We upgraded to the new version of WordPress, and are going to give it a test run before migrating to the new server. The site will be re-designed in the near future (I have already been in talks with the designer).
For now, the comments have no borders. You will just have to deal with it for now, and let’s all hope that Mark Krikorian and Michelle Malkin don’t hear a rumor about open borders and freak out.
*** Update ***
My brother just saw a bald eagle in WV, which is really odd. I have never seen one.
Comrade jnfr
I don’t know why, but your post column now scrolls way off my screen to the left, as it used to do when someone left an unembedded link. Could you set your middle column width to a percentage rather than a fixed width? Or something to make it more readable.
Dr. Squid
Funnier than anything in the McCain-Obama /SNL debate skit. Although there were kneejerk conservative complaints about them being biiiiiiiased.
t jasper parnell
My question is: is this change we can believe in?
SGEW
This isn’t change, it’s more of the same. It’s change you can xerox. It’s change you can block quote.
We are bitter, and we cling to our WordPress errors and our comment borders.
SGEW
I’ve seen three so far, all in North Carolina (for some reason). There’s apparently one in my neighborhood (truth! in Manhattan, no less), but I’ve yet to see it.
They’re fracking amazing animals. Much bigger, much more . . . well . . . regal than you might have thought. Extraordinary creatures.
Terrible national icon, though. I would have preferred the humble turkey, as Franklin suggested.
Joshua Norton
Did John McCain help “negotiate” the new servers? That would explain I have to scroll sideways across a screen and a half to read a whole sentence. Or are we using Microsoft logic and just calling everything that goes wrong a “feature”?.
Just wondering….
Scott H
I’m not that hard to please.
Quite an impressive new set of choices in formatting.
Scott H
Also, Potomac Eagle scenic railroad.
wvng
John, come to the eastern panhandle. More eagles every year out here. A few months ago we had one circle over our heads for about ten minutes as a farrier trimmed our donkey’s feet. Try riding the Potomac eagle through the Trough of the South Branch of the Potomac. That’s where their recovery began: http://www.potomaceagle.info/
TheFountainHead
John’s going into this HTML invasion without an exit strategy!
SGEW
All he needs to do is declare victory, and withdraw without defeat. What could go wrong?
Joshua Norton
Sure there is. Ctrl-Alt-Delete, as usual.
Dan
Blogroll is gone.
Comrade Jake
Anyone catch Johnny Drama on ABC’s “This Week” this morning? I guess he had a little meltdown, and still seems to be full speed ahead on asshole?
I didn’t catch it, just saw comments to that effect.
Leo
“been in talks with the designer”?
Were the discussions frank and constructive? Have you reached an agreement in principle? Have you achieved a workable framework.
Comrade Napoleon
Is there somewhere to learn how all the buttons work?
zzyzx
We saw one yesterday. We went to the desert side of WA and both an eagle and a vulture were flying overhead.
It really is bizarre to go from green green green to desert in about 60 miles.
Rick Taylor
Thanks for upgrading, John.
Paul Krugman’s most recent column voices the conclusions I had come to reading the various experts. The crises is real, and ideally the solution would be to buy good stock in the banks, not bad mortgages. Unfortunately in America, unlike in Switzerland, the free market is almost perfect and ideal, so this solution is impossible here, politically. It’s possible that Dodd’s plan is a distatsteful but acceptable compromise, getting us equity in the banks through the back door, as a condition of buying up the bad paper; Krugman says there’s no way to tell until we see it.
SGEW
If there isn’t a YouTube, it doesn’t exist.
Dan Munz
That wasn’t a bald eagle. That was Barack Obama, taking his ornithological form for the long voyage from Fredericksburg to Detroit. That’s shape-shifting we can believe in.
Joshua Norton
Of course. I read a write-up of “An American Carol” where the reviewer said it was like one long animated Mann Coulter screed. The comment section was filled with the usual misspelled snarks about how Libs want everything their way and can’t take the truth about themselves.
This from a group that thought the Fox Comedy Half Hour was political gold. Right wing “comedy” has all the comedic nuance of a bad pro wrestler screaming into a microphone.
SGEW
What does Howard Dean have to do with it?
Comrade PeterJ
Hmm?
Dennis - SGMM
I did. McCain dodged answering substantive questions by implying that everything was a matter of characterization. He must have said words to the effect of, “It’s a free country and you can say what you want about that…” a half-dozen times.
TheFountainHead
The blogroll was an unfortunate casualty, but you go into redesign with the html you have, not the html you wish you had.
t jasper parnell
John McCain knows which button to push on day one; that’s experience you can cower in fear of.
Rick Taylor
We’ve all been making fun of Palin, but I don’t think McCain has any more idea of what’s going on regarding the bail out than she does. Mark Kleiman has a video.
Libby
I’m liking the upgrade so far. The unbordered comments are a little weird because run off my screen but being able to access the blog at all and the loading speed is tres fabulous. For a while there I was beginning to think you changed the name of this place to WordPress Error.
SteveinSC
When I was living in Virginia, we used to go to the Williamsburg Occasion for the Arts in the
restored area. About 7 or 8 years ago, while stolling through the exhibits on a
fine October day, crystal clear, we looked up to see a bald eagle pair directly overhead.
Magnificent. Along the Colonial Parkway, we used to see a nesting pair right by the road.
In 2003 I took my nieces to Norfolk Airport, and while waiting, went into the botanical
gardens. While there, a bald eagle flew right into the tall pine just above our heads.
A very large and dramatic bird to say the least, however vain. The recovery of these
birds along the Chesapeake has been astonishing.
Rook
Because the old version rarely let me comment or trackback, this is simply a test to see if your site works more efficiently and quickly.
Rook
Okay, that went well. I even managed to send a trackback from 2 days ago. Sorry if it is irritating to get two day old trackbacks.
It’s working well!
Krista
All those new buttons…
do
I
dare
try
them?
Yes
, yes I
do.
Krista
Hm. The funky new buttons work in preview. My text was doing all sorts of wacky stuff. But it doesn’t show up on the actual post. Ah well. I wasn’t meant to have that kind of power anyway.
ThymeZone
Oh fine, there’s a War on Terror going on and we have open borders.
I don’t think that’s a proper example to set in these dangerous times. What if we comment recklessly and just fall off the edge?
jk John, good luck with the next phase of the BJ Bailout and War On Technology.
JGabriel
Dennis – SGMM:
Here we all thought Palin was being kept under wraps to learn how to handle the press, and instead it’s apparently McCain who’s taking cues on how to handle the press from Palin.
.
Comrade Ivan Fookinov (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Headline News!
Something happened.
Where? Don’t ask me, I just report the news.
PC
And I bet you didn’t even set preconditions. Appeaser!
Alan
I hope the person who redesigns the site takes into account those of us who zoom the text size. So many sites are ruined for me due to no consideration for zoom acuity. For example, I won’t read “Republicans for Obama” or “Politico” for this reason.
Dennis - SGMM
Real technologists would add a browser-based beer dispenser.
Just sayin’…
Comrade Jake
JOHNNY DRAMA!
Comrade Jake
Well, that didn’t work.
Comrade Jake
Heh. Palin’s favorables have now slipped to negative 10.
Ouch.
lampwick
I think I saw some illegals making a dash from the Amazon ad.
Dennis - SGMM
Palin will get annihilated in the debate and then step down. McCain will reluctantly accept and then name another VP while patting himself on the back for putting country first. My money’s on Huckabee, both for his populism and his appeal to the fundies.
Comrade Stooleo
Shotgun weddings of the rich and famous
Joshua Norton
Anyone who’s watched an episode of Bridzeilla has already seen what the Palin wedding would look like. Complete with the drunken hubby at the bachelor party, the crying bride because her hair is all wrong and her gown doesn’t fit, and the screaming mother putting the florist and caterer through hell.
Seen it all before.
cain
Why would they think we would be interested in seeing a ‘teen’ wedding? Good grief, didn’t we agree that teen weddings are generally not good (I don’t care.. yet.. no kids. ;)
cain
AkaComrade
Bald eagles are great with barbecue sauce.
kommrade jakevich
I’ve seen bald eagles up above Harper’s Ferry. You need to get out more.
Fingers crossed for a crash-free version of BJ.
slip
ABC has the interview up.
Comrade Jake
Obama at +8 in Gallup, +6 in Rasmussen. Giddyup.
Annette
NOBR is actaully for “no break” (do not insert a line break at this point).
The rest of the items, except for footnote (something special for this plugin), are fairly standard HTML tags. Any good refrence site will be able to explain the majority of them.
Current issues: lots of deprecated tags in the template files. This is likely what is causing the categories, blogrolls, and archives lists not to appear. The border issue is definitely a template or stylesheet issue.
Polish the Guillotines (formerly FLILF Hunter)
I hear John McCain is suspending his campaign until the borders return.
Annette
Serves me right for not “actually” looking at the preview and catching my typo.
HTML tutorial here: http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/
Comrade Jake
I just watched Obama on Face the Nation, from this morning. The contrast with McCain couldn’t be sharper. He’s in full command of the details. He sounds like a guy who is POTUS, as opposed to some Jackoff who just thinks he deserves to be one.
Dennis - SGMM
If you watch the interview note McCain’s response to Palin’s statments about Pakistan incursions at last night’s campaign kegger.
McCain doesn’t speak for the McCain campaign, Palin doesn’t speak for Palin. Instead of “Country First” it should be “Who’s on First?”
Comrade PeterJ
Says it all…
gbear
John, if you come to St. Paul during the wintertime, you can see bald eagles from across the street from the Excel center. When the river is ice-free (which is most of the time), bald eagles settle in and have been wintering right across from the city for quite a few years now. A friend has had them land in his front yard. It’s incredibly cool.
If you really want a treat, you drive south down the Mississippi River to Lake Pepin and the city of Wabasha (home of Grumpy Old Men). On a good day you can see hundreds of eagles. On a bad day you see dozens. I wouldn’t want to be an outdoor cat in Wabasha.
камрад комисaр Xenos
FiveThirtyEight is already showing a significant swing in electoral votes, even thought the popular vote margin is pretty narrow. If the popular vote expands, this could be a blow-out.
Chuck Todd and Co. are claiming that there won’t be significant changes in the popular vote after October 15, which I guess is due to the debates wrapping up at that point. Given the turmoil we are already seeing I don’t know if an October surprise could shift things much anyway… if independents are moving already with six weeks to go, what would it take?
Wot, no preview?
srv
############################################
# Holy crap, what are all these tags for? #
############################################
Tony J
WTF?
So his defence of Palin is to claim that you can’t believe anything he says unless it’s actually in a policy document? And if he does say anything that that isn’t in that document, it’s okay, that’s just his opinion, and shouldn’t be considered relevant to any questions about what his future policies might be?
Shorter McCain – “Don’t you fucking judge me, you c#*t! POW!!”
gbear
How can you have negative positives? Shouldn’t that cause spontaneous combustion?
cain
Anybody see this, 300 economists trying to tell the govt to slow down;
link is here
cain
JGabriel
Dennis – SGMM:
I would expect it to be Huckabee too, for the same reasons, but Huck’s already said he ain’t interested. Apparently, Huck’s already got some contracts lined up for broadcast commentary, and they pay better.
That said, Huck might still take it, if McCain called upon him, but I kind of doubt it. It’s not as if Huck’s rich enough that the money doesn’t mean anything to him, or as purely a public servant as Biden.
.
Gus
What gbear said. Eagles are as common as robins in MN (slight exaggeration). If you’re a birder, and you like raptors Hawk Ridge in Duluth in the fall is a must. You can hang out for an hour and see hundreds of hawks, eagles, and turkey vultures.
Elroy's Lunch
If there are no borders how will I know if Putin is rearing his head over a comment’s airspace?
Maybe the new version will have some land-boundaries with Canada instead.
slip
Obama on Face The Nation up.
Tony J
Oh, I frigged that up. But you get the drift.
srv
Comrade Jake
It simply means more people view her unfavorably than favorably. But she can still see Russia from her house!
JGabriel
Johnny Drama (as quoted by TOny J above):
Shorter McCain: We didn’t intend for anyone to take Sarah Palin seriously.
.
Dennis - SGMM
Sheesh. Palin’s positives are just so insanely high that they are simply in the process of lapping Joe Biden’s positives.
srv
It’s a big head
Laura W
But the most important point from McInsane this morn is that IT’S ALL OBAMA’S FAULT BECAUSE HE WOULD NOT DO ONE TOWN HALL A WEEK FOR 52 WEEKS LIKE I WANTED TO! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I thought of a serious question in the shower for you very smart persons at this site:
What would happen if something were to happen to McShame, rendering him unable to carry on as the nominee? Specifically, what would the Rethugs do? How would they choose a new one? Would s/he be allowed to choose own VP and ditch Palin?
It could happen, you know, and as we’ve seen, it probably will.
Watched the SNL skit finally and howled at the crack about the UN being so many foreigners. Must watch again.
srv
Joshua, your sell Alaska to Russia for $700B snark got me 81 karma at reddit.
Kali's Little Sister
RE: Eagles
Your comment makes me recognize what a gift rarity can be.
First, I have to get something out of the way. I must confess I lived in Alaska for 9 years. There, I said it.
In Alaska, eagles are a common sight. In fact, there are places in Alaska were eagles are borderline nuisances. In some towns they are just big birds that are positioned on every lamppost that mess up your car.
The only time I ever mentioned outside of Alaska, I got such a shocked reaction–like I had just urinated on the flag before setting it alight.
Unless the Evangeliban get elected and reprogram me, living in Alaska has forever made me see eagles as big, pretty cool birds. But birds nonetheless.
Does thinking this mean I don’t love America?
wasabi gasp
I slapped together a quick greasemonkey hack to fix the comments.
I tried posting it, but the comment filter didn’t like that so much. You can get it here.
t jasper parnell
And Canada, why does everyone forget Canada? After all it is one of the two countries which comprise Palin’s
Dennis - SGMM
McCain, October 9th, 2008:
steelhead
Bald eagles are commonplace here in Idaho and I did not realize that West Virginia had hospitable habitat. Who knew?
SGEW
Boy howdy. McCain is toast.
He referenced Teddy Roosevelt, what, five times? Is he going to dress up in “Rough Rider” gear for the next debate?
He couldn’t refer to the new proposal, because he has to “see the details.” Well, why don’t you READ that shit, John McCain!? WTF is wrong with you?! Is it just because you can’t use the internets?!?
The only thing he could say about Palin was that she was “exciting.” He was almost giddy when talking about her, about how “happy” he was that she was on the ticket. Like a twisted little boy. Creeeeeeepy.
At the end, he referred to himself in the third person. “People know who John McCain is,” said John McCain. Dolerific.
This guy cannot win the election. No way. I’m callin’ it here and now.
Comrade Jake
Shorter Johnny Drama: “Forget what my VP said. Have you seen her tits?”
Dennis - SGMM
The Rough Rider gear is reserved for those special moments with Lindsay Graham.
slip
Here is part 2 of Obama on Face The Nation.
gbear
What Gus said. The birds don’t want to fly over Lake Superior so they all come down along the north shore until the lake ends at Duluth, then a lot of them wind up following the Mississippi south.
Annette, thanks for your work and that link to what the shortcuts do. I bookmarked it so that in no time I’ll be aware of all internet traditions.
redbeardjim
Very nice and fast.
I used to live in Moline IL, and we would occasionally see eagles on the little islands under the Bridge to
NowhereIowa. More exciting for me was the time I was living in Boston and saw one of the local peregrines kill a pigeon.Svensker
I’m getting agoraphobia in here. Is that an oxymoron?
NRO is fun today. They have PROOF, PROOF, I tells ya, that Palin is actually really really good in interviews, if only the press weren’t such big meanies and if only McCain’s dumb campaign people weren’t HOLDING HER BACK!!!!
Annette
Changed some deprecated tags for the blogroll. Checking for unnecessary repeats of the link categories…if there after this comment, need to check for duplications in the template codes.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Things are going great, Annette — thanks! One thing: right now, the right hand column is a little too wide, even on my 12 x 10 resolution, so I have to scroll about 40 pixels to see the whole blogroll.
gbear
I’ve seen pictures of that. It looked like pigeons or gulls had been replaced with bald eagles. In St. Paul, they seem to be taking some of the territory that crows had covered, and it’s a little disconcerting seeing them going after roadkill rather than catching fish in of the river.
Fun fact about eagles: Once they sink their tallons into something, they can’t just let go. If an eagle misjudges the size of the fish he’s grabbing and it’s too big for him to lift, he can’t get away. If the fish dives, the eagle will be taken down too and drown.
JGabriel
Annette:
I know there’s a Palin joke there somewhere, but I’d rather leave the special needs kid out of it.
.
Annette
Should have repaired the weird link list issues with this one…
cain
You know I kept thinking about that 300 economists and all I can think about is Spartans vs Turks. 300 guys vs an industry + congress. They are going to fail.
cain
dslak
No, Tagg is one of Romney’s kids.
Dennis - SGMM
And Mitt’s the one who was deprecated.
Martin
Eagle problems in Homer
gbear
Click the link I gave and then go look at the photos from the rally. Go look at photo number 17. This is how someone in AK feels about Sarah Palin. OMFG, what an image.
The Moar You Know
If you’re gonna go down, go down your way. It’ll be Lieberman, just like he wanted in the first place. And he would be lucky to clear 20% of the popular vote if he does.
“America’s Most Despised Ticket: McCain/Lieberman”
Scott H
Uh, yeah. Why was McCain hanging out with Lieberman when he was supposed to be riding to the rescue of the world economy? Maybe TMZ should be on this story.
Dennis - SGMM
Here’s a link directly to the image gbear referenced above. It’s worth a click. Damn!
Comrade Va Highlander
My parents have a farm in western Virginia, just a few miles from the WVa state line. I’ve seen bald eagles there many times over the years. A juvenile spent most of one summer sitting in an oak tree on the hill above the house.
The Other Steve
We see bald eagles all the time here in Minnesota. You have to go down by the river, they like to build nests in the tall trees and fly along the bluffs next to the river.
This is obviously proof that Minnesota is favored by God.
Comrade PeterJ
Hopefully McCain will do his best to piss his voters off, like replacing Palin with Lieberman.
Pissed off voters that will stay home.
How about a veto proof majority in the Senate? :)
Comrade PeterJ
I’m stupid.
filibuster proof :)
D-Chance.
Ah! My boxes! My beautiful boxes! Come BACK to me!
jcricket
My parents conservative friends (these are all people in their late 60s or 70s actually groaned out loud when McCain closed on the remark about being a POW. Even these people are tired of McCain and he’s there age. They all said he seemed cranky.
These are not Democrats. Not liberals, not progressives. Not even people who call themselves moderates. But they all think Palin is a complete mockery of the VP position and McCain is a cranky, bitter old man. The idea that Sarah “don’t ask me any questions and I won’t tell you no lies” Palin is one cancerous lesion or “episode at the wheel” away from controlling our nukes (their terms, not mine) frightens them to death.
One of these people’s 93 year old grandmother was also in the room. She’s fairly liberal, very well traveled, still has her mental faculties, just can’t hear to well or get around much anymore. She actually said “This country survived the great depression, a great war, but i don’t think we can survive if mccain is president”.
I will repeat what I’ve said a bunch of times. The racists, bigots, sexists, creationists, jew-haters, homophobes and immigrant bashers love what the Republican party is becoming. Everyone else? Not so much. And, fortunately, everyone else is 70% of the population. Some still vote Republican because their local candidate is not a nut-job (decreasingly so, but still), and others out of tribal affiliation only. But none of them think “Gee, this Republican party is on the right track and represents my world view). Soon, if you do not belong to the KKK, MinuteMen or a right-wing Mega Church, you will be denied entry to the Republican tent.
jcricket
First of all, holy crap with the buttons for commenting Batman. I am having a “Paradox of Choice” moment here.
It’s the net favorable/unfavorable graph. So if you have 50% favorables, but 50% unfavorables, you are at 0. Palin has more unfavorables than favorables (think 50% unfavorable, 40% favorable) and trending downward.
And if this were reality, Pres. Bush and VP Cheney having the lowest/longest sustained negative ratings in the history of ratings, coupled with McCain and Palin being less popular than a sharp poke in the gut with a rusty stick, would doom Republicans to electoral defeat.
But sadly, the negative characterizations of Democrats have caused deep seated (unwarranted) fear about voting for Democrats. As Obama tries to point out, regulations aren’t inherently bad (or good). Taxes aren’t either. So too for all the conservative boogey-men about government. But Republicans have largely succeeded in painting the Democrats as people who steal your money, allow black people to rape your wife/daughter and let the darkies with AIDS into this country.
Fear sells, at least for a while.
KRK
My county in western WA is awash in bald eagles, particularly in the winter. This summer when the grass field around my house was cut, I had a bald eagle the size of a turkey hanging out on the top of the tree in front of my house and cruising the field for rodents. I couldn’t convince my cat that danger might come from above, so I just kept him in for a few days until the eagle moved on.
RoonieRoo
I had a talk with my boss who is a Republican the other day. He is very destressed over McCain/Palin. I told him that as a Democrat, I’m asking him to please get involved in his party and help bring it back to sanity. I truly do believe that we need both sides to be healthy as parties for the good of our nation.
I’m literally begging every conservative I know to get involved in the GOP and fix it!
Comrade Jake
There are a couple of good posts up over at C&L worth checking out.
First, John Kerry goes on Fox and once again demonstrates why he is (surprisingly, I’d add) one of Obama’s best surrogates.
Then, Dick Morris tells Hannity that he thinks Obama won the debate, and Hannity’s head explodes. He just spouts off on how Obama only has “book knowledge”.
I remember people complaining about folks only being “book-smart” a long time ago, as in, when I was in high school. Most of the people happily disparaging book smarts back then are now selling computers are Circuit City. I guess the others are working for Fox News.
jcricket
We see them all the time in Seattle as well, and ours look healthier. Plus our state is near Canada, so our eagles have more foreign policy experience.
Kali's Little Sister
Thank you Martin. I’m saving the link as evidence against the haters. Some people just can’t handle the truth.
jcricket
I completely disagree with this. Throw ’em an anvil.
I do not believe we are anywhere near a 1-party democracy, considering that 40% of the people (nationally) are still planning to vote for McCain/Palin and there are plenty of states with Republican majorities. There is no way a “sane” conservative (if that’s even something that makes pragmatic sense) should think they can help Republicans from within.
Remember, Republicans reacted to losses in 2006 by further moving the party to the right (see Palin). And I suspect the same will happen again after this loss. Sane conservatives, like Log Cabin Republicans, simply prop up an illegitimate regime.
When Republicans stop pushing a clearly incompetent, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, government-hating agenda, then there’s a party to build up. When “sane” conservatives stop having to lie about their views (see Dino Rossi, Dave Reichert, Smith in Oregon) – then there’s a chance for sane conservatives.
The Other Steve
Hey, we’re near Canada too! And Wisconsin. Two foreign countries right on our border.
gbear
But MN actually pokes into Canada. Take that, 54° 40′ north latitude.
Polish the Guillotines (formerly FLILF Hunter)
Satire still lives.
KRK
This is encouraging and hopefully a sign of more like it to come in places where it will have more of an electoral impact: Conservative newspaper in northern CA endorses a Democrat for president for the first time in 72 years.
h/t Down with Tyranny
Polish the Guillotines (formerly FLILF Hunter)
Interesting. The frackin’ SF Examiner endorsed McRage & Caribou Barbie.
gbear
Yes it does. :D
Clor
I waded through Free Republic (yeah, I know) to see the reaction to the most recent Palin interview. For some reason they seem to think that the Dems are unhappy with Biden and are expecting him to step down any minute now.
I just don’t know where they get this.
jcricket
Ah, but we have the only piece of American land that’s completely surrounded by water and Canada and not otherwise connected to the US. From here we can see any french-english-speaking, universal-healthcare having, gay-marriage-advocating elitists from our Northern aggressors*
So take that, you curling-loving hosers!
* Aggressors because McCain said we get 1/2 our oil from hostile sources, when in fact 1/3 of it comes from Mexico and Canada, who last time I checked, were at least moderately friendly with the US.
RoonieRoo
I suppose that is what I am afraid of. The modern GOP and their continuing slide frankly scares the pants off me. I get irritated with my conservative friends that are doing what you describe and propping it up. But something is different this year when I talk to them. They wll never go democrat and I don’t expect them too but I would rather see them be involved and actually do something responsible and participate for their true fiscally conservative beliefs.
But maybe you are right. Maybe fixing the GOP has completely slid out of their grasp at this point. That’s rather depressing to some degree.
Phoenix Woman
The deal with the debate is that it happened in the context of the GOP’s financial house of cards falling down, and the need to pick up the pieces therefrom. With things pretty grim and getting grimmer, people weren’t in the mood for clowning and smirking. They wanted to see proof that someone on that stage in Oxford was a responsible adult capable of making command decisions. What the blogosphere “bite his throat out!” crowd saw as boring, the majority of undecideds saw as exactly what it was: Calm, reassuring competence.
By the way, Bonddad nicely fillets the GOP bullshit about the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act somehow causing something that didn’t get started until after the Republicans took over Congress. He explains that the CRA only covers banks and thrifts, and that 3/4 of the bad loans were made by entities not covered by the CRA — a situation that has only been possible in the last decade or so, with the GOP Congress’ and Bush’s push to destroy the banking safeguards put into place by FDR.
RoonieRoo
damn blockquotes are lying in the preview.
jcricket
The same place they got the idea that the reason they lost in 2006 was that they weren’t conservative (whatever that means) enough. Same place they got the idea that Cheney and Bush are going to be revered as a brilliant leaders ahead of their time some day. The same place they got the idea that Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame were going to be indicted.
I swear, it really is like they live on Bizzaro World (see Superman).
Comrade Peter J
Sarah Palin: The Movie.
Some things you would rather see that a cinema than in reality.
jcricket
As “futile” as it is, I’d rather have them stay home or vote Libertarian if they can’t vote Democrat. Hasten the massive losses to the point where the big donors threaten to abandon unless some sane people are run by the Republicans.
Either that, or you get a “true” conservative party in something like the Libertarians and Republicans become the big government paleo/social-con party.
Neither would win anything at the national level, but it would be an honest split.
bago
KRK lives in Skagit!
Comrade Grand Panjandrum
Planet Freeper exists in another reality. But it really is quite an entertaining read. Maybe they’ve had their lives changed by finding a Coca Cola bottle in the middle of the desert. Who knows? But they are always good for a belly laugh.
KRK
‘Tis true.
Comrade Peter J
fixed.
Martin
Here’s the gallery for the artist who did the Palin/Statue of Liberty work. That went around maybe a week ago?
Stuck in the Fun House
Beginning with signing of the 60’s civil rights laws, and then jumpstarted by Nixon’s Southern Strategy (would have happened without the SS) it was inevitable that the Republican Party would eventually become the Southern or Southeastern party. Meaning, that the wingnuttery we see today which is dominating the GOP and driving out moderate repubs, is nothing more than a slow osmosis of Deep South ideology, as it has evolved over time. The religion in government, harsh penal codes, war war war, and a kind of modern soft white supremacy come from the politicians thru the people of that part of the country and they have the numbers to get their way. This is why wingnuts seem to be getting crazier by the day IMHO. the ones with half a brain see the writing on the wall of the GOP becoming a permanent regional minority party, and knowing they have to do something, but what . Instead, they get more wingnutty by the day, pining for the second Reagan coming, which isn’t. The GOP is dead as it exists today, and probably for some time to come with southern wingnuts ruling the roost. Unless of course, democrats fuck up so badly, it will give them a second chance. Which isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
gbear
Oops. Busted by the second paragraph in your Wiki link:
So just go back to sippin’ that $5 latte, j.
El Cid
I think you’re going to have a huge split in the GOP by ideology and region. Outside the South and certain Western areas, they will see the HUGE incentive to being less crazy, more moderate, old fashioned business conservatives.
In the South and West, they’re likely to remain crazy ultra-rightists and move even more in that direction.
kommrade jakevich
Wow. The Sarah Palin as Ledger’s Joker was fairly fucking brutal as well. I don’t know much about Alaskans but what I do know told me sending McPOW’s lawyers up there was a big ass mistake.
And 1,000 Alaskans. Isn’t that a fairly sizable chunk of the population?
JL
On ABC News this week, John McCain called his vice-presidential candidate a liar. It’s the only way to explain it. Now back to birds. A few years ago for a few weeks I had great horn owlets sit on a branch outside my kitchen window. They were puzzled because they were curious about me just as much as I was about them. When they first arrived I took the dog outside on a leash and they just kept watching. Then I saw a large shadow overhead and two great horned owls were over head. My 18 lb mutt would not of been a match.
Brachiator
Wow! I’m not sure whether to cheer the Record or to be worried, given some of their past endorsements.
I like what they said about the 1936 election.
But history totally bitchslapped their 1948 editorial
Imagine that! In 1948 they thought that Earl Warren would be a firm conservative adviser to President Dewey.
However, their endorsement of Obama is a thing of beauty.
The comments at the Record’s site are also interesting because they indicate that some committed Republicans are no longer willing to drink the Kool-Aid, especially when it costs $700 billion.
Brachiator
Arrgh!! Let me make the last part of my previous post more visually coherent.
The Record’s endorsement of Obama is a thing of beauty.
The comments at the Record’s site are also interesting because they indicate that some committed Republicans are no longer willing to drink the Kool-Aid, especially when it costs $700 billion.
Jon H
I wouldn’t be surprised if McCain booted Palin and replaced her with Cheney.
Dennis - SGMM
ABC is saying that the bailout legislation is finalized.
They state that the .pdf of the bill here is the final version. It is 110 pages long.
Stuck in the Fun House
Now we’re just waiting for the House wingnuts to appear from their crypt and give the word. Pelosi say’s at least half need to vote for it, or no dice. We’ve heard that kind of bravado before from our dem stalwarts.
Krista
Probably because a lot of Americans don’t think of Canada as actually being a foreign country.
True story: the husband was in New Zealand, and ran into an American tourist who was looking for a KFC. He said he didn’t know, and she asked him if he was American. He said, no, he’s Canadian. And she said “Oh well, that’s the same thing!”
I wonder what she would have said had she been mistaken for Canadian, and had then her own true nationality dismissed so flippantly?
камрад комисaр Xenos
The house GOP is completely screwed. If they vote for the bailout, then their base will murder them. If they vote against it, the independents will be driven away from the GOP for good. The free market fundamentalism has reached its armegeddon, and the good guys are losing, because the deregulation dogma is clearly what brought the crisis to a head.
Now they are camped out behind the double-doors, trying to find a way out, with the press waiting, waiting, waiting… for them to manage even a coherent statement of what their position is. This is delicious to watch.
Stuck in the Fun House
True. Shivering Americans
Dennis - SGMM
It will be interesting to see whether or not Senator Rictus Grin parachutes in to assert his born-again populism.
Napoleon
By the way, why is the time stamp always on Central Time, when John is not (nor am I, I am on Eastern).
Napoleon
I would be surprised of anything but that happens.
Stuck in the Fun House
It must be hell being a republican these days. Like the daily decision of whether to shit of go blind.
( hillbilly proverb)
PanAmerican
The Bald Eagle’s historical range was all of North American.
Government bans DDT and passes Endangered Species Act. Raptor populations recover. Go figure.
Tree hugging DFH’s and their “science”. Studying bear DNA?!? If God cared about bears, he wouldn’t have invented big game rifles.
Hyperion
jesus, you are simple-minded.
камрад комисaр Xenos
Maybe. Independents tend to vote their pocket-books, and to manufacture political justifications after the fact. We are still waiting to see the exact terms of the agreement, so it is a bit hard to argue specifics, but it looks to me that the House Republicans are facing a serious bit of cognitive dissonance here… unable to come out for or against the agreement worked out between the White House and the Congressional leadership from both parties.
If that is simple minded, why don’t explain what is going on?
Matt
I’ve got a secret: John McCain was POW.
New tags fun.
Matt
. . . or not. . . I take it the pre tag is disabled? Oh well, it’s probably for the best.
Stuck in the Fun House
Wow, I just now discovered the new tag bar has a dictionary function. Now which one corrects grammar, left out words, and stupid comments. Not that I’d need any of those, of course.
Dennis - SGMM
A seagull comment: fly through, shit on someone and fly on.
Here’s what I believe. This is not the best possible bill – it’s the best possible bill that could be arrived at forty days before a presidential election where one party has seen its dreams of a permanent majority turn into a rout. The $700 bn is a down payment, not the total because the financial structures that caused this may be too rickety for any realistic amount of money to save. We will have a recession, unemployment will hit 8-10% no matter what – the shit is already well on its way to the fan. If the House Republicans, with or without the goading of Senator Rictus Grin, play politics with this and delay it unreasonably the opprobrium will fall on them.
That may not be fair but then neither was their party’s systematic dismantling of the regulatory structures that kept this from happening for almost sixty years.
TheFountainHead
Holy crap, this is the third time today I’ve come here and not gotten a WordPress FAIL page. Unprecedented!
TheFountainHead
I’m afraid to touch any of the new html code we’ve been presented with. It smells like a trap.
Svensker
Well, yuh, but…they have to worry about whether Obama is left hanging out at the end of the branch with the Repukes sawing away, or whether he’s safely clustered on the other side. Even THEY can’t be stupid enough to leave him out there. Can they?
Comrade Jake
The new functionality looks like it’ll be fun, but I think providing the Balloon Juice community the opportunity to code TABLES might be an over-reach.
Товарищ НеинтересноСобака
The exact terms of the agreement are apparently here, but the site is flooded. I’ve just loaded it up.
Hmm….
Comrade General Stuck
Fortunately, the founders were wise in having the House initiate voting on bills like this. That way, if the House wingers try a bait and switch, the Senate can kill it, or bury it till after the election. But that wouldn’t stop them from trying something last minute to generate a talking point to run against dems for the House seats. I suspect that’s why our esteemed host said repeatedly that dems should just walk away from this pre election boondoggle. And I agree. You just can’t trust house wingnuts any further than you can throw them right now. Or probably anytime.
jcricket
You’re gonna believe that liberal smear site wikipedia?
Note: don’t tell me I sent you there, I’ll just tell you I didn’t, with a straight face. I have decided I am a Republican, and my own statements no longer apply to me. Or you are quoting me out of context. In fact, blockquote has a liberal bias, as does HTML – (sounds foreign, FWIW).
jcricket
This is the argument, I believe in Ruy Texiara’s “The Emerging Democratic Majority” (or whatever that book is called). That basically Republicans are wedded to a strategy that guarantees them permanent minority status unless they make, basically, a 180-degree course correction.
But the problem is they spent 30 years riling up a group of people who used to just stay home (very religious conservatives) because politics as considered “dirty”. Couple that with no other attempts to open the tent (hatred of gays, non-Christians, immigrants, etc. sort of shrinks the pool of voters willing to consider your party) and declining birth rates for white folks, and you get a shrinking party overall.
If they stop playing these wedge politics and return to the party of Goldwater (i.e. socially libertarian, fiscally conservative/small government) they will immediately lose every presidential election, probably forever. If the Democrats ever pass anything like universal healthcare, and the GOP opposes it, I predict at least 40 years in the wilderness again (see Social Security opposition in the 40s).
Honestly the best thing the GOP has done (I say this as someone who wants them to lose), besides shrinking their tent, wedding themselves to unstable end-timers, opposing very popular programs and becoming the war-hardon-party, is destroy their “farm system” (see NY Yankees). They have destroyed the future pool of candidates that would consider running as Republican. Tons of socially libertarian, fiscally conservative folks will run as Democrats, or simply not run anymore. Tons of people who think government has its place, even if they disagree with certain elements of the Democratic platform, will run as Democrats.
Like you said, you end up with the hardcore southern strategy believers (whether they live in the south or in totally white conservative rural areas elsewhere doesn’t matter). Sign me up for that Republican party.
iluvsummr
Looks like the republicans got their insurance option in and the Dems got the homeownership preservation and limits on executive compensation. I guess I needf to read the longer document to find out more about the “special inspector general” who will protect against waste, fraud, etc.
iluvsummr
That’s weird – the blockquote end-tag came after “abuse” and it looked fine when I previewed it. Oh well.
Brachiator
That’s funny. I’m an independent, but I rarely vote my pocket book, partly because I often see that both Democrats and Republicans have their heads up their butts with respect to economic and tax issues. Nor do I have much of a need to manufacture political justifications after the fact. Go figure.
The bill appears to be a done deal, even though no one has really convinced me that it is absolutely necessary.
After watching the 60 Minutes segment devoted to Paulson and the economic mess, I wondered why other countries were not involved in the bailout since the financial markets are global, not America Only.
On the other hand, despite the supposed liquidity crisis, multi-billion dollar deals continue to be made all over the place.
And both political parties seem willing to play with fire here, since public disapproval of the bailout plan continues to be high and goes across party lines. No matter how they try to … put lipstick on this pig … it looks as though the president and the Congress view the parasites that make up the investor class as delicate flowers that must be protected, while ordinary taxpayers are suckers who don’t even merit a few trickle down crumbs.
Gus
I was mistaken for a Canadian while in Amsterdam once. I took it as a compliment, though I did make the mistake of correcting her.