Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Come on, man.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

The words do not have to be perfect.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

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

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

I really should read my own blog.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / Which Is More Pathetic

Reader Interactions

166Comments

  4. 4.

    canuckistani

    Red State aren’t just begging for cash, they are blaming the free-speech-hating left for their problems, like it’s my fault they can’t run their site.
    b) by a wide margin.

  5. 5.

    PaulW

    I don’t view Duncan Hunter as pathetic. He’s someone who is clearly trying to run on principles, even though those principles are well into the minority view.

    Red State begging for money though. That’s more odd than anything else. You’d think hardcore conservative heavy hitters would have money from their massive financial portfolios. What, had their billion-dollar hedge fund get hit by the subprime meltdown? Or are they just scamming their readers so they can get more cold cash to fuel their speedboats?

  7. 7.

    TheFountainHead

    B.

    Because apparently you don’t have to be a computer programmer to be a dumbfuck NeoCon, but you do have to be a dumbfuck NeoCon to be a computer programmer.

  8. 8.

    Andrew

    I would like to make redstate’s paranoid fantasies come true. Let’s see… okay, done.

    I’ve modified their web platform code with a lot of
    if (website == “ConservatarianToonTown”) then redirectTo(“dailykos.com”);

  9. 9.

    JGabriel

    Another vote for B.

    Hunter’s patheticness is just the usual cry for attention that we see in most elections from a candidate who never should have been in the race in the first place. And why hasn’t Hunter been indicted yet?

    The Red State whine is just unbelievable, though. Literally. I mean, no conservative programmers? I can why the Libertarians might be abandoning RS over its treatment of Ron Paul, but they’re hardly liberals.

  10. 10.

    stinky mcgee

    Yeah, B. But because the “pull yourself up by your own boostraps crowd” is out there begging for money. And because they think that they are the only force in the universe that can prevent a Democratic win in ’08.

    Now that’s pathetic.

  11. 11.

    John S.

    Another B here.

    That is truly the most pathetic lament I have seen coming from that quarter, and that is saying a LOT.

  12. 12.

    IanY77

    bad link for redstate. Just thought you’d want to know. Apparently, you forgot the “h” in “http”.

  14. 14.

    Fledermaus

    I will also go for B. For the reasons above as well as the fact (pointed out on FDL) that they are already sucking on the wingnut welfare tit.

  15. 15.

    Billy K

    This is complete bullshit. All the Redstaters need to do is pray harder and God will fix their website.

    See, liberals NEED programmers because they have no God.

  16. 16.

    JGabriel

    I can why the Libertarians might be abandoning RS over its treatment of Ron Paul, but they’re hardly liberals.

    The more I think it over, I bet that’s where RedState’s problems are coming from. Lots of libertarian programmers out there. I can see them telling RedState to fuck off in protest over RS’s anti-Ron Paul vendetta.

  17. 17.

    Dreggas

    Dude, definitely B, I mean yeah Hunter is funny but we knew what was happening with him. Redstate has long tried to say they meant something, much like some temporary puddle of water in the middle of the desert. Now they’re just all dried up.

  18. 18.

    taodon

    By far, B – I read that earlier and was just floored by it – because it was just so damned pathetic.

  19. 19.

    Ninerdave

    Does the Red State “plea” sort of remind anyone of Oral Roberts being “called home” if he didn’t get 8 million dollars?

  20. 20.

    TheFountainHead

    I think there should be option C: Hillary shedding tears on the trail today to (over)compensate for her righteous indignation on Saturday night.

  23. 23.

    Mary

    I think you are very unfairly ignoring the Great Liberal Conspiracy to base computer programs on logic.

    Everyone knows, logic has a well known liberal bias. Poor Sen. Stevens – at least he tried to expose the conspiracy. It was the voice of Cassandra, standing on a Bridge to Nowhere, calling out “Toobz” Toobz toobz oobz zzz

  24. 24.

    Pooh

    I mean this is so pathetic that it compelled John Cole to link to the Jane Hamshers of the left at a time when that group included the actual Jane Hamsher. Mein Got!

  26. 26.

    Johnny Pez

    I was going to say A due to the inherent pathos of someone who’s trying to become the leader of the most powerful nation in the world having to call a press conference just to remind everyone that he still exists.

    But you guys have convinced me. Erick blaming the free-speech-hatin’ liberals for his own technical incompetence wins the prize.

  29. 29.

    Sock Puppet of the Great Satan

    “A poll- “Which is More Pathetic?”

    Typo – surely “Which is more amusing”

  32. 32.

    TheFountainHead

    Nope Option C:

    Hillary Clinton: Vote for me or die

    Yesterday Obama alluded to how Hillary’s campaign was backing up a dump truck to unload everything they could. And he was right, my god they;ve gone from tears to fears in just a few hours. They are trying EVERYTHING!

  33. 33.

    Zifnab

    If only Duncan Hunter were begging for cash to protect Red State from the liebrul 133+ computer hackers that keep taking down his posts.

    I could easily vote for that.

    Otherwise, I’m going with B) because who the hell is Duncan Hunter?

  34. 34.

    SpotWeld

    Isn’t this just a case of the “invisible hand” of the free market clearing away the economically unfeasable methods of Redstate so that a better and more sucessful competitor can move into its place?

    Okay, I’m just being snarky, but given the choice between helping Redstate stick around or seeing LGF becoming dominate… err. Lesser of two evils, eh?

  35. 35.

    Z

    ‘B’ by a wide margin (..and not because it is the consensus. I can program in a couple of different languages. Its not that hard.). I mean they are sitting around all day in their Mom’s basements… can’t they put down the Mountain Dew and pick up a book on programming? I’m sure they could find one at the public library, communist mecca that it is.

  36. 36.

    Dreggas

    TheFountainHead Says:

    Nope Option C:

    Hillary Clinton: Vote for me or die

    Yesterday Obama alluded to how Hillary’s campaign was backing up a dump truck to unload everything they could. And he was right, my god they;ve gone from tears to fears in just a few hours. They are trying EVERYTHING!

    Yeah no joke, makes me believe even more that the tears were poll tested.

  37. 37.

    Billy K

    Okay, I’m just being snarky, but given the choice between helping Redstate stick around or seeing LGF becoming dominate… err. Lesser of two evils, eh?

    Little Green Footballs? Do they still do…whatever it is they do? Never hear a peep outta those guys anymore.

  38. 38.

    Dreggas

    Z Says:

    ‘B’ by a wide margin (..and not because it is the consensus. I can program in a couple of different languages. Its not that hard.). I mean they are sitting around all day in their Mom’s basements… can’t they put down the Mountain Dew and pick up a book on programming? I’m sure they could find one at the public library, communist mecca that it is.

    Isn’t it part of that whole personal responsibility thing? Hell I grabbed the Mtn. Dew and a book on programming and taught myself while working shit jobs only to have a carreer in the field now. Maybe they should start doing what they just talk about.

  39. 39.

    myiq2xu

    Who the hell is Duncan Hunter? And where is this place called “Red State?” I can’t find it in my atlas.

  42. 42.

    Z

    Dreggas!

    Don’t you know? Personal responsibility is only for the poor or the poorly connected. They shouldn’t have to actually compete with that riff raff!

  43. 43.

    Faux News

    I have to vote “B” by a long shot. Perhaps if Red State hadn’t become such a right wing circle jerk where fellow Republicans and Independents hadn’t been banned and purged for merely disagreeing with Mr. Liberal Genocide, Thomas (I wish them and their families dead), they may have had someone to help them with their website issues.

    That or they are simply too stupid and too cheap to run an effective interactive website.

  44. 44.

    libarbarian

    B!!!!

    Seriously, he starts his post off with “The bad news: our liberal “friends” – you know, the ones who believe so strongly in free speech and open debate – have done what they can to prevent us from making these improvements, so that our influence will be minimized just as we head into the 2008 presidential primary season.” only to explain that he didn’t know how to use a relatively mindless tool and didn’t feel like learning how.

    I’ll bet George Soros is behind this.

    As Eli says, “Wow. The Left sneakily created an online commenting platform and lured Redstate onto it, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to find enough flying codemonkeys to maintain it. Best. Ratfuck. Ever.”

  45. 45.

    Chris

    (b.) by leagues and leagues

    You see, when we started RedState in May of 2004, we used a website program called Scoop — the same program a lot of similar sites on the left used. But, as the number of visitors to our site grew, Scoop kept crashing on us.

    If we’d been a liberal website, we would have been able to fix the problem quickly and relatively cheaply. The online left loves Scoop. Unfortunately, there weren’t really any conservative Scoop developers out there to help us. We kept crashing and were out of money. We had to close down or take drastic action.

    Are you fucking kidding me? Politically preferred programming libraries?

    What the fuck is that? Would that be when every call to .toString() prepends the string with "Michael Moore is Always Right! -- "

    It’s just like those far-right assholes to blame their own failures on a imaginary left-wing conspiracy. They’ve must have had a good life if they’ve never had to own up or go broke.

  46. 46.

    Some Guy Named Matt

    Ummmmmm. B

    Did anybody click on Eriks “Fight On” linky? Where they say

    Please consider joining RedState’s Action Emails list. Together we can fight the left and make a difference.

    That’s it? That’s there mission statement? to fight the left… Am i missing something?

  47. 47.

    mantis

    Interesting thinking over there by the Redstaters. Hey guys, let’s make a website! Here’s my plan:

    1. Learn nothing about web traffic, server loads, maintenance, etc.
    2. Choose an open-source, GNU public license CMS.
    3. See increase in traffic due to healthy online demand for crazy bullshit (bonus, attract attention of wingnut welfare benefactors!)
    4. Realize you don’t have anyone on staff who understands evil liberal voodoo computer magic enough to deal with site maintenance.
    5. Blame liberals. Beg for money.

    If you want support for your website, you have to pay for it, you supply-side morons! The fact that your readership is too busy listening to Limbaugh to learn to write a Perl script is not part of the liberal conspiracy.

    Limbaugh, say what you will about him, at least isn’t on the air asking his listeners for help because evil liberals won’t fix his transmitters.

  48. 48.

    tmv

    This is the funniest thing I think I’ve ever seen. Is it working? Because if so I’d like to try this version:

    Dear RedState reader,

    I would like to install a new kitchen in my house, with imported Italian tile, stained glass and a really pretty skylight, framed in hand-carved wood by a highly-sought, revered Macedonian artist.

    The bad news: our liberal “friends” have conspired to make it impossible for me to revamp my kitchen in such a manner, just so I won’t be able to make dinners for people who I can then sway over mealtime conversation into supporting the Republican ticket. You know, the same liberals who believe in housing help for Katrina victims. Those hypocrites!

    Let me explain … (*Crosses fingers, pauses to DVR-review the “monorail song” from the Simpsons for inspiration*)

    When we bought our house, a few years ago, it was a POS. And the more we lived in it and used things and invited people over, the more stuff wore out and broke down! Go figure!

    Now, if we’d been LIBERALS, we would have been able to fix the house quickly and cheaply, because, uh, all the builders out there are ALSO liberals! And they work for each other for free, or sometimes in exchange for gay marriage certificates! To keep us conservatives down! Doesn’t that make you ANGRY!? Doesn’t it stop you from wondering why we can’t find our own free labor, or even pay for it? Grrrr! We’re not being disingenuous, we’re being a persecuted minority! We’re definitely not implying you’re all too stupid to fix our house for us! Raaaah! Oooh, those LIBERALS. Hey, look over there! Isn’t that Michael Moore?! I bet HE has a nice kitchen!

    Please send giant gobs of money ASAP, so we can get the kitchen we deserve. The one the LIBERALS don’t want us to have.

  50. 50.

    LiberalTarian

    Good lord.

    B, definitely. Both are batshit crazy, but Red State’s screed about liberals hogging the programmers is just ugly and dressed funny.

    Why don’t they just do as their WSJ/RNC counterparts, and hire someone in India for cheap??

    Dorks.

  51. 51.

    Svensker

    B. Definitely B. Ha ha ha ha ha B. Are they frickin kidding me B. Oh heeeeeeee heeee heeeee heeee B.

    What is wrong with these people? Snort.

    Absolutely B.

  53. 53.

    Zifnab

    Yes, yes, Dreggas. Clinton is running for President, badly. We gotcha. Now please move aside so we can continue mocking Red State.

  54. 54.

    Chris

    Dreggas Says:

    Or maybe it’s Clinton saying that MLK didn’t achieve civil rights, a president did

    WINNER!

    HRC is dead. gone. Not a single black vote will go to her, and she lost most of the eutopic civil-rights hippies.

    It’s “Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday”, not “Lyndon B. Johnson’s” birthday.

    Mr. Cole, call your office and update your questionaire. Thank you.

  55. 55.

    Punchy

    Red State begging for cash because there are no conservative programmers.

    I think they meant “in West Virginia”. There’s not a whole lot of anyone in that cesspool.

    If RudeState wanted to survive, maybe they could get DKos’ programmers on their case. That shit NEVER crashes, and they get 100K peeps or something per day.

  56. 56.

    Chris

    Yes, yes, Dreggas. Clinton is running for President, badly. We gotcha. Now please move aside so we can continue mocking Red State.

    Ouch.

    “Mrs. Clinton. I’m just writing to inform you that you have less credibility than RedState. In a head-to-head competition, it was determined that you have no credibility to lose, while RedState still has some.

    Please quit while you’re still human.”

  57. 57.

    Billy K

    I would like to install a new kitchen in my house, with imported Italian tile, stained glass and a really pretty skylight, framed in hand-carved wood by a highly-sought, revered Macedonian artist.

    So, uh…what kind of counter are you thinking of putting in there? Just wondering is all…

  58. 58.

    Scotty

    I’d say A because its so pathetic this guy is still trying. But then again, I find it funny that Red State is asking for handouts. So I’ll flip-flop and say B. Damn socialists, they want Internet welfare checks.

  59. 59.

    Bubblegum Tate

    There’s such a density of stupid in that RedState post, it’s kind of astounding. Demanding ideological purity among programmers? Realizing that you can’t afford to do something and then just doing it anyway (aka GOP economics in a nutshell)? Begging for handouts so that you can keep your web site that bitches about how handouts are un-American alive? Blaming everything on imaginary “leftists?” The list goes on and on….

  60. 60.

    Dreggas

    Zifnab Says:

    Yes, yes, Dreggas. Clinton is running for President, badly. We gotcha. Now please move aside so we can continue mocking Red State.

    But dude this shit is funny, it’s like watching max headroom meltdown or something.

  61. 61.

    Chris

    Begging for handouts so that you can keep your web site that bitches about how handouts are un-American alive?

    Good eyes, good eyes!

  62. 62.

    TheFountainHead

    “Mrs. Clinton. I’m just writing to inform you that you have less credibility than RedState. In a head-to-head competition, it was determined that you have no credibility to lose, while RedState still has some.

    Please quit while you’re still human.”

    I’m gonna get in trouble for rolling around on the floor laughing at work.

  63. 63.

    Mike

    B, hands down. Nothing says “We believe in the capitalist system” like “We’re too stupid to do something ourselves but it’s the servants’ day off.”

  64. 64.

    Fe E

    If RudeState wanted to survive, maybe they could get DKos’ programmers on their case. That shit NEVER crashes, and they get 100K peeps or something per day.

    Where can a person go to compare traffic among the various political blogs? And if you can see traffic trends that would be a total bonus.

  66. 66.

    libarbarian

    I’ll be blunt: I hate asking you for money. But I hate even more to imagine what America will be like if someone like Hillary Clinton or Barack Hussein Obama wins the presidency in November.

    LOL!

    This reminds me of Jon Swifts takedown of the right-bloggers trashing the gang-rape victim:

    It’s not like we are asking only this woman to make a sacrifice for the war effort. Milbloggers like Shackleford are making sacrifices, too. Shackleford really doesn’t like attacking an alleged rape victim and trashing her before all the facts have come out. He would prefer we not return to “the not so distant past when some argued that the victim somehow brought the crime on themselves.” He thought that we had moved on from that time. “Questioning a rape victim is akin to a second rape,” Shackleford writes. “Or so I was always taught.” But if protecting America from terrorists means subjecting a woman to something akin to a second rape, then Shackleford, like Curt at Flopping Aces and Ace of Spades, is prepared, however reluctantly, to do his sad duty. Sacrifices must be made. Things are different now. 9/11 changed everything.

  67. 67.

    The Other Steve

    So, uh…what kind of counter are you thinking of putting in there? Just wondering is all…

    I would recommend Vermont Soapstone.

  68. 68.

    4tehlulz

    Holy shit. HRC is choking in the clutch. You would think she would know when to STFU, but no. Apparently her internal censor died last Thursday night.

    The only thing left for her to do, other than concede, is to call Obama an uppity Negro.

  69. 69.

    maxbaer (not the original)

    Since everyone else went with B. Besides, Hunter has an excuse. Everyone thinks he’s Tom Tancredo, and Tancredo dropped out.

  70. 70.

    Dreggas

    4tehlulz Says:

    Holy shit. HRC is choking in the clutch. You would think she would know when to STFU, but no. Apparently her internal censor died last Thursday night.

    The only thing left for her to do, other than concede, is to call Obama an uppity Negro.

    She’s already been calling him “Uppity”.

  71. 71.

    myiq2xu

    If you want pathetic (and hilarious) go over to C&L and catch the clip of insHannity running down the street being chased by Paultards.

  72. 72.

    mantis

    Where can a person go to compare traffic among the various political blogs? And if you can see traffic trends that would be a total bonus.

    Here you go.

    Both running Scoop. See any slight traffic differences? And which one can’t manage to run without crashing?

  73. 73.

    TheFountainHead

    I gotta say, for Hillary’s sake, I hope that LBJ comment doesn’t get a whole lotta play. That’s just straight up DUMB.

  74. 74.

    Chris

    Holy shit. HRC is choking in the clutch. You would think she would know when to STFU, but no. Apparently her internal censor died last Thursday night.

    The only thing left for her to do, other than concede, is to call Obama an uppity Negro.

    You know, I have a hard time imagining going into a competition game without a gameplan, but that appears to be exactly what HRC did.

    So why the fuck are you paying your team, if they’re not gaming for you, Hill?

    Or is it that you told them to make a game plan, and got embezzled?

  75. 75.

    Dreggas

    TheFountainHead Says:

    I gotta say, for Hillary’s sake, I hope that LBJ comment doesn’t get a whole lotta play. That’s just straight up DUMB.

    Went from tears, to pulling a cheney, to saying it was a white guy who gave everyone civil rights in the span of 8 hours…man that’s a record I think.

  77. 77.

    Dreggas

    Chris Says:

    Holy shit. HRC is choking in the clutch. You would think she would know when to STFU, but no. Apparently her internal censor died last Thursday night.

    The only thing left for her to do, other than concede, is to call Obama an uppity Negro.

    You know, I have a hard time imagining going into a competition game without a gameplan, but that appears to be exactly what HRC did.

    So why the fuck are you paying your team, if they’re not gaming for you, Hill?

    Or is it that you told them to make a game plan, and got embezzled?

    Step 1. Announce “I am Hillary Rodham-Clinton and I am running for president!”

    Step 2. ???

    Step 3. Become President!

  78. 78.

    Jay

    If I knew Scoop I’d help RedState fix their site. I’d charge them “what the market will bear” (translation: every penny I could squeeze them for) to do it, but the irony would be too good too pass up.

  79. 79.

    libarbarian

    That’s there mission statement? to fight the left…

    Well, its the only thing that unites the base. They disagree on all kinds of issues but one thing that unites them is hatred of imaginary stereotypes.

  80. 80.

    tmv

    So, uh…what kind of counter are you thinking of putting in there? Just wondering is all…

    In RedState circles, we don’t talk about our counters. We fully expect our fellow RedStaters to sneak up to our windows and take pictures of our counters, then write about them on their blogs.

    But since you insist, I was thinking a sort of “counter sandwich” made of stainless steel wrapped in granite wrapped in marble stolen from the floors of the Vatican.

  82. 82.

    libarbarian

    Step 1. Announce “I am Hillary Rodham-Clinton and I am running for president!”

    Step 2. ???

    Step 3. Become President!

    But where do underpants come into the equation?

  84. 84.

    jrg

    “B” is more pathetic, hands down. Scoop is open source, so if the nut jobs over at Red State had the ability to fix their website, they could.

    The sad part is that they are probably just missing some DB index, and it’s slowing their site down. There are larger sites running with Scoop, but why take responsibility for your computer problems when you can just blame it on “thuh liburuls”?

    It’s Al Gore’s fault I cannot read an instruction manual, bo-hoo. Why can’t some liberal programmer come and fix my site for free?

    Bitches.

  85. 85.

    JGabriel

    Both running Scoop. See any slight traffic differences? And which one can’t manage to run without crashing?

    B-b-but, all the LIEBruls are helping KOS!

    Which, as someone else noted, sounds like the free market at work to me.

  86. 86.

    Tsulagi

    Yes, there is a clear difference between the two.

    A. Stupid, and anyone who responds favorably is pathetic.
    B. Pathetic, and anyone who responds favorably is stupid.

  87. 87.

    SpotWeld

    In all fairness RedState isn’t asking for handouts from the government, just other like-minded citizens… who apprently can’t write good code.

  88. 88.

    Jamey

    RedState.com
    ATTN: Erick Erickson
    1 Massachusetts Ave, NW
    6th Floor
    Washington, DC 20001

    Not saying anybody should do anything silly with this info, just that it was posted on RedState.com.

  89. 89.

    Z

    You know, it occurred to me that open source code and programming manuals are usually written by people who have been (at least partly) educated at universities. Thus, they’ve been brainwashed to be liberal elitists. Because liberalism is contagious, they are afraid that by seeking the knowledge to actually take care of their website, they might be transformed into latte swilling, stem-cell research supporting, evolution and global warming believing, literature reading elitists.

  91. 91.

    Brian

    Where can a person go to compare traffic among the various political blogs? And if you can see traffic trends that would be a total bonus.

    You can go to alexa, although there are some systemic issues in how the traffic is measured there (so it’s useful as a quick heuristic, just don’t rely on it when serious money is on the line).

    You can also look at technorati statistics (search for dailykos, then click on the authority, and you’ll see on its info page a rank; DailyKos is ranked by technorati as the 12th most popular, while redstate is 473).

  92. 92.

    Jake

    Whoo, ha ha ha haa!!

    [Sniff] First the libs hoarded all the attactive women and converted them to haughty lesbians and now they won’t share the computer jockeys.

    This is better than CY’s whinge for a new grill. At least he just said “I wanna new grill.” He didn’t claim it was knocked over by islibruhomofascists.

  93. 93.

    Chris

    You know, it occurred to me that open source code and programming manuals are usually written by people who have been (at least partly) educated at universities. Thus, they’ve been brainwashed to be liberal elitists. Because liberalism is contagious, they are afraid that by seeking the knowledge to actually take care of their website, they might be transformed into latte swilling, stem-cell research supporting, evolution and global warming believing, literature reading elitists.

    Not to mention, Open Source is free-love and communism!

    If Reagan were alive, he’d fight the source that is Iron Source and bring down the wall that keeps honest and humble sites like RedState from their syntactical brethren on the other side!

  95. 95.

    Keith

    The sad part is that they are probably just missing some DB index, and it’s slowing their site down.

    I’ll take a guess that their DB is Microsoft Jet, hence the speed issues (or for that matter, they could be using MSDE with its whopping 5 connection capacity since it was a free download)

  96. 96.

    Chris

    If Reagan were alive, he’d fight the scourge that is Iron Source and bring down the wall that keeps honest and humble sites like RedState from their syntactical brethren on the other side!

    damn. fixed.

    need to go home; get sleep

  97. 97.

    Andrew

    First the libs hoarded all the attactive women and converted them to haughty lesbians and now they won’t share the computer jockeys.

    Converting women in lesbians seems to be my specialty.

  98. 98.

    jrg

    I’ll take a guess that their DB is Microsoft Jet, hence the speed issues (or for that matter, they could be using MSDE with its whopping 5 connection capacity since it was a free download)

    Regardless of the so-called “site maintenance” problem, if Al Gore had not invented the internet, no one at RS would have to read an instruction manual.

    But seriously –

    our liberal “friends” – you know, the ones who believe so strongly in free speech and open debate

    … Have refused to fix our computer problems for free.

    Here’s an idea for Redstate – maybe they should call the ACLU and have them send a technician down. Morons.

  99. 99.

    Dreggas

    TheFountainHead Says:

    I’m not sure how you guys at BJ feel about Arianna, but she has a pretty good breakdown of all the crazy-ass things Hillary has attacked Obama with in the last 24 hours. Lots of bat-shit crazy.

    I don’t know which is crazier, HRC or her supporters. Look at this from one of the comments:

    Dear Arianna, you will be faced with lots of cynics in November when your hand picked candidate loses the best chance we Democrats have to recapture the White House along with both houses of Congress. This MTV generation exuberance for a candidate who has no experience whatsoever is going to doom the Democrats to another loss for the presidency and may even result in losing the tenuous hold we now have in Congress. When it comes to Obama, I have one question: Where’s the beef? Obama 2008 = Nader 2000.

    Obama = Nader? Seriously?

    Also saw him being compared to Mondale and how dems would lose every state… Unbelievable.

  100. 100.

    SpotWeld

    Something just occured to me. The timing is amazingly bad for this. Right now politically active people of all stripes are putting thier resources towards their favorite campaigns. And it’s *now* that RedState is asking for financial help?

    The only thing I can figure is that the site is overloaded to the point where they honestly fear that they cannot withstand the expected increase in traffic that the presidential election will bring. The plea for help is much more desperate than they are letting on.

    How the heck did they let that happen?

  102. 102.

    TheFountainHead

    Something just occured to me. The timing is amazingly bad for this. Right now politically active people of all stripes are putting thier resources towards their favorite campaigns. And it’s now that RedState is asking for financial help?

    Or maybe they figure there are a lot of Wingers out there who have been eager to write a check but can’t figure out who the hell they should write it to!

    “Romney? No, he doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the wall! McCain? No, he’s practically dead! Huckabee? Only if they shoot me first! A-HA! I’ll donate to RedState! Yes, that makes sense!”

    Or at least thats what I imagine the thought process looks like.

  104. 104.

    Ryan

    B) Redstate.

    Hunter is irrelevant. Redstate is irrelevant too, but there’s more of it (and thus scores higher on the pathetic scale).

  106. 106.

    Tsulagi

    Well, RedState just put in the extra effort to claim the prize.

    Currently, one post below the top of the page is Duncan Hunter Cries Wolf, Beclowns Self. A post noting how pathetic Duncan Hunter is.

    The post just above that, now at the top of the page, is Why I need your wallet. In which Erick notes they had a budget for the site transformation, but they went against expert advice and blew it. You just can’t get any more Republican than that.

    Seems like there’s a whole lot of beclowning going on at the RedState in addition to the pathetic.

  107. 107.

    PeterJ

    B.

    Yet another sign that the trickle-down economy isn’t working.

    –

    I don’t prefer a one party state, so the republicans really need to get their shit together.

  108. 108.

    Zifnab

    I don’t prefer a one party state, so the republicans really need to get their shit together.

    Don’t worry. The Broderites are assembling in Oklahoma. Should the Republican Party fall, a Unity/Centrist/Reasonable/Serious-People Party will rise up to take its place. This Party may look i-fucking-dentical to the Republican Party, but I assure you it is not. For instance, it will not be called the “Republican Party” and it will support indefinite stays in Iraq, more tax cuts, no universal health care, and an assortment of free-money-for-rich-people scams for completely different reasons.

  109. 109.

    PeterJ

    The only thing I can figure is that the site is overloaded to the point where they honestly fear that they cannot withstand the expected increase in traffic that the presidential election will bring. The plea for help is much more desperate than they are letting on.
    How the heck did they let that happen?

    They asked Lieberman for advice on how to run a website?
    Or they went with what Grover Norquist said and made the server so small that they could drown it in a washbowl? And then they actually tried to drown it?

  112. 112.

    tmv

    I had to check out the people who were actually giving money for this intelligence-insulting pitch:

    Sure I felt manipulated. But the site is more than worth it
    That was much my thought that the narrative didn’t make any sense. But who cares its been worth considerably more than the 25 bucks.

    I believe this translates to, “I know you’re feeding me a steaming load of crap! Here’s $25 so I can continue to suck down as much as you can dish out!”

    The mind, it boggles.

  113. 113.

    cleek

    Not saying anybody should do anything silly with this info, just that it was posted on RedState.com.

    so why post it here?

  116. 116.

    Dreggas

    Sirkowski Says:

    You give some money to these corporate trailer trash welfare queens and they just ask for another check!

    heh, it’s redstate.

  117. 117.

    Robert Johnston

    I’m going with a), because it implies the existence of c), the poor schlub stuck with the job of attending and reporting on a Duncan Hunter press conference. Now that’s pathetic.

  120. 120.

    horatius

    Well. I had this theory that redstate is powered on assrockets ass-fumes. So much for that theory.

    B) all the way

  121. 121.

    Andrew

    Converting women in lesbians seems to be my specialty.

    … I hope “in” s/b “to.”

    That’s what I originally intended, but now I’m intrigued by the implications of the uncorrected statement.

  125. 125.

    Jake

    Off topic, but I gotta say it’s really satisfying to see Giuliani’s support plummet in the NH polls. It makes me feel less pessimistic about humanity…

    And when he uses this as an excuse to mention NinEleven(TM)(R) you’ll be too annoyed to feel pessimistic.

  126. 126.

    The Other Steve

    And when he uses this as an excuse to mention NinEleven™(R) you’ll be too annoyed to feel pessimistic.

    It’s actually a liberal conspiracy. The Liberals refuse to give money and votes to Rudy, and they are causing him to plummet in the polls.

  127. 127.

    myiq2xu

    But where do underpants come into the equation?

    Boxers, or briefs?

    Depends on the conservative.

  131. 131.

    SnarkyShark

    B) Because it breaks a new space/time continuum for pathetic whiny victim-hood. From the same crowd that who manages to demonize any actual victims from like hurricanes or cancer and shit.

    What a bunch of little bitches.

  132. 132.

    Darkness

    B) If only because anyone with the cajones to run for office should get a bye.

    I suppose it shouldn’t be a news flash that conservatives can’t use logic. And it would have to be a liberal conspiracy that they can’t get by without doing so. If 1s and 0s are too much to handle, they should host their site on an analog computer. Analog computers come up with answers really fast. It’s almost as if they use their guts instead of their brains. They don’t always come up with the same output when given repeated input, but heck, that might be a feature for redstate.

  133. 133.

    UnkyT

    All I can say is that RedState is completely missing the point of a blog. Their latest post says that their parent has already put $55,000 towards their cause and they still need $25,000 more. Blogs are a simple thing and are visited often because they are simple. It doesn’t matter how much money they sink into their site, it will not increase their readership. They suck and will always suck.

    I am a professional programmer and a semi professional graphic designer, and I can tell you that I don’t come to balloon juice for either of those reasons(sorry John, I like to think its part of the sites ‘charm’), yet Balloon Juice, for the posts and the comments, is the blog I enjoy reading the most.

    I also know from the comments that there are some tech savvy commenters here that are always willing to help in a crunch. I am sure that RedState has some techy readers also, it is only the will that is lacking at RedState. If they aren’t even making enough money to cover a somewhat modest $25,000 then they don’t have the readership to justify it anyway.

  135. 135.

    Krista

    I am a professional programmer and a semi professional graphic designer, and I can tell you that I don’t come to balloon juice for either of those reasons(sorry John, I like to think its part of the sites ‘charm’), yet Balloon Juice, for the posts and the comments, is the blog I enjoy reading the most.

    Good point. A lot of people spend money putting all kinds of bells and whistles on their blog. But it’s all about the content and the community. Besides, I find RedState has way too cluttered a look to it. Look at some of the great sites like Sadly, No! Nice and clean, uncluttered, you can find what you’re looking for easily. Same as this site. You don’t feel like you have to know where to look, or else risk missing something.

  136. 136.

    myiq2xu

    What they don’t want to admit is that Red State needs the money to buy p*ssy. They don’t want to die virgins.

  137. 137.

    UnkyT

    What they don’t want to admit is that Red State needs the money to buy p*ssy. They don’t want to die virgins.

    Well, all I can say is that better be some high quality shit (at $25,000) and must include the coke.

  138. 138.

    Jake

    No. Stop. I just walked past the living room and the Bar du Pathetique has been raised: Miss America wannabes discussing gay marriage.

    Kill. Me. Now.

  139. 139.

    borehole

    Time to call this thing for B. If this were live we’d be stamping the risers in unison.

    And who the hell came up with “beclowned?” Wingers were all using that on Henley over the Steyn thing, and it’s a really wack neologism. It’s like a word Jon Lovitz’s “Tales of Ribaldry” narrator would use.

  140. 140.

    rec

    Just to reiterate – atrios and digby have two of the blandest looking sites this side of the intertubes and I don’t think it hurts their readership that much. That’s despite the fact that hospital blue and (fill in the blank) yellow aren’t necessarily the best color-theme choices in my opinion. There has to be something else there to attract readership, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

    Though to be fair, if you want to create a community platform rather than a personal or group blog, you probably need a scoop-like infrastructure.

  141. 141.

    stickler

    I was all set to rant about how sucky RedState is, and then Krista had to go and harsh my mellow.

    She’s right: site design like SadNo, Balloon-Juice, and (sob) the recently-assimilated TBogg, are far better to look at than some whizbang-crap-laden page (like, say, RedState, or (sob) Firedoglake).

    But back to our fine Confederate friends at Redstate. Those fucking chumps banned all Ron Paul posters (not supporters, remember, just people sticking up for him) sometime last fall. And now, in January, despite their wingnut welfare Eagle Foundation support, they can’t manage to find $50 large to re-engineer their circle jerk ideologically coherent niche website. Gosh, that seems like a short-sighted decision this week, doesn’t it?

    What happened? Did the fine folks at Wingnut Welfare R Us The Eagle Foundation read webtraffic charts? Did they realize somehow that Leon Wolf and Erick Whoosits are nothing more than Confederate Reconstructionists with three dozen readers?

    Nah. Couldn’t be.

  142. 142.

    Zifnab

    Wait, they’re planning to drop $80k on a blog? Are you freak’n kidding me? Suddenly, pissing away a couple billion a month in Iraq on 31 flavors of failure makes a little more sense to me, from a conservative point of view.

    I wonder if they’re purchasing their servers through Halliburton?

  143. 143.

    MNPundit

    That’s right, they DID ban all the RP people–and those probably constitute the vast majority of the techies on that site.

    Oh… my heart.

    Schadenfreude.

  144. 144.

    EL

    Some on the Kos thread have suggested sending $1.01 – the penny to show it came from kossacks. Other kossacks are just sending the penny.

    This Red State whine is hilarious. I did learn something new, though, Narajanistan is another name for the Great Orange Satan.

  145. 145.

    Tsulagi

    What they don’t want to admit is that Red State needs the money to buy p*ssy. They don’t want to die virgins.

    Oh, and you say “myiq2xu.” The money is for wet suits and dildos. And those backdoor cherries were popped long ago.

  146. 146.

    jvill

    I would give them money, but as a liberal employed in the interactive industry, I know for a concrete fact that all developers are liberal, libertarian, or of this mysterious faith that does not permit the rendering of technical services in exchange for “money”.

    So what would be the point?

  147. 147.

    r€nato

    Wait, they’re planning to drop $80k on a blog? Are you freak’n kidding me?

    That’s what I was thinking! Am I missing something? Do you really need $80K (or even the $55K of wingnut welfare already given to them) to re-design a web community blog?

    I have a feeling there’s some crony capitalism going on here, only on a smaller scale than Halliburton.

    Either that or they blew the cash on Cheetos, Mountain Dew and 976 sex chat lines.

  148. 148.

    r€nato

    That’s right, they DID ban all the RP people—and those probably constitute the vast majority of the techies on that site.

    lolz! Yep, when you insist on ideological purity, you usually end up with a pretty small tent.

    I look forward to RedState blaming its demise on the vast left-wing conspiracy to completely deprive them of traffic by not visiting them.

  149. 149.

    JASlusher

    Atrios is running for Prez?!?!? Wow.

    Oh, wait, Duncan Hunter not Duncan Black. My bad. Who is Duncan Hunter?

  151. 151.

    AlanDownunder

    When every available republican programmer is either selling out to the highest bidder or desperately scrubbing subpoenaed presidential records, is it any wonder that RedState can’t find one?

  152. 152.

    Sensitive Pony Tailed Girly Man

    Reminds me of that old Jon Lovitz SNL impersonation of Mike Dukakis, who turns to the camera and says “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy”. Granted things are supposedly looking up, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

  153. 153.

    Cassius Chaerea

    RedState is such a scream.

    One of the Drupal developers showed up in the comment thread, and, in that polite way one uses to talk to total idiots, first reamed them out for not bothering to even ask for help in the Drupal forums and then went on to explain how they had incorrectly configured their system – for instance, Redstate is using the _debugging_ configuration in production (so, of course, it’s slow)!

  154. 154.

    Wilfred

    IIRC, Erick is the only salaried employee of the ‘community’. Sounds like that plea for money is his payday.

  155. 155.

    Chris

    One of the Drupal developers showed up in the comment thread, and, in that polite way one uses to talk to total idiots, first reamed them out for not bothering to even ask for help in the Drupal forums and then went on to explain how they had incorrectly configured their system – for instance, Redstate is using the debugging configuration in production (so, of course, it’s slow)!

    Don’t see that comment. Get ripped off of there already?

  157. 157.

    rachel

    …Redstate is using the debugging configuration in production (so, of course, it’s slow)!

    Whuuuut…? Maybe they don’t need to replace Drupal; maybe they need to replace their sub-competent IT guy (I’d give him 4 out of 5 stars on the heckuvajobBrownie scale).

  158. 158.

    grumpy realist

    Even funnier, Erick has been frothing at the mouth about taking “all the information” provided him by PayPal about the $0.01 payers and doing something with it.

    Hee. Quite of a few of Kossites have grabbed his comments and forwarded them on to PayPal. I don’t think PayPal is going to be very happy with dear Erick and/or RedState. Putting up what could be construed as threats to commit Identity Theft or spamming of email addresses using information provided by PayPal?

    He’ll probably try to claim Free Speech and “I was only joking.”

  159. 159.

    Jeff Eaton

    Don’t see that comment. Get ripped off of there already?

    That was me. ;-) Comment’s still up as far as I can see The thread makes it a bit clearer what’s going on — it sounds like they had some volunteers who rebuilt the site initially in 2006 on Drupal. There were a number of features they wanted but didn’t have the time/knowledge to roll out at the time, which is certainly not uncommon, but then as time the volunteers burnt out or drifted off. Again, not uncommon.

    Now, as they’re trying to relaunch, fix bugs, and so on they don’t have any in-house volunteers who are familiar with Drupal and the volunteers who ARE jumping on board want to use a different CMS package instead. So, the site’s being rewritten. From the comments made by one of those devs, it seems like a pretty common case of “I want to work with the framework I like, and I don’t want to volunteer my time to learn one I dislike.” No biggie there, it’s just regrettable that they couldn’t make it work for them.

    I don’t blame them for running into performance and feature-building issues if they don’t have any in-house experience with Drupal, it’s just sad that they never asked for any help. Ten minutes of configuration and a few pointers could have resolved most of the problems I heard them discussing in that thread. Calling it part of a liberal plot to silence RedState is… well. Yeah, I’ll just let that stand on its own. Without the Howard Dean campaign, which used Drupal for its DeanSpace platform in ’04, I’m willing to bet that RedState never would’ve made the conversion in the first place. THAT, friends, is irony. ;-)

  161. 161.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    B.

    By a wide margin. Because Jesus…

    Although, what’s actually pathetic is that a substantial fraction of their readership will buy that steaming pile as is, instead of realizing that RS is being grossly manipulative. “We can’t find conservative developers?” Give me a fucking break.

    I’ll take a guess that their DB is Microsoft Jet, hence the speed issues

    Gah! Flashbacks. One product I worked on used Jet as the database engine, and it caused us no end of grief. However, it did help us find one uncommitted transaction. The main loop would do a query on a jobs pending table, and if there were entries present, it would commit the transaction and process the entries. If the table were empty, though, the transaction would not be committed.

    Therefore, if there were no jobs to process for a long enough period, the transaction log would eventually grow to the point where it filled up the disk and crashed the system. That remains my all-time favorite bug; taking down a server by not doing anything.

  162. 162.

    Jeff Eaton

    Nah, their speed issues aren’t relate to Jet. Since they’re running Drupal they’re on a traditional Linux/Apache/MySQL setup. They’re using a 2.5 year old version of Drupal, though, and haven’t taken some basic steps to optimize their configuration or updated to newer versions that have useful performance enhancements. It sounds like the developers who built it for them back in ’06 have moved on, and the new guys who’ve volunteered dislike PHP and want to rewrite it in Python rather than doing the work of upgrading it or optimizing things.

    I work on Drupal a lot, so it’s a bit of a poke to my professional pride to hear the new devs talking about ‘how horrible’ Drupal is and how ‘no one liked it.’ That’s life, though. Underneath all the liberal/conservative puffery it’s a pretty normal story of one group of volunteers building something in *their* favorite tool, the ‘users’ not knowing how to maintain it, and the next group of volunteers blaming the tool and claiming that *their* favorite will solve all the problems.

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  3. […] Partially inspired by this comment, but in large part because I think it is time for a change, I think I am open to the idea of one of you (or a collaboration of you) re-designing the site. […]

  4. […] I was commenting on another thread, and I took the time to research how bad the Republican Party’s record on electing African Americans really was. It’s far worse than I thought. In the last 110 years (in other words Post Reconstruction), there have been 4 elected black Republicans in Congress (5 if you count the non voting member of the US Virgin Islands). There are now 93 African American Republicans elected to office at all levels of government, from School Board Vice President to Mayor or State Senator. On the plus side, that’s up from 57 (I think) last time I checked. On the other hand, there are still so few African Americans representing the GOP’s elected preference that Red State would be able to treat every one of them to a steak dinner with their own bottle of Caymus (a restaurant will charge 2-3 times that by the way) for the amount of money they are asking. […]