Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

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

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

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

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

I really should read my own blog.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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

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

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

The willow is too close to the house.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

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

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread

Open Thread

by | 144 Comments

This post is in: 

I’ve made a conscious effort the last few days to not watch any cable news. In fact, I’ve gone from having the tv on a cable news channel all day to basically watching an episode of Chuck and pretty much nothing else.

We’ll see how long I can keep this up, but my head feels clearer. I don’t get MSNBC anymore, and that was my main cable drug (I SIMPLY CAN NOT QUIT YOU, CHRIS MATTHEWS, IN ALL YOUR APPALLING GLORY), and I’m too busy/lazy to learn the new channels. We’ll see.

Plus, there is just so much work to do with the packing and the cleaning and the what not. That having been said, I will find the right channel for Southland at ten.

*** Update ***

I’m loathe to post this because I am sure Max and others will not approve of the color schemes (I like green and earth tones, damnit), but I washed my super soft beat up old duvet cover and then put it on my favorite down comforter after airing it outside and just threw it on my bed to deal with later, and it looks like someone found it while I was sitting here kibbitzing with you people:

She’s no dummy!

Reader Interactions

144Comments

  1. 1.

    Max B.

    Chris Matthews is a goat-child fucker-molestor.

    Which is to say, he is a young goat. That molests fuckers.

    Of course.

  4. 4.

    beltane

    Did you know there is a diary on the Daily Kos rec list about the Balloon Juice “smear job” of Sts. Greenwald and Hamsher?

  5. 5.

    Kristine

    I have deadlines looming, so I am trying as hard as I can to stay away from TV. No Rachel or KO until work is finished. Instead, I have the Blackhawks on mute, which is distracting enough. But they;re a Chicago team and they’re winning–how can I stay away?? And the political hit that I don’t get from MSNBC, I get from blogs instead.

    It really is hopeless…

  6. 6.

    x

    I’v gone from 24/7 MSNBC/CNN to NPR & the local news over the free air. I miss a few Cable shows, but I think I’m cured. I click over to KO & RM online.

    I feel much better.

  11. 11.

    beltane

    @stuckinred: The teabaggers have turned on Rubio. Next thing you know, they’ll be asking to see his long form birth certificate. Rubio can froth at the mouth all he likes, but he’ll never be a real American in their eyes.

  12. 12.

    scav

    Funny, what with the run-up to Easter, I was remembering that I actually gave up news for Lent in ’02. Had 5 bookmarks I could visit on the web. Did anyone notice that Lent lasted a year and a half about then?

  13. 13.

    RedKitten

    I watch a lot fewer TV shows lately as well, and do not feel the loss in the least.

    I watch the news every evening. Mondays I watch Chuck. Tuesdays I watch Lost. Thursdays I watch 30 Rock.

    That’s it. Until Glee is back, of course. It’ll get added into the rotation.

    But right now I am enjoying no show as much as I do Chuck. It makes me haz a happee every single week.

  16. 16.

    General Egali Tarian Stuck

    I still get MSNBC, but have successfully deleted Mathews and all the evening lineup, and only catch a few minutes in the morning and afternoon for actual news, political and other. David Shuster is the only anchor on the planet I like these days.

    But I cannot watch a second of Morning Joe lest I become a cranky beast the rest of the day.

    Other than that, I get my online news from AP and Reuters feed, and left pol news from TPM and Political Wire. I have been reading much more winger blogs than usual, just to keep up with the Apple Dumpling Revolution fomenting in the wingnut belfry.

  18. 18.

    Some Guy

    Good for you, John. Detoxing from cable is very important. I did it last Fall and have not looked back. Now I am much choosier and I am much less pissed of all the time.

  21. 21.

    furioso ateo

    @beltane: I swear, I went to go look that up and typed “Great Orange Satan” Into the Google box before I knew what I was doing.

  22. 22.

    Fairport

    On a related note, our local Rochester NPR station interviewed 3 local Tea Party members. One Mike Deming(sp?) stated that Tea Baggers aren’t racist and then in the very next breath said that there was a “messianic” following of Obama because he is black. Also said that tea baggers weren’t violently angry and then proceeded to call Obama dangerous.

  24. 24.

    mr. whipple

    We’ll see how long I can keep this up, but my head feels clearer.

    I’m a much happier person when I keep the talking heads off.

  25. 25.

    DonkeyKong

    A friend of mine called Chris Matthews a “barking monkey” and I said, with his enormous head, and flat face he looks more like an orangutan.

    That’s why I watch.

  26. 26.

    Linda Featheringill

    Quote from my daughter:

    “I mailed the census questionnaire and now the little green men know how many succulent cerebellums are here. Slurrrrp.”

    [I don’t know where she gets it.]

  29. 29.

    Kristine

    @jeffreyw:

    I read the story about AN first over at Daily Kos about two days ago. It made the Recommended Blogs roll, but the blogger was taken to task by some commenters for publishing a hit job. I don’t know if there’s a question as to whether the criticisms originated here, but they didn’t.

  31. 31.

    Chat Noir

    I will find the right channel for Southland at ten.

    You are the reason my husband and I started watching it. Great show. Thx for the rec!

  32. 32.

    demo woman

    The lack of cable has been refreshing. I did not understand how many hours I spent with 24/7 news on. I do have NetFlix and a friend mentioned that I should order MadMen. Even though all three seasons were available when I had cable, I never watched it. Now I’m a junkie. It’s a slice of time and the episodes with the murder of Medgar Evers and JFK in the background captured the era.
    Awesome was on one episode and Jon Hamm is much hotter than Adam Baldwin.

  33. 33.

    arguingwithsignposts

    I think smudge should go here, too.

    I have to say that not having a TV is the best move I ever made re: political news. I don’t have to listen to tweety to get to the good stuff (TRMS, for instance). And I damned sure ain’t going to listen to that hack scarborough in the morning. How he keeps a job at MSNBC is far beyond my intellectual capabilities.

  34. 34.

    jeffreyw

    @Kristine: I don’t read the diaries there and skipped over the comments on the GG threads here. I’m not part of any of this and have made no comment about it, I say again, Huh?

  37. 37.

    Annie

    I have to break my current habit. I get to the office and start with BJ, Huffington, Sullivan, TPM, and then go to the wingnuts to read their latest rants…Lately, I realize that my students are lining up outside my office door, afraid to enter, probably thinking I am either working on my research or my class prep…….Not good. I have had to apologize several times lately….

  38. 38.

    Pavlov's Dog

    Use to keep the news on in the background all day. But when Palin’s book came out a couple months ago, turned it all off. Funny thing, have never turned it back on. Did the same thing with the editorial page and letters to the editors a while back. It definitely clears your head, and don’t really miss anything other than the talking heads trying to cover politics like it’s a sports game. Plus when you have been away from it a while, and then see a few minutes, Wolf Blitzer et al look like a hundred times bigger tools than you thought of them before.

  39. 39.

    Kristine

    @jeffreyw:

    I am sorry–I meant to respond to beltane’s post, which was right beneath yours. Hit the wrong reply button.

    But thanks for the puppy pics. Cuties all!

  40. 40.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @jeffreyw
    @kristine

    I think Kristine was responding to beltane #4 and accidentally clicked the arrow by jeffreyw #3, right next door (or maybe they were beltane #3 and jeffreyw #4, I no longer remember). Confused me too (but then that’s increasingly easy to do these days).

    @arguingwithsignposts: Thanks for the new Smudge. She is such a beauty, and looks as though she has a really loving disposition.

  43. 43.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Kristine: jinx, you owe me a venti triple shot in the dark (but not until tomorrow or I’ll be up all night).

  45. 45.

    demo woman

    @Chat Noir: My impression of Betty made a u-turn during season 3. The JFK episode made me tear up. I was 13 and have vivid memories of his death and avoided movies since then about his death.
    I’m not sure how far you are into season 3 but there is a scene with a Dr.Pepper machine in a hospital waiting room in NYC. I doubt that was true. Dr. Pepper was not readily available in the north in the sixties.

  46. 46.

    Some Guy

    Pets have a built in comfy-ometer. Sometimes my cats cannot even see pillows or blankets I have moved, but they find them like I wrapped swordfish in them.

    Truly lovable.

  47. 47.

    SGEW

    OT

    This whole Balloon-Juice vs. Glenzilla thing has turned into a really unsightly series of events. The latest Oliver Willis sourced dust-up (and follow-up, etc.) was a really bad scene, all around.

    Seriously, in all my sincere concern and pearl clutching and all that blah, this is not going well: the main players should take deep breaths, think of St. hilzoy (patron saint of reasonable discussion on the internets, and other hopeless causes), and walk back a bit, eh? I don’t know what the hell is going on with all o’ y’all in your personal correspondences (or how many of you are actually friends (or “friends”)), but this is turning into a cycle that promotes bad behavior on both sides.

    The internet sure does seem to encourage weird, personal, passive-aggressive shit all by itself. No reason to stoke it along.

  48. 48.

    frostys

    I’ve never watched cable news.

    OTOH I read blogs at least two hours a day and listen to all the rest of you bitch about cable news, so it’s just the same as if I watched it. I can get all upset at the idiots second hand and waste twice the time first hand.

    Time to back away from the keyboard and pick up the guitar.

  49. 49.

    burnspbesq

    @ General Stuck:

    You may actually have a rooting interest in the Final Four, after all (DON’T let me hear you cheering for West Virginia on Saturday, or there will be real trouble).

    UK women are laying waste to Oklahoma early.

  50. 50.

    AB

    @beltane: I read that and then saw “smear campaign” and you know what, I think I’d like to submit my resignation from the blogosphere, but I can’t do that and get all the Tunch and Lily pics and animal rescue stories at the same time, can I?

  51. 51.

    Comrade Jake

    Thanks for the reminder on Southland. I’ve been able to catch it the past couple of weeks. Great show.

  52. 52.

    General Egali Tarian Stuck

    I’m loathe to post this because I am sure Max and others will not approve of the color schemes (I like green and earth tones, damnit),

    I here ya dude. I use purple sleeping bags as comforters and have red drapes with a blue carpet and a brown dog. I keep a keen lookout for the fashion police. They are everwhere, you know. them and the grammar nazi’s.

  55. 55.

    Max

    hehehe. Nice sheets.

    John – for god’s sake, get one of your sisters into that house, stat.

  57. 57.

    BruceFromOhio

    @SGEW:

    Ah! Hilzoy … I weep for daze past, when uids on the GOS were all low four figures, TRex and The Spin I’m In were regular stops in the toobz, and the endless nights of Billmons’ Whiskey Bar.

    … sobs in the kitchen making the LAST martini of the night, swear to Gaia, it’s only fucking Tuesday, for Gaia’s sake.

  58. 58.

    demo woman

    @SGEW: The only reason that I think you are wrong is that Glenn showed up with some type of screed that was different then his previous one. What’s up with that? We are all a bunch of folks expressing opinions and for some reason, he shows up to defend his honor? What price honor?

  59. 59.

    jeffreyw

    @debit: I don’t have much of the story about these new pups, just that Mrs J reported that they seemed to be starvin when they came in. Those pics were taken after they each scarfed down a couple bowls of puppy chow. She mixed up a batch of hamburger and rice to take to them tomorrow.
    Edit: The shelter has a full time vet on staff, all of the critters that come in get fixed. They provide a low cost neutering service for the whole area.

  60. 60.

    MattR

    @General Egali Tarian Stuck: I second that motion. I am looking at houses to buy and sent a link of one to my mom. Her focus was on the wood panelled walls in the dining room and color of the carpeting. As opposed to my focus on the size of the rooms as well as how clean/well maintained it was overall.

  61. 61.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @SGEW: The internet allows you to yell at someone without seeing who they are or what their reaction is like, and you don’t have to feel the reaction yourself. It’s the downside of places that allow user replies like this, or even diaries like the ones on DK.

    Someone please find the appropriate xkcd comic for this.

  62. 62.

    jl

    Colors look fine to me.

    Lily has an attractive earth tone, I admit that.

    Kibitz, not kibbitz.

  63. 63.

    LarsThorwald

    I vowed never to watch cable news again after the election of 2000, and I haven’t, with the exception of 9/11.

    And it totally changed my level of stress and my life. i’m not kidding.

    you don’t need them. Not even Keith or Rachel or Ed Schultz. it’s all cable news and opinion. Chuck them.

  65. 65.

    burnspbesq

    @General Egali Tarian Stuck:

    I currently have no reason to believe that the upcoming baseball season will be any less painful than the last two. I’m not paying attention until after Memorial Day (the end of the college lacrosse season). The Mets have two months to make me believe.

  66. 66.

    WereBear

    I lurve me some Rachel Maddow. But I watch hardly any other TV; Mythbusters, and used to watch Monk.

    They move stuff around and put it on hiatus so randomly I can’t keep up.

  68. 68.

    rootless-e

    In general, what I find irritating about Glenn/Jane/OpenLeft and so on is their vanguardist mentality. They really do resent it when the unwashed masses dissent from their pronouncements. Deep in their political point of view is a belief that they should be among the decision making elite.

  69. 69.

    MattR

    @burnspbesq:

    the end of the college lacrosse season

    Princeton? Rutgers? Syracuse? Or am I completely off geographically?

    Smoke ’em, Jays (though not this year).

  70. 70.

    Gus

    @Edwin:

    TV is just watching other people live their lives. It’s better to live your own.

    Says the guy posting to blog comment section. :)

  72. 72.

    Sly

    I’ve made a conscious effort the last few days to not watch any cable news. In fact, I’ve gone from having the tv on a cable news channel all day to basically watching an episode of Chuck and pretty much nothing else.

    I haven’t watched any Cable News in about eight years, about the same time I stopped reading WaPo and NYT. You get some withdrawal symptoms at first, but it passes within a few weeks. Just recognize that its bad for you and move on.

  73. 73.

    robertdsc

    The only reason I have a HDTV is for my PS2 & PS3. Television doesn’t appeal to me much anymore, save the odd show on the Military channel and teh Preznit on CSPAN.

    Cute Lilidog is cute.

  74. 74.

    debit

    @jeffreyw: Oh, I wasn’t faulting the shelter for the puppies; I blame the ignorant who think their bitch will never get caught when she’s in heat, and the back yard breeders who think they can make a few bucks on a litter.

    Your wife has my eternal admiration. I couldn’t work at a shelter; the urge would be too strong to take all the unlovely and unwanted ones home.

  75. 75.

    Walker

    My TV is almost exclusively used for the X-Box these days. The wife and I watch each other play games.

  76. 76.

    mcc

    @beltane: Interesting. So does anyone else see the same thing happening there that I see? Cuz here’s what I see: Glenn’s post here contained some useful information for understanding how Accountability Now sees its mission, which would be good to know for anyone wanting to understand the original workbench/dailykos post; but also was about 40% angry ranting and accusations responding not to the interesting part (the workbench post) but to DougJ’s mistaken “financial failure” tossoff at the end of the post. To anyone reading this here, that indignant 40% might have seemed a bit eye-rolling but at least would have made sense to us, we could parse that part out and understand it as being intended as a smackdown to DougJ personally. But the guy who posted Glenn’s response on DKos decided to cut out any context, any explanation of what dougj said, or even who dougj is– I think he thought he was doing Glenn a favor by doing this– and instead just posted Glenn’s response verbatim.

    So to anyone following this on DailyKos only, I’m not sure Glenn is going to make any sense at all. Like, his post begins with “What you wrote about Accountability Now is a complete falsehood topped off by reckless innuendo”. Except there’s no hint in the DKos post who “you” is, and the framing makes it sound like Glenn is responding directly to the workbench/Dailykos post from a few days before. I wonder how many DKosers will walk away thinking because of the sloppy cut and paste job that Glenn was trying to claim the workbench post (basically just a list of figures) was a bunch of lies.

  77. 77.

    burnspbesq

    @MattR:

    Dook. Starting to get it together after the annual slow start. Looked pretty good against Georgetown on Saturday, although today’s game against Brown was a little scarier than it had to be. Let’s see how we do in a potentially tough road game at Harvard on Friday night.

    And whoever started the rumor that Tommy Amaker may leave Harvard to take the BC job should just go sit in a corner and gargle Drano. Last thing we want to see is one of our own in the ACC.

  79. 79.

    Deschanel

    Oh, how great to just chill and decompress with your dogs when your blog literally has over a THOUSAND comments on your smear-job of Glenn Greenwald today, divided by two posts.

    “Arkon” Doug J didn’t even have the balls to write a proper j’accuse, it was just slam and then 700 BJ titty-babies getting bent out of shape with hate for Greenwald for his inaccurate -very innacurate- signoff about O-bots or whatever. That’s clearly not the case here, but I wish this site would face up: you’re a pretty snarky bunch. Can’t take being called O-bots, i understand, it’s untrue.

    But this fucking ASSAULT on Greenwald today, backed up by nothing, and this cascade of hatred towards him.. who the fuck do you people think you are? Who started this, with reckless allegations?

    Greenwald has his faults but GOD what smug bitches you lot are.
    Yeah, go put on your pajamas with feet John Cole, do go unwind after your website trashed an intelligent liberal writer to fuck and the harpies here tried to pick at the carcass. Over nothing.

    Nice work. I’ll take GG over any of your contributions to the national discourse. Congratulations to Doug J. Great work , man. Maybe you could get an unpaid gig at The Daily Caller. They’d love to have you trash Greenwald some more on their site.

  80. 80.

    Linda Featheringill

    Cable political commentary:

    I quit watching after being miserable for a while. It was only after I left that I realized that they did not have anything to offer except the “horserace” of politics. Sigh.

    Rachel is still cool, though.

    Right now I am on a kick of watching shows on Discovery, etc., about the universe and stars and stuff. I watched a fascinating show last night about ocean waves.

    And I am much happier.

  83. 83.

    burnspbesq

    @Deschanel:

    And you had to crap in an open thread, instead of being on-topic in one of the two aforementioned threads. Fuck you, narcissist. You’re beneath contempt.

  85. 85.

    Joseph Nobles

    @Deschanel:

    You did not read comments here. Sure, some suspected the worse, but others thought tempest in teapot. RD John Cole and AK DougJwent as far to correct, give Glenn space in the blog, and roundly chastise the Glenn hate going on.

    So chill the fuck out: we got this.

  88. 88.

    MattR

    @burnspbesq: Eeewwww. I might have to add you to cleek’s pie filter :)

    Absolutely love the fact that I finally get ESPNU this year to watch the games, it just stinks that it happens to be the year that Hopkins looks terrible. They have absolutely no ability to score against a decent defense which ends up putting tremendous pressure on their D which eventually wears down.

  89. 89.

    beltane

    @mcc: I don’t think it matters much at this point. The discussion at GOS was completely predictable, with the same old Hamsher/Greenwald fans and detractors locked in the same old argument. It has become a trench warfare of words, tedious and unproductive. I prefer to focus my energy on the Republicans, whom I see as a threat to my safety and well-being.

  90. 90.

    Senior Gunner rootless-e

    Anyways DougJ is not really a proper Arkon. He is a few boxtops short of those wings.

  91. 91.

    Pasquinade

    More Palin fraud:

    RT @llcoolj: Fox lifted an old interview I gave in ’08 to someone else, misrepresenting to the public in order to promote Palin’s Show. WOW

    http://twitter.com/llcoolj

    So, Sarah is into recycling….other peoples’ interviews.

  95. 95.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @rootless-e:

    In general, what I find irritating about Glenn/Jane/OpenLeft and so on is their vanguardist mentality. They really do resent it when the unwashed masses dissent from their pronouncements. Deep in their political point of view is a belief that they should be among the decision making elite.

    I don’t have so much of a problem with them claiming a lead role, or that they are right on the issues and others are wrong. In every movement somebody has to lead the way, and in an argument over issues somebody is going to be more right and others less so. Let these things be disputed. It is when they claim the right to interpret and denigrate the motives of others that I get my dander up. When somebody claims false consciousness on the part of the other side, the discussion is over. There is no way to have a civil, reasoned discussion with somebody who makes that claim, because it converts the debate into a power struggle.

  96. 96.

    demkat620

    Awwwww! Miss Lily! You’d never know by the quickness with which she has taken over your life that she was a scared, little rescue puppeh.

    Kudos to you John. That is one happeh dog!

  97. 97.

    daryljfontaine

    Appropriate for Open Thread, hat tip to Interrobang commenting in this post at First Draft:

    Just FWIW, all the moderators of their chat forums are in the pokey at the moment, and the boys from /b/ got hold of it, with predictably car-crash hilarious results, assuming you think internet slap-fights between creationists and Holocaust denialists are amusing.
     
    Given the nature of what the /b/tards put up there, the intrepid soul who gets to clean out their forums is going to have a few more grey hairs by the end of it. They do choose their material well, for maximally-calculated offensiveness. (Me, I woulda leaned a little less heavy on the white-supremacy angle and more on the Christianist nutter angle, but hey, pobody’s nerfect.)

    Seriously NSFW, but with added 4chan dumblariousness!

    EDIT: Sorry, it’s regarding the Hutaree web forums (hutaree.com).

    D

  99. 99.

    KRK

    Can we henceforward have “Who the fuck do you people think you are?” as a tag for any post mentioning GG?

  100. 100.

    demo woman

    Personally, I have never seen a fainting couch that I would want to faint on. You could prove me wrong, but I don’t think so. The mutt might think it worthy though.

  102. 102.

    beltane

    @Pasquinade: Is there anything, anything at all, about this woman that isn’t fraudulent in some way?

    It sure doesn’t look like her newest career is off to an auspicious start. She pissed off her first interviewee days before the interview. How does someone do that?

  103. 103.

    WereBear

    PS: kisses on the head to Lily, the happeh puppeh.

    I hang out on the comfiest piece of furniture in the room. Why shouldn’t the other mammals have the same instincts?

  104. 104.

    SIA

    Awww. Lily looks so snuggly and cozy.

    I’m in Denver through Friday and the hotel I’m at doesn’t have MSNBC. Thought I’d try CNN – shit. When did they become the National Enquirer of cable TV. Scientology, Catholic insanity, “Keeping Them Honest”. Gak.

    Lovely out here though – the mountains are beautiful.

  108. 108.

    mcc

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: So speaking as someone who (I feel like I need to admit this to be honest) has done rather a lot of motive questioning in these arguments, it seems like that’s an extremely fair point. But it also seems like part of the problem here is that basically what we have is a large protracted argument in which neither side fundamentally disagrees with the other on basically any point of policy. What we have is fundamentally a large-scale disagreement about tactics. And it’s not really a kind of disagreement where we can live and let live. Someone unhappy with, say, Glenn Greenwald right now probably wants or would claim to want all the exact same things Glenn wants or would claim to want, but then would feel like the things Glenn is doing in pursuit of that goal are either not getting us there or actively moving us in the wrong direction. Glenn meanwhile probably feels the exact same way about an Obama supporter. So we have two groups pulling in opposite directions in pursuit of the exact same goals, and the two groups necessarily share the same organizing space. What exactly do you *do* in a situation like this? How do you resolve this civilly?

  112. 112.

    Emma

    I’m not one of the regulars here, so I hesitate to make a suggestion but… y’all were talking about cable detox? How about a FDL and GG detox? Say, six months? So many interesting things happening right now, why bother with the drama queens?

  113. 113.

    freelancer

    I think we can all agree that this was the greatest play in the history of college football, right?

    I’m biased, but this is up there. I mean anything that can put that signature “We’re fucked, and I’m pissed, but I’ll try to hide it, and that’s not working” look on Steve Spurrier’s mug is right in my wheelhouse.

  116. 116.

    demo woman

    @Emma: But not Tbogg right. I have to see how the pups are doing. I stopped visiting FDL when Christy left. I often wonder how Christy is doing and what finally led her to call it quits. Marcy is another one that is talented and I feel that her research is going to waste.

  117. 117.

    Chuck Butcher

    I’d guess I could have watched cable news non-stop all day with a serious dollop of Faux and not wasted any more attention than PAC stupidity cost me today.

    I admit that it was that car crash can’t stop looking kind of attention. I’ll never get that back, but it was snowing, blowing, and raining outside and I did make a bit of paycheck out there…

  120. 120.

    scav

    @Svensker:

    @General Egali Tarian Stuck: They are everwhere, you know. them and the grammar nazi’s.

    You’re just taunting us, ain’t ya, General? Trying to make us cry and all.

    Then try a sneaky and differently-logicked attack from left field and accuse the General of being in favor of special German Death Panels (oooooo!) for Redneck Grandmothers.

  122. 122.

    Liberty60

    @mcc:

    So we have two groups pulling in opposite directions in pursuit of the exact same goals, and the two groups necessarily share the same organizing space. What exactly do you do in a situation like this? How do you resolve this civilly?

    Easily- Stop making any and all disagreement into a raging personal screamfest.

    Suppose DougJ and Glenn were sitting at a coffee shop, chatting in person, without an audience of thousands?

    For that matter, suppose it was any one of us, sitting with either of them?

    There just isn’t any upside to turning simple disagreements into flamewars. No one has ever won a Net flame war. Ever. There are no exceptions.

  123. 123.

    ford

    I SIMPLY CAN NOT QUIT YOU, CHRIS MATTHEWS, IN ALL YOUR APPALLING GLORY

    omg. this is my life.

  125. 125.

    Deschanel

    @burnspbesq:

    Really, “beneath contempt” Miss Nonsense. name Burnsebespeqpnitz?

    “And you had to crap in an open thread, instead of being on-topic in one of the two aforementioned threads. Fuck you, narcissist. You’re beneath contempt.”

    “Keep it in the proper thread, fuckstick”.

    Right, get in line behind literally a thousand other comments attacking Glenn Greenwald to say maybe that sucks horribly.

    I really don’t mean to be a troll here. I really enjoy reading Balloon Juice. And the lively commenters, maybe I was too harsh. But today was rotten to read, and some of you ought to not lecture me in an open thread so you can type about the mittens you knitted for your rescue dogs.

    Open thread, here’s to progressives and liberals attacking each other, over unsubstantiated allegations and trivial amounts, while Glenn Beck is on the TV egging on the militias. Yeah, Glenn Greenwald is the one who needs to be put in his place. Sometimes BJ literally seems like a vanity operation, posts and commenters talking about how they feel proper reform should be done if they were king. So much petty sniping.

    My apologies, I wil let it go. I appreciate the moderators allowing me to say this, it’s half-hearted because I am just frankly confused sometimes about BJ. The zeal to attack people on the liberal side as well is not always especially backed up by facts. So I hope there’s a properly sourced article coming soon that actually says what “Arkon” Doug J is accusing Glenn Greenwald of, that will back this shit up. Otherwise, this is an amateur operation here. If you’ve got some bombshell shit about Greenwald, I have the power to run it wide and national. Put up or shut up, Doug J . You can’t even write a post here stating your case clearly. Curious, and listening.

  126. 126.

    asiangrrlMN

    @jeffreyw: Thanks for all the links in this post. I needed ’em all. For an open thread, it got really nasty at the end there.

    Lily looks so happy! And, I like the duvet. Earth tones look good on anyone.

    @KDP: Excellent! I just turned mine in so I am living on borrowed time.

  127. 127.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Deschanel: See, if you had posted this first, maybe you could have started a productive dialogue. Instead, you jumped in, bashed the entire company, and then you’re puzzled as to why people responded as they did. As someone who has not commented in either GG thread, I will say I thought you had some balls to come here just to bitch about the community. If you enjoy the commentariat here for the most part, maybe you could have kept that in mind when posting your concerns.

  130. 130.

    Mnemosyne

    @Deschanel:

    So I hope there’s a properly sourced article coming soon that actually says what “Arkon” Doug J is accusing Glenn Greenwald of, that will back this shit up.

    So you followed the links DougJ provided and don’t feel they were properly sourced, or you didn’t bother to follow the links and think that DougJ was doing original reporting of some kind rather than linking to other peoples’ reporting? I can’t quite follow your complaint here.

  132. 132.

    Joseph Nobles

    @Deschanel:

    Wow.

    Why don’t you write down in your own words what you think DougJ was accusing Glenn of?

    Then link to DougJ’s actual words to support your assertions.

    And let us compare and contrast the two.

  133. 133.

    Johnny Pez

    I really don’t mean to be a troll here. I really enjoy reading Balloon Juice. But I know I’m probably going to get flamed for saying this.

    demkat620 is right. That is one happy dog.

  136. 136.

    RedKitten

    @TuiMel: No, it means that we’ve already got multiple threads about the DJ & GG contretemps, and people are getting really damn tired of it.

    And those of us who have tried to avoid reading about it (because we know that it’d be about as enjoyable and productive as poking oneself in the eye with a sharp stick), would really like to be able to read the open thread and not have the shit from that argument overflow into this thread.

    IOW, some of us just don’t give a fuck about the ongoing argument between the “Obots” and the “Glennbots”, and don’t particularly care for it being brought up in every damn thread.

  137. 137.

    bob h

    To those wondering how in the world they are going to afford their mandated health insurance premiums, I would say start by cancelling your cable service. I have never had cable, which I have always regarded as crap raised to the n-th power.

  138. 138.

    Kermit

    She’s been in this school for 7 and a half years.

    She’s no dummy

    She knows high school girls.

  139. 139.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    Hey John… bit late to this one, but can I suggest you try CBC Newsworld instead? Might be able to get it to your bad old self somehow….

  140. 140.

    Dog is My Copilot

    Amid all the “noise” going on out there, what really soothes my soul is seeing a picture of Lily sleeping on the duvet cover you just washed. Pets are truly the greatest. They are my insulation against what sometimes seems to be a harsh world.

  141. 141.

    TuiMel

    @RedKitten:
    Well then, why not go after some others who brought it up in the vein of the evil that is Glenn Greenwald or Jane Hamsher? Because I agree all the vitriol on this subject is tiresome. As is the ad hominem quality of the back and forth.

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