Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Stay strong, because they are weak.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

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

So many bastards, so little time.

This fight is for everything.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

The National Guard is not Batman.

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

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

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Reader Interactions

49Comments

  1. 1.

    Bulworth

    The Twitters is telling me the judge in Ohio sided with Obama lawsuit on early voting and has restored early voting rights to all in Ohio. Hoping Kay will post something soon.

  2. 2.

    EconWatcher

    Has anyone done polling in PA that somehow takes into account the impact of the new voting restrictions? Do they really tip the state to Romney?

  4. 4.

    ding dong

    hope one of the fprs puts up the story from bloomberg about the journo getting into a kkkarl rove and crossroads fundraiser.

  6. 6.

    Maude

    @Bulworth:
    The courts have decided in favor or less restrictive voting in Texas, Florida and now Ohio. Hopefully PA will get straightened out. Philly would have a hard time with voting the way the law is now.
    Once in a while, my faith in something is restored and this is it.

  10. 10.

    Randy P

    @EconWatcher: Not that I’ve seen. The ACLU had some stats on who’s affected and it was about 10% of the registered voters. Mostly in cities, but many were actually elderly whites who i think would be a lot of Romney voters.

  11. 11.

    mistermix

    @Yutsano: I agree. Apparently Mercer wrote the lyrics years after the Ellington band made it popular, if that’s any defense.

  12. 12.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    Yay. I got the motor-bicycle I put together running yesterday.

    Unfortunately, our kit shipped with a completely inadequate idle wheel, which created more than a few problems.

    Luckily all it did this time was snap the chain’s master link. Under the right circumstances (like 35mph – with the chain derailing and seizing the rear wheel) that stupid thing can kill.

    We’ve ordered a better idle wheel assembly and a new master-link online. So our silly project is just a UPS delivery away from working properly. in the immortal words of an infamous troll: VICTORY!

  15. 15.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Linda Featheringill:
    Yeah, I sing along too and I snap my fingers in time with the beat. I play blues harp and one of my few regrets is that I’ve played very little Jazz.

    Is it just me or were singers like Peggy Lee, Nat “King” Cole, and the less known Bobby Troup just plain cool in the old Beatnik sense of the word? Listening right now to Troup perform Route 66. Next up; the estimable Depeche Mode performing the same song.

  17. 17.

    gwangung

    Is it just me or were singers like Peggy Lee, Nat “King” Cole, and the less known Bobby Troup just plain cool in the old Beatnik sense of the word?

    Cool in every sense of the word.

  19. 19.

    Mnemosyne

    @gwangung:

    It still amuses me that Bobby Troup and Julie London ended up on “Emergency!” They shoulda had a musical episode.

  20. 20.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Catching up with Colbert from last night. If people paid attention to him (ETA, him being John Hunstman. Oops), he could be the 2016 wannabe who took Romney down. I don’t think enough people will pay attention to him, but it may be interesting.

  25. 25.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    Okay here are the photos.

    This bike started life as a Trek/Schwinn Antelope 820 mens mountain bike. Now it’s something else entirely. Not a bike, not a motorcycle. Not quite a moped. A trek-ped?

    Engine is a 2-stroke 66cc, generating approx 2.65bhp, giving the bike an estimated top speed of 35-37mph

    (apologies for the multiple posts – I have to split them up to avoid moderation hell!)

    Full bike from side
    farm9.staticflickr.com/8176/7901676088_cced22b92b_z.jpg

    The idle-wheel assembly of doom!
    farm9.staticflickr.com/8293/7901676212_e5faf5b309_z.jpg

  31. 31.

    Comrade Mary

    @Yutsano:

    But Ella can make brie from limburger.

    Yep. I think I’ve mentioned here before the revelation that was her version of Over the Rainbow. The woman was a goddess.

    (And I’m tearing up again just hearing the intro. This is a song that I never, ever, ever got from anyone else’s performance. Not even Eva Cassidy.)

    EDIT: Changed the link to a YT video with better quality.

  32. 32.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    I made a few modifications to the base kit, including mounting the engine on rubber for a smoother ride (no direct contact with the frame), and raising the gas tank to clear the open-cable rear break and shift lines.

    I am going to replace the idle-wheel with a sprocket instead of a wheel, and rather than being on a fixed riser, it will be on a spring loaded arm.

    I can boost the power up to about 3.something if I make some mods to the exhaust system but right now I don’t see the need.

  33. 33.

    Nesta

    Lyrics by Mercer and music by Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington. (Strayhorn’s biography (Lush Life) leads me to believe that Strayhorn really penned this one).

  37. 37.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): here is basically what the bike looked like before milehicycleguy.com/blog/rebuilt-mens-trek-820-antelope-white-splash-hybridized-comfort-bicycle/

    Nothing special, cheap.

    The engine kit was just under $200 dollars.

    Also, these kits can sometimes be murder to install on the wrong bike. Schwinn Beach cruisers and others with curvy frames are particularly bad.

    So if you ever plan on doing this – that little trek was pretty simple. I only made one modification to the bike itself (and this is required of all of them) – drilling a small hole in the handlebars for the throttle-assembly.

    The only other issue with the trek is that the rear frame that attaches to the wheel is angled slightly, which makes the idle-wheel assembly that much more problematic. Get a third party idle-wheel assembly with a spring loaded arm, and bend the arm slightly. Otherwise, the trek is probably the easiest bike in the world to mount a motor on.

  38. 38.

    Dennis SGMM

    @danah gaz (fka gaz):
    LOL! A nice lady made a hard right onto the exit for Morro Bay while I was flying up Highway One on my Honda 750. I went over the hood of her car and fetched up in the chain link fence. I was banged up, and sore, but nothing was broken that time. My then-roomie was visited by the Morro Bay P.D. and they told him that I’d that I had wrecked the bike and that I’d been transported to the French Hospital in San Luis Obispo. The hospital mixed me up with someone else they told him that I was dead. He went back to Morro Bay where we were living at the time and he spread the word of my untimely demise.
    It took a while to become not-dead and I scared the daylights out of some people while doing so.

  42. 42.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @Dennis SGMM: My little brother did a header and a face-plant over the handlebars of his motorbike. He didn’t have his helmet properly secured and ended up with a skull plate and some mild brain damage.

    Who was it that said “the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated?” At least you can work that into your conversations. =)

  43. 43.

    Corner Stone

    @Dennis SGMM: You’re gonna fucking starve round here amigo.
    And if you sampled mine you may wish you hadn’t.

    WTS, 12 gauge bitches. 12 gauge.

  44. 44.

    Dennis SGMM

    @danah gaz (fka gaz):
    That’s just awful and sad. Although I was young and therefore invulnerable, I wore a full-on Bell helmet. I had spent time in Naval Aviation so I knew how to secure the thing. Anyone who rides anything on two wheels should wear a helm and they should have some expert help in how to wear it.

  45. 45.

    Mnemosyne

    @danah gaz (fka gaz):

    Nice! I’m sure some of the bike shop folks who post here will speak up, but I wonder if you might want different tires for street riding. The knobby tires are great for trails, but bumpy for pavement.

    @Dennis SGMM:

    There’s this weird conviction among a certain crowd in the bicycling community that wearing a helmet is somehow more dangerous. I can understand one perspective (ie that helmet wearing is presented as the be-all and end-all in safety when people actually need to learn how to ride in traffic) but I really don’t get the people who are convinced that they can fall from a four-foot height at 15 miles an hour, have their head hit solid concrete, and be a-ok afterwards.

  47. 47.

    Mnemosyne

    @danah gaz (fka gaz):

    I’m sure Ruckus or low-tech cyclist or one of those guys could give actual advice on what kind to get. I’m just remembering back during the mountain bike craze when I used to try to ride the streets around my apartment on those knobby tires — it was like riding on cobblestone streets. With an engine attached, you could crack a tooth. ;-)

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