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Everybody’s chatty tonight. Let’s test my ability to kill it dead.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.
I really should read my own blog.
We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.
Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.
the 10% who apparently lack object permanence
Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.
Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?
I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.
“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)
There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.
🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵
No one could have predicted…
Republicans in disarray!
75% of people clapping liked the show!
You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.
“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”
The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.
He really is that stupid.
There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.
One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.
if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.
Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.
“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”
The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.
Yutsano
I think ABL just created the thread that never ends.
And thanks for that AL. I really needed to hear that even though I mentioned it earlier.
And I go back on night shift in eight days. Woot.
Martin
Carry over from the thread that Anne Laurie likely just killed…
Californians should be aware that Brown will be holding a budget event on Wed. Sounds like he’s gonna tell us exactly how fucked we are and lay out a first budget pass. Word is he’s going for cuts so deep in the hopes that the public will support some targeted tax increases in a special election early next year.
Yutsano
@Martin: That could be entertaining. I wonder if the folks who still back Prop 13 down there will do their best to kill it. And I’m not too worried about the fact that we passed a law similar up here, half our initiatives end up getting thrown out in court anyway.
Ranger 3
So Helen Thomas says teh jooos run everything.
Martin
@Yutsano: The folks down here don’t much care. The schools here have great funding. Anything the state fails to provide, the parents and local businesses will. Anything to deny an education to the brown people elsewhere in the state. But my kids have full music programs, full art programs, two parents volunteering in every classroom, field trips to Catalina, all that. Public school in the state with the worst budget problems and one of the lowest property tax rates in the nation. Head two cities over and they haven’t gotten any textbooks in 3 years.
People misunderstand what the rich seek to do. They aren’t nearly as greedy as people here think. They’ll gladly trade $1 in taxes for $3 in direct funding out of pocket. What they want is control – control where and how the money is spent – not to save money. That’s why they’ll deny a tax basis for public education while sending their kids to a $20K per year private school.
But these folks are the minority. The state is swinging bluer. The legislature is Democratic and they can pass a budget with a simple majority again. The next budget should look radically different than the last ones. I’m hoping he calls for a release (electronic monitoring) of most non-violent offenders in the state. Breaking the back of the prison industry here would be a monumental step to curbing expenses.
freelancer (itouch)
@Yutsano:
I didn’t go anywhere near that thread. ABL is an awesome gadfly, but the torrent she unleashes from time to time is ridic.
Martin
@freelancer (itouch): I dove out when Cole came in. I don’t need to go out of my way to piss off the host. I’m sure mclaren is still shitting on the walls over there.
Bnut
OMG, I discovered Dame Edna tonight. Literally busting a gut here, the hernia no like the laughing. Still, good shit.
sb
@Martin: Great post. I think you and I are neighbors. I was a volunteer parent in Catalina; good trip and worthwhile for the kids, I thought.
I think the state is headed toward a kind of educational apartheid but instead of race, the separation will be based on class. Unless my history is faulty, my home state of California had an educational system that was the envy of most of the country, if not the world. And then along came prop 13, a bad idea that the majority of the state still supports. Folks hereabouts have been blaming teachers like me for the failings of public schools they wouldn’t dream of sending their kids to (“with those students? I don’t think so!”).
I have often heard folk say that the current economic condition in the country is “fucked.” I think my state is just as fucked, if not more so, than most. Thankfully, we have just eliminated by proposition the 2/3 majority rule to pass a tax cut so that give me some hope for a rosier future that will no doubt happen… after we take care of the current shit-storm we are all currently enduring.
JWL
That song is really pretty.
Martin
@sb: Heh. Might be. Someone else around here is a coworker. My son loved that trip.
And yes, California rapidly moved from being best in nation to one of the worst. Prop 13 was a big part of that, but not the sole reason. Education across the nation suffered as well – and I think a big reason is that as civil rights played out, it played out most loudly in the schools. That forever changed the relationship of the public with education – turning it into a battlefield on which to wage culture war. Look at where so many battles are held – over sex ed and abstinence (proxy for abortion), evolution (proxy for prayer in school), spending (proxy for civil rights again), and so on.
Education has simply picked up the same gridlock that DC has because they’re stuck dealing with the crap that people have been unable to win in Congress.
Martin
Oh, and this is my favorite pretty song.
Off to bed. Work will have to pause for 6 hours while I sleep.
Amir_Khalid
Something animal-related: Nils Lofgren on Michael Vick.
(Also a test to see if my link-fu has improved since last week.)
cleek
success!
JGabriel
Anne Laurie:
Damn, Anne, 15 comments in 5.3 hours. That’s what I call killing it dead.
Alwhite
Come on Anne, we can do better for this thread – I just heard that some blogger suggested another blogger was like a Nazi!
Discuss:
Origuy
Loreena McKennitt — Snow
russell
Annie Laurie, thanks for the McLaughlin track. Thanks also to Martin and Origuy for the Gilbert and the McKennitt clips.
The universe of Celtic angels singing us through the dark days between Samhain and Imbolc is a rich one. My personal favorite is this.
And, as an aside, in my dreams I have a weekly standing gig with Lindsey freaking Horner, the bass player on that track. What a beautiful player.
Sometimes you just have to say fuck politics and enjoy the beauty before it slips the hell away from you.
Props to Lofgren (parenthetically the owner of one of the hippest careers in the history of rock music) for his comments on Vick.
Jay in Oregon
Um, congrats? :)
Audra Kirt
Hi there, thanks very much for that. I was trying to find a filling stew recipe to help me get through the xmas months, and this looks perfect. I found a whole stew recipes site here too that seems to have loads of good ideas, maybe your readers can get some more inspiration there. Anyway, thanks, I will bookmark and read more another time ;)