Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

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

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

People are complicated. Love is not.

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

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

You are here: Home / Humorous / How They Make Fishwrap (Open Thread)

How They Make Fishwrap (Open Thread)

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I haven’t posted stolen anything from xkcd lately — dropped out of the habit of reading it for while, actually — but a couple of hyperbright young geek friends of mine reminded me of what I’ve been missing.

Hence, just now, as I ponder this morning’s posts from the folks here with more stomach for the fray than I can muster today, I stumble on this:

John Maynard Keynes was right, but incomplete.  In the long run we are all dead.  In the medium turn, we are understood as fossils by the kids who just won’t get off my lawn.

What do you plan to forget today?

Edit:  I just noticed that the 1/2 way to oblivion date for the Bush Presidency is scheduled for 2043.  Watching coverage of the GOP effort this year, I’d say Romney’s team is desperately trying to move that date up.

Reader Interactions

59Comments

  1. 1.

    raven

    Hmmm, I’m in a boring training session so I was looking at “fish mount” company websites. I ordered a replica of my big tuna and it won’t be done for a couple of weeks.

  2. 2.

    Ben Cisco

    Let me just say that I find the media pushback on the NeoConfederates…surprising. I mean, come on, Chuck Todd? Anyone here who says they saw that one coming LIES LIKE A RUG!

    May it continue to be so.

  3. 3.

    Keith

    This reminds me of last night when I was watching the terrible Dicaprio vehicle (good lord, the narration was a joke) “J Edgar”, and they were talking about the “Trial of the Century”. In that case, it was the Lindbergh baby case. But it hit me that it’s really “Trial of the Generation”, since every generation (or nowadays every 10 year stretch) brings a new “Trial of the Century”.

  4. 4.

    Jewish Steel

    Today I continue my pursuit of cardio vascular health through the corn and bean fields of Central IL averaging a screaming 13.9 mph.*

    *on my recumbent bike

  6. 6.

    Tom Levenson

    @raven:

    a replica of my big tuna

    That has to be a euphemism for something I don’t want to think about this early (on the left coast).

    Kids these days and their “hep” slang. Old coot like me can’t keep up.

  7. 7.

    Schlemizel

    I saw this and thought about how people are so fond of saying crap like “we will never forget” about things like 9/11. Hell we ignore December 7th and August 6th almost completely. There are still people alive from those dates and their toll and total impact on the world were much greater than 9/11.

  11. 11.

    BGinCHI

    @Jewish Steel: I lobbed that one in there, didn’t I?

    I will not buy this record, it is scratched.

    Seriously, are you farming? I thought you played guitar and read philosophy.

  12. 12.

    lamh35

    Insolent…

    by BooMan

    Our aspiring Galtian Overlord made Sheldon Adelson’s casino one of his first trips since being placed on the plutocrats’ ticket.

    In keeping with Mr. Adelson’s penchant for staying below the radar, Romney aides refused to say who attended the meeting with Mr. Ryan, though the location (a private room at one of Mr. Adelson’s hotels) and leaks from the Romney camp left little doubt. And in keeping with laws that prohibit elected officials from explicitly asking donors for super PAC money, aides to Mr. Romney insisted before the event that the meeting was not a fund-raiser.
    “It’s a finance event, not a fund-raiser,” an aide told reporters. Asked if people were paying to attend, he repeated, “It’s a finance event, not a fund-raiser.”

  13. 13.

    MattF

    Via LGF, Kentucky state legislator on evolution (and I quote):

    “The theory of evolution is a theory, and essentially the theory of evolution is not science — Darwin made it up.”

  14. 14.

    lamh35

    don’t know why my last 2 moments were in moderation, but please delete them

    Anyone seeing this reported at all?

    “Insolent…” from Booman

    http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/8/15/9375/95161#11

    In keeping with Mr. Adelson’s penchant for staying below the radar, Romney aides refused to say who attended the meeting with Mr. Ryan, though the location (a private room at one of Mr. Adelson’s hotels) and leaks from the Romney camp left little doubt. And in keeping with laws that prohibit elected officials from explicitly asking donors for super PAC money, aides to Mr. Romney insisted before the event that the meeting was not a fund-raiser.
    “It’s a finance event, not a fund-raiser,” an aide told reporters. Asked if people were paying to attend, he repeated, “It’s a finance event, not a fund-raiser.”

  16. 16.

    Poopyman

    @Tom Levenson: I read that comment and marveled at how he managed to get a pr0n advert around my company’s filters – and they are very fine filters indeed.

    Well done, sir.

  21. 21.

    Jewish Steel

    @BGinCHI:

    I thought you played guitar and read philosophy.

    I do! I’m reading Nikolaus Pevsner’s Pioneers Of Modern Design right now. Highly recommended.

    I was given a recumbent bike by my uncle recently and I am climbing back into CV health with it. I used to run c 40 miles a week. This was before my 2nd back surgery.

  22. 22.

    shortstop

    @Jewish Steel: How do you like that thing? I’ve always been afraid to try riding one in city traffic. Too low, too invisible, too clear an invitation to death.

  25. 25.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    The comic is genius, but whether people remember a thing directly or not doesn’t mean it’ll stop dominating our cultural discourse. e.g. by 2002, by its reckoning, the majority of Americans were too young to remember the Sixties.

  32. 32.

    shortstop

    @lamh35: Black men are always angry. And when they don’t seem so, it’s because of their fiendish cleverness at hiding the rage in service of their long-term goal of subjugating white people.

  36. 36.

    Boots Day

    I saw this great piece of both-sides-do-it-ism, in a story from Politico:

    [T]he campaign has reached its ugliest, most fevered moment. President Obama himself invoked an old story about Romney strapping a dog to the roof of his car. The Chairman of the Republican National Committee shot back with a jibe about Obama having eaten dog as a schoolboy in Indonesia. Biden suggested that Republicans want to put voters back “in chains.” Romney demanded Obama takes his campaign of “division and anger and hate back to Chicago.”

    Obama referred to an old joke about Romney – one that pundits and late-night comedians have been making for months. Romney accused Obama of sowing “anger and hate.” Yeah, those are exactly the same.

  37. 37.

    TaMara (BHF)

    I’ve been collecting cool shots of Obama since the first campaign (why yes I am an Obot, thanks for asking).

    Black cowboy hat is my favorite, along with some of the rain soaked ones.

    I think this one will be added to it: Obama the Wizard

    Other than that, I got nothing. Hazy warm day in Colorado again today. No cycling for me. :-(

  39. 39.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @raven: Question…so when they do that, do you get to actually keep the meat? That’s quite a catch. Did you see the tuna fishermen’s dolphin video last week? (I guess that was two questions)

  40. 40.

    A.J.

    Error.

    Move #43 to 2009, January to be exact, when every Republican who voted for Bush forgot history.

  42. 42.

    raven

    @TaMara (BHF): Nope, on Maui the fish belongs to the boat. They got about $1200 for that one. We did catch 5 or 6 smaller ones and each of us got about a 10lb bag. Four of the six of us were so sick they never even fished so I was VERY VERY lucky. Negative to the video, where was it?

  46. 46.

    Scamp Dog

    From the original post: “I just noticed that the 1/2 way to oblivion date for the Bush Presidency is scheduled for 2043.  Watching coverage of the GOP effort this year, I’d say Romney’s team is desperately trying to move that date up.”

    Heck, right now no pundits or Republicans remember it.

  49. 49.

    mb

    I’m not sure it’s wise to use the words “oblivion” and “Bush Presidency” in the same sentence. I think you just gave Dick Cheney nine more lives.

    Though I’ve got to admit, it’d be sweet to be able to be oblivious to the W Era (read Error.)

  50. 50.

    jl

    @lamh35:

    Good to know they are worried.

    Need to go full steam ahead on the GOP lies about Medicare.

    And for worrywort concern trolls worried about “not making mistakes” or “giving them ammunition”, I note that now saying the GOP will “end Medicare as we know it” is now considered to be demagoguery by the GOP and corrupt ignorant pundits. See Krugman’s blog entry today.

    Doesn’t make any difference what you say. Bullies bully until you stand up to them.

  51. 51.

    CarolDuhart2

    @Schlemizel: What keeps things remembered is a reason to keep remembering. With those two dates, they started and ended a war that was won. Not only that, but survivors of both have already told their stories for the most part and have been helped for the most part. So there’s little need to remember. And Japan is now an ally and hardly a threat.

    One question I have though, with the internet and mass media now bringing both sound and imagery as well as printed word, will memories of historic events linger longer than we think? In 1941 and 1945 the world was mostly a printed world one with a few newsreels. In such a world, it would take a great deal of time in yellowing archives to revive memories. Nowadays memory is only a click away.

  55. 55.

    Roger Moore

    @lamh35:

    POTUS has gotten into his mind with some jedi mind trick stuff.

    Well, The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded. No wonder Romney is so vulnerable.

  56. 56.

    Schlemizel

    @CarolDuhart2: No, I think memories last as long as people are around who care about them. Even as old as I am the world formed by 12/7 and 8/6 was well in place so the impact of those events are not noticeable to me unless I want to think about them & then I am still free from the physiological impact of living through them.

    My grandkids were not born in ’01 and so 9/11 will have no real meaning to them no matter how easily the images will be to find. By the time they graduate college there will be fewer people who felt the emotions of that day and by the time they retire there will be none.

    Despite all the attention long after it happened how many people give a thought to November 22? There are plenty of images, video, TV reports and thousands of hours of nutjob theories but really almost nobody gives the day a second thought

  57. 57.

    Maude

    @raven:
    I had a tuna sandwich for lunch.
    A friend and I were watching tuna boats bring in the catch. She asked how they got those fish into the tiny cans.

  58. 58.

    CarolDuhart2

    @Schlemizel: I guess you have a point. But people still have strong emotions about the Civil War even though the last Civil War veteran died about 70 years ago. The reason is that the issues weren’t really settled back then.

    I agree that people no longer stop on November 22 like they used to. As the survivors pass away, as anyone who could have been part of a conspiracy die or grow too old to prosecute there is less a need to remember. It was also superseded by even worse and more graphic horrors like Vietnam and September 11th. Which says less about fading emotional involvement than the fact that it takes more and more shock to equal that shock.

  59. 59.

    Jewish Steel

    @shortstop: I love it. As my uncle told me, you are more visible than you think you are because of the novelty of the contraption. Everybody looks at you when you are on one.

    Plus it’s a super comfortable, heads-up ride.

    @catclub: Oh, I’m not up to that quite yet. Just a quick 20 miles. Still building my endurance.

    @BGinCHI: They’re ridiculously fun. Imagine a big wheel that can do <25 mph.

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