Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

The willow is too close to the house.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

You are here: Home / All’s well that ends well

All’s well that ends well

by | 370 Comments

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I ended Corner Stone’s time out, as I believe ABL would have wanted (she called it a time out and I think she and I have the same definition). It worked out well, because about ten other of you were stuck in the spam filter for reasons I don’t understand.

This wasn’t a big deal, John or I give a time-out to someone (and you know who you are) about once every two weeks.

Update. This seems to be misunderstood, my main point here is proving that ABL did not ban Corner Stone as was claimed.

Reader Interactions

370Comments

  3. 3.

    handy

    Whatevs Big Baby DougJ. You’re not fooling anyone. You obviously want to lay claim to starting a 300+ comment post, which you will probably get now.

    Good day, sir!

    ETA: Can’t we all just get along?

  6. 6.

    Keith G

    But, but I didn’t even get to read through that hucking fuge thread. And now you’ve killed the suspense.

  7. 7.

    FlipYrWhig

    Great, Corner Stone will be back! Everything will be good as new, back to normal, and surely that will solve everything that was just unleashed!

    Hey, did you hear a noise downstairs?

  8. 8.

    Hunter Gathers

    You know what? The entire fucking blog could use a time out. I’m bored with the constant conflict. This used to be a fun place. Now it’s one giant asshole contest. Bleh.

  11. 11.

    AxelFoley

    (pulls up a lawn chair with a big bag of hot buttered popcorn and tall glass of ice cold Hawaiian Punch)

  14. 14.

    aisce

    oh sure, dougj. white people gotta stick together. ha.

    what a magical labor day this turned out to be. yay balloon juice.

  15. 15.

    elisabeth

    At the risk of being labelled one of ABL’s camp followers I would hope you discussed this with her first. Seems like that would be the polite thing to do.

  17. 17.

    Jewish Steel

    I’m getting pretty sick of all the Kay vs Tom Levenson shit on this blog. Why can’t those two just chill the fuck out?

  20. 20.

    eemom

    say what you will, I had a great time laughing my ass off at Stoned’s time out.

    And I’m doing it again at the ridiculous spectacle his virtual Mommy made of herself in the last thread.

  25. 25.

    Anya

    Damn I miss all the good flame wars. Can someone be kind enough and give me the readers digest version of what happened.

  26. 26.

    Big Baby DougJ

    @aisce:

    ABL said time out and used spam filter not blacklist. If I gave someone a time out and then there was a big drama about it while I was gone I would want someone to end it. I think that’s just how things work.

  33. 33.

    srv

    Yawn. I haven’t been around enough to figure out if he changed handles, but JSF hasn’t commented in two weeks. Anyone know if he got run over by a bus or what?

  36. 36.

    alex

    I just want to say, who the hell cares? I read this blog because it’s interesting, informative, and entertaining, and a bunch of stupid drama on the front page makes it much less of all three. If you have a problem with a fellow FPer, resolve it through email and not in front of everyone. Some guy getting a time-out for doing something he should be ashamed of is not Red Scare 3; if DougJ above is right, it happens about as often as a regular customer gets kicked out of a bar for having had to much and acting like a jerk. So it has no business on the front page.

  38. 38.

    Big Baby DougJ

    @elisabeth:

    I can’t get hold of people fast, maybe I’m wrong, but I think this is best. I wouldn’t want this going on behind my back while I was gone if I did it…and I have given more capricious time outs than this one before.

    Not an authority thing here, just a do unto others.

  39. 39.

    aisce

    @ dougj

    i still can’t believe corner stone is the root of all this. or that he has enough support from a fper to cause such trouble.

    corner stone? no name has ever been less apt.

  46. 46.

    scav

    @Big Baby DougJ: LongName v. ShortName antagonism possibly? Or the traditional starred v. non-starred belly button issue. Looks like [a] I choose a good day to be comatose from sniffing glue.

  50. 50.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Theoretically, I should be writing a paper on James Joyce right now. Now there’s a guy who would have never gotten caught up in stupid blog fights, lemme tell ya.

  54. 54.

    AxelFoley

    Corner Stone must be quite the cocksmith for Anne to go crying to upper management to get him reinstated.

    Yeah, I said it.

  55. 55.

    srv

    Oh, and this could all be misdirection, but I thought Darnell was one of Corner Stones sockpuppets. They always played together earlier this year. He invents one every six months or so, they go round and round, and then they disappear.

    But of course I’m sure someone checked the IPs and made sure they weren’t banning both of them at the same time…

  56. 56.

    Big Baby DougJ

    There’s one commenter here — I won’t say who — who I give time-outs to constantly and then he/she is just back immediately. I almost wonder if it is another FPer.

  57. 57.

    Spaghetti Lee

    I’ll just make a prediction in light of all this: If you thought CS was an insufferable prick before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

  58. 58.

    Percysowner

    I go out shopping, catch a little dinner, come home play with my dog watch some TV and apparently all hell breaks loose in the meantime. I don’t know what happened and I don’t want to read 380+ comments to find out. I’m just going to go on in blissful ignorance and be certain things will work our for the best.

  59. 59.

    aisce

    @ dougj

    to be serious for a moment, is that likely to work?

    i don’t know a thing about the balloon juice power structure, obviously, but isn’t it possible that you’ll find yourself unintentionally becoming another complicating factor in this?

    this seems like it has to be cole’s mess to clean up. he clearly has a toxic relationship on his hands, and i can’t imagine it not needing to be dealt with one way or the other.

  61. 61.

    Dave

    @scav:

    Remember the last paragraph from the Sneeches?

    But McBean was quite wrong. I’m quite happy to say.
    That the Sneetches got really quite smart on that day.
    The day they decided that Sneetches are Sneetches.
    And no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches.
    That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars and whether
    They had one, or not, upon thars.

    I’d take every Firebagger/Obot/fee-fee hurt crybaby in the Democratic Party and tattoo it on their fucking foreheads. And then point them towards the GOP and say “See those guys, idiots? THOSE are the people you should be taking down.”

    Jesus wept…

  62. 62.

    ABL

    Well, I thought the standard period was a week, so no. I put him on time out this morning (notably, after a commenter– Marc, I believe it was — suggested it.) I had no intention of putting him on time out last night at all; I guess I’m that numb to the dumb. I have CS pied so I don’t see or get bothered by his incessant foolishness.

    Really unclear as to why Anne Laurie has decided to go nookyular on me and why she has chosen this particular hill to die on. Nor do I understand why she couldn’t have jotted her thoughts down and shot them to me in an email, but hey — It’s no skin off my back either way. This isn’t my blog and I only follow the rules as Cole has laid them out for me.

    This all seems really silly; I do have a working email address you know.

    ::shrug::

    Cheers,

    ABL

  65. 65.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    I spend all day helping my oldest with his mouse trap car and I miss the war. If there’s any sign that Obama is going to lose next year, it’s because we’ve decided to go after each other rather than Republicans. I am so sick of this fighting. Other than dealing with Samara and a few other people when they get hostile – Corner Stone comes to mind – we should be getting each other ready to help get back the house, destroy the Republicans in the Senate, and have the Republican presidential nominee embarrassed before the voting starts.

    I am so tired of fighting a battle I know I cannot win. The reason I know I cannot win it is because I am attempting to sound like Obama negotiating with Republicans when I try to convince people that don’t like that feature that Obama is almost everything they ask for and more than they are likely to get otherwise. But what really makes me tired is that we’re splitting hairs so finely that we’re liable to create the perfect head on beer (movie reference in the last part).

    I come back, though, because I can ignore the comments I don’t care about at all, even without a pie filter, though I really should try one sometime. And I have more important things to do than be hurt online by someone who I have never met, like building a mouse trap powered car.

  69. 69.

    CaseyL

    @Big Baby DougJ: Maybe there should be an escalation system. After X time-outs, either make the time-out much longer, or make it permanent.

    Seriously. Anyone who causes that much grief is a troll.

  70. 70.

    srv

    @Big Baby DougJ:

    I almost wonder if it is another FPer.

    So you’re saying her claim to see the IP’s is false or you’re too lazy to check if Tom from Texas is f’ing with you?

  72. 72.

    different church-lady

    Hey, I just read on that other thread that the firebaggers are saying that Obama ate a baby on live TV. Man, I hope that’s not true…

  74. 74.

    different church-lady

    @Alex S.:

    Time Out? That’s what I call White-People Jazz.

    You mean new-age white people jazz. When I was a kid we didn’t have “time outs”. We got paddled.

  75. 75.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    Cheers,
    __
    ABL

    And YOU are obviously an alter ego of Dennis G. It took all this to out you.

    Dang. That changes so many things now …

  77. 77.

    different church-lady

    @CaseyL:

    Maybe there should be an escalation system. After X time-outs, either make the time-out much longer, or make it permanent.

    Can’t we just keep making fun of him/her/it instead?

  81. 81.

    Big Baby DougJ

    @alex:

    it happens about as often as a regular customer gets kicked out of a bar for having had to much and acting like a jerk.

    That is how I view it.

  86. 86.

    suzanne

    This entire incident was all so goddamn high school I can’t even believe it.
    Less fighting, more Tunch, please.

  87. 87.

    Jewish Steel

    @J:

    What is and ‘FPer’?

    J, my friend. That is the most sensible thing anyone’s said all evening.

  88. 88.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    @Big Baby DougJ: Jesus Christ. If this blog is able to churn out posts like Palin churns out gibberish and you assholes still have time to troll each other, we need to find a way to hook ya’ll up to the power grid.

    [Edited to add: Not that the posts on this blog sound like Palin’s gibberish. Mostly.]

  91. 91.

    srv

    @Big Baby DougJ: And here I thought you really had a PhD.

    Have you ever considered that all that trolling back in the day gave you a multiple personality disorder and you’re really trolling yourself?

  94. 94.

    eemom

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    If there’s any sign that Obama is going to lose next year, it’s because we’ve decided to go after each other rather than Republicans.

    Oh yes. Obama is going to lose next year because of a flame war on this blog.

    MFG. WTF is this, Amateur Drama Queen Night?

  98. 98.

    aisce

    @ constance

    sockpuppet is exactly as it sounds. creating a fake account (the puppet) to talk through, while maintaining your “real” account simultaneously to avoid detection.

    i would hope you could figure out “butthurt” on your own. there’s really not a lot of places that one could go.

  103. 103.

    eemom

    @Constance:

    sockpuppet: posting under a different screen name to make it appear that someone else agrees with you.

    butthurt: what happens after one gets fucked in the butt. Usually used as a rough synonym for being a sore loser.

  105. 105.

    AxelFoley

    Fuck, looks like Kevin, srv and aisce beat me to it, too.

    Man, fuck ya’ll, I’m taking my Urban Dictionary and goin’ home.

  109. 109.

    AnnaN

    RE: Anne Laurie
    Sometimes people have bad days. And sometimes, unfortunately, they have them in public. /shrug

    Oh the humanity.

  111. 111.

    Elizabelle

    I take it someone removed the original thread? Having been out for hours, cannot tell what you guys are discussing.

    But I hate seeing people get dumped on, be it Annie Laurie — who is a gentle soul who was maybe trying to stand up for treating each other better here?

    Corner Stone was trolling? Don’t lots of people do that lately?

    Balloon Juice is becoming a different animal, and not in a good sense.

    What used to be snarky and intelligent and a refuge from hysteria and groupthink elsewhere in the blogosphere has become emotion and shape-shifting and pretty much a constant downer.

    With pets.

    And some well reasoned extended blogposts, but they’re becoming the exception.

    Do we really want to be Lord of the Flies here?

  112. 112.

    Marc

    @Big Baby DougJ:

    When a bar patron is as big of a jackass as Cornerstone they get a permanent ban. The sheer abuse that he doles out casually has got to have cost you a lot more people than one. And assuming that someone with a black name hates white folks….damn. Only bigots think that way.

  115. 115.

    FlipYrWhig

    I’m sure that Corner Stone would behave more constructively if we just used the bully pulpit on him.

  116. 116.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @eemom: You know, eemom, I don’t just see it here and I don’t just see it on the internet. I do have multiple personal anecdotes. And I also read the history books. So, while it is a bit emo, the fighting over tiny shit is annoying and useless. Case in point: Why did you even reply to something you consider emo?

  117. 117.

    Comrade Kevin

    @Elizabelle: For the freakout that this post is about, go read the thread immediately preceding this one. For the original thread, where Corner Stone got his “time out”, go look at the one “OzoneGate” from yesterday.

    ETA: On second thought, don’t go read those threads. You’re better off not knowing about any of this.

  120. 120.

    Steeplejack

    @aisce:

    oh sure, dougj. white people gotta stick together.

    How do you know DougJ is white? Racism! I call for a time-out.

  121. 121.

    RareSanity

    What the hell?

    Last time I popped in the “Da Juice” we were having a grand ole time mocking UGA’s uniforms and ESPN’s man love for the SEC.

    I come back and all hell has broken lose.

    Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!

    WTF indeed…

  122. 122.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @AnnaN:

    Yeah, this. But I’ve seen blood feuds here last for months, so this thing isn’t ever, ever going to die.

    Can I just make a request, from someone who likes this blog and wants it to stay good? Can we just put it behind us? Everyone screwed up a little. Can we please not keep snapping at each other about it for the next year?

    (And yes, I know I sound like a Villager here, but I’d like to submit that “both sides are at fault” is actually true at this point.)

  124. 124.

    Heliopause

    I ended Corner Stone’s time out

    Unlike the ‘bots on this blog who profess fealty to the President yet crave partisanship in all its forms, you are living his creed. Well done, Doug. All that’s left is for you to ask Anne and ABL what their favorite beers are.

  126. 126.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Elizabelle:

    But I hate seeing people get dumped on, be it Annie Laurie—who is a gentle soul who was maybe trying to stand up for treating each other better here?

    Snort. Anne Laurie’s post below calls out ABL for “silencing” Corner Stone after he told a poster using a typically African-American that (because he disagreed with his view of the EPA regulation episode) it was probably because he hated white people. ABL put him on some kind of ban-or-timeout status. IOW, “Gentle soul” Anne Laurie went to the mat for the contributions of Corner Stone. Yeah, really.

  130. 130.

    Keith G

    @aisce:

    i don’t know a thing about the balloon juice power structure, obviously, but isn’t it possible that you’ll find yourself unintentionally becoming another complicating factor in this?

    Do you (and many others here) realize that this is just a blog, millions of 1s and 0s zipping around the ether? It’s made up. It’s a vanity. It has less substance that cotton candy on a rainy day.

    I really like this hangout, but I try not to get knotted up on how the John (or Doug, or A L) does things.

    Goodness, do you think Erica Kane is a real person?

  132. 132.

    Big Baby DougJ

    @Comrade Kevin:

    On second thought, don’t go read those threads. You’re better off not knowing about any of this.

    Thank you, Kevin. That is definitely the right attitude.

  133. 133.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @aisce:

    Yup, while DougJ may mean well I think this might not turn out that way.

    John should be the one to hash this out for everyone. It’s his blog anyway. When the FP’ers start messing with each other then I think that is going to get messy real quick.

    Either way, CS ‘wins’ again…lol! What a fucking joke.

  134. 134.

    different church-lady

    You know, until today I had no idea Darnell was a ‘black’ name. I thought it was just southern.

  135. 135.

    Elizabelle

    @TooManyJens:

    Thanks Jens.

    I like to see the original material, and appreciate your pointing it out.

    After this is over, hope all of us turn our anger on someone more deserving, though.

    Like Eric Cantor or Mitch McConnell or registering voters, especially young ‘uns.

  137. 137.

    handy

    @Elizabelle:

    After this is over, hope all of us turn our anger on someone more deserving, though.

    Amen.

    By the by, DougJ, 133 posts and counting. Just think, you’re almost halfway there!

  138. 138.

    Big Baby DougJ

    @aisce:

    I agree John should clean it up, not me. But I didn’t think it would be right to let it fester without doing anything, especially since it was based on the faulty assumption that Corner Stone was banned.

  139. 139.

    aisce

    @ keith g

    the blog is run by people. with hangups and animosities and all that real people stuff. and email chains. and sniping and confrontations.

    and if blogging becomes a chore for these people, then maybe the 1s and 0s go away. it’s happened before. and that would be unfortunate.

    for christ’s sake, the republicans are deciding between mitt romney and rick perry for president. 2012 should be balloon juice’s finest hour.

  140. 140.

    Mnemosyne

    @Elizabelle:

    Nah, the thread’s still there, and here’s the offending comment if you’re curious:

    https://balloon-juice.com/2011/09/04/ozonegate/#comment-2759318

    It was a tempest in a teacup (too small even for a teapot) until Anne Laurie decided to front-page her full-throated defense of CS for unknown reasons. I’m guessing drinking was involved, but that’s probably just because I’d like to try to continue thinking reasonably well of Anne Laurie.

  142. 142.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    John should be the one to hash this out for everyone.

    I always figure we could act like adults and do it on our own. I ultimately believe the biggest problem with the Christians on the right is they missed that all of Jesus’ parables basically said “Grow the fuck up. God’s not going to hold your hand any more.”

  143. 143.

    RareSanity

    @Comrade Kevin:

    That freaking post has….carry the 1…over 400 comments!

    Isn’t the internet supposed to summarize all of that for me? This whole “information super highway” is really beginning to disappointment me.

    I blame Obama.

  144. 144.

    handy

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    John should be the one to hash this out for everyone.

    Cole’s too busy drunk-tweeting to bother with such small things. Like every alcoholic family, it’s the kids (in this case the FPers) who have to step up.

  145. 145.

    AxelFoley

    @Heliopause:

    Unlike the ‘bots on this blog who profess fealty to the President yet crave partisanship in all its forms, you are living his creed. Well done, Doug. All that’s left is for you to ask Anne and ABL what their favorite beers are.

    Oh yeah, you’re definitely a troll.

  148. 148.

    askew

    Holy crap, that Anne Laurie post was incredibly ugly. She showed her true colors tonight. She put up an entire diary freaking out that a poster got put in time out for writing racist shit? I take it Laurie is a big Ferraro fan.

  150. 150.

    Mark S.

    Update. This seems to be misunderstood, my main point here is proving that ABL did not ban Corner Stone as was claimed.

    Wha? Oh fuck it, I’m just going to wait for Fox News to tell me what really happened.

  151. 151.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @boss bitch: I’m wondering if she couldn’t pay him anymore. Those campaign things are expensive, and I imagine Ed Rollins was one of the more expensive things. I remember reading some numbers on what Dem strategists make and Ho-Lee-Shit I can’t imagine what CU and the Koch borthers have done to drive up the prices on the other side.

    Yeah I see the typo. I’m gonna leave it cause I think it suits them.

  154. 154.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    If we all ran this blog then that would make sense. John is the owner here, the one power that all (except Tunch) bow towards.

    Or is it kneel, I gets cornfoozled. Either way, I think John sorting it out would be far less likely to leave smoldering embers of resentment that ignite later.

    @handy:

    Well, someone has to drunk tweet! I know I sure as hell ain’t gonna do it. John does that shit so we don’t have to.

  155. 155.

    Comrade Kevin

    re: Bachmann. when local news channels put a graphic on the screen calling her “Michelle Bachman”, she should consider it a sign that her campaign is doomed.

  156. 156.

    Loviatar

    @Big Baby DougJ:

    Whats the difference between a banning and a time out?

    Seems like a bunch semantics in order for you to allow ABL to say she didn’t deprive someone of their ability to air their views. Pretty weak all around.

  157. 157.

    lamh32

    Sorry Doug J, you’re a nice guy, but this ain’t over by a long shot.

    Reminds me of when I last went home to NOLA. I stayed with my sister “N” and I didn’t’ have a rental car, so I was using her car while I was there and I also needed a ride to and from the airport.

    So about 2 days into my 5 day trip, I ask my sister “R” to drop me off at the airport. She says okay. So on the day before I was flying out, me, R and N were at N’s house and I was packing my stuff for the next day. R tells me that she can’t bring me to the airport after all. So I was like why and she said she had to do something with her boyfriend and I said okay, I’ll just have one of my cousin’s bring me to the airport.

    So N tells R “why the hell can’t you bring LAMH” to the airport. R tells N “cause I can’t that’s why”. N tells R “you can’t take ur sister to the airport all LAMH has done for you”. R tells N “…I know what LAMH has done for me… but I can’t take her”. N tells R “…so u mean to tell me a man is more important than ur sister…” R tells N “don’t tell me about a man being more important than my family…when you always put a man first over your son…”

    As you can guess it escalated from there. 30 minutes after R told me she couldn’t bring me to the airport, I had to literally stand between the two of them so that they didn’t kill each other. ,keys were thrown, chairs were knocked over…and calling the police was threatened. It was ridiculous.

    It was obvious to anyone who woulda been there, that the “fight” may have started over R not bringing me to the airport, but it was so obvious that R and N were fighting over a whole lot more than taking lil ole me to the damn airport.

    This “thing” with ABL and AL whatever ever it is, is just like that fight between my sisters, IMHO.

    I still have no idea what it was really about, but somehow I STILL got caught in the middle of it. And that pissed me off more than anything. just like this bs.

  159. 159.

    Anya

    Okay, so no one is going to be kind enough to answer my question. From the little I’ve deduced from Anne Laurie’s strange post, this whole craziness started early this morning from an exchange between Corner Stone and Darnel from LA. I have not followed the whole discussion but I think some exchange of words took place that ended with accusation of racism. Here’s what I think:

    1. Ann Laurie’s post was a gigantic fuck-up. She could have sent her fellow FPer a detailed email, instead of the strange post that accomplished nothing but further dividing this blog into two camps.

    2. I do not believe that Corner Stone is a racist but he’s a contrarian who relishes getting a rise out of some commenters. Most of the time he annoys the hell out of me, but a lot of times I find him amusing. I think accusations of racism is serious and it should not be thrown around lightly. Assuming someone is black or white does not make you a racist, it just makes you a victim of stereotypes.

    3. People who frequent this blog are adults (from the pet and garden stories, I am guessing a large number are my parents age) and, as such, the FPers should respect that mature adults will be able to deal with little heated arguments and controversial topics without destruction of the blog or causing damage to someone’s delicate sensibilities. Therefore, no one should be banned or suspended without committing a serious offense (i.e. making a racist, sexist or homophobic comment).

    4. Since we’re all adults and not in junior high anymore, we should stay away from cliques. In my humble opinion both Anne laurie and ABL are guilty of that.

    Finally, I admit freely that I don’t have the whole story, so call me an asshole if I stepped in it.

  161. 161.

    Spaghetti Lee

    I’m wondering-is there proof that Anne Laurie is a racist? Because, you know, calling someone racist is a serious accusation, and I’d hope there’s more to it than the bullshit that went down tonight. I certainly haven’t seen racism out of her before.

  162. 162.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: Eh, I’m done with it personally. I got to whine about us fighting each other and I got to attack Republicans and their supporters. I’m just hanging around because I should be going to sleep. As for CS being put in time out because of the stuff he said yesterday – not by ABL – and removed by Doug after Anne pleaded on his behalf…I got to attack the Republicans and their supporters.

  163. 163.

    RareSanity

    Why did George Lucas fuck up perfectly good movies ex post facto?

    I’m watching Return of the Jedi on SPIKE and there was a pointless scene added to the part in the beginning at Jabba’s compound.

    All I could think was, “What the hell is that? I’ve never seen that before, and furthermore, it sucks and adds nothing to the story.”

    Well, back to my old ass, original cut of the movie to cleanse that memory from ny head. First time I have ever witnessed the befouling of these cinematic classics, first hand.

    Han shot first indeed…

  165. 165.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Loviatar:

    Seems like a bunch semantics in order for you to allow ABL to say she didn’t deprive someone of their ability to air their views.

    Corner Stone can still express his views, he can even start his own blog.

  166. 166.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Loviatar:

    Is there some contract or something on this site that says people are guaranteed to be allowed to air their views? I’ve never seen one.

  168. 168.

    Comrade Kevin

    @Anya:

    Assuming someone is black or white does not make you a racist, it just makes you a victim of stereotypes.

    I admit that I have, stupidly, assumed that someone was Black before. However, I didn’t then jump to the conclusion that the person “hates white people”, based on absolutely nothing.

    so call me an asshole if I stepped in it.

    You stepped in it.

  170. 170.

    Loviatar

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    ahhh more semantics, should have known by the screen name.

    seems like a bunch semantics in order for you to allow ABL to say she didn’t deprive someone of their ability to air their views on this blog.

  171. 171.

    Big Baby DougJ

    @Loviatar:

    Big difference, time out just means in the spam filter for a few days. It’s reversible. Banning is blacklisting and that’s not reversible, not easily.

    There’s a big difference.

  173. 173.

    Keith G

    @lamh32:

    Sorry Doug J, you’re a nice guy, but this ain’t over by a long shot.

    So, how is this condition of “not being over” going to be manifested? To what end?

    Do you demand an apology (Which I am certain will be coming if history is any guide)? You you need to see an action plan for remediation?

    If you are not satisfied, what sanctions do you envision?

  174. 174.

    Loviatar

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    I guess I was under the impression that this blog was constructed to allow a open and free sharing of views, whether differing or not.

    I may be wrong, but I’ll wait for JC or Doug to tell me, not a budding McCarthyite.

  175. 175.

    Mnemosyne

    @Loviatar:

    Wow, you’re adopting more glibertarian and right-wing talking points by the day. Giving an asshole a time-out from a private blog is now infringing on his rights?

  176. 176.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Loviatar:

    Again, I repeat: there’s no guarantee that he gets to air those concerns (insomuch as accusing a random poster of hating white people is “airing concerns”). Blogs are like houses. I don’t have to let any damn person in just because there’s supposedly some social contract that everyone gets to air their views. Bigger blogs like BJ are bigger than a house-a strip club, say, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a big enough jerk to get tossed out.

  177. 177.

    RareSanity

    @lamh32:

    Hey…I was in Nawlins last week for business…

    I was saddened to see the current state of the Lower 9th Ward 5+ years after Katrina.

  178. 178.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Loviatar: We have a benevolent dictator with helpful underlings that don’t always share the dictators views. But there are lines that can’t be crossed.

  179. 179.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @AxelFoley: I think we need a name for the kind of troll who affects that condescending, world-weary, I’m above-it-all and I’m-so-bored-with-you tone. We could name them after BobLoblaw. Who I suspect is posting under a new nym.

  180. 180.

    handy

    @RareSanity:

    I’m watching Return of the Jedi on SPIKE and there was a pointless scene added to the part in the beginning at Jabba’s compound.

    That’s because the guy fell in love with his toys that he forgot how to be a filmmaker.

  182. 182.

    Loviatar

    @171 – Mnemosyne:

    Wow, you’re adopting more glibertarian and right-wing talking points by the day. Giving an asshole a time-out from a private blog is now infringing on his rights?

    Please show me where I said corner stone “rights” were infringed.

    Seems like a bunch semantics in order for you to allow ABL to say she didn’t deprive someone of their ability to air their views. Pretty weak all around.

    Stop using Republican/Fox news tactics of substituting your weaknesses for my actual words. ASSWHOLE

  183. 183.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Loviatar:

    This blog can be open to a variety of views and not roll out the welcome mat to every troll or asshole who stumbles upon it, at the same time. Amazing huh?

    And I think this is the first time we’ve spoken, but apparently I’m already a McCarthyite? Huh. Didn’t know that. Can I ask what led to this conclusion?

  184. 184.

    General Stuck

    I am having a hard time even caring about this mess, and it is a warm and fuzzy feeling, plus a dash of grief when something you liked has died. I would think corner stone is quite pleased with being at the center of this clusterfuck. Good for him. For myself, I got more productive things to do, rather than watch the same train wreck, over and over and over. So where is the little shit for brains after getting sprung to being back in the hate business.

  185. 185.

    Mnemosyne

    @Loviatar:

    So how did she “deprive someone of their ability to air their views”? Did she smash his keyboard? Did she interrupt his internet service? Or did she temporarily block his access to a private website?

    If what she did was the last one, how is it “deprivation” to decide that he (temporarily) can’t post on a website that doesn’t even belong to him?

  186. 186.

    gwangung

    Seems like a bunch semantics in order for you to allow ABL to say she didn’t deprive someone of their ability to air their views.

    That is, in essence, the definition of blog administration.

    Not much of a point to dispute unless you want to troll. So, be my guest.

    ETA: Actually, I’ll be the one to be all glibertarian. They got the keys, them’s makes the rules.

  187. 187.

    lamh32

    @Keith G:

    No I don’t “demand” any damn thing. Read the rest of my comment and you’ll see that I am not giving some sort of ultimatum or some such. as I said when discussing the argument my sisters had, that the “banning/suspension of CS” is just he starting point that stirred up whatever problems or issue AL has with ABL.

    DougJ is just being really optimistic if he thinks this post will be the end of it all.

    But I think you know what i was saying and just wanted to make a larger point I guess.

  188. 188.

    Loviatar

    @170 – Big Baby DougJ:

    Pretty weak defense, so you’re banned temporarily (time out) instead of permanently. whoope damm do.

    If someone writes something worthy of being banned ban them otherwise leave them the hell alone. Don’t use it as a petulant punishment for some who disagrees with you (ABLs method)

  189. 189.

    gocart mozart

    The stone that the builder refuse
    Will always be the head cornerstone-a; sing it brother
    The stone that the builder refuse
    Will always be the head cornerstone.

    You’re a builder, baby;
    Here I am, a stone.
    Don’t you pick and refuse me,
    ‘Cause the things people refuse
    Are the things they should choose.
    Do you ‘ear me? Hear what I say!

    Stone that the builder refuse
    Will always be the head cornerstone-a; tell me why
    The stone that the builder refuse, yeah! –
    Will always be the head cornerstone.

    You’re a builder, baby;
    Wo, here I am, a stone!
    Don’t you pick and refuse me,
    ‘Cause the tings people refuse
    Are the things they should use;
    The things people refuse
    Are the things they should use.
    Do you ‘ear me? Hear what I say!

    Stone dat them builder refuse
    Will always be the head cornerstone-a;
    The stone that dem builder refuse
    Will always be the head cornerstone.

    Stone dat them builder refuse
    Will always be the head cornerstone-a;
    The stone that dem builder refuse
    Will always be the head cornerstone.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP8EVKgIYsg

  190. 190.

    Anne Laurie

    Thanks, DougJ. I only discovered the latest whatever-you-call it by accident — a third party seemed to indicate that CS had been un-personed. So I had to go read the commments on ABL’s post, which I usually avoid, because (obviously) a lot of her most faithful posters irk the living shit out of me. (As I do them.)

  191. 191.

    lamh32

    @RareSanity:

    it is really sad. My aunt lives on a street where the house on the corner while having a perfectly mowed lawn, still has spray paint on the outside of the house from after Katrina that let the rescue crews know how many bodies were found in the house…damn near 6 years later.

  192. 192.

    Anya

    @Comrade Kevin:

    I admit that I have, stupidly, assumed that someone was Black before. However, I didn’t then jump to the conclusion that the person “hates white people”, based on absolutely nothing.

    Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else in this blog knows Corner Stone’s heart, but I took it as trolling, and in a twisted way being ironic. I did not take it as actually meaning that he was accusing a black man of hating white people. Besides, people choose internet names for various reasons, how can you know someone is a particular color, ethnic group or nationality based on the name they choose to comment on a blog.

  193. 193.

    gwangung

    If someone writes something worthy of being banned ban them otherwise leave them the hell alone.

    Y’all can do that on your own blog. Others may feel differently on theirs.

  194. 194.

    RareSanity

    @handy:

    Damn shame that.

    Can you still buy the original, unmolested versions?

    Preferably a boxed set of the 3 original movies only. I have never acknowledged the existence of the “prequel” movies, never seen any of them, don’t want to. I do want my son to see the orignal three though.

  195. 195.

    suzanne

    @Anya: Nope, that’s pretty much it.

    You know, I think every single one of the FPers (and probably most of the commenters) have committed an “ism” at one point or another. It happens; we live in a hierarchical society and the truly horrifying nature of these prejudices is how they infect us all. I appreciate the working-class/feminist POV Anne Laurie brings to this blog, as well as ABL’s thoughts on race-related issues. And, honestly, both of them pissed me off here. Anne Laurie aired this dirty laundry on the front page, and ABL is now doing the same damn thing on Twitter.

    And at least one commenter called this a “cat fight”. Fucking LOVELY.

    NO ONE looks good here.

    I need me some Four Loko.

  196. 196.

    Loviatar

    @184 – gwangung:

    No, the way practiced by ABL and what seems to be with the support of some of the commenters is as a punishment for disagreeing.

    If corner stone said something worthy of banning, ban him permanently. If not STFU about banning and respond in kind to his comment.

  197. 197.

    TooManyJens

    @Loviatar:

    If someone writes something worthy of being banned ban them otherwise leave them the hell alone.

    I’m sure DougJ will give your orders all the weight that your authority lends them.

  198. 198.

    Loviatar

    @191 – gwangung:

    Y’all can do that on your own blog. Others may feel differently on theirs.

    Umm, tell me when did you get administrator rites.

    Don’t see your name anywhere on the masthead. Until told differently by JC or Doug I’ll keep expressing my views or should I be given a ban time out.

  199. 199.

    Cowbelle

    @Anne Laurie:

    So I had to go read the commments on ABL’s post…

    But somehow you missed the part where she said “time out” and not “banned forever.”

    Try reading without your I-hate-ABL glasses on.

  200. 200.

    Lysana

    AL fucked up. I have to give myself a time-out from this blog commentary, or I’m going to keep bringing it up. I really,really, REALLY hate being told I’m just a PC choir member when the issue is tolerance. Tells me the speaker doesn’t want tolerance. Not saying AL is racist. Saying she’s resistant to change and less sympathetic than she paints herself in the bathroom mirror.

  202. 202.

    Cowbelle

    @Loviatar:

    No, the way practiced by ABL and what seems to be with the support of some of the commenters is as a punishment for disagreeing.

    No, it’s a punishment for racist asshattery. If he were going to be banned for “disagreeing” it would have happened earlier.

    Claiming that he was banned as “punishment for disagreeing” is at best a strawman and at worst an outright lie.

  205. 205.

    Constance

    Hey, thanks everyone. I may have mentioned this already–this is the only blog where I read the comments. It’s an entire new world for me, complete with its own vocabulary. I already know who not to read when I see the name so I don’t waste time.

    I decided to give up commenting because I’m someone who thinks (or maybe I figure out what I’m thinking) things through by discussing them with people. I’m not quick on my feet and I often don’t express myself clearly. I assume people know what I’m talking/writing about. I know what I’m trying to say so why don’t you get it. Causes no end of misunderstandings.

    By reading the comments here I can watch things evolve (or not) and learn without making a fool of myself. For those who are old enough–it’s the Shelley Berman thing of sitting in the airplane, looking out the window, watching flames shooting out of the engine and not wanting to ask anyone about it for fear of making a fool of yourself. Good gawd, I just googled him and he’s still alive and still performing. He was born in 1925, according to wikipedia) so that makes him 86. Amazing.

    So, thanks. I’m going to bookmark urban dictionary.

  206. 206.

    gwangung

    No, the way practiced by ABL and what seems to be with the support of some of the commenters is as a punishment for disagreeing.

    Actually, no, it doesn’t to me.

    But obviously, YMMV.

    If corner stone said something worthy of banning, ban him permanently.

    To me, there’s more than one way to run a blog. if someone who’s a contributor goes over the line, I find it useful to cool them off for a time. And I see it used to great effect on other blogs. Obviously, your philosophy is different and can be implemented well on other blogs.

    However, I don’t see it as the only way to run a blog.

  207. 207.

    RareSanity

    @lamh32:

    What really struck me is that as I was driving around one of the neighborhoods, there where streets that simply disappeared into over growth. It looks like the streets, or the houses they ran in front of, never existed. Seeing those markings from the searches almost brought me, a grown man, to tears.

    As much television coverage as there was during that time, there is no way to fully understand the failure of Bush and “Brownie”, until you see it in person.

  209. 209.

    Strandedvandal

    Lovitar, you may think that giving CS a timeout was not the way to go, but has he/she been back here raising a ruckus? Nope. Looks like a little time has worked doesn’t it.

  210. 210.

    gwangung

    Umm, tell me when did you get administrator rites.
    __
    Don’t see your name anywhere on the masthead. Until told differently by JC or Doug I’ll keep expressing my views or should I be given a ban time out.

    Then I can keep telling you what an asshat you are. Deal?

  211. 211.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @General Stuck: I seem to be sitting here watching the train wreck. I really should be in bed. It’s probably because of stuff like this:

    @Loviatar: You just spewing random stuff, dude(tte)? The response said that it’s up to the people at this blog to decide what gets left up here. Your response didn’t even make sense except in some weird “if you don’t agree with me then you must be able to ban me” sort of way.

  212. 212.

    Rhoda

    Okay, I saw the link above.

    Thanks for that.

    FUCK the idea that that shouldn’t have been given a time out; you hate white people. I mean, wtf Glenn Beck nonsense is that?

    *****

    I still don’t get freaking out over a guy getting a time out or banned or wtfever for saying racist shit.

    Or maybe I’m not understanding this correctly.

    I mean, FUCK, I have a big problem with that and no desire to wade through 400 replies. So, I’d appreciate it if someone would clarify if racist shit went down and who the fuck said what to whom, when, and where. I could give a fuck as to the why of it all.

    Otherwise, I’ll just send a collective fuck you to all who think ABL should have to deal with that type of shit. I don’t care if you think she’s an incoherent Obot with a strange posse. God damn if that is important compared to racist shit being stirred.

  213. 213.

    Comrade Kevin

    There is someone who has been an adult about this, made, I think, two comments, and hasn’t doubled down on a bunch of crap. I’ll leave it to you to figure out who I’m talking about.

  214. 214.

    Keith G

    @lamh32: No, no, no.

    The phrase, “This is not over” implies an on-going conflict, does it not? I was just curious as to what would bring about this being over for you.

  217. 217.

    Mnemosyne

    @Loviatar:

    Umm, tell me when did you get administrator rites.

    When did you get them? It sounds like you’re all pissy because ABL gets those administrator rights and you don’t.

  218. 218.

    Loviatar

    @211 – Rhoda:

    Basic summary

    Someone disagreed with ABL. She cried racism and banned him gave him a time out.

    AL called her out on it and the ABL defenders are out in force saying either he deserved it or its no big thing and why did she have to make a big deal about it on the front page.

    JC basically checked in and did a Homer (duh).

    Doug stepped in and unbanned him removed the time out.

    TL is trying to calm things down with some Queen and a remembrance of Freddie Mercury.

  225. 225.

    RareSanity

    @Rhoda:

    From what I can gather, the general response is, “guess you had to be there”.

    For those of us that weren’t involved, the consensus is that we should happy in our ignorance of the subject.

    I’m good with that…

  227. 227.

    lamh32

    @Mnemosyne: I’m pretty sure Keith G knows exactly what I meant and is just being obtuse for whatever reason he chooses to.

    I no longer plan to engage.

  228. 228.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Rhoda: It’s because the people rallying to the Corner Stone flag think that he wasn’t slapped on the wrist for one odd racially charged remark, but rather that he was a gadfly Obama critic and that the remark was merely a pretext for “silencing” him.

  229. 229.

    aisce

    you got it down pat for you social and economic peer group

    and now i think it’s loviatar’s turn for one of these now-notorious “time outs.”

    good grief.

  230. 230.

    Cowbelle

    @Loviatar:

    Someone disagreed with ABL. She cried racism and…

    Wow, you’re dishonest right off the bat.

    I don’t believe you’re ignorant of the situation, as Jen seems to. I think you’re deliberately lying here, even though you know that’s not what happened.

  233. 233.

    Anya

    @suzanne: I really despise twitter. I think it will damage what’s left of our political discourse. JC should do some sort of team building for his FPers.

  234. 234.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Loviatar: Probably because he got pissy in a discussion of pollution standards and said that a poster with a typically black name who disagreed with his take probably hated all white people. See, because that’s actually what happened.

  237. 237.

    boss bitch

    @Anne Laurie:

    So I had to go read the commments on ABL’s post, which I usually avoid, because (obviously) a lot of her most faithful posters irk the living shit out of me. (As I do them.)

    You keep referring to her followers. Are you jealous? Did ABL take attention away from you on this blog? Did you consider CS to be one of your “followers” and lost your shit when ABL put him on time out?

  239. 239.

    Cowbelle

    @boss bitch: Apparently this is all about the “followers,” and FPers gain occult powers based on how many loyal followers they have and how often they post.

  240. 240.

    Loviatar

    @227 – FlipYrWhig:

    THIS

    If the man had a history of racist remarks ban him. The man had a history as an annoying Obama critic who regularly and continuously disagreed with ABL. The first pretext she got she banned him punished him with a time out.

  241. 241.

    handy

    @Loviatar:

    He was given a time out, not banned, because in the heat of the moment he said something that reasonably could be construed as racist, specifically he called someone named “Darnell from LA” jackie and later commented that he hated white people. I Honestly like CS, but that was bad form.

  244. 244.

    lamh32

    @boss bitch:

    ya know, this is a good question.

    What exactly constitutes an ABL follower in AL’s eyes?

    Maybe someone can explain it to me.

    ETA: I’m done. Spent way too much time on this anyway.

    good nite all. maybe some clarity & calm will come in the morning on this blog.

  246. 246.

    Loviatar

    @235 – TooManyJens:

    For making a racist comment to Darnell from LA.

    Whether for herself or in supposed defense of another she cried racism then she banned him punished him with a time out.

  248. 248.

    dead existentialist

    @Loviatar: What? My “social and economic peer group”? WTF does that mean?

    Someone from said group knows that the homonyms “right” and “rite” mean entirely different things although I’m not sure that said group encompasses much more than people with a grade school education, and there are a shitload of us out there. Are you calling me elitist? Because I have a 6th grade education? Did you forget to take your meds tonight?

  250. 250.

    Nutella

    @Loviatar:

    ABL “cried racism” because Corner Stone said something racist. It is undeniably racist to accuse someone who disagrees with you about environmental policy of “hating white people”. That’s what Corner Stone did and that’s the reason ABL gave for the time out.

  252. 252.

    Loviatar

    @246 – dead existentialist:

    I simply did what you did.

    In the heat of the moment I wrote right instead of rite and you jumped to the conclusion that my english skills were lacking.

    Taking your writing into consideration I naturally jumped to the conclusion that you were a semi-illiterate asswhole who never finished middle school.

  253. 253.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Loviatar:

    Dude, since you’ve done it like 20 times now, I’ve gotta ask: what do you think you’re doing with that while strikethrough thing? Do you think it looks cool? Like you’re the rebel exposing the hypocrisy of the Orwellian newspeak? Like you’re the only one who can see through all the lies? Because honestly, it just makes you look pretentious.

  255. 255.

    srv

    John is not going to be happy having to come up with a “WIN THE MORNING” thread. I don’t think Alexis cares about holidays.

  257. 257.

    mcd410x

    @Heliopause:

    Unlike the ‘bots on this blog who profess fealty to the President yet crave partisanship in all its forms, you are living his creed. Well done, Doug. All that’s left is for you to ask Anne and ABL what their favorite beers are.

    Ha! Best comment on the thread. ;)

  258. 258.

    Loviatar

    @248 – Nutella:

    why do you think corner stone was banned?

    1) He has a history of saying racist things.

    or

    2) He made one racist comment in the heat of the moment, some thing he had not done previously.

    or

    3) He has a history of being an annoying critic of Obama and ABL?
    .

    If #1 why not ban him permanently. If #2, then a lot more people need to be banned given time outs (JC included). If #3 then it was punitive punishment.

  259. 259.

    Anne Laurie

    @boss bitch:

    You keep referring to her followers. Are you jealous?

    No, please, I don’t want a dozen people playing the FDL “frist” game to open every comment thread under my post with some variant of ANOTHER GLORIOUS POST PREACH IT MOST EXCELLENTLY DEAR LEADER AL! ! ! Nor do I want those people to scour every other posters’ threads, looking for opportunities to all-cap perceived slights to the most-excellent supremacy of AL’s every post.

    Syncophants irk me, because I’m anti-authoritarian and anti-narcissist.

  260. 260.

    Mnemosyne

    You know, when the nice preschool teacher who’s helping me declutter my apartment gets here on Wednesday and sees I haven’t done anything, I’m blaming all of you guys.

  261. 261.

    dead existentialist

    @Loviatar: Ha ha. Check what you just wrote with what I laughed at you for. Fucking revisionism, how does it work?

    And I don’t need to be a middle school dropout to have completed elementary school. I just might be an elementary school dropout. See how that works?

  262. 262.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Comrade Kevin:

    As AL herself said, this has been stewing for some time. In other words, AL has been waiting for a reason to jump on ABL and she decided that Corner Stone was the cause she should believe in.

    AL has the problem with ABL and can’t deal with it.

    I keep hearing how people who agree with ABL’s posts are ‘devoted’ to her, they are her “followers” and such. The same thing is said about people who like Obama; that they are Obots, mindless followers of a cult. I find it striking that two prominent people of color are accused of having a cult following here at BJ, and yet nobody says the same thing about any other blogger here. Every FP’er has their supporters and detractors, but for some reason ABL’s supporters are some kind of ‘devotees’ that deserve pointing out for whatever reason.

    Something isn’t right about it, that’s for sure. Maybe some white people have a problem with seeing other white people agreeing with people of color? Maybe they feel the need to invalidate anything these white people have to say because they had the temerity to agree with someone of color?

  265. 265.

    TooManyJens

    @Loviatar: You keep using the fact that he hasn’t been banned permanently as some kind of evidence that he must not have a history of saying racist things. You’re wrong. It’s just really hard to get banned permanently around here.

    Also, a lot of people do get time-outs, but for some reason it’s only an outrage when ABL does it.

  269. 269.

    Mnemosyne

    @Loviatar:

    I guess you missed the whole “WyldPirate gets banned for calling asiangrrlmn a c**t” situation a few months back since you seem to be Shocked! and Surprised! and Outraged! that someone would be temporarily banned for saying something nasty.

    It happens here all the damn time. Jesus, you newbies getting your panties in a twist over something that’s happened a dozen times before.

  272. 272.

    Mnemosyne

    @Loviatar:

    Uh, people get temporarily banned here all the time. I think WP must be on suspension right now because I tried to post something with his name in it and the post vanished into the ether (which is what happens when John puts the real banhammer on someone rather than giving them a time-out like ABL did with Corner Stone).

    Newbies getting their panties in a twist over things that have happened a dozen times before. Jesus.

  273. 273.

    handy

    @TooManyJens:

    It’s just really hard to get banned permanently around here.

    Exhibit A: Holocaust Oven Bob still managing to get a post in here every once in a while.

  275. 275.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mnemosyne: huh, that’s why I can’t make my observation that the poster who took his nym from the arrested development lawyer is now posting under another name

  276. 276.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @boss bitch:

    I’m sure that burned with the heat of a thousand suns. AL sounds very jealous, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s because she has never stirred many with what she has said around here and then here comes ABL, sashaying in as if she owned the place, making herself at home and attracting a small following who likes what she says.

    See, AL is all prim, proper and restrained in her correspondence. Cultivated, you might say. She thinks that ABL is just common blog trash that’s stinking up the place.

    Hey, it would be irresponsible not to speculate! This is the internet after all.

  278. 278.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Loviatar: Um, just for the record, I wasn’t saying I agreed with that view, I was trying to explain to someone who missed the circus why there was a towering pile of elephant shit nearby.

  280. 280.

    mcd410x

    I can’t wait for Balloon Juice II where all the comments have to be in Latin. Sort of the anti-Vatican II! Bring it!!

  285. 285.

    Mnemosyne

    @handy:

    Exhibit B: how many different nyms has m_c shown up under at this point?

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Yep, that’s why. It’s probably a wise feature since it prevents, well, everything that’s happened in the last couple of threads.

  287. 287.

    mcd410x

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The radish of evil is greed?

    Started translating “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” into Latin a couple weeks ago. Made it through two sentences! (In truth, I couldn’t find my Latin-English dictionary, sigh).

  289. 289.

    handy

    @Mnemosyne:

    Exhibit B: how many different nyms has m_c shown up under at this point?

    I don’t get people’s problems with matoko_loco. I mean, yes it’s redundant, boring and trite, but her constant comments about pie are hardly worth getting worked up over.

  292. 292.

    Comrade Kevin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I took a year of it in high school, even got an SPQR medal from it, I think from some sort of national Latin test. It was somewhat helpful in learning other languages.

    I really wish I had taken Spanish in high school, though, instead of French. My parents, in Ireland, learned French in high school, so that’s what I had to do too, even though we were in California.

  294. 294.

    Uriel

    @Loviatar:

    The first pretext she got she banned him punished him with a time out.

    You’re kidding with this shit, right? The first? That’s a good one.

    As an aside, this whole ‘banned him punished him with a time out’ thing you’re doing really isn’t selling the way you think it is, given the fact that the original post pretty clearly spells out the difference between the two. At best it makes you look like a deliberately obtuse contrarian, and at worst… Well, I gotta ask, do you hear the word ‘fool’ a lot in casual conversation?

  296. 296.

    Loviatar

    @291 – Uriel:

    do you hear the word ‘fool’ a lot in casual conversation?

    mostly when discussing you and usually led by “he is a”

  299. 299.

    Uriel

    @Loviatar: Weird. You know a lot of people who make a habit of discussing me? Gotta say, that’s unexpected. Although it’s probably a lot more interesting than addressing the rampant idiocy you bring to the table.

  300. 300.

    Joseph Nobles

    Am I the only one that thought “butthurt” referred to getting paddled or spanking to the point that sitting down could be presumed to be dicey? i.e., a pain that would soon diminish, so pay attention to the lesson meant to have been underscored?

    Please note that I’m not an advocate of corporal punishment, but it’s rather less unacceptable than anal rape of political opponents. Right?

  301. 301.

    Mnemosyne

    @Joseph Nobles:

    I always thought it was comparing someone to a toddler who just toppled over onto his diaper-padded butt and was crying about it.

    I’m not sure how people decided that it meant painful anal sex, but it’s creepy as hell when they do.

  305. 305.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Uriel:

    Same thought, weird. That anyone would waste their time talking about me? Ok.

    I guess you have to be nuts to understand it. I’ll remain confused.

  306. 306.

    Joseph Nobles

    @Mnemosyne: OK, that’s even better. I’m a little more familiar with the paddling version, having been paddled a couple of times in my life. But heading right to sex? Yeah, that’s kinda creepy.

    @Comrade Kevin: I didn’t read that far into the thread. I was hoping someone had come up with an alternate explanation, but I was beginning to despair.

  307. 307.

    Arundel

    Unbelievable nastiness. I love how no one, in a thousand comments I’ve read tonight, has ever been able to clarify and plainly state what crime against humanity CornerStone or “Darnell” actually committed. Was the N word invoked? No?
    Some frail flowers here, apparently.

    Sorry, but utterly appalling to see the backbiting and personal nastiness that’s come about, that someone said something so remarkably offensive the alleged adults here cannot describe it, and heartily endorse capricious censorship, plus adding tons and tons of personal vitriol towards Anne Laurie, a writer I like very much and who does not deserve it.

    From where does all this controversy and discord flow? People being rotten to each other? From ABL of course, that mediocre writer and blogger whose sheer contempt for her audience is a feature and not a bug. And her fans eat it up. ABL is a truly dismal writer and an uh, unenegaging and hostile personality when she deigns to repost crap from her blog here. You lot can go slaver over her pearls of badly-written umbrage all you want. All I will say is that if John Cole wants a bad writer here just to stir the shit and get people attacking each other , mission accomplished. ABL’s egotistic posts, her grandiose denuciations and trigger-happy glee at banhammering, caling people trolls, shutting down dissent of any sort , as her crowd cheers the shutting down of dissent, is just fvcking appalling to see.

    This place has become quite strange and particular in its obsessions, the firebaggers and Obots and the rest. You need to know that it’s become like special-needs twins with a language of their own; the terms thrown around here do not really much exist outside this playpen. And like a playpen, bad writers and discord-sowers like ABL are tolerated and coddled. See all these people arguing? This is her thing. Is it a good thing? No, it’s bullshit that is making this site a joke.

    And all these fans of ABL, praising her to the skies with every post she takes to make and attacking any critic as a troll or racist; you seem like well-meaning rubes, wih very poor tastes in what makes a good writer or blogger. Lavishly overpraising this mediocre and actively meanspirited FPer here reminds me of a famous Tom Wolfe article. Pretty condescending in its own way, to keep praising ABL to the skies for being a censorious termagant. A weird vibe, where I suspect where a lot of ABL’s fans are coming from. Yes, condescending in its way.

  308. 308.

    Mnemosyne

    @Joseph Nobles:

    I always thought that someone who was acting “butthurt” was making a big deal over a very small injury, hence the toddler’s fall onto his/her padded butt. But I can’t say that’s the definition that the Urban Dictionary will give you.

  309. 309.

    Mnemosyne

    @Arundel:

    Unbelievable nastiness. I love how no one, in a thousand comments I’ve read tonight, has ever ben able to clarify and plainly state what crime against humanity CornerStone or “Darnell” committed.

    If you still don’t understand that Corner Stone and Darnell are two different people and that no one other than you is claiming that they’re the same person, I don’t know why you’re bothering to post anything at all.

  310. 310.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Arundel:

    Shrill troll is shrill. We get it, you hate on ABL and anyone who likes her. You are fine with people telling others that they assume to be black that they hate white people. We get it.

    Loud and clear. Like a dogwhistle.

  312. 312.

    Mrs. Polly

    Syncophants irk me because I’m anti-authoritarian and anti-narcissist

    Oh you flexible young people. If I patted myself on the back like that, I’d have to ice my arm for a week.

  315. 315.

    Cain

    @srv:

    John is not going to be happy having to come up with a “WIN THE MORNING” thread. I don’t think Alexis cares about holidays.

    I think he’d be thinking “I really need to get laid”. I’d probably have sex too after the past couple of posts so I’d be ready for the morning.

  316. 316.

    Cain

    This place has become quite strange and particular in its obsessions, the firebaggers and Obots and the rest. You need to know that it’s become like special-needs twins with a language of their own; the terms thrown around here do not really much exist outside this playpen. And like a playpen, bad writers and discord-sowers like ABL are tolerated and coddled. See all these people arguing? This is her thing. Is it a good thing? No, it’s bullshit that is making this site a joke.

    See this is why I always love Dennis G’s posts. I can say whatever I want and nothign every happens. No trolls no nothing.

    Also you should be careful about comparing special needs children to a blog commentators. I mean really.. that is just wrong.

    Finally, the fighting here is why we can’t have nice things. I can see that race relations still need some work. Maybe another generation or two I guess. That way people will only be butt hurt about comments on blogs rather than slavery and all that other shit, huh?

  317. 317.

    bin Lurkin'

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    then here comes ABL, sashaying in as if she owned the place, making herself at home and attracting a small following who likes what she says.

    Is it possible to have “a small following” without followers?

  318. 318.

    joel hanes

    It appears to me it’s time for me to come clean.

    All of this … the acrimony, the backbiting, the escalating hostility, the misunderstandings … all of it is my fault.

    So you can blame it all on me.

    Call me foul names, ban me; I deserve it.

  319. 319.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @bin Lurkin’:

    Following someone who you like to read is nothing new or particularly nefarious in the blog world, is it? I never heard of ABL until she posted here and now I follow what she says. I may not always agree with her but she has a way of saying things that I like. But for some reason AL thinks that this is a bad thing.

    Following her gardening threads? I guess it’s not following. Liking ABL’s style and what she has to say at times? Evil following that has to stop!

    One of these things is just like the other but someone wants them to be treated differently. Like there’s some kind of privilege involved.

  320. 320.

    cat48

    Unbelievable nastiness. I love how no one, in a thousand comments I’ve read tonight, has ever been able to clarify and plainly state what crime against humanity CornerStone or “Darnell” actually committed.

    I wouldn’t call it a crime, but “Darnell” had been banned temporarily the day before….I don’t think he’s a “camp follower of ABL” as AL accused him. He basically comes here to troll “John Galt Cole”, as he calls him in his troll posts. He originally posted under “Fred” & was banned & came back as “Derf” & was banned & came back as “pundit” & was banned & showed up as “Darrell” and created this shitstorm. He was banned the last 3x for homophobic comments; can’t remember what he did the first time.

  321. 321.

    RMWilliams

    Is this the beginning of a BJ schism? Is AL going to post her 95 theses to the BJ door and walk?

    What’s with all the cliques here? Its getting ridiculous. God forbid Sullivan get hold of all this shit. He’s going to jizz his pants. Fucking great.

    Or better yet. How about ABL and AL both take a fucking walk and start their own blogs? Oh wait.

    This place is better off without em – and their fanboys. I bet the number of lurkers who are completely shitted with this outnumber you dumbass fanboys 20 to 1.

  322. 322.

    bin Lurkin'

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: I read somewhere in one of these lengthy threads a denial that ABL had “followers” following AL’s mentioning that ABL had a following.

    Do you follow me?

  324. 324.

    B W Smith

    @cat48: How do you know that Darnell was Fred? I have read through these nearly 1000 comments and don’t remember that being discussed. And even if it was Fred, that excuses CS behavior? True, Fred can be pretty reprehensible but that doesn’t make it ok for CS to go off the deep end. BTW CS knew in the post he was over the line. He left and didn’t come back.

  325. 325.

    Arundel

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: Hey to you, and Mnemosyne: It’s true that I did not understand what in the hell was the crime. The problem. Who is Darnell? I don’t know, I don’t care. WHY is this of such importance?

    “Shrill troll is shrill. We get it, you hate on ABL and anyone who likes her. You are fine with people telling others that they assume to be black that they hate white people. We get it. Loud and clear. Like a dogwhistle.”

    Hi. I don’t hate anyone, and I assume nothing of the sort, I cannot even begin to understand that giant confused ball of accusation you just threw in my face. Calling me a shrill troll. Read that quote of yours there, try and make sense of it. See, implying that I am ‘dog-whistling” anything is like, so I’m a racist Tea Party Republican? Yeah, unlikely sir. That quote of yours, yeah it’s like a bunch of teenage girls cattily fighting, and you’re accusing me of not fully understanding the intricacies of the teenage girl cat-fight.

    No, I’m standing apart and saying, huh, ABL really likes to start some shit, and her fans are pretty fucking nasty to anyone who doesn’t care for her “work” here? Do you think I am some secret Republican, the way you nastily called me a “troll” there? No, I am a gay working-class Democrat and Obama supporter with some standards about writing and experience as to what makes a good blogger, what makes an engaging writer, what makes a commenting community work, interesting and fun. What kind of people frequent the joint. Your randomly accusing me of being a troll (as I predicted someone would), doesn’t change the fact that ABL defenders go really personal attacking people who find her writing and attitude here lacking. Kind of vicious, I don’t care about Corner Stone or “Darnell”. I mean, whatever the fvck. I don’t really care.

    I do mean that there’s a creepy celebration of mediocrity here- please explain, or link to, some marvellous post of ABL’s that would make me change my mind. Bloggers all over manage to make their name on writing something incisive, smart, funny, touching, whatever. The best of them invite comment or critique. Seriously, any given day, there’s seven hundred bloggers writing better than ABL, about all sorts of things, across the Internet. I simply do not get the extravagant praise she gets here for her cranky rants.

    Really cheap to tag me as a “troll” though, as ABL does to everyone she doesn’t like. I wasn’t dog-whistling; but yeah, I really wonder why a certain population here feels the need to just get effusive with praise at every anodyne, half-assed post of hers. Like, what other author here gets 30 people applausing them just for posting? Yeah, there is some sick reverse racism here if every piece of shit ABL post has 30 people applauding it, every time. Gee, she must be the the best blogger in teh (sic) world, because I swear to god the praise she gets here is weirdly effusive. Like, I only read 500 blogs and sites a day, (some written by African Americans!) and I am utterly puzzled by the lavish praise she gets for the most bullshit posts.

    But by all means, lets pretend pointing out that ABL is a bully utterly using this place to promote her own blog and being cranky and hostile and my-way-or-the highway is really fucking charming. I guess a “troll” is someone who has a differing opinion here- no, I know it is. And that’s why a huge bunch of Balloon Juice commenters strike me as rather hostile and rigid people, waiting to lash out. Call people trolls, or firebaggers, or dog-whistlers, or whatever. Incredibly negative vibe that’s developed, and hey, let’s thank ABL in part for that. Big round of applause at getting people at each others’ throats.

  327. 327.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Arundel:

    I have to wonder why some people here have to inflate any agreement with ABL into a cult following that is nasty to everyone else in the world. It’s as if once you agree with ABL then you are a cult follower of hers. AL has made that loud and clear for all to understand; ABL and her haterz are bad for the place. They make it impossible for polite conversation to take place, or something like that. That’s why AL backs Corner Stone, his polite discourse and gentlemanly ways.

    That makes ABL and her supporters the assholes? I guess that’s the way things work in Opposite Land.

  328. 328.

    B W Smith

    @Arundel: You know ABL was gone for about three weeks and I don’t remember a sharp decline in acrimony. There were still those screaming firebagger and just as many screaming Obot. Then all the FPer’s (except Anne & Kay, for different reasons, I presume) mounted a campaign to have her post again. I hardly think discord can be laid at her feet alone. In the greater liberal blog world, there is a huge fight going between the sects that has absolutely nothing to do with ABL.

  329. 329.

    Nash

    This entire debacle has been an embarrassment to all involved: FPer’s for publicly bickering like children instead of resolving this via email, commenters for egging it on, Cole for not stepping in and shutting the nonsense down.

    If instead of presenting us with the story, you BECOME the story, then you have failed your audience and yourselves in your goals . . . and if becoming the story was indeed the goal, then this blog no longer serves a useful function.

    Everyone involved should be ashamed. Everyone should apologize to each other and the readers, deal with it behind a closed door however it needs to be dealt with, and never allow this bullshit to go down on the front page again.

  330. 330.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Nash:

    It’s the fault of everyone involved? Everyone? Even those who were offended by AL’s posting her stupid and inaccurate rant at ABL? Even those who were offended by a commenter AL supports having made a racist comment to another? No, once again both sides don’t do it. They are not the same and are not equally (or even both) at fault.

    It may take two to tango but it takes someone to lead the dance. AL led this one all the way. Everything was just fine until she started shitting bricks over CS getting a time out, referring to it as a ban instead. AL went off with no facts and proudly waved her freak flag tonight.

    Which is exactly what she claims ABL does…lol! So you can stuff your sanctimonious BS where the sun don’t shine. Yes, the whole thing is an embarrassment. This should not have been made into a front page spectacle, agreed. There’s no doubt about those facts, not a bit. The problem with your assessment is that one party is clearly at fault here and it isn’t ABL or her supporters/followers/cult or whatever the hell AL and her ilk want to refer to us as.

    AL picked this fight and egged it on. End of story.

  332. 332.

    Nash

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: The very fact you’re more concerned about a pissing match between bloggers and not the stories they cover says everything that needs be said.

    I normally have no need to comment here. I follow the coverage. It’s usually very solid and tells me things I feel I need to know, and others should know, things that don’t get the attention they deserve, and analysis of the facts that go beyond what the press is willing or able to provide.

    You are more concerned over your favorite blogger’s fee-fee’s. You are more concerned over taking sides in a fight.

    Everyone has failed here. Everyone is at fault.

    A professional would step up and cop to this, and react accordingly. I do not need cults of personality. I want coverage and analysis. I want to be informed of the fight for this democracy.

    I’m sorry you completely missed the point.

  333. 333.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Nash:

    I didn’t miss a damned thing Mr. Know It All. Stuff it up your ass, I’m not wasting any more time on a gasbag such as yourself.

    Now crow about how superior you are.

  335. 335.

    Donut

    @Mnemosyne:

    There’s a 2-year-old person in my house and because this person sometimes forgets allows himself to go a little while without telling us when he’s taken a dump, he gets a little skin irritation on his butt.

    So that’s what butthurt means to me.

    I think it’s one of those words whose meaning pretty much depends on your frame of reference. I was a little taken aback by the anal rape-oriented definition, myself, but hey, you know, uh, whatever.

    Knowing full well that no one gives a shit what I think (this is the Internet!, after all), here goes: I am old enough to remember when usenet and then later BBS forums ruled the Interet! and when “blog” was still a catchy marketing phrase. None of which is really from all that long ago, when you think about it…but the point is, fer fuck’s sake, people have been anonymously acting like assholes on the Internet! ever since it existed. I am not trying to be condescending, but man, some of you are, twenty years into it, still taking anonymous comments waaaaaaaay too seriously.

    I just read this whole thread, and basically I find it all to be pretty entertaining. So I guess there’s that. Thanks, everyone!

  336. 336.

    Quiddity

    @Arundel: I agree with your remarks, but I would like to point out that the acrimony is not confined to ABL’s posts. Comments on other posts have a lot of ad hominem insults and bizarro “insider” cheers and jeers. And rarely any information or thoughtful expansion of the post’s theme – which you get in other forums.

    I would have thought that this would result in a decline in web traffic, but the statistics say otherwise (a moderate increase in the last 12 months). So clearly, this place is attracting a substantial demographic. My question is, who?

    Judging from the comments, it’s impossible to tell. Doesn’t seem like anybody under 20, so we’re apparently talking about adults tossing invective around. And sometimes adults do that, but not all the freaking time.

    Which leads me to the topic of trolls. I don’t understand what makes a troll tick. I read liberal blogs and in the comments you get thoughtful remarks along with some objections to whatever was written. And you get troll comments, which are usually insults or Fox News-style slogans and misleading data. Sometimes a lot of them. I ask myself, who has the energy and interest in going to a liberal blog to merely piss people off? Nobody is going to be persuaded. It’s like going to the chess club and telling everybody in the room that they are wasting their time. Or an obnoxious atheist telling people in an after-services gathering that they are all wrong. I don’t see what the motivation is for doing things like that, but they certainly exist – thus the phenomenon of trolls.

    Here at Balloon Juice, there’s an odd kind of inversion. Someone posts, and instead of the name-calling trolls being those alien to the spirit of the blog, they are of the blog. I attribute this partly to a number of frequent commenters whose style is to always look for the put-down. It attracts others of a similar bent, and drives away those more subdued voices.

    I was telling a friend a couple of months ago that I thought the chemistry at Balloon Juice was highly unstable and that I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some sort of fracturing within the blog. I guess that’s finally come to pass.

    It’s hard to know what John thinks about all of this. I would think he’d be dismayed at where things have ended up, but he’s been extremely tolerant of this development, so may see nothing wrong with it and even see it as what makes the blog distinctive. Distinctive it may be, but it’s traveling further away from the orbit of other progressive blogs in style and tone.

  337. 337.

    A Mom Anon

    I avoid this bullshit like the plague because it accomplishes precisely nothing. I will say that one reason I stopped coming here for a year was because of the mean spirit and anger that seems to have taken over. I just came back to commenting last week and I think I’ll go ahead and stick with Kay andTom’s posts,if that. I know,no one cares,it’s the internet,blah,blah. Trolls are here to stop and derail the conversations and it’s a bonus if they can get people fighting and feeling like shit when it’a all over. The trolls win around here WAY too often. That’s a shame,there’s alot of good and smart people here with something to contribute to the conversation.

  338. 338.

    Geoduck

    @Quiddity:

    And you get troll comments, which are usually insults or Fox News-style slogans and misleading data. Sometimes a lot of them. I ask myself, who has the energy and interest in going to a liberal blog to merely piss people off?

    Trolls troll because it provokes a response, any response. And there are a lot of angry, desperate people out there right now who have been trained by Fox and have (ahem) lots of time to kill. That said, it would not surprise me in the slightest if people are literally paid to go around all day and sling crap on “the other side’s” political blogs. (And NO, I am not accusing anyone here specifically.)

    Anyway, put me down as mostly-a-lurker who feels that AL should have dealt with this particular incident through back channels.

  339. 339.

    dogwood

    @Quiddity:

    I was telling a friend a couple of months ago that I thought the chemistry at Balloon Juice was highly unstable and that I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some sort of fracturing within the blog. I guess that’s finally come to pass.

    I think this is probably true. I doubt any blog remains the same for long. I mean whodda thought 4 years ago that Little Green Footballs would be a pro-Democratic site today? I think the best blogging community is probably at Coates’s place at the Atlantic. I don’t know how much traffic he gets, but his commenters seem to be a group of congenial like-minded yet diverse individuals. A great number of people who post in his threads are excellent writers.

  340. 340.

    agrippa

    Not hard to get rid of trolls.
    Create a ‘bum of the month’ club.
    Allow the gamer five posts.
    Ban after five posts.
    Automatic policy.
    No need to state it. Let people figure it for themselves.

  341. 341.

    debbie

    The trolls win around here WAY too often.

    Depends on how you define “troll.” I was called a troll a couple of months ago, and all I did was disagree with someone. And not in a trollish way. Too many people define a troll by that person’s opinion, not by their actual words.

  342. 342.

    A Mom Anon

    @debbie: I define it as people being assholes and derailing the conversation on purpose. Differences in opinion is one thing,shitting all over the thread is another,it’s not that hard to tell the difference. So,no,you wouldn’t be a troll if you were just stating your opinion,why you hold that opinion and were trying to further the discussion.

  343. 343.

    debbie

    @ A Mom Anon:

    It seems to me that too many people feel a sense of entitlement to be jackasses. I don’t like some of what I’ve been reading here recently, but sadly, it does seem to be a reflection of the country today.

  344. 344.

    Dennis G.

    Boy O boy. I worked last night on a project for my job and did’t check in to Balloon Juice at all. It seems like I missed a night of passion.

    I expect that I have the gist of it and that some other iteration of it is waiting in the wings. After all, folks are always correct/wrong on the internets and need to be praised/condemned by somebody. It is known.

  345. 345.

    debit

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: You’re taking this to a weirdly personal level of attack. Granted, you’re not the only one, but since you’re one of the people who I actually will stop and read (as opposed to scrolling past) I was surprised and kind of sad.

  347. 347.

    Quarks

    Never fails. Each and every time I decide to take an evening off from lurking on the Balloon-Juice comment threads, the place explodes.

    I expect that says more about Balloon-Juice than about me, but in the meantime I’m going to enjoy this odd, meretricious sense of power.

  348. 348.

    Samara Morgan

    but you did not end my timeout over LoOGie Utoyagate..
    i had to plead my sentence down with Cole.

    Do you still think Kain is a “liberal” DougJ?

  349. 349.

    Marc

    A lot of folks are hypersensitive about accusations of racism. Yglesias had a good post about that – it’s as if the real victims are the folks accused of racism, and that saying “x is racist” is a worse thing than, well, racism. This is usually coupled with a definition of racism so narrow that you’d have to be in the Klan to satisfy it.

    On the other side, there are folks who use accusations of racism as a get-out-of-jail card; a way to silence someone that they don’t like. In a liberal community being called a racist is like being called a bad human being – it carries serious weight.

    You have to be careful about these things, therefore, for good reasons. But there is such a thing as actual bigotry, and you really do have to deal with.

    Instead we’re getting tribalism – a number of Obama critics gathering in support of one of “their people”…or people like Annie Laurie, who apparently detests one of her fellow FPers enough to take the view that “any enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

    For what it’s worth, I think that name-calling and general nastiness should be time-out worthy, and that repeatedly doing so should be ban-worthy. You silence people when you drive them away with abuse too. And this blog, bluntly, needs a lot of culture change in that department.

  350. 350.

    YAFB

    I’m one of those who nowadays reads the comments sections here less and less, and posts comments very rarely. Balloon Juice is almost certainly none the worse for that.

    I read the “Ozonegate” thread and finally bailed when it was obvious it was a mistake for ABL to post something that required people to actually read and digest the article the OP was about, and not least because a lot of the insulting back and forth concerned quibbling about a description of a power station as “clean” without any acknowledgement that it was powered by natural gas, not coal.

    You can argue the environmental benefits/problems of natural gas generation, but when I realized that people were het up on the “fact” it was another coal-fired power station, I decided if they weren’t prepared to even skim the frikkin article that was linked before making a big deal about it over a matter of hours, I couldn’t be bothered reading what they had to say about it.

    The fact I didn’t feel I could be bothered to pipe up to try to point this out says a little about me, and a lot about the course of that thread and the behavior in it.

    I bailed before the “time out” came along. As I clicked out, I said to myself, “This thread sucks, and it’s not going to get any better with Corner Stone around throwing random insults and simply disrupting for the sake of disruption.”

  351. 351.

    Nutella

    @Marc:

    I think that name-calling and general nastiness should be time-out worthy, and that repeatedly doing so should be ban-worthy. You silence people when you drive them away with abuse too. And this blog, bluntly, needs a lot of culture change in that department.

    Yes, but the kind of careful and consistent work required to moderate blog comments takes a LOT of time. It makes for a better blog in many ways but it’s exhausting for the moderators.

  352. 352.

    Marc

    @Nutella:

    It can be a lot of work, but much of it is front-loaded. If you read through the comments you’ll see a small number of names (and probably a smaller number of actual people) who are responsible for most of the static.

    It does get exhausting over the years, but the burden can be spread out in a group blog.

  353. 353.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @debit:

    I’m sorry I disappointed and saddened you. If you look over my recent comment history (last 3+ months), you will see that I have commented much less here than I have in the past. Many times I get to a thread and it’s already over, so I get to read, uninterrupted, the repetitive and disruptive idiocy on parade here. I see the same shit being played by the same players, over and over again and it’s disgusting, almost to the point of just throwing up my hands and walking away from it. Add to that the unreasonableness of the ABL bashers and my support for those who are unfairly wronged and you could say I have reached my limit.

    CS adds absolutely nothing to anything here and takes plenty away, with any real contribution of theirs being nothing more than an accident. Anyone who would choose his bullshit as a hill to die on, misrepresenting what happened to CS in an attempt to malign someone they don’t like, is a fucking idiot and has personal problems.

    I’m sick of the incessant droning of the CS types here, it’s the same shit every day with them. So yeah, I’m really happy to see that CS finally got hit with a sanction. Damned right I am. Just like I am damned pissed that AL lied about the incident to inflame attitudes against ABL.

    Things like this piss me off and I have to admit that I’m surprised they don’t piss off more people.

  354. 354.

    YAFB

    @Marc: It does get exhausting over the years, but the burden can be spread out in a group blog.

    I’m not going to tell anyone else how to run their blog (and I’m not arguing with you), but kerfuffles like this one aren’t exhausting?

  355. 355.

    Chad N Freude

    @Jewish Steel: I didn’t see this last night because I was having a pedantry knockdown with LT on the AL-ABL Grudge Match of the Century. Your comment is one of the funniest things ever posted on BJ. I wish I had thought of it. (No higher compliment is possible.)

  356. 356.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Big Baby DougJ: And gee I wonder who noted last week that the blog could use some drama? Could you please use the same energy for the economy improving with many more jobs added? Thanks so much.

  357. 357.

    Rihilism

    “Tempests in teapots for $500, Alex.”

    Man -o- man, what I wouldn’t do to get all the crap outa my soul in one ginormous lifetime-ban-worthy rant! No comment here on CS or the reasonable/reason-lacking timeout.

    Just a single opportunity to say fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck to all and to all a craptacular night. That’s all’s I’m askin’ fer a’fore I’m hurled into oblivion.

    Then I could sleep soundly in the warm embrace of blankets filled with kitties, and not in the cold, chitinous appendages of mother internet…

  359. 359.

    Mnemosyne

    @Arundel:

    Again, the fact that you don’t understand that this whole thing was triggered by an argument between two commenters makes your comments on the issue less than useless. It’s like someone who fell asleep halfway through a movie insisting that they’re the only ones who really understood it, unlike those of us who stayed awake and watched the whole thing.

    You’re getting mocked because you seem to have manufactured a story in your head about what you think happened and you refuse to listen to anyone who tries to explain to you what actually happened. Apparently facts confuse you so much that you can’t absorb them even after being told them multiple times.

  361. 361.

    RedKitten

    I’m glad I missed all of that.

    But to be frank, I’m glad that I miss a lot of stuff in here nowadays.

    I hate to be one of those crotchety old-timers, pining for the good old days, but please indulge me.

    Back when I started commenting here (around 2003 or so), this blog had a strong, singular voice: John’s. He was sometimes right, sometimes spectacularly wrong, but the site had its own distinct voice. People argued, there were trolls, but for the most part, we were all here to see what John had to say about something.

    And then John brought on Tim, and then (briefly) Tom in Texas, and then DougJ. And that was cool. It provided a good balance, and some different perspectives, but for the most part, all of the front-pagers were on the same page when it came to the major issues. So the site still had a strong, coherent voice.

    But now? It seems like it’s flown all to fuck.

    There are so many front-pagers that Balloon-Juice no longer has a voice — it’s just a mish-mash, and often an ugly one at that. Posts fly up so fast and in such numbers that it’s impossible to keep up unless you spend all day here.

    I know I’ve drifted away, and part of it has been due to my brain being taken over by the MommyBorg. But part of it is also due to the fact that it just doesn’t feel like a community here anymore.

    It’s still John’s blog, and I adore the guy, but I think he fucked up on this one. He should have kept it to no more than three front-pagers, with maybe the odd special-guest post by someone he admires. Right now, it’s just not the same site anymore — and I think that’s a lack.

    Just two cents from a BJ old-timer, anyway.

    RedKitten (a.k.a. Krista)

  362. 362.

    TooManyJens

    There are so many front-pagers that Balloon-Juice no longer has a voice—it’s just a mish-mash, and often an ugly one at that. Posts fly up so fast and in such numbers that it’s impossible to keep up unless you spend all day here.

    Quoted for truth. Hell, even the FPers can’t keep up — they’re always stepping on each other’s posts. I don’t see how it gets pared back, though, even if John wanted to do that.

  363. 363.

    Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .

    Huh. I thought AsianGrrrlMN was just busy doing other things, which she stated as her intention.

  364. 364.

    Jewish Steel

    @LesGS: It must be the competant reportage, calmly delivered in good faith that angries up the blood between these two.

    @Chad N Freude: What? Shut up! You are reliably one of the wittiest posters here. I think you were gone for awhile? Or lurking? Or quiet? Glad to see you’re back. I’m going to hunt you down on another thread and tell you so.

  365. 365.

    sixers

    ABL is an apologist. Its not worth reading someone who you know will never disagree with Obama. I love Obama but do not trust people who are kool-aid drinkers.

  366. 366.

    Nutella

    It would be a better blog with more posts from John but I don’t see too many FPers as a huge problem.

    People who don’t like Tom’s posts (too long) or Sarah’s posts (too silly) or ABL’s posts (too emo) or EDK’s posts (too libertarian) can easily skip them and their comments. I never read Randinho’s occasional posts because his topic bores me to tears but I wouldn’t say it’s a problem that he’s here for other people to read.

    The extreme and petty and vicious commenting has driven me away several times, though. The excellent pie filter doesn’t completely solve that problem although it does hide those people who have both unpleasant opinions or writing styles and the integrity to keep their screen names.

  367. 367.

    Rihilism

    @General Stuck:

    That’s beautiful, man :0)

    Thanks. Yeah, I had to smoke a lot of pot this morning to come up with “cold, chitinous appendages”, but the recognition, the accolades, the applause and the affirmations provide more than ample reward for my hard-scrabble drug-induced wordsmythin’…

  368. 368.

    different church-lady

    @Loviatar: 4) He’s a jackass who finally crossed a line.

    Assuming CS is a he, that is…

    If #2, then a lot more people need to be banned given time outs (JC included).

    YAH. But not necessarily for just the kind of infraction in question…

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