Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

In my day, never was longer.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

This fight is for everything.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

People are complicated. Love is not.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

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

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

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

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

A consequence of cucumbers

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

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Reader Interactions

114Comments

  6. 6.

    EriktheRed

    I would like to know if someone can please explain to me how the FUCK it is that Scott Brown is leading Elizabeth Warren in Mass.

  10. 10.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    If we’re impossible, what’s the point of an open thread?

  13. 13.

    KG

    @Poopyman: oh, I’m sure as shit willing to bet that they’ll then sue on it… Not entirely sure how these constitutionalists don’t understand the whole Supremacy Clause issue.

  15. 15.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Two of Breibart’s minions were just on Hannity telling all about the “explosive” video that they have from Obama at Harvard. They claim the “Buzzfeed” video was edited (oh the irony) and that the whole uncut video shows him palling around with “radicals”. They also claim to have “one of Obama’s friends” on tape saying that they would not release another similar video because they didn’t want to hurt Obama. Or some such nonsense. I can’t wait to see what they come up with.

  16. 16.

    BGinCHI

    @EriktheRed: I don’t get it either. All I can say is that it’s early and that when the summer cranks up the real election, the Dems are going to push hard there. I would assume Brown will have a photo op with Romney and that will hurt him in MA.

    Alternatively, people in that state are Massholes.

  19. 19.

    JGabriel

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    Two of Breibart’s minions were just on Hannity telling all about the “explosive” video that they have from Obama at Harvard.

    Fools! They should know better than to tell people about the video before going public. Now the Obama administration will track them down and kill them, just like they did Breitbart!

    .

  20. 20.

    freelancer

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    They also claim to have “one of Obama’s friends” on tape saying that they would not release another similar video because they didn’t want to hurt Obama.

    It was the dude eating the best sandwich made in the 90’s, right?

  22. 22.

    Laertes

    Hey, speaking of constructive criticism, as of yesterday I’ve scraped that idea off my mental palette.

    The design director on a large project with which I’m familiar was addressing a large group of testers, and he specifically directed them to not offer “constructive criticism.” “Just tell us what you don’t like,” he said. “Don’t worry about how to fix it.”

    And that got me to thinking about this idea of “constructive criticism” and I can’t think of any way to defend it that doesn’t ultimately rest on making sensitivity to someone’s feelings a higher priority than getting the goddamn data.

    It’s nothing but an obstacle, and now that I think about it, I can’t ever recall the concept being used as anything other than a way to protect someone’s ego. I can’t think of another justification for forbidding people to point out problems unless they’re offering solutions.

  23. 23.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @JGabriel: I was figuring out that the sentence is funnier if you put commas around the italicized text.

  24. 24.

    scav

    @JGabriel: And I paused halfway between “I am shocked, shocked! to find sluts in this establishment!” and “oh, cool.”

  26. 26.

    Martin

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    Two of Breibart’s minions were just on Hannity telling all about the “explosive” video that they have from Obama at Harvard.

    Let me guess. He was black back then too? Dude is so evil, you just can’t smack the black out of him.

  28. 28.

    Svensker

    @Laertes:

    I can’t think of another justification for forbidding people to point out problems unless they’re offering solutions.

    I never thought of “constructive criticism” as needing a solution to the problem being pointed out, but more that it meant not saying things like “whoever designed this piece of shit should DIAF”.

    Constructive criticism: “The handle falls off when the door is opened.”

    Destructive criticism: “What idiot designed that handle?”

    :)

  32. 32.

    MikeJ

    @Svensker:

    Destructive criticism: “What idiot designed that handle?”

    The problem there is less calling somebody an idiot and more not describing what the problem is and how to reproduce it. If you can’t do those two things (or at least give context on things that don’t reproduce easily) the criticism is worthless.

  33. 33.

    Chyron HR

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    They claim the “Buzzfeed” video was edited (oh the irony) and that the whole uncut video shows him palling around with “radicals”.

    It’s an avant-garde rally–to really appreciate it, you have to see the protesters who aren’t there.

  34. 34.

    Martin

    @Svensker: I have a rule in the office: Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.

    Anyone can bitch, but fixing stuff take real work. In a place like this, where Cole is outnumbered a zillion to one, it’s reasonable to put the burden back on us, because we can just bury him in complaints far behind his ability to address them. The rule serves as a moderator.

    I should be better about heeding the rule myself.

  36. 36.

    New Yorker

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    They claim the “Buzzfeed” video was edited (oh the irony) and that the whole uncut video shows him palling around with “radicals”.

    I’m fluent in wingnut. “Radicals” tends to mean college faculty, especially those of the black persuasion.

  39. 39.

    taylormattd

    How’s about just making the fucking site not load the “mobile” version when I’m using my desktop. That’s all I ask.

  42. 42.

    Linda Featheringill

    @Martin:

    Let me guess. He was black back then too? Dude is so evil, you just can’t smack the black out of him.

    He was cute back then. And skinny. And well spoken. And black.

    Now of course, he’s . . . . just the same.

    [I liked the video. ]

  43. 43.

    Laertes

    @Martin:

    In our office, the rule is “Just tell me about the problems. Let me worry about solutions.”

    Could be that that way is just more appropriate to a software developer, but I find it deeply appealing. It says “to hell with my feelings–there’s money on the line here and I want the damn data. Tell me what sucks.”

  45. 45.

    Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity

    And that got me to thinking about this idea of “constructive criticism” and I can’t think of any way to defend it that doesn’t ultimately rest on making sensitivity to someone’s feelings a higher priority than getting the goddamn data.

    @Laertes: Sometimes it’s possible to get the data, identify the problem, lay blame where needed and make effective change without making someone feel like a total shitbag.

    But not often. The problem should always be pointed out, and if that makes someone feel bad, well, tough shit.

    I was a software tester for many years. I wouldn’t have been able to offer “constructive criticism”, because I wouldn’t have had the slightest idea of how to fix the problems that I found. If I had, I wouldn’t have been a tester, I’d have been a coder. And been getting paid much, much more.

  47. 47.

    New Yorker

    And since this is an open thread, I might as well add that, despite all the radical Marxist indoctrinators that taught my classes at Cornell, I somehow got my first introduction to the ideas of Francis Fukuyama and Julian Simon in courses I took in the social sciences departments at Cornell.

    David Horowitz just had an aneurysm.

  48. 48.

    scav

    Limiting problem identification to those that can provide solutions at the same time is unnecessarily limiting because one’s constructed a very restrictive pool of contributors, and worse, contributors all trained to think the same way. People coming in from entirely different backgrounds and flailing away come up with new stuff, unexpected stuff, no sane person would ever do that so we won’t test for it stuff and the, well why can’t we get it to do that stuff.

  49. 49.

    Redshift

    @MikeJ: Sure, but leaving aside the specific example, the point is to describe the practical problem and not to also include your opinion of the likely parentage of the person responsible, because that’s likely to keep them from focusing on the actual problem.

    And while that’s a good idea, apparently the whole brainstorming concept of “no criticism, no bad ideas” is complete BS, and produces fewer good ideas than if people critique and defend. (There was a good article about this in the New Yorker recently.)

  50. 50.

    Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity

    Constructive criticism: “The handle falls off when the door is opened.”
    __
    Destructive criticism: “What idiot designed that handle?”

    @Svensker: The problem here is that you’ll keep getting handles that fall off of doors until idiots stop designing them.

    In other words, the problem is not the handle. It’s the idiot.

  51. 51.

    chopper

    there is no greater singer in all of rock and roll than mike patton.

    this is an established fact. it’s science.

  52. 52.

    currants

    @Poopyman: ARGH. To be fair, it’s probably easier than to wrangle the environmental/administrative problems they have.

    Or, no, WAIT: No Health Care + Disease/Cancer from Environmental Problems = Lower Population….is that the formula?

  53. 53.

    Mark S.

    Michele Bachmann says that Obamacare could lead to China’s one child policy:

    There’s nothing that this president, one person, would be limited from doing. That’s how profound that is. I’m not saying that he is going to do it. I’m saying that he has the power and the authority to do it. We don’t want anyone to have that level of authority.

    If only there were some court that could say such an act was an unconstitutional infringement of liberty. But there’s no “right to have as many babies as you like” explicitly stated in the Constitution, so Scalito isn’t going to ride to your rescue on that one, Michele.

  54. 54.

    Soonergrunt

    Somebody asked how many advertisers have dropped Limbaugh’s show so far. As of this writing, 45 of his sponsors have dropped him.

  56. 56.

    Satanicpanic

    @scav: That’s a great point. Plus I don’t like being told how to do my job, I just want to know where I screwed up.

  58. 58.

    Cris (without an H)

    Okay, here’s what happened: I reminded my friend, who is a West Virginia graduate, that WVU was playing UCONN today. He responded fatalistically, “Yeah, but if I watch, they’ll lose.”

    So I checked the score, and I said “Hey, Mounties are up by 9 with under three minutes to go.”

    And he goes “Really?” and loads up the CBS Sports dot com GameTracker to follow the happy ending.

    And then Huggy sits K. Jones down, for no reason anybody can determine. And then the Huskies storm back and send it into overtime, and then win by four.

    So it was my pal’s fault. He jinxed WVU. You can blame him. It’s okay, he’s a Browns fan too.

  59. 59.

    Redshift

    @scav: As an engineer, let me say FSM save us from untrained users trying to offer “solutions.” Ideas, great, especially ideas about the parts you interact with could work better. But “solutions” about how it should work under the covers? No.

    Bring me the problems, described as well as you can. In return, I’ll remember that the purpose of testing is to find bugs, and if you find bugs, you’re doing a good job, not telling me I’m doing a bad job.

  60. 60.

    MikeJ

    @Soonergrunt: And again, that number is inflated. Geico dropped them in 2004. Sears never advertised with him, but now says run of day spots bought with locals won;t be allowed to run in his show. Which is good, but they didn’t “stop” advertising on his show because they never started. And congrats to Sears/Kmart for having the sense to never start.

  61. 61.

    gex

    @Laertes: Yes!

    That is entirely appropriate in software development. Preferred in fact. My coworkers never remember the 300 work arounds they have for lack of 2 processes and now want me to code those 300 work arounds plus X more to address their problems.

    Just tell me what you start with, what it’s supposed to end with, what the business rules are in between and let me engineer.

    ETA: Users get to have all the say in the world about the business rules and interface problems in my world.

    ETA2: Or just this @Redshift

  62. 62.

    Martin

    @Laertes:

    It says “to hell with my feelings—there’s money on the line here and I want the damn data. Tell me what sucks.”

    Well, my rule is intended to have the same effect. But the message is a bit different – we need to fix this stuff as a team. I need them to have ownership. It also helps everyone understand the cost of the problem. If it has a minor impact but requires a lot of work to develop a solution to, its probably not worth fixing, and therefore it’s not worth complaining about. Keeps everyone focused on the problems worth solving, not on the easy things to bitch about.

  63. 63.

    FlyingToaster

    @EriktheRed: Name recognition problems.

    Warren is not on TV all the time, and those who only watch reality programming haven’t seen any political ads at all.

    The Rove attack pieces ran during news (roughly 5-7 pm, and 11-11:30pm, and on the local morning show on Fox25). It didn’t do her any damage then, but it didn’t reach people who might consider her elitist.

    She needs to do some tv that will reach the 495 commuters. They can be swayed.

  64. 64.

    elmo

    @Laertes:

    In our office, the rule is “Just tell me about the problems. Let me worry about solutions.”

    I’m an in-house corporate lawyer, not a software developer, but that’s my approach as well. Quit telling me about all the creative ways you’re going to solve the problem — all of which will cause 99 more problems apiece — and just get out of my way and let me solve this.

  66. 66.

    New Yorker

    @Mark S.:

    What I’m saying is that now that we know the President of the United States unilaterally can tell insurance companies, you must offer the morning-after abortion pill, you must offer sterilizations, you must offer contraceptives free to the recipients of those products, because we tell you to — which means they’re effectively setting the price, as well — that says that whoever the health care dictator, could conceivably make that order, as well.

    This makes my head spin much like the gay marriage “debate”. If contraceptives are available, that doesn’t mean you are obliged to use them, Michele. Women like you are still free to pump out a dozen kids in order to make them into good Christian warriors.

    Jesus, my health insurance plan covers hospital stays. It doesn’t mean I spend every night sleeping at fucking Woodhull.

  68. 68.

    Gordon, The Big Express Engine

    @JGabriel: I really wish there was a whitey tape and the white house would release it right after election day this year…

  69. 69.

    Martin

    @New Yorker:

    Jesus, my health insurance plan covers hospital stays. It doesn’t mean I spend every night sleeping at fucking Woodhull.

    You know who else didn’t require his citizens to spend every night sleeping in a hospital?

  72. 72.

    grape_crush

    A means to keep a featured/popular post at the top so I don’t have to get carpal tunnel from scrolling and scrolling to find something more interesting than doggie and kitty pics.*

    Also may require someone to make a judgement as to what’s being featured, so more work and whining to deal with.

    Still unsure as to whether or not the comment form needs to be moved to the top of the comments section underneath the post. For longer threads (like this one) it might be nice.

    (*heresy, I know)

  74. 74.

    AA+ Bonds

    @Laertes:

    And that got me to thinking about this idea of “constructive criticism” and I can’t think of any way to defend it that doesn’t ultimately rest on making sensitivity to someone’s feelings a higher priority than getting the goddamn data.

    Asking for constructive criticism is, as many people here have pointed out, a great way to make the people most affected by the problem do your job for you while you take all the credit

    And by “do your job” I mean “ensure you please people for just long enough to get the money to your trunk of your car”

  76. 76.

    AA+ Bonds

    Don’t bring me problems, young man. Bring me a three-month implementation plan with a space where I can sign my name

  77. 77.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @EriktheRed:

    I would like to know if someone can please explain to me how the FUCK it is that Scott Brown is leading Elizabeth Warren in Mass.

    Not a local or an expert, but I’m reminded of the CT ’06. It became clear over time that to moderates and indys (and I’m making John McCain finger quotes around both words) an incumbent deserves a benefit of the doubt that could only be over come if they were caught with a bag of cash with “BRIBE” written on it in big black letters (which is my gender neutral version of dead-girl/live-boy). One silver lining, perhaps: I added up EW’s approve/disapprove from a poll at TPM, and the total was less than 60%, IIRC. Very few people follow politics as closely as we do.

  78. 78.

    fasteddie9318

    @Suffern ACE: Excuse me? This is fucking Massachusetts we’re talking about, pal, not some backwater shitsville like Alabama or Kansas. It’s GENDAH, not “GENDER.” Get it right next time.

  79. 79.

    muddy

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    Current Cole Mood Status Terror Alert Level Lavender (tending toward Eggplant) (3:35 PM EST). The possibility exists for higher levels later today; please check threads periodically for current level.

    As long as he avoids puce, it should be okay.

  80. 80.

    AA+ Bonds

    I’m not interested in solutions so much as the usability of the toolbox for architecting those deliverables

  81. 81.

    donnah

    Thanks, John. That’s one of my all-time favorite commercials. That and the Geico “Pothole” commercial. Classic!

    I just ordered my new iPad online. It should arrive March 16. I have had the first gen since they came out and I have used it every single day for two years. I can’t wait to get the new one. And only two days before my birthday! Yay!

  83. 83.

    burnspbesq

    @Cris (without an H):

    If they can’t beat UConn, they don’t belong in the tournament. Lunardi is an idiot having WVU as a 10 seed.

    When they get left out, your friend can root for Harvard.

  86. 86.

    dogwood

    @FlyingToaster:

    Warren is not on TV all the time, and those who only watch reality programming haven’t seen any political ads at all.
    She needs to do some tv that will reach the 495 commuters. They can be swayed.

    Warren’s latest email is pretty pathetic. She wants her supporters to help pick the charity Scott Brown has to donate to because he has broken the “People’s Pledge.” I imagine there will be plenty of money going to Warren’s charities in this election, and it won’t help her increase her vote totals. If she wins this thing, I suspect it will have much to do with having Barack Obama on the ballot. Scott Brown’s narrative of the pick-up driving moderate seems to be pretty embedded in Mass., so it looks like he can vote with the wingnuts and get away with it.

  87. 87.

    AA+ Bonds

    I’m sorry, the deliverable is undeliverable. It has crawled up my asshole and died

    Will you please join me in a prayer from the prayerbox

  89. 89.

    Mnemosyne

    @Svensker:

    I never thought of “constructive criticism” as needing a solution to the problem being pointed out, but more that it meant not saying things like “whoever designed this piece of shit should DIAF”.

    That’s what I always thought it was supposed to be, too. Constructive criticism is supposed to be pointing directly to the problem without wasting time denouncing the idiocy of the person who created the problem (and, often, being so busy with the denouncing that you never even get around to pinpointing the problem).

    Also, presumably constructive criticism is supposed to be focused on the things you can fix. If you have time/money/personnel constraints, complaining about the problems that are caused by those time/money/personnel constraints isn’t going to move anything forward.

  95. 95.

    bemused

    “You people are impossible”.

    I’ve just read the 3 posts about the site rebuild but not the comments and I’m laughing hysterically.

  98. 98.

    Cris (without an H)

    @chopper: there is no greater singer in all of rock and roll than mike patton.

    I’m not sure about that. I’ll grant you the “great” part, but the “rock and roll” part, I don’t know — he’s kind of like Zappa, anything he touches sort of stops being rock and becomes something stranger.

  101. 101.

    Gravenstone

    Just heard on ESPN that the Denver Tebows are reaching out to Peyton Manning. I LOL’d.

  102. 102.

    eemom

    @David Koch:

    Nice pussy.

    Steve Martin, “That cat was the best fuck I ever had”?

    @Linnaeus:

    difficult, not impossible

    Godfather II, killing Hyman Roth?

    I have no idea what anyone’s talking about on this thread — I just like to catch allusions.

  109. 109.

    Roxie

    3 new message notifications within 5 minutes from my teahadist friend. Last time this happened acorn went down. Another over reaction I suppose

  110. 110.

    danielx

    @JGabriel:

    Oh, it’s me. Definitely me. And I invite their hatred!

    Also, too: one of my all time favorite commercials, ranking right up their with the lawyer roundup. One of the felines watched with great interest, even looking around behind the monitor to see where all those other kitties were going…

  112. 112.

    Laen

    Since this is an open thread…is/did anyone watch the show Doomsday Bunkers on discovery channel? I couldn’t help but notice the first customer they have on the show. His company’s name is 88 Tactical. Maybe it’s just me but I have only encountered two groups that use 88. One is truck drivers in the army, 88M is their MOS code, and the other is neo-nazi/white supremacists. Am I missing something or seeing something that isn’t there?

  113. 113.

    dance around in your bones

    In Firefox you can tweak a lot of these issues that people complain about. Use Theme Font and Style Changer and change your font and background colors.

    You can use NoSquint to increase the size of text if yer old eyes have a hard time reading tiny fonts.

    And really, check out cleek’s pie filter just because your need your blood pressure to stay calmish. Trust me.

  114. 114.

    dance around in your bones

    Also, for us lazy fucks, there is a Right Links add-on that immediately opens your right click into a new tab – I use it all the time, because who wants to click twice?!

    It can be switched off at the touch of a button, for further lazitude.

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