Tunch and Lily need the night off:
Claim your pets.
Open Thread
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
“But what about the lurkers?”
We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.
Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.
Republicans in disarray!
Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.
This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.
When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.
fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)
DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.
This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.
I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.
We will not go back.
It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!
A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.
Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.
Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.
People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.
We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.
No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”
When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.
I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.
Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”
Their shamelessness is their super power.
At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.
Laura W
Swat Rules.
jl
Kung Fu Kitties!
demkat620
I love that middle guy. That look totally says “You woke me up for this?”
shelley matheis
Whoa, that third picture clinch. ‘Awright, awright, break it up, you two! To your corners.’
A couple of stories today that have not exactly supported the idea we, after Obama’s election have suddenly become a ‘post-racial’ society.
A Philadelphia Swim Club that advertises “open membership” booted 60 African American kids whose day camp had paid a total of $1900 of membership fees.
“When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool,” Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. “The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately.”
*****************************
And the piece de resistance,
On Fox’s morning show Fox & Friends’ Brian Kilmeade comments on a Swedish study that shows married couples have lower cases of dementia. Comments in a very bizzare fashion.
“KILMEADE: Because that’s a — we are — we’re — we’re a — we’re — we keep marrying other species and other ethnics and other —
CARLSON: Are you sure they’re not suffering from some of the —
KILMEADE: I mean, the Swedes —
CARLSON: — causes of dementia right now?
BRIGGS: What are you getting at?
KILMEADE: See, the problem is, the Swedes have pure genes.
BRIGGS: OK.
KILMEADE: Because they marry other Swedes. Because that’s the rule. Finland — Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society. In America, we marry everybody.”
*********************************************
The heart aches and the mind reels.
Laura W
Eeeeeeewwwwww!
Sorry to buzz kill here but the MSNBC ad just now for Brinks alarm systems?
“My ex-boyfriend just kicked in my door!”
Gave me chills, so I guess it’s effective advertising, but Christ, people. There is something more than a bit disturbing about preying upon womens’ fears that they may just have a rageaholic, jealous ex waiting for them to come home from a date so he can kick down their door and batter/murder them.
That was way too creepy. I was so fucking ecstatic before I watched it.
Why do I watch teevee again?
Comrade Stuck
@Laura W:
357 magnum makes the best alarm system. Also a pretty good rat trap, if you need one.
Some Guy
Wow, the middle cat looks like a dead ringer for our cat Lily!
joeyess
Hey!! That’s my Coco!!
Middle pic.
j.
Update:
Nope. Not Coco. Such a close resemblance that it fooled me through and through. Weird.
schrodinger's cat
Nice pics but what is Tunchus Maximus up to this evening?
Chasm
I know there are some scifi/serialized drama fans on this site. Someone finally leaked an early trailer from the show I’m working on, “Day One,” so I thought I’d alert you. Check it out.
kommrade reproductive vigor
No one tell Cleek I plan to steal his cats.
Speak for yourself, o stuttering goat fucker.
Johnny B. Guud
PBS is airing part one of The Ascent of Money, based on the book by Niall Ferguson, in a few minutes.
The book is fascinating, read it earlier this year.
Just FYI
RedKitten (formerly Krista - the Canadian one)
I’m trying to figure out what the hell that is in the upper right-hand corner of the first pic. It looks kind of like a foot…
At any rate, the dog and cat in the photo are just gawgeous!
RedKitten (formerly Krista - the Canadian one)
Other species?
/facepalm.
Not to mention the fact that even if you do make huge allowances for that idiot and address what he seems to be trying to say, he’s flat-out wrong. Ask any dog breeder — lack of genetic diversity in a bloodline actually creates MORE health problems, not fewer.
Just Some Fuckhead
Watched the hours long Judy By Myself on TMC this evening in an effort to better understand my ghey compatriots.
Josh Huaco
Pssst….Brian, your Hakenkreuz is showing.
inkadu
Hey, oldsters, Nixon was more of a commie liberal than we thought: New tapes reveal Nixon threatened to cut off aid to South Vietnam if they did not agree to the settlement. My favorite quote:
Nobody has ever accused Nixon of being an idiot. But will the idea that Vietnam could have been won if it wasn’t for liberals ever die? No, it won’t.
I don’t trust the white dog and the black/white cat. They are definitely up to something, those two.
Comrade Stuck
@joeyess:
Coco looks like wtf, go away silly human with camera.
Rosali
@Laura W: Agree that the ad is disturbing.
I’ve said it here before and will say it again: any talk of being a stalker is extremely creepy and definitely no laughing matter. I fail to see why it’s accepted and not condemned.
AhabTRuler
Plus, there is a significantly lower chance of killing yourself or a loved one.
Far from it. the tragedy of Nixon is that such a brilliant man was made so small, petty, and mean by his paranoia and insecurity. Much the same can be said of “Dr.” Kissinger, and they were a match made in hell.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@RedKitten (formerly Krista – the Canadian one): Yep. I see a foot too. Clearly these animals were caught in the act of cleaning up the bloodstain, hence their look of Xtra concentrated innocence with a large helping of Kewt.
Laura W
@Comrade Stuck:
Yeah, I know, but gunz iz hard for me. Every time I move to a rural area (CO, NC) I have at least one concerned person tell me I need to learn to shoot, and offer to help me learn to shoot. Being single and vulnerable and all.
I did buy an air pistol last year, but it sits in the closet along with the cartridge whatevers. It terrified me. I was sure if I tried to tackle it alone I’d shoot my eyelashes out, at the very least. I actually bought it to defend my cats from a very nasty Tom cat who nearly killed my Willie.
YES, I WAS SO AT THE END OF MY ROPE I WAS WILLING TO KILL A CAT!! I am not proud, and I did not follow through, but I was sorely tempted. We protect our own, right?
Do not click this link if you hate rambling, long-winded cat blogs.
Violet
Awww….I love that first picture. Too cute! They look like the best of friends.
John Cole
@schrodinger’s cat: Tunch is attacking my hand as I surf the internet. Lily is underneath the desk licking my feet.
AhabTRuler
Don’t ever believe it. The most effective defense against property crime is to make yourself and your property appear to be a pain in the ass to loot. Dogs are by far the best way of “discouraging” intruders, as no random thief wants to deal with any dog.
If someone has made a specific violent threat against you, recourse to a firearm might make sense. Absent that specific threat, you take more risk every time you get in the car than by not owning a gun.
Own one if you wanna, but don’t let anyone tell you that you have to. Unless society collapses, then mor gunz iz mor gud! ! 1 1 ! 1 ! ! ! And ammo, also!
Svensker
@inkadu:
Two teenagers whose parents have walked into their room unexpectedly. They were about to have sex, or smoke a joint or… both!
Comrade Stuck
@Laura W:
Ahab is right, especially if you aren’t comfortable with firearms. A good dog will let you know if anyone is near so your not surprised. And you can hide or whatever. Cats could be good, if they didn’t wait to let you until tomorrow, or whenever they felt like it.
Polish the Guillotines
Ha ha!
I took it as much more like one of those olde-tyme deguerrotypes. The cat is wearing a vest and starched collar and the dog is wearing a feather boa and gown.
I need a drink.
WereBear
I live in a rural area, and the largest threat is big animals, with or without rabies.
A rabid raccoon wandering into the yard is a real threat; and it’s a humane thing to put it out of its misery.
This is the primary reason my neighbors cite for having a long gun on the premises; and I can’t argue with that.
schrodinger's cat
Awww, a picture of domestic bliss in the kingdom of Tunchus Maximus.
Linus
Anyone notice that 538’s Nate Silver is doing very well at the Main Event at the World Series of Poker?
That guy is ridiculous.
Laura W
@Comrade Stuck:
I have a very good dog, whose only remaining “bad trait” is that she barks maniacally when anyone gets near or in her home. I sleep unafraid, I shower unafraid. I should probably stop trying to train her maniacal barking out of her. I mean, it’s been 10+ years. I don’t know that I’m being very effective in my calm, assertive, alpha bitch posturing on this single issue.
She lives to protect me.
mai naem
So this is what happens when you go the NRO site and your pets read it. Lily and Tunch decided to go Galt didn’t they? Friends don’t let their pets read NRO.
anonevent
@Laura W:
I think that a lot of librulz have this fear that all it takes for a gun to go off is that you stare at it wrong. Yes guns can lethal, but we have managed to become the third largest country in the world even with all of the guns around. Respect them and you’ll be fine. As a liberal who believes in the right to privacy, I have come to realize that they cops will never get there in time to stop an attack, so I bought my first gun, a shotgun, about three years ago. And yes, I own a dog.
By the way, have y’all heard about the ammo shortage that is going on? I hadn’t either until my dad asked me about it. Doing some digging, the ammo manufacturers are producing at max capacity. It’s just that the why-isn’t-the-right-to-bear-arms-the-first-amendment crowd is buying ammo faster than it can be stocked. Some stores are reporting selling their yearly quota in the first three months. These people are afraid that Obama is going to take away their guns, so they’re buying the ammo, creating the image of empty shelves. This means that these people own 4 times more ammo than in their normal deranged year.
I feel sorry for census takers, and blacks, and hispanics, and women, and gays, and liberals, and squirrels.
John Cole
@Linus: I used to follow that pretty closely. Always a Phil Ivey fan, or for whoever was against Phil Helmuth.
Calming Influence
The orange cat is obviously a warrior monk.
“Paws of FURY!!!”
Amanda
awww that first picture is so adorable i can hardly stand it!
kommrade reproductive vigor
@John Cole:
Further proof that dogs will eat anything and cats will maul anything.
Laura W
@anonevent:
I don’t think my fear is tied to my liburlzness.
I’m just really, really lame.
(About some stuff. Not all stuff.)
2th&nayle
@Laura W: I have a Daisy Cub bb gun hung over my back door that I used to discourage a family of terrier/mutt dogs that used to maraude through my back yard everyday trying to see if they could catch my outside cats on the ground. After stinging their butts a couple of times, all I had to do was shake the gun a couple of times and they’d head for the high county. Those ‘Co2 cartridge’ bb guns shoot hard and you can do real damage to a dog or cat with one. Just sayin’
jl
Thnx for Tunch update. But they are always the same. Does Tunch ever not attack his master?
Edit: oops, I meant “attack his trusty servant”. Don’t tell Tunch I made that mistake.
Laura W
@2th&nayle:
How far are you from Western NC and do you hire out on an hourly basis? I’m willing to learn. Just not about to take it on alone.
Those cartridges and their exploding properties scared the hell out of me. I read all the warnings and put the whole project in the closet.
Easier to just fence my cats in at that time, sadly.
cbear
You fence in your cats???
Holy crap, have you learned to herd them too?
Have you alerted the media?
lamh31
“Post-racial” beeyotch!!!!!
Pool Boots Kids Who Might “Change the Complexion”
Campers sent packing after first visit to swim club
“More than 60 campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club and left to wonder if their race was the reason.
Kids at Creative Steps Day Camp were thrilled to go swimming once a week at the Valley Swim Club. But after only one trip to the private club, they were…
“I heard this lady, she was like, ‘Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?’ She’s like, ‘I’m scared they might do something to my child,’” said camper Dymire Baylor.
The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers’ first visit to the pool suggested otherwise.
“When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool,” Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. “The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately.”
Laura W
@cbear:
No. I have an Australian Cattle Dog. That’s her job.
Not sure I get your point, but the fencing issue can be found in my links above, if you are seriously interested.
Edit: Here, I’ll save you a few steps:
http://www.purrfectfence.com/
2th&nayle
@cbear: Hahaha! That’s funny! I can’t type, I’m laughing so hard!
Keith
Remember all the GOP outrage – OUTRAGE! – over Pelosi saying the CIA misled Congress? How DARE she impugn the reputation of our hard-working intelligence community!
Well, the other shoe is dropping.
mcd
The Christians-Filipina ad may be the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.
And by greatest I mean totally effin scary.
cleek
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
never!
BDeevDad
Evidently, Pelosi may not of been lying about the CIA.
EDIT: Keith beat me to it.
cbear
@Laura W:
I was kidding Laura. Your comment just struck me as funny because I can’t imagine how you would “fence in” a cat— in the traditional sense of having an outside fence.
Comrade Kevin
@lamh31: That’s Philadelphia for you.
jl
Wow! Nice to see what it takes to fence in a cat. Do watchtowers come with that fence kit? Or are they extra?
JGabriel
@Laura W:
I’m not sure, especially when there are so many other options ranging from Tivo to Netflix to Hulu to Bittorrent to myriad other streaming video options for news, etc.
I don’t know why anyone watches TV anymore, outside the ease of its social facilitation (we can watch it together!), but DVD’s can replace that just as easily, except for watching the news.
.
2th&nayle
@Laura W: Well…no. Being over here in Arkanstone, WNC is a little bit out of my loop. But, there’s nothing complicated or expensive about learning to “point and shoot’ a bb gun. The Daisy Cub models are about $25-30 the last I checked and the bbs are $2-3 for a pack of 500 or so. The trick is don’t use the sights. Just “point and shoot’ at a beer can or likewise about a hundred times and you’ll be surprised just how accurate you can become. The Army used to use the same method to train soldiers during the VN war. That’s how I learned it. Besides, it’s just a lot of fun to do. I got to the point where I could reliably hit a poker chip on the first shot at 50′. After that, it just kind of like learning to ride a bike. It just became second-nature. I’d highly recommend using this fairly cheap method for anyone interested in learning to shoot. Especially for learning “close-in” home defense practice. But be sure to wear eye protection, or ‘you’ll shoot your eye out kid!’
LD50
But if a raccoon wanders onto your property, how do you tell if it has rabies or not?
Or do your neighbors take the same attitude our government has towards Middle Easterners, and assume it’s best to always shoot them, just in case?
Laura W
@cbear: Well, having spent thousands of dollars on fencing an acre when I owned my own home in CO, just to keep my 6 cats out of coyote and roaming dog mouths; hundreds of dollars for 9 months in NM for a very small, hand-built “cattery”; and another thousand-plus here to keep a vicious tom from killing my 17-yr-old and wounding my two females on a weekly basis…
Call me crazy but two of these cats have been with me since 1991. They like to go outside. All 4 of my cats like to go outside to varying degrees. I’m sick of vet bills to patch up their festering wounds from fights, so what’s to do? And I’m sick of worrying about them every time they are outside unprotected. They aren’t disposable. They are my family. If they should die due to my negligence, I could not handle that.
It’s pretty simple, really. As much as I hate “fencing them in”, I use the enclosure system now, for at least 3 of them. (Annie gets an hour of free time outside the prison most days.) They are happy. I don’t stress about watching some wild dog or coyote walk through my yard with them in its jaws.
I know you were joking, but losing a cat to a predator or a car is not really enjoyable, so we do what we can to make compromises so we all get what we need.
JGabriel
RedKitten (formerly Krista – the Canadian one):
You don’t even have to go that far. After all, the colloquial term for “pure bloodlines” is inbred git.
.
Laura W
@jl: Yeah, you’re funny too. You can see my comment at #57.
cbear
@Laura W:
Laura,
I’m terribly sorry if my comment offended you. Truly.
I was NOT making light of your love for your cats or your desire to protect them in any way possible. I have just never heard of “fencing” cats.
2th&nayle
@cbear: Same here! Didn’t mean no harm LW. Just a funny image.
mcd
Saw some gun talk earlier. Ask Steve McNair how effective that is. He owned a gun.
2th&nayle
@mcd: Actually, think ‘she’ was the owner of the gun.
jl
@Laura W: OK. Couldn’t resist. Actually, I think its a good idea for a certain kind of cat, but must be a lot of work.
I haven’t had a pet for awhile. My parents’ cat likes to go outside and sit on the stoop for a few minutes then come back in. It gets scared if more than a yard from the door.
My cousin’s cats love to go outside, but then you might not see them for a week.
John Cole
LOL- Just gave Lily and Tunch their bedtime treats, and Lily scarfed hers down, shouldered Tunch out of the way and ate his, and the look on Tunch’s face was priceless. He looked like the fat kid who dropped his ice cream cone. I’m dying.
Comrade Stuck
Jeepers. It’s hot as Lucifer’s kitchen here tonight. I’ve got two fans blowing nothin’ hot air. Oh well, life in the desert. Going to watch Valkyrie now. Hope it ain’t bad.
jl
@John Cole: Hope John Cole sleeps easy tonight.
If something happens, I for one will not betray the great Tunchinator, who has suffered so much human impertinence.
gex
Top two are mine: the dog is Casey, the cat is Abigail. They are 2 and 3 years old respectively and have lived together for 8 months. They are getting to be pretty close, but have their rambunctious moments still. Rules are that when it gets too rowdy, it is the dog’s fault. (Poor pup!) In this picture they have just finished horsing around or are just about to start. That’s their “Who us?” look.
2th&nayle
@John Cole: I suspect there will be a day of reckoning for Miss Lily if she doesn’t learn some manners. ‘The Wrath of Tunch’ maybe in the offing. Watch your back Lily!
cbear
@jl:
My thoughts exactly.
First there was that unfortunate trip to the vets when The Tuncher was but a young lad, and now he doesn’t even have his bedtime treat to look forward to anymore!
His life is a shambles and he may very well go rogue on you at any minute. I’d recommend that you sleep with an athletic cup and a neck brace until you determine his intentions.
This could get ugly.
jl
@2th&nayle: Seems to me it is Cole’s responsibility to maintain pecking order, household pack cohesion, and decorum. I believe he was planning to be the alpha mammal. Looks like Lily and Tunch will fight it out for the top two slots, though.
JK
The hosts of Fox & Friends have a combined IQ that is lower than Mariano Rivera’s career ERA.
gex
@John Cole: Oh dear. As I noted above the rule in our house is it is always the dog’s fault. The corollary is that the dog must leave the cat’s treats alone. Dog sits and waits while cats eat treats, then is given his. It is good for dog discipline and will keep Tunch from killing you in your sleep.
ETA: I’ve actually enforced a meal/treat time etiquette at our house. The dog goes to his blanket and lays down while the people are eating. While the cats are eating he is served after they are. I like having a dog that is disciplined around food.
2th&nayle
@jl: Well, I don’t if Cole has the wherewithal to make those decisions, I know I don’t. I have two female dogs that have lived together for about 4 years and they still haven’t established a pecking order, as far as I can tell. Every so often they still go a couple of rounds trying to establish dominance. It’s a scary site when those two tangle. It serves as a subtle remember for me that as much as I love them and they love me, their still animals! Just sayin!
Max
Ms. Palin has determined that Hillary never went thru anything near as bad as what she has been forced to endure.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1908983-2,00.html
Riddle me this, which side do PUMA’s turned Palin PAC take?
JGabriel
Time (h/t Max)
Sarah Palin:
Because, you know, no one on the right ever lied about Hillary Clinton. Or her family. Just sayin’. Right?
.
JK
@JGabriel:
Palin is a lying asshole who thinks everyone else has a 10 minute attention like her.
2th&nayle
@Max: I’d like to see Hill’s face when she learns about how hard it’s been on Sarah. She’ll probably send her a sympathy card. WTF?
Dennis-SGMM
Hae we already discussed “Public Enemies”? I’ve been working a bit more than usual so I could easily have missed it. Anyway, my family and I saw it on opening day so I’ll pass along my thoughts. Skip ’em if this has already been discussed.
I can’t recommend the movie. The evocation of the Thirties was, other than a slight flub re the FDIC, nearly perfect. The locations and set dressing were amazing.
That said, Johnny Depp seemed to be doing more of an actor’s take on a character rather than trying to evoke the dangerous and imaginative bank robber. Toward the end of the movie he was so laconic that I suspected that he was thinking more of the next “Pirates of the Carribean” than the movie he was in. Christian Bale has never been so miscast. His now it’s here and now it’s not Amurrican accent was just sad. Stephen Graham’s Babyface Nelson was unintentionally funny because parts of his performance (and the script) recapitulated the same character in “O Brother, Where Art Thou.”
The good parts were Billy Crudup’s performance as a prissy, self-publicizing J. Edgar Hoover and Jason Clarke as Dillinger’s loyal friend John ‘Red’ Hamilton. In both cases, the actors were doing that best of things, being the people whom they portrayed.
The gangster movie is a great cinematic tradition. So is attempting to make sense of the Great Depression. There are other movies; “O Brother Where Art Thou,” “White Heat,” “Sullivan’s Travels,” and even “Manhattan Melodrama” that have done one, or the other, or both, way better.
Dennis-SGMM
@JGabriel:
You mean that Hillary didn’t kill Vince Foster?
Common Sense
@mcd:
Immediately following the McNair revelation, a local sports talk radio wingnut decided to host a show on how important it is that athletes carry concealed weapons (using Plaxico “gun in my sweatpants at a nightclub” as an example. A caller pointer out McNair had a CHL.
The topic wasn’t raised the next hour. Down the memory hole it went.
The Dangerman
@John Cole:
Are you sure that isn’t Dick Morris?
JGabriel
2th&nayle:
Oh, I hope so. That would be brilliant.
Sadly, I suspect Hillary is too diplomatic to engage in such snark.
.
LD50
Wow.
Palin translated: “Every negative thing said about Clinton was true. She deserved it. But every negative thing said about me is untrue. I don’t deserve any of it.”
Sour Kraut
How do you get the cheese into the chamber?
Common Sense
@Dennis-SGMM:
I thought it was ok, not great. Beautifully shot (Mann should teach college classes in lighting), but the script focused way too much on Depp, and Bale’s part was both underrepresented and poorly acted. I also thought the second cop deserved a much larger role — the one that actually shot Dillinger. Babyface Nelson I thought did well, and I was very impressed with Marion Cotillard. All in all about a B to B+.
angulimala
In all seriousness, many of the ethics complaints, listed here, really do come across as bullshit.
For example,
is just fucking ridiculous.
cbear
@Dennis-SGMM:
Dennis, long time my friend….how are you?
Does myiqey ever raise his head around these parts anymore, or has he gone Galt?
angulimala
There are those that are legit, and I personally think that she has abused her power – especially in regards to her ex-brother-in-law – but I don’t see how wearing the gear of her husbands sponsor is any kind of ethic complaint.
JK
@Dennis-SGMM:
That’s disappointing to hear about Johnny Depp. I’ve always been a big fan of his. I could do without Christian Bale and can’t wrap my mind around the idea of Billy Crudup playing J. Edgar Hoover. Sullivan’s Travels is a masterpiece.
JK
Republican hack Ron Christie on Hardball
JGabriel
How is it that, even though the last thread is about Palin and still active, that this thread has also turned into a Palin thread?
Everything really is about Sarah Palin. Amazing how she does that. I wish she would join a monastery, one with a vow of silence.
.
Dennis-SGMM
@cbear:
Doing fine. I’m retiring, woo-hoo! Because I’m old: not so woo-hoo. Putting my last few clients into the hands of good people and backing away. That has consumed a lot of time and thus the dearth of my inane comments here.
That’s cool save for the fact that retirement is the preamble to, well, death.
On the other hand, I can now officially become an old fart and rail against the present as compared to the past.
@Common Sense:
Mann’s treatment of light was sublime. Thanks for reminding me. He just seems to do better with light than he does with people.
Dennis-SGMM
@JK:
Although Crudup’s time on screen was limited was limited, I thought that he did a remarkable job. For those of us who are old enough to remember Hoover as the head of the FBI, Hoover was always an old man. To me, Crudup’s portrayal of the young Jedgar was plausible and compelling.
JK
Greenpeace activists were arrested Wednesday for scaling Mount Rushmore and hanging a banner next to the carved face of Abraham Lincoln urging President Barack Obama to get tough on climate change.
h/t http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Mount-Rushmore-Keystone2C-South-Dakota/photo//090708/photos_ts_afp/95a6f74df76ac3c301fe3f2c65058f00//s:/afp/20090708/ts_alt_afp/environmentwarmingusprotest
cbear
@JGabriel: It’s like picking at a particularly nasty scab. You’d like to stop, you know you should stop, but its just fascinating to see how far you can go before it becomes too painful—or you discover the pus-ugly shit underneath that gnarly dead skin.
JGabriel
cbear:
And then you have to keep squeezing it until you get all the pus out?
Got it.
.
2th&nayle
@Dennis-SGMM: I’ve always had a soft place in my heart for the “70’s” vintage version of “Dillinger” with Warren Oates and Ben Johnson. I know, different time, different style, but still. Richard Dreyfess as “Baby Face Nelson” was a hoot!
JK
@Common Sense: @Dennis-SGMM:
There’s an outstanding documentary film from 1992 called Visions of Light on the history of cinematography, which touches on the treatment of light among other things. It has an impressive selection of iconic scenes and interviews with a who’s who of cinematographers that include some great anecdotes.
ninerdave
Hmmm…..
2th&nayle
@Dennis-SGMM: Oh yeah. Welcome to Geezerhood! Now get off my lawn! heh heh
JK
@ninerdave:
Kilmeade and Doocy wouldn’t know how to pour water out of a shoe if the instructions were printed on the heel.
White House Department of Law (fmrly Jim-Bob)
Remember that time when Republicans all howled “TREASON!” after Nancy Pelosi intimated that the CIA had lied to her and other members of Congress?
Well guess what …
Ash Can
@2th&nayle:
Naw, she’s too busy getting Honduras sorted out. And after that, it’ll be Iran, or China, or North Korea, or something else. Never a dull moment when you’re Secretary of State and all.
Oh, BTW Sarah, how’s that governor’s gig working out for you?
Meow. Also.
White House Department of Law (fmrly Jim-Bob)
CRAP!@
Beat me to it.
Dennis-SGMM
@JK:
Thank you. I’ll try to find Visions of Light. Living in the mountain foothills has made me gradually aware of the varieties of light. That someone can compel the ponderous machinery of commercial film making to reflect that variety is truly an achievement.
ninerdave
@JK:
HA! Nice!
I was just juxtaposing the statement from the Fox douche with John’s animals love for him for humorous effect.
ninerdave
@Ash Can:
Especially when you’re cleaning up an eight year NeoCon mess.
ninerdave
@ the CIA story,
Whatdya wanna bet that gets almost zero coverage. You know there is Palin and MJ to report about.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Dennis-SGMM:
Saw it over the weekend, loved it. Depp is perfect as Dillinger, Mann’s camera work and lighting and the digital camera gear make for a visually stunning experience. The camera placements are genius, making the viewer feel he is right in the middle of the action .. of which there is plenty. Assuming your theater has decent sound, you are going to feel like you are right in the middle of some memorable gun battles.
Was Dillinger laconic? Heh.
“I rob banks for a living. What do you do?”
Dennis-SGMM
@2th&nayle:
After looking at the field I believe that I’ll specialize in “When I was your age…”
My first is “When I was your age I’d already killed six Commies.”
I’m confident that I can parlay my age and my Vietnam veteran status into a supreme annoyance.
GregB
Brian Kilmeade is an anagram for Racist Pudslapper.
Thought you should know.
-G
Dennis-SGMM
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Having been in the middle of a few gun battles I can assure you that you don’t really hear the weapons. You do hear, acutely, the incoming rounds. The report reaches you eons (subjectively) later than the sound of the slug. “Saving Private Ryan” did such a masterful job of recreating the sound of those lead bees whizzing past that I had to leave the theater.
JK
@Dennis-SGMM:
One of my favorite films, in terms of cinematography, is Days of Heaven. It’s set in the Texas panhandle in 1916, but like most films was shot in Canada.
@ninerdave:
I think the average IQ of tv news anchors and commentators has dropped considerably over the past 25 years. No one will ever mistake Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski for Albert Einstein and Marie Curie.
cbear
Sheeeit, those two morans struggle to rise to the intellectual level of Harold and Kumar.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Dennis-SGMM:
Well, at the firing range, I hear the weapon I am firing and the ones around me. That’s the sound effect I am talking about.
It’s what you might call a loud bang-bang-bang sound.
Call me crazy, I know. I know.
Now, all the projectiles in my experience have been outbound. I have not been shot at.
In other words, the 6-8 handles I use are serving their intended purpose.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Totally agree. Einstein and Curie did the best evening news show ever.
JK
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Obviously that was intended for laughs, but look at how far tv standards have fallen:
Then
Marvin Kalb, Edwin Newman, John Chancellor, Howard K. Smith, Eric Severeid, Roger Mudd, Sander Vanocur
Today
Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Lou Dobbs, Gretta Van Susteren
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@JK:
That’s a startling list, for sure. It’s Infotainment now.
Can you imagine Eric Sevareid covering Sarah Palin?
All I can think is, Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahaha.
Brick Oven Bill
Marvin Kalb is a joke. Glenn Beck has people worried. :)
Evening with a person who has a cat. Cat playing with a spider. Spider is a brown recluse. This is a dangerous spider.
Smooshed it.
Steeplejack
@Dennis-SGMM:
I thought Heat was the one where he really stepped up his game and handled the characters as well as the visuals. It fell apart at the end, but that’s practically a given for movies in that genre.
Steeplejack
@Dennis-SGMM:
Second the recommendation on Visions of Light. It has shown up on Sundance or IFC (Independent Film Channel) a couple of times in the last year or so.
Just watched another exquisitely filmed movie tonight on Sundance: A Hard Day’s Night. Really holds up as a film, not just as a relic of Beatlemania (although it is great as that).
2th&nayle
@JK: It’s almost as if these modern day ‘newscasters’ watched Ted Baxter on the MTM show when they were young and decided that’s what they wanted to become…and they did!
JK
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
The irony kills me. There were so many high caliber tv news commentators before 24 hour cable news. It was actually frustrating that there weren’t enough hours of news programming to accommodate all of the on-air talent.
Fast forward to today. There’s 24/7 cable news, but the only people deemed worthy to put on the air are a bunch of smarmy, smug, knuckle-dragging neanderthals who spend most of their time engaged in hate-mongering and fear-mongering.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@JK:
Back in the day of Murrow and Sevareid, the networks did news as a public service.
Once it became a major profit center, it became a business, and the personalities took over.
JK
@2th&nayle:
I think Ted Baxter would be a cut above today’s blowhards, especially the rogue’s gallery of stupidity on Fox News Channel.
@Steeplejack:
I don’t have premium cable, but I’m glad to hear that IFC or Sundance has aired it. Second A Hard Day’s Night. The opening sequence remains one of my favorite movie scenes.
2th&nayle
@Dennis-SGMM: I suspect that a man of you talents and experience, with time and focus, will be able to take the title of “Community Curmudgeon” to all new heights. You may, with the proper amount of effort, even achieve “Grand Curmudgeonhood”. I’ll be expecting to hear very nasty things. Good day sir!
JGabriel
ThymeZoneThePlumber:
I loved their relativistic take on Cronkite’s You Were There educational series: Einstein & Curie’s You Might Have Been There Someday.
.
JGabriel
@Brick Oven Bill:
Yes. Mostly psychiatrists. Also, his mother.
.
JK
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
When I imagine the thousands of hours of airtime pissed away on Laci Peterson, OJ Simpson, Jon Benet Ramsey, Chandra Levy, Natalee Holloway, and the past week of Michael Jackson coverage, I wish there could be a special section of hell reserved for the tv news executives who made the decision to flood the airwaves with this tabloid nonsense.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@JGabriel:
LOL.
JK
@JGabriel:
I recently watched an American Masters episode on Cronkite that included clips of You are There. I’d love to see a rebroadcast of that series. I can’t imagine today’s news divisions ever dreaming up something like that or Steve Allen’s series Meeting of Minds.
JGabriel
@JK:
Neanderthals had, on average, larger brains than we do, and buried their dead with flowers. It seems rather unfair to Neanderthals to compare them with the Sacculina that infest Fox News.
.
ninerdave
@JK:
No argument here.
As much as I’m a political/news junkie, 24 hr news has been a significant factor in killing real journalism.
I know a lot of people like to bash the village, but to me it’s just the obvious outgrowth of 24/7 news. There really is only so much to report in 24 hours, especially to an audience with an MTV length attention span. When all else fails, get people to scream at each other or report about Michael Jackson rumors.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@JK:
There is, I think it is a flaming trailer park.
JK
@JGabriel:
I wish someone could create a 24 hour new channel that would approach the level of seriousness found on C-SPAN. More and more, cable news seem to be morphing into SNL’s Weekend Update.
JK
@ninerdave:
Unfortunately, it’s all driven by money.
2th&nayle
@JK: Sadly, I think you’re exactly right! The final product of these so called 24hr news shows has more to do with the viewers than it does with the broadcasters. If the average viewer demanded better “news” coverage, eventually they would get it. It is after all, a market driven industry, no matter how you look at it.
2th&nayle
@2th&nayle: Come to think of it, that same theory would also apply to the sad state of politics in this country.
ninerdave
@2th&nayle:
They won’t. Look what happened to Nightline’s ratings when Koppel left. They shot up.
That’s fine, really. TV is entertainment first and information second. People, even news junkies like me, turn on TV to turn my brain off. I used to watch all of MSNBC’s line up every day (CNN before that). Now I’ll usually watch Hardball, because Chris amuses me and I like Shuster when he fills in (miss him on 1600) and Maddow because she’s a perfect blend of wonk and entertaining. Ed Schultz, and Olbermann, meh. All of the above I’ll eschew for an episode of Deadliest Catch or House.
I get my politics fix online anymore and PBS/KGO (local talk radio) on my commute. I’m sure I’m not alone when I use blogs as aggregators for news that I’m interested in. It’s a great way to get news and opinion all together in a nice package. Most people I know get their politics fix this way too.
Media is evolving.
There are two dangers I see however. Getting your news from blogs and other online sources, it’s extremely easy to just read the pieces that fit your worldview. The online equivalent to watching the Fox echo chamber as your sole new source. Of course this is not helped by the fact that most of the right is completely insane, and aside from Daniel Larison and Andrew Sullivan, I have yet to find conservatives who can refrain from turrets typing of socialism and treason for more than a few words.
Oh and then there is that nasty habit of conservative blogs shutting down all dissenting opinion in their comments section (akin to troll rating at the GOS).
One of the things that got me reading BJ lo those many years ago, was that Cole let conversations go in his comment section. Then he became a DFH and well I had to search elsewhere for conservative opinion.
I suppose all that is a long winded way to say, that media is changing, news has become entertainment (if it wasn’t already) and we now have access to a shit ton of information. It’s up to the consumer to keep an open mind and challenge their view of the world.
Sadly, most people don’t care, less will want to wonder outside of their comfort zone, and in the case our current times, the balancing political view has jumped off the deep end.
inkadu
@cbear: I thought fencing cats was a strange idea, an also an impossibility, until my girlfriend ordered the material, then ordered me to install it.
It was a black pastic mesh, that you could nail to trees or posts and then stake, like a skirt, to the ground. It was pretty ingenious because you could stake about a foot of mesh on the ground inside the fence and it would stop any dog from digging out. Even better, in a few weeks, it would be covered with grass and nobody would see it.
The fencing was primarily for the dog, who didn’t seem interested in testing it. The cat stayed in mostly because she was mostly an indoor cat, and mature, and wasn’t into the whole tree climbing thing. A younger, more adventurous cat would have zipped up a trunk and over the fence without thinking twice about it.
The only time we ran into trouble was a day I brought home a rescue — off the street, because animal control was closed and the police refused to hold onto him for the night. I had to go to work the next morning, and let the dog out not realizing that the cat had also gone out. I eventually got the dog back inside, but the cat was up in a tree on the fence border. When she jumped backed down, she had the option of landing back in our yard, or on a very steep, short, stretch of dirt that led immediately to a very well travelled major route.
The cat ultimately chose to land on my face, which was a reasonable decision given the circumstances that led to her being treed.
inkadu
@JK: “You are there” is available over the internets.
I’m not sure how CBS let this property goldmine out into the public before all the tapes had rotted into uselessness. A real corporate failing; obviously don’t understand the spirit of copyright law.
lotus
Hoo — go check out The Guardian’s homepage: BIG ol’ loud whistle blown on Rupert Murdoch and his phone-hacking hacks.
A Mom Anon
@JK:
Yesterday I heard,more than once,that the reason for the non stop Jackson coverage was that it was what people wanted,so they put it on the air. I don’t buy that. I can see devoting alot of coverage once the news broke,and then coverage of the memorial service,but non stop 24/7 coverage of shit like where the furniture at Neverland USED TO BE? Oh HELL no.
It’s like the commercials for all those meds on teevee. “Ask Your Doctor about Nosenseatall”,like you’d likely know about “needing” that before you saw it plastered all over the teevee and in print ads. The media decided it couldn’t multi task and that’s all this is,laziness on their part. THEY manufactured the need to excuse their own lack of common sense and innovation.
People need to be protesting news outlets and bitching over the phone and email to them just as much as they do Congress and the White House. Not just letters to the editor,it needs to go beyond that.
estraven
Aw, that cat in the middle photo looks so much like my beloved late Louise–she died a year ago at age 17. I love torties.
The Saff
The middle picture is my Natalie. She is going to be 10 years old on July 21. She’s a total princess.
JK
@A Mom Anon:
We’re safe until the next celebrity icon dies.
JK
@inkadu:
I had no idea. Many thanks for passing along this information.
grendelkhan
I have to post this somewhere. From the comments at GayPatriot:
You heard it here first–Sarah Palin was brought down by prejudiced gay folk and their internalized heterophobia.