The DFHs of the lamestream media are, not for the first time, underestimating the low cunning behind Palin’s who-lost-the-space-race “gaffe”:
“He needs to remember that, uh, what happened back then with the communist U.S.S.R. and their victory in that race to space,” the Fox News contributor said Wednesday night, reacting to Obama’s reference to Sputnik in his State of the Union speech. Palin called the Sputnik name drop one of the “W.T.F.” moments in the speech, a play of the President’s call for “winning the future.”
__
“Yeah, they won but they also incurred so much debt at the time that it resulted in the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union,” Palin said.
Dopey Snowflake Snooki, confusing the one-off triumph of Russia’s first-past-the-post Sputnik launch with the ongoing American efforts that led to putting our men on the moon itself!
Or maybe crafty Sarah ‘All Yer Heartlanders Are Belong to ME’ Palin, re-defining the collapse of a great superpower to better suit her side’s narrative. As conventional sane historians understand it, Russia’s collapse was precipitated by extravagant spending on military hardware, some of it in reaction to Reagan’s proposed ‘Star Wars’ militarization of space. But it is a sacred tenet of Palin’s fellows and supporters that there can never be “too much” military spending (especially if the people on the receiving end of such spending are supporting Palin’s continued media presence).
Recasting Sputnik — technically a military project, but one of those delayed-gratification science-y projects run by pocket-protector nerds, not a cool projectile-based genitalia enhancer with great visuals — as the cause of Mighty Russia’s downfall means it was the eggheads at fault, not the generals. Boo, stupid reality-based technocrats and their “But what happens after you push the red button and show everybody they’re not the boss of you, President Palin?” defeatism! Smart people, we’re the ones responsible for all the trouble in the world…
cathyx
She must have been in the same history class as Bachmann.
MagicPanda
It’s hard to cut through the stupid on this issue, but… if Palin can somehow convince people that Obama meant that we should be more like Russia (as opposed to his obvious meaning, which was that we should rise to the challenges of today, just like we did when Russia launched Sputnik), then it’s a double win, because it proves he wants to be a
commiesocialistwhatever they are!I mean.. reading Palin’s words, doesn’t it seem like she completely misunderstood Obama and thought that he was challenging us to be more like the Soviet Union?
Splitting Image
Actually, I would say it was mainly caused by the largest and most protracted work-to-rule program in history. Once folks figured out that the Commies were basically rebranded Tsarists, they abandoned the glorious revolution and spent the next seventy years doing their jobs as half-assed as they could get away with without getting shot.
In fact, the USSR only really lasted as long as it did because the country was facing enough external hostility (Nazis, Red Scares, etc.) for people to genuinely feel safer supporting the government than trying to take it down. Once the USSR ran out of “existential threats” – which it did when St. Ronald the Great slashed taxes and basically admitted that American elites didn’t really see the USSR as enough of a threat to maintain a wartime economy anymore – the system ran out of gas.
But yeah, spending billions on giant laser space frisbees when the country couldn’t seem to build a decent clock-radio didn’t help their situation either.
Annie
There is no part of US history that Ms. Sarah feels comfortable rewriting to align with her narrative. And, she doesn’t even care how stupid she sounds to people who actually know the truth. She is not speaking to those in the know, she is speaking directly to those ignorant of actual facts. Sputnik actually makes Obama’s point — that we have to focus on the future and invest in science and technology or we will be left behind. The capacity of the US to use the Sputnik experience to mobilize many communities — scientific, educational and diplomatic to move beyond Sputnik, not only to put the first man on the moon, but also to attract students worldwide to US universities and research facilities were cornerstones of US cold war policy.
Mike from DC
I thought the bottom falling out of the oil market and the grain shortages in the 70s and 80s is what really pushed them over. (which should inform our present policies given the recent increases in oil prices seem to be giving rise to a renewed sense of Russian Imperialism).
Dave
It was so many different things. Not only Reagan forcing them to spend (that WAS part of it), but also Pope John Paul II forcefully coming out against the Soviets, the inherent problems in a command economy and the Soviets unwillingness to face those problems until it was too late, Afghanistan…
But yeah, Sputnik, that was it. Something orbiting the Earth going “beep” brought down a superpower. Can we retroactively fire Palin’s history teacher?
Martin
@Splitting Image:
Have you ever seen a Made in USA clock-radio?
Stone, meet glass house.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Dopey Snowflake Snooki. That goes goes to the top of my favorites.
joes527
You are way over-thinking this.
She actually is that stupid. Actually.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
G is friends with someone who defected in the 1980s from Czechoslovakia. Apparently the Czech government was terrified that she would get to the West and tell them all about their state of the art vacuum tube technology. In 1985. She’d never heard of transistors until she got here.
So, yeah, I think it’s safe to say the US made better products in the 1980s than the Soviets did.
Linkmeister
@Martin: Sure. I owned a few in the 1960s. At that time “Made in Japan” was a laugh line for comedians.
BGinCHI
I’m pretty sure she had/lost (which is the same thing for them) her base at “Sputnik.”
GregB
The communist commies refudiated the pundints about Spudnut.
Zifnab
Honestly, Americans at large (much less Palin herself) don’t have a firm enough grasp on history to make that kind of leap. Sure academics in their ivory tower know military spending broke Russia. But the man-on-the-street voter just knows that the USSR was communist and the US was capitalist and capitalism won.
If the Dems wanted to be savvy and get aggressive against military spending (they won’t – but it’s nice to dream) they really could point to Sputnik and announce “Even the conservative Sarah Palin believes…” military spending is breaking our budget.
Then go off on the talking point roll about all the money we could save cutting extraneous military programs and foreign bases. That would do all sorts of favors for the Dems – turn the conversation away from entitlements, make the Republicans defend a grossly overblown budget, justify tax hikes to support the troops, highlight programs that Obama wants to trim anyway.
cathyx
I wonder if our next Sputnik moment is what’s happening in Egypt right now. We can’t let the Egyptians out-riot us like this.
BGinCHI
@cathyx: Agreed. They’ve already out-blood libelled us.
Martin
@Mnemosyne:
@Linkmeister:
Can either of you find one now? It’s not that we lack the capacity to make it. We lack the capacity as citizens to pay for it.
I suspect the outcome might be the same.
cathyx
We should be Sputniking,(are we coining a new term?) in the Green Energy field and weaning ourselves off of oil, but I’m not too optimistic about that happening in my lifetime.
The Moar You Know
@Linkmeister: Had a DIGITAL one in the 1979-1980 timeframe. Kickass clock.
But at that point only the old folks were laughing at the Japanese cars. The youngsters (my cohort) wouldn’t mind a Trans-Am or Firebird or some other older cool American iron, but most of us, at least the ones not buying Volkswagens (I had a Scirocco) were buying Japanese cars and they were awesome. Hell, if I’d bought one of the 1982 Celicas or the Toyota 4×4 I wanted back then I’d STILL be driving it. Those cars will not die.
lamh32
Okay, I know it’s a thread about the “grifter”, but CNN was showing a Breaking News chryon with the title: “Sowing Seeds of Unrest?” underneath video of Obama’s speech in Cairo. And Wolf Blitzer is saying this situation reminds him of HRC’s 3am phone call add. Um ok Wolf.
I really can’t stand Blitzer.
Also, President Obama will be speaking soon.
Uloborus
@cathyx:
Obama’s been stuffing little green initiative incentives and spending packages into bills the whole last two years. The man is all over energy policy. He’s got his very lengthy and detailed energy plan posted on the internet somewhere, but darned if I can remember where.
Southern Beale
You know honestly does anyone give a shit what Snowflake Snooki thinks or says, really? She’s like a national joke. She’s heading into Ann Coulter territory. No one even sees her anymore.
MikeBoyScout
“The Spudnut shop in Richland, Washington, it’s a bakery, it’s a coffee shop that’s so successful, 60-some years, generation to generation, a family-owned business, not looking for government to bail them out, to make their decisions for them. It’s just hard-working, patriotic Americans in this shop. We need more Spudnut moments in America.”
And Muraka’s biggest spudnut delivered.
cathyx
@Uloborus: Yes, but with the corporate controlled congress, I don’t see anything changing anytime soon.
BGinCHI
@lamh32: This fucking (neocon jackoff fantasy without scary girls) idea that “everything that happens in the world” is caused by us is a sign that this country is delusional.
If an individual claimed this about the state of affairs in his/her world, they would be institutionalized.
We’re like a high school kid who cries if something is going on and we weren’t invited.
Hawes
Urm….. The Soviet Union collapsed because it didn’t have an accurate pricing system or abide by the laws of supply and demand.
Oh, and they also got involved in a protracted war in Afghanistan that undermined the legitimacy of their regime.
Good thing we didn’t fall for THAT!
cathyx
Here’s Digby’s take on the Spudnut moment, from a commenter on her blog:
Palin’s quirky invocation of the “Spudnut Shop” here in Richland Washington as an example of American “can-doism” is far more ironic than you and most of your readers likely realize.
The fact is, the town of Richland was literally built by the federal government as a part of the Manhattan Project. All of the houses that surround the Spudnut shop were built by the Army. To this day, the only employer in Richland of any consequence is the Department of Energy and the contractors that work on DoE contracts at the Hanford site, just north of Richland. As a result, virtually all of the Spudnut shop’s customers are paid by tax dollars. Those that aren’t are retirees, drawing government pensions and social security.
Were it not for government spending, the Spudnut shop would be bankrupt in a week.
Warren Terra
@MikeBoyScout:
The best part is that the Spudnut shop in Richland is apparently part of a small remnant (~35 stores) of what a generation or two ago was a nationwide empire of more than 600 stores. She is explicitly taking as her model for America the idea that enclaves of live can cling on to life after the collapse of a once-powerful enterprise.
On the other hand, I am informed that their doughnuts are delicious, and that the proprietors of the Richland store are lovely people despite their rhetorical appropriation by Palin.
Mike in NC
Wasn’t there some crappy 1980s B-grade movie called “Weird Science” where a bunch of pocket-protector wearing nerds created a hot babe in their basement laboratory, and they all wanted to be the one to bang her? Is that what the wingnuts think of when they see Palin? No, didn’t think so.
Gin & Tonic
@Splitting Image:
Right. As the saying went, “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.”
lamh32
@BGinCHI:
Seriously, i just wonder if any of these people believe what the hell they say. And if not, if they go home at not and sleep peacefully. I bet Blitzer does.
President Obama is speaking now.
BGinCHI
@Warren Terra: Umm, donuts made out of fucking potatoes.
Shouldn’t be long with that kind of innovative mind till she solves the energy crisis and cures cancer.
(spudnuts are delicious though, there’s no denying it)
Calouste
@The Moar You Know:
Top Gear: How to kill a Toyota (part 1)
Mike in NC
@lamh32:
Blitzer was always a moron, but last week after the SOTU address panelists complained that the Tea Party wasn’t a legitimate political party who deserved equal airtime, and his response was “But couldn’t they be one some day?”
Such an asshole.
MagicPanda
Ack! I’ve been bitten by the word that starts with social and ends with ism. (first time)
Anyway, I’m going to post my question again because I’m curious for the answer.
When I read the words of Palin’s response, it seems to me like she misunderstood Obama’s speech.
What Obama said: we should rise to today’s challenges, just like we rose to the challenge of Sputnik.
What Palin thought he said: we should “win” the future, just like the Soviets “won” with Sputnik.
Am I wrong? No one else seems to be mentioning it, so maybe I am.
PurpleGirl
@MikeBoyScout: Digby had a longish post about Spudnut. At one point it had some 600 franchise locations across the country; now it’s down to 35 outlets. They make donuts containing mashed potatoes.
lamh32
Ughh who like this Cenk guy on MSNBC. The President made a speech, but there is not much the President of the US can do about this until Mubarak either steps down, or is overthrown, or if Muburak wins. So of course the Pres will come out and not take sides until there is some concrete things to go on.
So we pick a side, and then nothing.
Much of Obama’s speech was directed to gov’t about gov’t action. The bit about the protestors was just to not escalate to violence. All in all it was a fine line that he walked.
And Cenk’s analysis: “Classic Obama hedge…” really dude.
Froley
Keep it down or the guys at Reason will have to come over here and explain how the desire for hair metal and blue jeans ended communism. Scorpions!
PurpleGirl
Spudnuts.
http://spudnutshop.com/
cathyx
@MagicPanda: That is correct. But I think she misunderstood it because she doesn’t know the history of that time in American history.
Svensker
@MagicPanda:
You are not wrong. Apparently that’s what Sarah “Spudnuts” Palin thought.
Although, I have to say, Spudnuts are mmmmmm mmmmm good. I’d forgotten all about them, so there is that to thank Say-rah for.
lamh32
@lamh32:
Thank goodness for the actual reporters on with Cenk, cause they are setting him straight. That the President of the United States of America, does not want to pick sides in a fight such as this.
Cenk’s all “it’s a delicate balance…but I choose to “live by our creed”…really Cenk, really, then I’m just glad you’re not President. Cause we’d be stretched more thin than we are right now.
soonergrunt
This is awesome. Pretty much made my day.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/24d0cd3e5b/glenn-beck-fans-get-pranked
It seems that people attending a Glen Beck event at a university and looking for parking were directed by “EVENT PARKING” signs to a fraternity house parking lot that had a “No parking, violators will be towed” signs. The EVENT PARKING signs were removed and the cars towed at $125/each at owner’s expense.
I know it’s on funny or die, but it sure looks like a legitimate news story.
BGinCHI
@soonergrunt:
That’s the funny part.
soonergrunt
@lamh32: Well, don’t you know? The President of the United States should use his bully pulpit!
What the fuck does that moron think we can or will do?
soonergrunt
@BGinCHI: There was something like 52 cars towed. That’s 52 Becksters that have $125 less to donate to teabager causes than before.
freelancer
@soonergrunt:
Heh. My co-blogger wrote this up a while back. It’s a great story.
lamh32
This article from a TNR contributor seemed pretty good:
Five Things to Understand About the Egyptian Riots
Benjamin Cisco (mobile)
@The Moar You Know: The Scirocco was a GREAT car – my ’85 is still running, though sadly I can no longer fit behind the wheel.
Ecks
I used to have a roommate who studied Russia. Accroding to him the Soviet Union fell apart because
a) command economies don’t work so great (as people here suggest)
and
b) The old guard where so invested in it that things had to wait till some new young punk like Gorbachev came along who could look at it anew and say “nope”
lamh32
Five Things to Understand About the Egyptian Riots
WereBear
Man, that sums up the past 30 years or so…
lamh32
Five Things to Understand About the Egyptian Riots
New Yorker
Is it just me or has Palin peaked? I mean, she’s still saying the same airheaded shit she was saying before, but it feels like The Village is bored of her and the leadership of the GOP is grimacing when she speaks now, instead of applauding.
I get the feeling she’ll be gone quickly come 2012.
lamh32
Five Things to Understand About the Egyptian Riots
lamh32
Five Things to Understand About the Egyptian Riots
lamh32
Five Things to Understand About the Egyptian Riots
BGinCHI
@New Yorker: Right after she refers to Iowa as “the Show-Me state.”
'Niques
@soonergrunt: Looks real to me . . . it’s a local news station.
WereBear
Since this is an Open Thread:
Mr. WereBear pointed out RAND Paul was named after You Know Who…
Yes, he’s right.
MikeJ
@WereBear: The Rand corporation? I once installed a SGI workstation to be a graphic frontend to a Cray for them, back when having a Cray was cool.
BGinCHI
@WereBear: I thought it was short for “Krugerrand.”
Ron Paul only issues gold, don’t you know.
cathyx
@BGinCHI: @MikeJ: I hope you both are kidding.
MagicPanda
@cathyx: facepalm
'Niques
@WereBear: Can we start calling him Ayn Paul?
soonergrunt
@cathyx: He’s named after Ayn Rand.
And I can only ask–Really?
cathyx
@soonergrunt: Yes, I do know that. Libertarians worship Ayn Rand, and apparently name their children after her.
Redshift
@WereBear: Actually, Paul’s parents aren’t to blame for that one. They named him Randal, and he named himself after Ayn Rand.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Personally I think Snowflake Snooki is just jealous because back in the day Sputnik was something important that, with a decent pair of binoculars, you actually could see from your house.
Gin & Tonic
@soonergrunt: No, not really. It’s short for “Randal” (yes, apparently with only one el.
Anne Laurie
@Ecks:
Insert bitter laugh here. You know how many American lefties predicted the current Oval Office occumpant would be “America’s Gorbachev“?
Redshift
@joes527:
I think you’re right. This episode reminded me of nothing so much as Christine O’Donnell’s asking Chris Coons where separation of church and state was in the Constitution, and looking smug about how clever she was, and then being completely stunned when she saw the debate reviews saying he was right and clearly won the round.
Sko Hayes
@lamh32:
Thanks for posting the link, that article has a good perspective on what’s going on (which is basically it’s too early to tell).
PurpleGirl
It’s Randal Howard “Rand” Paul.
Wikipedia says he was called Randy as a child and his wife shortened it to Rand.
Gin & Tonic
Pretty OT, but if you Google Rand Paul, you also find Paul Rand, who is a lot more interesting and accomplished.
cathyx
@Redshift: Good to know. See? Just shows you can’t believe everything you read on the internets is the truth.
'Niques
@Redshift: One of my favorite moments!
Ed Drone
@Mnemosyne:
The odd thing is that those vacuum tubes are still in good demand — for guitar amplifiers — and SovTek tubes are a going brand.
Ed
Gin & Tonic
@Anne Laurie: Gorbachev may have been younger than the Kremlin gerontocracy when he rose to power, but “young punk” does him a real injustice. He paid his dues for a long time, rising slowly through the party ranks in far-away places, and even when he came to Moscow, he was viewed as a hick from the sticks, who talked funny and still had cowshit on his boots. He made it to the top through a combination of good strategy and a lot of luck in choosing the right “patrons” and having the right people die or fall ill at the right times.
arguingwithsignposts
What america needs is a Trucknutz moment!
morzer
Incidentally, I knew that there had to be a nasty little rat-faced Blue Dog somewhere in the pile of co-sponsors of the GOP’s Rapist Protection Bill:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/dem-co-sponsor-of-forcible-rape-law-not-talking.php?ref=fpi
I bet he isn’t talking about it.
BGinCHI
@PurpleGirl: I thought we were entitled to our own facts?
bobbo
Yes. I would sooner believe she intentionally used a word that doesn’t exist so that she could cleverly compare herself to Shakespeare.
bemused
@lamh32:
I’m still mystified that anyone thought it was a great idea to hire this guy and give him an hour show unless it was to make liberals look dopy.
PurpleGirl
@BGinCHI: LOL.
arguingwithsignposts
@bemused: Uyger made his name on the Internet posting shit to YouTube, and has been a fixture at the GOS. But from everything I’ve seen, he’s a hack as a TV personality, and so I don’t think he’ll last long. Which is longer than he should have lasted.
mclaren
This actually is the Republican narrative. Peggy Noonan stated it explicitly in 2004:
Source: “Broken Glass Democrats: Can their anger overcome Bush’s normalcy?” 19 February 2004, Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal.
arguingwithsignposts
@mclaren:
Shorter Peggy Noonan: Fuckin’ facts, how do they work?
hilts
Sputnik moment vs. Spudnut moment
h/t http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2011/01/sarah-youre-making-it-too-easy-on-fox.html
What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and a horse’s ass? Absolutely nothing.
Anne Laurie
@joes527:
She’s dumb but cunning, which is a dangerous combination, and always popular in American politics. And some of her would-be handlers are not dumb, or even fact-averse, as long as they get to pick and chose the facts. Our main protection against a Palin presidential run at this point may be that she doesn’t trust the “smart” people who want to make her a catspaw, and they don’t believe she’s smart enough avoid their Blackadder-quality cunning plans.
Delia
@mclaren:
What has Peggy Noonan got against American men?
mclaren
@arguingwithsignposts:
Or actual Ronald Reagan quote: “Facts are stupid things.”
bemused
Rightwingers are still insisting liberals hate Sarah because we are scared of her. I’m not scared of her, I am thoroughly embarrassed for her, poor soul. Each time she surfaces, she makes a bigger ass of herself. What kind of staff people does she have anyway. Maybe it’s just Todd.
Her groupies are another thing, those are some scary folk.
joes527
@Anne Laurie: Are you kidding me?
Our main protection against a Palin presidential run at this point is Sarah Palin. She has read the fine print and realizes that she makes more money on the gravy train that she is riding now (along with pimping out her daughters for public appearances) than she could ever make as president.
Sarah will continue to foul our discourse. (mostly because idiots like CNN will continue to ask her to) But: She. Will. Not. Run.
Anyway, she and Bachmann are on a collision course. There will be public hair pulling in the stupid pit soon as they battle for the title of Queen of the Stupid.
Two women enter. One woman leaves…
cathyx
@bemused: I’m glad you added that last part. She doesn’t scare me but the amount of people who follow her does.
JPL
Snooki is not running. She is going to delay her announcement as long as she can but will not run because she wants to protect her family from the LSM. Of course some would say why parade your teenage daughter across a stage and now worry about your family but she would say I’m snowflake snooki and I can do what I want. It has nothing to do with the emails being released in May.
Please can we ignore snowflake snooki next month.
bemused
@arguingwithsignposts:
I had a double take moment when I first saw him in msnbc. If they were looking for a liberal to hire, I could have thought of several that would have been worth watching. Cenk wouldn’t have even crossed my mind.
Today, it got worse when Cenk had Chuck Todd on for his expert commentary and I was too busy at the time to change channels.
bemused
@joes527:
Doh. I read “there will be pubic hair pulling” and I can’t stop laughing at the mental image.
John - A Motley Moose
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I love the name Snowflake Snooki, but think it should now be Spudnut Snooki.
bago
Dear old people. Is this what the late 60’s felt like? An onrush of new technologies changing the way the world works being fought off by well-heeled aristocrats?
This whole panopticon/hive mind thing is only beginning to happen, and is only going to get faster.
SiubhanDuinne
@arguingwithsignposts 7:39 p.m.
*What america needs is a Trucknutz moment!*
What SiubhanDuinne needs is a Lady Smudge moment!
Dee Loralei
@SiubhanDuinne: I read AWS comment as ” America needs a TunchNuts Moment!” And I kinda agreed :-P
Animal pics soon Cole, or we’re gonna have us a revolution right here, and you will experience true readership capture!
LOL
Seriously though, Tunch, Lily and Rosie pics, or even the JRT or the brother or sisters pets too please.
Jeanne ringland
@bago: Not that I remember.
PurpleGirl
@bago: Not really. Computers back then were still huge mainframes and most people not only didn’t own one, they didn’t know anyone who worked with one. They used punch cards and information/data was entered on by punch cards. Modems really were phones that were hooked into scientific hardware to transmit data. There was no internet; there were no blogs. We had teevee, radio, books, newspapers, magazines, and movies.
A friend once described to me working with a mainframe the size a refrigerator and it having less memory and computational power than th 32MB chips he held in his hand. (He told this me in 1993.)
Patrick O'Donnell
I’ve never heard a serious historian state that the Soviet Union fell apart because it was spending too much money on the military to keep up with the US. The clear immediate cause was that no one wanted to be apart of the Soviet Union any more (cos communism ain’t much fun, and it sure put a clamp on the rock and roll and blue jeans), and once Gorbachev started up with glastnost and made it clear that the dictatorship of the proletariat wasn’t going to be enforced with tanks and the gulag any more, nations started walking out. The war in Afghanistan sure wasn’t popular, but I never heard a Russian, or anyone in the former Soviet bloc, for that matter, complain that the problem with the government was too much military spending. (If the US continues to avoid taxing the wealthy, however, and keeps up its current rate of military spending, our regime may be in for some serious problems . . .)
Patrick O'Donnell
Re: tubes, communism as an economic system doesn’t particularly reward innovation (and as a political system, discourages it, because people might get the crazy notion to apply innovation in other parts of their lives), but it doesn’t mean the goods that were produced in the Soviet Bloc were necessarily shoddy. A lot of basic electronic and mechanical equipment was very reliable.
Poicephalus
Really, Anne?
Have you watched an early Sov missile launch? Start here.
You throw in some martial music and technocrats applauding, you got a hit (show biz, to you kids). Snark aside, I did a quick search on how many people have orbited Earth.
465.
Then no one had even thrown a pin around (and around and around) our planet by a huge phallic booster.
Sry
C
karen marie
I think you give Palin too much credit for actually thinking it through that far, to deflect blame from military spending.
Alan in SF
@bago: Mostly, the late ’60s felt like lying around on the floor trying to remember where you were. But yeah, sure, whatever.
4jkb4ia
Mouth hanging open at the sheer stupidity of this. (Wants to find DougJ’s Egypt links) (Cannot read “A Writer at Balloon-Juice” without cracking up)
Also, too, thanks to some indulgence at billboard.com, finally put 2010 to bed. No understanding of how “Bedrock” got to be #13. Absolutely one of the dumbest songs ever written. Many of the others that came across badly on the radio at least had swagger.
Jebediah
@PurpleGirl:
When I was kid, a classmates dad gave our Boy Scout troop a tour of his workplace – the computer room at a large insurance company. The computers filled the room, there were trays loaded with punch cards, but also a glimpse of the future – a Winchester hard-disk drive. The actual disk was, I think, ten inches or more in diameter and the whole drive was the size of a washing machine. I wish I could remember the storage capacity, but I am pretty sure the microSD card in my phone is an order of magnitude more storagealicious.