What’s boring [on Balloon Juice] is the intransigent nest of huzzahs and self-congratulatory snarkism combined with the competition for most clever comment braced with alcohol and the attendant ego-enhancement substituted for rational discussion in a free forum.
I thought I should pass that on to you all. Well done. And your reward shall be this:
Quincy
Wait, who loves us? Oh, hell it doesn’t matter I’m wallowing in self-satisfaction regardless.
Yutsano
Beautimous. She pays homage to other Bond themes but keeps her own distinct flavour in the piece.
MikeJ
Did James Bond break up with her?
Maude
I don’t know who wrote that, but they wouldn’t last a minute on this site.
Guy need to read the rotating tag lines.
It’s nice for us to be famous.
Romney on the 47%
Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up?
From the show was To tell the Truth.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: I don’t recommend it. Adele looks like one tough cookie.
Odie Hugh Manatee
We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!
Someone needs to make a Big Bird t-shirt that says Don’t Fire Me Bro!
Going after Big Bird and Sesame Street makes sense in Wingerland. All of those critters are on the public dole! They’re moochers, leaches that are sucking up money instead of making it and shipping it offshore like patriotic rich people do. Heck, one of the characters gets so much public money that he counts it out loud!
He’s nothing more than a vampire on the public teat.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Oscar the Grouch is clearly a moocher, and in public housing as well.
danielx
I knew there was something besides the food that kept me coming back here.
Baud
FTFY
Schlemizel
@Baud:
Funny I had not noticed the putz here before.
I have noticed that every election cycle we get one or two very pathetic trolls who climb out from under their bridge to tell us how awful we are, how awful our candidates are, how REEL ‘MERKINS(R) hate us and how their guy will win in a walk in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
I sort of miss that cute little twit from 4 years ago. Poking him with a stick and watching him dance was fun for a short while. But that gets old after a short time and they add nothing of value to the group so its just one more reason to vote & shut them up
magurakurin
@Maude:
Ben Franklin wrote it, and he’s a dick.
Why some of these people keep coming here, I’ll never know. There are literally thousands of blogs to choose from. Why come back day after day to one filled with people you have no respect for?
Does that asshole think he is somehow going to “change” the people here? And even if such a thing were possible (it’s not) why would anyone want to do it?
Baud
@Schlemizel:
I don’t know how long he’s been blogging here, but I recognize the name.
Boudica
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
As a mother, I can only say, Ouch.
El Cid
Strangely enough, I don’t actually come here in a mistaken attempt to recreate the New York Review of Books, or to blogify the letters section of The Nation.
This being the internet, there are at least 1, maybe even 2 places you can find for the somber, sober analysis and weighty discussion you seek.
I think that something about the name of the blog hinted to me that it wasn’t the Committee to Humbly Yet In A Responsibly Forthrightful Manner Advise The President.
kindness
I’da been more proud if that quote had appeared on another web site, but to have appeared on BJ…ho hum.
While there is an element of truth it’s unshocking to point out what draws many here.
And yes I do love me some snark.
max
I must protest this remark. I do not drink (with the here noted exception of a sip of the wine I am cooking with). I do not drink for different reasons than Mitt Romney. I do not drink because my idea of a good time while mellowly drunk is a mosh pit, and let’s not get into what my idea of a good time is when I’m seriously plastered, but it might include rocket launchers. I never smoke the mary jane because it puts me to sleep which is not really enjoyable (although I am entirely in favor legalization). I have never touched hard drugs because that shit is expensive and also because my weirdo sober thoughts are way better than your hallucinations. I only get high on
caffeine and cigarettesLIFE! Thank you for your attention and also shut the fuck up already with the poseur thing.Have you ever heard of the Internet? You might want to look it up. Try Google. Or Wikipedia.
Also, because I want to see if code works:
┌|┐(◣_◢)┌|┐I thought I should pass that on to you all. Well done.
Ahem: HUZZAH!
max
[‘I admit to finding Adele average in spite of the nice pipes.’]
ETA: Not taking Unicode, are we? Hmm.
ETA2: Not taking the top either. How annoying.
ETA3: No entities at all, actually. Weird.
different-church-lady
Can’t I take the home version of the game instead?
Hawes
Yeah, it’s the cleverness that’s SOOOOO boring around here. It’s so much more exciting when the people are dull.
Pen
Wait, that comment was intended as an insult? My bad, I thought it was why I kept coming back here.
Henry Bayer
Think this place is bad? Try Eschaton comments for a running stream of 5 word blurbs on sports, weather, and anything but the content of the original post.
Sure, many of us are still looking for another Billmon’s Whiskey Bar, but I’ll take this any day.
arguingwithsignposts
That paragraph sums up everything that is wrong with purity trolls like Ben Franklin.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Now where did I put my sackcloth and ashes?
Capri
I know I came to BJ for the intransigent nest of huzzahs, but I stayed for the self-congratulatory snarkism.
RSA
“intransigent nest”?
debbie
I think he misses the circle jerk he finds elsewhere.
magurakurin
@Henry Bayer:
Now, THAT, was a good blog.
Very, very occasionally he posts something at the GOS. I haven’t seen a post in a while though.
Egypt Steve
Let Rome in Tiber melt,
And the wide arch of the ranged Empire fall.
Here is my place!
Schlemizel
@Baud:
Thats understandable, he is easy to forget. Not a particularly good troll
mr.peabody
Hey, I resemble that remark!
Some folks take themselves way too seriously around here. My guess is most people keep coming back here for those exact reasons mentioned by ol’ Ben. If you’re looking for seriousness around the clock, there’s plenty of other blogs out there.
Billmon is missed, as is the late, great Steve Gilliard. Sure would like to read his opinions about this election and all the race-baiting.
tony in san diego
They say that like that’s a bad thing!
Maude
@magurakurin:
I didn’t know who it was, thank you.
Antonius
Would that summary fit in the banner?
BGinCHI
Can some FPer make it so that every time BF posts his handle shows up as “A woman is a horse of a different color”?
LD50
That’s one thing real different from 2008 and especially 2004: the inevitable earnest trolls saying “you know, if you Democrats really want to win, you have to make the public like you and convince them you don’t hate America. As a Republican, let me give you advice on how to go about this”. Ah, memories.
Mnemosyne
I remember one time BF got pissed off at me and threatened to somehow reveal my true identity and expose my follies to the world. Sadly, I had to inform him that I am, in fact, what I claim to be (a middle-aged secretary working for a Giant Evil Corporation who enjoys knitting, foul language, and cats) so the revelation would not very interesting for anyone.
gbear
I am proud, proud I tell you, to have been the inspiration for that comment. I find extra pleasure in that Ben Franklin used a ‘braced with alcohol’ slur to respond to a comment by a guy who’s been sober since 1984.
Bill in Section 147
Balloon Juice: an intransigent nest of huzzahs
Well I have the text for a good BJ T-shirt. Now to focus on an appropriate image.
Perhaps huzzahs are the things that hatch from Big Bird Eggs. But that will only be a funny shirt for a few weeks and then Mitt will be Milquetoast. I need something with more legs. Oh if only it were a real quote by the actual Ben Franklin.
Bill in Section 147
@gbear: When you say “sober” I will assume you mean drug and alcohol free as opposed to marked by sedate or gravely or earnestly thoughtful character or demeanor.
Because, though you may not be high, you do not seem to be lacking in conviviality.
And it may be entirely possible Mr. Franklin is drunk-trolling Balloon Juice and jousting with his own demons.
David in NY
I do sort of worry that the comment thread here will devolve into the insuffereable in-group chit-chat that has infested Atrios’s place for years now. Substantive comments ought to be the norm, social chatter not. Of course, substantive snark is always good.
ED: Oh dear, I see I may have committed the faux pas of taking myself too seriously. I was really trying to take the subject matter seriously though. And to resist the kind of in-groupiness and epistemic closure (take that!) I’ve seen elsewhere.
hep kitty
Adele is a reward? I never got the memo
hep kitty
@Mnemosyne: You sound like my kinda gal!
gbear
@David in NY:
Then I suppose I shouldn’t mention that I’m adopting a cat after work today…
Brachiator
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
That bite’s gotta hurt.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
“Boring” is the laziest of insults.
One might say it was almost… Boring.
Another Halocene Human
I love that track so much I’m playing it again. Thank you, Sarah.
hep kitty
Y’all, it is what it is. Lie back and enjoy it cuz it’s never gonna be perfect. It’s a blog. Or as John noted the other day a “weblog” as they were once called. (Our expectations were much lower then, remember?) It’s not an institution.
Another Halocene Human
@David in NY: This place needs more snark, actually.
I don’t see the danger of turning into Atrios’ place which, yes, is both impenetrable and insufferable. The blog entries there are typically very short, so there’s not much to discuss, so it’s a social forum. Here there are different kinds of threads posted daily so you have shouty threads, thoughtful threads, and social threads. Sometimes they end up being combined.
I kinda like it… it’s like having a drinking liberally group in my den.
hep kitty
@gbear: Good for you! Nobody will ever be able to dictate pet chatter, not on this blog, thank goodness!
Enjoy your bundle fur & purr!
R-Jud
@hep kitty: Seriously. A friend of mine went through a breakup last year, and I really, really never want to hear Adele baying that “Someone Like You” song ever again. Ever.
sharl
Booger.
David in NY
@Another Halocene Human: Yeah, I pretty much agree. I’ve just seen a few threads that I though got terminally self-involved. Not enough snark, though? I’m not sure
@gbear: Okay, you got me. I hate cats. So if you’d hold that thought for the cat thread, which should be up soon …
Actually, after the soonergrunt’s all-purpose generic post followed by a few hundred generic comments, there should be nothing more to say about the typology of comments here. So I’m just shutting up.
Brachiator
What’s boring [on Balloon Juice] is the intransigent nest of huzzahs and self-congratulatory snarkism combined with the competition for most clever comment braced with alcohol and the attendant ego-enhancement substituted for rational discussion in a free forum.
Today is Global Bond Day. Rather fittingly, I prefer my blog sites to be shaken, not stirred.
Or is that snarken, not stirred.
BTW, here’s a little something in Bondage, First Film Clip from SKYFALL, Digger Vs. Train
hep kitty
@R-Jud: Lol, you poor thing. It’s not the voice, really, it’s just the music that is so tired. Lady Gaga, who is supposed to be so “revolutionary” seems to have 2 pretty decent songs and the rest I have seen/heard is crap, same old same old, including her videos.
Love to look at Gaga and see what kind of outfit she comes up with next, but songwriting, boy has it gone down the tubes. Here I go, sounding like an old fart, get off my lawn and stuff.
JustRuss
Just for the record, huzzahs and snarkism are what keep me coming back here. And Tunch-porn.
Joey Giraud
His criticism isn’t without merit, and I’ve had similar feelings, but I eventually realized that it’s the not-so-highbrow aspects of Balloon-Juice that *allows* the deep insights to appear.
As a plus, the snark keeps the oh-so-serious, Jim Lehrer liberals away.
I read a great piece about mosh-pit politics, how America would benefit if more people developed mosh-pit ethics like a thicker skin and complaint-free community.
This isn’t it, but might be close:http://www.altx.com/interzones/gangsta/mosh.html
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
God damn, I missed that thread last night, as I was busy mourning my dog. But shit, there’s a boatload of racism there. Ugly shit.
scav
Huzzah! Wide variance of over the top and people that generally enjoy dinging pans onto each others heads, and then pivoting in an instant to knock someone else upside the gob with an entirely different rusty instrument, all they while discussing beer recipes for their pets and talking entirely in song lyrics about football games in vietnam and particle physics.
Mike E
@Yutsano: She’s so cool… real, and not self-possessed. I’d never break up with Adele!