Well this is more great news for the Republican Confederate Party as they celebrate Confederate History Month.
All over the country they are trying to purge the Republican Party of squishes who just can not be counted on to fully support the capture of the GOP by the Confederate Party. A year ago, one of these unreliable squishes was way ahead in the 2010 Florida GOP primary for the Senate and the wingnut hero entering the race was way behind.
Talking Points Memo put up a chart tracking the current state of the race and now the positions are flipped. Not only that, the image of the poll clearly celebrates Confederate history month:
I wonder if this will inspire Crist to secede from the Party?
And somehow, this must also be good news for John McCain.
Cheers
dengre
pharniel
3rd parties splitting the cranky old white man vote are a win!
Third Eye Open
Between RPOF’s legal issues and the realization that Meeks can’t get within a country-mile of the Senate, I look forward to voting for Crist; Not because I like Crist, but because I look forward to the slug-fest, and the wasted funds the GOP are now going to have to spend to keep the seat.
Mike Kay
I guess this mean Charlie Christ can finally get divorced.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Why, I do believe you are right. An X pole is not promising for hopeful candidates., also, too. A round of Starburst’s for everyone. On the house that Bobby Lee built.
ricky
I believe you have the artwork for a TeaBagger sign. Now all you need are the werds to the slogin.
thomas Levenson
What is a Democrat? A Republican who got mugged by the surreality that is what used to be his party.
Joel
Frankly, I’d be pretty happy with Crist as the Republican Joe Lieberman. A thorn in their side, if you may. Or a more sexually-themed metaphor.
Tractarian
Shouldn’t it be “
ConfederateRepublican Party” rather than “RepublicanConfederate Party”?Cheers
JMC in the ATL
Sorry, I know that this isn’t an open thread, but, well, every thread on BJ is a pet thread…
one of my cats, Hemlock, seems to be approaching the end. He’s only nine, but over the past couple of weeks, he’s become a shadow of himself (16 lbs down to 11 lbs), uncharacteristically passive, not coming by for attention, etc.
I’ve gone through illness and death with other cats over the years, and this feels to me like his body is shutting down. The vet posited FIP as a strong possibility, which I’ve been through before. But I also know folks who have had pets come back from the brink and continue on for years.
This is by far the hardest part of sharing your life with critters that don’t speak English. They take over little bits of your heart and don’t ask for a heck of a lot in return, and you’ve got to play God in the end, and no matter what decision you make, it stays with you.
I just had to get that off my chest. Sorry for the threadjack.
The Grand Panjandrum
Having never followed Fla politics too closely, Charlie always seemed a rather pragmatic fellow when it comes to governing. I don’t know much about his conservatives bona fides but appearing with our Super Double Secret Muslim Preznint was just too much for mouth breathers down there. I know he’s been branded a RINO but has he been declared a race traitor yet?
Elisabeth
So will Rubio be the next -Republican- Confederate Great White Hope? Oh wait…
Mike Kay
@JMC in the ATL: Well, remember, there’s always a new critter just around the corner, waiting to snuggle into your heart.
Michael D.
I am celebrating “Republican Ancestor History Month.” I asked my African American neighbor to mow my lawn. He refused. Apparently, he is free.
My Indonesian partner is doing it instead.
He better do it right…
gbear
(deleted. I fuck up the formatting)
cmorenc
The paradox is that outside of the dominant wingnut faction of the GOP, Charlie Crist has solid popularity with a majority of the Florida electorate. He probably could have won had he timely done a Spector, switched parties, and entered the dem primary. At this point, however, that’s too late, and it’s not clear he could win as an independent in a 3-way race (another paradox).
Query whether the dems would be better off, though with Crist as another southern conservadem Senator, assuming that would greatly improve their prospects of taking this seat away from the potential for a Rubio win in the general election (cause Rubio’s going to win the GOP primary, barring unforeseen electoral disaster). As far as Crist staying a republican, though I really like the idea that he could (if he won the senate seat as a GOP) wind up functioning in a Liebermanesque thorn-in-the-ass role within the GOP caucus – that isn’t going to happen. Instead, we have to worry about a real fire-breathing wingnut idiot like Rubio possibly becoming the next US Senator from Florida.
Brick Oven Bill
I am very sad as the Tea Party Crashers website has no more forums. Levin took them all down.
The Tea Party Crashers was apparently Crashed by the Tea Party Crashers Crashers who posted all kinds of stuff about the Constitution and things like that. Truth having a certain resonating ring to it, yielding Crunch.
On to the Coffee Party, wherever they went. All of this, of course, it good news for The Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Daddy Biggs
Great news for John McCain!
I’m sure he’s already booked on Meet the Press to talk about it on Sunday.
JenJen
In other crazy wingnut-style news, Sean Hannity bailed yesterday, at the last possible minute, on the Cincinnati Tea Party event he was scheduled to headline:
Fox News pulls plug on Sean Hannity’s appearance at Tea Party event
People paid $20 to $100 bucks apiece to attend this “grassrootsy” and “totally non-partisan” event yesterday, only to arrive and find out that Hannity had fled town and was winging it back to New York. This is causing much consternation and wringing of hands here in my hometown today. It’s a funny piece. You’re all welcome. :-)
Dennis G.
@Tractarian:
It depends on which one you think is on top. As the Confederates control the Party I tend to think that “
ConfederateRepublican Party” is the more accurate name for the enterprise.Cheers
Mike Kay
@The Grand Panjandrum: A big factor in his unpopularity within the party has been the long drawn out “whisper campaign” against his sexual orientation.
Dennis G.
@JMC in the ATL:
I just lost two very old dogs in recent months. One went in her sleep and the other we had to take to the vet for his release. It was hard.
Best to you as you go through this.
Cheers
cmorenc
What’s one major difference between the democrats and the republicans?
– The republicans are supported by lots of people who hang out with the stars and bars;
– the democrats are supported by lots of stars who hang out in trendy bars.
artem1s
@JenJen:
dag blame it, he’s our tool, not yours!
arguingwithsignposts
@JenJen:
I thought his 15 minutes were up.
J
@JMC in the ATL:
Is he eating? My FIV cat did much the same thing, until we started leaving him bowls of milk. Of course, now we have to run him away from the fridge anytime we want to close it, because otherwise he might get his head smashed by the door while he searches for milk.
Karen in GA
@JMC in the ATL: I’m sorry to hear about Hemlock.
I have four cats myself — the oldest is 11. I know at some point I’ll find myself in your position with each of them, and I’m already dreading it.
JenJen
@artem1s: Amazing that Hannity managed to be in Cincinnati all day long before Fox News apparently decided maybe it wouldn’t be so great an idea after all. But not before taking all the Teabaggers’ money. They didn’t leave their prized audience with an option to, say, not drive downtown from the suburbs and pay $15 for parking, among other things.
This story just reeks. Hope it gets some serious exposure.
@arguingwithsignposts: He’s like a bad penny. And I thought he left the GOP? Oh wait, teabagger-fests are totally non-partisan, what am I thinking?
@JMC in the ATL: Ohhhh. I’m so very sorry. I’ve been there too, and it’s just the most awful position to be put in, to have to make that kind of decision for your best friend. Hope it gets better for you soon. :-(
Rosali
Today is the start of Florida’s Cash for Clunkers (appliance version) program. This is part of Obama’s stimulus package and Crist has stated that he would oppose a second stimulus after the GOP wingnuts criticized him for accepting stimulus funds the first time around.
I spent an hour trying to register for a rebate on the website this morning. Crist’s picture is front and center on the home page of the rebate website and he’s touting the benefits to FL consumers and businesses. There’s no mention of Obama’s stimulus program.
Frankly
B.O.B
When are you running??? and what state (of mind)?
WereBear
@JMC in the ATL: Damn. Poor guy. Poor you.
Have you tried any nutritional supplements? Brewer’s yeast and probiotics are two standbys for me when helping starved kitties. Use the human versions from the health food store.
SiubhanDuinne
@JMC in the ATL:
You have my very real sympathy. It never EVER gets easier. If this is indeed the end of this particular life for Hemlock, I hope it’s a peaceful and easy transition for him.
(Incidentallly, and for what it’s worth — and I possibly have mentioned this before — but my real-life monogram is JMC and I live in ATL, which is to say, Atlanta — so whenever I see your handle I do a BIG double-take!)
Rosali
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Yes, the NAAOP has withdrawn its endorsement.
WereBear
@JenJen: Bwahahaha!
Reminds me of someone… Mooselini?
WereBear
Also from the Hannity/Teabagger article:
W. T. F.
Is that a racist thing? Or am I too sensitive?
JMC in the ATL
Thanks, folks.
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, you did mention it. Actually I’m moving back to San Antonio shortly. Not sure what I’ll do about the moniker. JMC in the SAT just doesn’t have the same ring.
JenJen
@WereBear: Actually, I think Caribou Barbie managed to sign a few books before bailing. Hannity not so much. ;-)
Cat Lady
@WereBear:
Since no one has one less freedom than they had on Jan. 19, 2009, it can only mean freedom to not have a black president. Also.
Origuy
So if Crist gets runs as an independent and gets elected, with which party does he caucus? The Republicans will hate his guts, so I guess he goes with the Democrats. However, assuming the Democrats lose a few seats, the margin will be a lot tighter. He could join up with Lieberman and act like one of those minor parties in the Knesset, voting with whichever party promises them more.
But then what does he do in six years? Maybe the Republican Party will have collapsed after 2012 and he can be there to pick up the pieces and build the Centrist Party. (You can’t spell Centrist without Crist and Ent!)
georgia pig
@cmorenc: Crist is still in a pretty good position to win as an independent and, at heart, he still is a republican. He’s made sure keep his bona fides with the business and real estate types, that’s his base. They probably aren’t that opposed to him working with Obama in general, it would be a case by case analysis based on what they think they might get out of it. Crist may be delaying to maximize the play he gets out of narrative of “I tried to be true, but a small group of corrupt and/or crazy people with out of state backers has taken over our Republican Party.” He probably thinks that the dems have a weak candidate, so he doesn’t need to hurry because a lot of dems don’t hate him and would go for him to avoid Rubio, i.e., they don’t think Meek can win. In contrast, Specter is in a relatively highly unionized state with a strong democratic party who would have put forward a strong candidate to beat Toomey, and was already a sitting Senator with the power of incumbency. Crist’s position is more like Lieberman, who didn’t become an independent until after he lost to Lamont. He knew he could still win because the republican candidate in CT was very weak and that Lamont would be viewed as being pushed by a lot outside activists.
If he were to get elected as an independent, I doubt Crist will be a mirror of Lieberman, however, because Crist has a legit shot at making a national comeback as a republican presidential candidate once the wackos flame out. Lieberman has never had a prayer of doing that as an “independent Democrat.” Crist would act more like Snowe and Collins, but a little less under the thumb of the Republican leadership. All things considered, better than Rubio, but makes you wish that the FL dems would have been more organized for this really good pickup opportunity.
sparky
would Crist win as an independent? possibly. he just vetoed a bill that removes some union protections for FL teachers, a bill that didn’t seem popular with anyone except the wingnut legislature. for all i know, they pushed it so as to force Crist out of the primary. he has enough recognition so that he could still win if he ran outside the party, but he may be too cautious to do that. he has to decide, and soon, if he is going to try for once in his life to be risky. i can’t see Rubio winning–he’s going to have real problems once he is past the R primary, which is a wingnut redoubt in FL.
Rosalita
@JMC in the ATL:
I’m sorry to hear about your kitteh. I just lost one of my girls in February. Liver disease, came on quickly she would only have survived if I had agreed to draconian measures. It’s heartbreaking to have to make that decision. Hang in there.
Randy P
@WereBear: I think it’s just a teabagger thing: The ability to be rock solid convinced that you’ve lost freedoms even when nobody can tell you a single freedom you’ve lost.
Goes along with the ability to be rock solid convinced your income taxes have gone up, even if you look at your pay stub and see they’ve gone down.
Tsulagi
Hear that. R-cans in the fall need to show their colors loud and proud. Take the success of Fred Thompson and Scott Brown who campaigned driving around their states in pickup trucks to the next level. To get real American teahadis fired up at campaign stops, they need to drive the General Lee.
Joel
@cmorenc: In terms of “bar” jokes, that just doesn’t sail smoothly. Kind of like, “A horse walks into a bar…”
I’m going to rescue this with an appropriate segueway.
A pirate walks into a bar, and he’s got a steering wheel sticking out of his pants.
The bartender says, “Hey! You’ve got a steering wheel sticking out of your pants!”
The pirate responds, “YARR! IT BE DRIVING ME NUTS!”
That Homo-Erotic Burger King Clown
Burger King is pleased to announce a new endorsement. We’ve had these Coffee Party people chasing us around for a few months now, but they were kind of smelly, and did not present the image of cleanliness and purity that we, as a good corporate Citizen, seek to project. Behold:
Teabaggers value Thrift, and Hard Work. As such, we seek an economical and nutritious food product, to aid in our budgets, and power our endeavors. We thank Burger King for presenting us with a new breakfast sandwich, the Breakfast Muffin, which improves upon the McMuffin, by the addition of an egg. All for only one dollar.
Studies conducted by the Balloon Juice Institute of Hunger and One Dollar Government Cream-Puffs (BJIHODGCP), indicate that these eggs cost the retail consumer seventeen cents, and we figure that Burger King probably shells out at least a dime, or ten percent of the price of the new sandwich.
Thank you again Burger King, you have our Teabagging endorsement.
-Brick Oven Bill
grandpajohn
The latest polling from Fl shows him leading the field in a 3 way race, and that polling was done before he vetoed the terrible piece of crap republican passed legislation that would have effectively destroyed the public education system in Fl. Legislation that was only liked by the wingnuts and was so hated by the majority of the public and the education system that the act of vetoing the bill probably guarantees his election if he chooses to run as an independent.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Michael D.:
This is why the comments section of BJ is the bestest on the internetzes.
You owe me a keyboard, mine is now drenched in diet Mtn Dew.
Linda Featheringill
@JMC in the ATL:
I would keep Hemlock alive as long as he is comfortable and he seems to enjoy life, even if he is limited to sedate pleasures.
It is hard. I know. And no matter what you do, you will feel guilty.
Happy trails to Hemlock.
Joey Maloney
@JMC in the ATL: Sorry to hear about your kitty.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@georgia pig:
Which makes him an old school Rockefeller Republican. They too were becoming electorally marginal until they willingly hitched their wagon to the American Taliban and now the Crists are reaping what they sow.
Fuck em. I don’t want him in the party. We have enough Ben Nelsons and Mary Landrieus, we don’t need one more.
Zifnab
OT: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/16/business/main6402717.shtml
How is this not on the front page yet?
We should be hearing whole heaping diatribes about how this “about time” / “a fig leaf covering the gang rape of the free market economy”.
Napoleon
@Zifnab:
I saw that an hour or so ago and almost let out a cheer in my office.
maus
@Third Eye Open:
Is that really the case? Kos and others have been pushing for Crist, but Meek is a pretty good guy and would poll better had people not gone balls-out for the “centrist”.
kay
@Napoleon:
They were hooting and hollering here, but we’re noisy :)
Bloomberg is very, very concerned that this will keep the “little guys” out of the market.
I look at it the other way. If the “little guys” start to believe there’s an effective regulatory agency that has their back, maybe they’ll be willing to invest again. That’s what Elliot Spitzer has been arguing since 2006. That regulation is GOOD for markets. He’s eloquent on it.
Dr. Morpheus
@JMC in the ATL:
I am very sorry to hear that JMC in the ATL. I hope for you and your fuzzy one that it is not as dire as it seems.
Mike in NC
The local rag today had a front page story on the teabaggers, with a photo of some gray-haired white women wearing “Team Thurmond” t-shirts. Quite appropriate!
WereBear
@Mike in NC: Well, that takes some more ambiguity out of the way.
Elie
@JMC in the ATL:
I send you a big hug. Nothing worse than losing a friend. Both my kitties have battled various ailments and my oldest, Bill (18+ years), is pretty rickety.
My best to you in your grief…
The Dangerman
Can I have a “Fuck Goldman Sachs”?
Only problem I see is it’s only civil; I want to see the Fuckers in orange jumpsuits.
Drive By Wisdom
As expected, violent assaults by liberals on Republicans in New Orleans go unnoticed on BJ.
trollhattan
@Joel:
Dude, you just kicked off my weekend. Yarrrrr!
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I should point out that the late Steve Gilliard always referred to the Stars and Bars as “The American Swastika”.
A very useful label methinks.
Cat Lady
@kay:
Exactly true – I just took a poll on MSNBC whether the market is rigged, and 87% respondents said yes. A lot of money is sitting on the sidelines waiting for some clue that it’s not a giant mug’s game.
And, stay tuned for Matt Taibbi.
ETA: Mrs. Alan Greenspan trying to walk a tightrope on her show. She should shut up and sit down.
Mnemosyne
@Drive By Wisdom:
Dude, we covered that three days ago when it first happened. Try to keep up.
And, uh, you might not want to use an article with quotes like However, Young, again according Dollard, later back-tracked to say he wasn’t sure and has now separately denied the confirmation to Poltico’s Ben Smith (see updates below) to claim you have irrefutable proof of leftist violence.
Dr Dave (a different one)
@Mike in NC: I loved Nate Thurmond! He graduated from my alma mater (Bowling Green State U in Ohio) and played for a couple of years for the Cavaliers when I was growing up in NE Ohio.
Oh wait…wrong team Thurmond. Nevermind…
Third Eye Open
@maus: I think he is a nice guy, but his organizing has been invisible to anyone outside of Miami-Dade. On a state level, Florida is a Bill Nelson kinda place, and Meeks (fortunately) is not Bill Nelson.
Calouste
Crist’s campaign manager has resigned over the veto. And Crist got a rebuke from Jeb Bush.
Methinks Crist is waiting a week to see if his veto has any positive effective on his chances in the GOP primary and if, as I suspect, it hasn’t, he will declare that the GOP left him.
kay
@Cat Lady:
Well, I’m a “small investor” (you know, itty bitty) and I’m not just taking them at their word without some sort of police agency regulating them, because I don’t have, oh, subpeona power.
It seems like a no-brainer to me, that if people had an effective regulatory agency to guard against abuses, they’d feel more secure.
In any event, the effect on markets should not be a consideration, if we actually have a regulatory structure, so the finance news gatherers should just be law-abiding and shut the hell up with any analysis that starts with “will we LOSE MONEY?” as a factor.
Any random crook can make that same argument. It isn’t supposed to matter.
licensed to kill time
That poll graphic makes me think of a South Park character’s eyes when they blink or do a doubletake and now I see it superimposed on Crist’s face.
@JMC in the ATL: I am so sorry about your cat. What a great name you gave him! I truly hope he recovers. If he does not, just remember that you gave him a great life and he gave you much love in return. It’s a good bargain though hard for us when it comes to an end.
trollhattan
@Drive By Wisdom:
Oh yeah, what about teabaggin’ uncle Sam attacking a wheelchair dude, huh?
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4065/4526377946_6b7f758b2b_o.jpg
LuciaMia
I’m so sorry. I, like a lot of folks here, have gone thru this with a number of beloved pets before.
Be kind to yourself, cause like you said, no matter what you do, you’ll sitll end up blaming yourself for something.
bemused
Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune, wanted to know what, exactly, the tea party activists want. Zorn thought he might get an explanation when Rick ‘We’re thinking of having a Chicago tea party’ Santelli was a guest on WGN Thurs. Santelli was asked what he thought of the tea party movement & he admitted, “I don’t try to fully understand it”.
Zorn then went to listen to speakers at tax day tea party rally in Daley Plaza. After John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute, spoke Korn asked Tillman what it was all about. When Tillman said they want to reduce the money gov’t spends on every aspect of life, Korn pointed out the taxes, for the most part, haven’t gone up for them.Tillman said, “That’s not the point”. They believe taxes will rise to pay for Obamacare.
When Korn asked where, exactly, they want gov’t to be smaller, Tillman’s answer just floored me. “You’re asking a question that the average person isn’t going to engage in. It’s an unfair question. The average person isn’t engaged with the budget details. They just know instinctively that when you run up multitrillion-dollar deficits, it’s unsustainable.”
Head hits desk repeatedly.
It’s an unfair question to ask that they have some idea where the gov’t should decrease & how?
I run into this all the time with R’s I know. They know what they think they know & that’s all they need to know. Never mind putting some research & thought into issues that have them so fired up they’re snorting fire but can’t be bothered with really thinking about solutions. That’s for the legislators that they want to be accountable even if they don’t know how.
Total copouts.
Morbo
Totally OT, but I love it when Ritholtz trolls his own blog: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/04/the-only-tea-party-stat-you-need-to-know/
LuciaMia
Squishes? Is that a synonym for RHINO? I like your word better.
kay
@trollhattan:
There’s just nothing there yet.
Conservative blogs reported that they were wearing Palin buttons, but that turned out not to be true. Politico reported that the police agency said it was “politically motivated” but it turns out they didn’t say that at all.
Conservatives just have to calm down and wait for some facts.
bemused
@Morbo:
57% approve of GW. Yup, real critical thinkers there.
Scuffletuffle
@JMC in the ATL: My heart goes out to you…I have been there several times in the past few years as my kitties age. Keep remembering the good times and what a wonderful life you were able to make possible for him by your care. That’s what keeps me going, knowing that for as long as they are in my care, they are pampered, spoiled and very, very much loved.
Best wishes, whatever and whenever the decision comes.
Sentient Puddle
Obama: I’ll veto any financial reform bill that does not control the derivatives market.
BOOM! Headshot!
trollhattan
@kay:
Thanks Kay,
No surprise there’s no there, there. I think of DBW’s posts as like B.O.B after a couple hours of oxygen starvation.
Randy P
@bemused: What I’m mostly reminded of by your rant is “alternative” physics theories. I’m a physics guy, and there are a lot of people who write to physics forums who are really angry about pretty much everything in physics post 1905. Quantum mechanics and relativity, they just go against the intuition. It just doesn’t make SENSE. So it must be wrong.
These people often have their own alternative physics. They’ve got it all figured out. They just don’t have any predictions that could be checked against experiment because they need somebody else to work out all the math details.
In that world, there is John Baez’ convenient and brilliant Crackpot Index to help you judge just how cracked one of these people is (the “I can’t be bothered to work out the math” line is item number 15). Maybe it’s time to formulate one of these for teabaggers.
Trivia Item: John Baez is the cousin of Joan Baez.
kay
@bemused:
You know, I “believed” taxes would go up when Bush rammed through the huge new pharma entitlement that a majority of the tea baggers enjoy but I did not take to the streets.
As it turned out, taxes didn’t go up, because they chose not to pay for it, but still. I was fiscally concerned.
The health care law at least has a good-faith funding formula. Want to tell me what the tea bagger beneficiaries of the pharma entitlement were relying on to PAY FOR IT? They shoved that mess happily on the “backs of their grandchildren”.
kay
@trollhattan:
I think it would be absolutely appalling if they beat the living hell out of those people because they’re conservatives. That’s horrifying.
I just don’t think there’s a shred of proof yet that that’s what happened.
Sentient Puddle
@Randy P: I think we need a crackpot index for the political world. A way to quantify how batshit crazy some people are would be handy (or at least amusing).
Also:
I actually read the names as JOAN first, and wondered if she had a previous life I was unaware of.
Mike Kay
@Sentient Puddle:
This is only proves Obama is a wall street tool.
Donate to the Firebagg PAC to hold obama accountable!
bemused
@Randy P:
That’s very funny. I had no idea there was all this going on in physics forums. I just didn’t picture physics geeks getting all emotional & stuff over their alternate views. So much for that reasoned, calm debate among the physics crowd visual I had.
Now we need a similar crackpot conservative index although there are probably several on the fabulous internet somewhere.
Randy P
@bemused: Well, physics geeks can get emotional, but I’m not sure I’d use the “physics geek” label for the kind of people who say “Einstein wuz a fraud” and “I’ve got a revolutionary new physics”. In fact, they typically have never had a physics course. Or passed one, anyway.
But I suppose that if you’re a layman and you can get really angry about special relativity, that qualifies as geeky.
bemused
@kay:
Oh, they were all sitting happily in their lazeeboys watching Faux while the unfunded wars, tax cuts, etc were mulitplying debt like bunnies. None were asking how we were going to pay for any of that back in the day.
Bulworth
@Linda Featheringill: I echo Linda’s comments. As long as he/she doesn’t appear to be in pain. I think most cats slow down or lose some weight as they get older.
bemused
@Randy P:
Apologies, I should have come up with a better word than geek. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that there are so many wannabes in the physics world. We’ve seen plenty of those in climate science.
Bulworth
@bemused: The Teabaggers are so divorced from reality no rational response really applies. But I doubt deficits bother them. It hasn’t ever before.
EconWatcher
OT, but wonders never cease, Broder actually wrote a pretty good column about Obama (via Sully):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/14/AR2010041402991.html
GregB
Drive by Wisdom,
What happened to the GOP line that reporting any of these attacks as being political is bad for America?
We’ll see if this person also had a backwards B cared on their face too.
Morbo
@bemused: I did over the weekend have the pleasure of a discussion along the lines of:
“I hated Bush, too liberal, spent too much.”
“What did you think of Reagan?”
“Reagan was awesome!”
[scoff]
Those with principled objections apparently have short memories.
mapaghimagsik
@kay:
I just hope its not another one of these
elmo
@JMC in the ATL:
Nothing much to say, except that it’s hard, hard, hard. Been there too many times in the last eighteen months, which is one of the downsides of having lots of animals. Sometimes lots of shit happens at once, or one right after another.
Hugs to you. In the next open thread, why don’t you tell us about her? That way, at least some of her memory is immortal.
Elise
You forgot the link to donate to Kendrick Meek – the Democrat who needs to win this race.
Elise
You forgot the link to donate to Kendrick Meek – the Democrat who needs to win this race. Here you go: https://donate.kendrickmeek.com/page/contribute/mainnav
bemused
@Morbo:
Hilarious & so typical. Groupies usually know every detail, even the most obscure or mundane about their idols. Not the case with republicans & their heroes.
rdale
In Utah, home of wannabe confederates who would like to secede if we weren’t, you know, 13th on the list of federal pork lovers, Bob Bennett (R-not crazy enough!) is facing a real chance of losing in the rethug primary, because he’s “too liberal.” Yes, Bennett–whose father, Sen. Wallace Bennett, was a reliable rethug ally of Eisenhower–is under attack by the teahadists because he supported Bush’s bailouts. He might very well lose the primary.
Tsulagi
@GregB:
Nah, they learned from the last time. Now they go for a backwards O. But probably fuck that up too; you can never go too KISS for teahadis.
Svensker
@Bulworth:
Democrats’ deficits bother them. Repubs’ deficits taste like freedom!
geg6
OT, but I sure hope John saw this:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/sec_slaps_goldman_with_civil_fraud_complaint.php?ref=fpb
And another OT, I just was forced to buy an iPhone. My BlackBerry apparently died a spectacular and never-before-seen type of death that everyone at the ATT store was shocked by and which seemed to endlessly fascinate them. Anyway, so I got the new iPhone (the deal was too good to pass up). My dilemma is that I can’t figure the damn thing out and there is no instruction book. There was no way to import all my bookmarks to this phone, so now I have to put them all in there. But I can’t figure out how to do that. Anyone around who can walk me through it?
Oh, and I hate, hate, hate the keyboard. Thankfully, the screen makes up for that.
dmsilev
@Randy P: Those crackpots can be absolutely hilarious (I’m also in physics, and see a fair number of them). One of my colleagues once got an email talking about phased acoustic arrays, and how it would be like the walls of Jericho except there would be a Japanese guy who walked up with a laser, and COLD FUSION!.
It can be like trying to make sense of BOB when he’s particularly incoherent.
dms
dmsilev
@geg6: You can tell iTunes to sync a whole bunch of things between your computer and the iThing. I believe bookmarks are one of them. Plug the phone into the computer, run iTunes, select the phone and look around for an sync options tab (I’d check the exact nomenclature, but my interface cable is at home).
Enjoy your new widget.
dms
licensed to kill time
Maybe everybody has seen this already? but Ezra Klein has a great video : Bill O’Reilly is insecure ; refuting BOR’s “takedown” of Coburn the other day.
Also, Dennis Miller is such a smug prick.
geg6
@dmsilev:
Okay, thanks for that. But your instructions are already beyond my technical capacities. LOL. When I said walk me through, I really, really mean walk me through it. Slowly and not using technical jargon like “sync.” LOL again.
Why would you have to run iTunes to put my bookmarks into the phone? I’ve never even been to iTunes and never downloaded music. But the idea of having to go there to import my bookmarks? That is totally off the wall, IMHO.
ericblair
@Randy P:
I think it has a lot less to do with geekery (which I think of as a deep interest in the details of some field) then kookery, where somebody has a semi-random obsession with something they don’t understand in the slightest.
It’s funny that you get retro-kooks who reject SR and quantum theory because, I guess, it’s not “common sense”. I thought that you’d get a lot more geniuses who have discovered warp drive or time travel and are being held down by The Man.
bemused
@licensed to kill time:
It’s understandable he’d feel insecure. When you’re making that kind of money, you can’t afford to lose the narrative.
Sentient Puddle
@geg6: Apple devices all interface with iTunes to do anything. It’s always been this way, and people have always complained about it going all the way back to the original iPod, when people complained about not being able to just drag and drop songs into a folder on the device.
And ever since, they’ve just kept grafting on new functionality without any real thought for ease of use. Believe me, the rest of us are just as annoyed.
eemom
we can haz Goldman Sachs thread plz? kthxbai
Ed Drone
I think you need to find a way to put the stars-n-bars on the GOPOsaurus image from last year: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/29/0216/75763/459/725689
Then you’re really describing the pea-brained out-of-touchness of the party.
Ed
Dennis G.
@LuciaMia:
Squish is the preferred term of hardcore wingnuts. It was created by the College Republicans back in the early 1980s when Jack Abramoff was their President and Grover Norquist was his right hand man (this was right around the time Grover and Jack adopted Ralph Reed as their love child)..
Here is Abramoff co-conspirator and former fellow College Republican, Amy Ridenour, explaining “What is a Squish“:
Now the fighting is out in the open.
Good times.
Cheers
licensed to kill time
@bemused: Hah. Good point.
And then O’Reilly doubles down, twisting himself into a pretzel while lecturing his critics.
Ed Drone
@kay:
Yeah, like that’s going to happen! “Facts” are not in their vocabulary, and it’s also well-known that facts have a liberal bias.
Ed
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@eemom: Obama sues Goldman Sachs and draws line in the money swamp on derivative trading. We needs a new Obama Fail/Corporatist just like (worse) than Bush or Hitler thread. Stat. But it’s “bring your own” on the disappointed prog trolls, we can’t furnish everything. There is a recession on after all.
YellowJournalism
From the Hannity article:
Hannity and his producers messed up. The Tea Party people were not straight with Fox about the situation. Fox makes the ultimate decision to pull Hannity.
But it’s the fault of all those liberals, a tell ya.
Ed Drone
@dmsilev:
Fixed!
Don’t thank me — it’s all part of the service.
Ed
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
This is a great opportunity for Democrats and progressives.
The fact is that we still outnumber the stupid and crazy people, the rapturists and the intelligent designers and the science haters. Let them capture the minority party.
When we show up at the polls this fall, we can send them a clear message: We are not letting you take over the country, sorry.
That’s it, that’s all we have to do, is show up. Let them have their entertaining rallies and talk shows. We still have the numbers to defeat them at the polls.
Dems right now are acting as if the other team only has to trot out its cheerleaders and its marching band, and we will forfeit the game. I think we should field our team and play the game.
kay
@Ed Drone:
It doesn’t sound right to me. They had words and then an altercation with her boyfriend, not her. She admits she jumped in the middle. No one has one statement or indication that it was at all politically motivated.
The census worker crime that turned out to be a suicide didn’t sound right to me either, and I said it at the time.
“Fed” is a specific term in criminal/lunatic circles: it means federal police. No one calls a census worker a “fed”. It was as obviously fake as the backwards “B”.
They’ll just have to wait and see.
geg6
@Sentient Puddle:
That’s just insane. I have no desire to ever go to or use iTunes.
Meh. I found the online user’s manual and am now printing it out. All 200+ pages. This is really stupid. I’ve never gotten a device in my life that didn’t come with a user’s manual.
bemused
@licensed to kill time:
Speaking of doubling down:
Rush said union workers were at the mine, nah, nah, were too. Only thing is Rush had the wrong mine.
Cincinnati Tea Party says Faux News lied. The Faux News staff was working with them on the Hannity appearance. Then Faux told CTP that Hannity couldn’t appear because of a sudden personal matter. CTP isn’t very happy about the lies.
S. cerevisiae
@bemused: At least the physics crackpots don’t get to spout their pet theories on national TV like the climate denial crackpots do.
catclub
@geg6: @S. cerevisiae: #122
Be patient. Not yet may be the operative phrase.
someguy
@ Kay
Indeed it is horrifying. It’s like giving a speeding ticket to armed robber; way less than what they deserve. What kind of deranged moral compass did those protesters have?
bemused
@S. cerevisiae:
Damn liberal media.
dmsilev
@geg6: Sorry for the technobabble. You have to go through iTunes because Apple set things up so that just about everything about the iPhone is managed in iTunes.
Apple has a walkthrough of the process here.
dms
licensed to kill time
@bemused:
You know, I’m always sorry when I pay any attention to what Limbaugh or BORBeckHannity etc have to say. The lies come so thick and fast it makes my head spin. It’s awful for my blood pressure, too. I don’t know how people do it, watch those guys; it must be like having heartburn 24/7 or feeling like Eyjafjallajökull moments before erupting but all the time.
geg6
@dmsilev:
No problem. I’m a luddite when it comes to technology. I know I have to use it, but I refuse to use anything I see no use for, like iTunes. I tend to use the radio or web radio for music. Or, like most people my age (old, very old), I just buy the CD. I don’t even own an iPod and never did. Though I guess I do now since I think it’s in my phone.
I printed out the user’s guide. I’m not good with the online tutorials. I’m one who learns best by reading. In actual print on paper.
Man, I really AM old.
Martin
@kay: 5 bucks says that the boyfriend got mouthy and got his ass kicked. Not that I condone that sort of thing, but I suspect being an asshole was causative and asshole/conservative is merely correlative.
Martin
@geg6:
Yeah, that’s a fairly ugly byproduct that Apple seems to be laying the groundwork to fix.
Remember, this all started with the iPod and getting music on there, so iTunes makes perfect sense. Then the iPods got the contact bits and then movies, and on an on, and the iPhones really just picked up where the iPods left off. iTunes is really the gateway to *all* Apple devices – iPod, iPhone, iPad.
That’ll change, probably relatively soon, but that’s just how things have piled up. And a lot of people get confused by it because it really no longer makes sense.
Ed Drone
@kay:
The point was that the right-whingers would have to wait on the facts before bloviating, but my point is that we liberals tend to do that (though not always) while the Whingers don’t. I don’t even know the details of the incident (I wasn’t interested enough to follow links, some of which my office network might block anyway), but do know that claims that it was politically motivated were, shall we say, “ahead of time?”
So, yes, let’s wait and see. And 10 points deduction for every right-whinger that goes off half-cocked before the facts are known. And an extra 25-point deduction for every one of ’em that keeps up the false complaining once it’s known that this was not a “liberal thug” incident. For that matter, “liberal thug” sounds as odd as “opera hooligan,” you know?
Ed
someguy
Because liberals are all nice people.
A lot of the ones you meet around here… well, it’s the exception that proves the rule.
Lisa K.
Ahhh, the Confederate Family….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypIbTpnuNgg&feature=related
Origuy
@geg6: I googled for “blackberry contacts to iphone”. I found several links; this one looks like it makes sense:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_import_contacts_from_your_Blackberry_to_the_iPhone_3G
It assumes you have something called “Blackberry Desktop Manager” running on Windows. I suppose there would be an equivalent on a Mac.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@JMC in the ATL:
I am very sorry to hear this and I hope things turn around for your loved one. Watching a pet slowly decline is painful and something we all dread, knowing that the end may be near and soon there may only be memories. We recently lost Tommy, an old Maine Coon rescue we took in just over a year ago. We didn’t have him long but we love that cat like he had been with us since day one. Tommy went fast, from tearing up the house one day to being dead the next. I held him as he passed with the wife looking on and it was about as miserably sad an experience as one can have. If there is anything to thank it’s that he didn’t linger and suffer.
Best wishes to Hemlock, yourself and the rest of your family.
Matt McIrvin
@ericblair: There are all kinds of physics kooks. You’ve got your old-skool relativity-deniers (who often tend toward right-wing politics for some inscrutable reason), and the New Age people peddling nonsense about quantum psychic powers (who are leftier), and the creationists claiming the speed of light was infinite in 4004 BC, and the UFO folks, and the people with elaborate plans for perpetual motion machines and antigravity engines. I’m not sure what kind is the most numerous.
And on top of that, the real physicists sometimes get into dismayingly vicious fights, especially the string theorists vs. the non-string theorists in particle physics.