I’m on a business trip until Sunday, so I’ll try to pop in an throw up an open thread every now and then. Lily is off to Aunt Tammy’s, and His Tunchness will have the run of the domain (like that is any different from any other day). Try to behave.
Also, vote for Bitsy:
She is over 1300.
Just Some Fuckhead
Make sure you wear clean underwear in case yer in an automobile accident.
The Saff
I always feel guilty when we go away even though we have my mother-in-law fly in from St. Louis to house-sit and take care of the fur children. When I pack, the cats hang out and crawl in my suitcase to make me feel extra guilty.
The Moar You Know
You have a job? This is news to me.
Zifnab
4chan’d
Leelee for Obama
Have a good trip and enjoy!
Hi Folks!
I just wanted to let everyone know my Mom had a massive stroke and she’s in the Hospital, so I’ve been absent for several days, in case anyone missed my pithy comments.
They’re going to do a Hospice eval today, and then I’ll know more, but the Dr. said imminent yesterday, so it seems we may not get that far.
Thanks to all who gave advice about Hospice and good thoughts all along, as it helped very much in the situation I found myself in.
Hopefully, I’ll be back and snarky, cause I’m kinda on my game through this, but I’m gone more than I’m here so you guys will have to solve the world’s problems for awhile w/o me.
Thanks again!
jibeaux
I think we still need “citizen journalism” and “Red State Trike Force”. You could add that picture of the kid on the trike with the square wheel for that extra visual wow if you like. I am not very good at definitions, though, although I think the countertops definition should have a “see also” for citizen journalism. I’ll give it a shot:
Citizen journalism — amateur investigation of a subtopic that wingnuts view as being unjustly ignored by the mainstream media, which in reality is being ignored by everyone because it would be an astonishingly stupid thing to care about. See also “countertops, type Graeme Frost’s family has.”
Red State Trike Force — Erick Erickson’s calls to action to effect political change by some sort of symbolic act. Often involves mailing things to Congresscritters. Not demonstrated to have had any effect yet, but entertaining to watch.
Demo Woman
@Leelee for Obama: LeeLee I’m so sorry please take care and we miss you.
Skepticat
@Leelee for Obama:
For lack of anything useful to say, please accept a hug and good thoughts. (Yes, the comments were missed.)
R-Jud
@Zifnab: Beat me to it.
@The Saff: This is an issue for us, too. We’ve just lined up catminding services for our trip to the US at Thanksgiving. We make it up to them by having the minders give out extra rations of tuna and stuff. I think lately, after the arrival of Her Royal Babyness, this is the only thing that prevents them pissing off to someone else’s house on a permanent basis.
That, and chin skritches.
jibeaux
@Leelee for Obama:
Leelee, I’m so sorry to hear that, and if you’re okay with accepting prayers I will do it. I hope that she can be made comfortable, and she has certainly been blessed to have had you as a daughter.
asiangrrlMN
@Leelee for Obama: Good to see you. Sorry about your mom. I’m sending you strong vibes and surrounding your family with a white light. Drop in when you can and let us know what’s what.
@Zifnab: Are you using Michelle Malkin math AGAIN?
And a throwout in general. Can someone give me a succinct description of 4chan’ed? kthxbai.
Cole, if you wanna hike the Appalachian Trail, nude, just say so!
JenJen
I have done my daily Bitsy voting. By the way, who is Bitsy’s main competition?
Trinity
@Leelee for Obama: So sorry to hear about your Mom. I send you and your family all of the best. Take care!
Ash Can
You’re no fun.
@Leelee for Obama: Oh dear. So sorry to hear that. My sympathies.
Ash Can
Odd…not sure why one “submit” translated into two posts.
kid bitzer
shouldn’t that really be:
vote for bitsy. also.
Just Some Fuckhead
@JenJen:
For me, the hottie in the pink tanktop.
South of I-10
@Leelee for Obama: I’m so sorry to hear that!
I’ve got cabin fever. Little South has been sick since Tuesday night. Fever has finally come down today.
Just Some Fuckhead
Gang of Six: Six individuals willing to engage in High Broderism for the good of the country in order to advance the legislative process or confirm stalled nominees. Not to be confused with Mao’s Gang of Four, which when implemented correctly renders the legislative process moot.
General Winfield Stuck
@Leelee for Obama:
Sending good vibes your way.
jibeaux
@South of I-10:
Does anyone else start involuntarily humming Sonny Landreth when you show up, or is it just me and my affection for long guitar solos?
The Saff
General question: Does anyone know about the right going after Valerie Jarrett? Was listening to Randi Rhodes yesterday on my way home from work and she mentioned that the wingnuts are targeting Jarrett.
The Saff
@Leelee for Obama: Kitty prayers from my kitties for your mom. Sorry to hear about her health. I can’t even imagine.
Demo Woman
@The Saff: Last I heard Beck thought she might be a communist. The wackos are going to throw mud and see what sticks.
South of I-10
@jibeaux: Allons danser! It’s like I have my own theme song.
GReynoldsCT00
Make sure Tunch isn’t locked in teh bedroom! Happy trails.
Brick Oven Bill
“And though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their fathers’ places, and when they come into power as guardians, they will soon be found to fall in taking care of us, the Muses, first by under-valuing music; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic; and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated.”– <a href=” Obama inaugural “> The Republic, Book 8
The mmm mmm mm Barack Hussein Obama song sucks, and is emblematic of Americans under-valuing music. Music is one of the seven Liberal Arts. This woman-teacher simply added dumb new words to an existing song. As a Harvard graduate, is she really this incapable of writing her own notes? What is wrong with her, and her Alma Mater? You can also observe that the male children-singers appear to be out of shape, indicating that they are neglectful of their gymnastics.
Cold Play is the only decent music to come out in years, and those guys are limies for God’s sake.
Persia
@Leelee for Obama: Take care, Leelee, if you see this.
Svensker
@Leelee for Obama:
So sorry to hear about your Mom. That is a tough, tough thing to go through. It’s at times like this that you realize that love really is the most important thing and the only thing that endures.
Big hugs.
Citizen_X
@Leelee for Obama: I’m very sorry to hear that. Love and support to you and your Mom.
On another note, anyone notice the Dictionary is now a “Lexicon?” Oooohhh, ain’t we fancy now? Here’s another term it needs: hissy fit. (“An organized media tantrum intended to effect humiliation and a ritual apology from one’s political opponents.”) Because Digby–surely the source of about half our vocabulary by now–deserves even more credit.
Also befitting everyone’s attention: Glenzilla vs. Bobo! Which includes this terrifying passage:
JenJen
@Just Some Fuckhead: I know! Plus, I keep misreading her shirt.
ellaesther
Done and done! Thanks for reminding us, and have a great trip!
I for one am off to a reunion with old friends, and then into Yom Kippur land, so have fun this weekend-into Monday without me! I know I don’t comment a lot most days, but I sure do appreciate having the chance when I can grab. Y’all are a good bunch.
And if you fast, I hope it’s easy! Shana tova! שנה טובה
Punchy
You can just leave a cat all by himself in the house alone? Who feeds him? What if he tips over his water bowl on Day 1?
ellaesther
@ellaesther: (raggle-snaggle, where’s that edit function! I mean “having the chance when I can grab THE TIME.” Sheesh).
Ambergris
The lexicon abhors a vacuum, so there needs to be something in the “X”-column. I’d propose something about “Xe” and the definition should make absolutely clear that this is Blackwater and list all the crimes Blackwater committed when Xe was still Blackwater, also, Blackwater.
Zifnab
@asiangrrlMN:
Tits or GTFO
Calming Influence
@Brick Oven Bill:
Jeeze BOB, are you O.K.?
JenJen
@Leelee for Obama: So sorry to hear about your Mom. :-( Best wishes, and hang in there.
SGEW
@Leelee for Obama: So sorry for the situation. Our thoughts are with you, and we’ll guard the fort while you’re gone.
asiangrrlMN
@Zifnab: Link doesn’t work. You fix. (h/t Steeplejack).
@ellaesther: When I have the chance to grab, I appreciate it as well.
@Ambergris: I like this for X. Make it be so, lexicon overlords!
SGEW
@Brick Oven Bill:
You’re full of surprises, B.O.B.
MysticalChick
@leelee for obama: Sending you and your family love and Light and safe passage for your mom as she moves through this journey.
Thanks for the Bitsy vote reminder – I do it every day. :-)
Loved the definitions, you guys. Most of them I kinda knew just from hanging ’round the interwebs but always good to get them in one place. Also.
Cat Lady
@Ambergris:
I proposed this earlier today.
LeeLee for Obama: I’ve been there and done that. You have a lonely road to walk, but we’re all wishing you the best.
Obama may get 2 more SCOTUS picks this term since Ginsburg is hospitalized, so batten down the hatches for more heavy mouthbreathing, although, how they could beat the Sotomayor poutrage remains to be seen.
asiangrrlMN
@Cat Lady: No no no NOOOOOOOO! Xena (aka Lucy ‘teh hawtness’ Lawless) should not be associated with La Palina in any shape or form. Aaaaargh!
Demo Woman
Vice President Biden is on my TV. There are a few hundred folks staying in the Cobb Community Center and he’s spending time talking to the folks that are there. He is suppose to make a speech soon.
CaseyL
@Leelee for Obama: So sorry to hear about your Mom! Sending good thoughts your way…
Cole, you’re a college professor. College professors go to conferences; they don’t take “business trips.” What are you up to, you born-again DFH? Whatever it is, have fun!
Me, I’m trying to get my butt in gear and get ready for SteamCon, the steampunk convention here in Seattle next month. I have a bunch of props and costume bits that need fabricating to one degree or another, including a really nifty “ray gun” I designed with a friend of mine. The design calls for glass tubes (to go over the wire-wrapped doorstops). I already had a small cache of old cigar tubes, but they’re made of very fragile glass and all but one cracked. So I went looking for test tubes. And found out that, unless you’re buying them by the thousands, you CANNOT buy test tubes in the City of Seattle. Not that it’s illegal; just no one does it. The shops that used to, “ChemLab Supply” and “Art, Science & More,” are both out of business. So I had to drive out to Monroe, to a wholesale place that will also sell retail to walk-ins.
I don’t know if the culprit is the WO(S)D* or other factors, butit’s very depressing that scientific supply houses can’t make a go of it in Seattle.
*Is this in the dictionary? It should be!
WO(S)D: War on (Some) Drugs, a decades-long and ongoing policy of criminalizing anything and everything associated with recreational pharmaceuticals. It has resulted in the shredding of the 4th Amendment, police agencies abusing forfeiture to prop up their budgets, and the imposition of many insulting inconveniences for everyone, such as either having to fill out paperwork in order to buy such things as cold medicine and laboratory supplies, or not being able to buy those things at all. What the WO(S)D has not done is stop drug use or eliminate drug cartels.
Demo Woman
It’s nice to see the Homeland Security director with the VP. Duck Tape won’t help the thousands of folks that lost their home. In Austell 2000 homes were destroyed.
Bootlegger
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Second!
Demo Woman
Duct Tape/ not Duck tape…
Bootlegger
@Punchy: Big bowl-o-food and a water dispenser. Water in the tub works in a pinch.
Michael D.
In dog years?
Bootlegger
@Demo Woman: There is a brand of duct tape called Duck Tape.
smiley
@Punchy: I leave mine alone for up to a week. I just put out a really big bowl of food, a couple of water bowls, and sometimes, a second litter box. They do just fine. Does that make me a bad person?
Calming Influence
@Demo Woman:
It’s not just for ducts anymore…
Cat Lady
@asiangrrlMN:
So sorry, Xena was after my time and I thought she was just a big tease for prepubescent boys anyway, although I do understand the attraction. She looks better now than then, and better than Palin, also too.
General Winfield Stuck
Qwack!
Brick Oven Bill
Socrates lived four hundred years before Jesus. Clovis I came to power four hundred and ninety six years after Jesus. The Catholic Church was dispatched by the Seven Liberal Arts. It is worth considering that both the Ancient Greeks and the Enlightenment recognized the importance of music to sustainable civilization.
One bad aspect of Islam is that music is banned by the religion. This is why Islam, in its current form, is not a threat to the ideals of the Enlightenment. And if the mmm mmm mm song is the best that this Harvard trained Obama groupie can do, she should also not be taken seriously. She is a threat only to herself.
Additionally, consider that the Obama Administration is directing the NEA to produce propaganda, and paying them with tax dollars to do it, the lady’s name is Buffy, and they still can only produce this bad song.
Ancient Greeks, and the Enlightenment that led to the Founding of America = Good Music = Winners.
The Obama Administration = Bad Music.
Demo Woman
The rep for Douglas county David Scott just thanked President Obama, Vice President Biden and the lord.
Sen. Chambliss just praised President Obama’s quick actions in declaring the counties an emergency.
Isakson is now thanking the administration especially Biden.
Wow, it’s nice to see the Southern republicans praise the administration.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Leelee for Obama: Will keep you in my thoughts. Best wishes.
Brachiator
@Leelee for Obama:
Very sorry to hear about your mother. Please take care.
Demo Woman
Our governor went to Panama to try to drum up business for GA. Of course who knows Sunny could be hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Robertdsc-iphone
Best wishes in this difficult time, Leelee.
Memo to the President & the Dem leadership working on health care reform: please don’t cancel Medicare Advantage until after the 1st of October. The job I’m working on is for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries & my company wants to get paid for delivering the product before you kill the program & render the customer’s booklets useless. Thanks.
/lulz
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
Link doesn’t work. You fix. (h/t Steeplejack).
Okay, now you’re just mocking me. And it should be “Linky no work.” Where’s my Pidgin-English dictionary?
Brachiator
Everybody Mambo!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfvJOL1gpic
asiangrrlMN
@Cat Lady: Then call me a prepubescent boy because I looove me some Xena.
Ahem. Back as you were.
Steeplejack, I am NOT mocking you. I love that line! Makes me laugh every time I type it. Heh.
Tattoosydney
@Brick Oven Bill:
Given that your definition of good music is Coldplay, BoB, I don’t think you are qualified to comment.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: Zing! Nice one, fake hubby.
RedKitten
@Leelee for Obama: Our thoughts are definitely with you, honey. Take care, okay?
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
You don’t have to h/t me. Originally I was just surprised that you picked up the line.
With you on the Xena love. Arrgglle!
Steeplejack
@Leelee for Obama:
My prayers are with you and your mother.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: But that’s what makes it funny, at least to me. OK. I’m weird. What else is new?
Xena…yum. And, I get to have homemade apple pie for lunch (friend made it). Yay!
Bootlegger
@Brick Oven Bill:
Jesus wept BOB! You cite some facts that make you sound halfway intelligent then you drop an asinine lie like this on us. Islam doesn’t ban music. Some Islamist ban some types of music, much like the Christians do.
Demo Woman
It’s amazing to see the local channels talk so positively about the administration. Flooding should not be a partisan issue but the local news last night had comments from some local republican politicians talking about the lack of federal help. Of course, they are the same republicans who argued against stimulus money.
R-Jud
@Cat Lady: Holy crap. She’s my celebrity doppelganger!
Cat Lady
@Brachiator:
Electric Avenue
R-Jud
double post, sorry
asiangrrlMN
@Bootlegger: And dancing. Don’t forget the dancing. It is teh evilz and leads to sex. I know. My local Christian college tells me so.
Brick Oven Bill
I am convinced that the instrumental lead song of Death and All His Friends musically represents the evolution of modern man to date. The final note of the first song is a ‘minor’, which is also known as a ’discord’.
“By concord little things grow great, by discord the greatest come to nothing.”
-Roger Miller
There are forces which seek to sow discord in American society, and have largely succeeded. This is to concentrate power for themselves. The final nail in the coffin of Act 1 of our experiment was granting women the right to vote.
This has nothing to do with women being bad people, women are great. But we have all been granted equal amounts of evolutionary energy, and a lot of this energy has gone into the vital task of nurturing in females. Nurturing is incompatible with governance.
In contrast, men have stronger bodies, and different minds, than women.
If you listen to the entire Coldplay album, you will find that the final note of the final song ends with a ‘concord’. The final song is very similar to the first song, with the exception of the ending. I agree with their assessment, but still keep some rice and beans in storage.
Cat Lady
@R-Jud:
Mine is Michelle Pfeiffer. ;->
gwangung
Aw, dude, that’s just a spoof comment. Everyone KNOWS an administration that plugs Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin and Earth Wind and Fire has got its musical act together–TOTALLY.
asiangrrlMN
@Cat Lady: And mine, of course, is Margaret Cho.
@Cat Lady: First popular song I ever heard. >Electric Avenue, that is.
The Grand Panjandrum
So we are now 100 days after the “guarantee” of a GOP sponsored healthcare reform bill. GOPers have broken another promise … shocking … film at … how about a link to Steve Benen’s excellent piece on this very subject.
Brachiator
Another song in honor of National One Hit Wonder Day
Ice, Ice, Baby, Vanilla Ice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE
And what the hey, bonus One Hit Wonder
Pass the Dutchie, Musical Youth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtLONl4cNc
Because too much politics will make you stale, and the wingnuts got nuthin’
Cat Lady
@asiangrrlMN:
Thanks for sharing that. Now I feel REALLY old.
asiangrrlMN
@Cat Lady: I was in the sixth grade. My family didn’t do music.
Neutron Flux
@Brick Oven Bill: Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?
mistersnrub
Did anyone see Rush on Leno last night? Christ, I think he’s transitioned from downers to uppers. He’s lost 82 pounds (!) since that CPAC fiasco, and I highly doubt that man hits the treadmill. He was twitching and fidgety and looked like he was gonna jump on his seat Cruise-style at any moment. I would not be surprised to find out he’s been busting rails off the backs of Dominican boys. He came across as a piggish schmuck, and as much as I dislike Leno, I gotta give him props for providing a nice dichotomy to this evil warthog.
Brachiator
@Neutron Flux:
Chicago does …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ-pvc-fGpI
Funkhauser
For the dictionary / lexicon:
The etymology of “Reality has a well-known liberal bias” extends back to a Daily Show report by Steve Carell, in which he noted that the facts in Iraq have a liberal bias.
Carry on.
Tattoosydney
Hmmm. Cole goes away on a “business trip”, and suddenly BoB turns up at his most oblique and sexist, and goes all man crush on Chris Martin. I find this very suspicious.
Are BoB and Cole the same person? Has BoB taken control of the body? Is he planning to take it for a dirty weekend rolling joints, getting naked and playing hola fruta with Chris Martin, while Gwyneth scrubs floors next door and weeps softly to herself?
Funkhauser
Hahahaha…. Coldplay. Please never let your iPod touch mine.
SGEW
@Brick Oven Bill:
You’re just testing your “law principle” [sic], B.O.B., to see if I’ll request banning you for outright sexism.
This time I’ll just say “fuck you” (fuck you), and point out that there is a great deal of legitimate scholarship in which it is posited that our current form of governance’s greatest flaw is a lack of any sort of so-called “nurturing” philosophy. For what that’s worth.
Also: You’re a creepy racist misogynist who reads anachronistic material in a transparent attempt to justify your own bigotry, and you can’t even understand the original texts very well. I would recommend reading some jurisprudence or political philosophy that have been written since the American Civil War, but you wouldn’t understand any of that either – instead, I suggest you seek therapy in order to come to terms with your own egregiously obvious personal issues, and try to refrain from stinking this place up with your delusional barbarism.
Meanwhile, I’ll refrain from calling for your permanent banning. Until you crank the racism up again.
Brick Oven Bill
Islam most definitely labels music as haram. Just as it is wrong to operate in violation of the Constitution, if you are one who has submitted to Allah, it is wrong to operate in violation of the Qur’an and Hadith. President Obama is a paradox as while he expects Americans to operate in violation of the Constitution here, he expects Muslims to operate in violation of the Qur’an and Hadith in Afghanistan.
The reason these Belief Systems have been so enduring is because they work. Many Ivy League graduates, and people like SGEW, have a God-complex that makes them believe that they know a better way. This is their arrogance, and will be their downfall.
Islam is a great and honorable religion, but will not prevail in its current form as it rejects the Seven Liberal Arts, and constitutes a self-purifying Belief System. There will be no revisions of the Islamic texts within existing Islamic societies due to the security provisions contained therein.
ironranger
@Brick Oven Bill:
If you are suggesting that too much of mens’ energy is used in nurturing women then you seem to be aware that males are not as hard wired for multi-tasking as women are. I suppose when women finally got the vote 80 plus yrs ago, white male legislators were just too exhausted to take on any more “female nurturing” for several more decades.
Citizen_X
@Brick Oven Bill:
Jeebus, how delusional are you? Being “inspired” by Coldplay to yammer on about how letting teh wimmins have teh vote is the death of democracy is right up there with Manson getting his “inspirations” from Helter Skelter. (Except, of course, that the Beatles were actually kind of good, and Coldplay SUCKS.)
How ’bout no? If I did, I would probably have to cleanse the earspace part of my brain with some Kylesa.
SGEW
@Brick Oven Bill:
Hmmm. Are you saying that “many Ivy League graduates” and I have a “God-complex” because we believe that we know a “better way” of following the Constitution of the United States of America than, say, you? Or are you saying that because we don’t have a “Belief System” centered on a deity or on the Constitution (N.B. the Constitution is a secular legal document, and not an article of faith or an object of worship) we are therefore arrogant before the wisdom of some eternal truth?
And why am I even engaging?! I really have to follow that 12 step program on not feeding trolls.
Persia
@asiangrrlMN: The Baptists don’t have sex standing up ’cause it might lead to dancing.
/old joke
jibeaux
@SGEW:
He’s a spoof. I can’t understand why this either isn’t blindingly obvious to everyone, or whether they know it and just react when prodded anyway.
Brachiator
@Brick Oven Bill:
When was the last time a Biblical text was “revised?”
If you knew what you were talking about, you would understand how wrong you are.
Third Eye Open
@Brick Oven Bill: Pat Boone called, he wants his buttless leather chaps back.
Obama=Bad Music
What masterpieces of “concordance” has modern American conservatism gifted us with?
smiley
@Brick Oven Bill:
Probably just for the Taliban.
http://www.iranianradio.com/#
http://www.lyngsat.com/freeradio/Saudi-Arabia.html
http://www.surfmusic.de/country/indonesia.html
http://www.virtualafghans.com/stations/
http://www.pakmusic.net/
demimondian
Dictionary commentary: It might be worth pointing out that Scott Beauchamp was ratted out by his NCO, who was widely praised by the fRighties. Said NCO has since been convicted of multiple murder, along with several of Beauchamp’s platoon-mates. Beauchamp himself has never been found to have violated any order, much less any point of the Military code.
jibeaux
le sigh.
smiley
Hmmm… moderation. I wonder what for. I didn’t use either of the “s” words.
Demo Woman
Judge rejects GOP bid to block Kirk
Judge Thomas Connolly deliberated for nearly four hours before dismissing the GOP’s claim that Governor Patrick overstepped his authority by declaring an emergency so Paul Kirk Jr.’s appointment to Kennedy’s US Senate seat could be made immediately.
Demo Woman
@Demo Woman: copied from the boston globe
Jason B at Work
@Zifnab: “Over 9000”
Just checking in to make sure somebody posted this.
J.
Boy, the CIA is sure keeping you busy, John Cole.
Hope Tunch doesn’t turn into CATZILLA while you are away.
smiley
@smiley: Multiple links maybe?
Bad Horse's Filly
@Leelee for Obama: For lack of anything better to say, I’m sending good energy your way and I’m sorry you are having to go through this. Hugs.
MikeJ
Depends on what you call revised and Biblical. Smith added a bunch of stuff he said was missing. For that matter, so did Muhammad (pbuh).
Darby came up with some, lets call it “unique” ways of reading the Bible that said all that Jesus stuff doesn’t count. They would have been better off with Darby crash.
Morbo
@Third Eye Open: There is a certain CW in music that Republican presidents result in better music because there are more pissed off young people during their administrations. Thus there is more innovation from the outpouring of emotion, not from actual conservatives making music. Oh, and add The Right Brothers to your list of examples there.
Jason B at Work
@Brick Oven Bill: (snipped) crap about Coldplay and Voting Rights
I can’t tell you how relieved it makes me to realize that the sexism on display by BoB is no longer a viable philosophy for any political viewpoint. It’s barely even appropriate for the fringe, and that makes me happy.
I’m fairly sure you are just DougJ or John fooling with us, & this is the post that pushed believability for me over the edge. I mean, it’s always been a specious argument that BoB is a real person anyway: who writes like that and expects a real audience. He doesn’t quite write in third person, but there’s this sociopathic emotional detachedness and a sort of constant tangentiality to everything he writes about. I hate to write about someone like they’re not in the room, but let’s face it, there’s not anyone in the room just because Bill’s around. Or at least not anyone authentic.
Jason B at Work
@Jason B at Work: “detachedness”
er, detachment, maybe? aphasia is neat.
geg6
@Leelee for Obama:
Late to the thread, but just know that I’m thinking about you and, of course, missing your special brand of snark.
freelancer
@Brachiator:
What about “A little bit of Monica”? we never heard the end of that song in 1998.
Two hit wonder.
MikeJ
I don’t read BoB merely because I find him boring, but I assure you I’ve seen freeper threads go to several hundred comments calling for repeal of the 19th.
And to get the bad taste of this conversation from our sisters’ mouths:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dPF0SGh_PQ
Brachiator
@SGEW:
Hell, I don’t even know what “following the Constitution” is supposed to mean. But then again, neither does BOB.
The September 23 edition of the public radio interview program Fresh Air, featured an interview with journalist David Weigel that perhaps sheds some light on this.
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=9-23-2009
Some conservatives who are most vehemently opposed to Obama are forming this idea that “real American values,” and the Constitution itself, are directly inspired by God. Thus, the Constitution is transformed from a secular document into a kind of set of commandments.
Third Eye Open
@Morbo:
I dunno, the 80’s really sucked large amounts of unfiltered donkey smegma, but during the 90’s we had Nirvana, TOOL, KORN, Alice In Chains. I mean even after having to deal with the boy-band craze, I still would give the Clinton-era 90’s music a big win over Reagan and Bush I.
*Metallica and Dead Kennedys not withstanding*
freelancer
@Leelee for Obama:
My sympathies,
Take care of what you need to, and know you’re in our thoughts.
SpotWeld
Reading B.O.B. posts is like starting at a “Magic Eye” poster for too long.
Cat Lady
Listen up people – just got back from a long walk on the back roads of a small town (aka Real Murka (TM)) and the real threat to all of us is not ACORN but acorns! They surround us, and those little pointy fuckers hurt!
MikeJ
It always annoyed me to have someone named Jello Biafra lecturing about all those phonies who change their public personae for recognition.
Bootlegger
@Brick Oven Bill:
On the contrary, it is a prerequisite for good governance.
Punchy
@Demo Woman: “ACKTAVIST JUGIZ!11!l!” in 3……2…….1…..Malkin!
Skepticat
@Ambergris: Xcellent suggestion.
Brick Oven Bill
The Constitution is, in many ways, a spiritual document. It emphasizes the individual, and frees him to use his senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste to make his own judgments and decisions. It recognizes a higher power, but does not get into specifics, as codified religious specifics usually lead to bad things in a government.
It is the direct result of the Enlightenment.
Benjamin Franklin in many ways was a mentor of Voltaire, a classic Liberal. This is the guy who said:
“I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Voltaire was kicked out of France by the powers that were in the Catholic Church at the time just before the Enlightenment lit off the French Revolution. The French got a little carried away with the whole equality thing, and extended to women the right to vote from the onset. This didn’t last long, the results were pretty bloody, and I think they are on the fifth version of their experiment.
Our Founders were much more cognizant of HBD, restricted voting rights to men actively involved in the economy, and established a system that is still holding up, 220 years later.
Jason B at Work
@MikeJ: Unfortunately I don’t have audio on my work PC (A co-worker borrowed them, and the bastard never gave them back.) but I will look at it later.
Oh, and I’m plenty familiar with Pee Refublic. It’s crazy to admit, but I actually spend a LOT of time listening to the other side, on the web and radio. I feel like I pretty much HAVE to in order to get by here in the south, and there’s also a certain amount of desire on my part to try to seek out the places where right and left meet, because I have this idea that someday I’m going to absorb enough info to put together some ideas on shrinking the ideological fringe a bit, on the left and (especially) the right. To me, it’s the most dangerous problem we face, far and away greater than any terrorist threat.
But most fReepers realize they aren’t getting any traction, and the other percentage that do are militia people, and it’s only going to end in tears for them. I know we’re not to the point where, say, abortion rights are completely safe, and there’s probably still SOME danger of the country becoming some sort of theocracy in the future (and if that happens, I’ll meet you in Canada), but I really can’t envision a scenario where anyone who currently has the right to vote will suddenly lose that right. Gerrymandered to death? Hell yeah, happens all the time, especially in my neck of the woods. It is shocking, what some of those fReepers say, yeah….and it’s even worse when your rich lawyer client is saying some of the same things to you to your face (this just happened to me the other day), but even the rich bigot lawyers of the world know better than to actually make a fuss about it, lest they lose almost half their clientele (he is a divorce attorney, after all).
Bootlegger
@Brick Oven Bill: Gads you don’t even read your own references do you? It says clearly that 1) there is disagreement, and 2) that at least some types of music are universally allowed. Yes, they debated whether or not instrumentation was ok, but clearly they don’t include singing in that as the call for prayers would result in a daily execution.
Sorry, I’m out of strong enough expletives to describe your inanity (rhymes with Hannity).
Skepticat
@Cat Lady: You are so right! At my house it sounds as though we’re under an artillery barrage–perhaps so many skylights isn’t such a good idea. And yardwork does require a helmet.
geg6
@Brick Oven Bill:
Three statements, all patently untrue:
“One bad aspect of Islam is that music is banned by the religion.”
You do realize that there are quite a few Christian sects that ban music, too? Some Muslims go with the interpretation that music is haraam, and some do not. Just like some Christians celebrate music and others consider it the work of the devil. Personally, since I consider both (and really, all) religions pretty ridiculous, who gives a crap about what any of them have to say about it?
“Additionally, consider that the Obama Administration is directing the NEA to produce propaganda”
Whatever, BOB. Funny, but when you google “Obama” and “NEA,” the first two pages of hits are nothing but Breitbart and wingnut blogs. Forgive the nation if we don’t take their word for it.
“The Obama Administration = Bad Music.”
I’ll be sure to tell Jay-Z you said so. Also Aretha. Also Bruce. To name just a few.
Gotta say, BOB, you seem especially off your meds today.
The Moar You Know
@Third Eye Open: Well, I haven’t read a better argument for burning every CD printed between 1990 until about 1998, can anyone else?
God, four of the worst bands ever, save for a few tunes by Nirvana which fall into the “merely bad” category.
IndyLib
@asiangrrlMN:
lol I’m a big Xena fan, too. That show was one of the things that kept me sane when we were in Japan. Armed Forces Television sucks. We used to get the Today Show starting at 8:00 PM and football games started at 7:00 AM.
Bill E Pilgrim
Glenzilla absolutely ravaging David Brooks:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/25/brooks/
Not that these people ever show any ravaging, the more wrong they’re shown to be the more they’re promoted.
For anyone reading this however and evaluating honestly, Brooks is shown as someone who should have run away in disgrace long ago.
Maude
@Robertdsc-iphone: Not to worry. Medicare changes are made in January. The booklet stating those changes comes out in Oct/Nov. Your Advantage is safe. Also, the health battle bill is nowhere near done.
MikeJ
Nirvana’s best stuff was pre-Clinton.
freelancer
Wow,
WaPo’s Michael Garrison is shocked, Shocked I tell you! to discover that there is moral degeneracy on the internet, in the form of Avatars humping and blowing each other up.
thalarctos
That is very interesting, SGEW. I tried googling your phrase, but the results were all over the map–way too broad for me to figure out. Is there a starting point you could give me for that?
wasabi gasp
If you take BOB as anything other than a brilliant stream-of-consciousness spoof, he can be pretty scary, no? The killer is his mellow demeanor. It’s like having front row seats to Bob Ross doing chainsaw art right after he’s been served divorce papers.
geg6
@Brick Oven Bill:
a lot of this energy has gone into the vital task of nurturing in females. Nurturing is incompatible with governance.
Fuck you, you fucking asshole. I don’t nurture and I am certainly a woman. In fact, I am so not nurturing that, unlike my good internet friend Laura W, I am unwilling to listen to you spew this sexist, misogynist garbage another minute. If you say this one more time, I will hunt you down and punch you in the neck for real. Fucking goddam asshole.
Of course, can’t expect any better from someone who thinks Coldplay is some sort of deep music.
Svensker
@The Moar You Know:
You are either my twin or we need to get married.
binzinerator
Saw this on the teabagger-racist connection from a readerover at Sully’s
That is a good explanation for a lot of the bizarre contradictions of the teabaggers — such as the retarded belief that a government-provided public option for healthcare is ‘soci al ist’ — and medicare somehow is not.
Carter was right. And for the teabaggers it’s better to shit in their own hat than to give non-white people a chance for a hat of their own.
[Note: I added spaces to ‘soc al ism’ in the quote so as to keep it from WP’s moderation jail.]
Molly
@Third Eye Open: “during the 90’s we had Nirvana, TOOL, KORN, Alice In Chains.”
Rage Against the Machine…
You speak my language.
Origuy
Music from Muslim performers:
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Pakistani)
Simon Shaheen (Palistinian)
Googosh (Persian)
smiley
@Bootlegger: @geg6:
My comment further upstream about music in Islamic countries was flagged for moderation nearly an hour ago. All I did was post links to radio music in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia. Music is clearly not prohibited in those Islamic countries.
Bill E Pilgrim
@freelancer: My favorite part of that column by
GarrisonGerson is how he describes how the Nazis used right wing radio to stir up hatred, division, paranoia, racism, and so on, then he jumps from there to … the Internet! To describe how it’s similar, see?Hey Michael, you don’t have to look for stretched comparisons, we actually still have the right wing radio, just like it was, with all of the paranoia, hate, fear-mongering, racism, and all the rest of it.
The cognitive filters that people brazenly wear these days just amaze me.
Third Eye Open
@The Moar You Know:
What-evah! All of those bands broke the mold with respects to the music that was being played at the time. They redifined, for better or worse, what the Rock genre was, and what it could be. In fact, now that I am thinking about it, Rage Against the Machine should have been on that list instead of KORN, but you get the idea.
Motley Crue…Def Leppard…Bryan Adams…Thompson Twins? Like, gag me with a spoon!
jibeaux
Trying in vain to distract you guys from BOB the spoof again, this was good for a mild chuckle.
Origuy
Correction, Simon Shaheen is a Catholic Palestinian Arab. He’s performing music that a lot of Muslim Arabs would also perform; I just thought of him because I saw him perform.
Brick Oven Bill
I think you need a hug geg6.
Demo Woman
@Punchy: The law seemed to be on the Governor’s side. Unfortunately you are correct, I wonder how many extra security personnel are going to assigned to the judge. Malkin has a way of doing that.
MikeJ
@jibeaux: I refuse to believe that anything from cracked.com is more than a one sentence joke turned into 20 pages in an attempt to maximize page views.
jibeaux
@MikeJ:
It’s not actually obligatory to follow the links. It is completely discretionary.
SGEW
@jibeaux:
I was agnostic about the existence of B.O.B. for quite a while, vacillating between believing that he was DougJ, and being convinced that he’s an actual crank with a clinical condition hammering out treatises every day.
Nowadays I just deal with the persona as if it was a real person – there is no operative difference, really: he’s either a genuinely disturbed person, or someone who’s obsessively crafted a pseudonymic spoof over a period of several years (with a rather convincing blog) for the purposes of upsetting people and spewing hate speech – either way, he deserves either banning and/or disapproval. I occasionally rebut him, because I enjoy doing so, as an indulgent exercise.
Also, it has been suggested that we are so far into the wingularity that there is no substantive difference between spoof and troll (see, also, Poe).
MikeJ
Now you tell me! I can finally get off this damned internet! I never even wanted to be here in the first place, but somebody sent me a link to a cat picture and I’ve been stuck here ever since.
geg6
@Brick Oven Bill:
I get plenty of hugs, you asshole. I’m thinking you didn’t get enough and that is what has made you such a woman-hating pig.
I say this all the time, it seems. But I’m done with your shit. I am finally giving up on the idea that you have any redeeming human value and going for cleek’s pie filter. Because pie is my favorite dessert.
jibeaux
@SGEW:
I’m just sayin’, you could be spending that time untying and tying your shoes.
Demo Woman
@SGEW: I thought he was a spoof but the racist comments are so over the line, I just don’t think that Doug’s or John’s alter ego would go there.
The Moar You Know
@Svensker: I’m probably not your twin…but I am open to any other options.
Origuy
Friday morning staff meetings, we take turns bringing goodies. Today was homemade samosas! Yum!
Michael D.
You can also vote for Charlotte, if you want…
GReynoldsCT00
@Brick Oven Bill:
I think you need to go piss off
Bootlegger
@smiley: I know. And any ethnomusicologist will tell you that the chant in the call for prayers is, in fact, MUSIC. All cultures have some form of music, all of ’em.
SGEW
@thalarctos: It was really more of a slightly tongue-in-cheek way of saying that, contra to the idea that the state has no legitimate stake in “nurturing,” most philosophies of governance have accepted or supported the notion of the state sustaining, fostering, or otherwise caring for the people. (Aristotle and Aquinas; Locke, Paine, Jefferson, and Madison; Marx, Rawls, Keynes, and Roosevelt; etc. etc.). There have also been more explicit calls for a liberal “nurturing government” (H. Clinton, E.J. Dionne) that conservatives love to deride as the “mommy state”: I suspect that B.O.B. was referring to that, along with a more than usual helping of misogyny and general creepiness.
The Moar You Know
@Third Eye Open:
As a musician who was playing for most of that decade, I feel reasonably qualified to say that those bands didn’t redefine squat save for their clothing. Same shit, different plate, as I was fond of saying at the time. Instead of high squealy vocalists, they had vocalists that yelled. Unlistenable shit resulted either way.
RATM had a good Zeppelin rip-off, that I cannot deny.
Save for the fact that Vince Neil sounded like a pig impaled on a spear, every band you cited (Nirvana, TOOL, KORN, Alice In Chains) sounded more or less like Motley Crue with a different singer. The rest of the bilge you cite in your dismally limited view of the eighties was, in fact, unlistenable bilge, although you and many others would be stunned to find out how many songs Bryan Adams wrote that he did not sing or perform. All of them awful, in my very biased judgement.
Bootlegger
@SGEW: That’s my view of the BOB as well. If all we did on here was say how much we agreed with each other we may as well be Dittoheads. I like having a BOB to kick around. Maybe that’s what he is, a nice fat target to take some target practice on.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jibeaux: Good luck with that.
canuckistani
I was outraged to hear slanders against 80’s music until I realized that all my favourite eighties bands – Talking Heads, The Clash, Elvis Costello, The Pogues, The Specials – all really started in the late 70’s. I can’t think of anything truly awesome that really belongs in the 80’s alone.
Just Some Fuckhead
All roads lead to disturbed. See his MJK snuff comment in the Kennedy thread. Sick fucker.
jibeaux
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I know. A cracked.com link and a suggestion re: shoelaces isn’t exactly bringing my “A” game, though.
How about this: the new CBO scoring reflects that in addition to enjoying widespread popularity including a majority of people, a plurality of Republicans, and a 2:1 margin of independents, a public option would also save millions of dollars. Congress, which frequently references either cost or constituent opinion as a front for opinions which their corporate donors have instructed them to have, will remain unmoved. Discuss.
Feel free to help me out here.
Brick Oven Bill
The New York Times: Why Are Women So Unhappy?
As a believer in natural law, I believe that the reason women are so unhappy is that we as a society are not following what comes naturally. Proof of this can be found in the Times link above. Advocating a return to a traditional, natural order of interactions between the sexes is the opposite of hating women. It is an advocacy of love, happiness, and our inner animal.
Look me up if you’re still feeling blue geg6.
Xenos
@Demo Woman: Kirk is already in Washington – he must already have had his credentials in hand. Will be sworn in one hour.
As fond as I am of Minnesota I have to say, ‘this is how to get it done, guys.’ Then again, we are not cursed with many Bachmanites, so you have my sympathies.
scav
ah, things are getting a bit back to normal – no doubt BoB has been feeling a little neglected what with the LexiconSwarm of late. Stoke up the campfire and have at him. Some just like poking him toward the fire gently with their sticks, some prefer impaling his little marshmellow goodness on theirs, aiming for the heart of the flames and going for the crunchy exterior with gooey center effect. There are occasions where people have enjoyed full-on S’mores. (Both of the latter are extra chromatically apt considering his usual mania.)
jibeaux
@canuckistani:
You are just asking to be rickrolled, my friend.
SGEW
@canuckistani:
Minor Threat? Midnight Oil? I think they were awesome, anyway.
canuckistani
@jibeaux:
I’ll be sure not to click on any links that come my way, although, indeed, they would be central to my point.
MikeJ
The ‘Mats? Damn, 1979.
Hüsker Dü? 1979.
REM? 1980.
So there’s at least one. But they didn’t stop performing in 1990, and their widespread popularity didn’t happen until the college radio programmers of the 80s took over commercial radio. (Ha! Commercial radio! Remember that?)
Just Some Fuckhead
@jibeaux: Do you have a link on the CBO stuff and the polls indicating a plurality of Republicans support a public option? I’m Facebooking all this stuff in an effort to drive off all my rightwing friends and family.
In regards to helping you out, I feel dirty being in the same thread as BOB.
SGEW
@Brick Oven Bill:
You keep on saying “natural law.” I actually do not know to what, specifically, you are referring (it certainly isn’t Aquinas!). Can you name any particular philosophers or works that are associated with your philosophy?
I am honestly curious.
jibeaux
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I read it at Ezra’s first re: the CBO scoring, and Benen combined that with the polling details.
MikeJ
Add:
Mission of Burma, 1979
Flipper, 1979
Circle Jerks, 1979
jibeaux
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Weird, I did a FB search on your name and you’re not there. :)
Punchy
Your edit funkshun blows worse than a $5 hooker. “Ajax” was apparently coded by a blind chimp whackin off to monkey porn as his fist kept randomly hitting the keyboard.
Brick Oven Bill
James Madison on Natural Law:
The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.
Socrates on Natural Law:
Do you know, I said, that governments vary as the dispositions of men vary, and that there must be as many of the one as there are of the other? For we cannot suppose that States are made of ‘oak and rock,’ and not out of the human natures which are in them, and which in a figure turn the scale and draw other things after them?
Yes, he said, the States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters.
This whole Book 8 of The Republic is excellent. It offers insight into what is happening today. The opposite of natural is artificial, and this brings us back to Orwell’s gyroscope.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jibeaux: Hahah. Must be a glitch with Faceborg.
ericblair
@SGEW: I was agnostic about the existence of B.O.B. for quite a while, vacillating between believing that he was DougJ, and being convinced that he’s an actual crank with a clinical condition hammering out treatises every day.
Clarke’s Law for Blogs: Any sufficiently advanced troll parody is indistinguishable from a dickhead.
SGEW
@Brick Oven Bill: Gotcha. Add some failed understanding of evolutionary biology to the mix, and I think I know where you’re coming from. You sick twist.
You’ve certainly missed your era, Bill.
Elizabelle
NY Times health column today on John’s beloved neti pot. Appears he is on to something here.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/the-alternative-medicine-cabinet-the-neti-pot/
Coming to Tara Pope’s blog soon: the life enhancing prospects of adopting photogenic pets from shelters
Elizabelle
Hey. Love that “request deletion” feature. Who hasn’t wanted 5 minutes to revise or jettison some ill stated post?
Would that we had a similar one for idiocy on cable TV. Brad Blakeman need never be seen again. Or remembered, anyway.
Brick Oven Bill
Orwell on Natural Law:
Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other.
Third Eye Open
@The Moar You Know:
Wait, wait… I am no fan of grunge, but the genre itself was a product of the early 90’s malaise, and now you can’t find a band in this century who wasn’t influenced by them.
What about NIN? Don’t tell me Nitzer Ebb, Kraftwerk or COIL were behind his music. In fact I would argue that KMFDM and Ministry were far more of an influence on Reznor, but it wasn’t their synthpop that was doing it, it was their metamorphosis into Industrial which came into its own in the 90’s.
Now, with that said, give me CCR, Zeppelin and Betty Davis any day of the week.
Bootlegger
@Brick Oven Bill: But you have no clue why women are (supposedly) unhappy. In my theory its because of morans such as yourself.
Bootlegger
@MikeJ: Butthole Surfers 1981
Bootlegger
@Brick Oven Bill: Sweet! If that means we’re in for another round of aristocracy sign me up. As an aristocrat of course.
Brick Oven Bill
Do not confuse a slight limp with unhappiness Bootlegger, they are often quite the opposite.
jibeaux
The Natural Law party, IIRC, was the political party which claimed they could levitate. If they actually could levitate they might have gotten some votes, but I think it was more in the category of enthusiastic bouncing.
JK
Jack McCoy moves to indict a member of the Bush Administration for torture on tonight’s Law and Order
h/t http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-d-romero/emlaw-orderem-tackles-acc_b_300023.html
Just Some Fuckhead
@Punchy:
So how’s the engagement goin, Punchy?
Molly
@Third Eye Open: @Third Eye Open: “What about NIN? Don’t tell me Nitzer Ebb, Kraftwerk or COIL were behind his music. In fact I would argue that KMFDM and Ministry were far more of an influence on Reznor, but it wasn’t their synthpop that was doing it, it was their metamorphosis into Industrial which came into its own in the 90’s.”
Damn you, Third Eye. We HAD to go to Industrial, didn’t we? :)
Reznor’s claimed Fugazi as a major influence, believe it or not.
NIN, Front 242, Front Line Assembly, Ministry, Revco, Rammstein, those were/are my music.
Molly
@Bootlegger: “But you have no clue why women are (supposedly) unhappy.”
Maybe because people like B.O.B. insist on telling us we are, because it suits their worldview of how women are supposed to be? Unhappy unless they’re tending the progeny and staring lovingly at his sacred members?
Just a hypothesis.
Third Eye Open
@Molly:
If you like Cuban food and British comedy, would you like to move in with my cat and I, with an option for marriage? :-)
Santiago
Re K-Thug def: “Friendly nickname…” should be “Affectionate nickname…”
IMO
Bootlegger
@Brick Oven Bill: I disagree, my limp makes me unhappy.
Morbo
@Molly: @Third Eye Open: I like the cuts of your jibs. Care to throw some Megaherz and Die Krupps on there?
Steeplejack
@MikeJ:
Heh. Too true.
Steeplejack
@Michael D.:
Goddamn it, did you also vote for Ralph Nader in 2000?!