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You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: The Appliance

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: The Appliance

by Anne Laurie|  January 4, 20125:35 pm| 51 Comments

This post is in: Election 2012, Open Threads, Assholes, Romney of the Uncanny Valley

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(Ted Rall’s website)
__
Jon Chait at NYMag’s Daily Intel discusses “The Anti-Romney Resistance“:

The basic tension of the Republican nominating contest is that it has had a very strong desire to oppose Mitt Romney, sitting alongside an almost comically weak slate of candidates who can fulfill that oppositional role. Now, with Rick Perry teetering and Michele Bachmann out, the opposition is down to two: Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, two washed-up pols who left office in disgrace or landslide defeat, have no appeal to non-rabid Republicans, and little money or organization.
__
Still, the sentiment against Romney is strong enough to keep one or both of them going for a while. The anti-Romney resistance is still breathing…

Details at the link, and also a photo even uglier than a Rall cartoon.

What else is on the agenda in the run-up to New Hampshire this evening?

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Previous Post: « It’s 2012, So You Know What That Means
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Reader Interactions

51Comments

  1. 1.

    forked tongue

    January 4, 2012 at 5:41 pm

    Ted Rall! Aiiiieeeee, My eyes!

  2. 2.

    Mark S.

    January 4, 2012 at 5:42 pm

    Nothing’s as ugly as a Ted Rall cartoon.

  3. 3.

    Mark S.

    January 4, 2012 at 5:44 pm

    The resemblance to Mitt Romney is amazing! I didn’t even have to read it to know Rall was drawing Mitt.

  4. 4.

    Maude

    January 4, 2012 at 5:45 pm

    @Mark S.:
    Mitch McConnell. His mouth looks like a cat’s bum.
    Listen to the sweet music of the Republicans being bested by the skinny guy. Timing. Start them screaming and keep them screaming.

  5. 5.

    Amir Khalid

    January 4, 2012 at 5:49 pm

    @forked tongue:
    My eyes too! I could draw better than that when I was seven.

  6. 6.

    moe99

    January 4, 2012 at 5:51 pm

    There could still be a brokered convention if Romney support remains tepid among the faithful. Maybe Jeb Bush?

  7. 7.

    4jkb4ia

    January 4, 2012 at 5:51 pm

    After overdosing on Iowa-related matters, I saw the important story in Dealbook about the difficulty in getting the Office of Financial Research started. No link because I have yet to know how many of them I will have to spend on 538 this month. A very real consequence of the virulent opposition to Warren is that people who would be very qualified to do this job, like Robert Shiller, who was quoted, are afraid of the confirmation process and will not go through it. OFR is supposed to be the agency that collects information on the financial system as a whole so that the Financial Stability Oversight Council will understand systemic risks.

    (Berner, the person they have sent up, is a counselor to Geithner and former chief economist for Morgan Stanley)

  8. 8.

    scav

    January 4, 2012 at 5:54 pm

    Sudden thought. It somehow brings me pleasure that the party of 100% “against Obama” is now essentially reduced to running 100% “against Ourselves”. Only gear they’ve got.

  9. 9.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    January 4, 2012 at 5:54 pm

    no appeal to non-rabid Republicans

    No appeal to what now?

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    January 4, 2012 at 5:55 pm

    Via Steve Benen, I see that the true movers and shakers in the conservative movement aren’t happy about the recess appointments:

    The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has not decided whether it will file a legal challenge to the appointments, according to David Hirschmann, who heads the Chamber’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness. But he said he’s confident that Obama’s precedent-shattering move will land the administration in court.

  11. 11.

    Anne Laurie

    January 4, 2012 at 5:55 pm

    @Mark S.: I dare you to say that after you’ve checked out the photo in question. I was gonna title it “Jeeves and Wooster, Mordor edition”.

  12. 12.

    PPOG Penguin

    January 4, 2012 at 5:58 pm

    Some enterprising cartoonist needs to try drawing Romney as a Dalek in the tradition of Steve Bell’s old Guardian strip:

    http://www.belltoons.co.uk/bellworks/index.php/if/1986/1270-14-4-86-DALEKS

    http://www.belltoons.co.uk/bellworks/index.php/if/1986/1272-16-4-86-DALEKS

    “Social safety net?” “Exterminate! Exterminate!” “American jobs?” “Exterminate! Exterminate!”

  13. 13.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    January 4, 2012 at 5:58 pm

    If anyone is interested in following a left leaning blog written by folks who live in New Hampshire I highly recommend Blue Hampshire. A few current state office holders and local activists write some very interesting pieces. It is a good place to stop in and see what’s happening on the ground in NH.

  14. 14.

    The Bobs

    January 4, 2012 at 6:01 pm

    Mitt-Bot seems much too human to be an acceptable surrogate for the real Mitt, whoever that is.

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    January 4, 2012 at 6:03 pm

    @4jkb4ia:
    You don’t actually need to ration your monthly visits to NYT. When you hit the paywall stuff, go to your browser’s navigation bar and edit the URL. Somewhere in the URL is a question mark; delete that and everything after it, then reload the page. And just like that, the paywall is gone! You will not encounter it again if you go to subsequent pages in a story.

  16. 16.

    The Other Chuck

    January 4, 2012 at 6:05 pm

    If anyone just recently downloaded the Troll-B-Gone filter and finds it’s not working, you might try updating it now. I pushed a really broked version for a few minutes, but it’s all fixed now.

    Just click my name and it shouldn’t be too hard to find from there.

  17. 17.

    Violet

    January 4, 2012 at 6:16 pm

    @efgoldman:
    Any updates on Newt’s claim that he was going to go negative in NH? Has he released ads yet? Love that Newt’s ego is leading him to tear apart other Republicans. Excellent.

  18. 18.

    burnspbesq

    January 4, 2012 at 6:17 pm

    If you want to see something quite remarkable, go to YouTube and search on “Tim Howard goal.”

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    January 4, 2012 at 6:17 pm

    @efgoldman: I’m curious about that too. Maybe “our members want to keep gouging their customers, and this new agency might put a damper on some of that, so our right to make huge profits is being impinged” is the theory?

  20. 20.

    MikeJ

    January 4, 2012 at 6:17 pm

    @dmsilev: I don’t see how the Chamber has standing. Sounds like needlessly clogging the courts with a frivolous lawsuit.

    I suggest asking for sanctions against their attorneys.

  21. 21.

    geg6

    January 4, 2012 at 6:20 pm

    I am very excited. Michael Symon is opening a restaurant here in Pittsburgh. I’ve been to Lola in Cleveland several times and they have been some of the best dining experiences of my life. The only better one was at the che’s table at Mario Batali’s place. An amazing evening of his tasting menu with like a dozen small courses. I lucked out on that because my high school boyfriend does all the photography for his cookbooks and that is where he took me when I called and said hey I’m in New York.

    Can’t believe I’ve eaten the food of two Iron Chefs. And actually met and conversed with one. I’m incredibly lucky. Can’t wait for Symon’s place to open.

  22. 22.

    burnspbesq

    January 4, 2012 at 6:21 pm

    @efgoldman:

    Yes, the USCoC has a standing problem, but as soon as the CFPB moves to regulate non-bank lenders there will be an entire industry of plaintiffs who don’t.

  23. 23.

    jeff

    January 4, 2012 at 6:21 pm

    @Mark S.:

    Apparently you’ve never gotten an email from him.

  24. 24.

    burnspbesq

    January 4, 2012 at 6:27 pm

    Yet another delicious irony of the Republican clown show: if Evangelicals want to coalesce behind a single candidate in an attempt to stop Romney, their only two viable choices are Catholics.

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    January 4, 2012 at 6:33 pm

    @burnspbesq:
    So what to do, when the kid wants a toy that’s not in the store?

  26. 26.

    Dee Loralei

    January 4, 2012 at 6:48 pm

    @Anne Laurie: I couldn’t figure out which picture you meant, seriously.

  27. 27.

    burnspbesq

    January 4, 2012 at 6:51 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    If God gives you lemons, make lemonade.

  28. 28.

    MazeDancer

    January 4, 2012 at 7:06 pm

    Huntsman has found some oomph. Wearing a jean jacket. Clipping off the short liner Romney dis. Non-wimpy.

    If he keeps that up, could easily be his time.

    Also, all those people laid off by Bain who were used effectively against Mitt’s non-career politician runs in MA are getting their limelight again.

    Only thing keeping me from sending Newt some dough is the karma that might result. But still, going to enjoy his slice ‘n dice of that repulsive Romney.

  29. 29.

    AA+ Bonds

    January 4, 2012 at 7:47 pm

    Whoa did Rall’s colorist fuck him in that last panel or is that just Rall being Rall

  30. 30.

    AA+ Bonds

    January 4, 2012 at 7:48 pm

    The more I see this the more I think this was a good outcome for Rove: attack ads on Gingrich brought Santorum to the front and Santorum has no fucking money and no time to raise any, he even got NPR saying Romney won etc.

  31. 31.

    AA+ Bonds

    January 4, 2012 at 7:51 pm

    Then again per Perlstein all of this is fake, he’s right about that, all it can be about is mine-laying in front of Romney

  32. 32.

    Anne Laurie

    January 4, 2012 at 7:57 pm

    @Violet:

    Any updates on Newt’s claim that he was going to go negative in NH? Has he released ads yet?

    The only political ads during this evening’s Boston-area, non-cable local news that I caught were from Huntsman, ripping Willard. This may change by 11pm, of course — but both Newt’s campaign’s and Santorum’s may be hoarding their funds for cheaper buys in the central-NH local market. We usually see ads for all serious state-wide NH campaigns, because there’s a lot of NH voters concentrated along its southern border with MA. Many of them are self-styled “Taxachusetts refugees”, aka, Erick Erickson’s gated-community fellow travellers, so it’s possible the anti-Romneyites have given them up as a lost cause.

  33. 33.

    Anne Laurie

    January 4, 2012 at 8:00 pm

    @Dee Loralei:

    I couldn’t figure out which picture you meant, seriously.

    The one at the top of Chait’s article, with Crafty Newt leaning over to whisper sweet nothings at Clueless Santorum. Shudder.

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne

    January 4, 2012 at 8:03 pm

    Since this is an open thread, does anyone have any recommendations for Mac word processing programs that can handle very large documents that are changed frequently? We’ve been using Word 2011 for Mac and it sucks donkey balls (though slightly fewer balls than the previous iterations).

  35. 35.

    Egg Berry

    January 4, 2012 at 8:06 pm

    @Mnemosyne: have you tried Libre Office? It’s open source, formerly Open Office. Not sure how well it handles large documents, but you can try it and if it doesn’t work, no sweat.

    ETA: Scrivener is also a neat program to check out, but it’s $50. Not a typical word processor.

  36. 36.

    chopper

    January 4, 2012 at 8:17 pm

    @dmsilev:

    what standing does the CoC have to sue?

  37. 37.

    chopper

    January 4, 2012 at 8:20 pm

    @The Bobs:

    i can’t wait for mitt to lose and go BSOD.

  38. 38.

    Felinious Wench

    January 4, 2012 at 8:28 pm

    My BIL was nice enough to make me homemade hard cider for Christmas. I love cider. But this stuff is undrinkable, it’s so sour.

    Any ideas?

  39. 39.

    burnspbesq

    January 4, 2012 at 8:33 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Mac document management is pretty much a wasteland. Tried using SharePoint alongside Word?

  40. 40.

    WereBear (itouch)

    January 4, 2012 at 8:37 pm

    Scrivener is DA BOMB. It is text based, so it should handle large docs, and sone formatting, though that is not it’s strongest suit. Actual writing and editing, not fussy layout, is what it is about.

    You do get to try it free for 30 days.

  41. 41.

    burnspbesq

    January 4, 2012 at 8:39 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’ve never used this, but it might be worth a look.

    http://www.docmoto.com/

  42. 42.

    Egg Berry

    January 4, 2012 at 8:43 pm

    Back in the 90s, there was a specific Mac program that was for working on really big documents (not Word or WordPerfect – NisusWriter, maybe?) but I can’t remember the name, and not sure it’s made anymore anyway.

  43. 43.

    Schlemizel

    January 4, 2012 at 8:49 pm

    word on line is that the big 3 – Fungus On The Family, The American Fascist Association and Gary Bauer’s America Valve-views are meeting this weekend in Texas to discuss WTF to do about the Republican nomination. They could decide to back one horses ass in the race.

    Wish I could eat popcorn!

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    January 4, 2012 at 8:52 pm

    Thanks — I think I may have to try out Scrivener for home.

    The problem we’re having is that we have large Word documents that have some formatting (nothing too huge: tabs, italics, bold, etc.) that get edited over and over again and I think they’re getting corrupted with all of the changes. The one I was just editing is one of the smaller ones at about 40 pages, but 100-150 pages isn’t unusual at all.

    It’s especially “fun” when we send the document to other places for their review and get it back missing italics or tabs at random.

  45. 45.

    gwangung

    January 4, 2012 at 8:56 pm

    @WereBear (itouch): Yeah, it’s fabulous for writers (prose, screenplays, playwrights). John Rogers (he who popularized the Crazification Factor) loves it.

  46. 46.

    Woodrowfan

    January 4, 2012 at 9:08 pm

    got my Balloon Juice Pets calender today. Nicely done! Lots of cute pets. Lots of pics of Tunch too!

  47. 47.

    Boots Day

    January 4, 2012 at 9:26 pm

    I really doubt there’s any standing for the Chamber of Commerce to sue over this, or that they’re even seriously considering it. It’s just a way to throw enough of a tantrum to get their objections mentioned in the papers.

  48. 48.

    DanielX

    January 4, 2012 at 10:43 pm

    So what to do…decisions, decisions. Me, I think I’m going to buy liquor and snacks for when I have time and settle down to watch Newt set Claymore mines out for his opponents for the next few months. Watching the thirty year Reagan coalition fall apart is going to be as much fun – more – than the Rethugs had watching the thirty year Democratic coalition falling apart. More so, actually, because while the Dems fell apart over something they did defending the right (small r emphasized), to wit, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Republicans are going to fall apart over defending the right of obscenely wealthy individuals and corporations to screw workers and taxpayers for fun and profit. Auto workers’ union contracts? Fuck ’em, they’re standing in the way of global competition. AIG financial services employee bonuses? Sanctity of contracts! That is totally a winning party platform. By the way, they also have some completely awesome AA rated mortgage backed securities available for you, just ’cause you’re a friend. (They’ll be rated as junk in twelve months, so move ’em quick…badda bing!)

    Sidebar: I know, I know, a lot of Dems are just as culpable as Republicans. Most of the Dems don’t make a practice of having anal sex with copies of Atlas Shrugged and slurping oysters out of Tom Friedman’s navel at Davos, though.

  49. 49.

    Applejinx

    January 5, 2012 at 6:26 am

    @DanielX: “practice of having anal sex with copies of Atlas Shrugged”

    But a paper book doesn’t even have an a…

    …

    never mind!

  50. 50.

    Mike G

    January 5, 2012 at 5:34 pm

    @Schlemizel:

    Fungus On The Family

    Good one…

Comments are closed.

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    January 5, 2012 at 8:56 am

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