I feel like dancing:
Starting my weekend right by refusing to watch the bobbleheads on cable. You all have a good one tonight.
TGIF
by John Cole| 80 Comments
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TGIF
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JL
John, Sorry, this doesn’t work. Tonight I need Tim’s beer blog. It hasn’t been the best of weeks, since McCain didn’t have Lieberman and Graham to whisper in his ear that his book talked about the Packers, not the you team that you love or that he forgot about voting against insisting insurance companies cover birth control or he doesn’t know the difference between his as* s and his face. If we had a decent MSM they would be talking about the fact that McCain is showing early signs of dementia and it may or may not have to do with his POW but do we really want a President with a few loose screws. F*** , I want my BEER BLOG.
Incertus
I started coming down with a cold yesterday, so I don’t have the patience for bobbleheads either. I am, however, making some jambalaya the old fashioned way–from a box of Zatarains mix–and I’m flopping out in my recliner.
TCG
President Bush has lowered the value of an American life by about $1M per person for each of 300M Americans the AP reports today.
By his calculation, Bush has saved the Country $300,000,000,000,000 which now can be used for really cool things like funding to occupy Iraq for 100 years, an invasion of Iran (no money need be allocated for an occupation of Iran because we will be greeted as liberators), privatization of Social Security and new tax cuts, some other awesome things.
Keith
I just watched Fred Barnes and Charles Krauthammer both all but say McCain has no chance to win the election. Guess they’re seeing what everyone but Mark Halperin can see: McCain is a fuckup mo-chine. I, for one, am eagerly waiting for both Obama’s (it’ll probably wind up being the best speech he’s ever given just because he’s so good at rising to the occasion) and McCain’s (it should be hilariously bad) acceptance speeches as well as the moderated debates.
As bad as press coverage has been in terms of what they choose to ram down our throats vs. ignore, once McCain and Obama go side-by-side/one-on-one, it is going to be real hard to hide McCain’s faults and contradictions.
JL
Well, I’ll spend the evening by myself complaining about the lack of a BEER BLOG and the media painting Obama as a flip flopper but McCain as a Maverick. By the way why does Obama come across as a misspelling and McCain doesn’t.. OMG, Even spell check likes MCSame…
Just Some Fuckhead
Been out mowing the grass and trimming the garden beds so I can spend the weekend at the beach. Shortly I’m going to open a bottle of cab and enjoy it with a giant deli roast been sandwich.
Just Some Fuckhead
beef, even. Weird, the F key isn’t near the N key. Must be heatstroke.
nightjar
Teh “Funky Chicken” Rules.
Delia
I need to watch Rachel’s last night on Countdown before KO comes back.
JL
Sorry, Me of little faith saw Kerry against Bush in a debate and guess what Bush won…
Don’t underestimate the power of MSM.. Also why is Obama showing up as a misspelling but not McCain???
rawshark
I never watch the bobbleheads on cable. If they say anything worth knowing I’m sure it’ll be posted here so why waste my time. Seeing as how watching those shows does nothing but piss you guys off I think I make the right decision to not watch.
BethanyAnne
I finally found Pandora today. Happy! You were asking about music for BG’s and such – this might be a way to find some. Oddly for me, I had to do a little coding today, so I created a channel based on Delerium, and I’ve been happy all day.
Beth
Delia
Time for a sex scandal. This will come as a great shock to everyone. The anti-gay gooper AG of Alabama got caught being gay.
Ted
Aww, I wish I could have seen that. It would have practically given me an orgasm.
Brachiator
Fixt.
I feel his wife’s pain.
Delia
Hey, Bethany, thanks for the Pandora tip. That’s very cool.
Rome Again
Don’t you mean “another” one?
ThymeZone
You mean, the powerful MSM that told us we’d be having a Clinton-Romney general election campaign now?
That MSM, the all-powerful one?
CT
Rawshark-Wise move. The primary season drove me away from cable news with its inanity. As others have pointed out, it (and, increasingly, the blogosphere) is all about eyeballs, not accuracy. I don’t watch it at all anymore, and my blood pressure has dropped significantly. There is simply no content there-its just Kabuki theater for the surrogates to talk over each other.
Anytime I’m tempted, I ask myself a couple simple questions-“Am I going to learn anything from Anderson Cooper (as an example) and his panel of hacks?” and “Will some hack say something stupid that will make me want to go Elvis on my TV? The answers are always No and Yes, respectively, so I can instead do something more intellectually edifying, like watching Spongebob with my daughter.
Rome Again
Hey John, I just went to refresh a page on BJ and my computer blocked it. When I clicked on the “why was this page blocked” link I got the following -(do not visit any of these sites listed everyone):
Safe Browsing
Diagnostic page for software-traffic.com/
What is the current listing status for software-traffic.com/?
Site is listed as suspicious – visiting this web site may harm your computer.
Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 1 time(s) over the past 90 days.
What happened when Google visited this site?
Of the 8 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 4 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 07/10/2008, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 06/27/2008.
Malicious software includes 406 adware(s), 215 trojan(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 3 new processes on the target machine.
Malicious software is hosted on 2 domain(s), including vit-scanner.com, vav-scanner.com.
Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?
Over the past 90 days, software-traffic.com/ appeared to function as an intermediary for the infection of 132 site(s) including clandestinogay.com, vworld.info, 1000sextoys.biz.
Has this site hosted malware?
No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.
How did this happen?
In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.
Next steps:
* Return to the previous page.
* If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google’s Webmaster Help Center.
slag
John seems to be getting less and less masochistic in his old age.
Dreggas
Actually been watching the talking heads on MSNBC and they’re nailing McCain over the Phil Gramm deal and pretty much saying McCain’s campaign is in the crapper period.
ThymeZone
Yes but the Hardball morons (minus Tweety, who is off) are now talking about whether “Obama shows enough emotion, is he too cool?”
I am not making this up.
These people are paid to flap their gums. They are fucking idiots. However, there is good news: Nobody really listens to them. I think they are completely inconsequential.
Just Some Fuckhead
Romney will step in when McCain has to bow out for health reasons. Then we’ll have the horserace the cable asshats want.
JL
Rachel is talking about McCain’s Steeler’s, Packer’s gaff. Once again why does Obama come across as a misspelling but not McCain….
Just Some Fuckhead
If America is on the typical empire trajectory we should be near the Caligula period.
ThymeZone
And devastatingly so. She boiled it down to a simple quetion:
Either McCain’s authenticity is in question here, or else we have to wonder whether we can be sure that he can any longer remember anything. At all.
The football team story is prominent in the movie version of McCain’s book (clip shown on Countdown).
Also, his recounting of the flawed story about the Steelers was (I am NOT making this up) his answer to the question “What is the first thing that comes to your mind when I say Pittsburgh?” McCain’s response? The “Steeler” story.
Magoo isn’t laughable any more, he has crossed the line into scary.
Michael Brown
And in early returns, we’re now seeing that all this tacking to the right is falling right in with Obama’s Sooper Sekrit Plan for Electoral Blowout.
Your bet now is probably either:
1. Newsweek polls are full of it. 2/1 odds, Digby line.
2. The MSM will pay attention to just some of the endless toilet roll of McSame flipflops. 1/114, Maddow’s odds.
Just Some Fuckhead
Yeah, the story doesn’t play well on any level. Don’t be surprised if his answer to this becomes “Ow, my arms!” Meaning, of course, at this point his candidacy has been effectively reduced to Tortured POW Runs For President.
John Cole
Actually, the Newseek poll that had him with a 15 point lead was garbage, which is why we never relied on it, nor did people with half a clue.
Three points sounds about right, at least to me. Anything more than seven or less than 2-3 would just not make sense, given the make-up of the electorate.
Michael Brown
That does seem to at least obscure the value of this edition of the poll. But really: How does a 2-point correction to a previous Republican undersample narrow the race by 11 points? Or, as one commentor at the same link hints: Isn’t it at least worrying that this demonstrably fogbound stumblebum isn’t down further?
nightjar
The video of MCcain with vapor lock on the question of his voting no on birth control pretty much says it all. It wasn’t that he couldn’t remember the vote, but more his body language and facial expressions showing bewilderment and abject terror when he couldn’t remember.
A number of years ago, I ran a Landscaping business and a lot of the customers were women calling for work to be done because their hubby’s had Alzheimers. Sometimes the ones in early stages would insist in explaining what they wanted done. The look of terror they had when the memory wouldn’t come reminded me of MCCAin in that video.
ThymeZone
If you look at the state by state charts at pollster.com you will notice the rather shocking pattern mentioned by GOS’ Markos earlier today:
McCain’s trend lines are all down. None of them are up.
McCain is not gaining support. The middle is waffling a little but it isn’t leaning to McCain, and people who previously leaned McCain are abandonding him. Barr and Nader are picking up poll points. McCain is in the crapper.
skippy
not tgif, another liberal blogger, melanie mattson of just a bump in the beltway, has died. details at skippy.
ThymeZone
BTW, I am getting the same Google intercept on the adblaster that PJM hooks to, that Rome reported earlier.
PJM has always been the most awful big-site ad-feed contraption I have to deal with on a regular basis, but this just takes it to a new level. The people running PJM appear to me to have no respect at all for the audience they supposedly want to attract. They will allow any hairball of junk to be whored through their ad apparatus. I have been setting my browser not to download pictures in order to make the downloads tolerable for BJ access. Is PJM stuck in 1996? That was the last time I saw this kind of stuff on the web.
Whattup?
nightjar
This year the party ID has shifted so much from repub to dem and independents — together with left leaning indies now identiying as dems, it has thrown the whole weighting of polls into flux. I doubt anyone has a good handle on the paradyne shift in electorate currently happening.
Davebo
Are you sure you didn’t mean Paradigm shift? Because for a second there I thought I’d learned a new word on BJ. So new none of the online dictionaries had caught on yet.
nightjar
somtine I no spill so good, and are lazy for guggle.
John Cole
Speaking of Paradigms, I bought a pair of Paradigm speakers in 1992, and they still sound amazing hooked up to my near 20 year old Adcom amp and Preamp. I have that as my bedroom stereo system, and they still sound great. Solid purchases.
ThymeZone
There is a job for you in the McCain campaign …….
Just learn to call it “the guggle” and you are in like Flynn.
montysano
Delia says:
I’m OK with KO (he’s been a bit over the top lately), but he shouldn’t feel that he needs to rush back. Another week of Rachel would suit me just fine.
So…….. our little shitweasel of an Attorney General here in Alabama likes him some man-love? It’s been a shitty week (the Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae thing is freakin’ me out), but if this is true………. tequila! Straight w/ a squeeze of lime and some salt, I think.
It’s just gotta be true. I know it is. Tequila!
nightjar
I wants to be McCain’s brain.
BethanyAnne
Aiming for a cameo?
montysano
Infinity speakers and a vintage Luxman receiver here. At the moment, Stevie Wonder’s “Innervisions” on vinyl.
For any other vinyl fans, this little thing is the shit.
MarkusB
You all have a good one tonight.
Thanks, John; you, too.
Enjoy your roast been sammiches, everyone! ;-)
L. Ron Obama
Hey, that Pandora thingy is neat.
The Thinking Man's Mel Torme
YES on the Adcom. The big stereo store in town where I went to school had an annual scratch and dent sale and I practically stole a demo unit GFA-545 and GFP-555 nearly 20 years ago, and they still stomp the hell out of anything contemporary. The Paradigms were pretty good also, but I was always more of a Klipsch man. I’ve got a pair of 15-year-old Chorus IIs on my main system that are still going strong. I did have to put my own grilles on the rear passive radiators as the cats are inexplicably attracted to them.
Hi-fi used to be so much more interesting. These days you’ve got the DSP monstrosities and the nut-bars trying to retrofit their I-Pods with tubes, with a vast wasteland in between.
Ted
Somehow I don’t think the Fedora that founded the POS is much up to speed on the newer stuff.
jake
Oh thank God. I was going into hypofascist sex scandal withdrawal.
I suppose I should feel sorry for this guy and all the other guys who a) Make a career out of HATE HATE HATING teh ghey; b) Get caught admiring the one eyed trouser snake.
I suppose…
Maybe later.
cain
You got the wrong dancing video, bub. What you want is
Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine!
cain
cain
hey.. what happened to my link?
Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine!!
Looked fine in the preview..
DIE BLOG DIE!
cain
Rome Again
Sorry to hear that. I’d hate to have to leave BJ because of this crap.
Halteclere
Most people no longer have an idea of what non-digitized music sounds like, or even know how to listen in a manner to discern the differeneces.
John Cole
Could someone explain this adblaster stuff? I don’t see anything, and I scan daily and have up to date everything.
nightjar
earlier I got directed to that Attack Site warning thing. Is that what your talking about?
Rome Again
John, I went to reload a page and was faced with a red backgrounded page that said I was blocked from the page. When I clicked on the “why was this page blocked” I was taken to a Google info page and copied the info and placed it above.
Ask TZ what he knows, he seems to understand more about this than I do.
cain
Pandora? PANDORA? sigh.
last.fm
Hope this works… If anybody wants a friend on there, I am ‘sramkrishna’. (there goes my anonymity..)
cain
Rome Again
yes
cain
I just got it too.. I wonder if you’re under a man in the middle attack..
cain
The Grand Panjandrum
You have a good’un, as well. I raise a glass to you and all my Balloon Juice compatriots. Cheers, one and all!
Just Some Fuckhead
Who knows these days. Teez, let it go. Focus on November. Every hysterical adware warning is a vote for McCain.
Krista
Hope everybody has a good weekend! Enjoy, and relax! Husband brought me a beer tonight when I got home at 11pm, and I was too tired to drink it.
(Posting from Day 2 of the international nuclear disarmament conference, and starting to get a little worn around the edges.)
ThymeZone
Well, PJM is a switchbox, they basically hang redirects on page views that go out to adblasters, sites that are basically advertising engines, and grab ad content per some subscription agreement of some kind. Basically PJM is just the wholesaler, and you are the retailer. PJM gets its ad content from providers that are in the adblasting business, they host and otherwise manage the ad content and feed it out to the consumers.
That’s an oversimplified and flawed description because I am not in that business and don’t know the details. But anyway, now there is this mommie-intercept at work that scans these ad engines and rates them according to some toxicity scale. If we take their warning at face value, PJM’s supplier is hosting ad content that has a high level of toxicity (malware of some kind) and they are providing an unsolicited warning to consumers. What the angle is for them to do this, I don’t know yet. Maybe demi knows, he is quite knowledgeable in these areas. Where is he when we need him? Off trolling somewhere …..
It’s sort of like your radio station is transmitting content from a network, including their ads which are coming from another network. And nobody is vetting the ad content for bad (obscene, or otherwise unwanted) material.
You don’t have the ability to vet this material, and PJM may not either. But they can have it done, and they can lobby (or force) their ad suppliers to clean up their act.
Personally, I am in favor of this sort of scanning and reporting. There is so much toxic stuff out there on the tubes, it’s time for a crackdown. I do not like the local-antivirus screen as the model for a happy net. It’s like acting credit card users to be responsible for credit theft. The problem lies with the shitty system that we use, not with our inability to prevent theft out here in consumerland. Let the providers clean up the streets. They are the ones making all the money, let them earn it.
Dennis - SGMM
And to you, as well as all of the others here.
The Thinking Man's Mel Torme
Well, I’m a long way from agreeing with that statement. I’ve had a CD player since 1983 and I’m not going back. Since I couldn’t (and can’t) afford a Linn or Sota or whatever-the-hell-that-one-with-the-four-ton-granite-base-was turntable, I quickly became sick of rumble, wow and flutter, microphony, LAST formulae and their many applications, and all the other quasi-Victorian rituals of LP playback. I guess that makes me a Philistine, but when an avocation requires effort approaching one’s work, it is work, and ceases for yrs. trly. to be enjoyable. I’m definitely not on board with lossy compression formats, but the appeal of pure analog eludes me.
ThymeZone
Here is an example of an adblaster, drumming up business.
All those shitty ads you put up with all day? They are an industry, and this is the industry’s brochure.
These providers are shitmongers, so you are peering into hell when you go there.
Bob In Pacifica
The heat wave is breaking here, but the freezer is still loaded with juice bars, ice cream sandwiches and creamsicles.
And I found out tonight that the Rocky Fellers’ “Killer Joe” was about Killer Joe Piro, who gave dance lessons to Ray Bolger, Jackie Kennedy and the Duke of Windsor.
Thelonious
Incertus,
I loves me some Zatarain’s crab boil in a fresh batch of boiled crawfish, but the best packaged jambalaya is Oak Grove. Hard to find outside of the Pelican State, but just outstanding with some Andouille sausage and one or more Blackened Voodoos.
montysano
Well Mel, one man’s “quasi-Victorian ritual” is another man’s fun 8-) It’s funny; my 20 year old son just bought a turntable, as have several of his friends. Many new release are now coming out on vinyl.
I’m not anti-digital; I’ve got tons of digital music. But analog, for all its PITA factor, sounds much better to my ears. Besides, rolling a joint on a CD case just sucks.
jake
You’re a bit early. We haven’t reached the point where the majority of the population grew up post-analog.
Does analog sound “realer” than digital? Sure. (I also recall early CDs of analog recordings being fairly nasty.) But digital sounds better than nothin’.
Dennis - SGMM
Early CD’s were made from masters optimized on an equalization curve that emphasized treble and de-emphasized bass in the recording. This was part of the jiggery pokery necessary to compensate for the mechanical characteristics of vinyl playback equipment but it sucked for digital.
I prefer the sound of vinyl through a tube amp but I suspect that’s attributable to my having grown up with that sound, including the slew rate to which tubes are subject.
jnfr
I’m dealing with a very stubborn cat with a bladder infection who refuses pills and is forcing us to pretty much tie him down and force medication on him. It’s a terrible way to spend your time, and let’s not even think about the vet bills, which were considerable.
zuzu's petals
Saw a really nice movie the other night:
The Visitor
Two snaps up.
Conservatively Liberal
Use a towel to keep your kitty under control. I had a cat that had a medication problem, and he was a monster to deal with. I decided to roll him up in a towel so only his head was sticking out. Once the pill was in his mouth, I would massage his throat and down it went. Then I would unroll him and he would stalk away, indignant. All I cared was that neither of us were bleeding or bruised…lol!
He survived until the ripe old age of 16, so it couldn’t have been that bad. ;)
I shot my primer coat on my guitar tonight, and I am happy that it turned out perfect! Getting that 2K (catalyzed) primer to lay down well is the foundation for a primo paint job. Nasty stuff (isocyanate polymer hardener), but worth the hassle. Sherwin-Williams’ Ultra 7000 2K paint system isn’t cheap, but the results are top notch.
Brachiator
Actually, quite a lot of people do have an idea of what real music sounds like. All it requires is going to a concert hall to listen to real human beings make real music.
I’ve gone from listening to “audiophiles” argue over tube vs transistor to now listening to them argue about analog vs digital (or lossless vs compressed audio files).
Throughout it all, one truth remains: the worst of the most dedicated audiophiles typically have terrible taste in music. On the other hand, the average dog probably has incredibly sophisticated ears. But you don’t see them making a big deal about it.
Thomas Edward Theadore
Gad you are pathetic.
Run out the old James Brown dance YouTube.
This one is better-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SiqmoZq47I
And don’t be all,”I forgot to post his link, its in moderation”, you putz.
I expect you to be downtown filming the Ron Paul March On DC. Otherwise you are just some hump in WVa.
Thomas Edward Theadore
Every time i look at your webpage i give money to someone. Probably not you.
Must be wonderful to be a tool, eh?
Thomas Edward Theadore
Fuck that noise, ‘Mean’ Gene Okerlund is the greatest “Gene”.
Thomas Edward Theadore
I too am a fan of making fun of people who don’t listen to “real” music, why just the other day John was linking to a crap Dead video.
I don’t have a dog, but if i did, he’d probably covered his ears and left the room for that shit.
Digital Amish
It appears that Tony Snow won’t be writing a tell-all book. Dead at 53.