Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

In my day, never was longer.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

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

The willow is too close to the house.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

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

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

T R E 4 5 O N

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

Open Thread

by | 46 Comments

This post is in: ,

Start the day with some good news- another report that people are slowing starting to return to Baghdad as the levels of violence drop. No, it doesn’t mean everything is great, no, it doesn’t mean that the long-term scenario is any rosier, but if nothing else, it means some of these poor folks over there are getting a slight reprieve from the hell they have gone through the past few years. Good work from our troops- let’s cross our fingers and hope it lasts.

Reader Interactions

46Comments

  3. 3.

    The Other Steve

    Juicy details coming in a book by Scott McClellan:

    “The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

    “There was one problem. It was not true.

    “I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the president himself.”

    $20 says the Republicans will excuse away the behavior saying McClellan did this on his own. In fact this is why Bush and Cheney asked for his resignation. When they found out that he had lied, they just could not tolerate him any more.

  4. 4.

    horatius

    Beware of the Sadim Touch. Ain’t nothing in the world The Decider can’t turn into steaming piles of shit in two stinking minutes.

  6. 6.

    Davis X. Machina

    If I climb into my car hammered after a night in the bars, and drive all the way home without killing anybody, or wrapping up my car, that doesn’t mean it was a good idea to get behind the wheel in the first place, or to do it again next Friday night, or that I’m ready to drive Formula One for Ferrari.

    It means I’m a criminal who didn’t get caught….

  7. 7.

    Andrew

    The levels of violence have dropped all of the way back to those of early January 2006, when everything was going perfectly.

  9. 9.

    jcricket

    $20 says the Republicans will excuse away the behavior saying McClellan did this on his own.

    Naah, McClellan’s obviously got a book to sell, so he’s a liar. Plus they can just have Perrino go out and say he was a press secretary and that he lies for a living, like Tony Snow.

  10. 10.

    tBone

    $20 says the Republicans will excuse away the behavior saying McClellan did this on his own.

    You’re overcomplicating it. “Bitter ex-employee with an axe to grind and a book to sell” – The End.

  14. 14.

    Badtux

    A few thousand Iraqis return. Hooray. A few thousand returned, 4,000,000 to go. And another 1,000,000 aren’t returning anywhere. Because they’re dead. D-E-A-D. But hey, it’s just a little thinnin’ of the herd on Dubya’s Messopotamian ranchy, it ain’t like they was, like, PEOPLE or nothin’.

    The pre-war estimate of Iraq’s population outside of Kurdistan was about 20 million people. In short, our little war for — uhm, what was the war for, again? — has managed to kill or displace 1/4th of the population of Iraq. A few thousand return to Baghdad? Yeah, big accomplishment. Can we just put a “Mission Accomplished” sign over the place and go home, now?!

  15. 15.

    Ed Drone

    I noted on page 10 of the Washington Post this morning an incident in an Iraqi city (it wasn’t Baghdad). It seems that a contractor’s vehicle came upon a traffic jam, and the armed guard fired into the surrounding shops, hitting a teen-age girl in the foot. The crowd attacked the contractors, beat them, and held them while someone ran to an Iraqi army squad three blocks away. The army arrested them and the crowd applauded (one soldier got kissed).

    So, now that the Iraqi army is standing up, can we please stand down?

    Ed

  16. 16.

    D-Chance.

    Election is over. Ric Flair is supporting Mike Huckabee.

    With the combined powers of an ex-rocker/gun-nut, Walker Texas Ranger, and the Nature Boy, how can the Huckster possibly lose?

  18. 18.

    Jake

    From the article on the vile, umlaut-flinging commies of the frozen north:

    Norway, home of the Nobel Peace Prize, has no enemies, but it does have a well-trained army that is always on the front lines of international peacekeeping missions.

    Well, it didn’t. But since they gave Al Gore-soakedcommietreehugger the NPP and insist on contradicting all the known truths on how socialized medicine leads to lines of sick people coughing their lungs out as they wait to see a doctor they must be up to something.

  19. 19.

    crw

    Jesus. This has been mentioned before. It’s not victory if they’re returning because they ran out of money. FWIW, it’s great that security is improving. But what happens when the surge ends? Will the Mahdi Army cease fire end in February, and will the Iraqi forces be up to the task of containing them? (My bet is on yes, and no respectively). But then, that’s reality crazy talk, isn’t it?

  20. 20.

    jcricket

    If my only two choices are between continued bloodshed and a decrease in violence, I’ll take the decrease, thank you.

    However, even if Iraq turns into a stable democracy, it’s still been a disaster of epic proportions whose effects will haunt our efforts to, you know, gain international cooperation on anything that requires it in the next 20 or so odd years.

    Even Appelbaum is admitting that the whole war in Iraq has been a debacle (of course she thinks it’s because we won’t be able to bomb Iran).

  21. 21.

    Zifnab

    Paul L. should be very happy this morning.Except that I read the recipe from the Japanese group and saw “c-Myc”, the first tumor activator gene discovered, and still one of the most potent.

    Um…no.

    Has anyone stopped to consider the fact that if you can turn skin cells into a pile of stem cells, and those stem cells are identical to those found in an embryo, and a smart scientist can take said skin-to-stem cells and turn them into a human being, that maybe we’re just doing an end run around morality to get us right back where we started, only from an angle that makes us sleep better at night because we didn’t kill a baby?

    Isn’t this entire line of research just a way of mollifying stupid people who don’t know two shits about science?

  22. 22.

    demimondian

    No, Zif, it isn’t.

    I’d much prefer to be able to manufacture pluripotent cells from my own body for my own use — the mitochondria and ribosomes would match my own, for instance, if nothing else. But, given that the current recipe creates instant teratoma, I’m not so sure I really want to go there.

  23. 23.

    mrmobi

    However, even if Iraq turns into a stable democracy,…

    From Juan Cole, today:

    AP reports that US generals in Iraq are talking about the move to northern Iraq of the most violent Sunni religious guerrillas (the US calls them al-Qaeda and some of them style themselves that way, though it is misleading).

    The article says that Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling said from a base outside Tikrit north of Baghdad, Hertling said 1,830 roadside bombs were placed in his region in June, compared with 900 last month.

    900 roadside bombs in one region of Iraq a month doesn’t strike me as something to get all giddy about.

    So begins a new chapter of “whack-a-mole” coming to a different area of Iraq.

    Like John Cole, I too hope that the violence continues to abate.

    However, let me point out that pretty much everyone agress there is no political progress of any kind being made in Iraq right now.

    Absent that, how does this get better? More pointedly, absent that political progress, how does any strategy work?

  24. 24.

    Dreggas

    Start the day with some good news- another report that people are slowing starting to return to Baghdad as the levels of violence drop. No, it doesn’t mean everything is great, no, it doesn’t mean that the long-term scenario is any rosier, but if nothing else, it means some of these poor folks over there are getting a slight reprieve from the hell they have gone through the past few years. Good work from our troops- let’s cross our fingers and hope it lasts

    You know. somewhere ther’s an insurgent saying “hey let’s keep the violence down then when they all return BOOM!”

  27. 27.

    Paul L.

    More Reich wing “swiftboating” of science.
    More breakthroughs in stem cell research
    U.N. Overstated H.I.V. Cases by Millions
    Looks like you guys beat me on posting about another ASC advance. However you can still hope it is a fraud for research funds which never happened with ESC research.

    I’d much prefer to be able to manufacture pluripotent cells from my own body for my own use—the mitochondria and ribosomes would match my own, for instance, if nothing else. But, given that the current recipe creates instant teratoma, I’m not so sure I really want to go there.

    Unlike current ESC treatments which have never cause tumors.
    Or were you referring to all treatments that use pluripotent cells regardless of how they are created?

  28. 28.

    Bubblegum Tate

    No, it doesn’t mean everything is great, no, it doesn’t mean that the long-term scenario is any rosier

    Yes it does, John. Only a moonbat Defeat-o-crat America-hater who cannot see how glorious our victory (which was won years ago, but the evil commie MSM is only now grudgingly getting around to mentioning) is would say that it isn’t.

    There, I think I managed to fit in all the wingnut boiletplate. With that accomplished, lets move on to actual reality, my take on which is simply that it’s good violence is down, but the reasons its down are not so good.

  29. 29.

    Jake

    “Apparently in the ’70s there were bumper stickers that said ‘Don’t Californicate Oregon,’ because Californians were coming up there, and I just thought it was a great, great title for this show,” said Kapinos.

    Never seen the show, heard about the show and assumed they’d gotten RHCP’s permission to use the song title for the show.

    I hope no one tries to use 30 year old bumper stickers as a defense. Will. Not. Fly.

  30. 30.

    demimondian

    Um, actually, Paul, yes. This research is interesting, but nowhere near treatment stage. ESC research is already there, so I don’t see your problem.

    Except, of course, if you like to see people suffer.

  32. 32.

    John Cole

    John, you’re (re)becoming a hawk?

    Hunh? Recognizing things are getting better in terms of short-term stability while nothing is changing regarding the longterm outlook is hardly becoming a hawk. It is called dealing with reality. Just like when things were in the shitter (and really, things are not great now), I recognized them as such. That didn’t make me a dove, either.

  33. 33.

    Punchy

    Shorter Cole: Lookie!! There’s only 15 ways to die in Baghdad, insteada the 18 ways last August! SUCCESS, BITCHES!!

  34. 34.

    John Cole

    Shorter Cole: Lookie!! There’s only 15 ways to die in Baghdad, insteada the 18 ways last August! SUCCESS, BITCHES!!

    I feel like hell, so blow it out your ass. That isn’t what I said at all.

  35. 35.

    Punchy

    I’d much prefer to be able to manufacture pluripotent cells from my own body for my own use—the mitochondria and ribosomes would match my own, for instance, if nothing else. But, given that the current recipe creates instant teratoma, I’m not so sure I really want to go there.

    I desperately want Paul L. to translate this into what he thinks it means. $10 says he has no clue, but it sounded snazzy, so he ganked it.

    Paul, please explain how the “ribosomes” would match to an individual. How are they different among each person? And how, besides the DNA, are the mitochondria different?

    Look forward to your response. Thanks in advance.

  36. 36.

    jcricket

    Recognizing things are getting better in terms of short-term stability while nothing is changing regarding the longterm outlook is hardly becoming a hawk. It is called dealing with reality.

    There you go again John.

    Stop.Making.Sense.

    We come here for snark and mockery, not for sensible policy discussions.

  37. 37.

    HeavyJ

    Apparently the NYT reported that an Iraqi living room was sunny, and that an Iraqi woman was laughing about something. Late in the article, however, there was a minor disclaimer:

    “About 20,000 Iraqis have gone back to their Baghdad homes, a fraction of the more than 4 million who fled nationwide, and the 1.4 million people in Baghdad who are still internally displaced, according to a recent Iraqi Red Crescent Society survey.”

    Yes, 0.5% is indeed a fraction. Maybe after another 100 or 200 U.S. dead, we can bump that up to 1%. Kudos all around.

  38. 38.

    Face

    It’s a good thing our Pentagon doesn’t practice extreme, wanton, reckless hyperbole!

    From this:

    As part of this campaign, the Pentagon is distributing a document warning that the Army may cease to function if it does not receive the funds now.

    I’ve seen some dishonest shit, but this blows that away…

  39. 39.

    Zifnab

    I’d much prefer to be able to manufacture pluripotent cells from my own body for my own use—the mitochondria and ribosomes would match my own, for instance, if nothing else.

    I was more approaching it from a moral angle, but I see your point. If you can rub my hand with a cheese grater to make me a new kidney, that’s more efficient and effective than going through a few hundred “embryo donors” till we find me a match.

    But, from a morals angle, isn’t a stem cell still a stem cell? Isn’t the entire winger standard “If it could become a person, it already is one”? If I’ve got a dozen artificial embryonic stem cells and a dozen nature’s own stem cells, and we assume they can both be shoved up someone’s uterus to make a blizzard’s worth of snowflake babies, are we on any significantly different moral turf? Or did we just take different roads to get to the same place?

    In short, is the only reason Paul L and his ilk approves of skin-to-stem cells treatments because they’re too damn stupid to know the (lack of) difference?

    But, given that the current recipe creates instant teratoma, I’m not so sure I really want to go there.

    Well, right. But I’m confident they’ll work that out eventually.

  40. 40.

    Bubblegum Tate

    In short, is the only reason Paul L and his ilk approves of skin-to-stem cells treatments because they’re too damn stupid to know the (lack of) difference?

    Probably. Remember, these are the same people who think that harvesting stem cells from to-be-thrown-away lab embryos is MURDERING CHILDREN!

  41. 41.

    grumpy realist

    Then we’ve got the nutbag contingent in Colorado attempting to pass a law saying life begins at conception.

    Guess they think bringing “involuntary manslaughter” charges up against women who have had miscarriages is A Fine Thing. Any woman who has difficulty in Carrying to Term they can get on Voluntary Manslaughter! Heck, investigate every menstrual cycle! (NC had some idiot who tried to pass a law about investigating something like this and “keeping the evidence.” After enough (used) pads and tampons were sent to him, he cried Uncle.)

    Lessee what else Colorado is going to have a Damn Fine Time with if this silly law gets passed. Oh, probably banning all women from drinking, smoking, driving (kids under two can’t be in the front seat!)…also expect all obstetricians and gynecologists to flee the state.

    When did we get so many Americans to be so idiotic?

  42. 42.

    shaker o salt

    Um yeah, John. Maybe it means ethnic cleansing in Shia and Sunni neighborhoods is complete. Not to mention the violence has gone elsewhere in Iraq. It’s all just such a rosy picture, isn’t it?

  43. 43.

    ThymeZone

    Unlike current ESC treatments which have never cause tumors.

    Where else can you get political commentary, spiced up with a little Oncology On Parade, Featuring PaulL?

    This place rocks.

  44. 44.

    The Other Steve

    I’m pretty pissed right now. Tried to remove the brake caliper from the front fork of my bike, and rounded the 6mm allen bolt.

    Tried ramming a 1/4″ allen bit in there with a hammer to take it out, and that had no effect. so then I tried drilling it out with a bolt extractor, and it still would not budge.

    So now I’ve got to pull the whole bloody fork tube off the bike and find a machinist who can drill it out. This also means removing the brake hose from the caliper to get it off, which means replacing all the brake fluid as well.

    So I don’t care what’s happening in iraq. I got more important things to bitch about.

  45. 45.

    Jake

    Then we’ve got the nutbag contingent in Colorado attempting to pass a law saying life begins at conception.

    How dare you refer to Ron Paul supporters that way?!?

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks