Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

White supremacy is terrorism.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

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

The words do not have to be perfect.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

This fight is for everything.

This blog will pay for itself.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

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

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

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Reader Interactions

166Comments

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Oops, Donovong beat me to it!

    I love the luxurios “I’ve-got-all-the-time-in-the-world” feeling of the first couple of fall mornings after reverting back to standard time. By 4:30 or so in the afternoon, though, I’m not as crazy about the shift.

  7. 7.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Yesterday I had to go to the local post office and had to wait in line about 10 minutes. There were at least three people in line including a guy right in front of me who were coughing and sneezing and snorting and dripping all over the place. Coughing without even covering their mouths, let alone doing the “into the sleeve” method. I worried about not only the airborne germs but also what they were quite likely handing over to the P.O. clerks who would hand it right back to the next customer. When I got to the counter I suggested to the clerk that they put strategic bottles of hand sanitizer and boxes of tissues around during flu season. She looked at me as though I were some kind of alien being.

  8. 8.

    calipygian

    As The Hill reported a month ago, NRCC spokesman Paul Lindsay said that Scozzafava was the right candidate, who was picked by the local party leaders and had an appeal to the district’s voters.
    …
    As for Lindsay’s view of Hoffman, who had also interviewed with party leaders for the nomination: “Fortunately, the local Republican county chairs had the foresight to see that Doug Hoffman lacked the integrity and qualities needed to be elected to anything — let alone Congress.”

    Heh.

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    @calipygian: Republicans live for the moment, and have absolutely no memory of anything they’ve said more than 5 minutes ago. It’s a defense mechanism against the cognitive dissonance that would otherwise cripple them.

    (see also: various GOP pols taking credit for stimulus projects that they voted against funding, etc.)

    -dms

  10. 10.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Betsy: I nominate for every Nobel, Pulitzer, and Congressional Medal the first person who can work out a way to extend daylight on BOTH ends of the day :-)

  11. 11.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    @calipygian:

    I am laughing my ass off at the lemmings falling into line, they are only feeding the frenzy that is going to consume them all from the inside. I really hope that Owens loses to Hoffman, I want to see the nutjobs empowered and the Republican politicians quaking in their boots at the monster they have created.

    Crazy train indeed, heh.

  13. 13.

    demkat620

    I am beginning to think the funnier reaction to NY-23 would be for Owens to win.

    The GOPer response to failure lately has been to double down on the crazy. That could happen here.

  15. 15.

    Keith G

    Fall weather has embraced the coastal bend of Texas. My celebration breakfast menu:

    Breakfast tacos w/fresh tomatilla sauce; McCann’s Steel Cut Irish Oatmeal with fresh berries and no political news til much later in the day.

  17. 17.

    jeffreyw

    Bah. Mrs J laid off from her job of 25 years. On the bright side, she can apply for unemployment online. Of course that isn’t all good, the state requires IE and Adobe Reader.

    Kids these days, when folks of my generation were laid off we had to wait for a blizzard to walk uphill all the way to the local office in another town so we could wait outside while the bastards at the office took coffee beaks and waved and laughed at us.

  20. 20.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @jeffreyw

    I kinda like “coffee beaks.”

    Just like accidents and coincidences, there really are no typos.

  21. 21.

    SiubhanDuinne

    And apologies, I meant to say how sorry I am about Mrs J. You all have had a rough week or so. I sure hope things turn around fast and decisively.

  23. 23.

    geg6

    It is a stunningly beautiful fall day here in the ‘Burgh. My favorite kind of day, if a little cold. The sun is shining, though, and the trees are just beyond peak. I am interested to see the stories on magic and “Precious.”

  25. 25.

    Betsy

    @geg6:

    I am interested to see the stories on magic and “Precious.”

    Me too – I haven’t seen Precious yet, but I want to.

    The trouble with CBS SM is that they never go quite enough in depth for me. The magic segment seemed to just brush the surface – I wanted to see more about either the tricks or the neuroscience.

  28. 28.

    SFAW

    jeffreyw –
    Sorry about Mrs. J. Tossed after 25 bites big time.

    But, as to your other point: You young whippersnappers had it easy. Another town? We had to crawl to the other end of the state. Blizzard? Hah! We had to swim through a tsunami (after which we would start our crawl, of course). Seen the trailers for 2012? A walk in the park compared to what my generation had to go through.

  29. 29.

    HRA

    @jeffreyw:

    I think applying online may be an option. I doubt everyone would have internet access. Once you apply at the office, then you can call in once a week. That’s how it is here. Good luck to Mrs.J.

    I do understand your experience. Lost in the event is the law about the time set to open the doors. Though in bad weather it should have been a humane gesture for the manager to let you in. I have seen both examples. I worked for UI/TRA for some years in the past. The nasty worked on both sides of the counter.

  30. 30.

    geg6

    It’s a weird sports weekend for me. No football I was excited about. Just the PSU game. But with both Pitt and the Stillers with bye weeks, it’s sorta not important. Think I’ll watch “Milk” today. I watched “Marley and Me” yesterday and was reduced to a blubbering mess. Don’t know why I did that knowing how it ends. Gawd.

  32. 32.

    calipygian

    Rush Limbaugh blamed Obama for not being able to buy the Rams. Srsly.

    And Rush Limbaugh called Joe Biden “a windbag who is wrong about everything”.

    He also thinks Sarah Palin is qualified to be President.

    He also “knows” that the majority of the country is opposed to anything Obama does domestically.

  33. 33.

    Svensker

    I’m still laughing about the 4-year-old bumble bee who came to my door last night and said, “I’ll take two of everything, please.”

    JeffreyW — so sorry to hear that.

  34. 34.

    calipygian

    Rush Limbaugh, the man who got a deferment from the draft during Vietnam “feels like he is in the trenches in a war” for America and against Obama’s everyday assault on freedom.

    I wonder what he thought of Bush arresting American citizens, like Jose Padilla, and throwing him in jail without charges.

    Oh yeah, that’s right – Padilla is siginficantly browner than Limbaugh, so it’s okay.

    One little thing that I noticed in the interview – Limbaugh wants to build a “big tent conservatism” in the GOP that attracts people regardless of “race or sexual orientation”.

    I wonder how he’s going to do that.

  35. 35.

    jeffreyw

    @Betsy: @SiubhanDuinne:
    @SFAW:
    @SFAW:

    It’s not as bad as all that, she was planning to retire at the end of December anyway, and can draw unemployment till then. Our worries are more focused on the fate of the missing Jack, now going on 5 days gone.

  36. 36.

    jeffreyw

    @Betsy: et al:

    It’s not as bad as all that, she was planning to retire at the end of December anyway, and can draw unemployment till then. Our worries are more focused on the fate of the missing Jack, now going on 5 days gone.

  38. 38.

    SFAW

    But as a Mets fan, this World Series is a real bummer…

    Don’t worry, I’m sure next year will be different. With Pedro’s and Wagner’s pitching, Dan Murphy’s near-Gold-Glove fielding, Sheffield’s and Francoeur’s hitting, I think the Mets are pretty much a lock to bring the Trophy back to Shea.

  40. 40.

    SFAW

    … Limbaugh wants to build a “big tent conservatism” in the GOP that attracts people regardless of “race or sexual orientation”.

    Well, not sure how the race thing fits into his lifestyle, but there are probably a few 12-year-old Dominican boys who could comment about the other thing.

    It’s sort of the obverse/converse/contrapositive (I can never remember which is which) of Groucho’s line (“I wouldn’t join any club that would have me as a member”): Rush wants to join a club that wouldn’t have him as a member.

  42. 42.

    calipygian

    @valdivia: No, it was a pretty sycophantic interview.

    He did ask Rush about drug rehab, but it just gave Rush an opening to talk about how he felt inadequate and unhappy inside.

    When it comes to addiction, Rush sure talks like a faggy, in-touch-with-his-feelings liebrul.

  43. 43.

    bemused

    I wish it was daylight savings time all year round. 4pm winter darkness is hard to take. I’d rather have it darker in the am than the pm. Reminder to self, start taking more vitamin D.

    Pat Robertson’s CBNetwork says that “most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated & prayed over by witches”. So much illogic in one sentence:
    The presumption that witches are evil.
    If witches prayed over most candy, does that mean that some candy wasn’t evil & which brands?
    Why would witches bother to pray over candy? Why not school lunches? Kid’s breakfast cereal?
    How do they know witches prayed over candy? Did CBN have undercover witches?

  46. 46.

    Violet

    @jeffreyw:
    Sorry to hear about Mrs. J. And very sorry Jack is still missing. That’s so difficult. I hope he magically turns up, looking a little worse for wear, but very excited to see you.

    I don’t watch Sunday morning shows anymore. Why ruin a perfectly good morning?

  47. 47.

    calipygian

    @geg6: If it weren’t such a crappy day here in the DC area, I’d probably be on the bike trail and not giving myself the same feeling I’d imagine an ostensibly straight married man on the down low gets when patronizing a truck stop glory hole.

  49. 49.

    2th&nayle

    “Curious Junior” came in from his morning constitutional with a live ground squirrel. When I tried to rescue said ground squirrel from the jaws of death, he hit the floor running and is now hiding behind the clothes dryer. Ahh, the joys of living under feline dominion!

  50. 50.

    ChrisB

    @demkat620: It will, of course, be Scozzafava’s and the NY Republican establishment’s fault if Hoffman loses, Scozzafava for failing to pull out soon enough and the party regulars for nominating her in the first place. All the more reason to stay true to your crazy wingnut beliefs.

    And John, I for one am glad to see Daylight Savings Time still shining on our Balloon-Juice posts, even as we descend into darkness an hour earlier today.

  52. 52.

    Brian J

    I have to say, waking up this morning between 4:00-5:00 AM and realizing it was really an hour earlier almost makes up for the fact that I had to call a locksmith last night at 11:00 PM because I locked my keys in my car.

    For those who have been following New York 23 on goings better than me, what are the chances that Hoffman will win? Some polls seem to suggest that he will. It’s not that I believe that the administration will suffer much one way or another if this is in fact a referendum on it thus far. I’m just tired of those on the right pretending that a few races that go in their favor mean something while those that don’t just don’t exist. It looks like Creigh Deeds is not only going to lose but lose big, and while this could mean a lot of things, it almost certainly doesn’t mean that Virginia and the rest of the country are going to turn sharply red in the next few years, despite what the right and its echo chamber in the media will tell us.

  53. 53.

    Betsy

    @jeffreyw:
    @Betsy:

    I realize when I said I’m so glad to hear that, I had not read the part about Jack. I’m definitely not glad to hear that. I hope he returns none the worse for wear.

  54. 54.

    valdivia

    @calipygian:

    I am sure Wallace does not have the balls to conduct a real interview with this ahole. But I expected at least some seriousness. Just wow. And again thanks for embracing the glory hole feeling for all of us. There is no way I could watch that.

  56. 56.

    Max

    @Brian J:

    and while this could mean a lot of things, it almost certainly doesn’t mean that Virginia and the rest of the country are going to turn sharply red in the next few years

    As much “referendum on Obama” nonsense the right/media tries to apply to this, I think Deeds was a shitty candidate and he ran from Obama until just recently.

    My opinion is that 2010 is going to be less of a loss for the Dems than the media is trying to portray and in 2012, Obama is going to get Reagan like numbers.

    There isn’t one poll that shows any sort of growth in GOP support and the fiasco in NY-23 shows that the inmates are taking over and the Indy’s loathe Palin / Beck, etal.

  57. 57.

    El Cid

    More of a teaser on that McClatchy DC article by Greg Gordon. However, it of course should be remembered that the economic crisis isn’t the fault of the banksters and the deregulatory enablers, but Jimmy Carter, the CRA, ACORN, Barbra Streisand, etc. And I think Timmeh should give Goldman another trillion or so just to reward their cleverness at pursuing their corporate interests.

    However, given that the alleged illegalities hinge on ‘what the executives knew’, I think we’ll suddenly see these crucial market savvy individuals who simply must be retained via ginormous bonuses not be able to ever have recalled working for their own company, much less been aware of the central financial issues at stake in its biggest transactions.

    *******************************************************

    How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash

    By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

    WASHINGTON — In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.

    Goldman’s sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation’s premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.

    Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.

    Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and a five-month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman’s failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws.

    “The Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion,” said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor who’s proposed a massive overhaul of the nation’s banks. “This is fraud and should be prosecuted.”

    John Coffee, a Columbia University law professor who served on an advisory committee to the New York Stock Exchange, said that investment banks have wide latitude to manage their assets, and so the legality of Goldman’s maneuvers depends on what its executives knew at the time.

    “It would look much more damaging,” Coffee said, “if it appeared that the firm was dumping these investments because it saw them as toxic waste and virtually worthless.”

    Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s chairman and chief executive, declined to be interviewed for this article.

  58. 58.

    calipygian

    @Brian J: I don’t think Hoffman wins just because he already had the crazy vote locked up. Nate Silver seems to think that the Scozzafava voters who don’t actually vote for Scozzafava (she’s still on the ballot) will break in Owens’ favor.

    Remember kids: Communism Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. Hoffman and conservatism cannot fail, they have already won no matter what happens on Tuesday. Scozzafava and the local GOP have already and will have failed conservatism.

    Thus endeth the lesson.

  60. 60.

    calipygian

    As much “referendum on Obama” nonsense the right/media tries to apply to this, I think Deeds was a shitty candidate and he ran from Obama until just recently.

    The 2009 VA governors race is as much a referendum on Obama as the 1981 VA governors race was on Reagan, in which Democrat Chuck Todd was elected.

    We all know how 1984 turned out.

  62. 62.

    Comrade Darkness

    @Skepticat: We bought a vitamin D lamp last winter. Five minutes a day under it makes a world of difference. Completely different mindset for your body.

    Winter? Is it winter? Look at the snow . . . so odd to have snow.

  64. 64.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Brian J:

    It looks like Creigh Deeds is not only going to lose but lose big, and while this could mean a lot of things, it almost certainly doesn’t mean that Virginia and the rest of the country are going to turn sharply red in the next few years, despite what the right and its echo chamber in the media will tell us.

    Virginia elects Republican governors every coupla cycles to really fuck things up and give the subsequent Democratic governors something to do. It’s just how we roll.

  67. 67.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    The VA governor’s race is also influenced by the voters’ return to their natural cluelessness. McDonnell reminds me of George Allen, who kept getting re-elected because, to quote one voter, “His family is just like mine, so I know he feels the same way I do.”

  68. 68.

    Comrade Darkness

    @bemused: Wait, you are saying this leftover candy has been blessed? Dang, maybe I should strategically spread it around the house for luck. The squirrels would certainly appreciate it.

  69. 69.

    beltane

    @valdivia: According to a diary at GOS, Scozzofava herself has now endorsed Owens. If Hoffman loses, she can expect to be the target of all kinds of threats and generalized hate.

  71. 71.

    dmsilev

    @Max:

    My opinion is that 2010 is going to be less of a loss for the Dems than the media is trying to portray and in 2012, Obama is going to get Reagan like numbers.

    Despite what the media blatherers say about Presidents not being on the ballot in the midterms, there’s a real correlation between how popular a President is and how their party does in the midterms. I put this graph together a few years ago, and then updated it with the results of the 2006 election. In a nutshell, a President polling at roughly 65% approval can expect to see his party stay even in the House, and every point of approval up or down corresponds to a net of two seats towards or away from the President’s party.

    If Obama can manage to stay at his current high-50s approval, we’d be looking at a shift of about a dozen or so seats; given the ~80 seat Democratic majority in the House, that’s far from threatening control. Obama would need to be about as popular as 2008-era Bush for that to be a real threat.

    -dms

  74. 74.

    valdivia

    @beltane:

    yep beltane. this should be fun. The thing is that the wingnuts will be too crazy celebrating their scalp to notice what is really happening, the consequences, of their Great Purge Adventure.

  75. 75.

    dmsilev

    @beltane:

    According to a diary at GOS, Scozzofava herself has now endorsed Owens. If Hoffman loses, she can expect to be the target of all kinds of threats and generalized hate.

    Onward, RedState Strike Force! Countertop Investigation Team is GO! Activate the Random Object Mailing Squad!

    -dms

  76. 76.

    MikeJ

    Obama is going to get Reagan like numbers.

    Obama already got 2% more than Reagan did on his first term.

  78. 78.

    Max

    @dmsilev: Thank you for that. It’s a very helpful summary.

    I’m glad that Obama and team ignore the 24-hour news cycle and look long-term. I can already see the msm narrative shifting back to “problems in GOP land” after spending the last 6 months telling us how much trouble the dems are in.

    It’s like bellbottoms, sooner or later they come back in style.

    Can I add… Howie Kurtz is horrible and the king of false equivalencies. He tried to make this weird analogy to the NYT article on the Obama’s marriage to some article about Cindy McCain and her drug problems and even his guest called him on his bullshit.

  80. 80.

    bago

    @beltane: Hah! If that’s true then it means that the suspension of her campaign after the ballots were printed is indeed a giant middle finger of fury. Ol scuzzlebutt rides again!

  81. 81.

    CaseyL

    Re Owens v Hoffman, I’m not sure how I feel about Hoffman winning.

    OTOneH, I have a visceral reaction to any GOP winning anything, anywhere; and that reaction is “Hell, no!”

    OTOH, I hear that Owens is a horrible conservadem/Blue Dog, and lord knows we have too many of those already. Even if he wins, he seems a sure vote against the Democratic agenda and House leadership.

    Maybe I should look at it as a win-win: If Owens wins, we get a Dem in the seat, however nominal his “Dem” label is. If Hoffman wins, it’s another victory for the nihilists and another step toward the grave for the GOP. (And watching his voters realize they will get no constituent service from him whatsoever – how dare they ask him to address their petty, parochial concerns! – will be boucoup entertaining, as well.)

  83. 83.

    jwb

    @Max: Yes, someone should go back through the 1981 papers and see if the Dems then were as crazy in denial as the GOP is today. Of course the mediascape then was quite different, so allowances would have to be made, but my recollection is that it took the Dems well into 1980s to adjust to the realignment that had taken place.

  85. 85.

    valdivia

    Totally OT but check this picture from the WH flicker stream. It is no other than Kumar! (or Harold?) in his new serious job hanging out at the Oval Office.

  87. 87.

    Dan

    Yes, Rush. The Republican party is a big tent. A big, empty tent. Getting emptier and emptier. Hey, more room for you!

  88. 88.

    SFAW

    Onward, RedState Strike Force! Countertop Investigation Team is GO! Activate the Random Object Mailing Squad!

    Great idea, but what melts “scozzofavas”?

  89. 89.

    beltane

    @dmsilev: What overpriced trinkets will they decide to mail Scozzofava? So far they’ve tried heavy bags of rock salt and fake poo; what will it be next?

  91. 91.

    jwb

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Yes, and Deeds panicked and ran away from Obama, giving those who supported Obama little reason to vote for Deeds. On the other hand, that move made this race very little about Obama, so it will really be very difficult to draw any larger meaning out of the race, not that that will stop the punditry. I quite imagine that even if Deeds somehow came from behind and clobbered McDonnell, the pundits would still figure out a way to spin that into a sign that conservatism was ascendant.

  92. 92.

    SFAW

    Only slightly OT: while trying to find a translation of “scozzafava” into English, I came across Michelle Magalangalangadingdong’s characterization of Dede as a “radical leftist”. Who knew? I guess that means that, if she had stayed in the race, the next step would have been an endorsement from Bill Ayers.

    Assuming the US hasn’t turned into Gilead by that time: if I’m fortunate enough to have grandchildren, they will never believe what went on during these times.

  93. 93.

    Honus

    @calipygian: That’s Chuck Robb, not “Todd” as in LBJ’s son-in-law. He was the first of three democratic governors in a row elected by Virginia during the Reagan-Bush years, including Doug Wilder, the first and still only elected African-American governor in the U.S.

    So you’re right about this referendum nonsense.

  97. 97.

    bemused

    @Comrade Darkness:
    Speaking of squirrels, my in-laws, 90 & 86, were woke up by noises in the house at 3 am. There was a squirrel in the house. I asked my mom-in-law how they got the squirrel out. She said, “Dad shot it”. I screamed, “What, he shot the squirrel in the house!? She laughed, “Don’t worry. He filled the gun with buckshot”. My dad-in-law killed the squirrel with one shot. Pretty good for 90.
    These two are characters.

  98. 98.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @jwb: I imagine it would have been pretty difficult for Deeds to win anyway. We’re talking about a guy that already lost one statewide election for attorney general and he’s still pretty unknown outside of western Virginia.

    Also consider that the Democratic party has to garner significant support in the Hampton Roads area to win statewide and this election cycle the Republican candidate is based in Hampton Roads.

    The downticket races have me more worried because that’s our “bench” going forward. Those folks aren’t knocking my socks off. Hell, I might just vote against Shannon if I see one more ad of him screaming into my television that I’m a child predator and he is going to lock me up.

  100. 100.

    Max

    The Week’s round table has the chryon – Obama One Year Later, What’s Changed…

    Is it January 2010 already?

  101. 101.

    jwb

    @Just Some Fuckhead: I don’t know whether Deeds would have had a better chance had he not run away from Obama, but that decision certainly took Obama out of the race and so really turned it into a local election. I’m sorry to hear that about the down ticket races. Are the numbers for those races looking as bad as the Governor’s race?

  102. 102.

    burnspbesq

    @Ben Richards:

    But as a Mets fan, this World Series is a real bummer…

    This. And I also don’t like the fact that I am not hearing anything about the Mets pursuing Aroldis Chapman. Minaya is on my last nerve right about now.

  103. 103.

    jwb

    @Max: oh, I know the answer to that one: “not much, because Obama is finding that the American people are not embracing his far left agenda, and if he’d just govern as a Republican then we’d all have ponies. Also.”

  105. 105.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @jwb:

    I’m sorry to hear that about the down ticket races. Are the numbers for those races looking as bad as the Governor’s race?

    Yes.

  108. 108.

    phoebes-in-santa fe

    @calipygian:

    Chuck “Todd” may be a Democrat, but he didn’t run for the VA governorship in 1981. Chuck “Robb” did. He was LBJ’s son-in-law.

  109. 109.

    burnspbesq

    @CaseyL:

    I hear that Owens is a horrible conservadem/Blue Dog is in step with the views of voters in the district.

    Fixed. Umm, in case you haven’t noticed, that’s how elections are won, by paying attention to what voters want.

  110. 110.

    Comrade Darkness

    @bemused: Opening a door and blocking the exits worked well for me, but I guess they can skip going to the store to pick up for something for dinner this way. ;-)

  113. 113.

    mellowjohn

    as if what goes on inside george will’s head wasn’t disturbing enough, what what the hell was happening on top this morning? was that just a really bad haircut or the world’s worst toupe? either way, you’d think he could afford better.

    oh, by the way: fuck the fucking yankees!!! (and the cubs, too.)

  114. 114.

    burnspbesq

    @valdivia:

    Haven’t been out to check on them yet this morning, but when I brought the kid home from his Halloween party shortly before midnight last night they were quick to emerge from the bushes and say high. They seem especially happy to see a water dish on the front steps.

  115. 115.

    valdivia

    @burnspbesq:

    good to know. keep us abreast of their continuing incorporation to your household. That picture you posted yesterday totally got to me. So I am vicariously enjoying their company through you.

  116. 116.

    Unabogie

    @CaseyL:

    You should keep in mind that even Blue Dogs serve a critical function: they keep Pelosi as speaker instead of Boehner.

    Do you have any doubt that the day they take over Congress they start impeachment hearings?

  119. 119.

    asiangrrlMN

    I am for the abolishment of Daylight Savings Time. I am for a robust healthcare reform bill that includes a public option. I am for the Vikings and the Phillies winning today. I am for Favre getting sacked eleven billionty times. That is all.

  120. 120.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @jwb:

    Yes, and suddenly all that concern trolling about the deficit—it will no longer matter.

    That’s almost worth it.

  121. 121.

    bago

    Technically, the timestamps should be handled server-side, as it would be quite retarded to script that the client proffer their own timestamps in the HTTP POST.

  122. 122.

    Corner Stone

    @Comrade Darkness:

    but I guess they can skip going to the store to pick up for something for dinner this way. ;-)

    You’ve obviously never had squirrel, much less seen one that’s been shot with buckshot.
    If he shot it in the house with a shotgun loaded with buckshot (which is the only way I can interpret the story), three things happened:
    1. They needed several paper towels to clean the schmear off the floor/wall.
    2. They by-passed the grocery store and went to the hardware store to buy material to repair their wall/door/floor/ceiling, or whatever 1ft SQ area where the squirrel used to be.
    3. Whatever hearing ability they previously had is now completely gone.

  124. 124.

    bemused

    @Corner Stone:
    That’s exactly what dad-in-law did. Buckshot didn’t make a mess, he picked the intact but dead squirrel with paper towels. My husband would never even consider shooting a loose squirrel in the house with buckshot. The in-law do do some goofy things.
    They had a bat problem a couple of months ago & a mouse but they swear dad-in-law found & plugged any holes besides the hole beside the furnace. Evidently not but they think the squirrel snuck into the house when the door was open. I think we are going to have convince them that it is definitely more likely they still have a hole they haven’t found yet than a squirrel could sneak in the house unnoticed. Sigh.

  125. 125.

    Corner Stone

    @bemused: Up under the eaves. Probably can’t even see it, even standing on a ladder and looking right at it.
    They only need an opening about as wide as a box of crayons or so. It’s amazing what they’ll get into. Just be thankful a raccoon hasn’t found that hole yet. You want to talk about a real problem? Raccoons.

  126. 126.

    Shell

    I can handle the cold, I can handle the snow, but I can’t handle the dark of winter.

    Kinda llike it getting dark early- always gives me a cosy feeling. And snow itself isn’t so bad. But please, no freezing rain! I swear, last winter every damn snow fall was followed by deluge of it. Effectively locking down the snow, making it impossible to walk or clear the driveway except by bull-dozer.

  127. 127.

    burnspbesq

    @valdivia:

    Laettner and Hurley say “hi.” They came out of the bushes to socialize, and then set out to explore more of the front yard. I think they are starting to feel a bit more secure in their new surroundings.

  128. 128.

    2th&nayle

    @Corner Stone: I was wondering when someone was going to bring up the ‘buckshot’ issue. I suspect that depending on where the squirrel was located in the house, there would probably have been several walls requiring rebuild. Sheetrock just doesn’t offer much in the way of resistance to buckshot. I also suspect that granny may not have had much understanding as to the different kinds of shotguns, much less shotgun loads. You might have gotten away with out ventilating the whole house if you’d been using a .410 with #7 1/2’s or the like, and certainly using .22 cal rat shot!

  129. 129.

    Corner Stone

    @2th&nayle:

    I was wondering when someone was going to bring up the ‘buckshot’ issue.

    I have fulfilled my contractual role here at BJ by calling out details and telling someone why their story could not have happened the way they know it did.
    I feel superior, empowered and better about myself as a person. For the next 15 minutes.

  130. 130.

    Corner Stone

    @2th&nayle: Where I’m from we only ever call double ought shells “buckshot” and the shell has about 9 pellets in it. And it will definitely help you redocorate your house in a hurry.
    But anything’s possible in this situation, as you rightly suggest.

  131. 131.

    SFAW

    I am for Favre getting sacked eleven billionty times.

    As a Jets fan, while I agree with the sentiment:
    1) I believe the proper spelling is “eleventy billion”
    2) I believe the preferred number is either “a gazillion” or “a skillion”. “Eleventy billion” is not a large enough number.

  132. 132.

    Steeplejack

    @bago:

    Technically, the timestamps should be handled server-side [. . .].

    I’m sure they are. This has been nagging at me all morning, in my computer geek consultant mode, and your comment gives me an excuse to go there.

    It’s a trivial thing, to be sure, but having a situation where your server isn’t dealing with time changes is really bush league, and in my experience it raises a red flag, maybe in the same way that an inspecting officer can deduce something valid about a squad’s overall readiness by such trivia as polished boots, tightly made bunks and squared-away footlockers. When I start to work with new clients this type of thing is a “tell” that usually means inattention to small, unimportant details is accompanied by inattention to equally small but important details. Which is usually why I get called in the first place.

    What happens when the Balloon Juice server gets (belatedly) reset to the correct time? If comments on a thread are sorted for display by the time stamp (as appears to be the case, but I don’t know for sure), there is going to be confusion. Unless the time is reset between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m. Eastern time, which seems to be the lowest-traffic time. Again, someone not thinking about the small but important details would just reset the time whenever it occurred to them and not realize what problems they might be causing going forward. (Night owl pro tip offered gratis.) I say might, because I’m not up on all the ins and outs of WordPress. Just speaking in general from the database-weenie perspective.

    The Balloon Juice renovation has not gone well, and the problems seem to be on the “server” side–both software and human administration–rather than with Cole or his fellow bloggers. The way that things almost work–some people get the edit button one day but not the next, etc.–makes me think that the problems are down in the small, nitpicking details–what add-ons are conflicting with one another or with which browsers, etc. It’s not like the whole site crashes on a regular basis, which I have seen elsewhere. So whoever is the wizard behind the curtain needs to tighten up their scrutiny a little bit. IMO, of course.

    Sorry to go all techno-geeky like that. But I love this blog and want it to be the best that it can be.

    /end rant

  133. 133.

    SFAW

    With all this “buck shot” talk, I’m starting to wonder how many points on that bull squirrel.

    ‘Round hyar, they’s baggin’ some ten-pointers. Anything less than four is considered a doe or a fawn.

  135. 135.

    Corner Stone

    @Steeplejack:

    in my computer geek consultant mode

    So, I’ve got this printer, right? And it seems to be cutting off pages when I print…
    /end

  136. 136.

    Corner Stone

    @SFAW:

    Round hyar, they’s baggin’ some ten-pointers.

    I’m actually from TX, not the illiterati that is Cole’s neck O teh woods.
    Round heah we speak English, Mexican, Redneck and Texican.

  137. 137.

    Corner Stone

    @Steeplejack:

    What happens when the Balloon Juice server gets (belatedly) reset to the correct time? If comments on a thread are sorted for display by the time stamp (as appears to be the case, but I don’t know for sure), there is going to be confusion. Unless the time is reset between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m. Eastern time, which seems to be the lowest-traffic time. Again, someone not thinking about the small but important details would just reset the time whenever it occurred to them and not realize what problems they might be causing going forward. (Night owl pro tip offered gratis.) I say might, because I’m not up on all the ins and outs of WordPress. Just speaking in general from the database-weenie perspective.

    We don’t even HAVE THE EDIT FEATURE…sorry for the yelling.

  138. 138.

    Steeplejack

    @Corner Stone:

    D’oh! Way to bring me back down to earth. That and the realization that this wizard behind the curtain has been sitting here with his own computer case open and innards hanging out for about a month. The 1TB SATA drive makes a great foot-warmer, by the way.

  140. 140.

    licensed to kill time

    Here’s another weird WordPress thing I’ve noticed lately. When I first load BJ I get text instead of a little reply arrow (“reply to this comment”). Once I submit a comment the text goes away and the arrow appears. Hunh? Is this a cookie thing again?

    Also, on another site (forget which) that just had a do-over, the host said that enabling edit on comments overloaded their server and so they had to switch it off until they figured it out. Is that the problem here as well?

    Also, I would welcome our new Server Overlords if they ever arrive on this planet. As big and powerful as possible.

  142. 142.

    2th&nayle

    @Corner Stone: Just so you know, the correct term is “aught” , not “ought”. Also, typically any shot over .20 dia. is considered ‘buckshot’; anything smaller is considered “birdshot’. Ohh, you’re right! Now I’m feeling all superior and empower and good about myself! haha!

  143. 143.

    licensed to kill time

    @2th&nayle:
    I once worked in a hospital where people would leave Rx numbers on the message machine overnight. I saw a couple of techs huddled around it one morning playing the same message over and over ‘cuz they didn’t know what the old lady was saying. It was “eight-aught-aught-seven-aught-three” or whatever, and not a one knew she meant zero.

  144. 144.

    Steeplejack

    @licensed to kill time:

    Also, on another site (forget which) that just had a do-over, the host said that enabling edit on comments overloaded their server and so they had to switch it off until they figured it out. Is that the problem here as well?

    I don’t think so. I think that was the RealClimate site, linked to from a thread here. They said the comment preview function was dragging down the server, maybe because of the real-time nature of it. (I don’t know.) Edit shouldn’t cause such a problem, because you’re basically just opening a window and letting the person type in text. You don’t have to process anything until they click to send it.

  145. 145.

    bemused

    @Corner Stone:
    90 yr old dad-in-law was calling it buckshot when he really meant birdshot, bb’s. He mixes up his terminology at times. I have absolutely no knowledge of anything to do with guns or ammo so I wouldn’t question it. My husband didn’t either but then he knew what his dad meant when he said buckshot. The inlaws call their female cat she & her all the time plus other verbal oddities so conversations with them can be a little confusing at times.

  146. 146.

    licensed to kill time

    @Steeplejack: You’re right, that was the site (I had clicked it from here) and it was preview. I guess I wondered if the “you have X minutes to edit” part might create a load of some kind or put us into suspended animation or something (my not-so-geekitude showing there).

    The Ways of WordPress are mysterious indeed.

  148. 148.

    2th&nayle

    @licensed to kill time: I might not have known myself except for a conversation I had with my dad when I was a young’un. I asked him why a .30-06 was called a ‘thirty aught six’ but a .308 was called ‘three 0 eight’? He explained that the .30 was for the caliber and the ’06 was the year the cartridge was introduced, as in ’19 and aught six’. Same with buckshot, ’00 Buckshot’ literally means ‘double zero (aught) Buckshot’. I couldn’t have been but about 10 or 11 years old. Funny the things you remember.

  149. 149.

    licensed to kill time

    @2th&nayle: Yes, it’s kind of an archaic usage so the only folks you hear using it tend to be old, or using older terminology. I remember at the turn of the century (in 2000-1, not 1900’s!) when the discussion was all about what to call the “zero” years, the “aught’s” got a sort of WTF? reception.

    (Isn’t it neat that we can say “remember at the turn of the century” ? hell, we can even say “remember at the turn of the millennium” ?!)

  150. 150.

    Corner Stone

    @2th&nayle:

    Ohh, you’re right! Now I’m feeling all superior and empower and good about myself! haha!

    You see?? I do what I can for others once in a while too.
    It’s not always just about me. Well, since I guess I now feel a little glow by giving you an opening to feel superior to me it still kinda is about me but…ok, so it is always about me.
    I’m fine with that.

  153. 153.

    2th&nayle

    @licensed to kill time:

    I remember at the turn of the century (in 2000-1, not 1900’s!) when the discussion was all about what to call the “zero” years, the “aught’s” got a sort of WTF? reception.

    Hahaha! Oh, I guess it could have been the 1900’s, if you were like what, 119, 120 years old! haha! You funny!

  154. 154.

    Corner Stone

    @2th&nayle: I’m pretty sure but I don’t think “licensed” is a nom de Tunch for Thyme Zone aka LoveMonkey aka 30 others.
    And, as far as I know, TZ is the only one here who is actually in the triple digits for age.

  157. 157.

    2th&nayle

    @Corner Stone: I wasn’t trying to be a smartass, I promise! It just struck me funny! As someone who is probably it at the upper end of the age demographic around here (I’m 57), after a while the numbers quit having much meaning. Waking up on the green side each day is mostly what I concern myself with. haha!

  161. 161.

    bago

    @Steeplejack: You’ve seen the source code for this site, correct? It’s like fifteen different modules each with their own parsing rules, all stitched together with some javascript.

  162. 162.

    Anne Laurie

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Yesterday I had to go to the local post office and had to wait in line about 10 minutes. There were at least three people in line including a guy right in front of me who were coughing and sneezing and snorting and dripping all over the place.

    Not to argue against hand sanitizers, but at least some of those coughing drippers were suffering from non-contagious allergies. Heating systems starting up for the first time in months are blowing mold/mildew spores everywhere, and (here in the Northeast at least) there’s a particular variety of mold that multiplies in piles of dead wet leaves. Lots of people who believe they don’t have allergies “always get the sniffles when the furnaces first click on” and yet never make the connection.

    Incidentally, Avon makes a vanilla-scented hand sanitizer that doesn’t make my hands feel dry when I use it. I seem to use it more often than I would the ‘regular’ chemical-smelling variety, so I’m trying to spread tubes of my favorite around like good deeds in a naughty world…

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