Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

“But what about the lurkers?”

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

We still have time to mess this up!

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

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

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

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Reader Interactions

133Comments

  3. 3.

    TimO

    They deserve it! Being the captains of industry and the repository for all intelligent human thought is hard work!

  5. 5.

    MikeJ

    Oh jeez. If they’ve gone Galt where are we going to get all the extra pixels we’ll need to hold their tiresome screed?

  6. 6.

    Bad Horse's Filly

    Well I’m dealing with new neighbors in the hood who we all think may be dealing drugs. So I’m on my way to the police department with the others to express our concern and have the cops keep a look out. I feel this is clearly a good excuse for not adding to the snappy, snarky discussions at BJ. But I think of you all often, does that count?

  9. 9.

    Englischlehrer

    hey yall,
    just back in germany after two months in the states. Wow, i had my german girlfriend there the whole time and she genuinely flipped out by watching the news i forced her to watch, with the socialism and nazi and death panel stuff. I had to watch it and I showed her how this was another reason i didn’t want to live in the states anymore. This was insane. To think that the Republicans, in a time of crisis, would act so petulant and ferocious about their attempts to delegitimize the president.

    Now I’m back in black forest, thinking of going back to school, an online program to give myself another possible future here in deutschland. Anyway, am waited with dread and yet still some hope about the health insurance reform. The longer they pull this out, the the more Republicans are in danger or more and more information about insurance company practices that will make it more and more untenable for them to be on the side of “those people”.

  11. 11.

    Stan

    Speaking of going Galt… The “going Galt” lexicon entry should end “Also, too”

    The “birther” entry should mention that nobody disputes Obama’s opponent was born in Panama. Which implies that Obama would be at least as qualified even if he were born on the moon. Which he wasn’t. Aloha. Also, too.

  13. 13.

    AhabTRuler

    Why do American News orgs spend so much time slobbering over other countries’ dethroned royals? Does anyone at CNN want to discuss how corrupt and useless the Ottoman Sultans were, or how there wouldn’t be a Turkey if Attaturk hadn’t thrown the bums out?

  16. 16.

    JenJen

    Katie Couric demonstrates her interviewing prowess yet again, in this conversation with Glenn Beck. Through a reader, she asks what Beck meant by “white culture” when he said “The President has a deep-seated hatred of white culture.”

    Watch the hilarity and squirming ensue. Nice work, Katie!

  18. 18.

    jwb

    @Zifnab25: Yeah, well, I just wish that the Horns scheduled real opponents rather than what amounts to scrimmages for their non-conference games. It’s pathetic and really, even if the Horns go undefeated, they deserve to be kept out of the BCS championship on the basis of the exceptionally weak non-conference schedule.

  19. 19.

    Joey Maloney

    I just finished Terry Pratchett’s latest novel, Nation. It’s not a Discworld book, but it’s very much in the style of the Tiffany Aching trilogy, featuring characters trying to figure out the universe and their place in it. The writing is deceptively simple, ribald, lyrical, and quite profound.

    My money says that in another 400 years his works will be studied, parses, annotated, and revered the way Shakespeare’s are now.

  20. 20.

    r€nato

    Crossing my fingers for Arizona State in their matchup vs. Georgia today… but not real optimistic.

    In Serie A, my team Fiorentina is taking on Livorno within the hour.

    Tomorrow night, Cards vs. Colts.

    Hoping I go at least 2-1 this weekend.

  21. 21.

    r€nato

    @jwb:

    I thought that’s what the BCS computer rankings were for? Don’t they adjust a team’s rating based on strength (or weakness) of schedule?

    I’m getting a little tired of big schools playing non-conference games against creampuffs… but I kind of understand the dynamic.

  22. 22.

    Polish the Guillotines

    Sorry for spamming, but it looks like the last Lexicon thread is kinda dead. Ratfucking is mis-attributed and I’ve got a definition with links for Thrown Under the Bus. Here.

  23. 23.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    Today is the 300th consecutive home sellout for my Huskers. I’m still heartsick over last weeks loss to VaTech but it was a good game.

    Mom and Dad made me an American, but the FSM made me a Husker.

  26. 26.

    r€nato

    @demkat620:

    you’ll notice I didn’t include the D-backs. I assume they are still playing baseball, yes?

    We have a hockey team which is bankrupt and heading for a lame duck season, its future in Phoenix still up in the air.

    A formerly top-flight NBA team which is half-made up of geezers and half made up of young players, destined for the bottom of the playoffs bracket if they make it at all.

    A baseball team which has been a huge disappointment since Opening Day.

    All our hopes are riding now on the Cardinals and Sun Devil football, both of which have shown signs of life, both of which are going to play very good opponents this weekend.

  28. 28.

    jwb

    @r€nato: I haven’t looked at the BCS system recently, but I believe that strength of schedule only figures indirectly, as a component of most of the computer rankings and the impression schedule leaves in the human polls.

  31. 31.

    r€nato

    @demkat620:

    this is a little too inside baseball, but actually it could have succeeded if they had put the team (and the arena) in Scottsdale instead of far west Glendale by the alien spaceship where the Cardinals play football.

    But, the dumbass mayor of Scottsdale didn’t want it in ‘her’ town; she thought it would attract ‘the wrong element’. I guess she has never seen the crowd that frequents the Scottsdale bar scene every weekend.

  32. 32.

    JGabriel

    @jwb:

    Isn’t that Hüsker dü?

    Showoff.

    I never remember (or knew) the character code for an umlauted u, and I was too lazy to look it up and copy it out of a character table. But yes, of course I meant Hüsker Dü.

    .

  33. 33.

    jamie

    Anybody been following the MERS story slowly working its way through the blogs?

    Absolutely fascinating. MERS is a small company in the DC area that basically registers every deed and mortgage in the country, and then uses that data to allow its member banks to buy and sell them, without having to record all of the transfers in the pesky county records. For the past several years just about everyone’s recorded deed had “MERS, Inc.” listed under lienholder, and now the supreme court in Kansas has basically called out the whole operation as a big straw man that allows several of the usual suspect banks to create a shadow deed registration system, with computer speeds but zero public record.

  34. 34.

    drunken hausfrau

    sadly following college football…. but yes, the MERS situation is fascinating and fantastic! I LOVE that judges are finally getting involved in the whole sham foreclosure business — if Congress won’t provide a sane “cram down” solution, maybe the Courts will just short circuit the whole process by exposing the sham mortgage/deed system! I never thought I would say this, but Yeah, Kansas! DH + 3

  35. 35.

    steve s

    “September 26th, 2009 at 1:58 pm Reply to this comment
    Stan
    Speaking of going Galt… The “going Galt” lexicon entry should end “Also, too””

    I would have added that when I wrote it, but it turns out I’m not a complete retard.

  38. 38.

    R-Jud

    It was a perfect autumn day here in the West Midlands, so we went to the Malverns just after sun-up. I hiked 6 miles carrying 19 lbs of cutie pie and then went and did this. When I could raise my arms again, I cleaned the house and napped. Mr Jud is downstairs live-streaming a college football game. The kid’s sawing toothpicks, and I am about to play the piano. It’s been such a nice day, it feels like I’m stealing something.

  41. 41.

    Linkmeister

    @r€nato: I read a story about the new light rail system in Phoenix which indicated it was more of a success than its detractors expected, not because commuters rode it but because party-loving bar-hoppers have begun taking it. Got any anecdotal evidence that people are avoiding drunk-driving incidents by taking the rails?

    I used to visit in the Encanto Park district; I don’t know if that area would be served by the new system, but I’d ride the damned thing anyway. I’m a mass transit fan when possible.

  42. 42.

    r€nato

    @r€nato:
    …which is why I’m going to circulate an email to every single person I have on my personal mailing list stating that Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. That’s how these things get started, right?

  43. 43.

    JenJen

    @JPL: You know, I just don’t know what to do with my Malkin-hatred. I don’t believe there is a more loathsome person in political punditry/blogging/opinion-making today, which is saying a lot, considering the existence of Liz Cheney and Glenn Back.

    But Malkin is a special type of abhorrent human, she really does strike me as rotten to her core.

  44. 44.

    Bootlegger

    @JGabriel: I saw Hüsker Dü in 1987 in Lubbock, Texas on Easter Sunday. There was a massive party afterward that the band attended. Every year after that we held an Easter Party that eventually grew to 5000 people and live music all day. Then some local money stole it and ruined it by making it commercial. Always happens that way, sigh.

  46. 46.

    r€nato

    @JenJen:

    I wouldn’t dream of ever publishing somebody’s home (or work) phone number or address on my blog, not even Malkin’s.

    But then again, I have a conscience and it would trouble the hell out of me if as a result of such an act, some nutcase went and did something horrible because of what I had done.

    Sen. Jon Kyl laid bare for everyone to see, the dark, bitter heart of conservatism when this past week he complained about the mandatory requirement for coverage of maternity benefits in the Senate health care bill. “I don’t need it, so I don’t want to pay for it!”

    Wow. If a Democrat had so openly shown his scorn for motherhood, is there any doubt that the GOP noise machine would be making hay of it within 24 hours???

  47. 47.

    Bootlegger

    @r€nato: Exactly. Now where’s that speculatin’ Mainstream Media when you need ’em. If Beck would only release his zoo morning show transcripts from that day it would put it all to rest. But he says nothing! We deserve to know The Truth!

  48. 48.

    Zifnab25

    @jwb: Hey, don’t hate the player, hate the game. We already have three tough in-conference games plus a division championship. If someone wants to introduce a better schedule system, please encourage that. But otherwise, don’t get bitter at Mack Brown for playing the system like it requires.

  49. 49.

    Bootlegger

    @Zifnab25: All the FCS teams do this to pad their record and not risk a loss that would lower their ranking. It’s fucking sick. Get rid of the patsy games and put in a damned playoff!

  50. 50.

    JGabriel

    r€nato:

    If a Democrat had so openly shown his scorn for motherhood, is there any doubt that the GOP noise machine would be making hay of it within 24 hours?

    Heck, no one would believe that, and the networks wouldn’t give it any coverage anyway. It’s just too crazy — it would be like accusing the Democrats of wanting to kill grandma with death panels. Or something.

    .

  52. 52.

    JenJen

    @r€nato: And Malkin, like so many conservatives really, just has no capacity for remorse or admitting wrongness. She doesn’t know how to apologize. She apparently believes she is above such matters.

    Remember the entire Jamil Hussein debacle? She ran all the way to Iraq to cover that “story”; remember the photos of the bombed-out mosques she submitted as proof that the mosques were never bombed? It was truly surreal! And then, at the end of the story when it becomes clear she was 100% wrong about Jamil Hussein, what did she write? “I apologize for the error.” That’s it. And then she washed her hands of it, and never spoke of it again, after ginning up that story for week after week after week.

    Same with Scott Beauchamp. Has she ever acknowledged the now-multiple murder convictions within Beauchamp’s unit?

    Her readers suffer, too; they are under the impression Malkin is infallible. She wants them to believe that, and they do.

  53. 53.

    r€nato

    @Linkmeister:

    It’s true that the Phoenix light rail has exceeded all expectations of ridership.

    I can’t speak to whether running light rail late on weekends has had a measurable effect on the incidence of DUI. I guess you’d have to ask all the Phoenix PD who regularly hang out by the bars on Central Ave. around closing time, how business has been for them since they started running the train til 2am.

    Common sense would suggest that it does make a difference… however, since I don’t think the buses run that late, does this just shift the DUI problem to the park and ride lots?

    In any case, it’s been a big success. Unfortunately the revenue shortfall at all levels of government is pushing back all planned expansions of the line by 3 to 4 years. Sadly, the part of it planned to run up by my house is dead last on that list and not likely to get built for another 20 years, at least.

  54. 54.

    handy

    @JenJen:

    I don’t believe there is a more loathsome person in political punditry/blogging/opinion-making today, which is saying a lot, considering the existence of Liz Cheney and Glenn Back.

    You make an interesting point. Malkin isn’t paranoid/delusional in the way Beck is, nor cynical for ratings or cash like Limbaugh, nor is isn’t a sycophantic movement cheerleader like so many other Repug pundits, and she never had the misfortune of having to call Dick Cheney “Dad” as Liz. In the end, she’s simple cruel. Like black-hearted and poisoned-soul cruel.

  55. 55.

    r€nato

    @Linkmeister:

    Light rail starts at Spectrum Mall (Christown for the old-timers) at 19th Ave and Bethany Home. Runs down to Camelback where it heads over to Central Ave. Runs straight down Central to Washington where it bends east, runs by the baseball field and basketball arena, then it goes down Washington, crosses the Salt River on a new bridge parallel to the current Mill Ave. bridge and the existing railroad bridge. Heads by Sun Devil Stadium then takes a diagonal to Apache Blvd, where it heads out to Mesa and ends at Sycamore and Main (just on the far end of what used to be Tri-City Mall. Yes, I have lived here a long time).

    So it kind of goes near Encanto, it’s about a mile away from that area or so, depends where you think Encanto begins. That’s not my neighborhood so I am not certain.

    The next phase is a 3 mile extension up 19th Ave. That was supposed to begin next year but it’s been pushed back to 2012 or 2013 I think.

  56. 56.

    eemom

    yo, check it out: today, for the second day this week, the WaPo editorial page actually was NOT a piece of worthless dreck.

    Some benevolent spirit must have temporarily occupied Fred Hiatt’s vacant soul, because the eds have been fighting on the side of the angels in the guvnor race here in ole Virginny: the other day they praised the “political guts” of Creigh Deeds for admitting that taxes HAVE to be raised if the roads are ever gonna get fixed; and today they had a delightfully detailed expose of why Bob (“The Second Coming of Pat Robertson”) McDonell’s supposed “plan” to the contrary is all a steaming pile of bullshit.

    I’m pleasantly astounded.

  58. 58.

    r€nato

    @JGabriel:

    I don’t see why I should have to pay the hospital bills for those sluts. Should have kept their legs closed if they couldn’t afford a baby.

  59. 59.

    jwb

    @Zifnab25: Well, the conference games aren’t looking quite so tough any more, and I wouldn’t be surprised if at the end of the year, we look back and say that Tech was the best opponent we faced (aside from the bowl game). Yeah, sure this is the way the system is set up, and Brown, Inc. certainly know how to play the system; yet I can still be annoyed they are so enthusiastically engaging in a race to the bottom. I mean, really, a game like today’s serves no purpose whatsoever other than to extract revenue from the fans and networks and to pad the win column. I say, this, btw, wearing a Longhorn T-shirt.

  60. 60.

    Common Sense

    @jwb:

    Cry me a river. There are three top 10 teams in Texas’ 6 team division. At the end of the year, Texas will have played a top 15 schedule — way tougher than creampuffs like Boise, Utah, or any Big East school.

  61. 61.

    wasabi gasp

    The guy who runs the Where’s Waldo rip-off known as Macsmind has a post up about Bill Sparkman titled Bill Sparkman was a Republican. What an idiot. Not only does he fail to make the republican connection, but he completely overlooks that Sparkman was a tweaked-out census-hating pot farmer who once interned for Michelle Bachmann.

  62. 62.

    r€nato

    The more I am learning about the Obama administration’s approach with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the more I am liking it.

    One year ago, pretty much all of the rest of the world regarded the US as the intransigent party.

    In just 12 months, Obama has completely set up Iran to look like the nutjobs. And he’s gotten Russia on board (if tentatively at first…). Revealing our knowledge of their secret enrichment facility during the UN/G20 week was brilliant.

    Now pretty much the entire world understands that Iran is the intransigent party, that it does indeed have ambitions to have nuclear weapons, and that something must be done about it.

    It’s not enough to be right; often one has to make others understand that one is right. The Bush administration had no clue how to do this. Obama’s administration certainly does.

  63. 63.

    SenyorDave

    But Malkin is a special type of abhorrent human, she really does strike me as rotten to her core.

    JenJen,

    That sums up how I feel about her. I have a feeling she would write anything for money.

    She seems totally soulless.

  64. 64.

    Midnight Marauder

    @r€nato:

    it would be irresponsible NOT to speculate.

    I feel like this needs to be added to the lexicon. That is all.

    Midnight Marauder x3 (you know what those are.)

  67. 67.

    MikeJ

    Dammit, dammit, dammit. Was just about to go to the grocery and the Red Sox-Yankees game is starting.

    Fuck the Yankees.

  71. 71.

    Davebo

    Though I should say, as a former U Texas student and also a former U of Houston student I’m much more excited about tonights Cougar/Red Raider game. Go Coogs!

  72. 72.

    Mark S.

    Dr. Dre is making Dr. Pepper commercials?

    @r€nato:

    And he got the Russians on board by scrapping a stupid missile defense system in Eastern Europe. It’s amazing how easy foreign policy is if you don’t listen to William Kristol.

  73. 73.

    mai naem

    @r€nato:

    They would have gone further into Mesa but Mesa didn’t want to pay the extra sales tax(what was it?an extra tenth or something and only for a few years.) The Coyotes deal went to Glendale because Glendale offered the Coyotes owner a huge amount of money because Glendale was so desperate to look like a “big” city. The obvious place for the stadium was around Riverview but Glendale pulled the same thing there too.

  74. 74.

    Common Sense

    @jwb:

    Right but when 8 of 12 (9 of 13 including a conference championship) games are intraconference, which matters more?

    I honestly get more annoyed at the teams that win 1 (or even 0) big games and claim to belong in a national championship. I think winning the SEC or Big 12 is a far bigger achievement than going undefeated in the Mountain West. I don’t care if the SEC Champion has 4 losses. Their conference schedule is so much better that it isn’t fair to compare them. I could care less if you manage to win a game the last week of August. Win in November. Win all the way through the season against the best competition in the sport. Non conference football games are close to useless IMO as far as a gauge for how good a team is over the course of an entire season.

  76. 76.

    Common Sense

    Slightly OT College football post (and one I won’t be able to respond to until later as I have to work tonight):

    If I were the Big 10 I would push for a college football playoff with all my strength, and I would want higher seeded teams to host lower seeds. I think Big 10 teams are designed to win their conference (ball control and defense oriented in order to minimize the effects of poor weather), but struggle in Bowl games at warm weather sites against gimmicky offenses that would collapse in a harsher environment. Florida would have had a much more difficult time running their offense in Columbus in the dead of winter.

  78. 78.

    Incertus

    @Common Sense: The problem is, how do you really know which conferences are the strongest ones short of out of conference play? Is the SEC better than the Big 10? Maybe. But it’s also possible that the reason an SEC Champion might theoretically have 3 losses is because the entire conference is having a down year and they’re all about the same level of crappy.

    On the team level, look at the recent game between Michigan and Notre Dame, and how so many pundits were talking about how both schools were back. Not necessarily–maybe both teams still suck, but they suck equally, which makes for an entertaining game.

  79. 79.

    r€nato

    …OK I am 1-0. Fiorentina beat Livorno on a penalty kick in the 2nd half.

    Next up, ASU vs. Georgia.

  81. 81.

    r€nato

    @Mark S.:

    well, Mark, the flip side of that is that forward missile defense bases wouldn’t have been there as a bargaining chip if it weren’t for Bush. Just saying…

  82. 82.

    PaulW

    Ahem.

    Go Bulls.

    USF 17 – FSU 7

    That’s the one thing about South Florida: they always are good for one major away game upset (Pittsburgh, Louisville, Auburn, West Virginia, now Florida State).

    Now if we can just win against Cincy…

  83. 83.

    Common Sense

    @Incertus:

    The problem is, how do you really know which conferences are the strongest ones short of out of conference play?

    Bowl games. I think early season out of conference games are inaccurate because players are still learning ther system and teammates. I also think coaches tend to hold their best tricks and players in reserve early in the season so that they can use them in conference play. At the end they let it all hang out.

  84. 84.

    r€nato

    @mai naem: You may know more than I, but I was pretty sure Scottsdale was their first choice.

    In any case the whole situation is a clusterfuck from start to finish, on nearly every level. I started to write it all out but it became a pretty long list. Winning could probably have compensated for a lot of that, but they haven’t won. The Cardinals sucked for 20 years and suddenly everyone discovered we have an NFL team this past January.

  85. 85.

    Brachiator

    @Linkmeister:

    I read a story about the new light rail system in Phoenix which indicated it was more of a success than its detractors expected, not because commuters rode it but because party-loving bar-hoppers have begun taking it.

    The recent NYT story on Phoenix light rail suggests that not only bar-hoppers, but college students are big users of the system (In Phoenix, Weekend Users Make Light Rail a Success).

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/us/20rail.html

    It sounds like Phoenix lucked into designing a rail system that takes people where they want to go.

    Here in Southern California, the Green Line is famous for NOT going to the airport, LAX, due to pressure by interest groups, and NOT going to the beach, because residents didn’t want “undesirables” to have easy access.

    The relatively recently added Gold Line serves the Pasadena area, but doesn’t go to the Rose Bowl.

    On a more positive note, I’ve seen bunches of hockey fans take the Blue Line to the Staples Center from a park-and-ride lot somewhere in the South Bay. They arrive at the game tanked up, and presumably sober up enough to be able drive home from the park-and-ride lot after the game.

  86. 86.

    r€nato

    @Brachiator:

    the success of light rail gives me hope for the health care debate. This is a city well-known for the conservative/libertarian mindset that only poor people use public transit and who wants to help poor people since I’m not poor, it doesn’t pay its own way, nobody will use it, nobody will use it in the summer, it will be an eyesore, blah blah blah. They made a lot of noise but somehow we finally got a sales tax rise passed to pay for it about 10 years ago.

    And just like Medicare, it turns out that people love it.

  87. 87.

    Chad N Freude

    @JenJen: A retired attorney says

    Taibbi is WRONG WRONG WRONG in his assertions – and I went to the link and read the over-blown WRONG conclusions he drew from the case.

    See this and scroll down to read the first two comments by AnnS.

  89. 89.

    r€nato

    …I’ll add that the following groups have found light rail to be fantastic:

    *students
    *bar-hoppers
    *commuters
    *it’s been a huge plus for moving crowds of people to and from sports events and special events downtown and at Sun Devil Stadium. Like when Obama spoke for ASU commencement this past spring, or the NBA All-Star game in February.
    *out-of-town visitors
    *businesses all along the rail line

    The more they build it out over the years, the bigger of a success it will be. Then maybe those morons who say, “it doesn’t go by me, why should I pay for it?” will finally STFU.

  91. 91.

    Linkmeister

    @Brachiator: That’s the article I read.

    In Honolulu we’re about to embark on a 15-year elevated heavy rail project from the western end of Oahu to the fringe of Waikiki. I hate the heavy rail part of it, but anything is better than 1.5 hour commutes of 20 miles. The other annoying thing is that it’s not running past the airport nor is it going to the University. Spurs are planned later.

    UH has 40,000 students, mostly commuters. If there were a rail line going there in the initial building phase, ridership would carry a lot more of the cost than it will as the line is currently designed.

  92. 92.

    Common Sense

    @r€nato:

    If it helps, there are a whole mess o’ those folk here in Houston as well. My dad is the perfect example. He went from ridiculing the single line we have today to buying real estate along the proposed expansions. Loves it now, for purely personal financial reasons of course. But still, it is progress of a sort.

  93. 93.

    jeffreyw

    Naw, no galt here, i was just out mowin mowin mowin.

    Damn grass shot up and seeded out, it was like mowin hay, seems like three weeks growth in the last week.

  94. 94.

    JenJen

    @Chad N Freude: I read the case too, and I’m not an attorney by any stretch, so don’t know what to make of it.

    To be fair to Taibbi, though, one of his commenters took him on over his understanding of the case, and he did respond, here.

    As far as Ann S is concerned in your link, I don’t know who she is, and when it comes to semi-anon commenters on blogs you just have to take it with a grain of salt, IMO. I think we should all be watching the story carefully, and not just dismissing what Taibbi’s interpretation was just out of hand.

  95. 95.

    Anne Laurie

    @Bad Horse’s Filly:

    Well I’m dealing with new neighbors in the hood who we all think may be dealing drugs. So I’m on my way to the police department with the others to express our concern and have the cops keep a look out. I feel this is clearly a good excuse for not adding to the snappy, snarky discussions at BJ. But I think of you all often, does that count?

    We remind you of possible drug dealers who are lowering the tone of your neighborhood? {grin}

  97. 97.

    r€nato

    @Common Sense:

    well, the next time he says, ‘the government never does anything right,’ you can point out that it did something right for him.

    The depth of narcissism in conservatives just blows me away sometimes.

  98. 98.

    Chad N Freude

    @JenJen: Fair enough. I have an unfortunate tendency to go poking around the intertubes when reports appear on blogs and news sites looking for he-said-she-said and yes-but, trying to figure out exactly what the facts are. (Facts? I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ facts.) I’m not a lawyer either (although I am a proud law school dropout), and I rely on plausible-sounding analyses and discussions to try and reach reasonable conclusions. I know, it’s hopeless in the blogosphere, but I’m an optimist, albeit a cynical one, and I keep trying.

  99. 99.

    mai naem

    @r€nato:
    I vaguely remember articles in the New Times about how Steve Ellman hoodwinked the City of Glendale city council into a very good deal for himself. I believe he also pulled the same thing on Scottsdale either with the Galleria or Los Arcos.

  100. 100.

    Morbo

    @Incertus: Indeed, I am still not confident in my team’s (Michigan’s) resurgence. Beating 2 MAC teams and perennially overrated Notre Dame do not a season make. First conference win over Indiana was closer than it should have been. The defense still looks awful. Forcier at least gives hope for the future though, regardless of how this season turns out.

  101. 101.

    Chad N Freude

    @JenJen: Also, I generally like what Taibbi writes. Also.

    Are you really going to be his ex-wife? If that’s true, this conversation means I am only two degrees of separation from him. Wow!

  103. 103.

    smiley

    @South of I-10: It’s never too hot for gumbo! (BTW, gumbo is pretty thick when cold, but if you keep the rice out of it until serving (duh, who doesn’t), and use freshly cooked rice, gumbo is OK cold. Seafood gumbo anyway.) Some years ago when I lived up north, my mother made me 4 quarts of her’s, my favorite, froze it, and shipped to me overnight. Several months of good eatin’. Maybe I should ask her if she’s up for that again… maybe for Christmas.

  105. 105.

    burnspbesq

    Taibbi is, once again, way over the top. Just once, when he refers to something as a “criminal enterprise, I’d like to see him identify a criminal statute that has allegedly been violated.

  106. 106.

    Brachiator

    @Linkmeister:

    In Honolulu we’re about to embark on a 15-year elevated heavy rail project from the western end of Oahu to the fringe of Waikiki. I hate the heavy rail part of it, but anything is better than 1.5 hour commutes of 20 miles. The other annoying thing is that it’s not running past the airport nor is it going to the University. Spurs are planned later.

    I’ve read about other Hawaii commuting/transportation services that have failed, been blocked, didn’t solve a problem completely, etc (a ferry service, among others, I think).

    I don’t understand the point of a rail project that doesn’t go to the airport. Are there taxi, private bus services standing in the way here?

    And not going to the university? WTF? As screwed up as LA area transportation is, a couple of the rail lines stop at or go near community colleges and other schools. This makes a huge difference to some students, who otherwise would have a longer, more expensive commute to get to classes.

    r€nato — the success of light rail gives me hope for the health care debate. This is a city well-known for the conservative/libertarian mindset that only poor people use public transit and who wants to help poor people since I’m not poor…

    Good comparison. The light rail article mentioned opponents who were more fixated on ideology than results, and even some of those folks came around to some degree.

    Among the many detractors — and they were multitudinous — who thought a light rail line in this sprawling city would be a riderless $1 billion failure was Starlee Rhoades, the spokeswoman for the Goldwater Institute, a vocal critic of the rail’s expense. “I’ve taken it,” Ms. Rhoades said, slightly sheepishly. “It’s useful.”
    …
    She and her colleagues still think the rail is oversubsidized, but in terms of predictions of failure, she said, “We don’t dwell.”

  108. 108.

    suzanne

    re: the phoenix light rail debate…

    first off, it’s freaking fabulous. i attend asu, and refuse to pay $800 for a friggin’ parking permit to park half a mile away from my building. fuck you, arizona state. so i ride the light rail for $40 a semester, and the train station is 3 blocks from my building, and parking at the park-and-ride is free. woohoo.

    apparently, however, they are planning on extending it further into mesa, at least down to the mesa arts center/mormon temple. we’ll see when it happens, but the city is planning for it.

  110. 110.

    BDeevDad

    I’m liking Dave Weigel more and more.

    After the speech, Bachmann had only a few minutes to sign autographs and collect a stack of CDs and books from fans who’d followed her into the lobby. I caught up to her as she headed outside and asked if she had any response to the murder of a Kentucky census worker, having noticed that the Census, a constant target for Bachmann, did not figure into her speech. Bachmann recoiled a little at the question and turned to enter her limo.

  111. 111.

    South of I-10

    @smiley: I am eagerly anticipating “gumbo weather”. Hell, an evening in the 60’s would be amazing. Mr. South is the gumbo king in our house, maybe if I turned the AC way down, he would whip some up for me.

  114. 114.

    JK

    @JenJen:

    I HATE Michelle Malkin too, but did find these articles about her interesting. I only read them because I believe in the concept of Know Thy Enemy

    Our national right-wing celebrity
    http://www.csindy.com/colorado/our-national-right-wing-celebrity/Content?oid=1433621

    Michelle Malkin: The point of the story was to contrast overt racism with liberal racism and holier-than-thou, sanctimonious, this-is-not-racism racism. Overt racism, to me, was always easier to deal with. After a while it gets stultifyingly boring to me. I blog every day, I break news, I’ve written four books—and people just want to harp on the fact that I’ve been very open and candid about race and conservatism. I just think it shows you there is no such thing as post-racial America. I think that the racism and the sexism, particularly of liberal bloggers, is really something to behold.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-09-22/michelle-malkin-has-feelings-too/2

  116. 116.

    Linkmeister

    @Brachiator: Well, I take back part of my grumbling. The latest route map has it going by the airport.

    Da Boat never got enough riders to make it cost-effective, partly because it was an hour long ride and because it couldn’t carry enough people between West Oahu and downtown on its limited trips.

    The ferry was intra-island and was mucked up legally from the beginning. The state badly wanted it and allowed an EIS exception for the project, which the state Supreme Court rightly said was illegal.

  117. 117.

    BDeevDad

    @JK: What gets me is that she is so insulated and the press is so non-confrontational with the wingnuts that she’s shocked at the question.

  122. 122.

    kay

    @BDeevDad:

    I thought the timing of this was interesting.

    September 17, Politico dutifully records a “sources say” and how the GOP House leadership have LONG struggled to moderate…..

    “Long before the tea parties or Wilson’s outburst, Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) had struggled to moderate the rhetorical excesses of House conservatives hammering away on Obama’s birth certificate, decrying the creation of “death panels” and ferreting out signs of creeping socialism.

    Sources say they have been especially wary of the possible damage inflicted on the party’s reputation by bomb-throwing Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who last fall called for an investigation into whether members of Congress are “pro-America or anti-America.”

    Sources were just suddenly inspired to contact Politico and express concern over Michelle Bachman, although she’s been screeching like a lunatic for close to a year.

    And now she’s off the census rant, too.

  124. 124.

    Anne Laurie

    Incidentally, I spent five hours straight yesterday working on the Lexicon, plus many random hours before & since, and I’m only responsible for about one-quarter of the entries so far. And there’ve been long chunks of time (like this afternoon) when I couldn’t get into the editing window at all, so it looks like the great WP Update Project is still ongoing. Keep those suggestions coming, and don’t despair!

  126. 126.

    Skepticat

    @South of I-10: A few years ago a friend of mine from NOLA came to Boston for a hip replacement, and she and her husband spent about a month of her recuperation in a Residence Inn. One day as we were chatting, FedEx appeared with a large box full of andouille and other assorted goodies, which her husband whisked off to the hotel kitchen. He was spending his time teaching the kitchen staff how to cook authentic gumbo, jambalaya, and the like. When I arrived to take them to the airport for their return home, the entire hotel staff was lined up, practically in tears, to see them off, and I swear the whole crew had Tony’s on their breath.

  128. 128.

    mcc

    By the way, have people seen there is new information on the Sparkman murder?

    [Jerry] Weaver said he was in the rural Kentucky county for a family reunion and was visiting some family graves at the cemetery on Sept. 12 along with his wife and daughter when they saw the body… “The only thing he had on was a pair of socks,” Weaver said. “And they had duct-taped his hands, his wrists. He had duct tape over his eyes, and they gagged him with a red rag or something… And they even had duct tape around his neck… And they had like his identification tag on his neck. They had it duct-taped to the side of his neck, on the right side, almost on his right shoulder.”…

    Both of the people briefed on the investigation confirmed Sparkman’s Census Bureau ID was found taped to his head and shoulder area.

    I don’t even know what to say, except that this seems to… sharply reduce the set of possible explanations for what happened.

  131. 131.

    BDeevDad

    @kay: I’m guessing this might have had something to do with the timing.

    “They want to make sure no women, no woman becomes president before a Democrat woman,” Bachmann said, “and so they’re doing everything they can to, I think, sabotage women like Sarah Palin, perhaps women like myself, or similarly situated women, to make sure that we don’t have a prominent national voice.”

  132. 132.

    Xenos

    @jamie: I have not read too far in the MERS story, but I just don’t get it as a scandal or fraud. MERS works pretty well as a way of simplifying the records for securitized mortgages, and that is all it was ever expected to do. If a borrower defaults then MERS is supposed to cough up a chain of title so that whoever is left holding the note can record what they need to record in order to proceed to foreclosure.

    If the MERS records are shite, then the last people being harmed are the property holders. They get a year or so of free rent while MERS gets it’s title in order. Buyers of securities are pretty screwed, but they new they were buying pigs in pokes, and deserve to be sued for malpractice by their clients.

    No story here. If the point is that MERS caused the housing bubble, that is completely screwed up. MERS is a symptom, and maybe an aggravating factor, but it is not the cause.

  133. 133.

    kay

    @BDeevDad:

    That’s because you’re not paranoid enough. You want more? I got more! :)

    This also occurred on September 17th:

    By Paul Kane
    “In a rare display of public emotion, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) choked up Thursday morning recalling the anti-gay rhetoric in the late 1970s in San Francisco, which culminated in the assassinations of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay S.F. Board of Supervisors member, and Mayor George Moscone.

    Pelosi, responding to a question about whether anti-government rhetoric posed a threat of domestic violence, said that protesters on all sides had the right to voice their opposition to legislative proposals in a heated fashion. But then Pelosi — whose weekly press conferences are legendary for their highly scripted nature and her rote recitation of Democratic message points — paused and took a deep breath as she recounted the tone of some protests in her hometown.

    Pelosi appeared to fight back tears, staring down at the podium.

    Pelosi did not say that such an environment had returned thanks to the conservative activists who have been holding rallies in opposition to President Obama’s health-care reform proposals, as well as the government takeover of troubled firms in the financial and the auto industries. But she added that protesters on all sides had to “take responsibility” for their words and actions. ”

    I realize I sound like Glen Beck, so don’t bother saying it. If I start writing “wake up!”, or “connect the dots!”, stop me.

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