Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

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

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

I really should read my own blog.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

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

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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Late Night Open Thread: More Music

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Blessings to Andrew Sullivan’s blog, and to the vast and glorious YouTube, without which I would never have discovered Russia24-TV’s ethnic-themed Olympic tributes…

Altai

Yamaal


Yakutia

Seriously… I really enjoy these singers. I would actually pay cash money for a professional compilation (there are others, including some done for the Beijing Summer Olympics). Also, for a clean high-def copy of Johnny Weir’s programs, because I don’t know from skating but that version of “Fallen Angel” was one of the most amazing performances I have ever seen, and it took hella athletic skillz to make it look so easy. I’d add the link I re-watched on YouTube last night, but it’s been removed by the IOCC spoilsports.

Reader Interactions

35Comments

  1. 1.

    Yutsano

    That first one is so insanely bizarre and yet IT WORKS!! Maybe there’s some universality to Queen that I was heretofore unaware of. I also like it when I have to guess the ethnicity of the relative entrants there. Yeah I’m pretty much clueless.

  2. 2.

    asiangrrlMN

    This Queen/Russian ethnics connection just tickles me to no end. Delightful! Too bad for Russia that they aren’t the champions so much during these Olympics.

    P.S. The third one is VERY DRAMATIC!

  7. 7.

    OriGuy

    @Bill E Pilgrim: We Are the Champions was recorded before Queen started using synthesizers.

    My Russian is pretty bad, but the first video is from the Altai Republic, so it could be several ethnic groups. The throat singing makes me think they are Tuvans. The costumes look a lot like the ones I saw on Huun Huur Tu, who I saw last week.
    I think the second one is by a Nenets group, who live in the Yamalo-Nenets Okrug. I liked the reindeer accompanyment.
    The third one is from Yakutia, so they must be Yakuts.

  8. 8.

    Yutsano

    @OriGuy: The beauty of Balloon Juice. I knew someone would be able to identify the various ethnicities shown here. And reindeer are always cool, even on Nordic sweaters.

  9. 9.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Here’s a group that you might like: The Karelian Folk Music Ensemble. They’re a bit more European-influenced, but the language, particularly in their “Ingrian Folk Songs,” is very like the group with the reindeer, who I think are more likely Khanti-Manti, in the same Finno-Ugric language group as the Ingrians, Estonians, and Finns.

  11. 11.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @OriGuy:

    @Bill E Pilgrim: We Are the Champions was recorded before Queen started using synthesizers.

    No I was referring to the one in the video here. The traditional instrument from the Altai Republic.

  12. 12.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Not music-related, but this *is* an open thread:

    Ross Douthat *still* makes the most blatant, elementary factual errors — today it’s a reference to Arizona Senator John Ensign — and the NYT *still* doesn’t bother fact-checking him before his column goes to print, or at least pixel.

    /early-morning rant

  16. 16.

    Booger

    “We Are The Champions?” ((Snort))…let’s see them do BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY and then I’ll be impressed.

    Pikers.

  17. 17.

    El Cid

    The newest phase of capitalism: “The Billionaire Bailout Society“.

    If the link between economic growth and job creation really is broken, then capitalism as we’ve known it for the past seventy years may be dead and gone (or, at the very least, transformed into something very different.)
    …
    Our entire conception of American capitalism has been based on its ability to produce an ever rising standard of living for most of our people, especially the middle class. That was the fundamental project of our government after the Great Depression and during the Cold War, and it was remarkably successful for more than four decades. Working people became middle class citizens, and they were the envy of the world…
    …
    …[A]t this critical point, capitalism may have suffered its fatal injury. The financial crash should have dramatically reduced the wealth and incomes of those who gambled and lost on Wall Street. As in the 1930s the distribution of income should have become much more compressed. The pain and suffering should have been shared more equally. Instead, the biggest banks were bailed out, while millions of Americans were thrown out of their jobs and homes. Worse still, the very bankers who caused the crisis took advantage of $12 trillion (not billion, and not just TARP) of taxpayer support to generate record profits and bonuses…
    …
    …[T]he billionaire bailout society is financially unstable. We’ve fixed precisely nothing since the crash. Too-big-to-fail financial firms have grown even bigger. (In fact the government has given 19 of them special status as too big to fail.) Breaking them up is not on the Congressional agenda. New regulations are likely to be weak if they are issued at all. That means the financial casino is up and running again, fueled by excessive wealth in the hands of the few.

  18. 18.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Well, today is George Washington’s birthday. We will address it at Balloon Juice.

    In a previous segment, we learned that Washington’s first lesson of his 21st year was that Indians can go from zero to bat-shit crazy in about one second, when Tanacharison cut the head of Washington’s French negotiating partner in half and pulled out his brain.

    Washington was very smart, and realizing that there would be consequences for pulling out this brain, established Fort Necessity for his 180 men. Here, he made an error, learning the hard way the 2nd lesson of his 21st year, clearing the trees for only 60 yards beyond the walls of the Fort. This was in the range of French muskets, and Washington’s men we slowly slaughtered before his eyes over a period of nine hours.

    In his surrender, he took personal responsibility for Tanacharison pulling out the brain of the French commander, and thus personal responsibility for the beginning of the French and Indian War. In exchange for this concession, the French promised to control the Indians under their control ‘to the best of their ability’.

    Well, the French came through, and Washington and what remained of his men made it back to Virginia. His government disbanded his military unit, and reduced him in rank. Washington was dejected, writing his brother:

    “What did I get from this? …I went out, was soundly beaten, lost them all, came in, and had my commission taken from me.”

    George, what you got from that, in my opinion, were valuable lessons which would serve you well at Monongahela, and provide for all of us wonderful opportunities. Thank you and we remember. Although Anne Laurie says you have no ethnicity.

  21. 21.

    MikeJ

    @The Grand Panjandrum: When everybody is marching in one direction, a smart politician will try to get in front and say he’s leading them there. If there’s one thing Lieberman cares about it’s making Lieberman look good.

  22. 22.

    Morbo

    I was listening while doing other things, so the improvised reindeer snort in the second video made me lol.

  23. 23.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @The Grand Panjandrum #20: Yes, I know Ensign is from Nevada. That was my point, that Douthat identified him as being from Arizona and nobody at the NYT caught the error.

  25. 25.

    Punchy

    Yup, pit bulls are safe

    Totally normal for a girl to fall down, then have a pit rip up one’s throat.

    Dogsbite.org advocates breed-specific legislative action to control violent dogs. According to the group, pit bulls make up only 5 percent of the dog population in this country, but account for more than 40 percent of deadly attacks.

    Yup, they’re safe.

  29. 29.

    MikeTheZ

    Can’t fix health care, can’t fix the financial systems, can’t get people jobs, but what the Hell, we can put warning labels on food that it could cause you to choke.

    No, really.

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