Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The lights are all blinking red.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

When I was faster i was always behind.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

So very ready.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

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

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Happy Hours: From the comments

Happy Hours: From the comments

by | 129 Comments

This post is in: 

I was too busy writing 20 posts about Juan Williams and another 10 about my snarling hatred of the rich to keep up with reader blogs as well as usual, so this week, instead, I’m going to do a post consisting of reader comments that I liked (some of these are old but stuck in my head).

Ann B. Nonymous:

What would Belfast look like should Obama pass the Wingnut Repatriation Act? I think Stuckey’s and Shoney’s would improve Northern Ireland’s cuisine, but I am willing to be convinced otherwise.

david mizner:

Next ride she’ll come across one of “them” holding a dogged-earred copy of Atlas Shrugged who tells her how desperate he is for school choice and abolition of the estate tax.

Corner Stone:

Very, very dirty vodka MARTINI. Imagine, if you will, that you stole money from the Salvation Army person outside the department store, then took that money and used it to buy hookers, heroin, scratch off tickets and a copy of Going Rogue at full price.
THAT’S how fuckin’ dirty I enjoy my vodka MARTINI.

Also too, for some reason the phrase “Every day the bucket go to the well, one day the bottom will drop out” has been rattling in my brain a lot recently.

Reader Interactions

129Comments

  1. 1.

    Felonious Wench

    Very, very dirty vodka MARTINI.

    2 oz Grey Goose
    1 oz dry vermouth
    2 oz olive juice
    Blue cheese stuffed olives

    Drink. Repeat until world becomes all fuzzy and pretty.

  10. 10.

    J. Michael Neal

    3 oz Bombay Sapphire
    Have a vermouth bottle somewhere in the house

    There’s no such thing as a vodka martini.

    There are, however, now pictures of me snuggling with Eddie. I’m definitely in the maudlin photo taking stage of dealing with this.

    My face looks awful, but he looks pretty good.

  12. 12.

    Tom Hilton

    @jacy: Cartoon in this week’s New Yorker: guy slumped over at a bar, bartender saying “looks like someone’s eyes were bigger than his liver”.

    Yes, it’s kind of sick. It also made me laugh.

  14. 14.

    Steve

    This story from TPM deserves attention. As someone who practices law in this area it’s fairly flabbergasting. To those who always think The Man is out to get them – maybe not so surprising!

    There are two administrative law judges at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission: myself and the Honorable Bruce Levine. On Judge Levine’s first week on the job, nearly twenty years ago, he came into my office and stated that he had promised Wendy Gramm, then Chairwoman of the Commission, that we would never rule in a complainant’s favor. A review of his rulings will confirm that he has fulfilled his vow.

    Wendy Gramm is Phil Gramm’s wife, by the way.

  18. 18.

    licensed to kill time

    That david mizner comment was in reply to something I said, and it blew my comment out of the water (a not infrequent occurrence).

    I remember reading that Corner Stone comment aloud to my SO as an example of how foo king funny! the commenters on Balloon Juice can be and why I love reading here so much.

    This is a great place to hang out, just sayin’ ;-)

  19. 19.

    Felonious Wench

    @cleek:

    anything in a long-stemmed, conical glass is a martini, these days.

    I have never had a fruity, chocolatey, Crayon-colored, or any other kind of “martini.” Vodka, straight up, ice cold, extra-dirty.

    The only correct response to “what flavor of martini?” is vodka or gin.

  21. 21.

    BGinCHI

    And speaking of martinis, fuck Dick Fucking Armey.

    God I hate that guy.

    Will be back to say F Notre Dame tomorrow. I’m only one man.

  22. 22.

    Mark S.

    @Steve:

    Wow, that shit is crazy. I fully expect Congress to initiate an immediate investigation into this, or perhaps appoint an independent counsel. This is a bombshell allegation.

    Oh, wait, I forgot which country I was in. Has Sarah Palin tweeted anything interesting today?

  23. 23.

    Ash Can

    If you’re going to be doing a post spotlighting great comments, you should at least give honorable mention to that whole thread from a couple of days ago in which that poor sod from OTB came over here and tried to give this joint a piece of his mind. A romp indeed.

  25. 25.

    Redshift

    For some reason I’m quite amused at the webads from my congressman’s opponent that appear here. There are now two of them, one of which accuses my congressman of “wasteful spending,” and the other blames him for the bad traffic.

    How much of a wingnut do you have to be not to see those two attacks as totally contradictory?

  28. 28.

    Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

    We treat the happy hour as an Open Thread, yes? So I can go off-topic with this insanely awesome tumblr called “Muslims Wearing Things“?

    My favorites so far are

    “This is Javed ‘Hijabman’ Memon. This Muslim is sporting a chapeau made of balloons.”

    and

    “This unfortunate Muslim is wearing Ed Hardy. He is called Salman Khan.”

  30. 30.

    geg6

    @Ash Can:

    Yeah, I was sick as hell (what with the projectile vomiting and its mirror image at the other end) and couldn’t finish reading. Mataconis had just showed up and the beating was just commencing. I never got back to it, but I’d love to read that thread today.

  32. 32.

    DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.

    @Ash Can:

    I’m a bleeding heart, I felt a little sorry for that by the end.

  33. 33.

    Punchy

    Yanks going down like a meth-addicted hooker tonite.

    And how many kick-ass colly f-ball games are there tomorrow? It’s unreal. I may have sit with a sweatshirt in my lap for the next 15 minutes I’m so excited.

  34. 34.

    PurpleGirl

    WRT Juan Williams and Muslim garb: I found this link at Making Light.

    http://muslimswearingthings.tumblr.com

    In my own personal experience, I frequently see women and young girls dressed with scarfs and/or veils at work or school but I rarely see men in “traditional” or “tribal” dress going to work or traveling. Williams is full of it.

    (I didn’t read the thread before commenting; I see now that Ella/Esther beat me to it.)

  35. 35.

    Roger Moore

    @J. Michael Neal:

    There’s no such thing as a vodka martini.

    And if there’s no such thing as a Vermouthless martini, either. If you’re not putting in the Vermouth, you’re just drinking gin. Not that there’s anything wrong with drinking straight gin, but don’t act like a martini purist if you’re not drinking a martini.

  36. 36.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Emily L.: That wins many winnings. I think my favorite is:

    This is Rasheed Wallace. He is Muslim, and he is wearing an ensemble from the Middle Ages.

  38. 38.

    liberty60

    @Steve: This story from TPM deserves attention

    I am holding off on this one- If only because the story may be tainted by the source’s mental problems. It could very well be true, but since it is at best a he-said she-said story, and he is a bit shaky, I wouldn’t go full throttle on it until other evidence is in.

    That being said, the fact that in all his time, Bruce Levine didn’t ever once rule in favor of the stockholders, except for forfeited cases, seems a bit….odd.

    Then again, given who is selected to staff our government oversight agencies, nope, it isn’t one bit odd.

    edited to add- as the saying goes, it isn’t what is illegal that is a scandal, its what’s legal; that he could have a record like that and not draw scrutiny or complaint or review for 20 effing years.

  40. 40.

    JGabriel

    Did you hear the one about the ex-cop GOPer, Jeff Perry, running for the House in MA-10 who covered up his partner’s sexual abuse of teenage girls?

    This is where everything stood until a few days ago, when the then-14 year old victim, Lisa Allen, came forward to tell her story, figuratively if not literally putting a face to the crime. “He had to hear me screaming and crying. Instead of helping me, Jeff Perry denied anything happened,” Allen said in a statement released to the Boston Globe.

    Perry is also on the NY Times list of Tea Partiers:

    A signer of the Contract From America, Mr. Perry has said: “I go to Tea Party meetings. I’m not trying to separate myself from the grass-roots Tea Party movement.”

    .

  46. 46.

    Mark S.

    @Steve:

    Sorry, but I can’t get over this shit. This is complete banana republic shit, and it’s barely going to get reported and will be completely forgotten next week. To a lesser extent, this is how I felt after the Abu Gharib photos came out. I figured that heads would roll, Woodwards and Bernsteins would be dogging the Administration, etc. Instead, some peons got convicted and it was back to business as usual. Just a few bad apples, and are human pyramids really torture?

    Sorry to get all emo, but every once in a while it really hits me how fucked this country is.

  48. 48.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Pangloss: @Pangloss:

    If your last name is Armey, why in the world would you name your child “Dick?”

    His parents may have had a flash of prescience and decided to beat the world to the punch.

  49. 49.

    lamh32

    I’ve been thinking about Obama’s “It gets better” video and a couple of thoughts ran threw my head.

    First, I thought it was interesting the contrast between how Hilary Clinton’s video was viewed warmly by most people, even with the fact that Bill C is the reason for the law in the first place. It didn’t therefore necessarily surprised me that Obama would make a video (I honestly expected First Lady Michelle O make a video instead of Obama) cause I’d be really shocked if HIlary as SoS did her video without the “approval” of the WH, or any other member of the Obama WH for that matter.

    Secondly, I don’t agree, but I dont’ begrudge certain activist saying that rhetoric without action means nothing, because it is STILL, IMHO, a good thing. Cause I have cousins who are younger and gay, and unlike older gays, DADT, DOMA and such are not really something they think alot about. So for them, as young African American gay males and females, to have the President of the United States, a Black man, not just acknowledging their “struggle”, but also actually telling them that “It Gets Better”, and that there is nothing wrong with them, and suicide is not the answer.

    Obama’s video will REALLY resonate with them!

  50. 50.

    JGabriel

    Pangloss:

    If your last name is Armey, why in the world would you name your child “Dick?

    That’s what you wonder? All I can think is, what a pity it is that they didn’t name him Gabe. As in, “Hey, Gay Bar Me!”

    No, I don’t have any resentments about the puns people have made on my name over the years. What makes you ask?

    .

  51. 51.

    Roger Moore

    @Steve:
    Nice of the guy to mention it, but hasn’t he ever heard of timeliness? He’s been watching his colleague screw over the little guy for 20 years without saying anything, and only has the guts to bring it up now because he’s retiring. Fuck the judge who’s been ruling in favor of his corporate masters, but fuck the enabler who cared more about making his life easy than stopping injustice, too.

  54. 54.

    SRW1

    OT: Wikileaks is going to publish 391.832 Irak war documents tonight. As with the 77.000 Afghanistan documents The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Speigel had access to the documents before publication and are apparently going to publish series of articles about the documents.

  59. 59.

    Ash Can

    @liberty60: According to the story, the only one claiming he has mental problems is his estranged wife, and his son and niece deny it. He wants to divorce the wife, she wants legal guardianship of him. No possible problems with that scenario, uh-uh. So I’d say that part of the story is questionable too.

  60. 60.

    Dee Loralei

    @J. Michael Neal: Awww, he’s a most gorgeous kitty. I’m so sorry all the effort you and he and the vet put into curing him didn’t work out. I’m glad you guys have this last bit of time to say goodbye. It must be so hard on you.

  61. 61.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Mark S.:
    Yeah, according to the article he specifically regrets not privatizing Social Security. Apparently the economic collapse at the end of his watch was just a bump in the road and privatized Social Security would have been just ducky.

    Right.

  62. 62.

    Tom Levenson

    @Felonious Wench: The only correct answer to what flavor of martini is gin, dry or exceptionally dry.

    Vodka “martinis” may be tasty. They are, however, just drinks of neutral spirits, tarted up in one way or another. They are not martinis.

    (Adjusts his evening coat, checks his spats, converses with his fellow dinosaurs.)

  64. 64.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Tom Levenson: I’m trying to remember who said that the only proper way to make a dry martini was to think about Vermouth while pouring the gin. I believe that it was a character in an old movie but, my mind is like an attic.

  65. 65.

    Ash Can

    @Mark S.: She’d say that Social Security should be eliminated altogether, and if the old geezers didn’t want to starve they should be out working for a living, dammit, instead of sitting around crabbing about their sore backs and bunions and being a burden on society. After all, she met an octogenarian on her way home from the bus stop and he was digging ditches for the cable company, and that’s what he said himself.

  69. 69.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Ash Can:
    McArdle will come up with one of her famous proofs. It will be along the lines of, “Ninety-nine percent of Social Security recipients die within two decades of receiving their first check therefore, Social Security causes death.”

  71. 71.

    joeyess

    Corner Stone

    Very, very dirty vodka MARTINI. Imagine, if you will, that you stole money from the Salvation Army person outside the department store, then took that money and used it to buy hookers, heroin, scratch off tickets and a copy of Going Rogue at full price.
    THAT’S how fuckin’ dirty I enjoy my vodka MARTINI.

    Ummmm, Cornerstone? That’s not a dirty martini. That’s a slutty martini.

  72. 72.

    Cat Lady

    As one of the commenters noted in Corner Stone’s thread, “vodka martini” is a category error. As the kids say, “this.”

    ETA: I saw Bob Marley and the Wailers live, twice. It Was Good.

  77. 77.

    BR

    @Mark S.:

    Sorry, but I can’t get over this shit. This is complete banana republic shit, and it’s barely going to get reported and will be completely forgotten next week. To a lesser extent, this is how I felt after the Abu Gharib photos came out. I figured that heads would roll, Woodwards and Bernsteins would be dogging the Administration, etc. Instead, some peons got convicted and it was back to business as usual. Just a few bad apples, and are human pyramids really torture?

    Sorry to get all emo, but every once in a while it really hits me how fucked this country is.

    I’m sorry to say, I’m feeling very much the same way. Seeing the wikileaks stories today is just a reminder of the problem.

    That commodity futures trading commission report is horrible – TWO DECADES of judges conspiring to not execute the law. And just as a reminder – remember when Blanche Lincoln pushed for a serious derivatives regulation amendment (that she clearly wasn’t that wed to)? That was to give more power to the CFTC to regulate derivatives. So this isn’t some esoteric commission regulating cattle futures or whatnot – this is one of the many bodies, including the SEC, etc. where the fraud on wall street should have been teased apart. And yet we have nothing.

    I leave you with this:

    ritholtz.com/blog/2010/10/mbs-investors-are-calling-their-lawyers/

  78. 78.

    Ash Can

    @Felonious Wench: Let the purists cry. I like a nice smooth vodka with just a hint of vermouth, up and shaken, dirty optional, and a couple of olives (usually anchovy). I’d be happy to call it whatever these old farts here want me to call it, but the waitstaff and bartenders in my neck of the woods are busy people, and would much rather I just say “martini” rather than “hand-shaken vodka and vermouth drink in a tall-stemmed conical glass that 99.9% of the civilized world call a martini but we mustn’t, you know, because that really isn’t a martini as far as the purists are concerned.”

  79. 79.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @soonergrunt: Yeah, matoko_chan is virtually spamming a thread from this morning about it. Apparently, there is something wrong with us because we are not live-blogging it on al-Jazeera. Also, it could have an effect on the elections, and she was right that it was coming out now.

  81. 81.

    Steve

    @Ash Can: Better not call a virgin bloody mary a bloody mary either. After all, it doesn’t even have alcohol in it! (Personally, I’m partial to virgin screwdrivers.)

  82. 82.

    Ash Can

    @Dennis SGMM: Actually, she’d probably say something like “nine hundred and ninety-nine percent, and it should be even more, but my calculator doesn’t go into the billions.”

  83. 83.

    suzanne

    Just to update y’all (’cause I know you all care so much), now, in addition to throwing old clay roof tiles into a metal dumptruck from the second story, the roofers who are working on the house across the street are also using power saws to cut the new roof tiles. And then using a jackhammer to attach them. And then using a mega-leafblower to clean up the dust.

    My dog is going batshit.

    I think I sprouted about fifty new grey hairs today.

  85. 85.

    slag

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: True enough. Getting fired from the librul media is money in the bank on the wingnut welfare circuit.

    Plus, think of all that money he’ll save on the therapy he’d need in order to be able to successfully participate in civilized society.

    Juan Williams won’t be weighing on my liberal guilty conscience anytime soon.

  87. 87.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ash Can: This is why we can’t have nice things. At the very fucking least, call that thing a vodka martini. A martini sans adjective is made with gin.

  88. 88.

    Linda Featheringill

    @lamh32:

    So for them, as young African American gay males and females, to have the President of the United States, a Black man, not just acknowledging their “struggle”, but also actually telling them that “It Gets Better”, and that there is nothing wrong with them, and suicide is not the answer.

    I agree. I thought it could save lives.

    Also, the lives of any young person who looks to Barack as an idol. And there are many of those.

    Attention kids: Ignore those other creeps. Listen to your president. Be you.

  95. 95.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Redshift #31:

    I once knew a man named Peter Harrower. People referred to him as “the mohel.”

  96. 96.

    suzanne

    @Ash Can: Oh, God. You have no idea. They’re on hour seven of this. Unfortunately, the fetus can’t hold her liquor yet, so I’m SOL.

  98. 98.

    Cris

    @Ash Can: would much rather I just say “martini” rather than “hand-shaken vodka and vermouth drink in a tall-stemmed conical glass that 99.9% of the civilized world call a martini but we mustn’t, you know, because that really isn’t a martini as far as the purists are concerned.”

    But that’s the thing — normally, the smallest variation in ingredients results in a complete name change.

    For instance, you don’t ask for a “Scotch Manhattan,” you ask for a Rob Roy.

    You don’t ask for a “Galliano screwdriver,” you ask for a Harvey Wallbanger.

    For that matter, to stay in Martini territory: you don’t ask for a “Martini with an onion” you ask for a Gibson. A fricking garnish change entails an unrelated name. Why does changing the main payload not do the same?

  100. 100.

    Svensker

    @J. Michael Neal:

    3 oz Bombay Sapphire
    Have a vermouth bottle somewhere in the house

    One of my favorite martini recipes is from the 60s, for a “Fissionable Martini.” Since apparently a bottle of vermouth was blown up in atom bomb tests in Nevada in the 50s, to make a Fissionable Martini you hold your glass of gin out the window that faces Nevada.

    Forgot to say, sweet kitty pics. Awwww.

  101. 101.

    JoeC

    As for the Bob Marley, I still think this song has one of the all-time scary lyrics:

    “Every time I try to plant a seed, he say kill it before it grows…”

    Also, we generally go to Maine for summer vacation. Was surprised one year to see a bunch of “Bob Marley” CDs in the local Supermarket in Southwest Harbor (I think). I thought, “Who knew Mainers were so hip”. Turns out he’s a standup comic from Portland…

  102. 102.

    Tom Hilton

    @Ash Can: Call it a V&V. It’s short and sweet, and people won’t think you’re trying to make yourself seem cooler than you really are by pretending to drink Martinis when you actually don’t.

  105. 105.

    suzanne

    I am totally in the doesn’t-matter-as-long-as-it-tastes-good-and-it-gets-you-schnockered camp.

  106. 106.

    John - A Motley Moose

    @freelancer: I don’t see a lot of new news there. Many of the killings were Iraqi vs Iraqi. No surprise there. Iraqi captors were rougher than U.S. captors. Again, no surprise. Iran aided Shiite groups. Again, no surprise. Wonder if we’ll see any new revelations?

  109. 109.

    soonergrunt

    @Omnes Omnibus: So now a dead thread is full of very insistent statements that chocolate pie is great?
    Cool.
    Perhaps Mclaren can chime in with his insistence as to the superiority of strawberry-rhubarb, and we’ll get a whackjob-on-wackjob pie fight going.

  110. 110.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @soonergrunt: I am sure she proselytizes for key lime as well. I have never used the pie filter; there are people I scroll past but sometimes I like to to see what is going on in their heads.

  112. 112.

    soonergrunt

    @John – A Motley Moose: Well, that’s what Mclaren is always going on about–how great strawberry-rhubarb pie is. You’ll have to ask him about it, but I warn you, he’s fucking insane.

    At some point in the conversation when you say something he can’t logically refute, he’ll decide you’re a paid shill for some group or another that may or may not be nefarious and will then declare that his assertion of your status as an evil paid shill equals proof of your status as an evil paid shill.

  114. 114.

    John - A Motley Moose

    @soonergrunt: Oh, I’ve seen his posts. I’ve been a lurker and rare commenter on here for a few years. I’m familiar with most of the regular posters – even BoB. I’ve taken to commenting more often, mainly because the blog I usually comment on has been fairly quiet lately.

  116. 116.

    Paula

    @Mark S.:

    Well, I’m looking over the Wikileaks Iraq docs and while I’m glad it’s getting the kind of front-page coverage it deserves, I’m afraid that there’s absolutely nothing in there that

    1) Couldn’t be guessed at by anyone with a functioning brain and a basic knowledge of history and

    2) Lends policy-influencing strength to the antiwar grass-roots movements here in the US, mostly because the people who would care about what’s inside the Wikileaks docs would already be anti-war, and those outside the anti-war movement would probably already assume that all of this was/is necessary to “protect our freedoms” or “fight the war against terrorism” or just wouldn’t even want to read about any of it in the first place.

    3) I’m also a little afraid that all the evidence of Iraqi police/military forces abusing detainees and of sectarian violence among Iraqis themselves is going to give people here in the US a chance to excuse our role in the process.

  117. 117.

    Origuy

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
    I sent a submission to Muslims Wearing Things. Sultan Salman Abdulaziz Al-Saud was a payload specialist on the space shuttle in 1985. He was the first Muslim in space.

    Edit: Moderation? Porquoi?

  118. 118.

    suzanne

    @Tom Hilton:

    It is not a reasonable approach to the question of what to call what you drink.

    I just call it “yummy” or “more, please”.

  119. 119.

    frosty

    @Dennis SGMM: My parents had a book all about martinis, with this recipe that was somewhat like yours:

    Fill martini glass with 2 oz gin.
    Place 100 W lamp on table
    Carefully place vermouth bottle between martini and lamp
    Turn lamp on for precisely 10 seconds
    Garnish with olives and enjoy!!

  123. 123.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Great website, I had a huge crush on Imran Khan when I was growing up, as for Salman Khan he is always dressed rather unfortunately. The website seems to have a lot of muslims from the subcontinent.

  124. 124.

    DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.

    @Redshirt:

    No, I forgot about the Moore Award when I wrote that. I don’t really care about Juan Williams anyway.

    It’s the stuff about showing gratitude to the wealthy that bothers me so much I just can’t read that blog anymore.

  129. 129.

    Comrade Kevin

    My only comment about those comments is that people who like to make stupid jokes about how awful Irish food is have obviously never been to the place.

Comments are closed.