Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Not all heroes wear capes.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Everybody saw this coming.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

You cannot shame the shameless.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

After roe, women are no longer free.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

We still have time to mess this up!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Let’s finish the job.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

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63Comments

  1. 1.

    JenJen

    Oooh… open thread!

    Can we all just agree that Kathy Nickolaus is no Katherine Harris?

    Dabbling in the dark electoral arts will only get one so far in the GOP.

  2. 2.

    Yutsano

    And both are immensely improved by the melding. Awesome.

    I was just informed today I’m an “essential” worker. So I haz to go to work on Monday. For free. I iz having major cranky over this. Especially since we can’t call in sick or use any time off during the furlough for any reason. Oh and no guarantee I’ll get paid either, since that has to come once a budget finally passes.

  3. 3.

    Martin

    @Yutsano: They have to pay you. That’s a violation of labor laws, and even the feds don’t get out of those.

    But as one public worker to another, it’s good to be essential. You have to work harder, but when the layoffs roll around, you sleep a fair sight easier.

  4. 4.

    Alex

    Government shutdown question. Have the Republicans compromised at all at any step of the negotiations?

  5. 5.

    Sarah, Proud and Tall

    Dammit.

    Fine. I’m reposting.

    Young people today.

    It was about 1984. It could have been 1985. Many things from that decade are a blessed blur.

    Anyway, the club was still called “Studio 54” at that point. It was not quite so cool by then. Calvin and Brooke and Lauren had stopped coming, but Andy Fucking Warhol was still loitering around the men’s room like a fart in a bum’s trousers, white powder dribbling from every orifice.

    It was one of those great nights you got every now and then at 54 where the atmosphere was like jello and walking was hard with the push and the crush of the bodies and the lights hit the beat every time and it was all just perfect. It may, I admit, have been the 3 grams of finest Bolivian that Keith had brought back from his little “trade negotiation” there the month before.

    We were sitting on the stairs chatting to Gloria Vanderbilt. Well, I say “we were sitting chatting”, but Gloria was filled up to her eyes with special K and Keith had just hit the amyl in the bathroom with Andy, so it was basically me blathering to the air about rabbits while Gloria and Keith leaned against the bannister and grunted in unison every three bars or so.

    On the steps below us was a crusty man who must have been 80 if he was a day. Tweed suit, knitted tie, shirt that belonged to his grandfather. The sort of man you look at and think, “Heavens, that man is so crusty, he must be an emeritus professor of political theory and philosophy”. He was obviously grooving on something really good, because his eyes were like caves and he was sweating like Rush Limbaugh at a fondue party and mumbling happily to himself.

    With him was a young man. He was quite pretty in an English sort of way. Dressed as a mormon, by the look of it. He was babbling to the old man. “Professor Oakeshott, do you want a drink? Professor Oakeshott, do you want to sit somewhere else or are you comfortable here? I’m not sure if I’m comfortable here. Professor Oakeshott, are you happy here? Should we sit somewhere else? Maybe you want to stay here.”

    Some of this got through to the old guy, because he looked at the young man and said, “It’s all fine, Andrew. Let’s just sit here for a minute and listen to the music.” Then he patted him on the hand and went back to listening to whatever that killer e was singing in his head.

    Andrew sat there quietly for a minute and then said, “That’s the best idea ever. Let’s sit here and listen to the music.”

    Another pause.

    “This music is really good isn’t it. Do you like it? Maybe we could hear it better if we were sitting a bit lower. Do you want to sit a bit lower. Or maybe we should stay here?”

    A long pause.

    “Professor Oakeshott?”

    Professor Oakeshott looked around, tried to focus, failed, grinned happily and said at the top of his voice, “Andrew, why don’t you and your catholic guilt and your pathetic need to please just fuck off and stop fucking up my drugs?”

    Andrew looked at him for a full five seconds like a puppy whose leg has been chopped off. Then his face cleared and he smiled bravely and said, “Ok, if that would make you happy and it’s what you think I deserve,” and wandered off, apparently quite happily.

    Oakeshott hung around for a while then perked up, so we picked him up and danced with him for a while, and if I remember correctly he went home with George Michael, while Keith and I got stuck with fucking Andrew Ridgely.

    I spotted Andrew later that night being told off by Oliver North for being a “limey poofter bastard”, then even later when he was cruising Andy in the downstairs loo, but Andy begged off, which I can say I never saw happen before or since.

    What a strange little story. I don’t think it has a moral, unless you count “Some things never change”.

  6. 6.

    Yutsano

    @Martin: It has to be appropriated, which I’m thinking it will once everything is signed. But it’s not guaranteed. Plus I don’t get credit to my leave banks. At least my health insurance is still in place.

  7. 7.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Having absolutely nothing to do with Sully or politics…

    Yesterday I test fired my motorcycle using three Ford DuraSpark distributor pickups (variable reluctance transducers), three GM HEI ignition modules and my three OEM Yamaha ignition coils.

    It works! Yippee!! Our ignition systems for this bike (Yamaha three cylinder motorcycles) are unobtanium, they aren’t made any more and if it fails while you are on the road then you are stuck where you are until you can locate a good used pickup set or ignition box. This conversion I am doing will allow me to get parts for it in just about any auto parts store (or even a junkyard) for cheap.

    It also starts easier with the electric starter and the kickstarter. I will be buttoning it together later today and taking it out for a test ride (with the wife following me in case of malfunction). I need to install shielded twisted pair wiring for each transducer, tie up the wiring and it’s ready to test!

    I did the same for our charging systems, building an adapter harness that allows a common Bosch adjustable voltage regulator in place of the unobtanium Yamaha part. While I build some regulator harnesses to sell to friends and fellow triple owners, I post the information online for all to use as they wish.

    I know it’s a topic off of the beaten path for this place but I just had to post…

    Yippee!! :)

  9. 9.

    Martin

    @Alex: Yes. They no longer want to sell Vermont as a means to close the budget gap. But aside from that, no, they’ve dug in their heels.

  15. 15.

    sukabi

    @Calouste: wasn’t suggesting she was lying, could have been a personal experience with Hunter Thompson…

    the writing reminded me of Thompson’s style…

  16. 16.

    Sarah, Proud and Tall

    @JenJen:

    That’s what you get for going to Studio in 1984. Tourist. ;-)

    It was Gloria Vanderbilt’s fault. Once she’d had her first joint, she was always crapping on about how Studio 54 was glorious and her twilight days amongst the muscled and the sweaty and how we must go there to see if dear Andy is still lying in the urinal.

    She had no idea where or what was cool anymore, but frankly the coke she bought every week from her tennis coach was so good we could have partied quite happily in a dim, piss smelling alley way full of drunken hobos.

    Sort of like Studio 54 in 1984.

  17. 17.

    Sarah, Proud and Tall

    @sukabi:

    Hunter Thompson?

    Don’t get me started on that man. He was insatiable. Three hours with the dick of death and he was just warming up.

    The things that man did to me at the Republican convention in 1972 would have turned Mamie Eisenhower’s hair white.

  21. 21.

    Suck It Up!

    @Alex:

    Why don’t you visit some right wing sites and find out what they think of the negotiations? I’m pretty sure they are not all too happy. They came in wanting 100 billion dollars cut along with abolishing every single social program you can name. Look at the bills the Republican house has passed and look at how the senate stopped virtually all of them. No one is winning here. No one.

  23. 23.

    stuckinred

    Mornin Joe “As a person who had a %100 rating on anti-abortion I guarantee you independent voters don’t give a DAMN about funding planned parenthood”!

  25. 25.

    Mark S.

    More helping to move the debate: Idaho passed a bill outlawing abortion after 20 weeks that doesn’t have a rape exception. Now listen to the goopers defend it:

    The Idaho bill’s House sponsor, state Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, told legislators that the “hand of the Almighty” was at work. “His ways are higher than our ways,” Crane said. “He has the ability to take difficult, tragic, horrific circumstances and then turn them into wonderful examples.”

    Examples? Why do I have the feeling a trip to Mr. Crane’s basement would lead to some horrific evidence?

  27. 27.

    Mark S.

    Interesting tidbit from K-thug:

    [T]he Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2030 the value of a voucher would cover only a third of the cost of a private insurance policy equivalent to Medicare as we know it.

    I read the voucher is around $15,000, so that means chucking in $30,000 a year. I wonder if Sully still thinks this is worth it so billionaires won’t have to pay any taxes, which they won’t under Ryan’s no taxes on dividends, interest, or capital gains plan. Oh, and their brats won’t have to either, since the estate tax would be history as well.

  28. 28.

    Steeplejack

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    Congratulations! Great feeling of accomplishment when you finish something like that. I have experienced it occasionally with woodworking and software.

  32. 32.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @stuckinred: @Steeplejack:

    Thanks! Yes, it’s really satisfying when things come together and a project works out. It makes all of the research worth it! :)

    @Steeplejack:

    I bet that was a real blast! I got my first real dirtbike (’73 YZ360 monoshock) in ’75 and I modded the hell out of that thing. I grew up riding the HondaMatic mini bikes and a ’68 Kawasaki 120cc C2TR that had a rotary shifter and two speed range selector. Going from fourth to first was a real mother if you weren’t paying attention!

    If you are interested here is a clip of the first running test on it that I posted to YouTube a bit ago.

  35. 35.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @stuckinred:

    If you are going to have a differential failure, the pinion gears are the cheapest and easiest to replace! Make sure to use a new pin too. I replace them every time I open a differential since open (non-posi) differentials cook the pinion pin if you do too many one-wheeled burnouts.

    I’m glad for you that it was the inner pinion rather than the ring/outer pinion!

  36. 36.

    JCT

    @Valdivia: Yes, today’s nonsense was apparently Bobo’s attempt to prove that he’s not as stupid as everyone has been saying (cough, Krugman, cough). Sort of a (very) semi-walkback.

    Too late, David —

  37. 37.

    Valdivia

    @JCT:

    I loved hat he kept harping at how ‘unserious’ those of us who don’t see the sparkles in Ryan are. Idiot.

  39. 39.

    Culture of Truth

    Now that they have agreed on the numbers and the EPA, apparently it all comes down to Planned Parenthood.

  40. 40.

    "Serious" Superluminar

    @Mark S

    I wonder if Sully still thinks this is worth it so billionaires won’t have to pay any taxes,

    I’m sure a front pager here will be able to answer this at some point today…

    And I fucking hate stupid fucking talking Ponies. WTF? Obama promised me a sparkly magic pony, and all I got was a shit-smeared malnorished donkey. W.T.F.?

  42. 42.

    Shalimar

    @Valdivia: My favorite remains Weisberg calling Ryan brave for proposing it. Even though it doesn’t touch medicare for those currently getting it. Which politically seems like calling a knight brave because he runs the other way and kills most of the villagers so the dragon will have something to eat while the knights and barons hide safely in the castle.

  44. 44.

    El Cid

    That video is just fucking incredible. At some point I have to watch a video on how people do this sort of thing.

  52. 52.

    Uloborus

    As a big, big fan of small, small ponies I return this music video.

    @Fencedude:
    I’ve just started watching Madoka Magica. JUST started. Two episodes in, and already it has a ‘Kiss your asses goodbye’ feel to the cuteness.

  55. 55.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @stuckinred:

    Is the chunk from an inner pinion gear or the input shaft pinion gear? If the latter, replace the differential, if the former then I would just replace the pinions (and sidegears if necessary). Were there any visible metal shavings in the diff oil? If it’s a work type rig (local, short run stuff) and it’s the inner pinion, I’d just replace the gear.

    If it’s for serious use and longer range use, change the diff and put a good magnet in the bottom of it.

  56. 56.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @stuckinred:

    Is the chunk from an inner pinion gear or the input shaft pinion gear? If the latter, replace the differential, if the former then I would just replace the pinions (and sidegears if necessary). Were there any visible metal shavings in the diff oil? If it’s a work type rig (local, short run stuff) and it’s the inner pinion, I’d just replace the gear.

    If it’s for serious use and longer range use, change the diff and put a good magnet in the bottom of it.

  57. 57.

    stuckinred

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: Input shaft, that’s why I had trouble locating it at first. I had to get a flashlight and turn the wheels while I peered. I finally saw where the gear had broken off. I don’t really drive it a great deal and no distance at all. I’m going to craiglist a replacement and drive it till it goes or I find one. thanks. . .again

  58. 58.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Sorry to hear that was the problem. Yup, unless you want to throw lots of money at it for a rebuild then getting a good used diff is the best and cheapest solution. If it’s a truck diff you shouldn’t have too much trouble digging one up.

    Good luck!

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