Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

T R E 4 5 O N

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

So many bastards, so little time.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

People are complicated. Love is not.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

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

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

“woke” is the new caravan.

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Reader Interactions

107Comments

  1. 1.

    donovong

    Seems to me a number of strange things have been happening to you since you brought Lily home. Could be a case of Ninja Tunch.

  2. 2.

    A Mom Anon

    Do you say have Comcrap? We do, I’m forever having to go downstairs and unplug the router and modem,shut the whole thing down and then restart everything. It happens a couple times a week. My husband seems to think they have the most up to date service,I personally think they suck. If the service was in my name I’d cancel the damned thing and go with someone else, but alas, it is not to be.

  3. 3.

    geg6

    John, anjy chance this is related to the biblical flooding parts of West Virginia has been having? It’s been all over the news here and Huntington looks pitiful. Been quite a lot of rain up here in WPA, but nothing like what I saw on my teevee down there.

  6. 6.

    Political Pragmatist

    Since this is an Open Thread, I need to ask for counseling.

    Watching Hardball has become too painful. Matthews makes me insane. He has no clue on issues, asks incredibly long questions, then talks over the guest to extend the question, and doesn’t understand the answers. Is he that dumb?

    Is Chuck Todd that dumb?

    Is John Boehner, Mike Pence, and John Kyl that dumb?

    Intelligence seems to be in very short supply these days. Do you have to be that dumb in order to not have your head explode when you listen to the conservative mindset?

    Yes, I need help.

  7. 7.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @ A Mom Anon

    Don’t be so hard on yourself. It read like conversation. Not every post has to conform to MLA Handbook guidelines. You are one of the BJ regulars I always enjoy reading.

  8. 8.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    @A Mom Anon: I guess I need more coffee too. Your comment seemed pretty clear to me.

    John, I think the Tunchatolla has strong kungfu. You are in deep shit for bringing Lily home. Give a letter to DougJ or TimF that is to be mailed to the DA’s office if you suddenly go missing.

    I’m waiting for Tunch to sidle up next to you while Lily’s sleeping and softly purr into your ear and whisper, “Hey boss, let’s shave her.”

  9. 9.

    Punchy

    Anyone yet attempt to correlate the percentage of fuckstix who believe in creationism with the % who are birferz? Can I haz at leest 80 purrsentz?

  10. 10.

    asiangrrlMN

    @A Mom Anon: Hm. It made perfect sense to me, too. So, I have to conclude that you were being too hard on yourself.

    @Political Pragmatist: Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Does that help?

    @Punchy: I would put that number higher myself, but that’s totally unscientific, of course.

    Morning all! You know, existing on four-five hours of sleep a night wouldn’t be so bad if I weren’t so damn tired all the fucking time!

  11. 11.

    geg6

    I am about to subject myself to Alexandra Pelosi’s “Right America: Feeling Wronged” on HBO 2. I am hoping to get some sort of insight into these people at the dawn (during the 2008 campaign) of all the current wingnut Obama Derangment Syndrome. Not sure it will provide any, but should be interestng to see them tell Ms. Pelosi her mother is the devil right to her face.

  13. 13.

    Rosali

    Hey, what happened to the Friday recipe this week? I love reading about food and the recipes are inspirational.

  14. 14.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Re: Teachable Moments

    Cash for Clunker Math is a Teachable Moment. At yesterday’s lesson we demonstrated that, $1 billion works out to around 220,000 cars at $4,500 a pop, and the monthly sales volume during regular times is around 1 million cars per month. Yesterday’s Teachable Moment taught us that, at a rate of 1.5 million clunkers per month, the funding would last 4 days.

    Unbeknownst to your teacher at yesterday’s Teachable Moment, who is not even a Prominent Scholar from anywhere like the Harvard School of Grievance Studies, or the University of Chicago School of Constitutional Studies, where all the people are good at math, 4 days is exactly how long the money lasted.

    And now, for today’s Teachable Moment:

    These morons running the government thought the money would last for 4 months.

  15. 15.

    WereBear

    Just got American Idiot for my Kindle app, which is about how, in The Land of Idiots, an actual expert is not idiot enough to have any qualifications.

    I love some of the reviews, which basically complain that the author is writing about something everyone already knows.

    If that’s the case, why is it still a problem, hmmmmm?

    It’s only Old News if it’s Solved News, ya know?

    When a$$holes no longer rule the airwaves, I’ll think they have a point.

  17. 17.

    GReynoldsCT00

    If you have Comcast, then there is your problem… my parents have them for internet access and they have problems all the time.

  18. 18.

    JGabriel

    Here’s a strange one.

    WaPo has a story on a new study that shows how fish that have been renamed for marketing purposes – like the slimehead being renamed “Orange Roughy”, or the toothfish being renamed “Chilean Sea Bass” – are wildly overfished.

    The lead author of the study just happens to be someone named Boris Worm.

    One can imagine how Worm might have conflicting feelings about things being renamed for marketing purposes.

    .

  19. 19.

    cbear

    Is it wrong of me to hope that Sarah Palin does or says something sufficiently stupid today so that I don’t have to watch anymore coverage of the Beer Summit?

  20. 20.

    GReynoldsCT00

    “Since this is an Open Thread, I need to ask for counseling.”

    Turn off the teevee… that’s what I did. Listening to any of those stooges in the morning is worse than a hangover. I come to BJ to ease into the news of the day…

  21. 21.

    Englishlehrer on vacation

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    so they normally sell one million cars a month.

    sales were horrible lately

    and you set it at 1.5 million cars/month

    you could not assume that every car sold would be with the clunker special.

    your teachable moment:
    you couched the argument to make your point. You did and you failed. That’s what happens when you massage the facts to make your case, wmd.

  25. 25.

    Bob In Pacifica

    Interestingly, I once blogged some nasty things about Comcast’s lousy service and that afternoon I got a message on my phone from a Comcast counselor to soothe my frayed nerves.

    Think about it. The phone and Comcast service are both listed in my Girlfriend’s name. These people tracked me down, somehow through my blog to my address and left a message on my machine. All it did was make me feel a little uncomfortable that there’s nowhere to hide from these bastards.

    By the way, our house had its internet moments over the last 48 hours due to a failed wireless thingie. Can anyone explain to me, other than planned obsolescence, why modems and wireless thingies die every couple of years? I’ve got radios that last decades.

  26. 26.

    JGabriel

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    … 4 days is exactly how long the money lasted.

    So you point is that the program is hugely successful and needs more funding?

    Sounds good to me.

    .

  27. 27.

    Rey

    Oh BOB- it’s too early here in Tennessee for me to start drinking and write a post about how miserable you are but, maybe not- it is Tennessee and I’m supposed to be drunk and incoherent by noon.
    The program was successful, can’t you give credit where credit is due?

  28. 28.

    schrodinger's cat

    I got my Cuisinart Ice-cream maker yesterday. I am going to make fresh strawberry ice-cream and frozen mango yogurt, this afternoon. I will report my finding later. Wish me luck!

  29. 29.

    schrodinger's cat

    I got my Cuisinart Ice-cream maker yesterday. I am going to make fresh strawberry ice-cream and frozen mango yogurt, this afternoon. I will report my findings later. Wish me luck!

  30. 30.

    Brick Oven Bill

    The money lasted 4 days, not 4 months, Englishlehrer. I bet you that the extra $2 billion will not even take us thorough 4 months. Using my magical powers of reasoning, let us assume that sales will drop 10% per day as the new artificial demand is satisfied.

    This means that the $2 billion will last a little more than 8 more days. Without getting into the fancy math, we will just estimate that that extra $2 billion will last between 11 and 14 more days. That would be like two weeks from now, not four months from now.

    That fancy math aside, all that this program is doing is using public funds to transfer future demand to the present. It is nothing than another attempt to re-inflate the bubble.

    This is why you should learn to grow potatoes. An acre of potatoes can feed around a dozen people for a year, depending on the conditions. If you like bacon, four pounds of potatoes yields one pound of meat after being processed through the pig. If you are more skilled than I am with yeast, you can also make booze with potatoes.

  33. 33.

    smiley

    Michelle Malkin is on the panel on This Week tomorrow. Good grief. Is all you have to do is write a book about the culture of corruption in the first 6 month of the Obama administration to get invited?

  34. 34.

    JGabriel

    Bob In Pacifica:

    Can anyone explain to me, other than planned obsolescence, why modems and wireless thingies die every couple of years?

    Short answer? Heat.

    In a computer chip, thousands to millions of transistors are making decisions thousands of times per second. Each time a logic gate makes a decision, heat is dissipated (unless it’s a reversable logice gate (don’t ask)). Tends to add up pretty quickly, and over time, the chips burn out.

    Additionally, routers tend to be based on older chips repurposed for the, uh, purpose, because they’re cheaper. Which tends to exacerbate the situation.

    .

  35. 35.

    JenJen

    Guten Morgen, Balloon-Juicers!

    I’m on the way to meet my mom and go look at the dog shelters, so we can find a new little forever-friend for her. Yay! :-)

  36. 36.

    JGabriel

    smiley:

    Michelle Malkin is on the panel on This Week tomorrow.

    Will Krugman be there? That would be fun.

    Unless it causes a stupid/anti-stupid particle reaction that could destroy the galaxy. That would be bad.

    I feel ambivalent about the situation.

    .

  38. 38.

    Comrade Darkness

    @schrodinger’s cat: I think it got pulled when the site had the google ban scare with “this site may harm your computer”.

    I’m not fully caffienated to be more coherent. Sorry. And I never heard what component of the site actually had the bad javascript in it to be more fully informative. Basically, the site got a haircut while John was figuring out what was setting off google and it’s still doing a colbert to this day.

  39. 39.

    Comrade Darkness

    @schrodinger’s cat: I think it got pulled when the site had the google ban scare with “this site may harm your computer”.

    I’m not fully caffienated to be more coherent. Sorry. And I never heard what component of the site actually had the bad javascript in it to be more fully informative. Basically, the site got a haircut while John was figuring out what was setting off google and it’s still doing a colbert to this day.

  41. 41.

    cbear

    @Brick Oven Bill: “….four pounds of potatoes yields one pound of meat after being processed through the pig.”

    So BOB, how much did you weigh before the processing?

  42. 42.

    The Saff

    JGabriel: Cat man do.

    I roared watching that video. Except for the baseball bat, I go through that every morning. Thanks for posting!

    JenJen: good luck on finding your mom’s new forever friend.

  43. 43.

    Violet

    It’s August. I’m into grouchy territory with summer now. It’s so hot and humid and miserable here. Will summer ever end?

    For those of you in cold, northern climes, think how you start feeling about late February or March. It’s cold, it’s miserable, and you feel like it’s been that way forever. It’s the same feeling, but for summer. Can’t stand summer and wish it would go away. Roll on, October.

    Our Comcast modem goes out every hour or so for about 60 seconds. No idea why, but have heard it happens to others in our neighborhood.

  44. 44.

    Brian J

    Watching Hardball has become too painful. Matthews makes me insane. He has no clue on issues, asks incredibly long questions, then talks over the guest to extend the question, and doesn’t understand the answers. Is he that dumb?

    Is Chuck Todd that dumb?

    Is John Boehner, Mike Pence, and John Kyl that dumb?

    Matthews? He’s not dumb. He just suffers from the disease of (a) not realizing when a joke is only funny in his head, (b) not realizing that frat boy humor isn’t always appropriate, and (c) not successfully straddling the line between a jocular political show and a serious political show. I suffer from the same disease (minus the part about having the show, of course), but I’m in my twenties, not my sixties.

    Chuck Todd? His biggest problem is probably that his talents aren’t being utilized wisely. He’d probably be a much better host or analyst that a reporter.

    The last three? Well, maybe not stupid in the sense that they are actually able to dress themselves in the morning, but from what I’ve seen of them, they are either shameful liars or incredibly ignorant. Carbon dioxide is the big issue with cows, Mr. Boehner? No, you dunderhead, that’s methane.

  45. 45.

    Svensker

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I got my Cuisinart Ice-cream maker yesterday. I am going to make fresh strawberry ice-cream and frozen mango yogurt, this afternoon. I will report my findings later. Wish me luck!

    I don’t wish you luck…I wish you were HERE. God, those both sound delicious. And cool. Aaaaaahhhhhhhh.

    Have you all seen the Youtube of the kitty stalking the pigeon? Hilarious. Only 26 seconds.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hdy2PY1KcY&feature=player_embedded

  46. 46.

    Demo Woman

    @schrodinger’s cat: Enjoy. My son has a Cuisinart ice cream maker. He bought a reconditioned one that Lebovitz recommended on his website through Amazon and it has worked like a charm.
    David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop” is a great recipe book to go along with your fancy gadget. Enjoy. mmmm

  49. 49.

    smiley

    @JGabriel: It’s a pretty lame panel actually: Michelle Malkin, Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker, Bloomberg’s Al Hunt and Wall Street Journal’s Jerry Seib. Maybe Tucker and Hunt can counter her stupid. I might just have to watch just to see if she makes a fool of herself — again.

  51. 51.

    Violet

    @Brian J:

    Chuck Todd? His biggest problem is probably that his talents aren’t being utilized wisely. He’d probably be a much better host or analyst that a reporter.

    Agreed. There’s a reason people had a crush on him during the elections. He was doing what he’s good at – analyzing polls and reporting on them. He seemed really refreshing because he based his analysis on numbers rather than on spin. He told what seemed to be the truth. People loved him.

    Now he tries to report the news and all that honesty is bottled up. Plus he’s putting the NBC brass (read: GOP) spin on everything, so it’s like he’s reporting opinion rather than truth.

    He’s not very good at what he’s being asked to do. I saw him on Nightly News awhile back when some new polls were out. He was like a totally different person – all excited with numbers and details. That was the Chuck Todd I remembered.

    These days he’s like a low rent David Gregory. That’s not a compliment.

  52. 52.

    GReynoldsCT00

    @Political Pragmatist:

    I didn’t suggest stop reading… at least you can have more control over that than listening to the vapid talking heads who are more concerned with their images than reporting the ‘news’ or such that it is…that’s my point

  53. 53.

    smiley

    @srv:

    It is long past time that a group of psychologists should be submitting changes to the DSM IV concerning 28% of the US population.

    Actually I believe the DSM V is about to come out. The new version, I believe, will include marijuana dependence for the first time. Don’t know about wingnutphrenia.

  54. 54.

    Political Pragmatist

    @Brian J:

    That makes sense. Thanks.

    We have a guy here in Vegas that is the poster child for much of what is wrong with the GOP. He believes he is above it all, not responsible, and once you knock him off the talking points, is incapable of complete thoughts.

    John Ensign.

    The Incredible Vanishing Cream–Conservative Movement. “Put this on your party and watch it disappear!”

  55. 55.

    Political Pragmatist

    @smiley:

    You’re kidding. (Probably not.)

    Maybe a psychological addiction, but not physical dependence. That isn’t the way marijuana works.

    You cannot become physically dependent on a substance with which you cannot overdose. It’s like saying someone can become dependent on fruit wraps. When there is no increasing need to get a bigger result, there can be no addiction. Pot isn’t coke.

    Absurd.

  56. 56.

    WereBear

    Good luck, schrodinger’s cat @ 28 and 29

    Mango. Man o man, enjoy.

    These days he’s like a low rent David Gregory. That’s not a compliment.

    This incessant messing with people’s essential nature is going to backfire even more spectacularly (surely you jest, WereBear!) for the Republicans soon now (in cosmic terms) simply because that much force has to have a outlet.

    Right now, it’s the Republicans walling off doubt in an effort to contain that force.

    Which, in classic movie monster fashion, will turn on them.

    And there will be windmills. Windmills a plenty, my brothers and sisters.

  59. 59.

    Political Pragmatist

    @GReynoldsCT00:
    I didn’t suggest stop reading… at least you can have more control over that than listening to the vapid talking heads who are more concerned with their images than reporting the ‘news’ or such that it is…that’s my point”

    It’s a good point, too. The problem is Matthews is indicative of how badly off-track the MSM is. They are stuck in the previous era’s mindset that conservatives have a point, when they don’t.

  60. 60.

    Political Pragmatist

    Last one:

    Here’s a game you can play with your conservative friends. “Can youea name the top ten success stories of the conservative movement?”

    Counter with Social Security, Medicare, the G.I. Bill, police and fire departments, parks, roads, national defense–all are government-sponsored success stories and many are liberal success stories. Where are the shrinking government success stories? Deregulation? Repeal of Glass-Steagal? Increasing the wealth of the top 1% by nearly 900% over thirty years while increasing the median by 11% and decreasing the lowest fifth by 22%?

    Why doesn’t anyone ever ask a conservative what they accomplished during the Reagan/Bush era?

  61. 61.

    RedKitten

    Happy Saturday, all! The heat is actually down to a tolerable level today, and last night was actually cool enough for me to sleep comfortably, so I’m a pretty happy camper today.

    Today, we go see some of the Tall Ships that are in harbour (including the Picton Castle and the Pride of Baltimore), and then tonight, barbecue and a bonfire.

    That’s what summer’s all about.

    And Violet?

    For those of you in cold, northern climes, think how you start feeling about late February or March. It’s cold, it’s miserable, and you feel like it’s been that way forever. It’s the same feeling, but for summer. Can’t stand summer and wish it would go away.

    It’s not so much the cold, it’s the goddamn dark that I can’t stand. That, and the fact that you have to put on forty layers of clothing and scrape off your car just to run down to the corner store to get a litre of milk. Believe me, stuff like that gets seriously tiresome.

  63. 63.

    Brick Oven Bill

    I hope Hilzoy is having fun in Rwanda, or wherever she is. I hope this includes staying close to her hotel and guides. I can only imagine the Teachable Moments that a Scandinavian college professor could have in Rwanda.

    There is a Canadian that I met that goes to Africa, buys diamonds, and then brings them back to polish up and sell at small jewelry stores. He says that the whole ‘blood diamond’ thing is a smear campaign by DeBeers. He was a very nice person. You have to buy a license from the African government you are working in in order to legally barter these diamonds and this license goes for around $30,000. It can be a profitable deal, but you have to be careful, he says.

    The first 150 years of America, and its rise to prominence, with the associated freedoms granted to its Citizens is the success story of probably the millenium, if not longer, Political Pragmatist.

    Then they let women vote, and this destroyed the black family, due to the insertion of maternal instincts into one half of the electorate. Men govern, women nurture. This is by nature. This is why men do not lactate.

  64. 64.

    General Winfield Stuck

    Then they let women vote, and this destroyed the black family, due to the insertion of maternal instincts into one half of the electorate. Men govern, women nurture.

    Your cruisin’ for bruisin’ Bobaloo.

  68. 68.

    burnspbesq

    @Bob In Pacifica:

    Let me hazard a guess:

    The stuff that dies is made in China. According to my clients who have stuff manufactured by contract manufacturers there, unless you have your own QA people on site 24/7, you have no chance of getting stuff made to specifications using the components you told the factory to use. The profit is in cutting corners. Only Apple, New Balance, and Ralph Lauren seem to be immune to this problem.

    The stuff that seems to last forever was made in either the US or Germany (or, in the case of audio equipment, in the UK), and was made in a factory owned and operated by the company whose name is on the product.

    No political commentary intended. Just an observation.

  69. 69.

    Fulcanelli

    @Brick Oven Bill: Bill, is there a female member of any identifiable species that will admit to being able to stand your company for more than 30 seconds or until you speak, whichever comes first?

  70. 70.

    geg6

    General Winfield Stuck: No baseball fans deserve to whine about ANYTHING unless they are Pirates fans. Longest losing club evah. And showing no sign of NOT trying to take it to a whole new level of suck.

  71. 71.

    smiley

    @Political Pragmatist:

    You’re kidding. (Probably not.)
    Maybe a psychological addiction, but not physical dependence. That isn’t the way marijuana works.
    No, I wasn’t kidding (actually DSM V isn’t coming out until ~2012).
    Psychological dependence is dependence none the less. Even though you can’t overdose, there are mild withdrawal symptoms following termination of heavy use including increased anxiety and irritability, decreased food intake, and changes in the quality/quantity of sleep. Not to mention severe craving. If removal of the drug produces withdrawal symptoms and severe craving for the drug, that’s dependence on the drug.

    You cannot become physically dependent on a substance with which you cannot overdose.
    That’s not how addiction is typically defined. The definition of addiction involves 2 elements, impaired control over the use of the drug and the drug use has harmful consequences. A better definition is needed, however.

    It’s like saying someone can become dependent on fruit wraps.
    No it’s not.

    When there is no increasing need to get a bigger result, there can be no addiction.
    That’s not true but now you’re bringing in drug tolerance and that’s a whole other issue. If your statement was true, there would be a lot more drug deaths that there already are.

    Sure wish I had a preview.

  72. 72.

    David

    Report from Redstate conventioneer Moe Lane:

    “and I have just determined that while I have a laptop, I have an internet connection, and I have a video camera (currently holding two clips of Pat Toomey) – I do not have a cable that will allow me to transfer video from the camera to the laptop, and then use to show the rest of you via the Internet.”

    The Democrats are doomed.

  73. 73.

    JR

    Okay, finally have to ask: am I the only stickler who’s constantly bothered by the fact that Jonathan Turley’s name is misspelled in the blogroll on the main page? I see it every time I visit and my eye is just drawn to it, like a prominent wart on the nose of a salesgirl.

  76. 76.

    General Winfield Stuck

    @geg6:

    No baseball fans deserve to whine about ANYTHING unless they are Pirates fans

    You have a point.

  79. 79.

    Fulcanelli

    @smiley: And when the DSM V is published, based on the number of lettered psychological professionals having published papers, books, etc. over the last handful of years documenting the decline of the mental state of a sizable percentage of the US population, I would definitely expect to see “Wingularity” listed under the Axis II Category “Cluster B” as a new and previously undiagnosed Personality Disorder.

    And it’s about time.

  81. 81.

    WereBear

    And when the DSM V is published, based on the number of lettered psychological professionals having published papers, books, etc. over the last handful of years documenting the decline of the mental state of a sizable percentage of the US population, I would definitely expect to see “Wingularity” listed under the Axis II Category “Cluster B” as a new and previously undiagnosed Personality Disorder.

    Its nickname would be Birthers. Or Deathers, according to the axis.

    Then there would be the dreaded Birther/Deathers on the cusp, which no one wants to be in a room with.

  82. 82.

    Steeplejack

    @General Winfield Stuck:

    The new link works for me.

    Uh, the framing feels a little tight. I don’t want to go all backseat-driver Soderbergh on you, but I would zoom back a skosh, maybe 6 inches (perceived) or so. Just sayin’.

  83. 83.

    Fulcanelli

    @General Winfield Stuck: Yeah General, when I clicked on that link a few minutes ago and was asked for a password I closed the new tab… Based on the link title I got a little squeamish with the wife occasionally looking over my shoulder and chose not to try and proceed any further. Heh.

  85. 85.

    Political Pragmatist

    Old stoners back in the day had a saying: Don’t smoke when you’re high. You don’t get any higher, just lower on dope.”

    They knew what scientists have confirmed. There is no increasing dosage which increases the effect. One cannot overdose on marijuana. If you can’t overdose, you can’t become addicted–tobacco being the only exception.

    As I said, alcohol is more like coke and heroin, where pot is more like fruit wraps. Or chocolate. Like tobacco, it is a drug-delivery system. Unlike tobacco, there is not an increasing drug tolerance than can be overcome by greater indulgence or stronger pot. Simply, stronger pot means you need less to get the same result, but once the result is achieved, more does nothing.

    The one thing that pot “addiction” usually signals is clinical depression. Marijuana is an inefficient treatment, but the user is often undiagnosed and is self-medicating.

  86. 86.

    Ella in NM

    4 days is exactly how long the money lasted.

    And now, for today’s Teachable Moment:

    A friend of ours at a local dealer says part of the problem is that the dealers have been setting up eligible purchases to go when the program was activated, which the general public thought would be August 1st, but was actually a few days earlier. They would set up whatever financing and verification paperwork they needed, then set the car aside to be picked up on the day the government gave the ok.

    So they already had waiting deals that were cleared to go before the average consumer actually walked onto the lots. It sucked up a lot of the action. But he says they are still setting these deals up this weekend, and that the extra money Congress just passed will definitely help keep it going for a while longer.

    We’re gonna try it today, as a matter of fact. We can trade in our ’91 Explorer and hopefully get the full $4500 off a new, low gas mileage vehicle. Wish us luck cause our credit is kinda crappy right now! ;-)

  90. 90.

    Steeplejack

    @General Winfield Stuck:

    That looks a lot better to me. Just feels less cramped. And now there are four hummers slurping away. Before, there was one at a time, and they would all hide on the side opposite the camera. Maybe they felt it was too close.

  91. 91.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Ella, good luck as well. I cannot recommend enough the Ford Focus. After 150,000 miles of very bad roads with cobbles and boulders and things, the back doors cannot be opened from the inside, which is not necessarily a bad thing, depending on motive. What are you doing tonight geg6?

    However, other than that, it still runs great and gets 40mpg highway and 34 city. Great car.

  92. 92.

    Violet

    @RedKitten:

    It’s not so much the cold, it’s the goddamn dark that I can’t stand. That, and the fact that you have to put on forty layers of clothing and scrape off your car just to run down to the corner store to get a litre of milk. Believe me, stuff like that gets seriously tiresome.

    Yeah, we don’t have the dark. But we also don’t get the nice long days in summer. Tradeoffs, I guess.

    As for misery when you need to run down to the store for something, it’s bad here in a different kind of way. The instant you step outside you’re sweating. And not the mild perspiring kind. No, this is the hard core, rivers of sweat running down every inch of your body kind. So you plan your day around the heat index. You only go outside in the morning (downside: highest humidity) or evening (downside: it’s hotter). The rest of the day you spend dashing from your air conditioned house to your a/c car to your a/c office or shop or whatever. And no matter how hard you try, you sweat through all your clothes in a matter of minutes. To feel halfway clean you need four or five showers a day. Oh, and it starts in May.

    By August we’re cranky and miserable. We’re just hanging on waiting for October and that first cool breeze.

  93. 93.

    RedKitten

    @Punchy: It’s some weird-ass European unit of measurement. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.

  94. 94.

    srv

    @Political Pragmatist:

    No chit. I write a blog for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and probably 90% of my readers are libertarians and wingnuts. I’m fully conversant with the disorder.

    Great minds think alike.

  95. 95.

    Peter J

    @cbear:

    Is it wrong of me to hope that Sarah Palin does or says something sufficiently stupid today so that I don’t have to watch anymore coverage of the Beer Summit?

    Your wish seems to have been granted. Sort of.

  97. 97.

    General Winfield Stuck

    @Peter J:

    I first thought this had to be some kind of spoof. But Memerandum has posted it for what that’s worth. If true, a big layer of the Sarah Onion has been peeled away. If believed, it’s apparently cause they both have had too many illicit trysts, or something like that. Family Values and all.

  98. 98.

    Brachiator

    @Peter J:

    Your wish seems to have been granted. Sort of.

    If this turns out to be more substantial than rumor or speculation, then I feel some sympathy for Palin. I would never vote for her and don’t think that she is competent as a national level politician, or even as a governor, since she decided to bail on the job.

    Still, she seemed to try hard to be a good spouse and parent.

  99. 99.

    General Winfield Stuck

    Still, she seemed to try hard to be a good spouse and parent.

    So do mama Crocodiles.

  100. 100.

    Brachiator

    @General Winfield Stuck:

    So do mama Crocodiles

    Crocodiles are some of my favorite animals.

    Palin’s biggest flaw was that she was clearly over her head in terms of being a credible VP candidate. And yeah, she speechified a lot of crazy stuff, but there are political figures far more deserving wrath and scorn than Palin.

    Ironically, if she is divorcing, she is gradually unwrapping most of the things that made her appealing to her core supporters as an “Ordinary Gal” potential leader.

    I know some women who were charmed by her relationship with her husband, and admired her as being someone like them. I also recall that Esquire Magazine did an admiring feature on Todd Palin as a man’s man and ordinary guy. Here’s a piece of the opening lines.

    Alaska’s first husband is not scared of you, the cops, or his wife. Get a sneak peak at a week in the life of the ultimate stay-at-home dad, hunter, fixer, and champion snowmobiler right here, then click here for Luke Dittrich’s full, in-depth profile.

    http://www.esquire.com/the-side/video/todd-palin-video-0509#ixzz0My3tpuKM

    Palin admirers were also taken with the idea that a person with not a lot of education and not a lot of curiosity about the world could succeed as governor and become a candidate for higher political office.

    But Palin may not be nearly as appealing to even her core supporters as a divorcee and “not-quite” governor.

  101. 101.

    General Winfield Stuck

    Palin’s biggest flaw was that she was clearly over her head in terms of being a credible VP candidate. And yeah, she speechified a lot of crazy stuff, but there are political figures far more deserving wrath and scorn than Palin.

    My scorn was mostly for Mccain and camp for putting such an unfit, and when you think about it, unstable person a few million votes and then a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

    I don’t feel anger or scornful toward her because like you say she is way over her head being on the national stage. And she is likely finished as a national candidate. Though it remains loads of fun to mock her, and the nasty that comes out of her mouth lends justification for that, IMOH.

  102. 102.

    Laura W

    But Palin may not be nearly as appealing to even her core supporters as a divorcee

    er…how about as a adulteress (allegedly), not just a divorcee? It’s only unforgivable when women do it.
    Scarlet Sarah, blah blah blah.
    Ah, who cares anyway? Back to Maher with Rachel about to come on. Don’t think I’ve seen any commentary on her appearance or his show today? Maybe consensus is he’s still boring.

    @Steeplejack: Had I been around last night, I would’ve called you an amateur and linked to this:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml5zv387R0E

    Today I intended to gift you Art Garfunkel’s (Jimmy Webb’s) “Saturday Suit”, but youtube has no such thing available, which is a crime IMO, but surely a relief to the other 40,000 readers.

    All week long we’ve been looking at
    horizons and it’s hard on the brain
    Sometimes I wonder is it the car or the
    highway that rolls through the rain.
    This day has no number
    This day has no name
    But it’s time for the weekend all the same

    Why don’t you put on your Saturday Suit,
    Let’s fly away,
    We can find ourselves a little cafe
    Where the street people come to play
    And let the wine and the sunshine
    blow our minds away
    Saturday Suit me fine…today

    All week long we’ve been sitting on our
    islands looking within
    Sometimes I know it must seem like
    we’ll never be happy again
    Put on your makeup
    And I’ll shine my shoes
    I know that it’s Monday, but I’m
    bored with the blues

    Why don’t you put on your Saturday Suit,
    Let’s fly away,
    We can find ourselves a little cafe
    Where the street people come to play
    And let the wine and the sunshine
    blow our minds away
    Saturday Suit me fine today

    Oh Good Lord. Look what I found. Just for you!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH6iE02h6zI
    (If you think the first song is painful, wait for #2. Good Lord.)

  103. 103.

    Brachiator

    @Laura W:

    er…how about as a adulteress (allegedly), not just a divorcee? It’s only unforgivable when women do it.

    I doubt that many find adultery especially unforgivable when a woman does it. And the fundies who make up the GOP core have a general get-out-of-sin free card available to almost any Republican who strays, especially if they show remorse and invoke the name of the baby Jebus.

    Palin was coming close to embodying the fantasy ideal of an ordinary woman who had it all, family and cute kids, a political career, etc. If the fantasy unravels, she has less to offer her supporters.

  104. 104.

    Laura W

    @Brachiator:

    I doubt that many find adultery especially unforgivable when a woman does it.

    Oh Really?
    We shall see, I suppose. Sarah might be a maverick after all, blazing a fresh, new “pure as the driven snow trail” for conservative women cheater hypocrites! (I don’t know what that means, actually, but I like the look of it on my screen.)

    (And yes I know “an” was needed before “adulteress” but I changed my wording to be more clear at the last minute and, of course, with no freaking preview or edit function, we all look like idjuts now. At least we used to could hide our idjutry.)

  105. 105.

    Steeplejack

    @Laura W:

    Just got home a little while ago and see that all the posting action is on “And We’re Back,” but I’ll post here to maintain rigorous thread continuity. Because that is how I roll.

    Had I been around last night, I would’ve called you an amateur and linked to this [. . .].

    Horrors. In general I hatey-hate-McHate David Bowie. He epitomizes–he probably invented–that self-absorbed poseur snarkiness that we discussed recently in regard to Ms. Lennox’s unfortunate take on “Wait in Vain.” I’ll go with the straight-ahead sincerity and energy of the simple Aussie yoots any day, thank you.

    And “amateur”? Apparently it can be hard for those of less discerning taste to recognize the deliberate artlessness of the true master.

    Thank you for reminding me of–and quoting at length–Jimmy Webb’s “Saturday Suit.” I like almost all his stuff, although Art Garfunkel doesn’t leap to mind as his best interpreter. (Is it absolute heresy to say Glen Campbell? Okay, how about the Fifth Dimension.) And, yeah, that Garfunkel/Cher video was a trip. Made me realize how much better the Fifth Dimension’s version was. Thought about shooting you back their version of “California Soul”–not a Webb song, just one of my favorites by them–but I couldn’t find a performance video, about which I know you have definite thoughts. Got to looking through their stuff on YouTube, and that inevitably brought up Laura Nyro. Your thoughts on her? I would think she would have a place on your shelf right next to Joni.

    Triangulating between your theme–unexpected cover of old favorite–and my mood tonight, I decided on this version of “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues.” Even sort of bookends “Saturday Suit,” to my mind.

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