Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Second rate reporter says what?

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

Cole is on a roll !

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Come on, man.

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

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

The revolution will be supervised.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

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

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

No Justins, No Peace

It’s a doggy dog world.

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

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Another Open Thread

Another Open Thread

by | 152 Comments

This post is in: 

Just cracked #2, this time Nobilo. Think I may spend some time on the porch making love to a cigar I picked up in the People’s Republic of Madison (and I will rape it with my mouth like David Letterman would). Please don’t email me about oral cancer, folks, because I know you mean well, but I’m gonna ignore you and at this point we’re just talking about another torpedo in a sinking ship.

I might have enough of a wild hair up my ass that this blog could become CrankyKaplan’s twitter feed. His last tweet had me laughing out loud:

“MAKING A FEW CALLS TO FIND A FAT VEGAN TO COME BLOW ME WHILE I SIT IN MY BACKYARD IN REAL-LOOKING BUSH COSTUME TO KILL THIS FUCKING RACCOON.”

Gonna be a long morning. God damned dogs don’t understand hangover and have to piss at 6 am no matter what.

John +4

Reader Interactions

152Comments

  2. 2.

    Steve

    Maybe everyone else has heard this already, but somehow I missed Robert Gibbs’ latest response to the whole “professional left” controversy.

    Q: Just on another topic, what do you think the consequences should be of the comments that you made about this “professional left”?
    –

    MR. GIBBS: The consequences?
    –

    Q: Yes.
    –

    MR. GIBBS: Do you have anything in mind? (Laughter.)
    –

    Q: No supper.
    –

    Q: One House member suggested resignation, so I’m asking what you think your view is.
    –

    MR. GIBBS: I don’t plan on leaving, so–and there’s no truth to the rumor that I’ve added an inflatable exit to my office. (Laughter.)

    The first rule of comedy is: be funny. That line was good enough that all is surely forgiven.

  6. 6.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Damn I hate that whole “wake up at 5am to pee” thing. I KNOW I can sleep for another hour at least but damn if my bladder doesn’t wake me at 5am. It sucks.

  9. 9.

    wag

    Wanted to post this Talking Heads song on the morning thread, but I was at work and YT is blocked. Kinda how I’m feeling unless the Dems start pulling together and we get our s*** together.

  11. 11.

    eemom

    dude, ya gotta get a fenced yard. It makes dog-life so much easier.

    Or get an invisible fence, which is what we have.

  15. 15.

    arguingwithsignposts

    I’m down. formerly known as the gf has abandoned me. the world is going to shit. there’s another round of kids who don’t know what the fuck they’re doing who are trying to get degrees coming down the pike. Sigh. I’d rather be producing pipe.

  17. 17.

    sfinny

    Gotta admit that snarky Gibbs makes me laugh. I take no offense at his comment as I am not the ‘professional left’ and while I get their pique, the whole thing seems rather ridiculous.

  20. 20.

    MikeJ

    @sfinny: What pique? He said they’d whine for three days no matter what they did. How did they respond? By whining.

    If pique is your permanent condition, it’s no longer pique.

    and
    @cleek: Hey fucker, where the fuck are the fucking clues to your fucking contest, you fuck?

  21. 21.

    Svensker

    You’re doing real good on the curmudgeon thing. And if you decided to swing that way, I think Tim would be ready to help you with the cigar yodeling.

    Gonna try those whites you recommended. I’m not liking the stuff we’ve been drinking.

    +2 (but any more than that, I pass out or thwow up — a total lightweight)

  25. 25.

    JGabriel

    Ah, I love the contrasts here. On the one hand:

    I come home, she lifted her wings
    I guess that this must be the place

    On the other hand:

    MAKING A FEW CALLS TO FIND A FAT VEGAN TO COME BLOW ME …

    Yep, that’s our Ballon Juice.

    .

  26. 26.

    Allison W.

    @Steve:

    that is hella funny.

    seriously, I would love to be a fly on the wall watching Obama, Gibbs and Rahm. They must mock and rip people to shreds.

  28. 28.

    wag

    @cleek:

    “The name of this band is…” by the Heads has to be the greatest live album ever. Far better than “Stop Making Sense.”

    Even better than “Waiting for Columbus”

  30. 30.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    “MAKING A FEW CALLS TO FIND A FAT VEGAN TO COME BLOW ME WHILE I SIT IN MY BACKYARD IN REAL-LOOKING BUSH COSTUME TO KILL THIS FUCKING RACCOON.”

    Maybe I’m just stressed out but this made me laugh so hard my chest hurts.

    I <3 teh Intrawebs!

    [Also2 When the hell will Byrne start to get old AND ugly? He’s starting to piss me off.]

  39. 39.

    Vince CA

    At least I have the decency while I’m piss drunk to not blog. John, get a friend. Friends don’t let friends blog while nineteen sheets to wind.

    FYI, I need a cigar like nothing. Two cigars in three years. You’d think I had a kid or something.

  42. 42.

    sfinny

    @wag: Interesting mashup. Fortunately I don’t have to worry about annoying my neighbors with sound as they are deaf. But my cat was not impressed with the high volume play and headed off for the under the bed position.

  44. 44.

    deaniac83

    Hi, everyone. I have been lurking around Balloon Juice for a while now, since discovering it early this year, so I thought I’d say something on an open thread. Lol.

    Did anyone catch the post on the big orange yesterday about liberal criticism of FDR by the way? I thought it was a brilliantly done essay. It inspired my piece on my blog today about the unique political challenges Obama faces that FDR even didn’t have to: the filibustering of everything, racism coupled with violent rhetoric and the right wing media empire.

  46. 46.

    mr. whipple

    @sfinny:

    Fortunately I don’t have to worry about annoying my neighbors with sound as they are deaf.

    My neighbors aren’t deaf, but I am old. When the cops come about my music I yell “WHAT?” and pretend to fiddle with my hearing aid.

    Cops laugh and go away.

  48. 48.

    beltane

    @deaniac83: Welcome aboard, fellow sellout/shill/corporatist. Too many liberals see FDR’s presidency as 1)Stock market crash 2) A bunch of Dorothea Lange photographs and 3)The Grapes of Wrath and general bad stuff under Hoover 4)FDR elected 5)Happy Days are Here Again 6)Socialist paradise complete with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

  50. 50.

    Geeno

    I haven’t read any of the comments, but …
    MERLOT!!!! Merlots go soooo well with a good cigar. A merlot and a nice Jamaican or Cuban cigar — ooh, to die for.

  52. 52.

    John Cole

    BTW- settled on the magnepan 1.7’s as my next speakers. Just looking for the right amp and subwoofer now. I think I may go back to adcom, since I’m currently using a 20 year old adcom amp, I trust them.

    Anyone?

    Also, too:

    +7

  53. 53.

    MikeJ

    @John Cole: Weird. Just the other day I was perusing my music collection and noticed I’ve got every Yo La Tengo album and no Zeppelin. I don’t dislike them or anything, just one of those things I never got.

    (currently listening to Mazzy Star’s So Tonight That I Might See)

  57. 57.

    t jasper parnell

    I went to the the Sugar Shack distillery in Madison and, it turns out, they base their booze on sugar beets. Odd tasting stuff but with some lime and crushed ice very refreshing and the bottle is aesthetically pleasing. Tomorrow, allegedly, they introduce the rum.
    + some Arabic number greater than 2, which may make me a terrorist. I mean, really, if I was a full scale supporter of Western Civilization in its existential war against whomever I would have written greater than II, but then it occurred to me that if I drank, say, IV prior to supper and then V after supper adding them up would require turning V in to X and subtracting, I think, I, and as I would be tipsy dealing with all the Vs, Xs, and Is would be difficult. Damn Arabic numbers and their Al-Gebra jihadism.

  58. 58.

    sfinny

    When I worked at the record section of a department store in the early eighties, that Houses of the Holy record flew out of the house. We couldn’t keep it in stock no matter what. Hard to believe it has been so long.

  62. 62.

    beltane

    @Geeno: No kidding. I have the CD and I actually took out the insert because I thought my kids would freak out. It was very John Ashcroft of me.

  65. 65.

    eemom

    @deaniac83:

    somebody linked to that a couple of threads ago. Maybe even two somebodies three threads ago.

    Damn, I love these screw off caps.

  66. 66.

    deaniac83

    @beltane:

    Hahaha, that’s an awesome comment. And thanks for the welcome!

    FDR certainly deserves his place in history. The problem is that too many people ostensibly on the “left” seem to never even consider the obstacles Obama is facing, or to give him any credit for anything.

  73. 73.

    Violet

    @Amok92:
    The article from the link in your post said he didn’t have health insurance when he was diagnosed but he’d established Canadian residency, so he should have been able to get their national health insurance at that point.

  74. 74.

    suzanne

    @MikeJ: That’s a fabulous album.

    Between my little tenant kickboxing until 2 in the morning, getting up to piss twice, then getting up at 6:30 to take the munchkin to school, I feel like shit, well-hammered. I don’t know how I’m gonna survive the next twenty weeks.

    In good news, my six-year-old said tonight that she liked “All Along The Watchtower”. I’m doing my job.

  75. 75.

    Geeno

    @deaniac83: Oh, deaniac83, since noone else has said it, allow me to give you your BJ christening …
    FUCK YOU!

    you may continue with your local programming ….

  77. 77.

    Yutsano

    @eemom: If he wasn’t a citizen or a permanent resident is the only scenario I can think of. And even then they will treat you. So either the comment is ironic or there’s an unknown big hole in Canadian health care we’re unaware of.

    And my house smells like jasmine rice right now. Yes I’m bragging.

  78. 78.

    Violet

    @deaniac83:
    I saw the headline at GOS, but didn’t read it. Too busy yesterday. Plus there were so many people draped on fainting couches from Gibbs’ comments that the place looked like preschool at nap time. Gave it a miss.

  83. 83.

    thalarctos

    @Litlebritdifrnt: I regularly offer mr. thalarctos lots of money if he’ll just get up and pee for me. So far, he hasn’t done it–I must not have found his price yet.

    Since this is an open thread, I’ll ask if anyone here knows how to arrange to visit Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. As a massage therapist, I would like to learn what they are doing for returning wounded veterans. And, of course, as a healthcare professional, I would stay out of the way of people working, and would respect the patients’ privacy.

    I’ve filled out Web forms at EUCOM and at my senators’ (Murray and Cantwell) web sites without so much as a return form email. If anyone has any better, more direct ideas about channels, I’d love to hear them.

  86. 86.

    roshan

    A short (24 mins, youtube) investigative report done by Al Jazeera on the pharmaceutical industry in the US.

    Some highlights: Doctors all over US accepting payoffs from Big Pharma to the tune of $200 million/yr to promote drugs to patients. An adult anti-depressant drug prescribed to male kids (10-15 yr) has the side effect of kids growing ‘boobs’.
    When a blockbuster drug is shown to have harmful side effects like heart attack, a fine of $2 billion seems to be a small price to pay on the total sales of $180 billion over the time the drug has been in the market.

  88. 88.

    deaniac83

    @Violet:

    I have been watching Ed Schultz just fall all over himself about Gibbs. And of course the four corners of the Interwebs. Suddenly, “ZOMG Gibbs is hurting Democratic unity!” As if the professional left wasn’t already doing a great job of that.

  89. 89.

    Violet

    @deaniac83:
    I don’t understand why the so-called “professional left” (whoever that’s supposed to be) doesn’t just roll their eyes at comments like that and continue to hammer home substantive criticisms. Obama asked people to hold him accountable. He didn’t suggest they whine and roll around on the floor like toddlers who didn’t get their way. It’s a huge waste of energy and direction and doesn’t accomplish much but to get everyone riled up.

    I don’t watch Ed Schultz unless it’s by accident. The few times I’ve seen him, he has seemed to be a lot more interested in his ego and career than anything else. At least that’s how he came across to me.

    Welcome, btw. I forgot to say that earlier.

  91. 91.

    Norwegian Shooter

    Head(s) lover here as well. Naive Melody is one of my favorite tunes, but unfortunately it is a rare one that the studio version is better than live. [ googling studio version video – for over five minutes ! – I can’t find it!]

    I swear I linked to it before! Help!

    Did anybody else notice that multiple ! marks are edited out? I mean, sure they are abused, but sometimes they are warranted! ! !

  93. 93.

    wobbly

    You think the dogs are bad?

    Wait until you have children!

    You think you are too smart for that???

    You are not! It’s written all over your posts.

    You are a husband and father just waiting to happen. Some female will run into you and offer to straighten up your miserable life, put the dogs in their proper place, and cook.

    You will totally fall for her.

    I’ve seen it many a time.

    I’ve done it a couple of times.

    Second was the charm.

  95. 95.

    deaniac83

    @Violet:
    Thank you. And absolutely – the people constantly whining about Gibbs’ comments are actually proving his point. There are professional whiners on the left (like, oh I dunno, Ed Schultz, David Sirota, Glenn Greenwald, Jane Hamsher, Adam Green) who want to dish it out but can’t take it. Yesterday, Adam Green was on Ed’s show saying this, and I quote:

    Criticizing critics is not a good idea.

    I rest my case.

  97. 97.

    Geeno

    @deaniac83: Dude, this site lives to criticize the critics that criticize the critics. God forbid we ever take a non-critical stand on any issue.
    Oh – and I noticed that my “FUCK YOU” was not acknowledged, so fuck you for that, too. you have to use those kind of words here… you can’t just come in and be all polite and stuff

  98. 98.

    Kerry Reid

    @deaniac83:

    I’ve been reposting that diary ever since I saw it at Booman’s place. Reminds me as well of another Talking Heads lyric: “Same as it ever was/same as it ever was.”

    Except I’d argue that Obama is in a tougher position than FDR. Not only is he a black man, rather than a scion of one of America’s oldest families, but he is also trying to govern in an era with a much more complex global economy, environmental disasters that FDR was largely spared, and with the knowledge that several countries (including Pakistan) have nuclear weapons that could blow the whole planet to hell.

    But never mind all that — getting the weak version of the public option that the House passed was really the thing that would have proved his leftie cred.

  100. 100.

    deaniac83

    @Kerry Reid:
    I really believe that when all is said and done, history will judge Obama’s presidency to be a transformationally progressive one – one inline with those of FDR and LBJ.

    I agree with you that the challenges of today are much more complex than any progressive president has ever faced in the past. And Obama is doing a masterful job of handling them. But there are professional detractors who will be satisfied with absolutely nothing he does.

  101. 101.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Yutsano: Sure seems like you found something.

    @deaniac83: Hiya. Welcome. We are a loud, rude, fractious bunch, but we also have some of the most generous and warm-hearted people on the webz, especially late at night.

    I just got back from a Saints game. Despite the rain delay and the stupid idiots being very bad examples for their kids, it was a blast–and we won.

  102. 102.

    eemom

    You may say to yourself: “This is not my beautiful car. This is not my beautiful wife.”

    You may say to yourself: “My GOD. What have I DONE?”

    Love that line. It seems to sum up, like, everything.

  103. 103.

    JGabriel

    @asiangrrlMN:

    We are a loud, rude, fractious bunch, but we also have some of the most generous and warm-hearted people on the webz …

    No, we don’t. Don’t believe that shit, deaniac83. We’re all assholes.

    (asiangrrl, shhh. Stop giving our fucking secrets away.)

    .

  104. 104.

    asiangrrlMN

    @JGabriel: Oh, sorry. Forgot that what happens on BJ stays on BJ. Fortunately, it’s the late-night crew so not many people around!

    P.S. Anyone know when the showers are supposed to be?

  107. 107.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: I occasionally am good at making chicken salad out of chicken shit. Plus I sign my lease on Monday so I gots that going for me as well. Hell I may even take in a Seachickens game just to piss off my little brother. Hehehe, yes I iz that evul.

  110. 110.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: Oh if I went to a game without him? There would indeed be much gnashing of teef. He’s an even bigger Seachicken nut than I am. It would be worth it don’t get me wrong, but the kvetching could be heard in Afghanistan.

  111. 111.

    twiffer

    john, cigars are not bad. but, i will take a momemt to advocate coming over to the briar side. you have a plethora of tasty tobacco blends to choose from, as well as a beautiful piece of wood to smoke them in. pipe, book and beverage of choice…there is little more relaxing in life.

    not to mention that all those tax increases on cigarettes and cigars did not apply to pipe tobacco. unless you get hooked on collecting high-end briar (like i have), it’s rather cheap to smoke a pipe.

  113. 113.

    Yutsano

    @Steeplejack: And cowbell. You forgot the cowbell. And here I thought I knew you…

    Incidentally you may not be alone in needing intervention. I’ve been listening to songs from cartoons in French for the past few days. Methinks I may be going full-on sociaIist!

  114. 114.

    Something Fabulous

    Good evening all! So funny to me that JC chose this song, with all the Madison references of late. In my brief and kind of unhappy time there a million and seven years ago, Stop Making Sense used to be the midnight movie at one of theaters there, replacing Rocky Horror. So this album always makes me think of Madison; one of the bright spots.

    Anyone know if they still do that? So much fun.

  118. 118.

    Xenos

    Where did CrankyKaplan come from? It is like Hunter S. Thompson meets Ignatius J. Reilly with a lobotomy. It is either hilarious or very scary.

  124. 124.

    Yutsano

    @Tattoosydney: As long as it’s not related to THAT. You know, THAT. You know what I mean. And I seriously will catch the next plane from LAX just to curse you out in person. I’ll do it. I’m unemployed right now after all, so I got the time.

  125. 125.

    Something Fabulous

    @twiffer: Yikes! Good morning, then! I’m just hoping I don’t have more insomnia and end up still awake at 3am again (LA here– just past midnight)…

  133. 133.

    Steeplejack

    @TooManyJens:

    I can sort of see where Ebert is coming from. E-readers threaten to cut us off from those books-as-objects that have deep personal significance for us. I would always want to have a physical copy of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat or Borges’s Ficciones somewhere around me.

    Where I see an e-reader being useful is for (a) current events and pop culture ephemera and (b) less than immortal fiction–stuff like Stieg Larsson and Lee Child that I really want to read but don’t need to make sure that it will be on my (physical) bookshelf 20 years from now.

  134. 134.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Steeplejack: I didn’t read the actual article by Ebert, but I am not a fan of e-books. I like the real thing in my hand, and I am loathe to give up the actual heft of a book–not to mention the sentimental associations I have with reading. So, get off my lawn, too, I guess.

    However, I disagree with Ebert that video games cannot be art.

  136. 136.

    Something Fabulous

    @asiangrrlMN: No particular time, really– project is done! Yay!! Just don’t want to get into that time frame, which is so natural for me. It’s just too hard to have the rest of life meet up with that schedule– which it sounds like you know!

  139. 139.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    No champers, just riding the natural anti-malarial high of quinine water leavened with Tanqueray gin. Having a bit of premature TGIF syndrome, I guess.

    Will investigate moving to the music thread, but I’m lying face down in this shag carpeting, you see, and it’s really heavy . . . Gzork, snzzap!, zzz . . .

  143. 143.

    Michael

    @deaniac83:

    Love your material, and enjoyed interacting with you. I flamed out on the GOS sometime last year after my umpteenth go around over Jane Hamsher, slinkerwink and nyceve.

  144. 144.

    Michael

    Hey, anybody want to tell me what is up with authoritarian fetishizing over the whole “Commander in Chief” bit? It is freaking bizarre to watch the tumescence over the phrase.

    http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/12/bushes.welcome.troops/

    A spokesman for Bush, David Sherzer, said the couple was “honored” to take part in the welcome. “President Bush often says that he doesn’t miss much about being the President, but he does miss being the Commander in Chief of an incredible group of men and women”, he said.
    …
    “It was a remarkable, incredible feeling for them, seeing the former commander in chief taking time to greet them,” McAfee said.
    …
    Bush handed each of the service members his commander-in-chief coin and posed for pictures for everyone. Photos from the event showed the surprise on the faces of many of the troops.

  146. 146.

    JGabriel

    @Michael: That’s not too bad. It’s a military story about returning troops. Bush really was their commander-in-chief, as opposed to all those civilian keyboard commandos on the winger blogs.

    .

  149. 149.

    Steve M.

    The arrangement took it in a different direction, and the lyrics are too weird, but I always thought this song was written to sound like an Al Green song. Try to imagine it with Al’s band and Al’s octave leaps.

  151. 151.

    The Golux

    @cleek:

    By the way, that’s not Adrian Belew – it’s Alex Weir.

    So sayeth IMDB – the clip is from Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense.

    Adrian Belew has sported a diverse number of looks over the years, but that isn’t one of them.

Comments are closed.