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Technically true, but collectively nonsense

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The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

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Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

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

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

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Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

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You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Previous Site Maintenance / Open Thread

Open Thread

by John Cole|  June 15, 20071:18 pm| 27 Comments

This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance

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What do you all want to talk about?

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Reader Interactions

27Comments

  1. 1.

    Andrew

    June 15, 2007 at 1:39 pm

    I would like to talk about the greatest political ad of all time.

  2. 2.

    Zifnab

    June 15, 2007 at 1:59 pm

    Any politician who can keep a straight face for that long deserves our support. He’s got my vote.

  3. 3.

    Lee

    June 15, 2007 at 2:03 pm

    Global warming agruement that bypasses the details.

    http://www.break.com/index/tough-to-argue.html

    Very very interesting. I spot a couple (maybe just one) places that is a bit sloppy, but a VERY compelling agruement.

  4. 4.

    Dreggas

    June 15, 2007 at 2:21 pm

    Love the Snark in this one

  5. 5.

    ATS

    June 15, 2007 at 2:30 pm

    I know people like Eric Alterman have given up and stopped talking about the Middle East, but in the time since he (and others) did, Lebanon is on fire, Gaza is in civil war, Senator Lieberman (and others) have advocated bombing Iran and the Main Events-the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are just getting worse.

    The pause in the discourse, the time out, doesn’t appear to be working. Yielding the floor to the MSM isn’t the answer.

  6. 6.

    Punchy

    June 15, 2007 at 2:37 pm

    Why hasn’t Bush just pardoned Abramoff? Wouldn’t that end all investigations into the corruption of the Republican party, and ergo, end many headaches for the White House?

    Why isn’t there a call for his pardon, too, ala Libby?

  7. 7.

    Dreggas

    June 15, 2007 at 2:40 pm

    Punchy,

    Uh there have been a lot of calls to pardon Libby.

    See my link above.

  8. 8.

    RSA

    June 15, 2007 at 2:47 pm

    What do you all want to talk about?

    Um, Mr. Lee? (It is Friday, after all.)

  9. 9.

    Tsulagi

    June 15, 2007 at 2:54 pm

    greatest political ad of all time.

    LOL That is funny.

    I think I’d love to see a general election campaign season with Mike Gravel and Ron Paul as the candidates. Network TV could blow off a new fall lineup and just show and follow those two around.

    Then viewers who loved the Sopranos ending could get into deep discussions about the meaning of the rock being tossed into the pond. While others could get into this Ron Paul campaign ad.

  10. 10.

    The Other Steve

    June 15, 2007 at 3:06 pm

    George Will doesn’t like Fred Thompson

    Tulip mania gripped Holland in the 1630s. Prices soared, speculation raged, bulbs promising especially exotic or intense colors became the objects of such frenzied bidding that some changed hands 10 times in a day. Then, suddenly, the spell was broken, the market crashed—prices plummeted in some cases to one one-hundredth of what they had been just days before. And when Reason was restored to her throne, no one could explain what the excitement had been about. Speaking of Fred Thompson …

    The rest of it goes on to argue, that about the only thing Thompson has in common with Reagan is acting… and that Thompson’s proponents seem to be supporting Reagan’s detractors in saying it’s all about acting ability, rather than substance.

  11. 11.

    Jake

    June 15, 2007 at 3:07 pm

    Moyers & Gavel 2008!

    Sort of like Penn & Teller.

  12. 12.

    Andrew

    June 15, 2007 at 3:07 pm

    Gravel is a fucking unstoppable Zen warrior.

  13. 13.

    ThymeZone

    June 15, 2007 at 3:17 pm

    “This (Libby case) is an open and shut case of perjury and obstruction of justice,” said Pat Buchanan. “The Republican Party stands for the idea that high officials should not be lying to special investigators.”

    Parens mine.

    Well, one out of two isn’t really that bad, Pat, in this day and age.

    First part, good on you. Second part? Heh. Okay, once a political whore, always a whore, I guess. I mean, really, did you mean to say that?

    Okay, I’ll give him a pass on the possibility that he wishes it were so. But …

    When the actual identity of the press leak was revealed in 2005 as FBI Associate Director Mark Felt, Buchanan called Felt “sneaky”, “dishonest”, and “criminal”

    Wiki.

    Alas, Pat, in this day and age, it’s hard to run away from your own bullshit. A guy who worked for Nixon calls Felt “sneaky.”

    Now that takes balls, and by that I mean, ones larger than the specimens recently seen here that require a magnifying glass to inspect.

  14. 14.

    Punchy

    June 15, 2007 at 3:26 pm

    Punchy,

    Uh there have been a lot of calls to pardon Libby.

    See my link above

    Dreg–

    “his” = Abramoff
    “ala” = the same as

    Reread my post.

  15. 15.

    HyperIon

    June 15, 2007 at 4:28 pm

    RSA says: Um, Mr. Lee? (It is Friday, after all.)

    hey, the cat is very cute but even cooler is the CatCam project described there. for a very small cost you can cam your cat!

    the photo gallery of what Mr. Lee sees reminds me of a book a few years ago that documented how dogs spend their time out in the world. sniffing other dogs mostly, it turns out.

  16. 16.

    RSA

    June 15, 2007 at 5:39 pm

    Yes, the CatCam was what I thought was especially cool. A cat’s eye view of the world! I discover that putting myself in the shoes (so to speak) of a cat is easier than doing the same for a 28 percenter.

  17. 17.

    Dreggas

    June 15, 2007 at 5:45 pm

    Dreg—
    “his” = Abramoff
    “ala” = the same as

    It’s friday and my brain is not firing on all cylinders.

  18. 18.

    Wilfred

    June 15, 2007 at 6:20 pm

    The search for meaning: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/5166

  19. 19.

    jake

    June 15, 2007 at 8:19 pm

    DoJ: Another one bites the dust. Er, I mean, another one decides to spend more time with his family.

  20. 20.

    The Other Steve

    June 15, 2007 at 11:13 pm

    Oh man, DougJ wasn’t kidding.

    Someone(tom Maguire?) is sending threatening letters to the Libby Judge.

    Why is it when wingnuts don’t get their way, their first response is to whine and their second is to go after the judges?

  21. 21.

    jake

    June 16, 2007 at 6:58 am

    Why is it when wingnuts don’t get their way, their first response is to whine and their second is to go after the judges?

    Because they know their third response will never be: Call a lawyer after they’re charged with breaking a federal law or three.

    Walton made the remarks as he opened a hearing into whether to delay Libby’s 2 1/2-year sentence. He said he was holding the letters in case something happened but said they would have no effect on Thursday’s decision.

    Here’s a hint: If you have a friend who’s in trouble with the law, don’t fuck with the judge. I repeat. Do not, fuck with the judge.

    Especially not this judge
    :

    While driving his wife and teenage daughter to the airport for a family vacation early one morning, he came across a man beating up a cabdriver at Chevy Chase Circle. The 5-foot-9-inch Walton tackled the 6-foot attacker and subdued him until police arrived.

    Cool.

  22. 22.

    RSA

    June 16, 2007 at 8:02 am

    The 5-foot-9-inch Walton tackled the 6-foot attacker and subdued him until police arrived.

    Wow. No wonder Walton wasn’t intimidated by Libby’s martial arts skills.

  23. 23.

    ThymeZone

    June 16, 2007 at 11:05 am

    From DKos, an interesting and graphic look at Deciderator’s approval numbers and poll results.

    Expecially interesting, the graph that plots his approval alongside the reciprocal of gasoline prices.

    Irony isn’t dead after all. Bush and Cheney, the Ambiguously Gay Duo of Oilmen, ride oil prices to a legacy whose stench will never be extinguished in this country.

    For this, I’d gladly pay $5 a fucking gallon to watch that graph go all the way into negative numbers.

  24. 24.

    Rome Again

    June 16, 2007 at 11:26 am

    Irony isn’t dead after all. Bush and Cheney, the Ambiguously Gay Duo of Oilmen, ride oil prices to a legacy whose stench will never be extinguished in this country.

    never?

    For this, I’d gladly pay $5 a fucking gallon to watch that graph go all the way into negative numbers.

    So would I, just as soon as I move right next door to my place of employment. ;)

  25. 25.

    mrmobi

    June 16, 2007 at 2:08 pm

    For this, I’d gladly pay $5 a fucking gallon to watch that graph go all the way into negative numbers.

    So would I, just as soon as I move right next door to my place of employment. ;)

    I’d go all the way to $8 bucks a gallon if it meant getting to see impeachment and conviction.

    I would also point out that in addition to moving closer to ones’ place of employment and getting a more fuel efficient vehicle, we might want to start developing an energy policy in this country which doesn’t operate on the assumption that the hybrid vehicle is the solution to all our energy problems.
    Bottom line for me: one person per vehicle spells an unsolvable crisis in energy. Fuel efficiency does not trump the lack of a robust public transportation system.

    And it’s not just cars. We centralize power production here. Massive amounts of energy are lost in transmission from distant power plants. It is a rare exception (usually in rural areas) that you find a local power company willing to allow individual access to energy and at the same time let that individual upload excess (say solar) capacity for credit. It should be the rule, and there should be tax-credits for anyone willing to make the investment in solar.

    But we’re too busy extracting the maximum amount of profit we can from oil right now. And peak oil, if we trust the experts, is decades away, so let’s just party on, shall we?

  26. 26.

    demimondian

    June 16, 2007 at 5:19 pm

    Um…mrmobi? It really isn’t that simple.

    Yes, there’s significant resistive loss when power is sent across continental distances — the best estimates indicate that the loss rate is somewhere 10 and 20 per cent. No, that isn’t small potatoes. (Thank you, Dan Quayle, for teaching me to spell the plural of potato.) However…

    The energy efficiency of a plant goes up with scale. That is, it is actually MORE efficient to build a few gigawatt plants and distribute the energy across the grid than it would be to localize power generation.

    On top of which, solar power makes no energetic sense with current technology. Purifying silicon is a tremendously energy-expensive proposition, and the yield of a native solar cell is limited to no more than about 14% by thermodynamics. With a concentrator, you can get a cell up to maybe 35% — but you’ll never pay back the energy you spent to build the cell in the first place. (Yes, if you build the cell using cogeneration or some such, the net losses can be reduced — but that requires an energy-producing plant which has waste heat to reuse. Those are increasingly rare here; waste heat is a valuable resource. And, besides, they require large generation facilities…see above.)

  27. 27.

    cleek

    June 17, 2007 at 5:30 pm

    is there a good reason for anyone to link to Ace ?

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