Just four more shopping days until Kwanzaa.
Open Thread
by $8 blue check mistermix| 72 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
by $8 blue check mistermix| 72 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Just four more shopping days until Kwanzaa.
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SiubhanDuinne
Has anyone heard from Suzanne?
aimai
Over at Roy Edroso’s Blog there’s a link to a fascinating story which deserves wider dissemination: Fox News has an arm called “News Core” that simply steals the work of bloggers and journalists and republishes it as original Fox stories:
aimai
aimai
Oh darn. The block quoting should contain everything up to “attribution” since that is from the Courthouse News Blog. Correct attribution is harder than I thought.
aimai
JMC_in_the_ATL
Question for the resident historians:
It seems like there has been a lot of violent outbreaks over the years and/or harsh dictatorships in many of the former Soviet Republics. Most recently Belarus. And yet one never hears of such things in the Baltic States. As far as I can tell, they made an orderly transition to Western-style democracy and are now member states of the EU.
Why was their transition so relatively quiet? Or maybe it wasn’t but it just hasn’t been covered. I guess specifically I don’t understand why Belarus and the Ukraine seem to be having so many growing pains in determining their future in comparison. I would think that given their small size and access to the Baltic Sea, the Baltic States would be fairly susceptible to shenanigans from Moscow, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
The Grand Panjandrum
And tomorrow is Festivus. The Airing of Grievances thread should be epic because Obama still hasn’t given us our ponies!
Comrade Javamanphil
Whew. Just enough time to still McMegan her 1 ton of Himalayan Pink Salt. I’m sure that amount is correct if you just accept all my entirely irrelevant facts about how I decided to calculate the problem (the math is fine. I used a spreadsheet!). I’ll revisit this tomorrow if I can remember what my original point was.
TweededHipster
@DougJ – Any chance we could talk about wine today instead of politics? I had to deal with a clown yesterday at work who believes anything he reads on conservative blogs. He turned Net Neutrality into a four-alarm ‘government should stay out of it’ issue. Government shouldn’t have to rule on it is right!
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: I skimmed last nights comments and did not see a post about Suzanne. Hopefully she’s resting with a tiny tot in her arms.
Have you seen the forecast for xmas day?
stuckinred
@JPL: Freak out, freak out, snow showers in the ATL!!! I’ve been here 26 years and I still can’t believe how nuts these yokels are. Cut to 11 Alive at Home Depot for run on generators!
Phyllis
@TweededHipster: I scored a $75 coupon for Barclay’s Wine for $25 from Groupon several weeks ago. I have two different Malbec’s ordered. Gonna be a fun New Year’s Eve.
While I’m out today, I’m going to look for the new Mondavi Brut Sparkling wine. And I’ll be receiving a couple of bottles of 2 buck chuck from a friend who lives in Greenville, home of the only Trader Joes in SC. I’ll get back to you on that.
mai naem
I am represented by the two biggest assholes in the senate. I challenge any other states to be represented as big an asshole combo as Kyl and McCain. I am embarrassed.
stuckinred
@mai naem: Been to Georgia lately?
JPL
@stuckinred: My brother bought a second home near Jasper in the mountains. He and his wife are suppose to drive from Chicago to Jasper xmas day. It’s not the highway drive, it’s the last 15 miles. lol
Also, too..I think that means I’m going to have company at my house for a few days
ChrisS
@mai naem:
I’d say Inhofe and Coburn trump your two, but I don’t know if any liberals even live in OK.
geg6
@mai naem:
You should only be embarrassed by your fellow Arizonans, not by yourself. It’s not your fault they are ‘tards.
As for me? I’m at work for half a day and thinking “GAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”
I have been stupid enough to ask the ex a favor a couple of days ago (I had a bat in my apartment and my John was unavailable), and now he has asked me to wrap his Christmas presents before tomorrow afternoon in return. So now I have wrap all of his, all of mine, pick up some cigars for John and some gumballs for the gumball machine John got my niece, at least four bottles of wine (some Riesling and some Pinot noir), and the groceries for the potatoes au gratin I’m making for Christmas dinner at my sister’s. Oh, and I have to meet a guy who got me a Pens Winter Classic jersey for John at wholesale price ($70 versus $350).
I’m thinking I’ll wait and brave the crowds at the supermarket tomorrow so as to not want to shoot somebody by the time I get to John’s for dinner tonight. He’s making salmon and he IS the king of salmon.
Edited to add: By the way, I can’t really get too pissed at Arizonans. Here in PA, we just voted in real live nutcase Toomey. It was close, and Sestak is still awesome in my book, but too many of my fellow Keystone Staters are idiots.
Suffern ACE
@ChrisS: FTW
Southern Beale
Andrea Mitchell on Morning Joe 2 seconds ago:
“President Obama never met one on one with Mitch McConnell.”
Oh Great Gazoogle, tell me, is this true? NO. (with pic)
PUNDIT FAIL
Cripes I really need to stop watching the news in the morning.
cathyx
Do they give gifts for Kwanzaa?
Phyllis
@mai naem: SC-Graham and DeMint. Nuf said.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL @stuckinred
LOL, I always enjoy the local media freakout when there’s snow. Or there might be snow. Or somebody thought they might have seen a snowflake.
The graphics! The portentous music! The crawls listing every single agency or company with closings! The intrepid reporters, reporting their reports from the supermarkets, the higway overpasses, and someone’s front yard where kids have scraped together enough snow to make a pathetic 6″-tall snowman!
Loves me some snow in the south.
4jkb4ia
One absolute and complete loon who is on the fringe of Tea Party status
Shelby and Sessions are absolutely up there in terms of being known as jerks, BTW. Sessions during Sotomayor hearing disgraced self in particular.
TweededHipster
@Phyllis:
Never even thought about the possibility of wine discounts via groupon. That’s a game changer!
I’m having a hard time getting a bottle of Casa Larga Blanc de Blanc sparkling even though it is produced in this county.
Fault likely lies with my adherence to my stupid principles as I’m trying to only patronize small liquor stores in the city that I can walk to reasonbly from work or home.
4jkb4ia
@cathyx:
<a href = "http://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/greetings_and.shtml#go%20to%20giftsYes
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
I never realized just how many states had two douchebags for Senators. And no one’s even mentioned Kansas yet, with Roberts and Brownback.
Well, to lighten the mood, I present the amazing discovery that my current employer’s mascot is actually Brak, from Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
MikeJ
@cathyx: I don’t know if they do, but everyone I know who celebrates it does.
Phyllis
@TweededHipster: I’ve picked up several great deals on Groupon. I liked this one because you didn’t have to join the Barclay’s ‘send you a wine a month’ deal to use it. Plus I saw the Groupon honcho interviewed Sunday morning and it’s a company I can get behind.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
I’ve also discovered that it’s remarkably difficult to find fuzzy slippers these days. I may have to brave a shopping mall today in order to locate some.
cathyx
@MikeJ: Wouldn’t everyone you know who celebrates it be a they to me?
Svensker
@SiubhanDuinne:
Re-querying.
geg6
@Brian S (formerly Incertus):
I was at Target yesterday and they had really cute fuzzy slippers. Not that Target won’t be insane, but at least you don’t have to navigate the entire mall.
Michael D.
So, I finished reading Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia today. It really does a great job of laying out, in an easy-to-understand was, how Goldman Sachs can do anything it wants, anywhere in the world, and almost no one can stop them.
I have never in my life felt so helpless or powerless to do anything.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@geg6: There must be a fuzzy slipper embargo in south Florida. I even went to Wal Mart for the first time in a decade hoping to find some. When even Wal Mart doesn’t have the cheap crap you really need, you know you are well and truly boned.
mr. whipple
Obama live on Cspan 3 signing DADT repeal.
Nick L
@ChrisS:
I don’t actually live in Oklahoma now, but I spent the first 18 years of my life there (and I’m leaving on a plane to OKC in a few hours). There are a few liberals, especially among twentysomethings. More common are people like my dad, lifelong Republicans who left the party in recent years (my dad left in 1994). But yes, Oklahoma is an overwhelmingly conservative and Republican state, and I think we have a strong case for the coveted “worst jackasses in the Senate” award.
4jkb4ia
Don’t worry, mistermix, it is almost here. On December 26 there will be plenty of football and all the Christmas music and all the idolatrous trees will be gone.
(“Idolatrous trees” a reference to the Asherah-worship variety. At least my husband pretended to think it was funny.)
Maody
I’m going to an early Festivus party tonight for the Airing of Grievances over Mexican food. Har.
gnomedad
I started a Facebook page. Join if it amuses you.
Listening to NPR despite its conservative bias
Gin & Tonic
@JMC_in_the_ATL: Short version – the Baltic states were independent in the early 20th century, up until the post-WW2 expansion of the Soviet empire, so there was a shorter history of Soviet control to overcome. But go back a couple of centuries, and you find Lithuania actually in control of much of the area of present-day Belarus and Ukraine (not “the” Ukraine, incidentally). So small and peaceful is relative, and dependent on your time frame.
MikeJ
Yes we did!
geg6
@Brian S (formerly Incertus):
Perhaps that cold snap you guys had depleted the available supply of fuzzy slippers there in FL. Just a guess. They are widely available here in PA where we’ve had the coldest and snowiest December in memory. But where December is always cold to some degree or another.
mr. whipple
@MikeJ:
Indeedy!
D-Chance.
@Michael D.: Those drama classes are paying off, it seems…
Brick Oven Bill
Lloyd Blankfein reviews Tabbi’s book:
“I was shocked that others saw it as being supporting evidence that Goldman Sachs had burned down the Reichstag, shot the Archduke Ferdinand and fired on Fort Sumter.”
Lloyd was Shocked! Shocked! Goldman Sachs is, you see, the victim. You need not feel helpless Michael D. I recommend supporting Ron Paul’s call for an open audit of the Federal Reserve.
Sweet Fanny Adams
President Obama at the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law repeal signing
Rosalita
@The Grand Panjandrum:
I was just going to say, we haven’t done that on the blog yet this year.
John, don’t forget!!
Anya
I am watching the DADT repeal signing. It’s so moving. I am so happy that Rep Partick Murphy received a standing ovation.
Rosalita
@stuckinred:
I’ll tell you why I don’t think that’s out of line — when I lived in Atlanta in 1999-2000 we had a big ice storm. My all-electric house in Duluth had no power for FOUR days.
That being said, were you able to get a loaf a bread before they were all gone?
mr. whipple
@Anya:
Yes, this is very cool.
jeffreyw
Bah, carpet layers are here and I’ve already had a spat with Mrs J.
kd bart
Please tell me they played “In the Navy” during the signing ceremony.
nevsky42
I’m not certain, but I thought you were supposed to give homemade gifts to loved ones at Kwanzaa…
Culture of Truth
Did we miss “Secession Ball” ?
Culture of Truth
Did we miss “Secession Ball” ?
cleek
we had a huge storm in Raleigh, in 2000, that kept us out of work for an entire week. we couldn’t even drive to stores to buy milk and bread because they don’t plow side streets in NC (and the stores weren’t open anyway). there was 5 inches of packed snow and ice on our street for almost two weeks.
that’s why people stock up at the first hint of a big storm.
dr. luba
@Gin & Tonic: True, and the longer a people have been under the Soviet/Russian yoke, the harder it is to form a democratic society. But there is also the fact that Russia considers Belarus and Ukraine to be integral parts of Russia, and finds their current political independence an affront to the natural order. The Baltics–not so much.
The Russians have been meddling in modern Ukraine, supporting the Party of Regions and undermining democracy. Remember the dioxin poisoning of the opposition candidate in2004…and the subsequent Orange Revolution? (Lukashenka has been doing a pretty good job onhis own in Belarus, so they haven’t had to get involved.) Or when they would cut off natural gas supplies in the middle of winter after demanding huge price increases (despite existing contracts), all to undermine the government?
Western and Central Ukraine tend to be more democratic (at least in part because of their history of western/Austrian and Polish hegemony until after WWII), but the weight of the party machine and Russian interference make it difficult for them to counteract the still fairly Soviet East and South, areas in which the native population was decimated by the 1932-33 Famine Genocide and repopulated with ethnic Russians.
shortstop
There’s some stiff competition, but I think I gotta go with Oklahoma.
In happier news, ze repeal beel, eet ees signed.
ETA: Sorry, Anya; didn’t see your comment!
shortstop
@Culture of Truth: It was a couple of nights ago. The media wasn’t allowed in, because it was a private bigoted-ancestor-worship event.
Gin & Tonic
@dr. luba: I know that, but my opening words were “short version”. I thought JMC’s question was more about the Baltics.
Paddy
Full Video- President Obama Signs Law Repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”
Maody
@cleek: we are neighbors! out here in Chatham County, we had no electricity for 10 days during that beautiful huge snow storm. thank the makers of wood stoves.
as for fuzzy slippers, my 12 year old forlorn pair of grey sheep skins complete with the well worn ‘i walk funny and wear out shoes on the inside side so there are no fuzzies left’ heels are still hanging in. barely. i’ve never found another pair sufficient to plunk down mucho dinero$$$.
Morbo
Oh look, Opera 11.00.
New Yorker
Watched “United 93” last night for the first time (I picked a week in which I wouldn’t do any air travel). What a movie. I was trembling at the end of it.
catclub
@mai naem:
I think come January, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell will give you a run for your money.
Tom Coburn and James Inhofe _already_ are there fighting for
that honor.
It is an awfully tough crowd.
schrodinger's cat
@Brian S (formerly Incertus): LL Bean’s wicked good slippers, what can I say they are wicked good! Their Shearling slippers are also very good.
Mike in NC
Not to appear anal here, but Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia were absorbed by the USSR in 1940, not post-WW2.
catclub
Does anyone else think that the GOP was amazingly stupid to make an issue of New START ratification?
Suppose they let it pass with a huge bipartisan vote. In that case, it would be like all the other treaties that are ratified with huge bipartisan majorities and no particular victory for Obama.
Instead, they make a fight out of it and lose – which is really fairly predictable unless they have already agreed to stay together and kill it.
It has turned ( counting chickens slightly early here)
into a very big win for Obama.
This is a case of ‘doesn’t anybody here know how to play this game?’
Carnacki
The War on Christmas pro-Christmas forces have a friendly fire hit. Link here
JMC in the ATL
Interesting. So there would have been a sizable portion of the population in the Baltics in the early nineties that was alive when the USSR forced their way in. I hadn’t realized that, and it makes sense that there would be a much stronger collective memory of self-determination.
Maody
@Carnacki: Santy is a commie
Gary Farber
Um, I was asked a question that I just wrote a bunch of responses to, as soon as I saw it, all of 12 hours after that post was posted, but it’s already 17 posts down the front page of BJ, and about to disappear off the front page, so for whatever it’s worth, it starts here.
Geez you guys write a lot. I like to respond to any interesting comment, which is simply impossible around here these years.
Comrade Kevin
Anyone going to make Sandra Lee’s Kwanzaa Cake?
Gary Farber
‘kay, no response here either.