Stolen from The Poor Man, because it made me laugh:
There’s a Republican joke or several waiting to be written there…
Speaking of Republican jokes, the WaPo is eager to know more about Sen. Brown #2:
“Nationally, people are saying, who is Scott Brown? Is he an ideologue, an opportunist — in fact, the open-minded thinker he claims to be?” said Paul Watanabe, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. In Massachusetts, he added, “we have these same questions.”
Scotty was in the state senate for eleven years, and what his colleagues remember about him is “not much”. With his new national platform, he can play the white Justice Thomas, I guess.
And to continue my misuse of the Pathetic Fallacy, Sen. Brown #2 was in DC for Snowpocalypse #2, just as he was for Snowmaggedon last week. Here in Massachusetts, we got… a dusting. Except for the southeastern area of the state, closest to Brown’s home town (Wrentham), which picked up 5 – 10 inches of heavy wet snow they didn’t need either.
JK
This got buried in previous thread
An Intellectual History of Cannibalism
Catalin Avramescu
Translated by Alistair Ian Blyth
“This book is a true banquet, a lavish succession of courses making up a real blowout of facts and references, some spicy, some less so, all served up with delicious side dishes and copious drafts of heady intellectual wine. A few readers may find the whole meal a little more filling than they might have wished, but it is certainly a major scholarly feast.”—Simon Blackburn, Times Higher Education
h/t http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8927.html
JK
Anne,
Instead of writing Brown #1 and Brown # 2 to differentiate between Sherrod Brown and Scott Brown, may I suggest referring to Scott Brown as Senator Beefcake?
srv
Sarah is apparently taking a beating on her retard hypocrisy. Question – I Rush smart enough to have set her up on this?
With an ego like his, Glenn Beck has to be a craw in his ass, he’d love to hit the 9/12 movement.
Pete
You could also have Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in the middle one if you entitled the Venn Diagram “Republican Fears”
de stijl
The Poor Man Institute is one of those outfits that makes me want to be a better man. God bless you, The Editors, cor blimey.
Kobie
Scott Brown is either:
A. not remembered because he’s an “Outside-the-Beltway” type who doesn’t care to engage in petty partisan politics;
B. a nondescript state senator who won a sacrosanct seat because the Democrats ran someone who was both a shitty campaigner and a shitty candidate in general (THANKS, MASS. PRIMARY VOTERS!).
YOU MAKE THE CALL.
(EDIT: Capuano would have destroyed this guy in 30 seconds. Thanks, Massholes)
Gravenstone
@JK: I saw a commenter over at TPM call him Senator Zoolander. I think we can work with that.
arguingwithsignposts
This seems like a good time to dust off this old chestnut.
Ian
This vernagram (spelling?) is inaccurate. Dracula rose from the dead, putting him in the same category as J.C. (and not Cole)
Ian+15
M. Bouffant
@Gravenstone:
Thanks. I was trying to remember that & where I’d read it.
Warren Terra
@Kobie:
I’d guess every MA voter reading this site at least voted Capuano, and many backed him with money or time. Coakley coasted to the nomination on name recognition.
Bill E Pilgrim
@arguingwithsignposts: Is that what you kids are calling it these days…
Dave Fud
@arguingwithsignposts: Nice chestnut. I prefer it, actually.
And nice blog – make sure you keep adding to it. I just purchased a deluxe crockpot (the liner can be used to sear meat prior to slow cooking), so keep up the good work.
cat48
Get used to hearing about Scott Brown. He is writing his book about how great he is and will probably be our next president. I’m sure he will be pushed on everyone just like the Wasilla nut has been.
bob h
Does Brown go before the Mass. voters in 2012 and run on a boast that he was Mitch McConnell’s 40th bitch? I’m speculating he joins up with a Palin-Brown ticket.
El Cid
What do you mean we don’t know who Scott Brown is?
HE DRIVES A TRUCK!
chrome agnomen
scott ‘cosmo boy’ brown
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Ha Ha! Captain America is a Democrat. This makes sense since Cap cut his teeth fighting the Nazis and, well, there were quite a few Republicans who supported the Nazis during WWII.
Anyway, I’ve long been under the impression that the Republicans I grew up with have been replaced by shape-shifting Skrulls in a secret invasion whose intent is to bring down the U.S. from the inside.
MikeJ
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: The idiots they spoke to cause the stupid to burn: “It’s really sad to see what has traditionally been a pro-America figure being used to advance a political agenda.”
That’s pretty darned close to “keep government out of medicaid.”
Jeff R.
1. Don’t blame me, I voted for Capuano.
2. Republicans in the Mass legislature are irrelevant. With Brown leaving the state senate there are now 4 (out of 38, with 2 vacant) R’s in the senate, and 16 out of 160 in the house. There actually are a lot of conservative Dems in Mass, like my former state rep Marie Parente, who run as Dems since it’s the only way to have any real power.
3. Wrentham got 5 to 10 inches? I don’t live that far away and we only got 2 or 3.
Brick Oven Bill
Scott Brown. A bad idea whose time has come.
Cat Lady
Senator Brown was my senator and he’s been known as Senator Nitwit for quite some time. He has no record of his own you can point to. Take it on authority, because I know, that his State House staff were incompetent, lazy, uninformed, unethical bordering on illegal and let other people do their work, at which point Scott Brown swooped in, took credit and got the photo opportunity. In other words, he’s a typical Republican.
Rommie
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Considering I spent 10 years of my life involved in the Comic Book bidnezz, I have to LAUGH OUT LOUD at Cap pushing the red alert button of outrage.
Marvel has been trying to provoke this kind of reaction for quite a while now, and it finally took the term “Tea Bag” to get it. The Irony Meter dial does another 360 back to Eleventeen.
aimai
Yeah, Warren Terra is correct. The voting basically went:
In the primary–if you cared about politics and new something about politics you choose Capuano.
If you didn’t pay much attention but were a good dem voter you voted Coakley because she had higher name recognition, was female, and was being backed by lots of names.
In no case did the existence of Brown even factor. Both people who voted/worked for Capuano and for Coakley thought that the democratic candidate would be a shoe in.
aimai
kay
Oh, I don’t know. I feel as if this is an indication:
“On the first non-unanimous vote in which he took part in the U.S. Senate, Brown voted Tuesday with every other Republican to block the confirmation of a union lawyer to the National Labor Relations Board. ”
He had some objection to this nominee based on qualifications? My ass.
“WASHINGTON — By being sworn in today, a week earlier than planned, Senator-elect Scott Brown has put himself in a position to help fellow Republicans scuttle a hotly disputed Obama administration nomination to the National Labor
A vote to appoint the prominent union lawyer, Craig Becker, appears to be the only one in coming days in which Brown’s early arrival could make a crucial difference by giving Republicans their 41st vote in the Senate, allowing them to deploy the filibuster to block the nomination.”
The principled “independent” was sworn in early for the express purpose of blocking a single nominee. And he went along with it, like a lemming.
Craig Becker must be one scary lawyer, I’ll tell you. They had to swear in Massachusetts early to insure he got beat.
Sanka
Yeah. That Scott Brown is such a joke, to use Patrick Kennedy’s words. But alas, words have consequences:
Yes. A “new direction” indeed. Back to the pain killers and blow for you Patches. And Mrs. Schlossberg? You’re vicodin is ready now.
Ah yes, Uncle Teddy would be proud.
My guess is alot of Democrats will be seeking a “new direction” this election year.
Those friggin Tea Partiers….er, um. And Sarah Palin too. And, um…the primary voters are teh stoopid!
Sanka
Senator
BrownObama was my senator and he’s been known as Senator Nitwit for quite some time. He has no record of his own you can point to. Take it on authority, becauseI know, that his State House staff were incompetent, lazy, uninformed, unethical bordering on illegal and let other people do their workjust STFU, at which pointScott BrownObama swooped in, took credit and got the photo opportunity. In other words, he’s atypical Republicanperfect Democratic nominee for President.Fixed that.
kay
@Sanka:
Did GOP leadership tell Scott Brown he was getting sworn in early to block the NLRB nominee? Or did they just tell him when to show up, and hand him his instructions?
His first vote is a quid pro quo.
Washington seems to have…changed the regular guy with a truck. It’s a pity, really. His independence lasted, what? A week?
demo woman
@Sanka: It’s kinda early to be drinking.
jeffreyw
Your morning hawk.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Sanka:
Shorter Sanka, I know you are but what am I?
demo woman
It’s suppose to snow in Atlanta today, oh my, what will Glen Beck say. Dylan Ratigan’s smackdown of Beck is priceless.
gnomedad
Substitute “Ronald Reagan” for “Jesus Christ” and you’re got a nice little 100th birthday tribute.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Don’t waste your time on Sanka. Anyone who would adopt a Frenchie-based name obviously isn’t a wingnut. I think the fact that Sanka is decaf ought to tell you that their shit is weak. Now if their name was Jack Daniels maybe then I could believe that they are a full metal wingnut.
The baiting is a pretty good tell too, pretty standard stuff so this ain’t Professor DougJ. Prolly an aspiring spoofer out practicing. If that’s the case Sanka, keep practicing.
JGabriel
Ian:
No, it’s accurate. Dracula rose from the dead, but he is still dead; he is undead, moving but not alive — like Cheney.
.
debit
@Sanka: I don’t get it. Trolling, sarcasm, performance art…it’s like a mix of all three, but none of them very good.
kay
“WASHINGTON—Republican Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts Senate race was lifted by strong support from union households.
A poll conducted on behalf of the AFL-CIO found that 49% of Massachusetts union households supported Mr. Brown in Tuesday’s voting, while 46% supported Democrat Martha Coakley. The poll conducted by Hart Research Associates surveyed 810 voters. ”
He rushed to DC to screw his supporters. Ran down there.
The first week. This may be a Senate record.
Chumps.
me
@JGabriel: Same goes for the Zombie though.
General Winfield Stuck
Was just watching CNN with some guy on comparing Glen Beck to Keith Olbermann as examples in his new book of left and right extremist “wingnuts” screwing up America and destroying the center in politics. Also, too, equating Allan Grayson to Michelle Bachmann as left and right wingnut examples in congress. And who is this paragon of reason and centrism. None other than John Avlon, former speechwriter to sensible moderate Rudy Guilliani. The liberal media brings the stoopid like spirits in the night. Teevee off, gone galt to soak my head in the river of false equivalence.
someguy
Anne Laurie is being a bit tough on Senator My Little Pony. He’s wayyyy more photogenic (particularly when nude) than the rest of the Senate Republicans, so when he gets caught attempting to fellate a page or soliciting gay sex in an airport bathroom or perhaps wandering the Appalachian Trail in Argentina, the news coverage wont burn the eyes *quite* as badly as it usually does with the normal Republican Furtive Ghey / Illicit / Illegal Sex Scandal.
His voting record will no doubt be just as painfully cruel and subhuman as the other Republican Senators’, but I’m a glass half full sort of guy and very willing to see the all the positive stuff Li’l Scotty brings, like nice hair and cruel jokes targeting his daughters. ‘Cuz I’m upbeat like that.
scav
ok, it an open thread so I’ll ask this: was the cornish hen from last night spatchcocked? In part I ask cause it really is one of my favorite words and not used often enough. I think we could do with with rusty instruments to great effect.
burnspbesq
Herewith, your minimum daily requirement of outrage at the stoopidity of our Security Theater Apparatus.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-arabic12-2010feb12,0,3442233.story
Oh, and one other thing:
Dear Mr. or Ms. Bad Coffee,
You suck. Everything you have ever posted in the comments on this blog has been stupid, false, or both. Please go gargle with Liquid Plumber and die the slow painful death you so richly deserve.
Malron
Are the MA Democrats grooming a candidate to run against Brown in 2012?
bemused
This is ot but I just caught the tail end of Lawrence O’Donnell was hopping mad, blasting Marc Thiessen, former speechwrite who has written a book, on Morning Joe. Joe, of all people, tried to cool it down & they went to break. They are all back now with Joe moderating.
MikeJ
Thanks to whoever pointed to the teabag convention story from Newsweek yesterday. I can’t believe that Jonathon Kay will be welcome back among the villagers after that article. I’m flabbergasted that Newsweek printed it.
JGabriel
me:
Damn, you’re right.
(Pause.)
Maybe we’re overthinking this?
.
JGabriel
@scav:
Watch your fucking language! We’re not into any of that kinky cock spatching here!
(What is cock spatching, anyway?)
.
debit
@JGabriel: The Googles tell me it is removing the backbone and keel so the breast lies flat, leaving just the drumsticks, thighs and wings with bones.
For example: http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com/2008/05/spatchcocking.html
Folderol and Ephemera
Brains! Brains for Jesus!
scav
@JGabriel: isn’t it great?! you essentially remove the spine from a bird and then butterfly it. Spitchcock is when you do it to an eel. Tell me these aren’t words/actions that have a larger application.
Dennis G.
Quite funny. A fine way to start the morning.
Thanks.
Mike Kay
be careful of what you wish for….
Brown’s election will expose the GOP obstruction. Now they will get tagged with the filibuster. Before they could hide and say, “we didn’t do anything, the Dems have a filibuster proof majority,” and let Nelson do their dirty work for them. Now they have to do it themselves, and voters don’t like obstruction.
liberal
Get rid of the filibuster.
liberal
@jeffreyw:
Heh.
One day I went to get junk food at the institution I work at ( pretty large campus). I saw a hawk looking at something, and occasionally fluttering to another branch to get closer to it.
Finally saw his target—a nice juicy squirrel.
demo woman
The former
vice-president Cheney will be on This Week preaching to us on how we all are going to die.MikeJ
@demo woman: Sunday morning, when millions of Americans will listen to the word of God, Dick Cheney gets equal time for his side.
liberal
@Mike Kay:
Only if the press and the Dems make it an issue.
J.W. Hamner
I’m really f-in tired this morning, but we’re headed up to Maine after work for the long weekend, so that makes it better. We’re going to do some cooking and play some nerd games.
SadieSue
@Warren Terra:
Thank you, Warren, sir. As a resident of Massachusetts, I did indeed support Capuano with time, money, & my vote. There just wasn’t enough time before the primary for him to gain enough name recognition to beat Coakley – & to be fair, Coakley has been a good DA & AG so it wasn’t all that surprising she won the primary. I suspect she would have won the general election, too, if she’d bothered to campaign.
And I am getting really tired of being sniped at by citizens of other states about Brown’s win – I’m in WMass & we overwhelmingly voted for Coakley. If you were one of the out-of-staters who worked your butt off for Coakley, thank you. If you weren’t, stfu about Massachusetts & remember this in the Fall – if you don’t get out in support of D’s everywhere, this will happen in your state as well.
Xenos
@kay: Remember this is the same demographic that voted for Reagan so that
Swiper FoxJimmy Carter would not steal their hunting rifles. The result? The midwest is now a post-industrial wasteland. Ten million Reagan Democrats ruined by their own folly, bringing the rest of us down with them.You saw how someone here who was a shop steward was getting so pissed off about a tax that would have minimally hit some union benefits. Stupid, stupid, stupid. See, this is where limousine liberals get accused of being condescending. But if people can’t sort out their own self interest, what are the rest of us supposed to be doing for them?
bago
Yeah, I am reserving commentary on spatchcocking until I get a few words In.
bago
Words like spatchcocking.
Mike Kay
@liberal:
yes, the narrative will take a bit of time to build, which sucks. It was an effective, evil trick. All they had to do was call for a cloture vote, which required 60 dems votes, which was impossible because two the dems are cryto-republicans, and then could have their cake (obstruction) and eat it too (blame nelson and loserman).
Bill E Pilgrim
@scav: Rusty Instruments would be a great name for a doctor.
I assumed that other word meant getting your spatula ready to use, but others have spoiled the fun. Damn you, Google.
geg6
Man, that Venn diagram brings back the memories. That pretty much maps my loss of any belief or respect for the Christian (specifically Catholic) religious thought and logic that I was forced to endure until I reached this conclusion some time before adolescence. Beautiful, it is. And it made me laugh. I must have been a bit of a ghoulish tween. Probably got it watching too much Chiller Theater with Chilly Billy Cardille on Saturday nights.
kay
@Xenos:
It’s anecdotal, but here, there’s a real split between working union members and retirees. A real “I got mine, so screw the newer members” thing. The retirees are active (because they have time) and LOUD. I wonder of that’s part of the reason unions ended up with so much of wages being converted to health insurance. I would think younger members are getting the raw end of that deal. They’re at a point where they need wages, not a really expensive insurance policy. As you saw in the health care battles here, we hit a brick wall of denial when we brought it up.
There’s also a split between low-wage unions (service) and manufacturing, and part of that has to do with ethnicity, IMO.
As an interested observer, I have to deny these divisions exist, because union members do. I was once a member of the AFL-CIO and no one was interested in talking about it. Bringing it up made everyone horribly uncomfortable.
We could really use some honesty in this discussion. God forbid someone tells the truth, right?
Police unions are hopeless, as far as I’m concerned. I’m to the point where I’d actively work to bust their union, and let them all get 9 dollars an hour with no benefits, or the “Scott Brown Plan”. Screw them. Not my problem.
Lolis
@bob h:
Brown supports Roe v. Wade. He is not sufficiently pure to be on any Republican ticket. If Brown is willing to denounce his previous stance he may be picked, but then he risks becoming a Mitt Romney II. It’ll be interesting to see. If Brown wants to keep his seat he can’t be McConnell’s bitch. Nobody would have respect for Brown if he is a pudgy and unattractive man’s bitch.
ksmiami
Pretty much if you are a union household voting for republicans, you are a total dipshite…. If you make less than 560,000 per year and you vote for Repukes, well… let me just say that rich Democrats are a hell of a lot nicer than rich repukes. We are in this together and friggin vouchers never solve ANYTHING. If this crew had been the opposition during WWII, we never would have built the bomb because it would have required “collectivist” thinking, Ike’s highways,same thing. The Republican version of “economics” is pure unicorns and rainbows, their governance is curtains and mirrors and optical illusions. If the past 10 years hasn’t proven that, then I say we welcome our Chinese overloads, at least as an atheist, I would be protected and we would slim down.
Hiram Taine
@jeffreyw:
A red shouldered hawk I shot last spring..
Another of the same hawk.
And a tufted titmouse on our feeder.
R-Jud
In re “spatchcocking”:
“I reversed my van over them at dusk this morning.”
J.W. Hamner
@Folderol and Ephemera:
I would explain quite a lot if they’ve been setting those aside in jars to be ready for zombie Jesus’s return.
John Quixote
@kay:
I just had this exact same conversation at work the other day. Granted, I only pay 60 bucks a month in premiums, but since my provider is Blue Cross/Blue Shield, getting them to pay for any procedure or treatment is harder than convincing old people that the flouride in our drinking water is not a nefarious UN plot to control our minds.
The older people at work who have been in the union since the seventies get all kinds of perks that I will never get. Time and a half on Sundays. 6 weeks of paid vacation a year. If they want to work a 6th day during the week, they can with no fuss from management about overtime. The last time I went over 40 hours, the store manager chewed me out for 15 minutes, which, ironically, was how much I went over on the clock. But it’s OK to pay cashiers 20 bucks an hour two days a week.
I will never get time and a half on Sunday. Or a 6th day. Or 6 weeks of paid vacation. Not that I want to work 6 days a week, put it really pisses me off when I have to hear about how the store is over budgeted on labor costs, when all the olds make more in two days than I get in a week.
Hell, they even get a better deal with our HC provider than I do. We all pay the same for premiums, but they don’t have to jump through the same hoops the rest of us do, ’cause they’ve been in the union since Nixon.
Baby Boomers – I Got Mine, Fuck You.
Ash Can
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
@Rommie:
Certainly amusing, but I’m disappointed that the editor-in-chief felt that he had to make a public apology to the butthurt assholes.
Molly
Spatchcock – 1. To remove the spine of an edible bird in order to butterfly it. 2. To remove the spine of a Democratic Majority Leader in order to prepare him for butterflying by the Republican minority. 3. A word that sounds vaguely perverse, and therefore appropriate for the Balloon Juice Commentariat.
Onward.
JGabriel
@scav:
One would that that’d be “spatchworm” rather than “spitchcock”. It’s like they’ve forgotten that the “cock” root means “chicken”.
Oh, wait. I see what you did there.
.
RedKitten
Oh my freaking god… it’s Alan Rickman reading love poetry. (Just a sample, sadly…you can only get the full thing if you have a British mobile number.)
Happy early Valentine’s Day to my fellow Rickman fans!
(And at that same link, you get Patrick Stewart reading “To His Coy Mistress”….le sigh…)
jurassicpork
When Captain America throws his mighty shield, he then apologizes for his unerring accuracy when he hits the crazy bad guys, in this case, the Tea Baggers.
JGabriel
RedKitten:
I do a great recitation of “To His Coy Mistress”. Better than Stewart’s, err, probably. I love that poem, committed it to memory years ago.
.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@scav:
Spitchcock sounds like what happens when you fondle your eel too much.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Same with prison guard unions such as the California Corrections Officers union, the benefits they get are outrageous compared to the private sector.
kay
@John Quixote:
You’re going to have to start going to meetings. And shout them down :)
There are more of them, sure, but you can be really loud. Try that!
RedKitten
Okay, this is beyond hysterical. A sample:
liberal
@kay:
In the suburb of DC where I live, some cops have recently left with disability payments, even though they then went on to other cop jobs and kept receiving the payments.
Allan
But Sarah told me that Scott Brown is just a guy with a pickup truck who decided to go to Washington. She didn’t tell me that he’s actually a career politician, therefore it can’t be true. Dirty LIEberal media!
licensed to kill time
2 more reasons why I love Balloon Juice:
1. Spatchcock
2. Spitchcock
I think asiangrrlMN should add rusty spitchcock to her arsenal.
skippy
@Ian:
also, who reveres frankenstein? or dracula, even.
i’m just sayin…
asiangrrlMN
@Hiram Taine: Gorgeous pics. I love the titmouse. So cute!
@RedKitten: Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. Now, all I need is someone with a British mobile to receive the messages and then send them to me. Any volunteers? “Wantonness”. Delicious.
@El Cid: So does my brother. Who would make a better senator than will Scott Brown.
Damn it. The stupid will never go away completely, will it?
asiangrrlMN
@licensed to kill time: You are cracking me up. I may have to add a rusty spatchcock and a rusty spitchcock. It will be my Rusty Kitchen Tools(TM) Flattening line.
@scav: Thank you thank you thank you for starting off the convo on spatchcocks and spitchcocks. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
licensed to kill time
@asiangrrlMN:
Spitchcock is just such a perfect blend of pitchfork and (a lot of people’s) favorite tool to use or be used, as it were.
Where would I learn words like this if not for my favorite blog? So servicey, Balloon Juice is.
Tonal Crow
The GOPers, including Boner, the RNC, and the “Council of Seniors” have got a new spin on lying now. Just as the Census is gearing up, they’re sending solicitations and push-polling mailings marked “enclosed CENSUS DOCUMENT” or “Census”, sometimes combined with “Do Not Destroy, Official Document”.
If Obama doesn’t use the bully pulpit to hit this, hit it hard, and hit it repeatedly, he’s not doing his job.
Tonal Crow
@asiangrrlMN: “I love these dental tools. Old. Heavy. Rusty. DULL.”
Ian
@skippy:
Clearly the vampires are coming for you next
asiangrrlMN
@Tonal Crow: Man. Dentist tools. I see lots of product expansion possibilities here.
@licensed to kill time: No kidding! I had never heard of either before reading about it here. I is learning!