Paint it black.
Reader Interactions
37Comments
Comments are closed.
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.
Our messy unity will be our strength.
Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.
You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.
A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.
Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.
Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.
Giving up is unforgivable.
Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.
The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.
You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.
“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”
Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.
Trump should be leading, not lying.
The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.
People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.
No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.
Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.
Hot air and ill-informed banter
There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.
Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.
Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.
Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!
The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.
mgordon
ooooooh…is that one of the first talkies?
gbear
What a waste that Brian Jones lost the power struggle to Jagger/Richards. It didn’t take the Stones very long to throw it all away after Jones dies.
Josh E.
How often do you think Obama has to get his hair cut? I bet it’s at least every other day.
ninerdave
Tony Kornheiser is a tool
eyeball
Man that is such an awesome tune and vid. off the charts great. what is so wonderful about that song is that’s it’s an anthem and is in fact very ironically upbeat. i makes me feel BETTER about O’s election. thanks, brother.
Country Firth
Hey! Why don’t you play some RealAmerican(R) music? Like John Cougar Mellencamp. No wait, he’s a lieberul. Uh, Bruce Springsteen. Doggone it, he’s a DFH too. Heck, when does Joe the Plumber’s album come out also?
amorphous
Don’t know why I thought of this, but I would consider learning to play guitar just to play the riff from "Layla."
Objective Scrutator
We need to abolish the usage of the harmonic minor. The harmonic minor is far too Arabic to be safe for society.
jenniebee
I’m having dreams of crowds all across the country spontaneously taking to the streets singing Let There Be Peace On Earth.
Best Karaoke EVAR
gbear
How about Steve Earle? no wait, he wants the revolution to start now.
GSD
I think that in order to govern effectively in this center right nation, President Obama needs to appoint conservatives to all of his cabinet posts.
I recommend Larry Johnson as CIA director.
-GSD
Brian J
I don’t know if anyone saw this, but after watching the video via politicalwire.com, it’s really leaving me confident about the next four years. Politically speaking, I like the idea that these people–Anita Dunn, Robert Gibbs, David Axelrod, and David Plouffe*–will probably be involved in the next campaign. If they go in with the same sort of strategy, perhaps we will see the further implementation of the Dean Fifty-State Strategy and other good things we saw in this campaign. But as far as governing the country goes, I’m thrilled that we’ll have grown ups in power again. Steve Kroft asks these guys how the campaign was so professionally run: how there were no leaks, no infighting, no turnover, and so on. He said even the Republicans were in awe of how good it was. Plouffe said it started with the candidate. I don’t think it’s always the case that campaigns with problems correlate to problems governing–I think Hillary Clinton could have been a good president, despite her campaign’s issues–but it’s definitely a good sign that a campaign is well run.
*Where was Steve Hildebrand? Wasn’t he fairly high up in the campaign?
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Huh. I just updated my security software and was mightily pissed off to find that it no longer included an ad blocker. Bastards. But Firefox Adblock got rid of Hewitt and Dr. Helen, and I’m feeling much better now.
ninerdave
@gbear:
Oh come on now.
Beggars Banquet
Let it Bleed
Stick Fingers
Exile on Main St.
Less and less Brian Jones on the first two, dead on the second two. All amazing records. All the Stones in their prime. Brian Jones was a great musician, however a song writer and leader he was not. There’s a lot to like and admire about Brian Jones, but let’s face it, he threw his talent away in a wash of booze and drugs. Typical for the time, sure. But imho no bearing on the Stones afterwards. In fact I’d argue that they peaked, musically and creatively after he died.
ninerdave
@gbear:
Steve Earle is God…oh wait, that’s Obama. Fuck. Maybe the Greek and Roman polytheists were right.
I’m so confuzzled.
Clio
Chris matthews was hilarious tonight. He totally went after gop hack todd harris on the republican double standard of regardless of the size of a repub win, they have a mandate to take office whole hog. Naturally he used bush as an example. But obama wins by a pretty large margin and the dems should "pussyfoot around" and be all "gee im sorry for being here, i hope i dont offend the conservatives". Ive rewound it on tivo about ten times and am still laughing. He also used the phrase "forked tongue". Oh when chris is on his game he is so entertaining.
Brian J
That Hugh Hewitt picture creeps me out. It’s like a combination of Adam West completely pissed off and that Scandinavian physicist who pitches HDTVs that has come to haunt me in my dreams.
I had no idea who Dr. Helen was, so I Googled her. This post from her site can’t possibly be as dumb as it looks. There’s a big difference between forcing someone to commit their time and energy into serving their communities and trying to establish ideally met goals.
ninerdave
@Objective Scrutator:
Wikipedia sez:
Goddamn! You’re right! I had no idea when I played in harmonic minor it was a tip o’ the hat to brother Muhammad.
Me thinks you’d get more value out of starting with the Phrygian dominant scale. For an example think of the snake charmer’s song. It’s the first exotic scale that all guitarist learn…and eventually learn to hate. If you can marshall the legion of metal guitarists behind you, you might have a movement!!
Fencedude
I recently found this blog and have been reading through some of the archives and I found this comment from back in May:
https://balloon-juice.com/?p=10471#comment-672022
Amusingly prophetic, no?
Jay Ballou
How often do you have to have that spittle wiped off your chin?
Jay Ballou
Of course it can — she’s a right winger.
gaucho
I second ninerdave.
Sticky Fingers and Exile are both top ten albums IMHO. Exile is a consistent contender for best rock album ever, but it definitely depends on the mood. Also on the idea that of Brian Jones wasting his life away on drugs, I’d argue the poor bastard just didn’t have the genes. Keith kept going with his impossible cocktail for sometime.
ninerdave
@gaucho:
Keith just got rich enough that he could afford the blood transfusions. yuk yuk.
Although there is the alternate theory which I cannot disprove yet: The only things to survive a nuclear war will be cockroaches, Twinkies and Keith Richards.
bago
Fixed.
dslak
The concept of zero actually comes from the Indians. The Arabs just discovered how to apply it to algebra.
smiley
There must be something in the water in Georgia. I’m glad I filter mine.
kommrade jakevich
100% Win.
smiley
@Josh E.:
According to this, once a week. Interesting stuff if true.
Josh Hueco
@Clio:
Now that the country’s embraced Obama and the Dems so fully, Matthews probably doesn’t have to play the ‘fair and balanced’ game any more. Good times! :)
Kevin K.
Bravo.
Definitely the best four studio albums in a row released by any rock band ever. And I’d put Exile at the top of my all-time list. I don’t think I’ll ever love an album more than I do that one in my lifetime.
Josh Hueco
@smiley:
All that was missing was references to black helicopters and FEMA. It’s gonna be a fun four years. :)
Objective Scrutator
Indeed, you would. It’s probably quite hard to construct a song in this mode, however, since you’d probably be overusing the tonic-submediant-mediant in your songs. The song often degenerates into little more than repetitive scales: i.e. Al Yankovich’s ‘Pretty Fly’.
This is true. Then again, the Arabs stole a lot of ideas from the Indians, and refined them.
dr. luba
Listening to NPR this morning, I heard them mention that, during the meeting between Obama and W yesterday, they had discussed the plight of the auto industry. Getting help to "Detroit" was one of three items on Obama’s "lame duck to-do" list.
Bush noted that he was willing to do this, if the dems in congress would stop opposing the free trade agreement with Colombia. Tit for tat.
Bastard.
No wonder Michigan is becoming bluer and bluer.
(Note: It is estimated that between 2.5 and 3 million jobs in this country are tied to the automotive industry. What’s bad for GM is really bad for the nation.)
dr. luba
Link to NYT here.
neddie jingo
Cheeriest song about suicide EVARRR!
Phoebe
I don’t know anything about harmony, but that beat is for sure arabic/gypsy/flamenco heaven on a stick, which is why this is my fave Rolling Stone song.
And I love that Charlie Watts looks like an investment banker from 1973. Which makes him ahead of his time, of course.
Phoebe
Brian @12, thanks for that 60 minutes link.
I think a huge reason for the success of that campaign was the fact that they knew what to do with volunteers. I’ve volunteered for a number of organizations, and most of the experiences are kind of sucky because the organizations tend to treat us like burdens rather than resources [while at the same time killing forests of trees for “appreciation certificates” and all similar manner of patronizing crap], whereas the Obama organization gave us very clear direction – and lots of options for how to help – but at the same time let us rip if we had ideas for registering more voters, etc.
When Obama says yes "we" can, it’s not bullshit. That’s the big difference, and it’s going to be the big difference in how he runs the country as well. All the difference.