Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

The words do not have to be perfect.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

“woke” is the new caravan.

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

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

… among the most cringeworthy communications in the history of the alphabet!

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

In after Baud. Damn.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / He’s a Cowboy Kid

He’s a Cowboy Kid

by | 155 Comments

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If Rick Perry is going to broaden his appeal from white Southerners to suburbanites in the Northeast and West Coast, he needs a new campaign song. Here’s my suggestion. It’s popular yet still a bit alternative, and it certainly doesn’t sound like rap.

But the song itself is just the beginning. When Perry comes on stage to this accompaniment, he should pull out his laser-sighted pistol at the moment we hear “You better run, better run, outrun my gun”, and then when we hear “You better run, better run, faster than my bullet”, he should fire a couple of rounds in the air. This exercise of his second amendment rights would get him at least 15 points in the primary, and a minimum of 5 in the general, plus it would piss off liberals.

That’s my modest proposal, but I’m sure some of you have a better idea. Here’s an open thread.

Reader Interactions

155Comments

  2. 2.

    Samara Morgan

    its cowboy “cat”. i linked this song on perry a buncha times– do i get props?
    Foster is up for 2 VMAs tomorrow.

  3. 3.

    Shlemizel - was Alwhite

    finished the first week of radiation, still feel human and hoping for super powers (maybe shooting webs out of my wrists, something cool).

    Thought of this, particularly for those trying to see the Divine hand in Irene:
    Say you were walking outdoors and found a watch. You opened the watch and found many intricately interacting parts none of which made sense without the others. You would conclude there was a designer. Now suppose this watch kept hurting people, binging storms that destroyed their homes and crops, causing illnesses that injured and even killed people at random no matter how good or bad these people were, no matter how they felt about the watch or how much they pled with the watch. And suppose this was not a defect of the watch but a part of its design.

    Wm. Paley proving there is a God & he’s a dick.

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    What I want to know is if he has a stuffed horse he sits on when he watches Roy Rogers on the teevee.

  5. 5.

    Baud

    Hans Gruber: Mr. Mystery Guest? Are you still there?

    John McClane: Yeah, I’m still here. Unless you wanna open the front door for me.

    Hans Gruber: Uh, no, I’m afraid not. But, you have me at a loss. You know my name but who are you? Just another American who saw too many movies as a child? Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he’s John Wayne? Rambo? Marshal Dillon?

    John McClane: Was always kinda partial to Roy Rogers actually. I really like those sequined shirts.

    Hans Gruber: Do you really think you have a chance against us, Mr. Cowboy?

    John McClane: Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.

  6. 6.

    Tom

    My friend sent me this song. I forget who it’s by or what it’s called. Kind of like it despite my inclination not to like it.

  9. 9.

    R-Jud

    My previous comment seems to have been eated because I mentioned a medication I have been prescribed. Huh.

  11. 11.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Is this really a song that will appeal to the suburbanites or is it more urban (but not “urban” (wink wink nudge nudge))?

    Might this song work instead?

  14. 14.

    Mike in NC

    @debit:

    Let us not forget Tweety. I suspect it would send a thrill up his leg.

    A couple of weeks back Tweety was mocking “these Texans who wear cowboy boots with tuxedos” but he’ll walk that back and jump on the Village bandwagon soon enough.

  15. 15.

    Samara Morgan

    Here’s my suggestion.

    Foster wont let him use it. it will be like Beck and Muse, Bachman and Tom Petty, and Sarah Palin and every 80’s hair band i can think of plus the foo fighters.
    Pop culture rejects conservatism like a disease.

    you just cant get to Cooltown on the conservative express– it only goes to Crazytown anymore.

  20. 20.

    Hal

    I was listening to Fresh Air this week, and Terry Gross was interviewing Rachel Tabachnick on her research on the New Apostolic Reformation, which among other things believes (from transcript):

    GROSS: So I’ve been reading about the New Apostolic Reformation. Tell me if you think that I’ve gotten this right at all. My understanding is that they are a group that believes in the end times, that there will be a second coming of Christ, that certain things need to be accomplished on Earth before he comes, and that it’s their job – it’s the job of the apostles to listen to what Jesus is telling them so that they can get the world ready for his second coming.

    And rather chillingly:

    And then the other thing that distinguishes them is this idea that in order to do this, they must take control over society and government and that they will do this in large part through this warfare that they are conducting with demons.

    So Rick Perry’s rally was organized by this group, and he’s apparently well connected to them, which begs the question, is Rick Perry running for President because he thinks he’s anointed by God to lead everyone in the end times, and battle Demons?

    And if so, why bother with a long term economic plan? Kidding, but it frightens me that once again we’re facing another deluded Texas Gov with a messiah complex.

    Oh, forgot my fave part:

    So a significant component of that is that the resistance of Jews to conversion is blocking this utopian period in the end times, the millennial in the end times, when there will not be poverty and death and corruption, environmental degradation, all of those things will disappear under the rule of Jesus.

    http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=139781021

  21. 21.

    harlana

    omg, some poor guy on msnbc is standing in the middle of the beach in Nag’s Head, feet plugged into the sand and hunched over trying not to be blown away, makes me think of Al Franken with the satellite dish on his head.

  23. 23.

    burnspbesq

    Anyone out there using a cloud storage provider for mission-critical business data (e.g., client files)? If yes, which provider are you using and how has your experience been. Thanks in advance.

  26. 26.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Shlemizel – was Alwhite:

    Wm. Paley proving there is a God & he’s a dick.

    Wrong. Paley proved there was a watch. The existence of order doesn’t necessarily support the existence of a designer.

    And that’s one dick of a watch.

    ETA: and best wishes for your recovery. If you get superpowers, I hope you apply some of them to the modern GOP.

  28. 28.

    harlana

    @Hal: That is such a disturbing read. I want to forget these people exist, but we ignore them at our own peril.

  29. 29.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @harlana: that’s the Weather Channel dude. They don’t send NBC reporters for that kind of duty. As for NYC, have no fear, Jim Cantore and Stephanie Abrams are there, so all’s cool on the weather-reporter-standing-in-high-winds front.

  31. 31.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @burnspbesq: I don’t use a cloud. I may be a bit of a luddite, but I have concerns about having client files just out there. If I have them in my possession, I know exactly what security measures are being taken. I also wonder what happens if the provider disappears or if some element of the provider’s network disappears. Are my files gone? Ultimately, I decided that if I put stuff on a cloud, I would keep backups on my hard drive anyway. At that point, what is the point of using the cloud. Computer folk will probably be able to dispel all my concerns at some point, but I don’t intend to be an early adopter here.

  32. 32.

    harlana

    @arguingwithsignposts: Yeh, I couldn’t remember his name. Yeh, they’ve got Luke Russert in front of a bar in Alexandra, all comfortable and dry in his yellow slicker, nothing’s happening there. Too bad we can’t drop his butt in Nag’s Head instead right about now.

  33. 33.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @burnspbesq: @Omnes Omnibus: I use Dropbox to back up files, but I don’t just store them on the Dropbox. It’s pretty cheap (free for up to 2GB) and secure. The main thing is keeping a strong password. If you do that, you should be okay unless there’s a major breach of the system – and that’s true for ANY system (see Sony PS3, for example).

    As for dropbox, I can put files in the folder that appears on the hard drive and access those files when I get home and fire up the home comp. saves having to move things around. You can also access them via web.

    ETA: as to Omnes’ concern – IIRC, the files are also on your harddrive (somehow), so they’re “there” even though they’re in the cloud.

  34. 34.

    cat48

    Let us not forget Tweety.

    Uh, Tweety said Perry was “Bull Connor with a smile.” That “thrill” could happen, but he’s not happy about the Perry show.

  36. 36.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @harlana:

    Too bad we can’t drop his butt in Nag’s Head instead right about now.

    That is one of the things that really, *really* irks me about Little Luke. He’s never had to actually report on a disaster or a real breaking news event. Too many reporters/journalists have spent years working shit shifts on the cop beat, etc., and he gets a cush job on Capitol Hill because his dad died suddenly.

    I know it’s not right to think ill of the dead, but damn, that’s the most prominent evidence of the mediacracy at work that I’ve ever seen.

  37. 37.

    suzanne

    plus it would piss off liberals.

    What could they possibly need beyond that? That’s the apex of their policy positions right there.

  38. 38.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I did unpack some boxes already this morning. George the stuffed monkey (not named after Bush) and Douglas the stuffed dog are in their accustomed places on a book shelf. Douglas is even wearing his yarmulke. The backgammon board has been located. Books have been shelved – primarily French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars and military history from these boxes. Who knows what the next ones will produce?

  39. 39.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Related to Irene: I can’t be the only person who thinks the commercials airing on the Weather Channel right now are in poor taste. I mean, State Farm was airing “We will recover” commercials yesterday, before the storm had even hit.

    Ghouls, the lot of them.

  40. 40.

    Poopyman

    @burnspbesq: I wouldn’t. Still too many security issues. Wait a year and see what shakes out.

    @Omnes Omnibus: You’d think that the “modest proposal” keyword would be a tipoff. But noooooo.

    Well, I picked the wrong time to find out the working shutters on this old house don’t really close right. Spent a fun early morning on a ladder in a rain band getting a couple down and trimmed appropriately. Drying out now and waiting to see how things develop here in Tidewater MD. And we’re still about 20 hours until mid-storm.

  41. 41.

    Poopyman

    @harlana:

    Too bad we can’t drop his butt in Nag’s Head instead right about now.

    Could we overshoot a couple of miles to the east? Pleeeez?

  42. 42.

    burnspbesq

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Thanks to both you and Omnes for responding so quickly. I share many of Omnes’ concerns, and I wouldn’t use a cloud provider that doesn’t have multiple-location redundancy. Which makes Dropbox a possibility, as they buy server space from Anazon.

    Living and practicing in an earthquake-prone area, I’m hesitant to rely entirely on on-site storage. It could all be gone in 30 seconds, at any time, with no warning.

  43. 43.

    debit

    @cat48: To be fair, I haven’t watched any news for a good long while, and I hear that sometimes Tweety is doing a decent job. However, I will never forget the Mission Accomplished slobbering, or his deep down conviction that politics is not about good or bad, right or wrong, helping or hurting; it’s about playing the game to win no matter what. If he thinks Perry is suddenly on the winning side, he’ll be all over him.

  44. 44.

    ThresherK

    @harlana: Is this the hurricane where a wave will wash over a reporter, and the camerman will reel in nothing but a snapped mic cable?

    I keep watching, and a little part of me keeps rooting.

  45. 45.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @burnspbesq: I don’t think anyone should rely only on on-site storage. Not just earthquakes, but tornadoes, hurricanes, fire (natural or man-made), etc. all make a case for some type of off-site backup.

  46. 46.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @ThresherK: There won’t be a cable to pull back. They’re using wireless mics. Plus, if you’ve seen the wide shots on TWC, the camera man is like 100 yards away from where the reporter is standing in the surf. Still, that’s some heavy duty equipment.

  47. 47.

    suzanne

    @harlana:

    omg, some poor guy on msnbc is standing in the middle of the beach in Nag’s Head, feet plugged into the sand and hunched over trying not to be blown away, makes me think of Al Franken with the satellite dish on his head.

    I watched that video of Al Roker getting blown down over and over. Shit, SO FUNNY. I really don’t know why the reporter can’t be inside in front of a window. That way, they don’t look like a total jackass, but the viewer can get an idea of what’s going on outside. It would be a whole lot funnier than watching a hurricane smite Al Roker, though.

  48. 48.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @suzanne: You know who started all this reporter-standing-in-the-wind stuff? Dan Rather:

    In early September 1961, Rather reported live from the Galveston Seawall as Hurricane Carla threatened the Texas coastline. In his autobiography, Rather notes that back then, television stations did not have their own radar systems, and of course nobody then had the modern computerized radar that combines the radar image with an outline map. So he took a camera crew to a National Weather Service radar station located on the top floor of the Post Office Building on 25th Street in Galveston, where a technician drew a rough outline of the Gulf of Mexico on a sheet of plastic, and held that over the black and white radar display to give Rather’s audience an idea of the storm’s size and position its eye. His reporting, which has been imitated by countless other reporters, impressed the network executives at CBS, and they offered him a job as a CBS News correspondent. Rather refused CBS’s first offer, but accepted its second offer when it came three months later.

    Everyone sees the hurricane as a way to get to the big leagues, and the Anderson Coopers of the world see it as their patriotic duty.

    Thanks, Dan.

  50. 50.

    suzanne

    @arguingwithsignposts: LMAO.

    Actually, the map/storm graphic was a great idea for the time.

    But I only want to watch weather reporting if the reporters eat it. The rest of the time, all the weather reporting I need can more quickly be obtained by looking out the window.

  52. 52.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @JGabriel: Why, yes, JG. Yes, we do. FTMFY! :)

    ETA: seriously, hope everyone on the eastern seaboard stays safe. NYC is a big target, but there’s a lot of people going to get hit with this, even as “small” as it is.

  54. 54.

    jacy

    @ThresherK:

    Every time I see one of those guys standing on the edge of a wave-swept beach, I keep imagining a giant tentacle reaching out of the waves and snatching them off.

    I guess it was too much Lovecraft as a child…

  55. 55.

    Poopyman

    @suzanne: Sigh. The DC NBC station has gone to 24/7 storm coverage. Outside is a light rain and NO wind. They’ve exported a crew to Ocean City to where the winds are up to 29 mph. ZOMG!

    This was tiresome after 5 minutes. Only another day (m/l) to go. Sigh.

    ZOMG! There’s Luke Russert! On a boat in Alexandria! It’s not even fricking raining there at this point, else Li’l Luke would be reporting from Chadwick’s.

  57. 57.

    jacy

    @burnspbesq:

    I use Box.net for file transfer to and from clients and to store backups of my stuff, but I wouldn’t call those files highly sensitive or mission critical. I do know people who are very happy with Amazon’s offerings for secure storage(I believe they have something that goes beyond S3 now), although I have not used said services.

  58. 58.

    JGabriel

    @arguingwithsignposts, @Omnes Omnibus, @Poopyman: Miserable bastards. You’ll miss me when NYC is wiped off the map by Irene’s eyewall!

    Months later, someone will look around, and say, “Hey, whatever happened to JGabriel? Was he in that city got wiped off the map in that hurricane or something?” And you’ll say, “Who?”

    Wait. That didn’t come out right.

    .

  61. 61.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @JGabriel: Actually, at the moment, I am torn between being concerned about how the soon to be ex-Mme Omnibus, who tends to be terrified of things like this, is handling things and saying to myself that this is her choice.

    NB: I hope that Irene passes through with no damage to anyone or anything.

  62. 62.

    Poopyman

    Hurricane coverage is getting more entertaining. They’ve got a reporter in the street in Norfolk where the gusts are throwing things at him, and the studio team keeps throwing stupid questions at him as he ducks debris. He’d rather they stfu and let him get into some shelter.

    Is it wrong to be laughing at this?

  66. 66.

    ThresherK

    @arguingwithsignposts: I’ll have to look it up.

    But is the cameraman is at a safe distance? While Our Intrepid Reporter isn’t even tethered by so much as an electronics cord?

    That’s just begging for it, methinks.

  67. 67.

    master c

    I can not believe how big of a hit this is…it’s on my “adult alternative’ station, and my kids’ top 40 one.

  71. 71.

    WaterGirl

    @JGabriel: I am an hour late to the thread, just read your comment and thought “oh shit, is right!”. My second thought was that NYC can’t catch a break. Does that help?

  72. 72.

    gogol's wife

    @JGabriel:

    I’m in Connecticut, so I am not being blase about this either! Stay safe. I’m trying to, at the risk of driving my husband insane.

  73. 73.

    lockewasright

    I wish that fewer of us had grown up watching the guy in the white hat shoot the guy in the black hat on the teevee lookity box.

  74. 74.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @jacy: An addendum to the “mission critical” discussion: most modern web apps are a part of “the cloud,” so their entire business basically depends on the cloud working properly. I don’t recall an instance of anyone losing mission critical info in a cloud crash.

  76. 76.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Maude: I can’t do that. I have decided that, for me to come through the process whole and undamaged, I need to avoid taking that route. I guess it is kind of a Star Wars dark side of the Force thing, if that makes any sense.

  79. 79.

    JGabriel

    @PurpleGirl:

    According to this tracking map, the eye will pass over Long Island and not the City.

    Yeah, there’s a dozen or more different models and paths. I just found the way that the NAM put the eye right on the city like a bulls-eye kind of:

    A) Alarming, and

    B) Kind of funny in it’s blunt and obvious representation of threat.

    Okay. And now I’m back to being alarmed.

    Also, remembering that NYC gave W les than 25% of the vote, I’m really, really glad that — if we have to get directly hit by a hurricane — we have Democratic president. The GOP just has so many reasons to punish us.

    .

  80. 80.

    WaterGirl

    @JGabriel: Okay, I would miss you, even though you persist in adding that stupid line with the “.” at the end of your posts. :-)

    DO NOT, by the way, even consider fucking with us by not posting after the storm hits to see if anyone notices or worries. Not funny. (though your comment was!)

    There is plenty of caring here to go around. i mean, in the last 2 threads alone we care about Omnes in a new place and soon to be ex-Mme in NYC, Steeplejack with his surgery, Alwhite with his radiation treatments, Neil who just lost his beloved kitty Nash, you and a million other others in the storm’s path.

    Stay safe, everyone.

  81. 81.

    JGabriel

    @WaterGirl:

    Does that help?

    Immensely. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers to the FSM, people. I’m joking around, but, you know, there really is an enormous number of people here.

    Roughly 1 out of every 40 Americans lives in NYC. 1 out of 16, if you include the metropolitan area.

    @gogol’s wife: Wishes for you and family’s safety, too.

    @MikeJ:

    Just went to the grocery and my ipod decided appropriate music was “Marching bands of Manhattan“, with it’s chorus, “your love is gonna drown”.

    Fucking omens, how do they work?

    .

  82. 82.

    adolphus

    Jgabriel: It isn’t that I HATE NYC, I like it a lot actually, it’s that I refuse to jump on the “If it happens in NYC it’s more important” band wagon. I certainly don’t want anything awful to happen to ANYONE from natural disaster and I hope governments at all levels are prepared to respond to the disaster. But is it so awful that I worry more about my friends and family in DC and Baltimore than people in NYC I don’t know and not feel pressured to respond to some whiny New Yorker bleating for attention? (I have this strange feeling New Yorkers are bitter because Richmond was closer to the epicenter of last week’s earthquake. I can just hear them now, “Why would it want to go to Richmond? New York has a much more vibrant music scene. Please pay attention to us again.”)

    A friend of mine posted a link to an NYT article that contained the sage advice to buy a crank can opener because if the electricity went out, electrical can openers wouldn’t work. She asked, “Are New Yorkers so dumb they need to be told electrical can openers won’t work if the power goes out”? I replied that it wasn’t a question of intelligence as it is perspective. When New Yorkers engage the blade of a can opener and push the “on” button they think the world then revolves around them.” Thanks for illustrating my point so nicely.

    I hope everyone in the path of Irene stays safe and gets through this with out major damage or injury, including, but not especially, New York City.

  83. 83.

    Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)

    It’s kinda too bad that Foster is now most famous for his most gimmicky song. Irony aside, why bother with a synth-pop group when so much of country music is dedicated to fetishizing guns and bullets. He can have one of those; leave Foster the People to the rest of us.

  84. 84.

    adolphus

    Oh, and my hope for a campaign song is for a Romny/Perry ticket to use Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.

  86. 86.

    PurpleGirl

    @adolphus: Actually I gave up using an electric can opening a couple of decades ago. I didn’t have the counter space for it and it didn’t work as well as my hand-powered one.

  87. 87.

    gogol's wife

    @adolphus:

    You have a really strange idea of people in New York. They are extremely savvy and down-to-earth. They couldn’t survive a normal day if they weren’t.

  88. 88.

    Svensker

    First they move the Giants/Jets game from tonight to 2pm today, then they move it to Monday night. So all the folks who can’t go anywhere this afternoon because all the transit in NJ/NYC is shut down got nuthin to do.

    Well, it’s the right thing to do, but it sure makes Sat afternoon a lot duller.

    I know, I know, perspective.

    Stay safe, everyone. That especially includes my family who are hunkering down today bored as hell with no football game.

  90. 90.

    Chad N Freude

    In the day job that I manage to work into my constant tracking of BJ, I am concerned with what is now fashionably known as “Cyber Security”. One thing that I deal with is mitigation of identified risks.* Having thus established my impeccable technical cred (which for all you know is totally made up), I would recommend encryption of sensitive files at their source, whence they can be distributed throughout the cloud, left lying around on unattended stealable laptops and off-site hard drives, etc., with reduced (non-zero) risk of unauthorized disclosure (Term of Art for data theft). TrueCrypt is an excellent tool for this.

    *It’s really hard to mitigate unidentified risks.

  92. 92.

    max

    @JGabriel: I don’t hate you. I just think this one is way overrated and it would be nice if the media would stop freaking people out so much.

    max
    [‘I mean, they’ve spent all August doing their damndest to flip people out and that has had side effects.’]

  94. 94.

    ericblair

    @Chad N Freude:

    In the day job that I manage to work into my constant tracking of BJ, I am concerned with what is now fashionably known as “Cyber Security”.

    God, do I hate the word “cyber” these days. Somehow, probably through a bunch of movies, it got bastardized to mean data, and turned into the latest big buzzword. I refuse to use it unless coerced.

    Since I’m in the DeeCee Area, I’m taking hurricane precautions and ensuring I’ve got sufficient toilet paper. We wouldn’t want to have a toilet paper gap in an emergency. Although we are critically low on beer, which is a serious concern.

    At least I don’t have Pepco as my electric company, which will fail if a squirrel farts anywhere in a three-block radius. They’ve been improving their network, though, so it’s probably down to a two-block squirrel-fart radius now.

  95. 95.

    scav

    @Chad N Freude:

    It’s really hard to mitigate unidentified risks.

    Oh, well, logically speaking, you probably can make this case, especially if you insist on being able to demonstrate with actual evidence that something concrete has been avoided. On the other hand, running about screaming, diving under covers, whimpering about how everybody hates one, insisting upon mass arrests and changes in laws “just in case”, pointing at the absence of whatever hasn’t happened in the interim and declaring victory is another strategy for mitigating unknown unknowns that has been adopted by some and apparently quite successfully, judging by their self-congratulations and bonuses.

  96. 96.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @max:

    As I see it, the problem is with the television media, particularly cable, going nuts over this stuff. Last week’s earthquake generated a very healthy, in my view, reaction from the public at large over the “damage” of the earthquake as breathlessly reported by the cable networks. Bubbleboy mania is a condition their highly prone to.

  99. 99.

    max

    When Perry comes on stage to this accompaniment, he should pull out his laser-sighted pistol at the moment we hear “You better run, better run, outrun my gun”, and then when we hear “You better run, better run, faster than my bullet”,

    The correct song for Perry is ‘Coca-Cola Cowboy’. Remember, he’s not a rancher he’s a cotton farmer. Ya know, those places that used to be slave plantations. ‘Bull Connor with a smile’ is not a bad description.

    he should fire a couple of rounds in the air. This exercise of his second amendment rights would get him at least 15 points in the primary, and a minimum of 5 in the general, plus it would piss off liberals.

    He should, of course, demonstrate his bonafides getting a black gay crippled old person receiving both social security and medicaid up on stage and pretending to beat them to death. (I say pretend, on account the Tea Party people would probably prefer he do it for real, but I don’t want to see someone die for that.)

    max
    [‘Oh, this is going to be a fun campaign.’]

  100. 100.

    Poopyman

    @ericblair:

    At least I don’t have Pepco as my electric company, which will fail if a squirrel farts anywhere in a three-block radius.

    Amen to that. SMECO roolz!

  101. 101.

    MikeJ

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    As I see it, the problem is with the television media, particularly cable, going nuts over this stuff.

    This morning the interwebs are full of people going on about how the hurricane has been overhyped[1]. Funnily enough, that’s the only thing I’ve heard about it all day because I don’t watch cable news.

    Why do people sit there and let it pour into them for hour after hour and then complain that it’s crap?

    [1] I really only like Irene’s first album.

  103. 103.

    JPL

    @max: Why wait for him to win the Presidency.

    He should, of course, demonstrate his bonafides getting a black gay crippled old person receiving both social security and medicaid up on stage and pretending to beat them to death. (I say pretend, on account the Tea Party people would probably prefer he do it for real, but I don’t want to see someone die for that.)

    His campaign song should be the village people’s Macho Man

  104. 104.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @JPL:

    His campaign song should be the village people’s Macho Man

    Perfect. It captures all the homoerotic charged nonsense of the man, not to mention his teabagger, Christianist base.

    These people are really, really dense about a great many things.

  106. 106.

    JGabriel

    Song for Rick Perry:

    Since I was a child
    I’ve tried to be what I’m not
    I’ve lied and I’ve enjoyed it all my life
    I lied to my dear mother
    to my sisters and my brother
    and now I’m lying to my children and my wife
    Big Hat, no cattle
    Big head, no brain
    Big snake, no rattle
    __
    “Big Hat, No Cattle”, Randy Newman

  109. 109.

    suzanne

    I just watched some insipid weather reporting on the hurricane and no one fell down. What a waste of my time. Shit.

  111. 111.

    ericblair

    @Poopyman:

    Amen to that. SMECO roolz!

    We have Dominion. They’re OK, I guess (At Least We’re Better Than Pepco!). We figure we can go for about a day without power until we resort to cannibalism. The guinea pigs can be barbecued nicely on the grill, but they’re just an appetizer. After that, we’ll probably go harvest the annoying kids down the street. We’ve got some onions and nice rubs, and a few bottles of red.

  112. 112.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @Omnes Omnibus: One of the dopes asked Napalitano what she thought of the surfers out in the breaks in New Jersey. She said, ” I have nothing to say about that.”

  113. 113.

    JGabriel

    @Poopyman:

    … And now the power flickers.

    Fill your tub. That goes for everyone on the coast. Last thing you want is a toilet you can’t flush if the water gets cut off or there’s not enough pressure.

    .

  115. 115.

    Poopyman

    @JGabriel: Toilet water has been laid in, but I definitely second that suggestion, as it’s way too early around here for the power to poop out. We’re not expected to see the peak of the storm for another 12 hours.

  116. 116.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred): Christ, I am all for doing stupid shit, but one has to be smart about it. Surfing hurricanes, skiing avalanche zones, and the like are just shit stupid. The worst thing is that, when they get in trouble, first responders are going to have to go try to get them.

  119. 119.

    JGabriel

    @suzanne:

    I just watched some insipid weather reporting on the hurricane and no one fell down. What a waste of my time. Shit.

    I like to imagine a weather reporter, his/her cameraperson, and their van lifted by the hurricane into the sky, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, only to be dropped into a colorful candyland where Rick Perry appears floating before them in a white gown and blonde wig, to bid them welcome and warn them against Sarah Palin — who will be after them when she discovers their van just landed on her sister, Michele Bachmann.

    .

  120. 120.

    dww44

    @debit: I think that once was true of Tweety. Maybe MSNBC going more mainstream liberal has freed him from his “suck up to the GOP” tendencies, but of late Matthews provides no quarter for those vying for the GOP nomination. In fact, the one recurring ad for Hardball of late is his one about Obama exemplifying “American Exceptionalism”. And, he’s been consistent about this President thinking and planning big for the economy.

  121. 121.

    MikeJ

    @Omnes Omnibus: Back in ye olden dayes when Bob hit Boston I took a Laser out on the river for about an hour. It was a lot of fun, but I wound up putting the sailboat away and getting on the Whaler to pull in the people who weren’t sailing planing boats.

  122. 122.

    burnspbesq

    @Chad N Freude:

    For Mac users, whole-disc encryption is now part of the OS. I guess that makes up for no arrows at the ends of the scroll bars (the absolute worst “feature” in Lion).

  123. 123.

    lethargytartare

    @JGabriel:

    I KNEW IT! Not one response. No cares about NYC. You all hate us.

    I don’t so much hate New York as have a decidedly Dentian relationship with it:

    “New York has gone. No reaction. He’d never seriously believed it existed anyway.”

  124. 124.

    JGabriel

    @Poopyman:

    I definitely second that suggestion, as it’s way too early around here for the power to poop out. We’re not expected to see the peak of the storm for another 12 hours.

    Power seems to be dropping like a prom dress within an hour everywhere the brunt of the storm approaches.

    .

  126. 126.

    JGabriel

    @lethargytartare:

    “New York has gone. No reaction. He’d never seriously believed it existed anyway.”

    I’m not the biggest fan of Douglas Adams allusions, while remaining a fan of the man himself.

    But that is a nearly perfect appropriation. Kudos.

    .

  132. 132.

    Mike in NC

    People around here last night were preparing for the worst: filling vehicle gas tanks in case they had to evacuate inland, and getting cash in case the ATMs stopped working.

    Some of the supermarket chains took it upon themselves to declare a “State of Emergency” and limit or even suspend the sale of beer and wine. We never heard of such a thing, anyplace we ever lived.

    It was a noisy night but all we got was a lot of wind and not too much rain. Didn’t lose power even for a few minutes.

  133. 133.

    Chad N Freude

    @burnspbesq: Whole-disk encryption is a good thing, but it doesn’t help with moving individual files from one medium to another. Unless the New Big Encryption Thing supports it; I haven’t upgraded (or regraded) to Lion.

    @scav:

    “just in case”

    is the identification of a possibly non-existent or very-very-low probability risk.

    pointing at the absence of whatever hasn’t happened in the interim and declaring victory

    This, of course is incredibly stupid. If it hasn’t happened, it hasn’t happened YET! and this is not evidence of anything working. You would be amazed at how often I encounter “My network has never been penetrated [which means we’ve never seen any evidence of penetration, maybe because we don’t look for it] so we know it’s impenetrable.”Seriously!

  134. 134.

    Yutsano

    @JGabriel: I refuse to brag, but we’re about to face our warmest day of the year. I’d happily go out in it except two major arterials are closed right now and traffic will be totally nuts. So I’m going with my inherent homebody instincts.

    I’m guessing either A) the power hasn’t gone out yet or B) you got a laptop with a helluva battery and a good wi-fi signal near you.

  135. 135.

    Chad N Freude

    @ericblair: The word “cyber” is a cause of great mirth in the community in which I work. Among other things, it’s never been defined. However, this doesn’t prevent our having to say we work in “Cyber Security” to get a response other than a sneer from non-technical decision makers deciders when we talk about “security”.

  137. 137.

    JGabriel

    @Mike in NC:

    It was a noisy night but all we got was a lot of wind and not too much rain. Didn’t lose power even for a few minutes.

    Good. Hope your luck holds up. Most of eastern NC, from what I’ve read, has already lost power.

    .

  139. 139.

    JGabriel

    @Yutsano:

    I’m guessing either A) the power hasn’t gone out yet or B) you got a laptop with a helluva battery and a good wi-fi signal near you.

    A. All we have is intermittent moderate rain so far, and the heavy stuff is not expected to arrive until sometime between 5 pm and 8 am — the thinking is we might get some very heavy bands even before the main circle of the hurricane gets here, that’s why I’m going with such a wide time spread. I pretty much expect to have power the rest of the day, but probably not tomorrow.

    The radio is telling us now that Con Edison says if power goes down, it’ll likely be two – three days before it’s restored. Wonderful.

    .

  140. 140.

    pragmatism

    How about bad religion – you are the government?
    Bad Religion – You Are (The Government) from the album ‘Suffer’.

    lyrics:
    Hey sit down and listen and they’ll tell you when you’re wrong.
    Eradicate but vindicate as “progress” creeps along.
    Puritan work ethic maintains its subconscious edge
    As Old Glory maintains your consciousness.
    There’s a loser in the house, and a puppet on the stool,
    And a crowded way of life, and a black reflecting pool,
    And as the people bend, the moral fabric dies,
    The country can’t pretend to ignore its people’s cries.
    You are the government.
    You are jurisprudence.
    You are the volition.
    You are juridiction.
    And I make a difference too.

  141. 141.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @JGabriel: When we (SW Ohio) got the inland lashing from the tail end of Ike in 2008, it was weird how spotty the restoration of power went – 2 blocks away was out for 2 days, ours was out for 5, a mile away was 7. Of course given the year, Mr. Q insisted that I needed to go to a 12 step program for news junkies, as I was a bit twitchy without the internets.

  143. 143.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Chad N Freude:

    How about “It can’t have a virus, it’s a new computer.” If anyone ever sets up a Hall of Viruses, this place would be a contender. Everyone in the office had the Admin password.

  145. 145.

    Brachiator

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I don’t use a cloud. I may be a bit of a luddite, but I have concerns about having client files just out there. If I have them in my possession, I know exactly what security measures are being taken. I also wonder what happens if the provider disappears or if some element of the provider’s network disappears. Are my files gone? Ultimately, I decided that if I put stuff on a cloud, I would keep backups on my hard drive anyway. At that point, what is the point of using the cloud. Computer folk will probably be able to dispel all my concerns at some point, but I don’t intend to be an early adopter here.

    I can see using the cloud, but if you want to be really secure, and if the files are vitally important, you need to store a copy at another location. My company works with tax professionals. Last year, a few lost all their data to floods. They were backed up and double backed up. Doesn’t help with a significant portion of the entire city you live in is under water. Those who used our off site storage service only had to get a new PC, download the programs again and then get a copy of their data to get up and running again.

    I have come to love me some Dropbox, but I also use a couple of other free cloud services, in addition to external backups.

  147. 147.

    Samara Morgan

    @JGabriel: i’ll miss you.
    i cant actually say about any other of the blogdizens here.
    at least you know what transinfinities are.

  148. 148.

    suzanne

    @Yutsano:

    I refuse to brag, but we’re about to face our warmest day of the year.

    Oh my holy God, it’s so motherfucking dreadful outside. My home weather station says it’s only 109, but it’s well into the one-teens over any of the parking lots due to urban heat island effect and the low albedo of the asphalt. (My backyard is vegetated and shady, so it’s at least 5 degrees cooler than any exposed hardscape area.) My husband and I were going to run some errands and decided just to come home and hide inside.

    Seriously, I would rather endure a hurricane than another day of this insanity.

  149. 149.

    Yutsano

    @suzanne: When I was in Arizona in July (don’t ask, but Sky Harbor was all kinds of fun to land in, WHEEE!!) my friend very heavily suggested we plan everything at night. I wasn’t sure why until I was actually there. Yikes. People actually SETTLED this place? What kind of peyote were they on?

  150. 150.

    suzanne

    @Yutsano:

    People actually SETTLED this place? What kind of peyote were they on?

    It must have been some REALLY good shit.

    No, there’s no snow shoveling. But it takes a special kind of hardcore to live here.

  152. 152.

    JGabriel

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    ours [power] was out for 5 [days]… Of course given the year, Mr. Q insisted that I needed to go to a 12 step program for news junkies, as I was a bit twitchy without the internets.

    Heh. I can go a few days if I know it’s coming back, but after that I get alternately cranky and deeply depressed.

    .

  153. 153.

    Alex S.

    Perry’s campaign song? ‘This charming man’. As long as he can convince Morrissey that all the steaks he consumes are tofu he should be fine.

  154. 154.

    Chad N Freude

    @suzanne: I grew up* in Phoenix, and through the miracle of Intelligent Design, I became unable to tolerate cold (Chicago, Boston, Holland) and humid (Chicago, Boston, Florida) climates. I have thought of moving to Scottsdale to get away from the gloomy sea breezes and unspeakably moderate temperatures of Los Angeles.

    *ETA: To the extent that I ever grew up at all.

  155. 155.

    burnspbesq

    @Chad N Freude:

    “I have thought of moving to Scottsdale to get away from the gloomy sea breezes and unspeakably moderate temperatures of Los Angeles.”

    You don’t have to go nearly that far. It’s close to 100 in central OC this afternoon.

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