Too much going on to deal with politics (town yard sale, Marine Corps Marching band is in town, etc.). I’ll be back this afternoon.
Open Thread
by John Cole| 23 Comments
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Open Thread
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SiubhanDuinne
Town yard sale: are you buying or selling?
Omnes Omnibus
Don’t you already have a yard?
Pasquinade
TBogg: I just want to quote aimai who, in DeLong’s comments, is slapping McMegan around so badly that McSuederman may be afflicted with a collateral damages concussion:
Worth repeating: “Think of her as a corporatist remora. She knows she’ll never be a shark, but the scraps, even those from other remoras, are just too good to pass up.”
http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2010/09/10/when-im-called-off-i-got-a-sawed-off-squeeze-the-trigger-and-bodies-are-hauled-off/
PaulW
There’s a lot of garage sales going on in my neighborhood. Isn’t that a bit sacrilegious considering what DAY THIS IS ZOMG IT’S 9/11 WEAR A SACKCLOTH AND ASH PPL!
Seriously. This is a sad dark day and I regret my sins. /fervent Unitarian praying
Brendancalling
It’s the weirdest thing. I read yesterday that a court overturned DADT, and no one seems to care, outside of a few blogs like fdl and americablog.
I wonder why?
mai naem
I happened to have CNN on yesterday and they had The Donald on. What a dickhead. The twit who’s declared bankruptcy twice is talking about having cash to buy the Islamic Musk building. It’s terrible according to The Donald. Wahhhhh Donald. The guy said the sellers were stupid. Wahhhh. The real estate market is flat so 25 percent is good profit for this guy. Wahhhh. I wonder if the Donald says the RE market is flat in his MLM crap that he’s selling.
jurassicpork
You guys might want to check out my new digs here. It’s called Give Us This Day Our Daily Dread and my alter ego Mike Flannigan gets things off with a bang with “Afterbirth of a Nation“, a lengthy analysis of post-9/11 America. Hope to see you there.
SiubhanDuinne
@jurassicpork: Thanks. It’s not a BlackBerry-friendly format so I won’t have a chance to check it out today, but have noted the URL and will gladly have a look and read the piece in a couple of days.
Ahasuerus
A Plea For Assistance – I may be relocating to the Northwest US, to the Vancouver, WA area. I know there are a couple of colleges there, that it’s just across the border from Portland (Voodoo Doughnuts!), and that it’s about 3 hours south of Seattle; other than that, not much. I’m looking for information on the local environment, initially whether it’s liberal-friendly (or at least tolerant) and what the housing market looks like. If any Juicers can fill in some of the blanks, I’d appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
Zipperupus
I work next door to the Marine Corps band. Every day they are somewhere else besides 50 feet away practicing is a blessing. Enjoy them. They bust their asses and achieve a very natural looking precision that is, in fact, unbearably complicated.
JerryN
This: The Emerging Strategy, especially the bit at the end about this being an attack election cycle. Mike Lux is the only reason I still bother with Open Left.
arguingwithsignposts
If SiubhanDuinne is around, i believe she was looking for young Lady Smudge.
YellowJournalism
@Ahasuerus: I can’t tell you what the housing market looks like, but I had a cousin who lived there for years until she moved to California. She loved it there. She lived in a newer, more affluent neighborhood, but she loved the city as a whole. When I visited, I always thought it was a nice area, although development of the area tended toward the urban sprawl model the last time I visited a few years ago.
I would say that Southwestern Washington is 50/50 in terms of liberals to conservatives. The smaller towns in surrounding areas are generally more conservative, even tea-party friendly, mostly due to poor economies causing people to cling to whoever wants to cater to their fears and prejudices. (Sorry, just got done reading the opinion pages of my hometown paper, and it made me feel a bit bleak.) Places like Vancouver, Seattle to the north, and Portland to the south are definitely more liberal.
asiangrrlMN
@arguingwithsignposts: Aaaaaaaaaaaah! She’s soooooo puuuuuuuuurty!
Yutsano
@Ahasuerus: We have a semi-regular poster who just relocated there (I’m up north in Seattle but I’m a long time Northwesterner plus I have an aunt who lives there) so a big second on what YellowJournalism said. The housing market tends to follow the trends of the Portland area, so if you can get a pulse on the Portland market it should be a good reflection of the Vancouver market as well. It is sprawlish but eminently more affordable as you go east and north. Hopefully that helps some!
Mnemosyne
@arguingwithsignposts:
Lady Smudge always reminds me of Charlotte. Speaking of whom, here she is diligently helping Keaton with his bath.
Ahasuerus
@YellowJournalism (#13): Thanks for the political picture and the feedback from your cousin. For the housing thing, I’m more interested in what kind of places to avoid: old manufacturing/chemical land (potential toxic waste), problematic wells, bad septic drainage, that kind of thing. The stuff which is more likely to be known by locals.
g-rant
Gov. Schwarzenegger flies over Alaska, can’t see Russia.
Ahasuerus
@Yutsano:
Yes it does. Thank you.
Seattle, eh? I was up there in the late 80’s for a 3-day period of uninterrupted sunshine. Apparently such an event is so rare that the entire population of the city was outside sunning themselves. Interesting place. But what really impressed me was being able to see the peak of Mt. Rainier, some 60 (?) miles away, poking up over the low houses and down the cross streets. On the flight back east we actually flew under the peak, alongside the mountain – absolutely amazing.
Yutsano
@Ahasuerus: Get used to a similar view, although yours will be of Mount Hood to the south. They’re both equally breathtaking. I think you can see Adams from Vancouver as well but I could be thinking of another mountain. And yeah, that six weeks of sun are when Seattleites get a little meschugnah trying to figure out what the hell that big bright light in the sky is. Can’t see it today where I am.
Belvoir
Sort of a petty gripe. I really wish Sullivan would stop trotting out that “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster. I’m sure it symbolizes his pride in British resolve, Churchill’s “Finest Hour” and all that, cheerio pip pip. Which is fine.
Just that the sign has been a meme for 2 or 3 years now, jokingly remixed, sold on t- shirts and coffee mugs and reproductions- it’s a tired clichè, but to Andrew it’s this thing of Deep Significance that he puts up every chance, unironically. It’s basically a bumper sticker.
Also? Don’t tell me what to do! Dumb sign.
Mnemosyne
@Belvoir:
I prefer “Keep Calm and Have A Cupcake” myself.
ImJohnGalt
I just saw “Inside Job” here at the Toronto Film Festival, and I’m surprised everyone inside didn’t rush out, buy every torch and pitchfork in the city, and storm Bay Street (our equivalent to Wall St.). It was devastating in its attempt to direct our anger at the people who are culpable in the financial meltdown.
Nobody escapes here: The banks, the Congress, the ratings agencies, the presidents (Republican AND Democratic, including the Obama Administration), the Fed, and even (something I hadn’t really considered) the academics and economists who are completely in bed with the banks.
It was amazing to watch a lot of the people interviews stammer when asked direct questions about their role, and are not allowed to lie or spout complete bullshit as their response. Some of them get hostile when they realize they’ve been ambushed, especially the current Dean of Harvard University, who comes across very badly.
No matter what your political ideology, I think it will be difficult to walk out of the movie without thinking that the government and the financial lobbyist, when it hasn’t directly contributed to this problem, is at best trying to solve it with a tepid, ineffective response.
When it comes out, take your Republican family members with whom you can’t talk about this stuff to see it. If they can’t at least concede a few of the points the movie makes, they are irredeemable lost to you.