Strap on your seatbelts, folks:
Does anyone know what color I’m going to have to turn my blog for this one or be told I hate the people of Kyrgyzstan?
Not Again
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Not Again
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General Egali Tarian Stuck
Luckily, Obama will take the heat for not “doing something”. But Georgia is all on you big guy.
The Grand Panjandrum
We must have had a Vulcan mind meld or something because I just saw this a Sully’s place and came here straightaway. You didn’t disappoint. Andrew need at least one cause a month to get himself worked into a lather about. It came early this month.
Zam
I say you beat him to the punch, turn this place pink and then start questioning his commitment to freedom.
BettyPageisaBlonde
@Zam: FTW.
John Cole
@The Grand Panjandrum: We are Geth.
Joseph Nobles
Slightly off topic: A corporation’s plans to assume all functions of the Arizona State Government (except ribbon cuttings) have been leaked to the Tuscon Weekly. No shit. Bills to be introduced next week.
tucsonweekly.com/tucson/a-mythic-proposition/Content?oid=1895733
Undercover FBI Agent DougJ
I say you beat him to the punch, turn this place pink and then start questioning his commitment to freedom.
That’s soft. We should run nothing but Kyrgyzstani twitter feeds for a week.
Toryboy
He’s been remarkably restrained so far I think. He does get a bit excited at times but it’s better than the collective fucknuttery at the Wapo and other Organs of Mass Retardation. At least he gives a shit about people rather than Michelle O’s latest floral ensemble
r€nato
@Joseph Nobles:
um, you might want to check the date of that story.
Not that it’s completely out-of-the-question for Arizona’s
GOPspecial-interest-controlled Legislature.Zam
@Undercover FBI Agent DougJ: Does anyone have access to the proper twitter feeds?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
It’s hard to focus on revolutions in foreign countries when you have Alabamastan in your back yard.
r€nato
Can we let George W. Bush be president again, just for one day?
It would be worth it to see him try to pronounce “Kyrgyzstan”.
Paris
I googled for pictures of Kyrgyzstan. It looks brown. Plus it also looks like almost nobody lives there. All the pictures of Bishkek (the capital) look like a very small rural city in the US and none of them had more than four people in them.
arguingwithsignposts
We are all Kyrgyz now.
MikeJ
@Zam: All you have to do is start twatting away, saying that you’re there and nobody is going to question your reports of cybernetic tickling machines being loosed on the populace.
r€nato
Kyrgyzstan sounds like the place the Kazhakstanis look down upon.
JGabriel
@Joseph Nobles:
It’s satire. I assume you know that, but the “No shit” statement created just enough doubt to think maybe you needed informing.
.
Cat Lady
It’s a non-starter, because no one except the BBC reporters know how to pronounce it. Need. more. vowels.
arguingwithsignposts
@Paris:
I used to know a guy who did mission trips to Kyrgystan. It’s a pretty barren place, alright. Aside from Bishkek, there’s a lot of goat herding and stuff. Very unstable country for years.
arguingwithsignposts
It seems all the ‘stans are a little weirded out.
Joseph Nobles
I did. The story’s tagged April Fools’. What an idiot I am. Never mind.
r€nato
@Cat Lady: yeah but it’s a godsend for those playing the new version of Scrabble.
JGabriel
@r€nato:
Heh.
But, no, it really wouldn’t.
.
mai naem
Well, it can’t be green cuz that’s already taken. No purple cuz that’s gay. No red cuz Bono already used it up plus its the Repub color. No blue cuz it’s the Dem. color. No black cuz that’s the color of death. No white cuz that’s the KKK color. No pink cuz its the breast cancer color. No orange cuz Ukraine already used that up. No yellow cuz that’s the color for quitters. No grey, well, cuz grey is gray and dull. I say go with a nice apricot.
AB
Sorry but, I have no idea where the heck Kyrgyzstan is and I’ve never even heard of it (or have any idea how to pronounce it). If it’s not on the old RISK map, I don’t know what it is. :)
thankfully we have wikipedia and I can read IPA woo
r€nato
@JGabriel: He’d probably throw a hissy fit because someone clearly misspelled the country’s name.
r€nato
‘Kyrgyzstan? Kazhakstan? What the fuck? Why can’t they choose normal names like “North Stan” and “South Stan”?’
/gwbush
Brian J
@Joseph Nobles:
That’s a joke. It was posted on April 1 and the tag is April Fool’s.
But the little picture of him on the sidebar has the following caption:
“We present our own facts in our media at a time of our own choosing,” Swift says.
Now, while that article was a big joke, isn’t it sad that what I reprinted above could be said by, you know, real people who align themselves with Republicans?
Violet
From Wikipedia:
Change the banner to forty hot girls with big boobs. You’ll have a lot of solidarity with that.
mai naem
@r€nato: Uhm, no, but I would be willing to pitch into a fund to send him off there with Dick Cheney to become the president and vice president. Also too, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Blimbaugh can go along and partay like it’s 2001.
Martin
Alex, what is aubergine?
JGabriel
Paris:
It can’t be that bad. Kyrgyzstan has roughly the same area as Nebraska (77,000 – 78,000 sq. miles), but three time NE’s population, 5.5 million vs. 1.8 million.
.
MikeJ
@mai naem:
Grey is my favorite colour. I felt so symbolic yesterday.
r€nato
@Violet: Can we see if this fellow Manas has any living descendants? The Democrats could use a fellow like that.
MikeJ
@Martin:
What Merkins call eggplant.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
We have an airbase there, that is due to close I think, but not yet. It is used for support of Afgha.
p.a.
I don’t know if/why it seems so personal here vis-Sully, and I wasn’t reading him during his ‘5th column’ era, but I hope the
jabs are good-natured; a world with a conservative movement based on his conservatism would be a much
saner place than what we’re dealing with now.
sacrablue
The previous revolution in Kyrgyzstan was the Tulip Revolution, I think. So maybe just decorate the site with lots of tulips for Tulip 2.0.
JGabriel
@mai naem:
That might be counter-productive at a time when Obama is trying to improve our relationships with the world.
Look, if all we want to do is watch Bush try to pronounce (or spell) Kyrgyzstan, let’s just ask him to do some fund raising for them, ala Haiti. Or maybe record a PSA for them.
.
Mark S.
Looking at some pictures of the capital. God the Soviets loved concrete.
Brian J
@mai naem:
And what about the poor people of Kyrgyzstan? Can they come here? I’d be willing to make the trade.
demimondian
John, sorry, you don’t get to paint the blog green (or red). You’ll need to stick to tulips — the original Kyrgyz revolution-of-the-people-which-wasn’t was called the Tulip revolution.
Flower power, bay-bee!
demkat620
Americans aren’t going to pay attention to this. They have no idea where the fuck this place is.
They only cared about Georgia for five minutes cause they thought the Russians had invade Atlanta.
geg6
OT, but my sister got to go to a lecture today given by none other than Bobo. I begged her to ask what new insights he’s gotten at the Applebee salad bar these days but she would not. She did, however, ask about the current political climate, especially from a conservative perspective (and since he’s such a prominent conservative thinker–like the gratuitous flattery there?–his opinion is quite valuable). He went into a long discourse, basically saying that the GOP has gone insane and ended with the statement that “Barack Obama is the best possible person to be president at this time in our history.” Now, I don’t remember him ever putting that in his column, but I usually leave it to Doug to read him so I don’t have to so he may have. But it somewhat astounded my sister to hear it and left her speechless enough that she couldn’t manage a follow up. Which she now regrets as she would have asked him if he had ever said it quite that way in his column or on “This Week Without George Stephanopoulis’ Hair.”
Linkmeister
@Mark S.: And those pictures don’t include those godawful tower blocks of housing units the USSR built all over Eastern Europe, either.
Drive By Wisdom
How about yellow?
Another ally allowed to fall. Just another day at the office for Obama.
John Cole
Everything behind the iron curtain was gray. It was kind of amazing going from West to East Germany. You would go from a modern country with colors and grass into something out of the Waste Land.
gbear
It’s the building material of choice for corrupt contractors and inspectors.
burnspbesq
@p.a.:
On balance, most folks here like Andrew, although a good number probably will never forgive his cheerleading for the Iraq war.
He is extremely satiriz-able (is that a word?) at times, and the unofficial motto of this blog is “have snark, will travel.” So Andrew gets friendly (and some not-so-friendly) fire from time to time.
demimondian
@Drive By Wisdom: You know, it might be good if you stopped at Wisdom, instead of driving by and then racing off to Stupidity every time.
rootless-e
send tchiterine in to find the kirghiz light.
(nostalgic trivia for people of a certain age)
Just Some Fuckhead
Revolution in Kyrgyz is as regular and unexciting as morning wood (woohoo, time to pee all over the wall again!) Meanwhile, did Iran ever climax? I see Sully’s back to dark peace blue.
r€nato
@Drive By Wisdom: You reminded me of the guy I was forced to spend Easter with at the folks’ house. He clearly had spent too much time watching Fox News Channel and listening to AM talk radio. He’s literally convinced that the dollar will be worthless by year’s end and you’d better start buying gold now while you can. It’s all Obama’s fault, of course.
I at least got him to admit that Obama must not be the disaster folks like him are claiming; the DJIA is up over 50% in the last 13 months.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I think you have to change the blog to Tulip Juice.
Balloon-Juice Platinum Member
@John Cole: You shouldn’t have stopped before Praha.
Anya
@Joseph Nobles: This and the birther resolution makes Arizona the capital of Wingnutstan.
burnspbesq
Odd … I’ve had two comments disappear without a trace in the last ten minutes. They had two potentially offensive words in them, but not of the sort that would normally be caught by the filters and sent to moderation.
Oh well. FYWP.
burnspbesq
If I took great pleasure in what Phil Angelides did to Greenspan today, does that make me a bad person?
demimondian
@burnspbesq: I’ve had several comments get eaten by WP recently, too.
Brian J
@geg6:
Via Brad DeLong, he either has an EPIC FAIL of use of a statistic, or he’s simply lying as if it’s going out of style. As Brad says, in response to Brooks’ claim that 60 percent of the country made more than $100,000 at least once in the last six years:
No they didn’t. Something is very wrong here.
wag
@rootless-e:
…after Slothrop stops hearing the roar of the soniferous ether.
Anya
@Anya: It’s the state of our politics that shit like this can sound plausible. Next time, I should read all the comments and the article before I post.
Cat Lady
Who could’ve predicted that it’s Fox News’ fault?
dslak
For all the good-natured ribbing of Sully, he did play an invaluable role in covering the protests going on in Iran for an English-speaking audience. I lost contact with my friends in Iran during that period, and Sully’s blog was a helpful digest of what was going on, and allowed me to put what my friends had to say when they could get through into context.
Sure, his “going green” was over-the-top, but it was a venial sin.
Calouste
@Linkmeister:
As we used to call it on our trips to Eastern Europe “socialist-realistic architecture”. But then again, we used “socialist-realistic” a lot as an adjective on those trips, and typicaly not in a complimentary fashion.
dslak
@Cat Lady: Linky no worky.
Edit: Working fine now.
JUST A NORMAL GUY (THE ORIGINAL)
WELL I AM SUPRIZED THAT ANDREW SULLAVIN EVEN CARES ABOTU THIS BECASUE THE NEW’S REPORTINGS HAVE’NT SHOWN YET POLICE SHOOTING A PRETTY WOMAN WHO LOOKS LIKE SHES FROM ITALIAN ANCESTORY, BUT I GUESS NEDA WAS’NT BUILDED IN A DAY
Cat Lady
@dslak
fixeteth.
Annie
My husband just came back from there. Apparently the government cutting off heat in the middle of winter really pissed people off…Before they fled, the ruling party did claim that they had the best health care in the world.
Martin
@Annie: Wow, Republicans were running Kyrgyzstan? That explains a lot, actually…
Cat Lady
@Annie:
Who could have predicted forcing people to freeze in one of the coldest winters on record would piss them off?
Mark S.
WELL IS JUST A NORMAL GUY A PARDOY TROLL OR H’SE THE RAEL DEAL? JSUT CURIES THANK’S GYUS
Martin
Wow, Gizoogle is looking out for BOB. From the top banner ad:
Maybe BOB can find a nice teabagress that is experienced at flipping police cars.
BDeevDad
Speaking of not again
Get ready for blame game…
madmommy
@burnspbesq:
Nah. Anyone who rips Greenspan a new one is tops in my book.
ajr22
If this happened a few years back, Sacha Baron Cohen would have tricked CNN into interviewing Borat about this situation. Hell they are probably still dumb enough to fall for it.
AB
@BDeevDad:
god, not this crap again
Lev
@Paris: Nah, it can’t be the Brown Revolution. Senator Scotto already commandeered that one. How about the Burnt Siena Revolution?
Liberty60
@Joseph Nobles:
Given that one of the commenters at WSJ was saying how we need to repeal child labor laws, and mandatory overtime pay;
And the Governor of Virginia issues a misty eyed pean to the Lost Cause;
The Birch Society is gaining steam as a respectiable member of the conservative family;
I am having a harder and harder time distinguishing between satire and reality.
Liberty60
@Joseph Nobles:
Given that one of the commenters at WSJ was saying how we need to repeal child labor laws, and mandatory overtime pay;
And the Governor of Virginia issues a misty eyed pean to the Lost Cause;
The Birch Society is gaining steam as a respectiable member of the conservative family;
I am having a harder and harder time distinguishing between satire and reality.
freelancer (itouch)
@BDeevDad:
Kuuhraaaap! I gotta fly on Friday, and this is not good news, TSA security theatre wise.
Sidslang
When I read about the Kyrgysz developments, I admit I also gave Sully an hour or two before changing masthead colors. Great cynics snark alike. But, truth is, he’s quite calm about it compared to the Iranolution fervor. Had John shown the entire post in question rather than just the headline, one might have noticed a quoted excerpt from Larison:
Sounds like Sully might be slightly chastened by the Iran experience. Snark aside (and I do love the snark), let’s be fair about that…
burnspbesq
@Lev:
Does anyone know what color sienna is before it gets burnt?
And yes, the reply arrow is back. Woot!
daniel thomas macinnes
You must wear plaid. Plaid sports jackets from the late ’70s. If you don’t do that, then the….um, bad guys….win. Or something.
BDeevDad
Holy shit!
Hopefully, he was just smoking
BDeevDad
Holy shit!
Hopefully, he was just smoking
Martin
Remember that Iran will always be a special cause for conservatives, unlike pretty much any other country. They’ve been fighting that war for at least 30 years now.
cleek
was also known as “The Hands Of Fate” !
I’m peeking at you!
burnspbesq
Finished The Big Short today, and I highly recommend it.
Gus
@Mark S.: I’m guessing it’s “Merkan Patriot” (or something like that), one of Atrios’ regular commenters from way back.
jamie d
@rootless-e: i rofl’d. i thought of this too.
if a screaming comes across the sky, though, we’re all in trouble. in this situation, that might be a concern.
Martin
Lightly Toasted Sienna.
rootless-e
@wag: a kvetching comes across the skies.
MattR
@BDeevDad: Well, the silver lining is that I can’t see what new security measures the TSA will create after this. Or at least how they will affect the non-diplomats among us.
burnspbesq
@rootless-e:
I believe that is the first Pynchon reference in the history of Balloon-Juice. Well played, sir or madam.
Mark S.
@ajr22:
BLITZER: Now is it common in your country to have, as you say, sexy time with you mother-in-law?
BDeevDad
@MattR: No smoking on airplanes……wait.
Capn America
HAHAHA YEAH LET’S LAUGH AT THOSE POOR THIRD WORLD LOSERS!!!
And I’m sure some smart aleck will tell me you’re not laughing at them, you’re just laughing at Sully and his excitedness.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@gbear:
I read something long ago about how some Soviet heavy machinery manufacturer used concrete to increase the output from his plant. Seems that the Russkies measured their industrial output by weight and not by the number of units produced. The plant manager instructed workers to fill hollow tubing and such with concrete which of course increased the average tonnage produced.
While some may laugh at this and say that is what happens when the government in involved in business I would argue that if our fine capitalistic businessmen could find an advantage by doing something like this then they wouldn’t hesitate one second in implementing it.
jamie d
my comment is still in moderation… i’m not sure what i said wrong, but the gist is that rootless-e’s pynchon referenceis full of win.
BombIranForChrist
Maybe dude will just self-immolate to Wagner this time, save us all the trouble of watching him go back and forth between opposite extremes within the space of a few hours.
Michael D.
Thank god you pointed this out, John. Andrew Sullivan didn’t do shit to point out the crap going on in Iran. In fact, I believe he was largely credited with ruining the whole thing with his green color scheme.
Shame on him for taking an interest and being a clearinghouse for information. Shame on a blogger who was getting 300,000 hits a day for being a go-to place for information on Iran while annoying people like the proprietors of Balloon-Juice with his green shit!
Shame on Andrew Sullivan for being a high traffic blog that people in Iran trusted to send information because they knew he had a huge readership and the information would get out.
How dare he!?
If you’re going to take a sincere interest, at least have the sense not to use the same colors that the native population uses to symbolize their cause!
Shame!
Good for you, John, for taking a moral stand against this crap!
OR…
Sometimes you could give credit where it’s due…
Liberty60
I llike Larison’s take on it, that we (as always) refract other people’s wars through the prism of our own politics and beliefs.
So every revolution becomes either the Minutemen at Lexington, or Communist thugs overthrowing honest govenrments.
Polar Bear Squares
lmao!
You really don’t like Sully, do you?
He does fixate on things doesn’t he?
I’m thinking deep purple.
Definitely deep purple.
hamletta
@Brian J:
FIFY. And FYWP.
sfinny
Why leave the uprisings to colors only. We could expand to fragrances or foods. Is there a particular food that Kyrgyzstan is known for?
Comrade Kevin
@Michael D.: WTF is the matter with you, numbnuts?
wag
@rootless-e:
…and we need to submit to the disgusting English candy drill. Try this, its very unusual.
asiangrrlMN
Snort. This post made me giggle, Cole. I say sepia–a nice, bittersweet shade of brown.
Ty Lookwell
abstract2001.livejournal.com/1093272.html
my Uzbek best friend just send me this url.
Ty Lookwell
boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/crisis_in_kyrgyzstan.html
D-Chance.
And when his Atlantic overlords tell him to change it back, will Sully throw another hissy fit and take a week of unannounced vacation time off?
D-Chance.
Scrabble changed it rules just in time… “Kyrgyzstan” and triple points = instant win.
Morbo
Scott Horton says it’s the Tulip Revolution, so Sully has a lot of options.
Joshua
All I know about the Kyr…stan revolution is what I see on Twitter.
HumboldtBlue
Using the words “strap” and “on” as a headline to a Sullivan post is pretty fucking funny.
And Mike D is fucking shrill and Sullivan is still a fat, racist hypocritical asshole. The condescending poof.