Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

It’s a doggy dog world.

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

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

I really should read my own blog.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

You can’t love your country only when you win.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Reader blog happy hour!!

Reader blog happy hour!!

by | 121 Comments

This post is in: 

  • Brendan Calling on William Saletan’s latest obsession (warning: may not be safe for human brains).
  • Cleek: The cast of <i>Glee</i> is bigger than the Beatles.  By the transitive property of size, that makes them bigger than Jesus.
  • College Misery:  Blackboard sucks.  There are no words to express how strongly I agree with this.

Also too, this is an open thread.

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  3. 3.

    schrodinger's cat

    I think economics as a discipline sucks. It is not science it is a religion more like a cult actually. You have to believe, despite all evidence to the contrary.

  6. 6.

    hitchhiker

    Big happy points for the transitive property of size. Language only a math major could find thrilling!

  12. 12.

    BGinCHI

    @schrodinger’s cat: Why is it that on every campus on which I’ve studied and taught (that’s quite a few) the Econ Dept is either the most dysfunctional or full of the most inept faculty, or both?

    It’s a discipline, like Psychology, that tends to ignore the most interesting and enlightening work by its most famous practitioners/theorists.

    A pox.

  14. 14.

    tomvox1

    Assuming the wingers don’t give a shit about these people’s house burning down, maybe the horrible death of their 4 pets while firefighters looked on and did nothing will get even the wackos to reconsider their moronic “fee for emergency services” insanity:

    http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/08/humane-society-obion-county/

    What’s next? Cops who stand by and let your wife get raped because you didn’t pay your monthly community security premium? Glad I live in God’s Most Despised Urban Hellhole, aka NYC, ’cause Real Murka is getting more bonkers all the time…

  15. 15.

    BGinCHI

    @Danton: Biggest problem with Banner is that when a university buys it, they have to choose a la carte how they’re going to get a whole bunch of services. Inevitably shortcuts via budget render whole areas of the system unusable.

    It’s like getting a soda machine where you can see delicious cold drinks, it takes your money, then nothing ever comes out.

  16. 16.

    Davis X. Machina

    @schrodinger’s cat: Re FirstClass: Wellesley does, and they can pretty much buy whatever software’s on the market, I reckon.

    Looking ahead to the summer…

    Given the present composition of the House Judiciary Committee, who’s up for a “Name the date the Judiciary Committee votes its first article of impeachment out to the whole House” pool?

    Right now, it’s like a wingnut version of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds.

    And it isn’t like a GOP House takeover is going to make it more moderate or anything….

    I’m in for July 1, 2011.

  17. 17.

    fasteddie9318

    @BGinCHI:

    It’s like getting a soda machine where you can see delicious cold drinks, it takes your money, then nothing ever comes out.

    Don’t joke about that kind of thing; I’m sure the soda industry is lobbying the Republicans to pass a bill in the next Congress legalizing such a machine.

  18. 18.

    BGinCHI

    @tomvox1: What if people had died in the fire? Guarantee we’d be hearing a whole different story….

    The question will really be whether people in that county will do something now that this has happened. If they don’t, then you REALLY get a sense of what, in some parts of the country, constitutes a “society.”

  20. 20.

    burnspbesq

    @jacy:

    This made me lol. Found it via Sullivan. Which I only look at for the links. I don’t read the articles. Honest.

    Sure. We believe you.

  22. 22.

    Martin

    Blackboard does indeed suck. I’m glad we wrote our own. Y’all would be so jealous you’d cream yourselves.

    If I had half a brain, I’d take my modern replacement for Blackboard, market it, and get some of that education funding largesse I hear so much about.

  26. 26.

    Davis X. Machina

    @burnspbesq: Somebody in the Christie administration finally figured out that all those commuters voters aren’t heading west to Parsippany every morning, huh?

  29. 29.

    MattR

    @burnspbesq:

    As soon as he announced the work stoppage, lawmakers and transportation officials suggested Christie had planned to scrap the project and use the state’s share of the money to pad the nearly broke Transportation Trust Fund, which pays for local road projects and rail repairs.
    __
    Christie has refused to raise the state’s gas tax, which is among the lowest in the country, to replenish the fund.

    Hoocoodanoode

    @Bubblegum Tate: OK. That is too strange.

  31. 31.

    Davis X. Machina

    @eemom: Did they say “better”, or “lighter”? Not that the numbers wouldn’t come out the same either way, give or take.

  32. 32.

    MattR

    @eemom: Am I being paranoid if I look at the wording of the question and think that it was designed so that anyone who thinks that Bush and Obama are doing about equally well will say that “Obama is not better Bush” which then allows the media to drive the narrative they want.

  33. 33.

    BGinCHI

    @eemom: That says way more about those kinds of polls than about how stupid people are.

    Without discounting people’s stupidity, which usually runs at around 28%.

  34. 34.

    Mark S.

    Have you been committing massive fraud in you sales of mortgage backed securities? Have no fear, DocX is here! Let us fill in the gaps of your paperwork. And you can’t beat our prices!

    “Create Missing Intervening Assignment,” $35
    “Cure Defective Assignment,” $12.95
    “Recreate Entire Collateral File,” $95

    DocX–because why should a few missing pieces of paper stand between you and a foreclosure

    via

  35. 35.

    eemom

    @MattR:

    It’s kind of a race to the bottom between Christie and Virginny’s own McDonnell. Both will no doubt be stellar contenders for the presidency in ’12 or ’16.

    As further evidence of how determined this state is to march backfuckingasswards through history until they make it to 1861, George “macaca” Allen says he’s gonna make a “comeback” bid for the Senate in ’12. Talk about reeking moldering zombie corpses lumbering forth from the grave…..

  36. 36.

    General Stuck

    @eemom: I don’t pay much attention to polling right now, except for likely voters for the upcoming election. When the country has been through such a severe recession and is still limping along with few jobs being created, then every answer that is, or seems negative is largely an answer to the single question of voters mind, or, the economy is fucked up, now who can I blame today. Doesn’t matter much what the question actually was asking.

    Obama is responsible for the current mess, whether he created it or not, in voters minds. Some of them jump at the chance to take a left handed swat at him.

  39. 39.

    Davis X. Machina

    75% Approval for Obama’s White Half.

    LINCOLN, Neb. — When it comes to Barack Obama, it’s all Black and White.
    —
    A new Chronicles Poll shows that Americans overwhelming approve of President Obama’s White half, while his Black half has approval ratings that rival Sarah Palin’s.
    —
    “Hell, I even like Obama’s White half,” said GOP leader Rush Limbaugh. “It’s that Soc1alist Communist Kenyan Black half of his that’s destroying this nation. And that’s not being racist, just telling it like it is.”
    —
    Data gathered from the poll shows that many Americans approve of Obama’s “White” policies – such as Drone-bombing Pakistan, covering up George W. Bush’s torture activities, protecting British Petroleum, and taking the Executive privilege of assassinating anyone he feels like.

  42. 42.

    gregw

    Since this is an open thread:

    I retired from a career in Oregon, went on the road for three years and moved my domicile to Texas where my Congressional rep was Kevin Brady. I signed on to his Facebook account to see what he was about. He is conservative, no surprise there.

    I have now returned to Oregon, Central Oregon, and my new rep is Greg Walden, one of the few conservatives elected to office in this great state. I have signed on to his Facebook account as well.

    One thing that strikes me the most about both Facebook accounts is how many people post to the Walls of both these Reps with nothing but thanks for doing such a great job representing the interests of their conservative constituents. Dissent is maybe 1% of the responses at Brady’s site. Brady seems to at least understand the social network and uses it pretty well. Walden not so much but the number of sycophantic comments is about the same as Brady.

    Now I haven’t followed any Democrats on Facebook but I do follow a dozen or so “liberal blogs.” The contrast is stark in the sense the liberals (of which I am one) just don’t give much praise. It seems we only want to use the Stick rather than the Carrot. At best, on the whole even places like here at Balloon Juice do more in a defensive mode of reacting to criticism rather than giving praise for good work/deeds.

    My two cents.

  44. 44.

    Walker

    You know what is also bad? When your department has a Blackboard replacement that was created and maintained by faculty in the department. Faculty who are paid to teach and do research, not maintain course management software.

  45. 45.

    Ailuridae

    Cleek’s blog is awesome. He/She refuses to let me post comments there but it is still great.

    I have no idea which blog I thought was fantastically awesome that a regular poster had but it definitely existed and I haven’t seen it mentioned yet.

  46. 46.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    What sucks are all the stupid software teaching aids that exist, Blackboard merely being among the most notorious. Add to that stupid supplemental websites/CDs that come with textbooks-yay for stupid busy work!!!

  47. 47.

    suzanne

    I know that some commenters felt last night that other commenters were picking on the Catholic Church. So I’ll go ahead and pick on the Mormons, just to be all ecumenical and shit.

    Don’t know if y’all heard, but earlier in the week, the #2 Head Dude In Charge of the LDS Church said some pretty evil shit about gay people at their General Conference, which is this semi-annual televised event. Less than a week after those gay kids committed suicide. Outrage ensued.

    Now, when the LDS Church went and posted the text of the sermon online, they changed it. They have a history of whitewashing history, after all. But, uh, the thing was televised, and videos of it are all over the net. Who’da thunk that YouTube would be standing up for Truth, Justice, and the American Way?

  50. 50.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    Okay, so open thread and all, so I find its often hard to talk about religion on liberal blogs. Criticizing fundygelical Christians is okay, Catholics on every even day, fundy Jews rarely, and fundy Muslims almost never.

    There was a blog post on Feministe about a kosher deli in New York, and with the French burqa ban in the news, it seems like a tossup on progressive/feminist blogs if its okay to criticize any specific religion.

  53. 53.

    Dennis SGMM

    I’m off on a different tack today: the just-under-two-grand worth of parts I ordered for the new box (PC) earlier this week just showed up. I’m not a gamer, I do 3D modeling (Mostly as a hobby) and my current machine was falling behind the times.

    Now to put everything together, plug it in, hit the button, and watch for smoke. If there’s no smoke then I’ll go into the tedious business of loading software and migrating a few gig’s worth of project files.

  54. 54.

    BGinCHI

    @gregw: I’ll just give it to Act Blue.

    Your positive vibe just conjured up a kind of political James Taylor image.

  56. 56.

    DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.

    @Amanda in the South Bay:

    I don’t know…I’m not comfortable criticizing Catholics for doing the ash-on-the-forehead thing and I’m not comfortable criticizing orthodox jews for the yarmulke. So I’m not big on criticizing Muslims for whatever crazy clothes they want to wear either.

    But as for not criticizing fundamental Muslims in general, the most insulting thing ever said here about fundie Christians is that they are like the Taliban.

  57. 57.

    DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.

    @Walker:

    Really? I would have assumed that would be better. All the stuff I use that colleagues created in their free time works great.

    Try using Blackboard for a while and I bet you’ll find that your colleagues free-time hobby project is better.

  60. 60.

    FlipYrWhig

    @gregw:

    It seems we only want to use the Stick rather than the Carrot.

    Totally true. I have tried to make that criticism many times. Usually the response is something like the Chris Rock bit about how you shouldn’t get credit for doing something you’re supposed to do in the first place.

  63. 63.

    Perry Como

    Anyone else watching the foreclosure meltdown? Multiple state Attorneys General are asking for and multiple BANKS are halting foreclosures. Tin foil hats for everyone!

  64. 64.

    Catsy

    I read the link about Blackboard with little understanding but a great deal of sympathy. I don’t teach or use Blackboard, but in the industry I work there is a certain company that produces a wide variety of “enterprise” software for contact management, system monitoring and management, and other functions of IT operations. Most of you have probably heard of at least one of their products. They are extremely well-known and popular. And they are also among the most bloated, unintuitive, clunky, bug-ridden, sluggish, and all-around unusable pieces of shit I’ve ever had the misfortune to be required to use. Their quirkiness, instability, and usability issues are so bad that I am just dumbfounded that any of them are considered enterprise-quality, yet they’re among the most prevalent in the industry. Simply mind-boggling.

    I suspect a large part of what drives their usage is that large organizations looking for enterprise apps spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on these pieces of garbage and the support contracts that come with them, and then fall prey to the sunk costs fallacy. And really, when you scale to this level your options are pretty limited. But the products are so bad that I’d expend a lot of energy destroying their reputation if I didn’t care about continuing to have a job.

  65. 65.

    Walker

    @DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:

    Really? I would have assumed that would be better. All the stuff I use that colleagues created in their free time works great.

    I have used Blackboard. I actually find it is good for delivering content to students. For receiving and grading assignments, it is a dog.

    The problem is that my departmental stuff works very well, but only in very narrow applications. I am known in the department for doing “weird” teaching, and so the service does not work all that well for me. For example, the program is designed to optimally receive assignments, grade them, and hand them back. I like to have students do revisions, and I have to twist the program in knots to do this.

    I also want a way to deliver locked-down content, because our course web pages are available to the world. But our system is designed entirely for grading assignments, and not delivering content.

  68. 68.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Catsy: Many of our present difficulties, at home and abroad, military and civilian, economic and political, are caused by an inability to wrap brains around only two ideas: a.) ‘sunk costs’, and b.) ‘marginal propensity to consume’.

  72. 72.

    burnspbesq

    @Amanda in the South Bay:

    If you want to criticize the hierarchy of the Catholic Church for obstructing justice, or losing touch with the faithful, or wearing expensive shoes when people are going hungry all around the world, have at it. I will be right there with you, and I’m probably in the upper quartile of Catholic-ness of everyone you know.

    Just don’t criticize all Catholics as though we were some monolithic Borg-like collective, based on the mistaken belief that we condone that shit. We don’t.

  73. 73.

    FlipYrWhig

    I just saw at Daily Kos a piece by Markos urging Kendrick Meek to withdraw from the FL Senate race:

    That’s not to say that Crist can win. I’m pretty pessimistic about Florida’s Senate race no matter what happens at this point. But if you’re going to have a loser in the race that’s not Rubio, I’d rather it be Crist than Meek. And at least with Crist we have a fighting chance.

    I think it sounds reasonable from a tactical standpoint. But doesn’t it utterly fly in the face of many, many recent statements from the high-profile blogs about the need to advocate for real Democrats rather than lite Republicans? Shouldn’t the people who wanted Halter over Lincoln and Romanoff over Bennet be boiling with rage over this kind of thing?

  75. 75.

    Martin

    @Amanda in the South Bay: Well, liberals are very much about equalizing power. Catholics and Protestants are fair game because they have power – they’re in no position to complain about criticism because they have a privileged status in our society and are able to issue criticism with little backlash. Further, because of that privilege, they’re able to carry their religious beliefs into the sphere of policy. No other groups can do that.

    Jews are in an odd spot – both in and out of power simultaneously.

    Muslims, atheists, and most other groups are clearly out of power. Their values will never be put ahead of those of other groups in policy considerations. Any viewpoints they espouse have no policy impact on others and therefore can be overlooked.

    The Christians will get a lot less shit when they stop carrying their religious views into the policy space, confusing the Constitution with the Bible, etc.

  76. 76.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    @BGinCHI: Eh, at the risk of starting this whole thing over again, I heard about this policy back in the late 80’s early 90’s

    HOWEVER, even in places that have such a policy, the FFs MUST rescue people in the building. I think the fact that they didn’t try to get the pets sucks though.

    multiple BANKS are halting foreclosures

    JP Morgan did it last week (?) I guess the Bangsters noticed the angry mobs. Who knew foreclosing on a house that was paid in full would annoy the proles?

    No seriously, some very rich SOBs must be brown pants flop sweat.

    “Your honor, in mitigation, my clients stopped the foreclosures as soon as they became aware of the problem.”

    Heh.

  77. 77.

    BGinCHI

    @kommrade reproductive vigor: The problem is going to be if the family didn’t pay and they don’t react and miss the window of opportunity of getting people out.

    The lawyers will be lined up for miles if that happens, and it will with that stupid system.

  78. 78.

    Davis X. Machina

    @BGinCHI: In the relegation zone, too.

    Dudek’s miracle save seems like a decade ago. I hope John Henry’s NESV people can do something for the poor Scousers.

  79. 79.

    BGinCHI

    @Davis X. Machina: Oh, I know, and it’s killing me.

    Anyone but Hicks!

    I hope we’re in “it’s darkest before the dawn” territory here. Just rooting against Chelsea every week is getting boring.

  80. 80.

    jacy

    @burnspbesq:

    My husband is a very devout Catholic, and he’s disgusted by the church, can’t abide the pope. He takes comfort in going to mass, so I don’t bug him about it. When I get all pissed off about religion in general, I just have to be careful to remember that there are good people who are religious. It just so often seems the bad religious people have the megaphones.

  81. 81.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Martin: Way too many putative “Christians” don’t believe in much, I feel like, other than that they’re very special people because Jesus loves them. But that’s more an issue with megachurch “Christians” rather than people who adhere to actual denominations. Both mainline Protestants and Catholics… I mean, say what you will about their tenets, but at least it’s an ethos. There are plenty of faith traditions you can go politically left with as well as politically right.

    It’s that Rick Warren bullshit that gets on my nerves, people who call themselves “Christian” and go to church but basically seem to use that whole “faith” experience as spiritual comfort food that just validates what they already think — as though God gives you a personal smiley-face sticker — rather than trying to take to heart some vital lessons about compassion and humility and even (scary!) social justice.

    I was always a militant atheist and still hold fast to my own beliefs, but I’ve dialed down the condescension I used to have towards religion because I’ve met more learned, good-hearted, believing and practicing religious people over time. Some people are religious; some people like basketball; some people like spicy food. It feels more like a preference than a failing… of course, unless and until it interferes with my life in tangible ways.

  82. 82.

    Amir_Khalid

    @Catsy: I felt a pang of shame when I read your comment. I used to be a technology journalist and a good part of my job was, in effect, helping some of these “enterprise software” vendors sling their BS at corporate customers and the general public. Now that I recall, they never really allowed us media types anywhere near actual users (i.e. customer staff below chief information officer level) — in fact they tended to discourage it, saying that only CIOs had the right perspective to speak for their companies. On-the-ground usability issues never came up in their glitzy media presentations,

    We should have known enough to press them on this, e.g. we should have cultivated more ties with user groups that weren’t in bed with the vendor. But we were usually so credulous towards the official story. And we didn’t want to piss off friends and contacts at the vendors.

  83. 83.

    me

    I thinks that was an error and they are actually bigger then The Jesus. “Nobody fucks with The Jesus.”

  84. 84.

    General Stuck

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I think it sounds reasonable from a tactical standpoint. But doesn’t it utterly fly in the face of many, many recent statements from the high-profile blogs about the need to advocate for real Democrats rather than lite Republicans?

    LOL. understatement. This is the real Kos, not the one who has thousands of reactionary leftists to feed red meat too, and must do so despite the apparent dichotomy of principle.

    Or else, they will devour him. I see this as a lot of what’s behind the yo yo politics of the netroots. Based on emotion of the moment, and largely intellectual bereft. Then the true believers turn up here, and we have the Obot/prog wars. It’s all showbiz, but personally, I would like a better salary.

  85. 85.

    Martin

    @kommrade reproductive vigor: It’s not the angry mobs. It’s the AGs calling for a cessation and the title insurers stepping back from this mess. Better that they halt voluntarily and be able to restart voluntarily than get states and the feds to shut the whole mess down and restart it whenever they feel. This is a colossal clusterfuck.

    Oh, and the wingnut poutrage over no social security COLA is going to be awesome to watch.

  86. 86.

    Davis X. Machina

    @BGinCHI: It’ll be interesting to see if LFC supporters will be content with actual sports management, instead of their own Russian petro-spiv or dodgy Gulf sheik. A lot of Kopites were happy with what seemed like their own pair of Glazers at first, figuring ‘Well, now we’ve got our foreign moneybags. Have at ’em’. Thought Hicks could spend them into Europe every year.

    Henry runs the Red Sox as a highly profitable business, not just a rich man’s plaything. I don’t expect him to just accept relegation, but he’s not going to Hoover up everything not nailed down in the transfer window either.

    It will be interesting…

  87. 87.

    Amir_Khalid

    @BGinCHI:

    When you walk through a storm
    Hold your head up high
    And don’t be afraid of the dark
    At the end of the storm
    Is a golden sky
    And the sweet silver song of the lark
    Walk on through the wind
    Walk on through the rain
    Though your dreams be tossed and blown
    Walk on, walk on
    With hope in your heart
    And you’ll never walk alone

  88. 88.

    BGinCHI

    @Davis X. Machina: Agreed. But spending lots of money in the past hasn’t brought LFC great success. More like not-failure.

    Let’s just hope they spend smart now. There are some obviously great core players, but the chemistry (there isn’t any) needs lots of work and so does the drive (there isn’t any). Once there’s a shake-up, and there will be, we’ll have a better sense of how the club is going to look.

    Painful in the near term….

  89. 89.

    Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

    Can’t decide which of those I liked better.

    It started out NOT being cleek’s, because Glee is, in fact, awesome (I sobbed the other night. Sobbed. Through the whole damn thing. When I wasn’t laughing) — but then he got all nice and reasonable and damn it I couldn’t hate on him.

    I hate when people are reasonable.

    But I love this new feature! (This is a new feature, right Doug J? Hmmm?)

  90. 90.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Amir_Khalid:
    @BGinCHI:

    Confession: A small part of me wants LFC to go down, so that a newly-promoted Brighton Hove Albion (my first love, and 3 points clear at the top of League One tonight — w00t! ) can open their new stadium with them. Which would be all kinds of awesome.

  92. 92.

    PaulW

    At this point in the Florida Senate race, it’s completely a matter of pride. Neither Crist nor Meek will resign in favor of the other as a means of stopping Rubio.

    Part of me remains doleful about my home state: Rick Scott is polling near even with Sink even though Scott IS A WELL-KNOWN DEFRAUDER OF MEDICARE TO THE TUNE OF 1.7 BILLION DOLLARS, JESUS CHRIST FLORIDIANS WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU; that Rubio is polling at 42 percent where there quite honestly aren’t enough Republicans in the state to justify that high a number (there’s 4.9 million registered Dems, 3.8 million registered Republicans last I counted; I’m not sure of the No-party-affiliate count but how the hell is Rubio winning them over?!); and that for all evidence that the Republicans want to bring back the failed policies of 2001-2008 (hell, bringing back the partisan hell that was 1995-2000) somehow the voters seem to have it their minds to bring those psychopaths back into power.

    I seriously pray to God that at least the voters will pass Amendments 5 and 6 (which make gerrymanding illegal). I seriously pray that the polls are off… way off, like 1936 way off (what I mean, is that the pollsters’ population base is skewed too far right and not getting the full population).

  96. 96.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Mark S: ManU went down in the ’70’s, which they pretend to this day never happened. Liverpool’s been in the top flight without a break since Shankly days — early 60’s anyways.

  97. 97.

    eemom

    Don’t mean to get all serious here, but I think it is important to point out that the burqa, which is one facet of the horrific oppression of women by fundie Muslims, is not the equivalent of a yarmulke or a forehead ash, any more than female genital mutilation is the equivalent of a bris.

    Any religion can and should be condemned whenever it preaches or condones crimes or oppression or bigotry.

  98. 98.

    kay

    @PaulW:

    Part of me remains doleful about my home state: Rick Scott is polling near even with Sink even though Scott IS A WELL-KNOWN DEFRAUDER OF MEDICARE TO THE TUNE OF 1.7 BILLION DOLLARS, JESUS CHRIST FLORIDIANS WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU; that Rubio is polling at 42 percent where there quite honestly aren’t enough Republicans in the state to justify that high a number (there’s 4.9 million registered Dems, 3.8 million registered Republicans last I counted; I’m not sure of the No-party-affiliate count but how the hell is Rubio winning them over?!);

    That whole rant made me laugh. I don’t know what to think. This was the big poll in Ohio today. I got it in like 7 emails.

    In the race for Attorney General, Republican Mike DeWine (44 percent) leads Democrat Richard Cordray (38 percent). In the Secretary of State and Treasurer races, Democratic candidates lead their Republican challengers. For Secretary of State, Democrat Maryellen O’Shaughnessy (40 percent) leads Republican Jon Husted (33 percent) by 7 points, and for Treasurer, Democrat Kevin Boyce (37 percent) leads Republican Josh Mandel (34 percent).

    When asked to think about their local congressional races, 48 percent of likely voters said they would vote Democrat, while 41 percent said they would vote Republican, and 10 percent said they were undecided.

    None of it makes any sense.

    Cordray is supposed to be ahead, and O’Shaughnessy and Boyce are supposed to be behind.

    And the Democrats are supposed to be behind, not ahead, on the generic congressional.

    Who the hell knows, is what that means. As usual, I’m completely mystified by how anyone can be an “undecided” voter, so that’s a consistent.

  100. 100.

    DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.

    @eemom:

    The scarf thing is pretty much the same though, no?

  102. 102.

    Dennis SGMM

    @kay:

    As usual, I’m completely mystified by how anyone can be an “undecided” voter, so that’s a consistent.

    “Undecided” means that they don’t pay attention until they get their sample ballot – if then.

  103. 103.

    kay

    @Dennis SGMM:

    They hate the stimulus, they hate health care reform, yet they give Democrats 7 points over Republicans on the congressional generic ballot.
    Maybe they don’t know Democrats did those two things? That could actually be true, come to think of it.

  104. 104.

    Dennis SGMM

    @kay:
    I’m guessing that they put more attention into whatever TV talent shows are on than they do to politics. And, I’d bet every one of them a case of Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA that they couldn’t name their Representative or come up with the collective name for the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

  105. 105.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    @burnspbesq:
    Its just that there are plenty of atheists, as well as new age types, who worship at the shrines of Harris and Dawkins-say what you will about Hitch, at least he criticized all religions, where most atheists usually stop at Chrsitianity.

    I think a lot has to do with (and apologies for not having a PhD in philosophy or sociology) notions of colonialism and racism-obviously if you hate Islam you are in favor of subjugating Muslim nations a’la GWB, or if you criticize Catholicism you hate Hispanics since so many are Catholic, or something like that.

  106. 106.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    @jacy:

    Its just hard at times to know which bandwagon to jump on at times-the hard core “Woot Richard Dawkins fuck Christianity!” bandwagon, or the “Hey, I’m a liberal (fill in the blank Christian/Jew/etc) bandwagon on liberal blogs.

  107. 107.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    @burnspbesq:

    Hey, I used to be Catholic too-Byzantine Catholic for a brief hiatus when I was Orthodox. I’m the person who in a previous life used to check out (even though I wasn’t a student) library books from the library at a local Catholic univ from the pre-Vatican II era about liturgy and Eastern Christianity.

    I think it says something that there’s a lot more diversity on the left wrt religion-liberal adherents of mainstream religions, atheists, agnostics, new age pagan types, etc etc etc. I just think there’s some disconnect on liberal blogs about this, is all.

  110. 110.

    ChristianPinko

    In re Blackboard:

    Here are some tips for downloading gradebooks that I got from my own hiring institution. I keep separate records of student grades apart from Blackboard, so I don’t know whether this will helpful, but here goes anyway.

    “How to Download Gradebook Data

    “1. In the Action Bar of the Grade Center point to Work Offline then click Download.

    “2. Using the radio buttons, select the data to download: Full Grade Center

    “3. Select the file delimiter: Tab.

    “Tab delimited files have the file extension .xls. Tab delimited files will open directly in Microsoft Excel.

    “4. Select whether or not to Include Hidden Information in the downloaded data. Hidden information includes columns and students that have been hidden from the view being downloaded.

    “5. Select the location for the download.

    “6. Click Submit to finish the download.”

  111. 111.

    DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.

    @eemom:

    No, I mean the scarf is the same as the ash cross and the yarmulke. I agree the burqa is different.

  114. 114.

    Nick

    Did anyone catch Michael Bennet’s absolute pwning of Ken Buck in the debates? Maddow is showing it right now. I’ve never seen anything like it.

  115. 115.

    Zuzu's Petals

    Re Brendan Calling link: I could’ve done without that video of tortoise orgasms. Ewww.

  116. 116.

    Mnemosyne

    @eemom:

    not at all the same. Have you ever seen a woman in a burqa?
    Like comparing a turban to a KKK outfit.

    And by that you mean “a KKK outfit that you’re forced to wear unless you want to be beaten to death,” yes? Because there aren’t too many women in Afghanistan who are voluntarily wearing a burqua because they’re so devout. They’re wearing it because they don’t want to be murdered for not wearing it.

  117. 117.

    James E. Powell

    @gregw:

    There is an element to the conservative/praise vs. liberal/criticism difference that you seem to overlook.

    Republicans are very public about their support of the standard menu of conservative causes, no matter how extreme. Getting rid of social security for example. They also never criticize the right-wingers, no matter how insane. They often endorse or express support for extreme right-wing ideas. They not only tolerate blatantly racist people among their supporters, they defend them.

    In contrast, Democratic elected officials regularly denigrate liberals, consistently offer to compromise on issues important to liberals, vilify them for any use of strong language, and delight in the practice known as “hippie punching.”

    Democrats who treat their most ardent supporters like Republicans treat theirs, e.g., Grayson, are loudly and proudly praised by liberals.

  118. 118.

    Nick

    @James E. Powell:

    Republicans are very public about their support of the standard menu of conservative causes, no matter how extreme. Getting rid of social security for example. They also never criticize the right-wingers, no matter how insane. They often endorse or express support for extreme right-wing ideas. They not only tolerate blatantly racist people among their supporters, they defend them.

    yeah, you didn’t watch Maddow tonight, did you?

  119. 119.

    Uriel

    @BGinCHI:

    Biggest problem with Banner is that when a university buys it, they have to choose a la carte how they’re going to get a whole bunch of services.

    This is one problem with banner.

    It is hardly the biggest.

    The rest of your comment is crazy talk,

    Unless you replace the words “soda machine” with “byzintine hell maze” and “”delicious soda pop” with “hapless, doomed end user and his essential data.” Then it sort of works.

    Also, just want to add- i’m predicting that the itouch will never go down in history as “the blog commenter’s best friend,” despite it’s many nice features.

  120. 120.

    Mnemosyne

    @James E. Powell:

    Uh, that didn’t happen by accident. That happened because the Christian Coalition got heavily involved in the day-to-day workings of the Republican Party and got themselves elected for everything from dog catcher to city councilman and then spread their influence from there.

    The teabaggers don’t have power over the Republicans because they vote for them. They have power because they run for office. They become precinct captains. They take over the levers of power inside the party and steer it in the direction they want.

    There’s only so much you can do trying to shove from the outside, but very few people on the left want to actually do the party’s dirty work that gets you the real power.

  121. 121.

    Xenos

    @Davis X. Machina: Put me down for June 1 impeachment be voted out of committee. They need just three months to realize they have no idea what they are doing, and need to gin up a controversy. A couple weeks for committee hearings with bloggers up there as expert witnesses, and then just Get R Done before an early summer break.

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