to the Jets to make them better. I have a year or two of losing ahead of me.
jaime
My Buddy Brad asks a question about Diebold’s infrared data ports on their touchscreen machines. Now my cellphone has infrared and it transfers info in seconds. These machines just seem fishy.
jg
Excluding A-Rod, So? Pedro, Damon, and Mueller are in decline and the Sox didn’t want to be paying them when they aren’t earning the money anymore. So what? They’ve earned big paydays from other suckers. Thats how it works. Except for the Yankees who seem to keep them forever.
LOL
SeesThroughIt
That’s not something they have to pray for at all. It just simply is.
ppGaz
Are you kidding? I don’t watch that crap.
I just figure that anything you say is probably wrong, until I have corroboration.
No offense.
don surber
ppGaz:
None taken. Hey, what do you think of this?
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8184.shtml
Cheney drunk. Makes all the ship I’m taking for last week’s column worth it :)
Perry Como
Freedom is messy:
No one could have predicted this.
Stormy70
I have been too busy working, dammit.
Open thread topic: A Cry for Help!
My tivo erased the first four hours of this season’s 24? Is there anyplace I could see it again? I haven’t watched them because I have been watching the season 4 episodes first. Downloadable episodes, anything.
Help me, obi Ballooners, your my only hope.
The Other Steve
Will have to watch what happens over the next several days. I don’t know what the point of attacking that Shrine was, other than to escalate a civil war.
Bob In Pacifica
Ward Churchill is okay on topic.
===
I took a nice five-mile walk around Lake Merced today.
===
If Islam is down on cartoons because the Koran (and Hadith) are against icons, how come they have so many shrines?
===
Just got CDs of Lord Buckley and New Model Army.
===
Does anyone have a guess as to who “R.A.B.” is in the last Harry Potter book? That was the mysterious person who left the note in the bogus locket that supposedly held a sliver of Voldemart’s fractured soul. I’m guessing Borgan.
===
Sure glad I got a flu shot.
jaime
Black Market.
Richard 23
Don Surber beat me to it. Capitol Hill Blue. Lol.
Capitol Hill Blue often reads like The Onion.
Pooh
Stormy – try bittorent. Of course, it’s illegal, and somewhat tech intensive, but if you needs your Jack Bauer fix, what are a few laws to stand in your way? The only reason that these laws still exist is because Jack Bauer does not want to break them.
Steve
The shrine bombing could have served as Iraq’s 9/11, which is to say, it could have been the event that unified the Iraqis and made them realize that al-Qaeda is the real enemy. Maybe it will still happen that way, who knows. But looking at events so far, prominent Shiites have already been killed in “retaliation,” and there is a serious danger of further escalation.
Shiite opinion leaders like Sistani and Sadr are smart enough to get that this sort of chaos is what al-Qaeda wants, and they are urging calm. We’ll see what happens.
One thing to reflect on is that this is yet another major incident that we were unable to prevent via our continued presence in Iraq. We say we need to stay in order to provide security, but we weren’t able to keep one of their most sacred landmarks from being blown up. So I ask again, what exactly are we accomplishing by staying in Iraq?
Paddy O'Shea
Of course the Shi’ites want Iraq quiet. The sooner things settle down, the sooner the U.S. pulls its troops out.
And then the whole shebang is all about them. Goodbye Iraq, hello Greater Iran!
Operation Iraqi Freedom. A military blunder of historic proportions.
Pb
Richard 23,
Most major papers in America nowadays read like The Onion, except that they’re usually a few years behind.
Capitol Hill Blue seems to deal in rumor, which means that they are right, at least sometimes, but when they are, we often don’t find out for years, if ever. What entertained me was their reporting on Bush’s drinking–the reports didn’t surprise me at all, what did surprise me is that people only started to take it seriously when The Enquirer reported the same thing…
Jack Roy
Oh, I can whistle past the graveyard as well as anyone, especially before exhibition games, but there’s a couple things even I have to admit:
1) Duquette screwed up with Roger Clemens, big time.
2) Every Red Sox fan will wish we still had Billy Mueller at least once next season.
That said, however, Damon isn’t the same kind of loss. He gets an excellent first step on hits to center and covers a lot of ground, but his arm is as bad as Bernie Williams’s. He’ll probably do better by Yankee Stadium, especially as a lefty. But even Damon thinks, and has been saying publicly, that the Red Sox were probably scoping Crisp as a replacement for a long time yet, and have upgraded for the short future with the swap.
And the best thing that ever happened to the Sox was failing to get A-Rod (a deal that would have sent Nomar and Manny elsewhere).
Pb
Steve,
Sistani calls for protests and mourning; Sadr vows to take revenge, and rejects the Iraqi Constitution. Urging calm? We can only hope.
Paddy O'Shea
This is interesting speculation …
According to rediff.com, the CIA called off an airstrike on Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan because the Royal family of the United Arab Emirates was visiting him at the time.
http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/25osama.htm
Steve
I haven’t seen any vow of revenge from Sadr, who is apparently traveling back from Lebanon. His spokesmen don’t seem to be getting particularly vocal though, at least not at this juncture.
As usual, some perspective from Iraq the Model. And feel free to read the comments if you want to see how Ann Coulter’s disciples look at the situation.
jaime
Nomar IS elsewhere and Manny just wants to be.
Pb
Steve,
He wasn’t too vocal–just a little potential vigilante justice, I guess.
Steve
Revenge on whom, is the question. It comes down to whether the Sunnis or al-Qaeda end up reaping the Tom Friedman whirlwind. A lot rides on this, and it probably doesn’t make much difference whether we win hearts and minds in the corporate offices of Dubai, either.
Pb
Steve,
Heh, yep. Looks like their typical comments go something like: “Wow, those Arabs sure are crazy, we’d better bomb Iran and/or Syria before it’s too late!”
Davebo
Did I mention that I’m the sole reason Clemens came out of retirement?
It’s True!
He lives down the street from me and the day before he signed with the Astros I rode my bike down to his place, sat outside the tall walls of his “compound” and repeated my “get Roger” afirmations for 30 minutes.
The guy should thank me.
Jack Roy
Sure, but A-Rod lands in Boston in 2003, no trade for O Cab (who we really never should have let go) and we wouldn’t have had Manny during his MVP run-up season. A-Rod lands in Boston in 2003 and the Sox never win in 2004.
Pooh
Fixed.
Perry Como
They just found an al Qaeda passport at the mosque that was blown up.
jg
Nomar was used to get Cabrera and Roberts. He couldn’t have been used for that if we’d sent him for A-Rod. Manny wants to be elsewhere but he’s putting up 40/140 while he’s still in Boston so who cares. Losing A-Rod turned into a good thing for Boston and so far a nothing for the MFY. Awesome player but for some reason teams just don’t get it done when he’s there.
Ancient Purple
Stormy, you might try iTunes. I think they may have the episodes catalogued there. They run $1.99 each, but they may have a discount for bulk. They have been cataloging a lot of shows, but I can’t remember if 24 is there. Also, try http://www.tv.org as they may have it as well.
jaime
The Sox had a big ole stiffy for A-Rod and were too cheap to complete the deal. Now that you lost him, A-Rod is a scrub and you never wanted him in the first place.
jaime
I don’t think 24 is offered through I tunes.
jg
Never said we ‘never wanted him in the first place’. I said it turned out to be a good thing that we didn’t get him. Trying to re-work his contract so it turns into an even up trade with Texas, A-Rod/Manny, and respect the luxury tax rule isn’t ‘too cheap to complete the deal’. Its called running a business.
zzyzx
One group of Muslims attacks another. What’s the solution? Blame the Jews of course!
jg
well if the jews didn’t exist, no one would hate them so it is their fault.
jaime
We’ll see in a year or two when Manny is gone and you’re stuck with a black hole in short and center again and A-Rod is still in his prime.
EL
I’ve seen speculation that it’s “Regulus A. Black,” Sirius Black’s brother who was killed by Voldemort.
Pooh
Jaime, are you trying to get my BP up? You are probably like this doofus who claimed the DH matchup between Corpse-of-Bernie and Big Papi will be a push.
Gawd I hate the MFY.
D. Mason
VidaLoca, the problem with illegal immigration isn’t the gangs. Though a few cities across the nation do have a considerable problem with latino gangs it’s a relatively small part of the problem. As with any race, tendacy towards crime depends mostly on the individual life outlook, based on whatever factors. Some will see being in the country illegaly as a reason to be good and fly under the radar and some will see it as an exscuse to throw caution to the wind. Some illegals will refuse to assimilate into the culture and some will try everything they can to blend in. It really is a perspective thing.
The real problem as I see it is economics. America picks up 3,000,000 illegal workers anually, who have low expectations in terms of compensation, from our southern border. American companies, scoundrels that they are, export production jobs at an ever increasing pace. Many of those jobs go south thanks to NAFTA. This compound problem results in low wages and job scarcity. The corporations get to have their cake and eat it too. Some would say it’s the curse of globalisation, I think it’s just greed being allowed to run wild.
The result is a shrinking middle class, the backbone of any economy. Even though the entire problem isn’t the immigrants, they are the glaring example. Their pressence is a constant reminder. It’s only natural for people who have suffered from a worsening economy to look for a place to focus their blame, and surely some of the blame does belong to the illegal immigrants. The problem might even be past the point of no return, but people will still demand results and a smaller population of illegal immigrants is something concrete.
jg
Black hole? LOL. MFY fans are funny. You can’t rub something in our faces if we don’t care about it.
The only reason you guys signed Damon is because he used to be with Boston, not becuase he’s worth the money.
jaime
The only reason we signed Damon is because we needed a good Center Fielder.
Brian
What else is going on? And the responses, from a cursory check, are about sports? Serious people here today.
Lawrence Summers resigning at Harvard in the face of a vocal, pissy minority of left-wing professors who are holding on to the last vestige of groupthink power remaining in academia. The “powerless” ones, you know, the long-suffering academics put upon by the mean, sexist, misogynistic, racist university president who spoke truth to power long enough till that power had to walk away like a beaten man.
After all, if you’re going to maintain that hold on the “incusive and diverse” speech and conduct code to sustain your totalitarian existence, you can’t have any troublemakers like Summers around exerting their right to free speech now, can you?
Sock Puppet
Phew! Too much jock sniffing going on here today.
Filthy wankers.
rilkefan
Educate yourself a little on the subject.
This was just the normal struggle between rival interests for resources.
jg
Riiiiiiiiiiight.
rilkefan
Couple of links to smart commentary on the recent Harry Potter book here.
rilkefan
and the internal option flamed out and the better external options didn’t pan out or involved overpaying even more.
jaime
Yeah. Right. Most teams with a Center Fielder to spare, like the Phillies, White Sox, Twins, Marlins, and Blue Jays wanted either Chien Ming Wang or Robinson Cano, with whom the Yanks would never part, especially since many of the players offered for them would be Free Agents in a year or two anyway.
The other outfielders available, like Brian Giles, were not natural centerfielders and we certainly weren’t going to play Womack or Crosby out there Every day. We got the best center fielder and leadoff man in the market. Sticking it to the Sox was just an added bonus.
Pooh
Did we just get yelled at for being frivolous in an open thread? Brian, we’re being silly over here, so that when a more weighty thread opens up, we won’t have to be silly over there.
The Other Steve
Apparently it’s wrong to offer any dissent towards a University President’s speech.
At least in the World of Brian.
Jack Roy
Okay, I’ll play grown-up for a second (but resent every bit of it). For my money, the WaPo editorial on Summers makes an excellent and as-yet-unrebutted point: Many swipes against Summers argue implicitly that the guy was dumb for picking fights and and not soothing egos, but shouldn’t we be able to expect Harvard professors not to need congratulations and actually to do the responsible thing? Summers, I don’t think it can be denied, had an ambitious program of reform for the university; a lot of elements were probably over-reaching or otherwise ill-considered (I believe there was a substantial campus move under discussion). But a lot of them were probably good and necessary reforms that unfortunately cut against the inherited perks of the faculty. We could predict, as an empirical matter, a lot of resistance from entrenched interests whose provincial bailiwicks were being resized. But there’s a great difference between predicting and respecting such a reaction.
Okay, that was painful. You signed Damon because you needed a CF and a lead-off guy, sure. But you gotta admit that a lot of Yankee acquisitions of recent years, especially the ones where you overpaid (A-Rod, Contreras, Pavano), sparked the Boss’s interest only after Boston went for them. A disinterested observer could easily conclude that the Yankee FO adds an extra element when valuing available players, namely the break-Boston’s-heart factor.
jaime
It’s a plus to drive a dagger in the heart of the Sox, but come on. All these players the Yanks which the Red Sox don’t are the best available at the time. Pavano and Contreras were highly touted. The whole league wanted A-Rod. It just so happens that only NY and Boston can afford some of these players and they invariably choose the Yankees.
I know the Red Sox fans have this narrative of all their problems being the Yankees fault, but it’s getting a little old. We payed the price Damon wanted and the Sox didn’t. The Yanks lost Pettite to Houston. I don’t hate Houston or Pettite for it. He got a better deal and Steinbrenner dropped the ball.
Every time a Red Sox great of the last ten years chooses to play elsewhere it’s because the player was a greedy ingrate and the front office was just engaging in ‘good business sense’ and it’s not about paying what you need to to win.
VidaLoca
DMason,
OK, thanks — what you’re saying is about what I expected.
Appreciate the feedback.
Brian
It was a very limited subset of faculty (the Faculty of Arts & Sciences) that was threatened, not the faculty at large. Might be a coincidence, but this is the branch of faculty that has historically been leftist in its political agitation.
Other Steve — Summers was net with more than dissent. You put a light touch on what was a very irrational, intolerant outcry which led to extensive groveling from Summers, and, ultimately, to his resignation. It’s obscene what happened to the man, head of a prestigious university.
But, who cares? Let’s talk about Damon.
Stormy70
This is also what I heard.
Thanks for the 24 suggestions, I will give them a try. I don’t get why Fox couldn’t just run a marathon to catch people up. Stupid Fox!
Open Threads are for fun, not serious talk. This way we don’t kill each other the rest of the time.
Sasha Cohen rocks the ice, baby. Chick sports talk, over.
Jack Roy
That was last century, Jaime.
Two-thou-saaa-and! (clap, clap, clap clap clap)
jaime
Dude, chill the hell out. Don’t get all Samuel Byck on us.
jaime
Win a World Series and you can’t even win the division the next year and picked to finished third this year? YIKES.
Jack Roy
Oh, sweet, I know I got to MFY fans when you respond with a Donovan projection.
rilkefan
Let’s get rid of the people doing a lot of the crappy work in this country just to watch the price of food and services soar. Let’s find out how bad a worsening economy can be.
The problem is that America needs the workers but doesn’t want to accept them as Americans, and let them vote, and educate their kids, and give them responsible health coverage. I had been hoping when Bush came into office he would at least manage to work out something equitable with his buisiness and xenophobic bases and with Vincente Fox, but oh well.
jaime
So you think the Red Sox got stronger and the Yankees got weaker over the offseason?
And what kind of chant is two-thou-saaand?
Pooh
It’s hard to find a rhythm to go with “Greatest Choke Ever in Sports History and Congratulations On Slappy’s Bogus and Meaningless MVP Award, What A Fine Return for a 5-Year $1Billion Investment”
So, yeah,
“year two thou-sand” clap clap clap-clap-clap.
Jack Roy
Umm, a terrible chant? Duh. But it’s all I got. Maybe something with a Y2K theme? Eh.
Red Sox lost Mueller and Damon, which hurt, and Renterria and Millar, which didn’t. Crisp took a heckuva lot of the sting out of losing Damon. So what’d we get stronger in? Pitching and defense. Just Renterria’s defense, even adjusted for his offense, cost us I don’t know how many games last season, but as you recall even one of them would have meant the Sox winning the division last season.
And what do the Yankees have? A new and better center fielder and the same too-old team as last year, except a year older. Is Mussina going to be as good next year? Johnson? Sheffield? Giambi? Damon? The Yanks’ pitching staff has two superstars and a lot of question marks. Their lineup is better with Damon leading off, but Manny and Ortiz slugging behind seven Bellhorns would still lead the league’s offense. And with the second-best offense, the Yankees will need better pitching or starkly better defense to finish first, and you don’t have it. Derek Jeter’s the league leader in intangibles, but it won’t get the job done.
Bottom line, it’ll be a month after the All Star Break when the NY tabloids forget the Yanks entirely and lead with the first-place Mets every day. (Yeah, I know that doesn’t help my case much….)
Paul Wartenberg
Go D-Rays!
(prolonged silence, with an occasional cricket chirp in the distance)
What? A guy can hope in spring training, after all. Indeed, Walt Whitman once was quoted as saying “dude, that Lincoln wore a funky hat.” No, wait…
Jack Roy
Chucklesnort. Okay, Paully Warnuts wins the internets.
rilkefan
Should be healthy and confident from the get-go, so yeah, he’s an upgrade. Ditto Cano. And more Wang too, and Chacon. Sheffield is hardly slowing down, and some DH time will help him. And I expect RJ will be more comfortable and better, and maybe Guidry will do a better job with him than Stottlemyre seems to have done. Oh, and Woemack’s gone, and we gave you that anchor, Flaherty. And the bullpen will hopefully be stronger.
On defense, center should be a bit better, and 2nd, and 3rd.
And of course the Boston pitching staff has some aging and health issues too.
Paul Wartenberg
Here’s something else sports-themed:
Team USA, men’s hockey, got itself royally spanked in this Olympics and is now heading back home without a medal.
The team, by all accounts, was lethargic. Low scoring. Poor defense. Almost no goaltending. If not for playing two other teams that were in worse shape, they wouldn’t have made it to the medal round.
And these were professional, full-time hockey players with the NHL logo stamped on their royal asses.
You can blame the fact that they had to interrupt a regular season and fly over on short notice to play. All that does, though, is highlight the fact that sometimes, star power isn’t what wins you the medals: it’s team play.
Cue Aerosmith’s Dream On as the credits roll on Disney’s bioepic ‘Miracle’ now out on DVD…
jaime
You’re pitching is suspect at BEST. Beckett has won more than 9 games ONCE and has never pitched more than 30 starts. Wells and Schilling’s career are OVER. Arroyo and Clement are soft.
The Yanks have 9 starters. Their #9 starter went 11-0 last year.
Jeter will, A-Rod will, Matsui will, Cano will. You must have some great crack in Boston if you think that the Sox have a better lineup than New York this year.
Pooh
Does it say good or bad things about me that nothing Darrell says gets nearly as much of a rise out of me as a single tubthumping MFY fan bleating about this or that?
Who are you guys going to boo first, Joe Torre or Derek Jeter?
jaime
That’s the problem right there.
Steve
Oh, here I was thinking I’d be able to watch the game tonight without the results being spoiled. Thanks for that, Paul.
Two other points: (1) they looked fine to me, they just lost three one-goal games, which means some bad luck was probably involved; (2) many of the good players from other nations play in the NHL, too, so I don’t know if the typical storyline about pampered pros has any significance here. This isn’t basketball, the US has never been known for producing the world’s best hockey players.
Pooh
Jaime, your guys hit Beckett pretty good, no?
jaime
If we wanted old blister-McGee we would have got him. Like Afghanistan was Russia’s Vietnam, Josh Beckett will be Boston’s Carl Pavano.
We expect our guys to play hard and win. When that wuss Ramirez cries that he want’s to leave Beantown again, I suspect there’ll be a lot of booing on your part.
Jack Roy
I live in New York. And you sound like you’re already acquainted with our crack.
Cano’s a bright spot for you guys, no doubt. And Wang, and Small would be if he were a starter, but thankfully you’re going with Jaret Wright instead. Chacon I don’t see having another great year and will probably return to form.
Look, both teams are good, obviously it’s going to be another close race and who knows. But are you comparing lineups or offenses? In offense we’re going to beat you again. Sure, maybe our lineup won’t be as pretty in all nine holes, and we won’t have the Damon-Jeter-Rod-Sheff-Giambi-Matsui top and middle that everyone on ESPN is going to rave about, but we’re going to score the most runs again. Plus we’ll hit the most homers again, hit the most doubles, knock in the most, have the best OBP, have the best OPS, yada yada yada, again. Despite not looking as pretty. But only runs matter, it’s still runs that win games, and we’re going to win that category, again.
So yes, you will have the best lineup in baseball. Which will mysteriously not score as often as Boston’s.
Pooh
I swear, I’m ready for opening day right now. I need to go find a picture of Tek making A-Job his bitch to tide me over.
Bob In Pacifica
Hmm, if it is Regulus A. Black, was that the cause of his murder, for having gotten Voldemort’s horcrux (I listen to the Jim Dale recordings so please forgive any misspellings)?
Or is R.A. Black still alive? Has he been hiding out for all these years? Is he Hermione’s cat?
Last night I started from the first book on a desultory search for R.A.B.
rilkefan
you play half your games in “a lyrical little bandbox of a ballpark”.
Stormy70
Baseball = boring. I think I fell asleep and drooled on my keyboard.
I have hung out with Nomar before. Once. For 30 minutes. He talked about soccer, which is even more boring than baseball talk.
Carry on.
Krista
That is a great guess…makes sense. I can’t wait for the next book. Mind you, I’m also waiting for Forever Odd (Dean Koontz) to come out in paperback. Ah, the sweet anticipation of a good story.
Bob In Pacifica
My girlfriend says that if it’s Regulus Black, then that may suggest that that horcrux could be hidden in the Black House.
Thanks, I think it was rilkefan, for the tip about that essay. The thought that the final horcrux was Harry’s scar had crossed my mind, so to speak.
VidaLoca
rilkefan,
I had hoped something for like that too. Chalk up another win for Bush’s foreign policy, I guess.
I also suspect that it works better for them as a wedge issue though. To the extent that they can keep people fighting over a shrinking piece of the economic pie it keeps the public’s attention off of their other misdeeds.
I heard an interesting story on NPR the other night regarding this. It seems that in some areas along the border (parts of Texas specifically, IIRC), the Border Patrol presence is so heavy that few if any people manage to sneak in, and those that do are not able to stay long. So the farmers (that is to say, large landowning interests) are losing their crops in the fields because there’s nobody to harvest them. The ranchers as a result have taken to carefully and systematically evading the law — setting up what sounds essentially like an underground railroad — to get laborers in and protect them from discovery and deportation once they’re here. It goes without saying that the ranchers are heretofore all law-abiding, GOP-voting, upstanding businessmen. Who, it would seem to me, are involved in a criminal conspiracy if there are sanctions directed at them to prevent what they’re doing.
I can believe this goes on. Still it sounds to me like a completely irrational policy.
demimondian
Yeah, R.A.B. is Regulus Black. We’ve even seen the horcrux — remember the description of cleaning out of the sitting room in the house at Seven Grimauld Place? They find a “curious locket they could not open.”
We’d better hope that Kreacher manager to lift that and secret it away somewhere, or Our Vapid Heroes are going to have one Hell of a search through some magical landfill or other.
(That’s it! The title of book seven? It’s “Harry Potter and the Infinite Landfill”)
The Disenfranchised Voter
SeesThroughIt
Awesome article. Thanks for posting that link.
Just dropping in to say Hi, people. I’ve been busy with my new job (working just about everyday) so I haven’t spent much time on the blogs or internet at all lately.
So I hope you’re all doing well, and hopefully I’ll be able to catch up with you all this weekend. Talk to ya then.
Krista
Indeed.
Can I also just say that I’m thoroughly ashamed of the Canadian men’s Olympic hockey team for once again getting overly cocky and then completely screwing the pooch?
The Disenfranchised Voter
Brian…
Summers basically came out and said that there is a good possiblity that women are inheritantly stupid when it comes to science and math.
The man should havebeen forced to resign after making such a bullshit claim.
The idea that calling for his resignation is a restriction of free speech is disingenious, as calling for his resignation is an exercise of free speech. Furthermore the right to free speech is that the government will not censor or curtail free speech. The man brought up a completely bullshit theory, which borders on sexism, and thus he had to bear the burden of his claims.
The only tragedy with Summers stepping down is that he didn’t do it sooner.
Pooh
Krista,
Karma for letting Theauxggy le Thuggertuzzi play on the team.
D. Mason
So what you’re saying is that it’s good for Businesses to exploit third world laborers, as long as it keeps prices low for you?
jaime
Born and raised in the Bronx, baby. Although it’s much warmer where I am in L.A. A Red Sox fan in New York? Let’s hope you live in Manhattan, because that won’t fly in any other borough.
SeesThroughIt
There’s three things we agree on, Stormy, the other two being that the San Antonio Spurs rule and that asparagus must be destroyed. Now we’re getting somewhere!
jg
The US and Canada play north american style hockey on small ice. The Olympics is european style hockey on big ice. We always have a disadvantage. If football was an olympic sport and every four years the US had to field a team and go play by canadian rules we’d probably lose that too.
Brian
He said no such thing. I challenge you to please submit where he said this, or admit that it’s your political interpretation of what he said. Of course it’s the latter.
There’s a difference between free speech and a witch hunt. Summers was subjected to a witch hunt of hysteria from ill-mannered, over-sensitive academics whose politics were offended by comments that were nothing close to being sexist, unless you choose to interpret them in a manner that both upholds the PC-speak you hold dear and keeps at bay the seeking of anything resembling truth.
Stormy70
Pride and Prejudice out on DVD Tuesday. Yes. I don’t consider this a chick flick, as Jane Austen was the real deal. The cinematogrophy was outstanding and I loved all the old English houses.
MMmmmmm. Mr. Darcy.
Jack Roy
You’re talking to the original E.Vill. genius, baby.
rilkefan
Was that before or after he sprouted wings and did a few loop-de-loops above the audience? To review for the short-attention-span crowd, he said that the leading reasons for the relative dearth of women at elite institutions in physics and math was plain-old bias and the biological fact that women bear children (and do so in their peak career-founding years) in concert with the 80-hour days in the lab and the societal pressure for women to have family lives. And he said that a possible contributing effect was suggested by studies indicating the same mean for math talent but a lower variance among women, resulting in smaller tails at the ends of the female distribution resulting in a relative lack of women of multi-standard-deviation exceptional ability. Same average ability, fewer idiots, fewer geniuses.
rilkefan
Which is not to say that Brian has a clue about the Summers resignation, apparently having failed to read this link to
.
Pb
As far as that old Lawrence Summers idiocy goes, I’d say that this comment reflects my opinion on the matter:
rilkefan
like his claim of sex differences in infants’ behavior with toys. Research says: oh uh.
ppGaz
That’s one small step for a vervet, one giant step for vervetkind.
Fledermaus
Y’know, there’s this one saying about land wars and Asia that keeps coming to mind.
rilkefan
What really annoys me about Denton’s complaint is that there was a Q&A after Summers spoke and (from the transcript I read at least) no one said, “By the way, we refuted your points this morning, e.g. blah”.
Pb
Or his mention of “twin studies”. Ugh.
Krista
Colin Firth will always be the best Mr. Darcy.
Bob In Pacifica
Krista, I live in a household of Colin Firth fans in your amen corner.
+++
I was a Red Sox fan, another thing to blame on my dad, since their infield consisted of Pete Runnells, Chuck Schilling, Eddie Bressoud and Frank Malzone. I have spent the last forty years of my life separating my interests from those of the Red Sox. Their World Series victory a year or so back gave me closure.
+++
Yeah, Demimondian, the locket at Grimwald Place. That’s the ticket. But what about Harry’s scar being the seventh horcrux? You have to murder in order to create one, and Voldemort had just killed Harry’s parents. While you can explain Harry’s protection from Voldemort by the “love” of his mother, perhaps the reason for Harry being able to get in touch with V’s emotions and, by OOTP, to read his mind, is a kind of horcrux hookup. Does this mean that Harry has to die in order to destroy evil, or does it mean that we can’t live without the possibility of evil existing around us? Hmmm.
I also have read speculation that Snape is actually the Chosen One because the prophecy said that the CO was “approaching” as Snape crept up to listen at the door where Trewlawney was seering, that Snape’s unbreakable curse that binds him to Dumbledore is his love for Lily, Harry’s mother, and that, when Dumbledore was suffering while drinking the potion that guarded the false locket and he shouted, “KILL ME!” he was in some way commanding Snape to kill him.
Or not.
Don Surber
The Red Sox suck
Stole Manny Ramirez from us, then complained he costs too much.
But at least I don’t have to hear that 1918 whine anymore
demimondian
BiP — I’ve also read the J.K. Rowling is actually a pen name for Douglas Adams, and that the Ford Prefect in Book Two was an explicit homage to that fact, but that the fact that in some mystical wizarding numerology, J + K + R = D + A – (H + P).
Or not.
Bob In Pacifica
demimondian,
I have been told that in mystical wizarding numerology that G(eorge) + B(ush) + B(ullshit) = (D)on + S(urber).
Or not.