Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

This blog will pay for itself.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

You are here: Home / Somebody spikes the drink, and a single becomes a pair

Somebody spikes the drink, and a single becomes a pair

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I don’t have the same reaction to Orszag-gate that John does, I’m more of the opinion that Orszag wants to show he’s of no party or clique, because he knows the ladies — or at least the Villagers — love that maverick loner stuff. But having passed up that opportunity to complain, I’d like to complain about two other things instead:

1. Can everyone stop exalting/contemplating suicide over the Gallup generic preference poll? If not, could we replace the election with a BCS-style system where seats are awarded according to some kind of computer average of the various generic preference polls?

2. It’s probably also time to stop the “these crazy google auto-completes prove that the world has gone mad” stuff. A lot of them are just tag lines from movies or amusing hoaxes that prove nothing.

Reader Interactions

51Comments

  1. 1.

    Splitting Image

    I have a feeling that the Republicans are going to regret establishing themselves as the favourites going into Election Day. They’re going to end up having to explain afterward why they didn’t do as well as they expected.

    And they aren’t going to do as well as they’re expecting.

  2. 2.

    Bruce (formerly Steve S.)

    Can everyone stop exalting/contemplating suicide over the Gallup generic preference poll?

    Okay. What do you want me to contemplate suicide over instead?

  5. 5.

    El Tiburon

    Let’s all take a moment to put it ALL ON THE RECORD:

    I don’t think the elections will be as bad as predicted.

    I think the Dems maintain control of both the House and Senate.

    I also predict the Republicans will continue to be gigantic pricks and assholes and the Democrats a bunch of useless and worthless dingleberries.

  7. 7.

    MikeJ

    @El Tiburon: No. The election will be bad. Disastrous for the dems. And if the GOP doesn’t sweep the house, senate, white house, supreme court, city council and PTA, they are complete and utter failures who have been rejected by the voters.

    BTW, you might want to null route jetztvorun.net. The malware that has been injected into this site’s javascript points there.

  9. 9.

    Stillwater

    I’m more of the opinion that Orszag wants to show he’s of no party or clique, because he knows the ladies—or at least the Villagers—love that maverick loner stuff.

    I was thinking he was angling for a Koch Bros ink tank position, but … same difference.

    Adding: Now all the wp buttons have disappeared.

  12. 12.

    Zifnab

    @El Tiburon:

    I also predict the Republicans will continue to be gigantic pricks and assholes and the Democrats a bunch of useless and worthless dingleberries.

    I think after November we’re going to have a few less dingleberries – what with the Lincoln and Bayh losing their seats alongside a handful of Blue Dogs – and a few more fresh faces not really interested in sitting around waiting for roll call votes to break a filibuster.

    If nothing else, a lack of 60 votes will mandate that Democrats get more creative in dealing with their obstructionist colleagues.

    That said, if either House flips entirely into Republican hands, it’s going to be a shit storm of epic proportions. If we lose the House, the Senate will barely matter.

  13. 13.

    NotOnScript

    It’s probably also time to stop the “these crazy google auto-completes prove that the world has gone mad” stuff

    Hear, hear. Let’s all take a deep breath and turn our lives over to the essential teachings of Ronald McDonald.

  15. 15.

    kindness

    But the Google auto-completes over at failblog.org are so funny! I go over an laugh at least once a week.

  17. 17.

    Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

    I’ve been waiting all day (taps toes) for an Open Thread, but noooooo.

    So I’ll just leave my wishes for a good and sweet year, shana tova u’metooka, right here!

    Happy holiday, to those who celebrate Rosh HaShana (and to those who don’t! What the heck!), and if anyone here is looking forward to Eid, Eid Kareem to you!

    See you all next week!

  19. 19.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I think Orszag and Gallup are more meta-media stories than about the things themselves. I know Matt Yglesias and Josh Marshall both did We’re DOOOOOOOMED posts about the 10 point gallup, and I haven’t seen either one comment on the new poll. Same holds true, I’m willing to bet, for ‘neutral’ political sites and Cable TeeVee.

  20. 20.

    Linda Featheringill

    @El Tiburon:

    I agree. I think the Republicans are going to have a tougher fight than they have been predicting. The Dems will maintain control, although possibly with smaller margins. The Repugs will as irritating as they are.

    But why should insult dingleberries? My pet dingleberry is hurt and offended.

  21. 21.

    DougJ

    @freelancer:

    This is central to my point. They *are* baffling and hilarious. They *aren’t* proof of rampant anti-Semitism, a coming era of eco-terrorism, Lee Siegel’s continued popularity, etc.

  22. 22.

    BombIranForChrist

    Orzag’s column just seems like an act of anger and / or revenge. He is kneecapping Obama, and I guess the reason tilts more towards piss-ant than principled.

  24. 24.

    Brachiator

    @El Tiburon:

    I don’t think the elections will be as bad as predicted.

    Could be. But nobody knows. For some reason, we’ve all become so impatient that we insist not just on speculating about upcoming events, but hotly arguing about these phantasms as though they represent something real. It also distracts us from doing the ground work, making political contributions, etc., that might actually affect voting results.

    I think the Dems maintain control of both the House and Senate. I also predict the Republicans will continue to be gigantic pricks and assholes and the Democrats a bunch of useless and worthless dingleberries.

    No fair. Too easy. And besides, the GOP formally wrote their worthlessness into their party platform years ago.

  28. 28.

    Mark S.

    @dmsilev:

    Fortunately, my career didn’t jump the shark after “jump the shark.” When “Happy Days” ended, I went directly to the ABC Paramount hit show “Webster” and, after that, wrote and produced, among others, “It’s Your Move,” “He’s the Mayor, “The New Leave It to Beaver” and “Family Matters.” In 1987, Brian Levant and I created the action comedy “My Secret Identity,” which won an International Emmy.

    I don’t remember how long Webster was on and Family Matters seemed to be on for about three decades, but how long were these other shows on? It works best if you imagine Troy McClure saying “You may remember me from such hit shows as “It’s Your Move” and “He’s the Mayor.”

  30. 30.

    El Tiburon

    OFF TOPIC:

    For the Greenwald Haters: an error admitted after engaging with his readers:

    “UPDATE: As I noted yesterday, one of the benefits of an engaged, vibrant readership is that no error remains undetected for very long, and today demonstrates that. As numerous commenters and emailers were quick to note (though I did not know this), Time Warner Inc. spun off and thus no longer owns Time Warner Cable, which means that Time Magazine is no longer part of the same corporate entity as Time Warner Cable, the company working against net neutrality. From what I understand, owners of content such as Time Warner’s entertainment properties are also opposed to net neutrality (see this August, 2010 New York Times article quoting Barry Diller to that effect), but since I don’t have specific evidence of Time Warner itself (as opposed to Time Warner Cable) working against net neutrality, the conflict point I raised about Time Magazine in Item 1 is far less compelling, if it’s valid at all.”
    http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/08/today/index.html

  31. 31.

    MikeJ

    @Corner Stone: It’s because there’s malicious javascript trying to load a binary virus that is 96768 bytes long from a web server registered in the netherlands and hosted in spain.

    ETA: and of course the admin address for the owner is at yandex.ru, but I’d guess that’s a throwaway.

  34. 34.

    licensed to kill time

    The site seems to load the new comments (slowly!) and then keeps trying to complete loading forever. I have been hitting the stop loading button once the new comments show up. Of course, all the comment box buttons have now disappeared and the top of the page still looks fuxxored.

  37. 37.

    MikeJ

    Binary would be one bit.

    However, what I used shorthand to express was that there is an executable file at the other end of the javascript here, and I would guess that you won’t like it if it is allowed to run on your computer.

  38. 38.

    Sly

    @Corner Stone:
    Not binary in terms of zeros and ones. Binary in terms of the number of parts. It’s basically a virus that’s been split in half. One half gets uploaded somewhere, and it basically sits around until it gets the other piece.

    It’s like that bomb in Die Hard 3. The one with the two liquids that are harmless on their own, but the mixture is explosive.

  39. 39.

    kindness

    Could you redirect the virus to RedState?

    How about the NRCC? OK, well if nothing else, how about Fox news?

  40. 40.

    Corner Stone

    You people are funny. That was too easy.

    On other topics, the D candidate for the AZ CD where Ben Quayle is running is about the worst campaigner I have seen. Chris Matthews gave him a couple red meat openings and he flubbed.

  41. 41.

    John Bird

    Yeah, I don’t get the fascination with general preference polls.

    I expect people who aren’t interested in politics to worry about them, because the news loves them, because they’re easy numbers to cite without forcing journalists and readers to do a lot of “research” and “thinking”.

    But if you’re online, fretting on a blog about Democrats, you already know how far those polls are from how our government gets elected, and you might even know how uneven those polls have been at predicting win/loss for seats.

    That sort of poll has more to do with how individual elections will go in November than a report about the weather on Jupiter, but not much more, really.

  43. 43.

    J sub D

    Can everyone stop exalting/contemplating suicide over the Gallup generic preference poll?

    When polled, lie like a politician. When enough people start doing that, polls will become worthless and news organizations and campaigns will stop wasting money on them.

  44. 44.

    Linda Featheringill

    @Corner Stone:

    I’ve been to the web sites of a 2-3 Democrat candidates in Arizona and they don’t seem to be professionally done, they aren’t very user friendly, they are boring and uninformative.

    I wondered if the Democrats in Az are serious?

  45. 45.

    Cain

    @Linda Featheringill:

    I agree. I think the Republicans are going to have a tougher fight than they have been predicting. The Dems will maintain control, although possibly with smaller margins. The Repugs will as irritating as they are.

    It is going to be a tough fight because we’re going to amek it one. I just realized that I’m goign to be in India when all this stuff is going down.. that too in Nepal away from the internet.. aiaeeeeeeee!!!

    cain

  46. 46.

    suzanne

    @Linda Featheringill:

    I wondered if the Democrats in Az are serious?

    ***sigh*** I know. A lot of them are really bad. Most of the campaigns don’t have anyone who knows the first thing about graphics or the web, and the sites, signage, mailers, etc. all look really bad. Yesterday when I was at Mitchell’s office, his staffers were printing postcards on a crappy little HP printer that kept breaking, and the cards looked like ass. I have since offered my services to a couple of the campaigns. They’re just all hurting for money out here so badly. It’s depressing.

  48. 48.

    WaterGirl

    @suzanne: I haven’t seen anything yet today. Last I saw was a post from soonergrunt on monday night saying he was being admitted on tuesday for the surgery today. In that post he said we shouldn’t take no news as bad news because apparently his wife is not a big internet user, or something like that. I’m still hoping we hear some news, in spite of that.

  49. 49.

    Corner Stone

    @Linda Featheringill: He was extra bad on MSNBC. Someone should have told him who his audience was going to be, use a little attack dog in him.
    Chris Matthews actually set Quayle up as the pathetic basement dwelling joke next door and this guy just traipsed past the opening.

  50. 50.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Isn’t it about time for jeffreyw to post a beautifully-staged photo of dingleberry cobbler or something?

    Mmmmm . . .

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