Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

The revolution will be supervised.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

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

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Let there be snark.

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

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

In my day, never was longer.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

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

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

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

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

Republicans do not pay their debts.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread – Chatroulette

Reader Interactions

200Comments

  5. 5.

    El Cid

    Oh dear gawd:

    VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI’s personal preacher on Friday likened accusations against the pope and the Catholic church in the sex abuse scandal to “collective violence” suffered by the Jews.
    …
    The Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa said in a Good Friday homily with the pope listening in St. Peter’s Basilica that a Jewish friend wrote to him to say the accusations remind him of the “more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”

  7. 7.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @mistermix – apparently, the reply to function on this thread is tripping the moderation because ch_tr__lette is in the title of the post.

    Obligatory FYWP. Or maybe it’s just me.

  9. 9.

    Loneoak

    Oh, those silly Catholics, comparing mild criticism over systematic boy rape with genocide by gas chamber. That should go over well with the ADL, dontcha think?

  14. 14.

    Origuy

    I didn’t know what “chartroulette” meant so I googled it. This thread is the number five page listed, and its been up less than 20 minutes.

  15. 15.

    licensed to kill time

    @arguingwithsignposts:
    John Cole on another thread said:

    Calm down. I’m updating plugins to avoid any future site problems.
    __
    Also notice that the arrow reply has moved, and disappears until you mouse over a comment.

    It still startles me when it pops up. OMG! It’s different!

    ETA-am now in moderation for no discernible reason. crap.

  16. 16.

    Redshift

    @El Cid: Yeah. I thought it was particularly special to attribute the quote suggesting an equivalence between criticism of the Church to the Holocaust to an unnamed Jewish “friend” (I’m sure some of his best friends are Jews, really!), and also the quote claiming criticism of the Church and the Pope is “violence.”

    Because of course, saying mean things must be denounced as “violence,” but abuse of children shouldn’t be talked about because shut up, that’s why.

  17. 17.

    MikeJ

    @licensed to kill time: I’m with you. I hate UI elements that appear and disappear rather than staying where they should be. Although if it were always visible I’d prefer it be unbolded.

    It’s not that big a deal though. If it ever gets too annoying there’s always greasemonkey.

  22. 22.

    Punchy

    @El Cid: Damn, beat me to it.

    Yup, being (almost certainly rightly) accused of covering up child molestation is akin to being tourtured and gassed. I would think the Vatican’s PR guy is contemplating suicide right about now.

  23. 23.

    HumboldtBlue

    Well, this is for all you who will gleefully jump on the West Virginia bandwagon tomorrow when they take on Duke.

    This snippet accurately encapsulates why Duke is so hated and will be hated for ever and ever amen.

    All part of this smug, nerdy sense of superiority that makes Duke fans such terrible people to deal with. Put differently: If the entire Duke fanbase took the form of one human being, you have to think that person would look exactly like Tucker Carlson, and we’d all like to punch that person in the face.

    You can read the rest here

  24. 24.

    licensed to kill time

    I’m in moderation too. awsp is right, it seems to be that word in the reply to link triggers mod.

  25. 25.

    The Main Gauche of Mild Reason

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Wow, the RC goes all Hoekstroika! Is it possible for a priest to Godwin a scandal?

    Not when the Pope was actually a member of the Hitler youth.

    /low blow

  30. 30.

    gbear

    The entire White House press corp. is writing tell-all books.

    With the publishing world nourishing a deep appetite for all things Obama, those working on such books include Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, NBC’s Chuck Todd, MSNBC’s Richard Wolffe, The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and David Maraniss, the New York Times’ Jodi Kantor and two New Yorker writers — editor David Remnick and Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza. Time’s Mark Halperin and New York magazine’s John Heilemann, whose campaign chronicle “Game Change” became a huge bestseller, have just signed a deal with Penguin Press to chronicle the 2012 contest — for an advance reported to be about $5 million.

    This Wonkette posting then goes on to talk about appropriate related sex acts.

  34. 34.

    Brachiator

    @El Cid:

    Pope Benedict XVI’s personal preacher on Friday likened accusations against the pope and the Catholic church in the sex abuse scandal to “collective violence” suffered by the Jews.

    Wow. Just in time for Easter.

  35. 35.

    scav

    Being completely out of the loop, I read Chart-roulette and mentally segued into a random chart/blackboard GBeckian wilderness with tears.

  40. 40.

    Brachiator

    iPad – technological marvel or tool of Satan?

    It looks as though media companies are using iPad apps to experiment with pay content variations.

    The free New York Times Editor Choice app will download to the iPad a daily selection of the newspaper’s top business and technology stories, opinions, and features picked by Times editors. Readers will find 8 to 10 articles all captured from the paper’s regular news pages and columns.
    …
    USA Today is launching its own iPad app Saturday with a hook to lure readers. The app will be free until July 4 and then available through a fee-based subscription. In addition to providing the latest news stories, the USA Today app will offer photos and graphics to take advantage of the iPad’s high-resolution screen.

  41. 41.

    some other guy

    Anyone else super excited for the new series of Doctor Who starting up this weekend? BBC America wants us to wait two weeks to see it, but I hear there’s this thing called the internet (it’s a series of tubes, or so I hear) where people in Britain can upload shows they record and then people in the United States and elsewhere can download and watch them. Silly BBCA, if anyone would know how to take advantage of such technology it would be Doctor Who fans.

    And Stargate Universe returns tonight. This show has so much potential to be awesome. So far it’s been pretty bland, but it’s not awful. I’ll give it a season or two to improve before abandoning it. There’s so little in the way of serialized sci-fi on TV nowadays and I’ll take what I can get.

  43. 43.

    licensed to kill time

    You can comment without triggering moderation, but you cannot reply to a comment. Is soviet plot to discourage us, comrades!

  46. 46.

    demkat620

    @someguy.

    I am too. Not really excited by the new guy so far, but I have seen very little of the teasers.

    I think SGU could be good. But they need to have Robert Carlyle. I love him. And his character was interesting.

  48. 48.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @DemKat

    Huh, what’s up with the moderation?

    The title of the post itself is tripping the filter. It’s an ingenious loop designed by Rahm to ram Obama’s package down our throats. Greenwald and Hamsher are involved somehow, too!

  49. 49.

    Loneoak

    This site sucks. And Tunch is too fat. And JC should get some new sheets. And you’re all shrill Obots.

    Ahhh, nothing like a good gripe.

  52. 52.

    Tonal Crow

    @licensed to kill time:

    You can comment without triggering moderation, but you cannot reply to a comment. Is soviet plot to discourage us, comrades!

    This appears to have come along for the ride with the change in the location and appearance of the “reply” button. Blech. I liked the old system better. Maybe the devs could spend some time fixing the “spam filter” instead?

  56. 56.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Loneoak:

    This site sucks. And Tunch is too fat. And JC should get some new sheets. And you’re all shrill Obots.

    I understand matching sheets will get you laid. Also, blowjobs are not more important than the Constitution. ;)

    That video still makes me LMAO, though. Ben Folds wins an Internet!

  57. 57.

    scav

    #11 being bonkers could be good. I’m getting hints of Troughton in him too. But Moffat? Ha! I 99% accept Fatal Death as a variant canonical time-line.

  59. 59.

    Tonal Crow

    @arguingwithsignposts: Yeah, Hamsher definitely is behind this “malfunction”. And her PAC, as well. And her little dog, too.

  62. 62.

    mistermix

    I fixed it the misspelling. “Chartroulette” sounds like a wonky way to look at random slices of data – maybe someone should do that, too.

    Also, cleaned out the comment mod queue. Don’t know why it’s getting picky all of a sudden.

  63. 63.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Mark S.

    Why would the title of this post trip moderation?

    ch_trou__ette in the title with an href link, seems to be doing it. it happened on my first reply to and subsequent ones, until I figured out what was happening.

  64. 64.

    MikeJ

    mistermix:

    Don’t know why it’s getting picky all of a sudden.

    Herr Cole was updating plugins this morning. Possibly picked up some new words?

  66. 66.

    Dee Loralei

    @some other guy: I adored David Tennant as the Dr. I’m willing to give the new guy a chance, but I’ll wait two weeks for BBCA.

    The other BBCA show I’m really enjoying is Survivors, but it’s on Tuesday. (It’s an after a virus kills 99% of the population show, very compelling characters and storyline.) You can Netflix the first season, or get it through your series of tubes on the computer machine.

    And why did no one tell me about Merlin on PsyPhy? I caught a few of the reruns from last season and now I can’t wait to see it tonight. But then, I love Legend of The Seeker too. Yea, I guess I do need a life.

    Thanks to everyone who answered my questions about Miatas yesterday evening. I’m going to test drive one as soon as my son gets home from work. YAY! Convertibles in the Springtime.

  67. 67.

    licensed to kill time

    @Mark S

    It has a word for a popular c a s i n o game in the reply to link. WP does not want us to squander our hard earned capitalist dollars in games of chance. Commies.

    ETA – hell, moderation again! even after taking out reply link and various re-spellings and extra special spacing. mistermix, tear down that link!

  69. 69.

    gbear

    @Punchy:

    I would think the Vatican’s PR guy is contemplating suicide right about now.

    Nah, he’s just going to go out and smack some kids around. Damned kids, why are they doing this to the church?

  71. 71.

    Fergus Wooster

    @cleek:

    every time i see “ch-tr–lette”, i actually see ‘charcuterie’

    Me too! Especially as I have a pancetta and 2 guanciale hanging in my kitchen, with a ham about to come out of the cure and join them.

    Can I wait 6 to 9 months for my ham? Not sure.

  72. 72.

    licensed to kill time

    moderation
    where does it get me?
    all tangled up in lives of words who’ve hardly met me
    they just forget me

  74. 74.

    Brick Oven Bill

    In the performance of my duties at The Facility, the purchasing habits of Americans are witnessed in real time.

    We are now purchasing organic bed sheets.

    From this observation, two conclusions are made:

    1. American women are not getting any smarter; and
    2. I should have come up with this.

  75. 75.

    Brachiator

    @some other guy:

    Anyone else super excited for the new series of Doctor Who starting up this weekend?

    The UK Daily Mail seems to like the new series.

    When Matt Smith landed the role as the 11th Dr Who last year, the announcement was greeted with a resounding: ‘Who?’ …
    …
    So how – and why – did an unknown actor find himself with the best job in British TV and an assured place in the Dr Who hall of fame?
    …
    You do not need to spend more than a couple of minutes in his company before you realise that he seems born for the role.

  76. 76.

    scav

    @mastermix:

    Chartroulette” sounds like a wonky way to look at random slices of data – maybe someone should do that, too.

    Could be a sort of improv at conferences. You’re handed a stack of random abandoned slides and have to improvise a talk on the spot.

  77. 77.

    some other guy

    @demkat620:

    Yes. Dr. Rush is the best character on the show by far. The writers must know this, too. He’ll almost certainly find his way back to the Destiny, probably sooner than later.

    @scav:

    As long as Smith isn’t milquetoast like Davison or a complete a-hole like C. Baker I’ll be happy.

    I’ve very much enjoyed all of the stories Moffat has written for the new series thus far so I have high hopes for him as producer.

  78. 78.

    Seebach

    @Brachiator: Nobody could have guessed handing the newspaper industry over to a giant corporation could backfire.

    I hope I don’t get hated by the Apple fans, one of which I used to be. Even had an eMate and Mac Addict subscription, before things got scary.

  79. 79.

    Brachiator

    A previous post seems to be in moderation … Hades.

    Anyone else super excited for the new series of Doctor Who starting up this weekend?

    The UK Daily Mail seems to like the new series.

    When Matt Smith landed the role as the 11th Dr Who last year, the announcement was greeted with a resounding: ‘Who?’…
    …
    So how – and why – did an unknown actor find himself with the best job in British TV and an assured place in the Dr Who hall of fame?
    …
    You do not need to spend more than a couple of minutes in his company before you realise that he seems born for the role.

    Sounds like fun.

  80. 80.

    geg6

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    I understand matching sheets will get you laid.

    Not if the matching sheets are those hideous things I saw Lily in this morning. Poor Lily. She must be mortified. ;-)

  81. 81.

    Linda Featheringill

    To licensed to kill time: Cool poem!

    Ah the Catholic Church hierarchy that thinks they suffer as much as the Jews have.

    Considering how much of evil visited upon Jewish people historically was instigated by the RC Church, it would serve them right if that were true. But it is not. They are just whining.

  85. 85.

    Martin

    Not terribly related to BOBs incoherence, my wife bought some inexpensive bamboo bed sheets recently and they’re awesome. Highly recommended.

  86. 86.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Organic bed sheets.

    Also, a real-time data-point on the improving state of the Obama economy, as witnessed by me, is offered. My consultancy has been retained to design a brand-new construction project.

    A small putt-putt golf course.

    My compensation for this particular project is to be food.

  87. 87.

    Violet

    Well after reloading the page five times, the comment box finally shows up.

    Are the comments going to moderation because of the cas-ino game word?

    @geg6:
    Testing the “reply sends you to moderation” theory.

  88. 88.

    Chuck Butcher

    Good grief, it’s 1PM, 35F and we’ve got 1 1/2 inches of snow on the ground, starting mid-morning. The streets are now turning white. Ah well, it has snowed here in July.

  93. 93.

    some other guy

    (Who knows if my comment will ever make it out of moderation. Excuse the double post if it does.)

    @demkat620:

    Yes. Dr. Rush is the best character on the show by far. The writers must know this, too. He’ll almost certainly find his way back to the Destiny, probably sooner than later.

    @scav:

    As long as Smith’s Doctor isn’t milquetoast like Davison’s or a complete a-hole like C. Baker’s I’ll be happy.

    The stories Moffat has written for the new series thus far are some of my favorites so I have high hopes for him as producer. I’m just praying the Doctor/River Song relationship is not another Doctor/Rose type thing.

  97. 97.

    licensed to kill time

    @ Linda Featheringill

    It’s a reworking of an old Phoebe Snow song

    Infatuation
    where does it get me?
    all tangled up in lives of men who’ve hardly met me
    they might forget me

  99. 99.

    scav

    I think half this conversation is in FYWP moderation – it’s like the site’s gone schizophrenic or has multiple personality disorder with a good portion of the voices not talking to one another. In other words, business as usual only with far fewer comments actually showing up on the tuubz.

  100. 100.

    licensed to kill time

    Gah. I am sorry, guys. I struck out. will never attempt strikethrough again!

    and, thanks BOB, if it was you who fixed it.

  104. 104.

    MikeJ

    The rain stopped. I looked outside and actually saw patches of blue. “Aha!”, said I. “Now is the perfect time for my run!”

    I will leave it to you to guess how hard it started raining as soon as I got to the other side of the big hill near my house.

    Fuck you cleek. If you hadn’t mentioned c25k I wouldn’t be doing this to myself.

  105. 105.

    mistermix

    @MikeJ: Probably.

    Interesting that the use of a dash or strikethrough causes stuff to shift right. Ah, HTML.

    Also, I released a bunch more comments. I can’t see a common reason why they’re going into moderation. I didn’t see a lot of words that I would think should be verboten.

  106. 106.

    gbear

    Wow. between the moderation hell and the rampaging strike-thru, this thread has totally destroyed the internets.

  108. 108.

    Violet

    I just got sent to mod for using the Reply button. What I said was: “It send you into mod when you use the nifty new magically-appearing-and-disappearing Reply button.”

  111. 111.

    scav

    Actually, thinking about it, discussing dr who makes perfect sense on this thread given the timey-wimey way comments are reappearing anywhere/when they please.

  114. 114.

    ellaesther

    Ok, the one thing I have figured out is that there seems to be something up with the “reply” feature. When I replied to Chuck Butcher via “reply,” I could see that the link looked weird (somehow. I’m not sure how), and indeed, I wound up in moderation.

    When I just wrote @ Chuck Butcher it came through fine.

    If that helps at all.

  115. 115.

    Tonal Crow

    WordPress is sucks. No good. Send to mutch to moderashun. Me and a friend took a wordpress and lit it on fire and froze it. slamed it angaisnt the boor.

    (Somehow this shameless ripoff of the famous post by [email protected] on alt.aol-sucks seems particularly apropos for today’s malfunctions).

  116. 116.

    licensed to kill time

    Are you guys still seeing total strikethrough? I never saw it at all and am not seeing it now, though apparently it was me who started it ?!

    I will give myself 100 lashes with a wet noodly appendage.

    ETA – ok, that sounded pretty damn weird.

  117. 117.

    Martian Buddy

    Stay classy, GOP:

    But it wasn’t only unemployment benefits that expired: the same package that the Republicans blocked also included extenders for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). And the critical nature of NFIP was brought into the spotlight this week, as many northeastern states have been battered with record amounts of rainfall, which has led to widespread flooding.
    [snip]
    According to Roll Call, Republicans hope to blame the expiration on Democrats when they come back from the current recess, since House Democrats objected to the spending offsets that the Senate had agreed to. But Republicans have made it clear that they fully endorse obstructing these extension packages. After all, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said this week that “we didn’t give [Bunning] as much help as we probably should have.” “It took an act of courage like Sen. Bunning’s to perhaps jolt people,” Kyl said.

  118. 118.

    Brachiator

    Are you guys still seeing total strikethrough? I never saw it at all and am not seeing it now, though apparently it was me who started it ?!

    Not seeing strikethrough. Using Firefox.

  119. 119.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @mistermix

    Also, I released a bunch more comments. I can’t see a common reason why they’re going into moderation. I didn’t see a lot of words that I would think should be verboten.

    I’m going to repeat this for emphasis. It’s because the title of your post has r__lette in it. When people hit the reply to button, they get the URL, which has a verboten word in it as a hyperlink. When I don’t hit reply to, I don’t get the URL. Therefore, I’m not modded.

    It’s a very large bug in the moderation filter, which is not a WP, feature, BTW.

    SOT, but WP doesn’t suck nearly as hard as blogspot or Movable Type.

  120. 120.

    R-Jud

    MikeJ @ 104:

    The rain stopped. I looked outside and actually saw patches of blue. “Aha!”, said I. “Now is the perfect time for my run!” I will leave it to you to guess how hard it started raining as soon as I got to the other side of the big hill near my house.

    Same thing happened to me this afternoon. Did you then slip and slide down a muddy hill like I did? I also landed in some stinging nettles; fortunately it’s too early in the season for them to sting yet.

  122. 122.

    Violet

    arguingwithsignposts @ 119 is right. The thread title contains a cas-in-o game name. That automatically sends you to moderation. Thread title needs to be changed. Or mod filters needs to be changed. Or something.

  123. 123.

    Sentient Puddle

    This thread and the fact that we can’t actually talk about the site in question without tripping the filter is quite hilarious. Speaking of which, I should try it out myself. So, a reply to someone…

    @Brick Oven Bill: I like turtles.

  124. 124.

    cleek

    Fuck you cleek. If you hadn’t mentioned c25k I wouldn’t be doing this to myself.

    i just (like seconds ago) got in from my c25k run (week #4!). it’s 88 degrees out right now. it was 40 degrees, two weeks ago.

    cruel!

  125. 125.

    Gravenstone

    Not sure what the reply issue might be related to, but I’m guessing the culprit when relating the post title *however artfully misspelled) is the gambling implement enclosed therein.

    Of course, if I’m correct, my mere mention of the word “gambling” may well send me to moderation purgatory as well.

  126. 126.

    some other guy

    Actually, thinking about it, discussing dr who makes perfect sense on this thread given the timey-wimey way comments are reappearing anywhere/when they please.

    All this thread needs now is Carey Mulligan.

    Snap.

    Really, every thread on the internet is improved by Carey Mulligan.

  128. 128.

    scav

    @arguingwithsignposts: AH HA. See it. The reply button is now using the full html anchor and not the relative one. wonder how far back I should cut — ok, here goes. Sorry mods if this ends up there. Geekdom going bravely and all that.

  131. 131.

    Chuck Butcher

    @ellaesther:

    where on earth

    Right now, strike through land.

    Otherwise, Baker City, Or – NE OR 45th Parallel in a valley at 3500 ft w/10K ft mountains. I-84 150 mi NW of Boise, ID – 350 mi to Portland, OR

    Or, 50 mi W of Hells Canyon ID/OR and 100 mi S of WA

    Middle of Nowhere, East of Bum F**k Egypt, 3500 sq mi Baker Co, total pop 14K w/10K in Baker City.

    Rhode Island is 2000 sq mi

  132. 132.

    Gravenstone

    Dunno if this was mentioned in an earlier thread, but apparently the President called out el Rushbo and Beckster for their over the top and inflammatory rhetoric, telling them to tone it down. Any wagers on which one jumps in first and claims that really just means that Obama is scared of them and can’t handle having his feet held to their oh so righteous verbal “fire”?

  133. 133.

    JenJen

    Ha!! Glad you liked it, mistermix. Has anyone ever given Chatroulette a spin? It freaked me the hell out, quickly.

    Bobby makes me LOL. :-) Then again, I can never get enough of Ben Folds. Ever seen him cover Dre?

  134. 134.

    gwangung

    @some other guy: Personally, I’m hoping SG:U keeps going so that Ming and Eric can keep getting their kids nice things (and, no, Ming Na may not remember me, but Eric does….).

  135. 135.

    Sentient Puddle

    At the risk of getting a second comment stuck in hell…

    Yes, the game of chance involving a spinning wheel will trip the filter. Apparently, replying trips it as well.

  140. 140.

    Chuck Butcher

    Cripes – moderated…

    ellaester:
    where on earth

    Right now, strike through land.

    Otherwise, Baker City, Or – NE OR 45th Parallel in a valley at 3500 ft w/10K ft mountains. I-84 150 mi NW of Boise, ID – 350 mi to Portland, OR

    Or, 50 mi W of Hells Canyon ID/OR and 100 mi S of WA

    Middle of Nowhere, East of Bum F**k Egypt, 3500 sq mi Baker Co, total pop 14K w/10K in Baker City.

    Rhode Island is 2000 sq mi

  143. 143.

    geg6

    I’m sure most of you have heard about this, but this is really unbelievable.

    They are doubling down.

    A senior Vatican priest speaking at a Good Friday service compared the uproar over sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church — which have included reports about Pope Benedict XVI’s oversight role in two cases — to the persecution of the Jews, sharply raising the volume in the Vatican’s counterattack…Benedict sat looking downward when the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, who holds the office of preacher of the papal household, delivered his remarks in the traditional prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica. Wearing the brown cassock of a Franciscan, Father Cantalamessa took note that Easter and Passover were falling during the same week this year, saying he was led to think of the Jews. “They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms,” he said. Father Cantalamessa quoted from what he said was a letter from an unnamed Jewish friend. “I am following the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful by the whole word,” he said the friend wrote. “The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”

    Wow. Just wow.

    I’m not a Catholic any more and I’m certainly not Jewish. But this might be one of the most offensive things I’ve ever heard.

  146. 146.

    Svensker

    Why didn’t you TELL me that “reply” would send me into moderation BEFORE I hit “reply”?

    No frigging mind readers around here, I tells ya.

    Oh, and FYWP.

  147. 147.

    licensed to kill time

    Eric Erickson, learning how to speak in public:

    ERICKSON: This is crazy. What gives the Commerce Department the right to ask me how often I flush my toilet? Or about going to work? I’m not filling out this form. I dare them to try and come throw me in jail. I dare them to. Pull out my wife’s shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door. They’re not going on my property. They can’t do that. They don’t have the legal right, and yet they’re trying.

    Hoo boy.

  149. 149.

    MikeJ

    edit:bold be gone
    @Chuck Butcher: Are you in that weird slice of OR that’s on Mountain Time? The part that allows you to blow minds when you tell them the time zone difference between Florida and Oregon is only one hour?

  150. 150.

    licensed to kill time

    @freelancer

    Mea Culpa. I have apologized and will never do it again. Ironically, I am not seeing any strikethroughs on Firefox. This whole thread is making my head hurt.

    ETA – for FSM’s sake, now we have bold! It wasn’t me, I swear! By all that’s holey, I swear!

  151. 151.

    Tonal Crow

    @Violet: Cut everything within the quoted portion of the href tag before, but not including, the “#”. Thus

    a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/…/#comment-1669177″]

    becomes

    [a href=”#comment-1669177″]

    . (Of course “[” is “”).

  152. 152.

    geg6

    licensed to kill time @46:

    Well, I guess CNN is really proud of their new bobblehead.

    Holy crap! What’s with the bold?

    Edited for the second time: Bold fixed for me!

    Edited third time: Bold is back again! WTF?

  155. 155.

    Sentient Puddle

    @scav ~147: You might be thinking what I’m thinking now. I think the URL code you get from hitting the reply button changed with the update. Anyone remember what it looked like before?

    ETA: Doing my part to see if I can’t end the bold.

  156. 156.

    MikeJ

    That’s a bold statement. Everything is a bold statement. I feel like I should leave some italics unclosed.

    But I won’t.

  158. 158.

    Chuck Butcher

    MikeJ

    OR that’s on Mountain Time

    No, that would be 45 mi S & E of here, it is essentially to let Ontario, OR area play well with the Boise metro. Losing 2 business hours (start & end of day) with the only nearby market would suck. I lose that and it still is the only metro market … not that I use it for much other than ordering materials.

    As I said, E of BFE

  159. 159.

    Carrie

    Hoo boy, does this mean it’s opposite day?
    Daddy’s gonna be pissed when he gets home…..

  161. 161.

    scav

    OK, hitting reply gets you @ < a href=”http:bunchofstuffincludingDreadedWord/#comment-digits”>NAME< /a>:

    Strip it down to

    @ < a href=”#comment-digits”>NAME< /a>:

    which is a long-worded version of what Tonal Crow said. There are some extra spaces in there.

  162. 162.

    freelancer

    So Youse guys have reply buttons, eh?

    I’m seeing headers and nyms bolded and literally everything with a strikethrough.

    Internet Explorer 6 on XP

  163. 163.

    Martian Buddy

    @licensed to kill time: I didn’t think anyone could come up with a way to make the internet tough guy routine even more laughable, but he managed. Why isn’t he threatening hypothetical strangers with his own gun, rather than his spouse’s gun?

    (Or has the state already deemed him unfit to own one due to self-evident mental illness?)

  168. 168.

    MikeJ

    You may not like the way the site looks now, but Sunday Morning DougJ will show up and find the stone rolled away and balloon-juice will be resurrected.

  170. 170.

    Sentient Puddle

    @freelancer ~161: Dude WTF. Of all things, you shouldn’t be worrying about reply buttons. Your entire Internet is broken if you’re using IE6.

    (And I think this page has been set firmly crooked. Looks like the formatting removes redundant HTML tags, so I’m not sure it’s possible to throw in the extra /b we need.)

  171. 171.

    scav

    Sorry bout the bold. I don’t know why it didn’t unbold because the code was originally there. There’s some weird interaction going on with all the other codes I had to use. Still, the whole thing makes me think of Eddie Izzard on TechnoJoy!!

    EDIT: and weirder? I never saw the bold OR the strikethroughs.

  173. 173.

    licensed to kill time

    @freelancer

    Umm…interpret my comment how you will. Apparently the site has a mind of its own today, it’s all in the tea leaves. Hah!

  175. 175.

    Violet

    Yay, it worked! Weirdly, once the post is posted, it includes the full link. Very strange.

    Stupid bold. This site has gone completely haywire.

    Can I try to fix it? Bold. And unclosed bold link.

  176. 176.

    Mark S.

    Dear God, I loaded this page in IE (I was in Firefox) and it is a motherfucking disaster.

  177. 177.

    freelancer

    @sentient puddle

    Dood, I its my work, I work in a hospital and when some industrious nurse upgraded her workstation to Mozilla the open source interfered with some other open source software they were using in an operating room.

    If it were up to me, we’d all be on Chrome with tabs a plenty.

    I wish Cole would just chuck a spear into our ribcage at this point out of mercy.

    51And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

    52And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

    53And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

    54Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of Tunch.

  179. 179.

    Violet

    @freelancer:

    Anyone else have a page loading for this thread where the bottom half is perpetually just white space?

    I had that happen. Had to reload the page five times. I’m on Firefox 3.6.2. I should upgrade to 3.6.3, but I just upgraded to this one so I don’t want to bother so soon.

  181. 181.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    Hah! You blasphemous fools thought you could snark on organized religion and now you are shocked and surprised to be struck down by a plague of dancing reply buttons, mods and rampaging strikethroughs. I hope you’ve learned your lesson. The God of HTML is an angry and jealous deity. Next time he will smite you with tables riding a pale horse.

  185. 185.

    El Cid

    Eric Erickson announced on his radio show that he’s ready to blast Census workers in the face with a shotgun, though I’m sure he’ll shortly be on CNN to tell us that no one should hold this against him since it’s something he said when he was many, many hours younger.

    ERICKSON: This is crazy. What gives the Commerce Department the right to ask me how often I flush my toilet? Or about going to work? I’m not filling out this form. I dare them to try and come throw me in jail. I dare them to. Pull out my wife’s shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door. They’re not going on my property. They can’t do that. They don’t have the legal right, and yet they’re trying.

    And CNN is whining that the reason they’re losing ratings is ’cause they’re so, so dedicated to ‘straight news’ and ‘journalism’ and that maybe if they spice it up with more ‘personal perspective’, that’ll help.

    H/T SadlyNo! / ThinkProgress

  186. 186.

    R-Jud

    I’m on Chrome and I’m not seeing ANY of the bolds/strikethroughs. I am seeing randomly bolded words in the blogroll, though.

  187. 187.

    scav

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: HA! This is catnip for geeks. (I am just terribly terribly left out because everything looks perfectly normal in Chrome dot whateveritisI’vegot.) Then again, we could go all organize like the Jews and have a entire feast and Sedar where we drink to the 10+ plagues that hit this thread.

  188. 188.

    licensed to kill time

    I have seen Strikethrough fail before, and Total Italics, and Bold Baby Bold, but never before have All Possible Fails converged in such a stunning manner.

    And I do not like you, popup reply arrow! Give me static arrow or give me death!

  189. 189.

    MikeJ

    @El Cid: If you live in a state that committed treason in defense of slavery, losing congressional representation is probably one of the best things you can do to help America.

  191. 191.

    El Cid

    @MikeJ: Yeah, that’s true. I hope all the would-be Confederates make sure to boycott the census so as to completely change the next redistricting.

  192. 192.

    Violet

    @licensed to kill time:

    And I do not like you, popup reply arrow! Give me static arrow or give me death!

    Agreed. The arrow is really distracting when it pops up as I mouse over it. It’s bold, so it’s hard to miss. Static arrow rules!

  194. 194.

    me

    For the record, I’m using Firefox and I’m not seeing any of this crazy shit people are complaining about.

  195. 195.

    Origuy

    I think we need this guy to fix the thread:

    Noted Italian exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth, commented this week that the recent defamatory reporting on Pope Benedict XVI, especially by the New York Times, was “prompted by the devil.”
    —
    Speaking to News Mediaset in Italy, the 85-year-old exorcist noted that the devil is behind “the recent attacks on Pope Benedict XVI regarding some pedophilia cases.”

    He claims to have performed over 70,000 exorcisms.

    Edit: Wow, he’s good! The thread was fixed before I finished posting!

  199. 199.

    gbear

    Mr. Cole, I can (barely) see that you’ve left a message on the next thread saying you’ve fixed this one. I can still make comments here, but it is also still fucked up in IE. The next thread is even worse. The comment box is gone, and the comments are completely bonkers, with every comment beyond #3 appearing over the ads on the left side of the page if I put my cursor in exactly the right spot. It’s pretty screwed up.

    edit: well now that I’ve commented here, everything has cleared up. On to the next thread…

  200. 200.

    Brachiator

    Hah! You blasphemous fools thought you could snark on organized religion and now you are shocked and surprised to be struck down by a plague of dancing reply buttons, mods and rampaging strikethroughs. I hope you’ve learned your lesson. The God of HTML is an angry and jealous deity. Next time he will smite you with tables riding a pale horse.

    It’s not the Deity. It’s a side effect of scientists using the Large Hadron Collider unintentionally wreaking havoc on the universe.

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