Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

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

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

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

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

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

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

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

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

I was promised a recession.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Revenge Is A Dish Best Eaten Cold (Late Night Thread)

Revenge Is A Dish Best Eaten Cold (Late Night Thread)

by | 166 Comments

This post is in: 

Hey DougJ!

Suck. On. This:

And just to show that I can be malign to the rest of you, I double dawg dare you to listen to this:

<div align=”center”><iframe width=”420″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/2KZjnFZvCNc” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

Open thread, all.

Image:  John Singer Sargent, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882.

Reader Interactions

166Comments

  2. 2.

    suzanne

    Good on you, Tom. This blog needs more art and less NFL.
    I still think Sargent is the best painter to ever do a presidential portrait.
    Who do you think should do Obama’s?

  8. 8.

    Tom Levenson

    @srv: Me too. I’ll email her, for all the good that will do.

    PS: last sip of a very nice scotch has disappeared down the hatch, so it’s good night to all who pass this way.

  12. 12.

    maya

    Ever notice how the name, Edward Darley Boit, sounds eerily similar to, Richard D’Oyly Carte?

    Coincidence? I think not.

  18. 18.

    Violet

    That is such a haunting painting. None of those four girls ever married and eventually they gave the painting to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in memory of their father. The older girls suffered debilitating mental illnesses. Did Sargent see something in them even at their young ages? Or did they live up to their depiction?

  21. 21.

    JGabriel

    __
    __
    Mark S.:

    I guess John Singer Sargent jokes go over my head.

    Doug posted the line on the night of Obama’s speech, to point out that they were keeping the posts small so the server bandwidth wouldn’t get overwhelmed on what was expected to be a busy night for the site. Sargent was just a semi-random choice, playing off Tom’s (much-appreciated) penchant for illustrating his essays with paintings from the masters.

    .

  22. 22.

    Keith G

    last sip of a very nice scotch has disappeared down the hatch,

    For me, tonight, it’s fish and vodka.

    Chilled Ketel One poured over a few anchovy olives.

  23. 23.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    I have an android phone & tablet (does that make me a conservative?) and use an automation program called Tasker. I check on the google groups site for the program several times a day, I saw a nym that looked familiar post there several days ago. I thought it might be from here, did a google search and yup, I’d seen it here. Bob Loblaw.

  24. 24.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    @lamh35: I can’t say I’m surprised, but what we already knew was enough. I still can’t get past the fact that Condi PDB Rice appeared at the RNC, and it was considered one of the highlights. Then I was watching nutty Christine O’Donnell on Maher, trotting out the “we can’t keep blaming Bush line”. Even considering that arguably mentally handicapped source, it’s depressing how many people–not just on the right and not just in the Village–seem to think that the country just got a clean slate in January, ’09.

  25. 25.

    mechwarrior oline

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Actually android keeps you different than Limbaugh, who is a huge apple evangelist. Plus android is open source! And apple has always been a 1% type “fashion over function” item.

    So you’re in good hands with android.

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @lamh35: Almost makes you wonder if they weren’t stupid enough to want an attack that would let them have the wars they wanted to have.

  30. 30.

    Soonergrunt

    You all need to go and read this NYT Op Ed.
    Right NOW.
    I’ll have stuff on it later–too fucking tired right now–but hopefully one of the smarter front pagers (and that means ANY of the other front pagers besides me) will have something to say about it.
    The takeaway–the Aug 6, 2001 PDB, wherein the CIA practically begged Bush and his neocon National Security staff to take the AQ threat seriously was only one of many that spring and summer:

    I have read excerpts from many of them, along with other recently declassified records, and come to an inescapable conclusion: the administration’s reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed. In other words, the Aug. 6 document, for all of the controversy it provoked, is not nearly as shocking as the briefs that came before it.
    The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.
    But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.
    In response, the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.

    Also check Lawyers, Guns, and Money

  33. 33.

    mechwarrior oline

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker:

    I don’t know if it’s legit, but dude or dudette loaded up a few today and spammed them on KOS, claims they are legit, and said they sent them to David Corn.

    That’s, IMHO the worst one so far, and it’s fucking amazing. The others are horrible in different ways, nasty one on unions. But that one right there would be election ending if it’s true.

  34. 34.

    YellowJournalism

    First time I understood all the words to that song without thinking hard. I think it would have been better as just instrumental, but perhaps Kurt would have approved. It was fun.

  35. 35.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @mechwarrior oline: While I know android is open source; that in reality has little meaning in a practical sense. Both the phone and tablet are unrooted; the phone cause it’s still under warranty and the tablet can’t be rooted (I’m sure it can be but nobody wants to risk bricking some to do so).

  39. 39.

    Ann Rynd

    @DougJ: He’s just a Boston kind of guy. Isabella Stewart Gardner and that crowd you know. And besides, he was sort of gay and Boston is sort of gay.

  40. 40.

    Mark S.

    @Soonergrunt:

    An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.

    Jesus H Christ. What’s really scary is that all those same idiots will have jobs in a Romney administration.

  41. 41.

    Soonergrunt

    @WaterGirl: It was all there. The fault of the 9/11 commission was in not demanding that the President, Vice President, SecState, SecDef, and NSA Rice all testify under oath.
    It is the failure of the Democratic leadership in the house and senate that they didn’t press the issue as well.

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    I wonder if the Good Villagers will now, finally, fucking notice that Romney is utterly indifferent to foreign policy and just wants to hand the Pentagon over to John Bolton et al. And that they’re fucking dangerous. I wonder how long Colin Powell is going to pretend to seriously considering whether or not to lend his august reputation to Obama again.

  47. 47.

    MattR

    @Mark S.:

    according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.

    Is this kinda like how Obama issued no directives about gun control during his first term to distract from his plan to take away all your guns if he is elected to a second term?

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    @Soonergrunt: ::shakes head:: It’s all so wrong.

    I think the reason the president hasn’t gone after bush & company for a lot of stuff is that high ranking dems were aware and complicit.

  50. 50.

    mechwarrior oline

    @Soonergrunt:

    In this case, the Democrats were right not to push it. Reagan, crimes, Bush Sr. crimes, Bush Jr. war criminal, Obama war criminal.

    That’s where we are, I could go farther back but it’s just nasty. I’m not going to debate who’s “worse” here, just point out that if congress actually bothered to haul the White House out for breaking the law no president wouldn’t end up in jail or hung. And not a fucking one of them is going to do it for shit that matters (unlike blowjobs) because as soon as they did it they’d know damn well the next president from their party would hang as well.

    It’s sad but that’s where we are, crimes, incompetence, lies, all are tolerated because both sides do engage in these and need them. While minor shit like blowjobs is actionable since it’s not “needed by the party”.

    And I have to ask myself, is that a line I would want them to cross.. and I honestly don’t fucking know.

  53. 53.

    Ann Rynd

    @Soonergrunt: This. I’m still astonished that so many in that fetid administration got away with so much. And how much the anger at Bush has just
    sort of disappeared in a wisp of smoke. He’s become just a benign retiree to whom no-one pays much attention. He should be chained to the White House fence for daily mockery by passersby and taken in at night and forced to sleep in Barney’s doghouse.

  55. 55.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    @Ann Rynd: when Bin Laden was killed, they were playing clips of Bush when he gave his “I don’t spend a lotta time thinkin’ about ‘im, to tell ya th’ truth” speech, I was surprised at how the hatred of him came flooding back to me, I wouldn’t have thought I had mellowed at all, but I had

  56. 56.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @Ann Rynd: He’s also out of power and won’t be doing much anymore. Those senior officials however will be back at some point.

  57. 57.

    Steeplejack

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker:

    [. . .] the country just got a clean slate in January ’09.

    January ’09?! How about 09/12/2001? It still breaks my balls that the Republicans managed to get by on their “We’ve kept you safe ever since 9/11” line of bullshit for so long, starting with Rudy Giuliani saying “Thank God George Bush is our president” as he wandered the debris-choked streets of New York in the aftermath of the Twin Towers attack.

    And Condi Rice was the National Security Adviser on whose watch the greatest national security failure in U.S. history occurred. Anyplace else that would be a résumé killer, if not grounds for immediate resignation, but in Bush America she got promoted to secretary of state.

  58. 58.

    SatanicPanic

    @Soonergrunt: Jesus Christ, I don’t think we’ll ever get to the bottom of how fucked up that administration was. Al Qaeda was distracting from the real enemy- Iraq! WTF

  63. 63.

    Ann Rynd

    @DougJ: We’ve wondered that for years and years. Gays in khakis and Bass Weejuns are understandable in Rochester, but Boston had social heft. Must be all the Episcopalians.

  65. 65.

    Roger Moore

    @Ann Rynd:

    He should be chained to the White House fence for daily mockery by passersby and taken in at night and forced to sleep in Barney’s doghouse.

    No. He should spend the remainder of his miserable life in Gitmo being interrogated, without any formal charges or opportunity to present evidence that could exonerate him. That would be real justice.

  66. 66.

    Spaghetti Lee

    OH HERE YOU LIBERALS GO AGIN, BLAMING BUSH FER EVERYTHING! I mean, just because he was president! You’re so immature!

  68. 68.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    @trollhattan: one “mission accomplished” and I’m all in– but I’m sure we could all come up with about fifteen others that would start my bile churning all over agin

    “weapons of mass destruction related program activities”, hyper articulated in a way that makes me think he and Condi practiced it for an hour. grrrrrr…. this is not good for my blood pressure

    @Steeplejack: it would have been a very different RNC if this article had come out two weeks ago.

  73. 73.

    Maude

    @WaterGirl:
    9/11 Commission was political CYA. Kean said they weren’t looking to blame anyone.
    Someone wrote a good book about it. The whole thing was a waste of money and time.

  76. 76.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @trollhattan: Nhey really did think Saddam was this big Islamic puppet master. And these guys were paid to actually think about these things. It’s not like Brown at FEMA where he was absolutely unqualified. The foreign policy guys actually had some sort of foreign policy experience.

  77. 77.

    ? Martin

    @mechwarrior oline:

    Actually android keeps you different than Limbaugh, who is a huge apple evangelist. Plus android is open source! And apple has always been a 1% type “fashion over function” item.

    “A research note released by J.P. Morgan on Monday estimated that sales of Apple’s next-generation iPhone may add between one quarter and one half a percentage point to fourth quarter annualized U.S. gross domestic product growth in 2012.”

    So, how much does Android add to US GDP? And why do you hate America?

  78. 78.

    suzanne

    Hey, I’ve got a question for you gardeners….my company is going to do a small service project at a local elementary school, and they want a raised-bed garden. I know typically that these gardens don’t have bases….they sit on the ground directly or in a trench. Problem is that the school might be demoed and rebuilt in the next year or so, and they want to keep the garden. Is there a way to construct the thing so it doesn’t have to be completely dug out to move? Is there any sort of base that can go on the things?

  81. 81.

    GregB

    @Soonergrunt:

    The only man who took responsibility for the failure and told the truth was Richard Clarke.

    He stated the intelligence community was running around with their hair on fire over the threats.

    Rove helped Bush turn the biggest fail ever into the exact opposite.

    9/11 made Jimmy Carter’s Desert One look like the landing at Normandy.

  82. 82.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @Steeplejack: I did tread, but then I figured I could use a chage. I’ll keep it a week. Somewhere there is a posting where those words were supposed to be.

  83. 83.

    SatanicPanic

    @Steeplejack: Oh that line pisses me off. After 9/11, he kept us safe. What you get a fucking free pass for the first worst terror attack in US history and then get to brag that you’re better than previous administrations because you didn’t allow a second one? God that’s stupid.

  86. 86.

    Steeplejack

    @The prophet Nostradumbass:

    I am aware of all Pearl Harbor traditions. I stand by what I said. Failure to detect/prevent attack on a colonial outpost of a moribund giant with a small military vs. failure to detect/prevent an attack on the nerve center of the world’s preëminent superpower (with gigantic security apparatus)? No contest.

  87. 87.

    PeakVT

    @Soonergrunt: I’ve been convinced of the “weak” let-it-happen theory of 9/11 (they might have stopped it if they gave a fuck, but they didn’t know the specifics of the attack) for a while. If there are more PDBs and other documents with the same message that landed on Shrub’s desk, that wouldn’t surprise me. Unfortunately, the general public didn’t really care to find the truth at the time (thus a much weaker investigation than the one into the escapades of the Clenis) and won’t ever, unless we find a way to get beyond the post-fact/post-truth era.

  89. 89.

    Maude

    @suzanne:
    The sure way to take the garden with them is to plant in containers. Don’t have to be store bought pots. They can use gallon milk jugs with holes poked in the bottom and that kind of thing. You dig holes and put the containers in the ground. It works well.
    When they go to move, they can easily plant the plants in the ground at the new place.
    The problem with transplanting from one location to another is the roots don’t like you digging them up and taking them to a new place.

  93. 93.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Oh, Martin. I’ve appreciate your comments here but you’re such a cultist.

    A research note released by J.P. Morgan on Monday estimated that sales of Apple’s next-generation iPhone may add between one quarter and one half a percentage point to fourth quarter annualized U.S. gross domestic product growth in 2012.”

    They’re sniffing glue or something. Being that both OS’s (android and apple’s) are “built” a few miles from each other probably not much difference in GDP.

    BTW: I told my step-daughter about Drum’s cat and told her she sould keep an eye on her little doggie. She said she saw flyers for a missing cat around her neighborhood, sound like Inkblot. Guess they’re neighbors.

  95. 95.

    Maude

    @PeakVT:
    AP radio, about a week after the attack reported that Egypt, a week or so before the attack warned Bush with an accurate amount of detail about the plan.
    I never heard anything about that and the 9/11 commission never uttered a peep. I read the entire 9/11 report. A bunch of hogwash.

  99. 99.

    ? Martin

    @Or something like that.Suffern Ace:

    Nhey really did think Saddam was this big Islamic puppet master.

    I’ll step out a little bit further and argue that the GOPs (and to a lesser degree Democrats) obsession with only electing Jesus-anointed politicians incurs a serious blind spot about all other religious groups. The assertion that OBL and Saddam were in any kind of religious alignment whatsoever is just madness, and anyone who’s had even a first year comparative religion course probably could have assumed that.

  101. 101.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Ann Rynd: Isabella Stewart Gardner and that crowd you know. And besides, he was sort of gay and Boston is sort of gay.

    Hell yeah!

  102. 102.

    karen marie

    @DougJ: Have you ever stood in front of the painting above? Reproductions do Sargent’s paints no justice. He had an astonishing ability to paint light. I lived in the West Fenway for many years, directly across from the Museum of Fine Arts, and visited the Sargents regularly. If you are ever in Boston and do nothing else, go pay them a visit.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker: This morning knuckleheads in Freeperville were cackling that the photo of Obama being lifted by the pizza guy would be Obama’s Dukakis-tank moment. They’re convinced it’s going to cost him the election.

  103. 103.

    Maude

    @MikeJ:
    That book I read had the details of what they didn’t look into. I think it was a NYT reporter. It had facts, not emo stuff.
    Was they guy’s name Zeller that went over to be with Condi right after the report was done? He has had a wonderful career since then.

  104. 104.

    Mary G

    This is the stuff I wish Wikileaks would just dump. All of it. Democrats and Republicans alike. Let the chips fall where they may.

    I can dream, can’t I?

  105. 105.

    Violet

    @suzanne: What do they want in their garden? Decorative plants? Natives? Vegetables and herbs? Each of those have different needs and the raised bed garden could be adapted accordingly. Plants with shallow roots, for instance, would be fine with a raised bed with a base because the roots will never get that low. Something like daikon radish would need the vertical space.

    I second the suggestion to go with containers instead of a raised bed. Caveat: depends on what they want to grow. Not all vegetables do that well in containers, so do a bit of research before you go that route.

  106. 106.

    Redshift

    @MikeJ: That’s not a secret. Republicans only allowed an investigation to be constituted on the condition that it not assign blame. They did produce a report that makes it pretty damn clear, but they weren’t allowed to say it.

  112. 112.

    Redshift

    @Or something like that.Suffern Ace:

    The foreign policy guys actually had some sort of foreign policy experience.

    Yeah, they had a lot of experience dismissing expert input because it told them things they didn’t want to hear, and constituting “alternative” analysis to tell them what they did want to hear. Look up “Team B.”

    They’ve never been right, and they never learn from being wrong, but they’re very good at claiming credit for good things and ducking blame for bad things even when they completely contradict their confident predictions.

  113. 113.

    Geoduck

    @SatanicPanic:

    Oh that line pisses me off. “After 9/11, he kept us safe”

    And it’s not even literally true. The anthrax mail-attacks happened after 9/11, were pinned on a conveniently dead scapegoat and swept into the memory hole.

  114. 114.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I would like Al Gore to step out of seclusion and say “yes, I would have been better than Bush in every single way.”

  115. 115.

    karen marie

    @Ann Rynd: Yeah, I had a good laugh. I don’t normally get out of the boat over there but I made an exception because of the Biden-biker chick pic. In re that, they couldn’t agree on whether the bikers were pussies or Biden was only saved from an ass-kicking because he had Secret Service. Ha!

  116. 116.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Redshift: Team B was back in the 70’s and while the CIA was wrong in it’s assessments Team B was even further off. The Bush version was called the Office of Special Plans in DOD, headed by Doug Feith (Tommy Franks called him the stupidest man alive). Remember Tenent was a Clinton holdover at CIA, wasn’t trusted until he sold his soul to invade Iraq.

  117. 117.

    Ann Rynd

    @Yutsano: Hawt as fire. He’s this election’s Joe the plumber except he’s cute, has big guns, the best cleft chin since Paul Newman and he has a sense of humor.
    I’ll fight you to the death for him.

  118. 118.

    ? Martin

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    They’re sniffing glue or something. Being that both OS’s (android and apple’s) are “built” a few miles from each other probably not much difference in GDP.

    The OS has nothing to do with it. Google doesn’t make a penny off of Android, so it contributes nothing to GDP (in fact, Google earns more off of iPhone than off of Android phones, per their own financials through secondary services). Samsung earns money off of Android based phones, but given that they’re assembled in China and designed in Korea and any profits return to Korea, not much stays in the US to boost GDP. Motorola/Google is the only exception to this, and, well, they kinda suck at the moment and aren’t selling many phones.

    Apple may assemble their phones in China, but 2/3 of the revenue earned off of the iPhone comes back to the US to boost GDP.

  119. 119.

    James E. Powell

    @Maude:

    The two in the background remind of the girls in “The Shining” and I’m looking at the girl on the floor expecting her head to start spinning any minute. Maybe it’s just me.

  121. 121.

    piratedan

    @WaterGirl: i think its a more of a matter of to what purpose for the sake of “bipartisanship”, namely Obama came in to bring the country together and start the healing process to get the country on the path to recovery. Getting sidetracked on witch hunts to bring the previous administrations failings to light wasn’t what his focus was on. Was it the right call?

    I can’t say.

    Walking into office in a huge financial crisis, trying to find any mechanism to try and repair the damage, this was what was “best for the country” and I imagine that there are more than a few administration officials seething at what has gone down in the aftermath. Would prosecuting those asshats for gross mismanagement have solved anything? Would that have bowed Faux news and Senator Turtle from their game plan and put them on the defensive… perhaps, perhaps we wouldn’t have gotten the stimulus or the ACA done, or DADT repealed or even how they effectiveness of Nancy Smash would have been if attention would have peeled off in prosecuting those crimes…

    Would we have ended up with an assassination attempt? More RW militia black helicopter stuff plunging us into a class/civil war? Maybe that’s too much hyperbole, but considering the state of the nation now and the fact the some Republicans believe that Mitt fucking Romney deserves credit for the death of Osama Bin Laden should speak to that.

    Ami I surprised that Team Bush believed their own fairy tales and spun this all as massive damage control, not reaaly… I can only imagine the thoughts in Bush’s head while in that Florida classroom when he found out that Uncle Dick Cheney was full of shit and the CIA wasn’t.

  122. 122.

    suzanne

    @Violet: They specifically asked for the raised bed. The ground here in PHX has caliche about a foot under the surface, which makes gardening in the ground with containers pretty much untenable. It’s an elementary school, so I don’t think they have any specific agenda for the garden….various veggies and flowers, I’m sure. They have an existing garden in the ground, which is a failure due to the aforementioned caliche. I think the raised bed is to keep little kids out, as well. It would just be nice if the garden could be moved next year without a huge to-do, so I was wondering if there was some way to easily move the things a short distance (put eyebolts on the frame and tow it, or somehow put it on a pallet and get a pallet jack, or whatever).

  123. 123.

    karen marie

    @Ann Rynd: He’s also actually successful (he was off playing golf when he heard a presidential visit was imminent) and is community spirited.

  124. 124.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @? Martin: I understannd that, the OS is a wash. Neither Google nor Apple sell their OS. Of course both pay their developers, unless android is pure open source and the devs do it for free.

    Apple may assemble their phones in China, but 2/3 of the revenue earned off of the iPhone comes back to the US to boost GDP.

    So you’re saying that Apple is overcharging it’s cultists customers?

  125. 125.

    suzanne

    @karen marie: That raised bed would be great, though lower to the ground, since it’s for kiddos. What type of bottom would work for something like that….the same kind of wood as the sides?

  126. 126.

    Ann Rynd

    Upp! Van Duzer is on his way over with a six pack and a Big Apple pizza. Must go prepare for my bearhug. ‘Night suckers.

  127. 127.

    Roger Moore

    @Steeplejack:
    I’m still inclined to disagree. Pearl Harbor was not a “colonial outpost”; it was a major military base and the strategic linchpin of the Pacific. It was theoretically well defended, so the attack represented both an intelligence and operational failure. And in terms of direct consequences, the difference is stark. 9/11 was a human disaster and caused a lot of financial damage, but it had little real effect on our security. Pearl Harbor was a major military blow, and it was only the blind luck of all the carriers being at sea that prevented it from being a complete catastrophe.

  129. 129.

    karen marie

    @suzanne: I’m sure there are materials lists for stuff like that somewhere. I would do some googling and/or contact the group named in the pic caption. The Fenway Victory Gardens, where I had a plot for quite a while, had a handicap garden w beds like those but I don’t know what they had for bottoms.

  131. 131.

    PeakVT

    @piratedan: Not putting much effort into investigating the Bush administration was a good tactical call by Obama. In the longer run, having a culture of impunity develop in the conservative establishment probably won’t be good for the country.

  135. 135.

    piratedan

    @PeakVT: pretty sure i agree, and yet there’s still a part of me that wants to have the truth come to light as to just how fucked up the party of moral certitude has become…. people and their fucking issues, whether they didn’t get enough pussy earlier in their lives so they have to shame the sluts or this misguided bullshit of they laughed at my Daddy, so I’m gonna make Saddam Hussein my boogeyman for all of America’s ills. too bad the american dream hasn’t come for you yet, but I got mine so fuck you…. It would be different if those guys actually believed their bullshit or maybe its better that they don’t but they stand for damn near everything I was raised as a child to be against.

  136. 136.

    Roger Moore

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    So you’re saying that Apple is overcharging it’s cultists customers?

    No, he’s saying that the real money comes from selling apps and services, not from selling hardware. Given that the phones (and apps) are sold all over the world, that means we’re bringing money from all over the place to the US. Or we would be if we could be confident that Apple’s profits were being properly repatriated, rather than stashed overseas waiting for a tax holiday.

  137. 137.

    kdaug

    @mechwarrior oline:

    And not a fucking one of them is going to do it for shit that matters (unlike blowjobs) because as soon as they did it they’d know damn well the next president from their party would hang as well.

    LBJ was told the Civil Rights Act would cost the South for Democrats for a generation. He knew it.

    He did it anyway.

  138. 138.

    Greg

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    @gwangung: Of course not, my contention is the figures are grossly inflated.

    US GDP in 2011: $15.29 trillion (via CIA World Factbook)
    Apple gross revenue 2011: $108 billion

    That’s 0.7% of US GDP for last year. So saying that Apple’s new product launch for the quarter will effect quarterly GDP by between 0.25% and 0.5% isn’t really out of the ballpark at all.

  139. 139.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @gwangung: Arithmetic, who do you think you are, Bill Clinton? [/snark] The numbers from JP Morgan are on projected sales, that’s a guess. Possibly an informed guess, but they don’t have the best track record recently. Not everybody goes out and buys a new phone when it comes out, they wait for their contact to allow for an upgrade.

  142. 142.

    ? Martin

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    So you’re saying that Apple is overcharging it’s cultists customers?

    You realize those so-called cultists would form the 3rd most populist nation on the planet – larger than the US. Your attitude toward Apple users is nearly identical to Republican’s attitude toward Obama voters. When presented with such overwhelming evidence, you might consider reassessing your assumptions.

    And since I pay the same to the carrier for an iPhone as for an Android phone, I guess the carriers are actually the ones overcharging the Android owners.

    But yes, good point on Google’s developers.

  145. 145.

    Roger Moore

    @Greg:

    That’s 0.7% of US GDP for last year. So saying that Apple’s new product launch for the quarter will effect quarterly GDP by between 0.25% and 0.5% isn’t really out of the ballpark at all.

    Yes it is. For Apple to increase GDP by 0.25% all by itself, it would have to grow from 0.7% to 0.95% of the economy, or a roughly 35% increase in sales over the previous year- a year that had a massive increase in sales that resulted from the release of the iPhone 4s right in time for the Christmas 2011 rush. That seems implausible, especially because the smartphone market is getting close to saturation.

  146. 146.

    Steeplejack

    @Roger Moore:

    Pearl Harbor was attacked in December 1941. Four years later, World War II was over, with both Germany and Japan in smoking ruins. Currently, 11 years after 9/11, we are still mired down in Afghanistan, and I’m not sure we have completely washed our hands of Iraq. And “little real effect on our security”? Every time you shuffle through that security line at the airport to get X-rayed and possibly have your nutsack fondled by a TSA drone bin Laden chuckles in hell. And I won’t even get into all the (previously) extrajudicial powers that the imperial presidency has appropriated to itself after 9/11.

    Pearl Harbor was a hard blow, no doubt. But it was a relatively straightforward task for the greatest industrial power in the world to replace the lost battleships and other matériel. Any damage was made good in less than four years.

    How do we retrieve all that we have lost in the aftermath of 9/11? The abridgment of our freedoms, the utter waste of life and treasure in the Iraq fiasco, the loss of our prized “American exceptionalism”? We have the largest and most expensive military in the world, and we are punching in the dark against enemies real and imagined in a “war on terror” that almost by definition can have no end. All because of 9/11.

    So, yeah, “in terms of direct consequences,” I think that’s a worse intelligence failure than Pearl Harbor.

  147. 147.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @? Martin: Martin, I have no brief against Apple or apple users, though they are quite dedicated. I will admit that I’ve never owned an Apple product, based on relative cost. You may be quite right about the cost when it comes to phones. However, when I got my phone, the android phone was cheaper.

  148. 148.

    MikeJ

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    However, when I got my phone, the android was cheaper.

    It’s also much cheaper for anybody that wants to develop apps. To put an app in the google play store cost $25 one time to set up an account. To put an app in the apple store costs $100 per year per app.

  151. 151.

    ? Martin

    @Roger Moore: Actually, Apple has paid US federal taxes on about half of their overseas money. The other half represents money they’re using to secure contracts, buy equipment, and for real estate as they expand retail. They’re spending about $8B annually now on those items, most of it outside the US.

    iPhone will never commoditize because there’s no other OEM to offer the same OS based ecosystem. Apple makes enormous money off the hardware. They make some off the software and services (more than Google at least) but nothing like what they earn off of hardware.

    The real #2 business at Apple is retail. If you spun the retail segment out as a separate business and assume it pays standard wholesale price for Apple gear, they’d post $20B in sales – roughly what Macy’s does globally, or about the 30th largest US-headquartere retailer. The 5th avenue store is estimated to sell $400M annually (estimated to be the highest revenue retail store in the US). We know the Santa Monica store (from city council meeting minutes when Apple was applying to expand their retail space) sells over $250M. The Grand Central store is forecast to match or exceed the 5th avenue store.

  153. 153.

    Cacti

    @Roger Moore:

    And Condi Rice was the National Security Adviser on whose watch the greatest national security failure in U.S. history since Pearl Harbor occurred.

    I would call 09/11 the worst for the fact that 98% of the casualties were civilians. Pearl Harbor was a strike on a military target, and the casualties were almost entirely military personnel. If Japan had the intention to maximize collateral damage, it could have been much worse.

  154. 154.

    Roger Moore

    @Steeplejack:
    You apparently don’t understand what “direct consequences” means. The direct consequences of 9/11 was the loss of about 3,000 lives, several large buildings, and four airplanes. Everything else you mention is an indirect result and a consequence of the leadership we had in place at the time, not the power of the attack. If we had a President the quality of Bush in power in 1941, we might well have lost WWII, or at least not won it conclusively. If we had a President the quality of FDR on 9/12, we never would have gone into Iraq, and we would have caught Osama and a big chunk of AQ leadership at Tora Bora.

  155. 155.

    ? Martin

    @Roger Moore:

    For Apple to increase GDP by 0.25% all by itself, it would have to grow from 0.7% to 0.95% of the economy, or a roughly 35% increase in sales over the previous year- a year that had a massive increase in sales that resulted from the release of the iPhone 4s right in time for the Christmas 2011 rush. That seems implausible, especially because the smartphone market is getting close to saturation.

    So far, each model iPhone has sold roughly equal to all previous iPhone models combined (it’s properly geometric that way), and is their largest revenue driver. iPhone (alone) as a business exceeds Microsofts total revenues and profits. Apple revenues have been growing 50% annually. Forbes lists Apple as the 8th fastest growing company.

    Apple is expected to introduce an iPad Mini in October. Assuming it sees sales comparable to the Amazon Fire, and assuming that the iPhone 5 growth slows to half the rate the 4S did, they’ll see that 35% increase. Mac sales have also been increasing, as have retail as noted above.

    Remember that iPhone sales are strongly driven by contract replacement, and so the iPhone 5 will be well timed to replace the iPhone 4s coming off of contract and still capture holiday sales. The iPhone 5 is also expected to be the first iPhone to support TD-SCDMA, which will open up sales of the iPhone on China Mobile later this year (650 million subscribers).

  156. 156.

    yopd1

    I’ve never wanted to meet a politician in a dark alley until now

    RICHMOND – Western Prince William Del. Bob Marshall, R-13th, says disabled children are God’s punishment to women who have aborted their first pregnancy.
    He made that statement last Thursday at a press conference to oppose state funding for Planned Parenthood.

    My daughter has multiple disabilities.

  157. 157.

    Roger Moore

    @Roger Moore:
    On further consideration, I’ll accept that Condi Rice was National Security Adviser for the worst national security failure in US history. I just think that failure was giving up on Afghanistan to invade Iraq, not allowing the 9/11 attacks. Switching from Afghanistan to Iraq was a far worse failure because it was 100% our mistake, and an unforced error like that is far worse than failing to prevent an external attack like Pearl Harbor or 9/11.

  158. 158.

    Anne Laurie

    @DougJ:

    How can [Boston] be both gay and so badly dressed?

    It’s the self-confident, old-money “gay” [aka ‘sophisticated’] that announces “I am so cool, whatever I chooose to wear is automatically the coolest outfit in the room.” Which the natives usually explain, when pressed, as “We’re more interested in what one knows than what one wears.” Done well, it’s Steve Jobs; done badly, it’s Bill Gates.

  159. 159.

    Anne Laurie

    @suzanne:

    They specifically asked for the raised bed. The ground here in PHX has caliche about a foot under the surface, which makes gardening in the ground with containers pretty much untenable. It’s an elementary school, so I don’t think they have any specific agenda for the garden….various veggies and flowers, I’m sure. They have an existing garden in the ground, which is a failure due to the aforementioned caliche. I think the raised bed is to keep little kids out, as well. It would just be nice if the garden could be moved next year without a huge to-do, so I was wondering if there was some way to easily move the things a short distance (put eyebolts on the frame and tow it, or somehow put it on a pallet and get a pallet jack, or whatever).

    The real size restriction with raised beds — as I found to my continued aggravation, after building two from concrete blocks without planning in advance — is that the gardener has to be able to reach the center of the bed, to plant and weed and water. That’s why three feet is a common standard; any wider than that, and it’s hard to reach the center of the bed unless you’re extremely tall (or else you have to climb up in the bed, which means leaving empty spaces at the edges). If the little kids are doing the gardening, 18 inches might even be as wide as you can make the bed before they start crushing the plants at the edges when they try to reach the center. A moderatley competent carpenter should be able to knock together 3×3 or smaller ‘beds’ that sit on plywood, or even heavy-duty nylon-polyethelene sheeting, that can be broken down & reassembled as needed. And given time constraints & attention spans, if you stick to planting annuals & the kind of veggies best suited to raised beds (salad greens, radishes, tomatoes) by the time the site is decommissioned, you might just want to pull the corner pieces, rescue any individaul plants you’ve gotten attached to, and compost the rest rather than trying to move it.

  161. 161.

    Applejinx


    Holy crap, if this is real. “The guard towers and barbed wire were to keep would-be factory workers out!”

    Two responses:

    One, if there is any truth to that, nice society you have there!

    Two, since this is unimaginable to typical Americans, I hope he tells this story in the debates.

    “Yeah, Mitt. The barbed wire on our Supermax prisons is to keep people out, too…”

    The thing is, you can hear in his voice, he completely believes it. He believed the guy. This is Mitt Romney’s view of the world.

    We should be grateful to work as slaves because there are countless untouchables desperate to attain even that status, and that is how society is supposed to be. That’s what he wants for America, too.

  162. 162.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    I just watched the music clip. It wasn’t bad actually and has over 1.75M views. Good production quality as well. I Facebooked it so my friends could have something surreal to start their day.

  166. 166.

    imonlylurking

    @suzanne: Yes, absolutely. Pick up a copy of Square Foot Gardening-the author has a picture of one that is completely off the ground so people in wheelchairs can work on it.

    I don’t follow his system completely but it’s a really good starting point.

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