Because the last caucus thread got all messed up by unruly guests. Sheesh.
*** Update ***
My GAWD, the coverage of the Iowa caucus is boring. Kill me now.
Reader Interactions
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.
People are weird.
“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”
“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”
You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.
Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.
They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.
Our messy unity will be our strength.
I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.
Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”
I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.
“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.
Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.
A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.
“But what about the lurkers?”
Hot air and ill-informed banter
Not loving this new fraud based economy.
Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.
We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.
“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”
You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.
The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.
If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.
The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.
demimondian
You have ruly guests? John, where do you hide your ruly threads?
Ed Drone
Are these ruly-o truly-o guests?
Ed
Chris
/me sheepishly
im sawwy…
/me shuffles in quiety, huddles in corner with head bowed
TheFountainHead
I feel a little strange about admitting this, but I’m actually a little excited to go home and watch this all go down. Could be by morning I’ll be looking to OD on painkillers, but who knows!?
demimondian
TFH…me, too. And the demi-bunker is the domicile several rabid (as in foaming at the mouth) dems of voting age, no two of whom are supporting the same candidate.
the satanic mechanic
It’s been a day of intertoobz vandals. Glenzilla’s last post was hijacked by 911 truthers (last count was waaaay over 30 pages of replies). Now the baloon-juice has been overrun.
fark! is next.
totally o/t… Zifnab? is that you? /prexus
Punchy
Sorry, Dad. Please don’t tell Mom.
p-rex
for the republican side, i will predict the losers:
1) republican voters
2) giuliani
3) minneapolis next summer
Chris
oh ho awe-some. Who do they support? If it’s Obama vs. Edwards vs. Hillary, that would be spectacular. A populist vs. a snob vs. a self-important twat. Video tape it for us!
Elvis Elvisberg
Who the hell cares which Dem wins Iowa?
It’s a three-way tie in a small state. We all know that. OK, now let’s move on to the rest of the country. Why flip out about who manages to get an extra few percentage points in Iowa?
AMIRITE?!?!?
Chris
Suggestion: look up meme before using.
Hint: used with blatant sarcasm.
demimondian
Well, it’s actually Obama vs. Clinton vs. undecided-until-February-but-not-Clinton.
Sorry, no videotapes.
Ninerdave
How fast would wing-nut heads explode?
Krista
Well, the unruly threads (unruly, as opposed to completely and irrevocably Darrelled) to tend to be the most enjoyable, but I can understand that not all commenters would feel that way.
Sometimes one wants a civilized debate in front of the wood-paneled study’s fireplace, glass of cognac in hand. And sometimes one wants to put on their pro wrestling uniform and start leaping gleefully off of the ropes.
Incertus (Brian)
I’m hoping this will go better for me than last time. Of course, while I have a favorite this time, I’m not as invested as I was last time. There’s not a one of the top three who turns my stomach the way there was in 2004.
demimondian
The problem here, Krista, is that we tend to put on our MUD wrestling uniforms and start gleefully planting each other’s faces in the ring.
That’s not entirely fair. Sometimes, we’re civilised, and limit ourselves to cream pie throwing.
Punchy
Because I have to ask–do you refer to everything as “demi-“? Does the wife say, “Stick the demi-wheat in the demi-toaster until its demi-brown”, at which point someone turns on G.I. Jane and screams, “Demi Moore!” and the whole house goes nuts?
And are you choosing candidates using an algorithm that predicts which candy would be most likely to invert the square root of 935 and then integrate f(x)?
The strange life of a math guy…../sigh
demimondian
The terms “demi-bunker” and “demi-offspring” go back to the First War on Christmas, when the peace-loving denizens of the demi-bunker brokered a ceasefire among the various Christmas parties which, like most ceasefires, usually lasted until it was broken.
myiq2xu
Sorry, I don’t suffer fools gladly. If I could keep my mouth shut in the face of stupidity I would be a corporate “yes-man” making a lot more money than I do now.
I had the right to remain silent, but I didn’t have the ability.
How about them Patriots?
Zuzu
Okay, because it was pretty much off-topic at Michael’s recipe thread, I’ll repost here:
Does anybody have a foolproof method for avoiding the chest/cough/fever/icky thing going around right now?
I’m doing my old standby of garlic (yes, I’m at home) and massive doses of Vitamin C. Also elderberry lozenges and hand sanitizer every time I handle a shopping cart or open a door at a public place, etc.
What else?
Billy K
Oh God. Don’t bring that in here…
Krista
Oh, chin up, my darling. There have been many civilized, well-debated threads in here. They just don’t stick in the mind as much as the ones where everybody was mud wrestling. It’s the nature of the beast.
Krista
Take ginseng, and try as much as possible to avoid touching your face.
Cain
Herbal tea or Citron tea is pretty good and hot tomato soup with plenty of pepper. I found the soap to be better than say throat lozenges because it sticks to the throat if sufficiently thick and when it’s hot and spicy I found it effective.
cain
myiq2xu
Stay in the house, don’t let anyone come within 20 ft of the doors or windows, wait for Spring.
myiq2xu
I hereby solemnly swear I will not be the first to break the peace.
Cain
I should learn to read. The tea is still good idea if you start feeling vaguely sick. I’ve fought off plenty of colds by drinking tea. Citron tea leaves a nice glow in my stomach. Sometimes I get that when I read posts on here but usually when there’s mud wrestling involved.
cain
Pooh
Krista, their hasn’t been a good Darelling around here in months. It might have even been a full year since our last sighting of the Senator.
4tehlulz
Chris fails for not taking the opportunity to use “PROTIP”.
srv
Why would anyone think Pakinukes would have failsafes?
And what happened to Civility Thursday? Or was it Tuesday?
demimondian
It was FUCKING Thursday, God damn it! Can’t you FUCKING remember that it’s god damn Thursday when we’re civil to one another?
Grumpy Code Monkey
Just wanted to share a pretty good column by Michael Ventura about how experience really does matter when picking a President. Relevant excerpt:
Ventura examines the experience of the candidates in the areas of foreign policy, legislation, and administration, and his top three shake out to be Biden, Richardson, and Dodd, largely on the basis of their foreign policy experience, which will be the most important in the next few years.
I had already pledged to vote for Dodd if he makes it as far as the Texas primaries, but sadly that was based solely on his actions in regard to the telecom immunity bill, and not on a detailed examination of what he actually brings to the table. Ventura’s column has made me rethink some of my positions wrt to the Big 3 Democrats; I could live with HRC, since she’ll have access to at least one adviser with deep foreign policy experience whom we’re pretty sure will be looking out for her and the country’s best interests, but Obama and Edwards would be totally at sea.
demimondian
Also, wash your hands frequently and thoroughly.
And get a flu shot.
Zuzu
Ah, great ideas so far. I’m actually heating up lemon juice and agave (honey substitute), so that might be sort of like a citron tea.
For the ginseng (right, how could I forget that?) and soup, I’d have to ignore the not-leaving-the-house advice.
Went outside to batten down or stash in the garage anything that could blow away in the storm they say is a-brewin’ for Northern Calif., and am worried that I might have “caught a draft” in the process.
Sigh, the best-laid plans …
Chris
Genes are developed in a nasty, disgusting sludge of biological substance.
Memes are developed in a nasty, disgusting sludge of ideological substance.
Guess what happens when you need a reference? :D
Krista
Yeah, I just realized that there are some relatively new-ish regulars who would never have had the dubious pleasure.
Man, I’ve been hanging around here a long time, haven’t I?
Zifnab
Whoie the what? Damned if I know.
I don’t post comments over at Glenn, even if I do troll occationally. Unless you’re referring to something else. I’ve never met another Zifnab before, so its very possible that I am who you think I am. But possibly not.
Jake
Could have been worse. So far you have been subjected to a Paul-Attack. Those are both funny and obnoxious.
Chris
Arg… you win. sigh.
“disregard that I suck cocks“
caustics
Because they represent that mainstream corn-fed continuum of rightness on everything from Herbert Hoover to Slipknot.
Anyway – prediction: I’m going with the ‘smart money’ on Obama and Huck. Yet when it all comes out in the wash nationally, I have this nagging suspicion it will be the safe CW choices – Hillary and Mitt.
Mr. Sifter
Wow. This might be the strangest attack I have ever heard one Presidential candidate launch against another candidate. In fact, it might be the strangest attack I’ve ever heard one person launch against another person. During Mike Huckabee’s now pulled attack ad against Mitt Romney, among other criticisms of Romney decisions made as Governor, these words flash across the screen.
NO EXECUTIONS.
I’m speechless.
Update: The death penalty is illegal in MA. So it was probably a wise decision for Mitt Romney not to execute someone, despite what one of his critics might say. It could have gotten him in some sort of legal trouble.
Please visit my blog if you have a chance.
myiq2xu
I’m not naming names or pointing fingers, but there’s one or two people around here who could use a good Rogering.
I’m afraid to ask what a “Darelling is.”
Cain
I caught the tail end of teh Darrell. If you thought people were crazy with Cassidy that’s nothing compared to Darrell. Woowee! Even three months after he stopped posting people were still trying to shine him on or were foaming at the mouth on some historical comment by Darrell. The most infamous personality on this blog.
cain
demimondian
Tell you what, myiq, if you can tell me what a Rogering, I wan tell you what a Darrelling is.
How “honest” of me.
Jake
“so far you haven’t”
Rrr.
Ninerdave
Go Nuts
Cassidy is a poor replacement for Darrell.
Jake
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
demimondian
God, Dave, you didn’t!
You…did.
Now I’m having flashbacks.
myiq2xu
I will defer to Dreggas, who is the local authority on sexual perversions, but:
Common slang in the UK for gay anal sex, as when Boy George was quoted as saying “I rather fancy a good rogering now and then.”
demimondian
Well, a Darrelling is a true perversion, unlike the minor sexual peccadilloes upon which Dreggas can exposit. He’s the only commenter in my entire career to actually make me be truly rude.
Dreggas
Thus explains why I may have to settle for “lead” not “manager”
HyperIon
Darrell made the term “shit-stain” very popular.
Before him I was unfamiliar with it.
That’s the best I can say about him.
Oh, and I hope he never comes back to this site again.
Ninerdave
Sorry, had to…teh Google told me too.
Zifnab
Bash.org reference earns Chris 100 million points.
Does any of it involve a pipping hot pile of Santorum?
demimondian
I love that you had to turn safe search off to get the query to work, BTW. Priceless.
Dreggas
See I deal in sexual perversions (such as rogering) but not in true perversions bordering on torture (one of those enhanced perverting techniques donchaknow)
Chris
Holy crap thank you! Only 900 million more and I can purchase that shiny new Internet I’ve had my eye on!
This old INT-NET 486 is getting clunky.
Dreggas
Heh, I have been tame on this blog, very very tame. Now google “two girls one cup”.
4tehlulz
Fuck you
InternetDreggas. Fuck you.Dreggas
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
tBone
So much for Google’s “do no evil” policy, then. Linking to a query that returns Darrell’s entire oeuvre is a crime against man and Nature.
Ed Drone
Actually, in older English slang, Rogering was simply the act of sex, hetero- or homo- (see books like Fanny Hill et al). If it’s now homosexual only, that’s another word we’ve lost of late.
Ed
myiq2xu
Just when you think the level of discourse can’t sink any lower, along comes Dreggas to prove you wrong.
He reminds me of Sam Kinison’s routines regarding gay necrophiliacs, or lepers having sex.
tBone
You are a prisoner of war. Your captors give you a laptop and force you to choose: The Darrell Query or a continuous loop of Two Girls, One Cup. What do you do?
Dreggas
And by the way “Fuck You Internet Dreggas” minus the strike through on Internet is even funnier now that I think about it. But it assumes Internet Dreggas is not anything like Dreggas, which those who know me in real life would totally disagree with.
Dreggas
Now that you mention it, who was it that was talking about necro-beastial-anal-butt-sex earlier? You know, mike huckabee’s association with teh gay?
Dreggas
You could be forced to watch this.
Zifnab
Everyone knows Internet Dreggas is just (regular Dreggas)%(a goatie). Like good and evil Captain Kirks.
Bite my own tongue hard and hope my captures don’t know how to stem the blood loss.
Dreggas
Yeah well both Internet and regular Dreggas have a goatee…go figure.
Dreggas
Of course it is odd that I get the title of most depraved when our own host talked about skull-fucking kittens. Then again he was being facetious…
Darkness
That is my new political fantasy. Wow and wow again. Prior to the last 7 years I’d have thought him underqualified, but hell, if W has proven anything it’s you’ll get eaten if you don’t stoop to the level of a dirty opponent, and damn that is such perfect sweet revenge it makes me salivate.
To Zuzu: Don’t you want your immune system to get a little exercise so that when the potentially deadly bug comes around it hasn’t gone flabby and pussy-like and can’t remember how to fight off infection? Personally, I like to give my immune system a regular run around track, you know, to keep it in shape. But my advice is: regular sleep and lots of it, your body does its best healing work while sleeping, and two, wear a mask when out to avoid airborne droplets from sneezers and cougher. Asians regularly do this and they live in the densest places in the world, so I assume they’ve picked up on something there. On the internets you can order masks with little characters on them to make them seem friendlier. Thirdly, Vitamin C does nothing except tax your liver from having to dispose of it, except in the case where you truly are deficit and unless you are a pirate on the high-seas, or live on exclusively burger king, this is unlikely. Fourthly, if you do catch something, don’t treat any resulting fever unless it becomes dangerously high. Sure a fever makes you feel shitty, but it makes the bugs inside you feel even shittier. That’s the point of the fever, fighting the infection by cooking the invaders. Fifthly, if you are vegetarian, take b12. Harmless to overdose on and you could be short on it if you fear virii with such a grotesque passion.
Krista
I’m really going to regret doing that, aren’t I?
Zifnab
Sexy Losers FTW! (So incredibly NSFW)
Zifnab
Google the phrase “skull fuck a kitten” and Balloon Juice is still #1.
Yes.
Dreggas
read the responses. I never said anyone had to do anything. It was merely a suggestion…I, after all, am an innocent angel.
myiq2xu
bows to the master, and then pukes on his own shoes
Dreggas
ok I have to leave work now, if I stay any longer they’ll have me committed based on the demonic cackling coming from my cube…
Krista
I Googled it, but just read the description instead of watching the video, and so have emerged relatively unscathed.
That was close.
TheFountainHead
Things have taken…a turn…
Cain
Yeah, when Dreggas posted his suggestion about googling 2 girls one cup. I saw it on some other thread earlier which got deleted because it disgusted John.
cain
TheFountainHead
Well, what does it say that on the night of the most important Iowa caucus in the last 50 years we’re batting about “rogering” and “2 girls 1 cup”
4tehlulz
Only that we’re on the Internet. Nothing more.
I will now make the obligatory “goatse” reference to get that out of the way.
tBone
Nah. I’m waiting for Chicken Hawk 2: Republican Boogalo.
TheFountainHead
I’m watching season 3 of the West Wing instead. Keeps me calm.
The Grand Panjandrum
TPM has a scoreboard here. I’m going to sit my laptop on the table next to my chair and watch a movie. Ever once in a while I’ll refresh TPM’s homepage. Oh, and I have an excellent bottle of tequila to keep me company. (Its lonely out here in the high desert when the wife and munchkins are away. Boo Hoo. Poor me.)
TheFountainHead
Thanks TGP, I was looking for that…now I don’t have to watch Wolfy.
TheFountainHead
Thanks TGP, I was looking for that…now I don’t have to watch Wolfy.
Ninerdave
I know this isn’t a new or unique observation, but in watching MSNBC now, it occurs to me that the GOP primary platform is:
Scary brown people.
Oh yeah and some dribble about Bush’s tax cuts.
Tax Analyst
Hope (or “Pray”, if that be your preference) for a 3rd option other than “waterboarding”.
myiq2xu
Barstow? Victorville? Ft. Irwin? 29 (Hairy) Palms? Please don’t say Hinckley.
I was stationed in the HD when my oldest was born, and I had family there too.
I lived in Yermo while stationed at Ft. I, and I had family living in Barstow, 1 mile from Brockavich
City.
TheFountainHead
I love Keith Olberman’s style…
Ninerdave
Wow, my link was compared to Two Girls, One Cup.
I have arrived.
Tax Analyst
The most interesting and amusing thing about the “2 Girls/One Cup” phenomena were the YouTube vids showing people’s reactions upon viewing it…you didn’t have to watch the “Girls/Cup” again, just the reactions of unsuspecting folks upon viewing it.
I remember my jaw bouncing off my desk when a work colleague (he got permission from IT first, we’re a small company where you can actually ask for that sort of exception now and then) que’d me up with the original. I wasn’t quite sure I actually saw what I actually saw.
myiq2xu
What do I do? Regret being taken alive and try to swallow my tongue.
Keith
The best coverage has been Fox News’ coverage from in Carl Cameron’s car while they drive down the freeway. Especially funny when they go under an overpass.
The Grand Panjandrum
New Mexico.
TheFountainHead
CSPANs coverage of the Democratic Caucus is very very telling. Iowans are schmucks.
myiq2xu
Ah, lo siento mucho. when I hear “high desert” I think the region around Barstow, and “low desert” makes me think of Needles/Blythe.
“Low dessert” on the other hand, is Jello.
Conservatively Liberal
I have been a baaaaad boy. Spank me, please?
Sorry, I don’t suffer fools well either. Must be something in the air here. ;)
Warped.
The Grand Panjandrum
De nada. It’s 7500 feet here at the fortified compound.
TheFountainHead
The Baby Boomers are going to ruin this country.
The Grand Panjandrum
Going to? Please. We did that when we started wearing madras shirts and bell bottom trousers.
The Grand Panjandrum
I just flipped over to C-Span, and the contrast between the Dems and the GOP is hilarious.
Dem Caucus: People milling around, all over the place — talking about the viability of candidates, their positions and policies, the caucus process for selecting the candidates, chatter everywhere…
GOP Caucus: People all seated, facing a single speaker, getting the talking points from the candidates’ representatives, one by one in succession. Sound problems, stiff speakers. Well at least they don’t have to worry about any fun breaking.
Conservatively Liberal
Don’t forget the platform shoes. Gotta have the complete outfit!
Mike
How dumb are the pundits, do you think? If the final is
Edwards 34%
Obama 33%
Clinton 32%
are they really going to bill it as a striking victory for Edwards and a gruesome defeat for Hillary?
Krista
Actually, that sounds like fun too! One could start off the argument in the study with the bong (sounds like the weirdest game of Clue ever), and then finish off with the Jello wrestling to eradicate any remaining bad tensions.
Jake
Someone go check: Have any of the fRightful Keyboardists sent skull shrapnel into the knotty pine walls of their mom’s basement?
D-Chance.
Do we have to explain the respective parties’ voting processes to everyone individually?
Dems have their people group together to determine viability. They HAVE to get up and mill around. It’s how they vote… multiple times. If their candidate doesn’t draw 15+%, they get actively courted in the room by the supporters of the candidates that did reach that threshold. Repubs do a simple “name in a hat passed around the room” vote… no viability rule, no second choice voting.
D-Chance.
Love the spin by the HRC camp about being happy to finish in the top 3. Hell, if a top 3 was all she wanted, she could have just thrown her name out there and then stayed in NY and DC this whole time… name recognition and the popularity of her husband alone would have been good enough to get her third without all the rummaging around amongst “those people” in Jayzuzland.
Bombadil
I don’t think this thread turned out as John planned, either.
myiq2xu
Kinda like herding cats, no?
myiq2xu
John is just trying to avoid having to watch football this weekend.
Good news John: Steely McBeam has officially dropped out of the race, even though he finished ahead of Rudy.