Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

People are weird.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

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Reader Interactions

69Comments

  1. 1.

    slag

    I haven’t pissed people off by making of the Snooze Hour in a while

    Maybe not. But you have probably pissed people off by making of the incomplete sentences.

  2. 2.

    DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.

    @slag:

    Off to read Matt Yglesias for a while to make myself feel better about my proofing skills.

  5. 5.

    Politically Lost

    Instant classic:

    Jim Lehrer: “This is an iPhone!”

    My technologically challenged grandmother just twitched in her grave.

  6. 6.

    beltane

    Gwen Ifill has a Howard Dean bumpersticker on her bulletin board. I hope this does not mean a visit from James O’Keefe is in the works.

  10. 10.

    garbo

    Remember the Hot Potato toy that you didn’t want to be holding when it “buzzed”? I’m getting that vibe from these folks holding the iPhone.

  11. 11.

    Captain Goto

    OT, but relevant to us Pennsylvania peeps:

    Pennsylvania’s top environmental regulator says the state will sue a Houston-based drilling company unless it agrees to pay nearly $12 million to extend a public water line to at least 18 residents whose water wells have been contaminated with methane gas.
    ….
    Environmental Secretary John Hanger accused Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. on Thursday of reneging on its promises to the residents of Dimock, a small town in Susquehanna County, where tainted wells have raised concerns nationwide about the environmental and health consequences of gas drilling.
    …
    The company vigorously denies responsibility for the pollution. It took out a newspaper ad and released a 29-page rebuttal document this week in which Cabot’s chief executive officer, Dan Dinges, lambasted Hanger and his agency for “political pandering” and abuse of authority.
    …
    Hanger quoted extensively from two separate consent agreements, from November 2009 and April 2010, in which Cabot admitted polluting Dimock’s water supplies and then failed to fix the gas wells in a timely fashion. Cabot also agreed in the consent orders that it “shall not challenge the accuracy or validity of these findings” – a promise, Hanger noted, that it has not kept.

    Considering that I have been told that the gas drilling business is full of right-wingers, why am I not surprised that they’re trying to bully and bullshit their way out of this??

  14. 14.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    I’d love to see the outtakes on that promo.

    Cut!

    You got it upside down Jim.

    Cut!

    Now it’s backwards Jim.

    Cut!

    It’s “app” Jim, not “apple”. Apple is the manufacturer.

  16. 16.

    JR

    Now that his kids are grown, my father’s sole remaining goal in life seems to be to get invited to appear on the News Hour.

  18. 18.

    Brachiator

    Listening to the News Hour on an iPhone while driving is more hazardous than texting. Drowsing ensues in a matter of minutes.

  19. 19.

    Zifnab

    I haven’t pissed people off by making fun of the Snooze Hour in a while

    Hey! I have that app. :-p

    Haters gonna hate.

  21. 21.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Crockpot:

    It’s as if someone airbrushed out the highlights – like they used to do with the photos of the deceased in old time newspaper days.

  22. 22.

    DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio

    There are no words in the English language to express the amount of lameness in that spot. Or for that matter in the SnoozeHour.

    But these people have been embarrassing themselves for years, so I doubt that this hurts them much.

  24. 24.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    That video was the equivalent of seeing a picture of your parents modeling toys on a website that sells B*SM apparel.

  26. 26.

    JPL

    Gwen Ifil and I share the same computer/desktop background. I chose it because i can picture the teletubbies coming over the hill. Maybe she imagined something else.

  27. 27.

    Citizen Alan

    Is that MacNeil or Lehrer? I can never remember. Or possibly it’s Tim Lahaye? Or maybe the Crypt Keeper? They’re all starting to look the same to me.

  28. 28.

    middlewest

    Mark Shields frozen in place, looking at the wrong camera is the funniest moment of tv I’ve seen all week.

  29. 29.

    Redshift

    @Dennis SGMM: That’s actually literally true — with the switch to HD, pretty much all TV makeup is now done with an airbrush, because anything less leaves visible traces. (At least according to my friends who are professional TV techs.)

  30. 30.

    Nom de Plume

    @Just Some Fuckhead: It’s “app” Jim, not “apple”. Apple is the manufacturer.

    Makes me feel just slightly better that a few months ago I marched into a cellphone store and announced, “I’d like to buy an Android”.

    I’ll give the kid who waited on me some credit, he didn’t laugh in my face.

  31. 31.

    joe from Lowell

    C’mon, this is unfair. They’re not old and out of touch; they interviewed Sting.

    The kids love Sting.

  32. 32.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    @Nom de Plume:

    Actually that makes sense, since there are only a bazillion different kinds of Android phones it seems, and most people who don’t spend every day browsing tech blogs and such probably don’t know more about it other than “a popular alternative to an iPhone.” I mean, people talk about Android tablets all the time in a generic sense without referring to specific manufacturers.

    EDIT: I think the introduction of Android tablets has been one colossal fail after another, but assuming they were widely available, you wouldn’t raise any eyebrows (I think?) if you walked into a store and said you wanted an Android tablet.

  33. 33.

    Nom de Plume

    @Amanda in the South Bay: Well, the guy’s response to me was, “Android is an operating system, sir. There are many phones that use it. Did you have a particular phone in mind?”, which I thought was a reasonable enough answer. Either way, it distinctly felt like an Andy Rooney moment.

  34. 34.

    JPL

    My favorite NewsHour occurred a few years ago when they tried to explain the hype over the Super Bowl. Sample question what is a super bowl and it went downhill from there.

  36. 36.

    Seanly

    The only way that could’ve had more win would be if an alien burst out of David Brooks’ chest right at the end. Why was Mario Van Peeble sitting next to him?

  37. 37.

    Cat Lady

    Ray Suarez is pretty smooth. He’s the only one who looks like he actually has his own and not the prop. Mark Shields looks like it’s burning his hand.

  38. 38.

    JPL

    OT..If there are any other folks from the Atlanta area, what do you think about homeland security using radiation devices, x-ray devices and bomb sniffing dogs to check all the trucks traveling on Interstate 20 Tuesday and again today. It’s nice to see our tax money working but it’s a tad unsettling. Any comments?

  40. 40.

    stuckinred

    @JPL: Boortz was on that this afternoon with Jamie Dupree. Sounds like a good idea to me. (I’m in Athens so I may not have as big a stake as others).

  41. 41.

    Gozer

    “This is an iPhone and you can get one at your local Atlantic Telephone and Telegraph establishment.”

  42. 42.

    Martin

    @Amanda in the South Bay: I think Android in general is shaping up to be one colossal failure. Sure, there will be plenty of phones out there running it, but with each new handset it seems more and more that it’s just a platform for the carriers to assrape consumers. It’s started off well for consumers, but more and more the carriers are figuring out how to reclaim their territory, with Verizon as owners of the Droid brand leading the way.

    I know people dislike Apple’s approach, but their whole goal has been to break the back of the carriers by getting them out of your phone, and they’ve been pretty successful at that. The handset makers aren’t really making money off of Android, nor is Google, especially as they strip Google’s default stuff off and replace it with MS, etc. with the money coming back to the carrier. Too many phones offered too quickly, with different profiles, and no economy of scale building up. It’s going to end up this unprofitable soup of devices just like you see now with Windows PCs.

  43. 43.

    JPL

    @stuckinred: Well depends on what way the winds blow. I figure that most GA’s will head north and I plan on heading west if there’s a problem. What did Boortz say?

  45. 45.

    stuckinred

    @JPL: They were just talking about it, you know that Dupree is in DC and apparently they use this stuff constantly there. I googled it and there is some hysteria about the use of the xray machines and health implications.

  47. 47.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    @Martin:

    My beef is more with Android tablets, which seem to fail in a number of ways:

    1.The devices introduced so far have been craptastic-either too expensive, too cheap, resistive screens, require a contract (i.e. no wifi only), etc.

    2. No access to full Android app store for non-smartphones (I think??)

    3. I’m being serious when I say it seems like every device introduced doesn’t have the latest version of Android. Cue fanboys/girls “But (insert cute name) version of Android will be out soon!”

    4. Just from wasting my time browsing tech blogs, it seems like some good stuff will be introduced early in 2011, but way to miss out on the holiday shopping season.

    I’m not really into droid phones, mostly cause smartphones are a wee bit outside of my price range for now, but I’m getting some Gi Bill backpay soon, and I’ve been tempted to get a new Touch or Pad, and there’s no way in heck I’d buy any Android tablet.

  50. 50.

    burnspbesq

    As the parent of a gay kid who will be going off to college in two years, this story makes me volcanically angry.

    http://my.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20100930/5cebcc49-9b1b-4404-8d19-f1c9bc31c1e8

    The dead kid is from my high school, which doesn’t make matters any better. I grew up in one of those towns where, cliches aside, it really does feel like everyone is family.

    Those two little fucks had better be prosecuted, and if they are convicted, they’d better get the maximum sentence possible.

    Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck.

  52. 52.

    burnspbesq

    @Gozer:

    “This is an iPhone and you can get one at your local Atlantic American Telephone and Telegraph establishment.”

    Dial 611 for repair service.

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    @Martin:
    I don’t know. The carriers can pre-load stuff on the phone, but you can still install your own choice of apps. Even better, the Android Marketplace is controlled by Google, which isn’t in bed with one carrier. That puts a pretty sharp limit on the control the carriers have over the handsets. Since most handsets will even let you install non-Marketplace apps, even Google doesn’t have that much control over the thing.

    I also think the worry about handset fragmentation is a bit overblown. There are a lot of different models, but a lot of that is that one set of hardware will get loaded with slightly different software and a different name for each carrier. Even the different makers are using very similar hardware.

  56. 56.

    Batocchio

    The News Hour crew may be old, but just think – when it comes to average age, they still beat the 60 Minutes team by at least a decade.

    And seriously, while I wish it did better in challenging bullshitters, it’s one of the few outlets that actually does detailed, in-depth reporting. I’ll take the News Hour over any of the broadcast network news shows any day.

  57. 57.

    Keith G

    Hey. The News Hour does a good job. There are things I wish they did better, but I value what they do and I value the effort that goes into their product.

    Thirty years of watching them (and their predecessors) has definitely enriched my life.

  59. 59.

    burnspbesq

    If I were anywhere other than Southern California, I would bet money on a massive thunderstorm starting up in the next 30 minutes. You can smell it. Nasty black clouds rolling in from the northeast.

    They hardly ever actually happen here, unfortunately. I loves me some thunder and lightning, even if it does freak out the dogs and cats.

  60. 60.

    Linda Featheringill

    @burnspbesq:

    Best wishes for your child.

    Those two jackasses that contributed to the young man’s death probably did not think that he might die.

    But they knew they were trying to humiliate him, to hurt him, to damage him.

    Exactly what gave them the right to do that?

  61. 61.

    Keith G

    @burnspbesq: The story sucks. I work in a gay friendly environment where today a supervisor tried to make some “witty” quip about this. A co-worker and myself (both gay) turned on him instantly. He slunked away.

    I was encouraged to see Katie Couric cover this thoughtfully and convey a sense dignity and importance to this story.

  62. 62.

    Martin

    @Roger Moore: There’s more than one app store. Verizon is building a V Cast Android app store to push ahead of the Google one. Amazon is building one as well. And these stores aren’t well managed. Quite a few Android apps are sending private data out without user knowledge. Those kinds of things are usually checked for during Apple’s app review.

    Choice is a good thing, but choice adds complexity, and complexity is cancer to many consumers. But ultimately, its going to come down to the ability of the platform to sustain itself. In the first half of the year, Apple sold 17M handsets. Nokia, LG, and Samsung sold 400M. Apple turned more profit off of their 17M than the other 3 on their 400M. Now, the iPhone isn’t notably more expensive than competing smartphones, but Apple has a lot more opportunity to invest in the platform without having to resort to crapware and that sort of thing. That advantage is what built the iPad, and why the other companies are having so much trouble really pushing their platforms into new areas. I just don’t see how the economics are going to work for the Android market unless they either learn how to get economy of scale off of their hardware and software or settle further into ways to screw customers in order to squeeze extra revenue.

  63. 63.

    mclaren

    Nobody but ER physicians and nuclear strategists and emergency first responders needs a cellphone. Most people don’t need a car. Nobody needs a giant screen HDTV. Nobody needs a blu-ray disc player. Nobody needs a home media server. Most people don’t need laptops or netbooks or dishwashers, and if you need an air conditioner it’s a sign that humans should’nt be living there because it’s too hot and too dry. Nobody needs scented floral air freshener plug-ins or hand sanitizers.

    American civilization is now built on manufacturing useless superfluous fragile expensive crap that nobody actually needs.

  64. 64.

    Corner Stone

    @mclaren: Umm, then maybe you should get the fuck off the intertubes. Because nobody “needs” them either.
    You’ve really hit the trough amigo.

    You’ve made a disconnect from what is and what should be.

  67. 67.

    bago

    Nobody but a butcher needs knives, and those kiss today with their fancy footstools and doors. Pfeh.

  69. 69.

    Triassic Sands

    I’m not Jim Lehrer and somehow I’m surviving without either an iPhone or the Corporate News Hour being available 24 hours a day. Who would have believed it was even possible?

    In defense of the News Hour, all I can say is that if all the people who currently get their news propaganda from Fox switched to PBS and the News Hour it would be a step in the right correct direction.

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