Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

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

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

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

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

He really is that stupid.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

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

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

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Not all heroes wear capes.

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

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Republicans in disarray!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Contractually Mandated Playoffs Open Thread

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78Comments

  2. 2.

    MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson

    Go Texans. Give your Perry-embarrassed masses something better to think about.

  3. 3.

    Suffern ACE

    I’ve never liked those Bengal uniforms and await the day they change them back. So go Texans.

  5. 5.

    wrb

    A cool-headed look at the NDAA from a civil libertarian with considerably more horsepower & reliability than Greenwald:

    Obama Signs the NDAA, World Does Not End (Yet)

    Scott Horton (excerpt):

    On New Year’s Eve, as most Americans were focused on parties and football games, President Barack Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012. He issued a significant signing statement in the process:
    __
    I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists… I decided to sign this bill not only because of the critically important services it provides for our forces and their families and the national security programs it authorizes, but also because the Congress revised provisions that otherwise would have jeopardized the safety, security, and liberty of the American people. Moving forward, my Administration will interpret and implement the provisions described below in a manner that best preserves the flexibility on which our safety depends and upholds the values on which this country was founded…
    __
    I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation. My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law.
    __
    Obama’s decision hardly provoked applause from the NDAA’s critics. The ACLU stated that it was a “blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law.” Jonathan Turley has called Obama’s decision to sign the NDAA into law America’s “Mayan moment”—the dooming moment “when the nation embraced authoritarian powers with little more than a pause between rounds of drinks.”
    __
    On the other hand, two legal scholars with strong civil-liberties credentials and close ties to the administration, Marty Lederman and Steven Vladeck, authored a serious review of the NDAA’s most controversial terms and found them to be a mixed bag, but far from a civil-liberties apocalypse. The measure can fairly be called the “Gitmo Forever” Act because it contains a series of provisions designed to frustrate Obama’s pledge to close the detention operations at Guantánamo. On the other hand, as the result of effective lobbying by the White House and civil libertarians, the worst of the provisions concerning what the military calls “detention operations” were reshaped into provisions that are either relatively harmless or sound statements of law.
    __
    Surely both of these views can’t be right?
    __
    Civil libertarians obviously would have preferred a veto of the NDAA, followed by its repassage, stripped of the special-detention provisions. Still, they scored a modest success in the signing statement (an ironic achievement, given that they sharply criticize signing statements in principle). There, Obama made an explicit promise about how he would use the authority some saw in the Act to place American citizens in indefinite military detention. He also restated his opposition to the creeping militarization of the criminal-justice process. And Lederman and Vladeck are certainly right that the most offensive aspects of the detention provisions were brushed away in the last rounds of negotiation. Maybe the “Mayan moment” that Turley has in mind is coming in the fall.
    __
    I don’t think Turley or any other civil liberties critic expects to see the Obama Administration sweep America’s streets, picking up American citizens and shipping them off to overseas military prisons. In fact, to the irritation of some of his Republican critics, Obama has gone on record opposing military detention for terrorism suspects who are U.S. citizens for some time now. The concerns of civil libertarians are based more on their recent experience of a Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel that sought to legitimize torture, schemed to bury the Posse Comitatus Act, wrote memos authorizing warrantless surveillance, and approved numerous war crimes. If you’ve watched any of the recent G.O.P. presidential debates, then you know all of the contenders (excepting Ron Paul and possibly Jon Huntsman) embrace torture techniques like waterboarding, would expand Guantánamo, believe that military prisons are the alternative to an ineffective criminal-justice system, would revive extraordinary renditions and CIA black sites, and generally rush to characterize anyone who thinks differently about the world as un-American or worse.

    continues

  8. 8.

    Mark S.

    The Saints are probably the hottest team in the League right now, so I’ll definitely go with them.

    The other game? Texans, I guess.

  10. 10.

    Raven

    @efgoldman: I get strange random subtitles in Spanish on the NBC broadcast. Someone said that Telemundo broadcasts the same feed so that may be it but it’s weird.

  11. 11.

    Suffern ACE

    I would be very happy not to see New Orleans again this year and would not mind seeing the Lions a third time. So go Lions.

  12. 12.

    MikeJ

    @efgoldman: I do prefer NBC’s scoreboard placement (centered on the bottom) to Fox’s. Fox’s scoreboard is top left, in the corner for standard def but strangely floating in space in HD. The floating in space is better than the way they screwed up during baseball season with the scoreboard in the HD left corner, therefore invisible in standard def.

  14. 14.

    MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson

    I reckon the Saints will beat Detroit, which makes me want to root for the under-lion. OTOH, I really find Suh deeply annoying.

  19. 19.

    Yutsano

    @MikeJ: I never thought, in 2012, I’d be teasing PUMAs. On this very site no less. I feel…strangely fulfilled.

    And PLAYOFFS??

  20. 20.

    WereBear (itouch)

    Since this is an Open Thread, wanted to ask those on Twitter: I’m planning to tweet to my followers @WayofCats during the Animal Planet showing of Cat from Hell this evening.

    This is a first for me; I basically tweet new blog posts and comments on articles I read. Welcome any tips from the more experienced!

  21. 21.

    kwAwk

    Go Bengals. Just being here is ruining everyone else’s paradigm.

    Lions and Bengals in the Superbowl would make heads explode.

  22. 22.

    Nethead Jay

    @Suffern ACE: You a Falcons guy. Well, I’m a Saints guy and I don’t think you’re gonna get your wish. They might get past the Giants but then it should be back to the Superdome to get beaten again… ;p

  25. 25.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @efgoldman:

    Maybe. 50+ in Boston today, 60+ in DC. Could continue for half the country for another 3 weeks. Who knows?

    Yeah, I know. We had that weather here yesterday. But today, in parts of the UP and the northern tip of the mitten, there was snow.

    And dad’s seats are in the south end zone at Lambeau. I’ve been to many late-season games, and trust me, the prevailing winds are usually blasting me straight in the face, from the north, straight off the large bay from which the city gets its name.

    If it’s N.O. at G.B. in the championship game, the Saints won’t be playing in friendly weather.

  28. 28.

    MikeJ

    @BruceFromOhio: Eeew. You do not want to go there. Have to drive through mile after mile of refineries. Just vile, unbreathable air. I had a headache for days after it.

  30. 30.

    BruceFromOhio

    @MikeJ: Heh. I used to live in Pasadena, about a mile from the ship channel. Been there! And it was quite an experience to walk around the deck of the Maine, listen to the Navy guys who lived through WWII-Pacific Theater.

  36. 36.

    BO_Bill

    Re: Contract Mandates

    If I could be presumptuous enough to offer assistance to my friends at Balloon Juice.

    I have perhaps very valuable personal experience of the trials and tribulations recently undertaken by certain blogs in the recent week. We need to agree that, in accordance with the HBD Denialism Belief System, all groupings of humans, subject to government regulation and/or Soros Open Societies blog-funding criteria, must appear to be demographically like a student body at a college with aging female hippies as admissions guardians.

    So the best thing to do is for Balloon Juice to pay ABL her full asking price. Failure to do so will result in consequences. Sorry John, men with Asian origins do not count.

  38. 38.

    Nethead Jay

    @Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): That was last year. Besides, that wasn’t so much just one thing but an all-around shitty game. Happens sometimes. But I assume you’re aware of the run Saints have had the last couple of months.

    Not saying it’ll be easy, just that it won’t be a walk for your guys either. As far as I’m concerned, Saints and Packers are the best teams this season and should be the Super Bowl, but since that’s not possible it’ll just have to be the moral one, hopefully.

  47. 47.

    Raven

    @Yutsano:

    4 eggs yolks
    2 cups Olive oil
    make the mayo with a whisk or food processor

    fold in
    shallots
    garlic
    parsley
    Lea and Perrins
    cayenne
    s&p
    lemon juice (don’t even think about any of that shit in a plastic squeezer
    coarsely chopped frozen artichoke hearts
    lil gerkin

    eta creole mustard

    chill it
    serve it

  48. 48.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    OT (oh wait) I was having a glass of wine with a VERY ULTRA CONSERVATIVE friend of mine last night. She is originally from Bulgaria so her right wing leanings are serious. During the Bush years she strenuously defended him, he could do no wrong, I mean literally. We eventually got around to politics and she told me in no uncertain terms that she could NOT vote for any of the Republican candidates. “Their assault on the rights of women are just totally alien to me”. She opined that she was fiscally conservative and their economic plans were somewhat attractive but when it came to social issues she could not support any of them. She said that she didn’t know if she could bring herself to vote for Obama, but ended the conversation with “if it comes down to Obama or one of those clowns, then I guess it will be Obama, he seems like the only grown up in the room”. I know it is only one person, but it really shocked me when she said it, I mean I would have thought that she would vote Republican no matter who the candidate but it appears that the woman’s health issues thing (she is a doctor) has really rattled her.

  49. 49.

    Cat Lady

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    Yeah, I’ve asked a couple of righties I know what they’re thinking, and they are about as unenthused as it’s possible to be. They REALLY don’t like Romney.

  51. 51.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    My idiot neighbor told me during a neighborhood party this summer he would be voting for Abo come hell or high water (Anybody But Obama). Sadly, I have not not seem him since.

  54. 54.

    RossInDetroit

    We just got back from our favorite terr0rist Arabic restaurant on the terr0rist Arabic side of town. They had the football game on and people were speaking in English. The terr0rist restaurants really have let their standards slip.

    The food’s still outstanding though.

  56. 56.

    stevestory

    downloaded greasemonkey

    added cleek’s filter

    clicked ‘edit this script’

    picked notepad.

    got this:

    wtf

    please advise.

  58. 58.

    MikeJ

    @stevestory: You don’t need to edit the script anymore to make it work. Just highlight the name of the person to block, hit the “add selected” button at the bottom of the page.

    That said, there are some things you can play with in the source, but only if you’re comfortable with javascript.

  59. 59.

    stevestory

    I just don’t understand why several sources say open the .js file in notepad, and when i do it looks all verklempt.

  60. 60.

    Steeplejack

    I’m bailing on this game. Looks like the Texans have it wrapped up. Going to see to my dinner needs and be ready for a fresh start on the Lions-Saints game.

    Also, TCM is showing a raft of Charles Chaplin movies overnight. Highlights (all times EST): City Lights at 8:00 p.m., Modern Times at 9:30 p.m., The Kid at 1:15 a.m. and The Gold Rush (my favorite) at 4:45 a.m.

  61. 61.

    JPL

    Yates went to school not to far from me and a friend was principal at his middle school so guess I’m cheering for Houston. I still hate they beat the Falcons though.

  62. 62.

    stevestory

    Reinstalled filter, didn’t touch it, typed Veritas, highlighted it, clicked ‘add selected’, refreshed page, comment unaffected.

    I remember it being a pain last time i used it. had to remove hidden characters from the .js file using notepad2 IIRC. Fuck it.

  65. 65.

    stevestory

    the location and width of the pie filter bar made me think that like the above buttons they had to act on items in the text entry box.

  68. 68.

    MikeJ

    @stevestory:

    I just don’t understand why several sources say open the .js file in notepad, and when i do it looks all verklempt.

    Alternate line endings. Windows requires /r/n, unix uses /n, mac uses /r. Your notepad doesn’t seem to convert line endings on open. Another text editor might work, but make sure it saves in plain txt format.

  72. 72.

    FlipYrWhig

    @wrb: Thanks. Interesting. Jonathan Turley, BTW, is like Glenn Greenwald plus success. Whenever Turley was a guest on the Olbermann show my wife and I had a running joke about how soon he’d say he was “very concerned” about Issue Du Jour. Bob Somerby, kind of a crank in his own right, once called Turley a guy who never saw a president he didn’t think should be impeached.

  73. 73.

    Mnemosyne

    @Steeplejack:

    I’m not a big Chaplin fan (I come decidedly down in favor of Keaton in the Silent Comedian Wars) but I have City Lights on the teevee while I’m waiting for us to head out to dinner and both Charlotte and Keaton seem fascinated by it.

    (Well, until sleep overtook them, but they are cats, after all.)

  74. 74.

    Steeplejack

    @Mnemosyne:

    I like both Chaplin and Keaton (and Harold Lloyd), but Chaplin’s more sentimental stuff wears on me a little. That’s why The Gold Rush is my favorite.

  76. 76.

    handsmile

    @Steeplejack:

    I posted the reply (below) to you on this morning’s Open Thread about the actually important football game this weekend. Don’t know whether you saw it then, don’t know whether you’ll see it now. (It’s too bad that Randinho no longer regularly makes an appearance around here.)

    That 5:00pm FSC broadcast is a repeat of ManU’s 1-6 humiliation by its “noisy neighbors” last October. (And well worth viewing for that alone.) The FA Cup third-round match-up between the Red and Blue footballing halves of Manchester will be broadcast live by FSC on Sunday morning at 8:00am (EST). A proper way to begin the lord’s day.

  77. 77.

    Steeplejack

    @Mnemosyne:

    That’s a good one. I was thinking of The Kid and City Lights as veering into the treacly for me (although both have redeeming qualities).

  78. 78.

    Steeplejack

    @handsmile:

    Thanks for the heads-up. On my cable system it just said “Repeat,” which usually means that it’s a rerun of a game that was shown on a premium channel earlier in the day (or shown earlier in the week). If it’s older than that, the listing usually adds, e.g., “from October 2011.”

    I’ll be up to catch the game tomorrow morning. Thanks again!

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