Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

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

People are complicated. Love is not.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

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

The willow is too close to the house.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

White supremacy is terrorism.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

I was promised a recession.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

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

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

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

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

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91Comments

  2. 2.

    Steeplejack

    Believe me, the Dallas-Washington game is not looking too pass-happy. Certainly not on the Redskins’ part. But then they don’t do run thing very well either.

  5. 5.

    burnspbesq

    In the wake of this weekend’s BCS carnage, I am predicting wins for Cleveland, Carolina, Miami, Minnesota, and Washington in today’s early games. Miami already leads Buffalo by 10.

    The most important football today is the MLS final. Go Galaxy!

  7. 7.

    burnspbesq

    @lamh35:

    New or used?

    ETA: The original price listed on the Best Buy website was $799 (they’re being coy, not showing the actual price until checkout), so $500 sounds like a good deal. That said, 720p isn’t exactly state of the art resolution.

  10. 10.

    burnspbesq

    Interestingly, Oregon coach Chip Kelly said after last night’s loss to USC that Matt Barkley is the best quarterback the Ducks have faced this year.

    If Barkley comes back, USC is the team to beat in 2012. Papa Kiffin’s new defensive philosophy, taking big safeties and turning them into outside linebackers in order to get more speed on the field, worked brilliantly for three quarters last night.

  11. 11.

    burnspbesq

    @Yutsano:

    So, in the wake of U-Dub’s embarrassing loss to OSU, are you woofing about the Apple Cup?

    And if there is a University of Dub, shouldn’t there be a Dancehall College?

  14. 14.

    Yutsano

    @burnspbesq:

    are you woofing about the Apple Cup?

    I saw what you did there. :)

    And no. We lost yesterday on what amounted to a coach’s cowardice. On the half-yard line you don’t trust your line to get that ball in? Honestly? Bad decision making will kill us. Sark is a shark.

  15. 15.

    lamh35

    @burnspbesq: yeah, someone told me I should be looking for 1070(?) instead, better resolution.

    Also, a friend said that I should stay away from plasma tv because they can “burn an image onto the screen”, whatever that means?

  16. 16.

    Bostondreams

    @lamh35:

    We had a somewhat new 51″ Plasma tv that recently went balls up. The longer we watched it, the more the screen looked to be growing a greenish mold over the picture, until it covered the entire thing. Kind of neat, if incredibly annoying.

  17. 17.

    lamh35

    @Yutsano: @burnspbesq: @Steeplejack:

    Thanks for the answeres. I’m been meaning to buy a new tv for my living room for about 2 years now (lol), but I’ve never had the extra money until now (I have a new PRN position that allows me to both save some money and still have enough left over to buy some guilty pleasures). The current tv I have is a 32″ tv, which works fine, but my living room is way bigger than my last apartment. There is at least 6ft-8ft between the accent wall where my tv should sit and where my sofa currently is. I have to actually move the tv closer to the sofa not so much because I can’t see what I’m looking at but just because the screen is so small and the speaker on the tv are great for a smaller room, but for a large living space…not so much.

    So I’m in the market for a new TV. I’d prefer to just order one online or pick one up in the store, but I’m trying to avoid the “Black Friday” mayhem.

  18. 18.

    burnspbesq

    @lamh35:

    1080p is the highest resolution currently available in the US. You’ll notice the difference between 720p and 1080p.

    I’ve heard that about plasma TV. Not sure I believe it, but when we bought our big TV a few years ago, we went with a 42″ Panasonic LCD, and we’ve been happy with it.

    If you’ve got the cash for it, you want one of these to go with your new teevee. Outstanding blu-ray performance, and the audiophile mags worship this unit for what it does with CDs.

  20. 20.

    lamh35

    @Bostondreams: whoa. maybe that’s what my friend was talking about. Heck, I’ve had my current televisions since i moved to DFW about 6 years ago. Once I do buy a new TV, I don’t plan on buying another for hopefully another 6 years. So if I have to pay more, then I guess I will so I don’t have to be looking for another in a few years.

  21. 21.

    Steeplejack

    @lamh35:

    On the resolution thing: 1080p is better than 720p, but some of the reviewers on that Amazon page make a plausible case that, considering you would have to pay several hundred dollars more for 1080p, it’s not that big a concession. One claims:

    I debated the 1080p vs. 720p issue and came up with the truth that, 50″ and below sizes, 720p will give you as good a picture on HDTV as 1080p. Reason, most signals that are sent are originally 720p anyway. If you are not using a Blu-ray player often and if you are 4-5′ away, you will tell no difference.

    Just as with audio equipment, there are purists who will snort in derision at that. But if you are upgrading from a smaller TV, and especially from a non-wide-screen TV, the 720p one you are considering will probably knock your socks off.

    Burn-in: Some information here. I have no knowledge of this Web site, so for all I know it could be a front for the evil plasma cartel. But the information jibes with what I have read elsewhere.

  22. 22.

    Lee

    I can’t remember the last time I watched football, is the Fox HD signal always crap?

    I just flipped by to see how the Cowboys are doing and I thought the signal was LD it was so bad.

  23. 23.

    JPL

    @lamh35: Last year I purchased a 42″ LG from Amazon. Free shipping and no sales tax added to the appeal. I bought it the day after Thanksgiving during one of their super sales.

  24. 24.

    Gravenstone

    @Suffern ACE: They’ve used Raji as a novelty blocking back a handful of time previously. I believe that’s the first time he’s gotten the ball.

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    Football-wise, it’s been a good day for me. Liverpool held on for a 1-2 away win at Chelsea, thanks to — sweet irony! — Chelsea old boy Glen Johnson’s 87th minute winner. Liverpool are now one of four clubs tied for fourth place on 22 points.

  26. 26.

    donnah

    We bought an LG 50 inch screen, plasma TV two years ago and we haven’t had a moment of trouble. 1080p and very deep blacks, brilliant color and clarity.

    We see burn-in of we leave the Netflix grid up for very long, or if we watch an episode of Mystery Science Theater (robot silhouettes) but those fade out quickly when the show resumes.

    We love our plasma and would buy another for the quality if the picture.

  27. 27.

    Steeplejack

    @burnspbesq:

    I have been lusting for one of those. A friend tipped me to a double-secret clearout sale OPPO was having on the BDP-80, but apparently I missed it by hours, because by the time I got home that night it was already gone.

    I have no interest in 3-D, but I would like to have one really good unit to play all my discs, audio and video, in all formats.

  28. 28.

    cathyx

    With regard to the Shanon Sharpe outfit, the shirt is a definite no. It looks like a picnic table cloth.

  29. 29.

    Steeplejack

    @Amir Khalid:

    I enjoyed that game. Usually I like Chelsea, but Liverpool triggered my underdog bias.

    (I love seeing Newcastle in the top four of the table.)

  30. 30.

    The Dangerman

    @burnspbesq:

    If Barkley comes back, USC is the team to beat in 2012.

    2 problems:

    1) He’s not coming back.

    2) SC gets hammered for a few years with lost Scholarships.

    They will be in the wilderness for a few years (as a UCLA person that had to root for SC last night and thus had to rinse my mouth with soap for hours – I truly hate Nike and what they have done, especially with the Ducks – their being in the wilderness will give me a happy).

  31. 31.

    Amir Khalid

    @DougJ (top):

    Pin your ear backs.

    Did you mean “pin the backs of your ears”, or did you mean

    Pin your ears back.

  32. 32.

    The Dangerman

    On buying TV’s, I counsel … WAIT! I don’t see this being a good Holiday Season for the Retailers (they don’t either, which explains all the Christmas junk in the stores already), so there should be some killer deals after Christmas.

  33. 33.

    MikeJ

    @Amir Khalid: I assumed they had added a new position in a game somewhere.

    Yep sonny, I played ear back at Mizzou. Broke my nose playing football. Of course it was co-ed flag football. True story. Except for playing ear back. I don’t know what that means, so if I did, it was an accident. But the nose part is true. Doctor told me stay off it for a week.

  34. 34.

    lamh35

    @The Dangerman: I’m thinking you are right about this. I’ve just been itching for a new tv for awhile now and now that I do have to funds, the money is “burning a hole in my pocket” as my granny used to say…lol.

    Waiting for after Christmas seems like torture right now :)

  35. 35.

    BD of MN

    my mother-in-law has a 3yo plasma TV that has the fox news logo permanently burned into the corner, so yes, it’s possible…

    also, time to go grocery shopping, the Vikes are sucking almost as bad as Monday night…

  38. 38.

    Punchy

    Fantasy teams coming together at just the right time. Rodgers to Nelson is a double-dip on points. Booyup.

  40. 40.

    S. cerevisiae

    The Vikings really have to draft Kalil next year or Ponder will get killed. This line is horrid.

  41. 41.

    Amir Khalid

    @MikeJ:
    The doctor told you to stay off your nose for a week? I’m wondering now, what is your normal walking style?

    On a more somber note, Saturday’s Köln vs. Mainz match in the Bundesliga had to be postponed on short notice. Match referee Babak Rafati was found in his hotel room after what police think was a suicide attempt.

  42. 42.

    lamh35

    I know it’s early, but what’s on the menu for Thanksgving for everybody? What dish are you most looking forward to?

    I wish I was home in NOLA for Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving menu in New Orleans’ lower 9th ward may be way different than elsewhere in I’d bet…lol.

    No green-bean casserole (umm yuck!)

    usually on the menu:

    Turkey (baked, smoked or fried, if ya really wanna get fancy…cajun-friend turkey is key!)
    Baked Ham
    Candied Yams
    Baked Macaroni
    Gumbo (seafood or otherwise)
    Cornbread Dressing/Stuffing
    Stuffed Bell Peppers (distinctly New Orleanian, made with ground beef, shrimp, bread crumbs and seasoning, no rice or tomato sauce of whatever).
    Potato Salad
    Sweet Potato Pie (from scratch, and make Sweet Potato Bread with left-over stuffing)
    Bread Pudding

    Oh and some people like to substitute Red Beans & Rice for Gumbo. Whichever one you feel like making or have the correct ingredients for.

  43. 43.

    gogol's wife

    @lamh35:

    OT I’ve been waiting for you to show up. You’re the Yul Brynner fan, right? I don’t know how to do links on here, and it’s a NSFW link anyway, but go to the blog “Self-Styled Siren” and look for the recent post about how Noel Coward tried to console Marlene Dietrich when she was breaking up with Yul. Look at the comments, and about 4 or 5 comments down, someone gives a link to a photograph of Yul that I think you’ll like.

  44. 44.

    Yutsano

    @lamh35: I’m a turkey skin thief. I’m famous for it around my household. My mom gets on me every year for it but somehow I still manage to get some before dinner is served. It’s my favorite part of the whole experience. This year will be interesting as I have no idea who will be there. I’m hoping my mom’s cousin is showing up, his family is fun.

  45. 45.

    FlipYrWhig

    @BD of MN:

    my mother-in-law has a 3yo plasma TV that has the fox news logo permanently burned into the corner,

    Lolzers. Maybe it’s permanently burned into her retinas too.

  46. 46.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Yutsano:

    I love the turkey skin. It’s my favorite part of the whole bird. Alas, no turkey for me this year, as I was in the US for Canadian Thanksgiving and will still be in Canada for US Thanksgiving. Here, it’ll be just another Thursday.

    It has been astonishingly, freakily mild in Ottawa for mid/late November.

  47. 47.

    JPL

    @Yutsano: Decades ago I went to friends house for Thanksgiving and they threw away the skin because it’s not good for you. I almost reached into the garbage to rescue it.

  48. 48.

    Yutsano

    @JPL: It’s Thanksgiving. The whole damn meal is bad for you. If you can’t indulge yourself one day out of the year get off my planet.

    @SiubhanDuinne: You could do what my friend in New Zealand is doing: find a bunch of American expats and go nuts. I decided if I ever emigrated anywhere I would still do a Thanksgiving dinner. Totally traditional too.

    @Steeplejack: Oh. My. I can never watch The King and I again.

  50. 50.

    Suffern ACE

    Hmmm. Tampa bay seems to have learned that the way to control pack offense is to keep it off the field.

  55. 55.

    Violet

    Oh, good! A TV discussion. I’m in the market for a new one too. Currently we’re stuck because there’s a disagreement on whether to purchase an LCD, LED or plasma. Any thoughts?

    One member of the household thinks LCD/LED isn’t as good for sports because it’s choppier for things like fast moving plays, watching the ball when it’s kicked or thrown, etc. I think that’s more a factor of HD and back when TVs weren’t HD the problem most likely existed but the resolution was so low that you couldn’t really tell.

    I don’t want plasma because they’re hot and I live in a hot climate and pay to cool my house more than heat it and don’t want that kind of heat output. Plus, they’re power-hogs, from what I understand.

    I’m also concerned about the burn-in factor with plasma. I’ve heard of it happening. Interesting others have seen it happen on their own TVs.

    Any thoughts or experiences, welcome. I’ve

  57. 57.

    lamh35

    @gogol’s wife: @Steeplejack:

    oooh, ok, I’m intrigued. Of course, I am at work, so I’m gonna have to wait til I get home in about an hour to check out the link. So I’ll be in suspense for another hour or two…darn youse guys.

    As if I needed ANOTHER reason to wanna go home early from work, other than just not feeling like working at all…lol

  61. 61.

    BD of MN

    @Violet: we bought a 120hz LCD and the only time I’ve seen any issues watching sports is an occasional ghost baseball can be seen on a fast throw across an infield. It’s not jerky or choppy, but it’s weird seeing an extra ball on infield plays shot from above…

    But this tells me to stay away from the 60hz models, when we were researching the purchase that was one thing people recommended…

  62. 62.

    lamh35

    Back to football, there are few sporting events I actually watch on TV when they come on. The Olympics (mainly gymnastics, track & field and swimming/diving), the occasion Saints game (actually I hate watching my team play, too invested when they lose) and the The State Farm “Bayou Classic” Besides being the only nationally televised HBCU football game period, it’s always been held in NOLA and if you are watching any game on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in NOLA, it betta be “Bayou Classic”. It’s another thing I miss about being in NOLA. NBC broadcasts it nationally, but I believe that only in NOLA do they show almost the full half-time show, which aside from the actual football game, maybe be the #1 reason to watch the whold shin-dig.

    I have a soft spot for Southern University (I spent my Freshman year and 1/2 of my Sophomore year there, I still consider it my alma mater even though I graduated from the University of New Orleans), but I’ll admit, that I tend to root for whover is the underdog in the game. I basically cheer whenever anyone has a good play.

    If I was in NOLA for Thanksgiving, I’d be at the Bayou Classic or at the very least I’d be at the after-parties.

  64. 64.

    Batocchio

    On TVs, I have a Panasonic 50″ 1080p plasma I bought on sale, and I’m very happy with it overall. Because my apartment gets a lot of light, I wouldn’t get the TV with the THX setting again, because it’s dim and dinghy, and the one common complaint with Panasonic I’ve seen is that you have to crank the brightness. (The TV pedestal was also odd on my mine, but I jury-rigged a fix; it wasn’t worth the pain of an exchange.) If you have a room you can darken significantly, you should be fine. I have a Blu-ray player that upscales DVD resolution somewhat, although you can see the grain on some. They still look good. Blu-ray discs of any spectacle film look amazing; 1080:1080 conversion. Sports look fantastic. Blacks are rich and dark and the colors pop. You can play with five different picture settings per input, so you can customize a different look for a TV signal versus a Blu-ray player or game console. You can also (as I do) use different picture settings for daytime and night. Burn-in shouldn’t be a problem if you take precautions (the link upthread covers them). Plasmas do run hotter and take more energy, but I haven’t noticed a serious problem. If you want to wall-mount your TV, especially on an adjustable arm, you’re probably better off with an LCD because they’re lighter.

    I checked out CNET and a few other sites for reviews and visited a few Best Buys to see them in action. (I also asked all the film geeks I knew what they had and what they thought.) I haven’t seen the new LED ones, but I didn’t like the look of the LCDs, which made footage look like video. However, the settings in stores can be odd and cranked to maximum brightness, and LCDs that are tweaked for a room can look pretty good. Luckily, when I visited one store, some wise employee had put in a copy of The Dark Knight to play in a home theater demo using a TV almost identical to the one I was considering, and that helped clinch it.

  65. 65.

    Mnemosyne

    We’re having the Los Angeles equivalent of the first big snowstorm of the season: steady downpour that’s a bitch and a half to drive in, and not only because no one out here knows how to fucking drive in the rain.

    I had errands I could have run, but instead I came home, made some soup and a grilled cheese, and I’m getting ready to get back to work on the items I’m going to offer at our company’s craft fair in a couple of weeks. I was going to make more tiny sweater ornaments, but Keaton is sleeping in my knitting seat, so I guess it’s more handmade gift tags.

  67. 67.

    Mark B.

    Romo is the MVP for the Dallas game, but you’ve got to give props to Gano, the Redskins kicker. He deserves a lot of credit for making it all possible with 2 long misses which led to Dallas scores.

  71. 71.

    burnspbesq

    @Mnemosyne:

    We’re having the Los Angeles equivalent of the first big snowstorm of the season: steady downpour that’s a bitch and a half to drive in, and not only because no one out here knows how to fucking drive in the rain.

    Windy too, at least in central OC. Needs to stop soon, or the pitch at the Home Depot Center is going to be a mess.

  72. 72.

    Mark B.

    @Violet: One thing that’s great about LED is the form factor, very thin and light and perfect for wall mount applications. I’ve seen some that are very bright and have really good color, but be sure you can see one in operation before you buy. They vary quite a bit. LED is also the most energy efficient flat screen if you care, followed by LCD, and then by Plasma, which is an energy hog. LCD and LED TVs are very similar, in design, the basic difference is that LED TVs use LED backlighting and LCD TVs use something similar to flourescent bulbs.

  76. 76.

    Violet

    @BD of MN:
    Thanks for the input. I read a Cnet article from 2009 saying they were coming out with 240 hz. Are those out now?

    @Ron:
    Hmm…interesting. Cnet still mentions the burn-in issue, but who knows.

    @Mark B.:
    Thanks. The lightweight factor might be an issue as eventually I hope it’ll be hanging on the wall. For the moment it’ll probably be on a stand. Energy usage is a big deal and I hate to buy something that uses that much power when a more efficient model is available.

  78. 78.

    Suffern ACE

    @Yutsano: The heck with the Swiss and their banking privacy laws supporting swindlers and brutal dictators all over the world. Help those poor Spanidards with their trade imbalance and buy Manchego for your high-end grilled cheese needs….

  79. 79.

    Mark B.

    @Violet: Wall mounts are great. I have one for my 46″ Samsung, and it ends up saving quite a bit of space in the room. I think tiltable mounts are pretty cheap these days, and I think the task to install it was about an hour at most. IIRC, Fry’s tossed in the mount for free when I bought my set from them.

  80. 80.

    Yutsano

    @Suffern ACE: Manchego makes great frittatas and omelettes. Fantastic with apples or pears on crackers as an appetizer too. Melts beautifully. I seem to only find tiny blocks of it though.

  82. 82.

    Suffern ACE

    @Yutsano: In the past month, there have been sales on it in two of the grocery stores I go to and I started to find it at the A&P. Someone is flooding the market with Manchego. I blame china.

  83. 83.

    4jkb4ia

    That’s it. The Lambs are just terrible. Any intimations of their being good are just an illusion. But you knew that last month.

  84. 84.

    Yutsano

    @4jkb4ia: Against the SEAHACKS?? This should be like an amazingly easy win!

    @Suffern ACE: It probably is coming from Spain. They have no domestic market at home and supply is outstripping demand. Kinda tough to buy good food with 20+ percent unemployment.

  85. 85.

    Rome Again

    @Bostondreams:

    So that’s why when I deliver a paper to a certain customer every morning they are constantly watching a dark lime green colored tv? I get it now. Wow!

  86. 86.

    Steeplejack

    @Batocchio:

    [. . .] I didn’t like the look of the LCDs, which made footage look like video.

    I’m too lazy to look it up now, but there’s a setting you can change to fix that. Maybe something about “motion auto detection” or “blur and judder reduction.” Freaked me out when I first got my big-ass TV two years ago. Thought I had just gotten a gigantic, expensive boat anchor.

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