Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Books are my comfort food!

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

The words do not have to be perfect.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

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

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

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

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

The lights are all blinking red.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Fun facts

Fun facts

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On the road this weekend so not much time to post, but thought we needed something a little more light-hearted today, so….

Reader Interactions

93Comments

  1. 1.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    Democrats should throw down the Alabama Constitution whenever someone says a bill should be no longer than the Constitution.

  3. 3.

    JGabriel

    DougJ:

    Alabama has an unbelievably long constitution: “At 357,157 words …

    The Tea Party State has a Constitution that’s longer than the health care reform bill?

    Hypocrites.

    (Edited to add: Belafon got there first. Which is a shame because, dammit, mine’s funnier. (Sorry, B, no offense intended.))

    .

  4. 4.

    beltane

    Japan also makes some incredibly high quality incense that is so expensive only a Goldman Sachs executive could afford it.

    I’d like to make a joke about the length of Alabama’s constitution being in an inverse relationship with the percentage of its residents who can read, but that would be in poor taste so I won’t do it.

  6. 6.

    BGinCHI

    The Drive-By Truckers should do a recording of their state constitution.

    Patterson Hood reads while Mike Cooley saws the shit out of his guitar.

    I’d buy that.

  7. 7.

    JGabriel

    DougJ:

    Do I need a Japanese chalk mule to get it?

    That’s really dangerous. A friend of a friend did that once, and the condom with the chalk burst in his stomach. There was so much calcium — it’s really pure shit, man — that his incisors grew out 6 inches, and now he can’t eat without poking himself in the eye.

    He has to live on a diet of Ensure(tm), drunk through a straw. He’s really popular with Twilight fans, though. Every cloud, silver lining I guess.

    Depending on your view of Twilight fans, of course. He adjusted. Kind of had to.

    .

  8. 8.

    morzer

    I can see why the Alabama Song starts:

    “Oh show me the way to the next whisky bar.. oh don’t ask why, oh don’t ask why”.

  9. 9.

    Mark S.

    I went and voted today. On the way back, I was stopped at a light when an SUV passed me, driving on the wrong side of the road, and pulled into a parking lot. Oh, and he was being chased by eight cop cars.

    I didn’t have a good view, but they apprehended him pretty quickly. But seeing all those cops get out with their guns drawn made me a little nervous being stuck in the middle of the road.

  10. 10.

    morzer

    Incidentally, I have it on good authority that one member of Congress began his career as a Japanese chalk mule. It all went wrong on the day he brought in an especially large consignment of the orange variety….

  16. 16.

    Dennis SGMM

    @morzer:

    I guess that when Neil Young wrote:

    Alabama, you got
    the weight on your shoulders
    That’s breaking your back.

    He meant their state constitution.

  18. 18.

    kindness

    Stagger Lee ain’t the same unless Jerry is singin’ & pickin’ it.

    Jerry Lives (in my heart).

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus

    There are a lot of recorded versions of the song “Stagger Lee” and you can read a review of about a couple dozen of them here.

    As if I didn’t have enough to do. Now I need to spend two hours listening to different versions of Stagger Lee? Ok, it needs to be done by someone and I guess that person is me.

  20. 20.

    Cat Lady

    @Martin:

    “I honestly believe that in certain parts of America now, people are starting to mate with vegetables”.

    He should apologize to vegetables, which are attractive and good for you.

  21. 21.

    Uloborus

    @General Stuck:
    At first I was worried that FOX would crank this up to 11 in an attempt to steal back the election in the last few days. I was worried about this because FOX was on in the Subway I stopped at to eat and that’s how I found out about the ‘bomb threat’. Then I realized that if a dog had crapped in Oklahoma they would have cranked it up to 11 in an attempt to steal back the election. They don’t have any cards left to play. Yes, Muslims are scary. You’ve been telling us that.

    The article very mildly misrepresents Obama (I listened to him give his speech thingy). I thought he made it quite clear that the preliminary tests were positive for explosives, but they hadn’t actually confirmed it yet. They were just treating it as if it were real, because it might be.

    Kind of a dull speech. Mostly ‘we’re taking this very seriously’ platitudes. No Drama Obama doesn’t like talking about specifics when he doesn’t know yet. Alas much of the country needs its hand held while it changes its diapers.

  23. 23.

    Ash Can

    Alabama has an unbelievably long constitution

    And when you read it backwards it’s Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.

  26. 26.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Uloborus:

    That’s what we get for electing a Democrat. Fox will be reminding everyone that there were no terrorist attacks on George W. Bush’s watch.

  29. 29.

    General Stuck

    @Uloborus:

    I reckon Fox and company are busy poll testing the best line of attack, that are limited because the possible bombs were found by eegads!! the muslim terrorist loving US presnit. I figure they will go with it was Bush safeguards that saved the day, and Obama wasn’t able to thwart that. I did see some photos of the packages and they did look suspicious, too suspicious, like whoever planted them may as well put a sign on them saying BOMB. weird. I guess we will find out if they were real, but that won’t stop the freakout all around this close to the election.

  31. 31.

    Jewish Steel

    From Largehearted boy:

    Dave Van Ronk was one of the few white performers of the early-60s folk boom who could sing blues and not sound like a complete ass. He had an exceptionally weathered voice, shaped the old-fashioned way with cigarettes and whiskey…

    Nailed it.

  32. 32.

    morzer

    @General Stuck:

    Give them a day or two, and they’ll explain that Obama thwarted an evil plan by Iranian Yemenis just so Ahmadinejad could get more time to develop those nookleayar missiles.

  34. 34.

    Uloborus

    @General Stuck:
    So true, but they’d have freaked out about anything. The freakout was just going to happen, because it’s in their interest. Also, I’m not sure their chosen meme, ‘Go To War With Yemen’, is really going to be the best winner for the Republicans. FOX seems to think that 9/11 made the country *permanently* war hawkish.

  39. 39.

    BGinCHI

    So let me get this straight: someone in Yemen tried to UPS an explosive device to a synagogue and a Jewish Community Center?

    What’s next, ordering pizzas with secret ham under the cheese?

    I’m not saying explosives sent from Yemen aren’t scary, but they sound out of ideas.

  40. 40.

    Mojotron

    the length isn’t the issue with the Alabama Constitution:

    The extreme length is both because of and the cause of heavy centralization of government power in the state capital, Montgomery, leaving very little authority to local units. Counties cannot even legislate on local issues, requiring the state legislature, and ipso facto uninvolved parts of the state, to pass local laws.

    The constitution addresses many issues that are dealt with by statute in most other states. The most notable issue is taxation. Unlike most other states, a large portion of Alabama’s tax code is written into the constitution. Besides prohibiting local governments from passing any ordinances on tax issues, this necessitates its amendment over minor taxation issues. Adding to the problem is the requirement that a proposed amendment of any sort must be unanimously approved by the legislature; otherwise it must be submitted for a statewide vote. This has resulted in local county or municipality related amendments being overwhelmingly approved in the affected area, but rejected statewide

    Any changes to the tax code have to be done by constitutional amendment.

    edit: god I miss preview

  41. 41.

    General Stuck

    @Uloborus:

    Well, Sarah was tweeting today that the Obama administration was giving aid and comfort to our sworn enemy Iran, by wishing Achmahandjob a happy birthday. Currently, It is impossible to underestimate the level of dumbfuckery we can fall into at the drop of a hat.

  43. 43.

    PopeRatzy

    Cousin Joe Pleasant the New Orleans piano player recorded a version of Stagger Lee in 1985 that is based in New Orleans (CD: I Never Harmed an Onion). What a wonderful story told by one of the great bluesmen. Just Joe & the Piano. No other version I’ve ever heard has anything on that version.

  44. 44.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Uloborus:

    Good thing that we freed up all of those troops that ere occupying Iraq. We’ll need ’em to fight them in Yemen so that we don’t have to fight them here.

  45. 45.

    JGabriel

    @morzer:

    What’s truly scary is their faith in UPS making the delivery on time…

    … and the faith that their package will arrive intact.

    ba-da-BOOM!

    .

  46. 46.

    BGinCHI

    @morzer: Dying to know what the return address said.

    Center for the Love of the Jewish Pigs People
    Dirt Road on the other side of the Goats
    Yemen

    (with apologies to the mostly nice people of Yemen)

  47. 47.

    Dennis SGMM

    @BGinCHI:

    Breaking: airport personnel say that their suspicions were aroused on finding that the packages were addressed to “The Jews.”

  49. 49.

    General Stuck

    U.S. officials say al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is behind an apparent plot to send explosive devices to U.S. destinations via cargo planes. A key figure in the group is Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

    Well, shucks. He could have just mailed in his absentee ballot instead. Good thing he is an American citizen and all. Right

  51. 51.

    Kilkee

    @Mojotron: So it would appear that the poor tea party citizens of Alabama have to contend with a Strong Central Government? Who the hell pulled that off?

  52. 52.

    slag

    @morzer: To be fair, I understand that the explosives were just a backup. Their primary plan was for UPS to accidentally run over a few Jews with their delivery truck. But just in case…explosives.

    OK. This isn’t really a laughing matter. Truth be told, I’m just glad nobody got hurt. Even the UPS driver.

  53. 53.

    Martin

    @BGinCHI: I don’t know. You’re not going to get very far suicide bombing cafes in the US. But based on one attack, terrorist have managed to get the US to dedicate a couple trillion dollars to a response. If you can mail in a bunch of bombs and get us to require every inbound package to the US to be scanned, I’d think for very little effort you get quite a bit of economic damage done.

    It doesn’t really feel like that’s their intent. If it was, you’d flood the zone – put dozens and dozens of packages on flights going every which way from all over the world. Even that would be cheap and easy.

  55. 55.

    Dennis SGMM

    Tomorrow’s News Today:

    Republicans Demand Package Screening.
    Congressional Republicans today demanded that the Obama administration do “whatever it takes” to make certain that every package entering the U.S. is opened by trained Department of Homeland Security personnel.

    “We must protect the American people from the deadly threat of suicide-packages,” Congressman John Boehner told a hastily assembled press conference. “This wouldn’t have happened if we had a Republican president,” he added.

    Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told the press at the White House daily briefing that the president would sign the bi-partisan We Can Look into Whatever We Want To bill as soon as it hits his desk.

  56. 56.

    Martin

    Stay classy ABC:

    After Breitbart’s BigJournalism.com website reported that Breitbart would “be bringing analysis live from Arizona” for ABC, Media Matters confirmed his participation in a town hall meeting anchored by ABC’s David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg that will be featured in the network’s coverage.
    __
    Asked about Breitbart’s history of unethical behavior and misinformation, ABC News’ David Ford told Media Matters: “He will be one of many voices on our air, including Bill Adair of Politifact. If Andrew Breitbart says something that is incorrect, we have other voices to call him on it.”

  62. 62.

    freelancer

    @Martin:

    Asked about Breitbart’s history of unethical behavior and misinformation, ABC News’ David Ford told Media Matters: “He will be one of many voices on our air, including Bill Adair of Politifact. If Andrew Breitbart says something that is incorrect, we have other voices to call him on it.”

    That’s cynical, but not very entertaining. If I were running a news network and became that cynical, I’d just have Emo Phillips on, and give him four hits of acid, and then bring on Adam from Man vs. Food to “fact check”whatever came out of Phillips’ mouth while Adam was in the middle of trying to eat the world’s largest funnelcake. Ratings GOLD.

  64. 64.

    morzer

    @Martin:

    Such is life, alas! I must admit to not checking the link you provided, and then being distracted by the Alabama Door Slammer Stopper Constitutification.

  67. 67.

    General Stuck

    @change: Maybe not now that Obama has personally saved the day from evil terrorists you fuckers hem and haw about that he and democrats can’t protect us from and are around every corner.

    Your milkshake could use a little mo sugar.

  71. 71.

    demkat620

    Since this is an open thread the first thing this new congress better do is pass a law making it illegal to put Christmas crap right next to the Halloween crap. Christmas crap should not be allowed to leave the backroom until November 15th.

    Can we please get throught the overkill with one holiday before we overkill the next?

    Godammit I hate that. I was in a Kmart tonite getting a Halloween costume for my daughter and “Let it snow” was on the muzak. And fucking christmas trees were on display.

    I am so sick of this country at the holidays. This time of year is just annoying. And it will continue to be annoying all the way through Easter.

    There I’m done. But that’s what I want from this next congress.

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @morzer: Eddie Murphy came to America to meet his true love in “Coming to America.” Maybe change will come to Queens.

  76. 76.

    R-Jud

    @demkat620:

    Since this is an open thread the first thing this new congress better do is pass a law making it illegal to put Christmas crap right next to the Halloween crap. Christmas crap should not be allowed to leave the backroom until November 15th.

    It’s worse in the UK. There are no “buffer holidays”. The barbecue stuff leaves the shelves at the end of August, and the Christmas displays go up. Unreal.

  77. 77.

    Dennis SGMM

    Change is coming to America…

    Try buying a Buick with change. We got the change while the real money went to the top decile.

  79. 79.

    R-Jud

    @Omnes Omnibus: It’s now commonly called “Bonfire Night”, and is pretty low-key. They put out some sausages and fireworks around October 15th. That’s it. I guess they don’t want to over-glorify the whole “Burn the Catholic Traitors!” thing anymore.

  80. 80.

    morzer

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Yes, that was my question. Certainly in the part of Britain I know and where my parents still live, you don’t see the Christmas stuff much before mid-November.

  81. 81.

    morzer

    @R-Jud:

    It’s not that. No-one has taken the historical side of Guy Fawkes Day seriously for decades, if not longer. It’s more to do with regulations on selling and using fireworks, especially in public settings. Health and Safety and so on. Plus, it’s become more of an older person’s thing, since many young people have other forms of entertainment than constructing a guy or going through the streets asking for a “penny for the guy”.

  82. 82.

    R-Jud

    @morzer: I live near Birmingham, and I actually made a note in my diary of when I first noticed Christmas stuff in Morrison’s this year: September 27th. It was half an aisle of Christmas crackers and party nibbles. Now it’s a full aisle, and a tree in the lobby.

    ETA: In re your later comment: “Health and Safety gone maaaaaad!” makes sense as an explanation, I guess.

    I will say that anecdotally, I’ve seen more Halloween fuss here than I’ve ever seen in the past five years, although nothing on the scale of the US, naturally.

  83. 83.

    morzer

    @R-Jud:

    Funnily enough, I spent my childhood near Wolverhampton. My parents now live in Lincolnshire. I don’t doubt that you saw it, or that commercial lunacy has reached a new depth – just that Lincolnshire seems not to have gone quite so far, as yet.

    Halloween certainly seemed to be surging to me in recent years. I remember seeing an interesting piece about how it was never a French festival, and how the big stores have been trying to market it in France. I imagine they’ve done the same thing in Britain.

  84. 84.

    R-Jud

    @morzer: The schoolteachers I know report that Halloween is very popular with the children they teach. And it is definitely a marketing opportunity– something else to sell.

    I can see Halloween being an easier sell to England and Wales, since the Irish and Scots originally brought it to America in the first place (or some form of it, anyway), but France? Very odd.

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    I have to say, if this is the quality of attack planning that al-Alawaki brings to al-Qaeda, we’d better keep the guy alive as long as possible. Otherwise someone competent might take over if the US did capture or kill him and then we’d be in real trouble.

  90. 90.

    Blue Gal / Fran Langum

    Just wanted to add the Alabama Constitution is not a light-hearted document. It was created in 1902 to prevent blacks from voting and keep property taxes obscenely low. It was amended by Alabama Voters to allow for interracial marriage IN THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND. Many Alabamians do what I did when I lived there — vote no on every single “amendment” until the entire thing is redrafted and home rule is instituted.

    Yep, the document’s so long because there is NO home rule in Alabama. It takes an effing constitutional amendment to regulate badger hunting in Jefferson County.

    More at

    http://www.constitutionalreform.org/

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