Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

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

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

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

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

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

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

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

… gradually, and then suddenly.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Books are my comfort food!

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Readership capture writ large

Readership capture writ large

by | 32 Comments

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I thought I’d do the reader blogs early today, before anyone dips into their Four Loko stockpile.

  • Dolphin Kazoo wonders if the Greeks will become Godless communists like the Cubans.
  • Emily Hauser reports back from the Holy Lands.
  • Cheryl Rofer says meet the arsenic boss, same as the phosphorous boss.
  • Libby Spencer is angry that OFA wants people to write letters in support of the federal worker wage freeze.
  • WeSeeYou unearths a motherlode of live YouTube of the Reverend.  If you don’t enjoy this, you hate America.
  • Raked recommends a Daphne Zuniga Lifetime Christmas movie to enjoy over a cup of General Foods International Coffee.

Reader Interactions

32Comments

  1. 1.

    Martin

    Raked recommends a Daphne Zuniga Lifetime Christmas movie to enjoy over a cup of General Foods International Coffee.

    You can’t make me!

  3. 3.

    williamc

    Long time no comment, but I talked to the OFA organizer that runs my little neighborhood block of OFA here in Atlanta last night, and apparently a lot of my neighbors agree with Libby Spencer. She said that she could only recruit three people to canvas for the midterms, and that since the midterms were over, she has heard from almost all of the people that she was calling constantly in the fall that the Federal Pay Freeze was the final straw and is a symptom of why they wouldn’t volunteer to campaign: the WH seems to be validating all of the Republican complaints about Federal workers over the years, and why would they ask Democrats to campaign for Republican policies, blah blah blah, etc.

    I can’t say I disagreed with that assessment.

  8. 8.

    JC

    What’s funny about the Wikileaks thing – which is not accessible, the .org, by the way – is that wikileaks IS accessible via Finland (wikileaks.fi), Germany (wikileads.de), and netherlands (wikileaks.nl).

    But here in the states?

    Nope.

    You remember all that stuff about how China controls their internet, doesn’t allow people to see stuff?

    Hmmm.

  9. 9.

    beltane

    It would be wonderful if a mini-wave of godless communism spread across Europe. The first leader who makes the bankers sh*t their pants will have my undying admiration. Will any of us ever live to see such a thing? I doubt it.

  10. 10.

    beltane

    @JC: The winter Olympics were like that too. In order to see most of the live events I had to go on to some sketchy site out of Russia as all the coverage from legit overseas outlets was blocked to protect NBC. Why do they hate our freedoms?

  14. 14.

    Mike E

    LMN gets my vote for best cable provider of awful movies. “Locked In A Box” and “His Looks Could Kill” seem to me as recent titles on there, but I could be totally making that up. At least SyFy has “Mansquito!” Now, that’s Yule Tide entertainment! Also.

    Zuniga was in The Sure Thing, too, dammit!

  15. 15.

    Southern Beale

    @Catsy:

    That sound you just heard? It’s the sound of a PUMA’s heart breaking as a single emo tear slides down their cheek.

    That’s Okay, they’ll go running into the welcoming bosom of Our Lady of The Twitter, Sarah Palin. I’m sure they’ll feel quite at home there, since the genitalia is the same and that is all the PUMAs cared about.

  16. 16.

    ellaesther

    DougJ, thank you so much – technically, of course, it’s Shabbat where I am now, and I shouldn’t be here, but the fire is still burning in the mountains of northern Jerusalem, and the television is on, and as I stare in horror, I just had to check my little virtual world, to touch base, and I found the pingback from your mention.

    Thank you, thank you. You’re the best.

    I won’t stay now (Shabbat, etc), but if anyone wants to ask any questions or respond or whatever, I’ll come back to this post when Shabbat is over in Jerusalem, about 11 am EST/10 CST on Saturday, and check in.

    Thanks.

    ee

  19. 19.

    Ailuridae

    If you keep refusing to link my blog I will be forced to be meaner to ED Kain. You are leaving me no options.

  20. 20.

    Crashman

    Raked recommends a Daphne Zuniga Lifetime Christmas movie to enjoy over a cup of General Foods International Coffee.

    We thank you for the shout-out, DougJ! May the Schwartz be with you!

  22. 22.

    Ailuridae

    Also, hot stove league is in session. White Sox add Adam Dunn and lose two of my least favorite Sox ever (Jenks and Linebrink). They got Kyle Cofield back in the Linebrink deal and he has Don Cooper reclamation project written all over him.

    Good work from Chicago’s professional baseball team!

  23. 23.

    Fuck! A Duck

    Maude: Why would anyone pay to get him back? Glibs are a dime a dozen . . .

    . . . and you have to bow to the dictates of the free market.

  24. 24.

    MarkJ

    @Mike E:
    The Sure Thing was a fantastic Rom-Com. I love the bar scene.

    Cowboy Guy: I went to Paris once with my wife. Boy am I glad she’s dead.

  27. 27.

    hypusine

    @Cheryl Rofer

    Glad to see you here! I was just about to comment on your post*.

    Actually the experimental outcomes you compare are conceptually very different. The reason isn’t that, as you point out, the mass ratio of deuterium to hydrogen (which is 2) approximates that of arsenic to phosphorus (2.2). The reason is that chemistry changes (or can change) dramatically when moving along or down the periodic table. In contrast, the chemistry of isotopes is in many ways indistinguishable. That’s not universally true of course, or else isotopes wouldn’t be particularly informative or useful.

    The reason is pretty straightforward: valence electrons – those that participate in chemical bonding and therefore largely determine an element’s chemistry – experience a very different electronic environment as one moves down a periodic table column. The outer (valence) electrons are “shielded” from the nucleus to a greater degree as one moves down a column because the atom increases in size, with more electrons residing between those available to react and the nucleus.

    This is not true for isotopes, which do not vary in proton content (and therefore maintain the same nuclear charge that helps determine chemistry of the valence electrons.

    Bottom line: different elements in the same family = large differences in chemistry. Different isotopes of the same element = virtually no differences in chemistry.

    *or, rather, DougJ’s link to your post I guess

  28. 28.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Well, yes and no, hypusine.

    The reason that elements fall in the same columns in the periodic chart is that they have similar electronic configurations, which give similar chemistry. Those configurations are in different electronic shells, which give differences in chemistry.

    I’ll agree that those differences are more than one expects for isotopic differences, although the mass difference between H and D is significant and leads to different kinetics. Oxygen isotopes have also shown some surprising effects that may have something to do with “magic numbers” of particles in their nuclei. (I am absolutely not going any further into those obscure observations.)

    Conceptually, the experiments seem to be quite similar to the earlier experiments with deuterium that I described: provide the abnormal nutrient to the exclusion of the normal one. (I’m just going by reading the press accounts, which could well be flawed.)

    Getting those bugs to live on arsenic in place of phosphorus was an interesting feat. I tend to react badly to press overhype, and there certainly was some of that with this story. What I really want to see is some fully arsenic-substituted DNA.

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