Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Optimism opens the door to great things.

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

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

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

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

I really should read my own blog.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

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

You cannot shame the shameless.

I was promised a recession.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / The BlackOut

The BlackOut

by | 79 Comments

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I have to say, I think the blackout is a great idea, and we would be participating but for the fact that I have no idea how to remove everything, and on top of it all, I’m not sure that if I did get everything blacked out, I’d be able to get it back up tomorrow. So we are participating in spirit only. I suppose we could have a white out, and I could just post 1600×1900 pictures of Tunch.

At any rate, I think the way you can tell if something like this is working is by how loud certain people squeal. As Mistermix noted, Dodd is pissed (and that explains why he was at the Golden Globes), and that is a good thing. The more these corporate hacks scream bloody murder, the more you know the pressure is working.

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  2. 2.

    different-church-lady

    You could just post a whole bunch of front page posts with no content, and then sit back and watch how people manage to troll even that.

  7. 7.

    different-church-lady

    Here’s what I think we really ought to do: there should be a month long blackout. Because by the time two weeks went by we’d all completely forget why we thought this stuff was so indispensable in the first place.

  8. 8.

    Steeplejack

    Maybe you could just change the blog’s “theme color” to black in solidarity, à la Sullivan’s green for the Iranian revolution.

  10. 10.

    Ron

    I think most sites just added some javascript. Wikipedia isn’t “down” and if you turn off javascript you can access the site as usual.

  11. 11.

    Dr. Psycho

    I had to settle for making the front page of my blog and my Yahoo groups turn black, because I couldn’t figure out how to actually shut them down.

    Oh, well — nobody reads my blog anyway. :{ )

  12. 12.

    different-church-lady

    Cole, I need to talk to you about your ads: one page ago there was an ad for full figured women’s fashions. One page later there’s an ad in the very same spot for a weight loss program.

    I don’t need more cognitive dissonance. Knock it off.

  15. 15.

    Rommie

    How many copyright infringements would large-size Tunch photos bring in under SOPA? Lucasarts? Aspen, CO?

  17. 17.

    quannlace

    @different-church-lady:
    Really. I thought people were always screaming about how inaccurate, unreliable (and lefty-lefty) Wikipedia is. So why bleat about a one-day black out being ‘abuse of power.’

  18. 18.

    dance around in your bones

    @MikeJ: Yeah, I went to Wikipedia to see what a blackout looks like, and everything came up just fine. Then I realized ‘Ah, good ol’ NoScript’.

    I’ll stay off the site in solidarity anyway.

  19. 19.

    schrodinger's cat

    So we are participating in spirit only. I suppose we could have a white out, and I could just post 1600×1900 pictures of Tunch.

    Want!

  25. 25.

    Satanicpanic

    No point in blacking out your site. Everyone here already knows about SOPA. Blackout should just be on sites that apolitical people use- Google, Wikipedia, etc.

  27. 27.

    Satanicpanic

    Oh, and boy was I wrong about Chris Dood. Can’t believe I donated to him AND John Edwards in 07. At least I never voted for Nader.

  29. 29.

    scav

    @gaz: ■■■! (I suddenly want to do wheel of fortune in morse code. “I’d like to buy a dash?” GSD my mind scares me.)

    ETA: To be extra clear, a weak attempt at a personal google-esque blackout — and golly isn’t that logo recognizable even in a glimpse of blue.

  32. 32.

    gaz

    @Satanicpanic: I voted for Nader.

    I live in a state that will always go blue though. I just wanted the green party to get some of the popular vote. I’ve never even liked Nader, but I voted for the guy.

  34. 34.

    PurpleGirl

    I’ve recommended people to read the blog Making Light. To see what they did this morning for the day go here:

    http://nielsenhayden.com/503_sopa.html

    Patrick NielsonHayden works for Tor Books (owned by Macmillan, which supports SOPA) and Teresa NielsonHayden consultants for Tor.

  35. 35.

    gaz

    @scav: I got what you were doing. I even tried highlighting/selecting the text at first to see if it would reveal something dirty, but I see you just did the characters and not any kind of color tricks..
    speaking of which, I wonder…

    testing….

    Edit: darn, style attribs are stripped =(

  37. 37.

    Satanicpanic

    @gaz: I can see that. I know a guy from Florida who did though, and he seems to think it’s funny. Maybe not coincidentally, he doesn’t live in the USA anymore.

  38. 38.

    Benjamin Franklin

    Issa and Cantor along with Wyden (reconstituting his rep) are the lanyards of hope for denying SOPA?

    Politics doth make strange bedfellows.

    btw; Ever noticed Wyden’s uncanny resemblance between “Hell on Wheels” bad guy called ‘The Swede”?

  41. 41.

    Jack the Second

    IMO it’s not useful for a political blog to black out. Balloon Juice, et al, are informing people 365-ish; blacking it out one day informs people less rather than more.

  45. 45.

    Gust Avrakotos

    …..and when not Liberal Greewald sides with Republican Ron Paul against the black out because he’ll say it can’t be controlled at the state level or whatever the fuck, so will supposed Not Republican Cole. Things that make you go hmmmmmmm.

  46. 46.

    AxelFoley

    @Steeplejack:

    Maybe you could just change the blog’s “theme color” to black in solidarity, à la Sullivan’s green for the Iranian revolution.

    I dunno. Once you go black…

    I don’t think Cole is ready for that.

  47. 47.

    scav

    @Jack the Second: Not exactly. More isn’t necessarily better — see multiple 24-hours news channels. Spending one day focusing on one single important issue may be very worthwhile.

  48. 48.

    ornery_curmudgeon

    I liked Nader and wish we’d been able to see him debate Bush.

    Don’t know if the current Democratic Party was worth destroying and scapegoating one of the great Progressive activists of the 20th Century … but I am damn sure it was unnecessary. And all that Nader-hatred did was divide and rig the progressive movement for ongoing circular destruction.

    Wait, you say, progressives are not divided or rigged for circular destruction! Yeah wait for it. I’ll say it again: I respect Ralph Nader.

  50. 50.

    different-church-lady

    @ornery_curmudgeon:

    Don’t know if the current Democratic Party was worth destroying and scapegoating one of the great Progressive activists of the 20th Century

    Probably not. But then again, neither was his own damn ego, which is the thing that actually did the job in the end.

  51. 51.

    jl

    Is the full size pic of Tunch up yet, or is that the normal white background for the blog? I can’t tell.

    Cole needs to post an update.

    And we really should have lots of Tunchpic today, as Cole double dog dare promised 1000 percent, fer sher.

    I will check back, Cole.

  52. 52.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Rommie:

    How many copyright infringements would large-size Tunch photos bring in under SOPA? Lucasarts? Aspen, CO?

    So because Tunch is large, white, round and distorts gravity Lucasarts claims John is plagiarizing the Death Star?

  53. 53.

    slag

    @different-church-lady: That’s OK. I refudiate the barrage of Newsmax and Ron Paul ads I get whenever I come here. It’s my own fault, though. I’m the one who clicks on them. I refudiate the ads I frequently click on!

  54. 54.

    Satanicpanic

    Who’s hating on Nader? I just said voting for him would have been a bad idea. I didn’t know that in 2012 this was still controversial.

  59. 59.

    The Moar You Know

    I didn’t know that in 2012 this was still controversial.

    @Satanicpanic: This will remain “controversial” until the last soldier that George W. Bush sent to Iraq or Afghanistan dies of old age.

    Because the brutal truth is that without Nader, those kids wouldn’t have been sent off to die so that W. could one-up his daddy.

  61. 61.

    Danny Wagz

    Whitening-out the site here would be easy enough; post pictures of Gingrich all over the place, or just link to Santorums’ home page.
    Oh, that’s right. Nevermind.

  63. 63.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @gaz:

    Interestingly, that was Nader’s original goal…to allow people not satisfied in blue states with the blue party to register a protest and help out the Greens.

    Then Nader reneged on that, and started operating in contested states, like Florida.

    With tragic results. Over 4,000 dead servicemembers, and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, a direct result of his ratfucking operation in Florida.

    Also, too see @The Moar You Know:

  65. 65.

    geg6

    @ornery_curmudgeon:

    Don’t know if the current Democratic Party was worth trying to destroying and being scapegoatinged by one of the great Progressive activists self-absorbed self-promoters of the 20th Century … but I am damn sure it was unnecessary.

    Fix’t.

    Fuck Ralph Nader. He’s no progressive, whatever the hell that may mean. And I know for damn sure that he’s no liberal.

  66. 66.

    MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson

    @ornery_curmudgeon:

    I have trouble respecting the man who went on Fox News to suggest that Barack Obama might be an Uncle Tom. I give him props for his earlier work on behalf of consumers – but the most recent incarnation of Nader has been unimpressive.

  67. 67.

    joes527

    @MikeJ: The list of other ways in which Issa is evil is too long to bother with, but he has come out against SOPA.

    I am not saying that Ron Paul Darrell Issa is better than Barack Obama Al Franken.

  69. 69.

    MikeJ

    @joes527: I didn’t think anyone would be so silly as to think Issa was in general better than Franken. My link was to demonstrate that he’s not even better on freedom of information.

  70. 70.

    slag

    @different-church-lady: I usually close my eyes when I click on them. So I feel less dirty. But yeah…it’s all part of my grand scheme to bankrupt the Republican establishment one click at a time. Clearly a long-term plan.

  71. 71.

    gaz

    @Villago Delenda Est: While what you say is true, I sleep just fine, knowing that the ONLY thing I did was give the green party some of the popular vote.

    Had I lived in FL, which I do not, and never have, (and never will) I would have voted blue.

    But I didn’t.

    No harm no foul. If there’s something I missed WRT to this, let me know. Otherwise, I’m just fine with my decision. I had no control over what happened in florida. Hell, I even live as far away from FL as I can, while still being in the continental US. heh.

  72. 72.

    Zifnab

    @joes527: He and Wyden have come out with a watered down version of SOPA/PIPA that they are pushing as a compromise resolution.

    I should also note that Issa represents a sizable chunk of Silicon Valley, and has been taking big dollar donations from anti-SOPA industries. So no matter how you cut it, he isn’t exactly on the side of angels even if his opposition to the legislation is helpful in the moment.

  73. 73.

    Tonal Crow

    If your server supports /.htaccess, you can backup your existing /.htaccess (if any) and index.html, then add Redirect directives to send all requests to /index.html , which you can then change to a boycott page. Like this:Redirect /trolling https://balloon-juice.com/index.html
    Redirect /trolling/abl https://balloon-juice.com/index.html
    Redirect /trolling/matoko-chan https://balloon-juice.com/index.html
    To undo the changes, just restore your old .htaccess and index.html.

  75. 75.

    Skippy the Wondermule

    This is not the blackout you’re looking for ….

    It’s a Jedi mind trick, folks.

    View the page source, it’s all still there :-)

  77. 77.

    harlana

    I suppose we could have a white out, and I could just post 1600×1900 pictures of Tunch.

    you’re saying that like it wouldn’t be awesome

  78. 78.

    Linkmeister

    There’s a WordPress plugin which sends your visitors to the SOPASTRIKE.com website. I’m using it and hoping it turns itself off at midnight EST as promised.

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