Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

This really is a full service blog.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

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

Not all heroes wear capes.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

T R E 4 5 O N

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Bark louder, little dog.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Saturday Evening Open Thread: Storm Warnings

Saturday Evening Open Thread: Storm Warnings

by | 104 Comments

This post is in: , ,


(Ben Sargent via GoComics.com)
__
Here’s hoping that Frankenstorm Sandy, if she must live up to her publicity, at least has the decency to move along expeditiously. An acquaintance was predicting that if her town officially cancels trick-or-treating for the second year in a row, parents are going to be very very very displeased with the local officials….

But there is a thread of a thin silver lining, according to NYMag:

…Mitt Romney — who was scheduled to do three appearances in Virginia on Sunday — has been re-routed to Ohio. President Obama is planning on leaving D.C. for Florida early on Sunday, well before the brunt of the storm is expected to hit Washington. Politics might well take a back seat to the storm for the next few days, with many television stations expected to bump political ads for more live coverage of Sandy’s approach and impact.

How’s everyone’s storm preps / Halloween party planning moving along?

(Keep in mind, those of you outside the Sandy zone, sooner or later there will be a hurricane or a tornado or a tsunami or a volcano eruption or a plague of boiling frogs in your neighborhood, and the Juicer community has long memories for mockery.)

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  1. 1.

    MikeJ

    A town can cancel trick or treating? Huh?

    Is this going to turn into every christmas special ever made? Sorry kids, Santa broke his ankle/got thrown in the drunk tank/has his sleigh repossessed there’s no christmas this year unless a plucky elf can save the day!

  2. 2.

    Nicole

    I have a 2-year-old expecting to visit his grandparents next week to go trick or treating. I will have a hard time explaining why we can’t go. “Hurricane” is not yet in his vocabulary.

    My own fault. NEVER tell a toddler you’re going to do something until five seconds before you’re going to do it.

  5. 5.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    childless and long indifferent to Hallowe’en, but don’t most places schedule TnT’ing for a week end nowadays? I guess it’s too late to just say, “Do it tonight!”

  6. 6.

    Sparrowgal

    Ten War Against Halloween!!1 Wait, no….

    Preparations here on LI are going as well as can be expected…raked bags full of leaves today, and did some long- overdue neatening of yard, battening down of assorted hatches. Don’t like to be a nervous nellie, and I know oaks are mighty, but there is one poised j-u-s-t over my bedroom that lists barely in the direction of the house. But I’m sure things will be OK. Ran into the usual assortment of food-hoarding nuts today at Trader Joes. Hope for their sake we don’t lose power!!

  7. 7.

    Hal

    Holy crap. I never knew what Josh Mandel, the guy running against Sherrod Brown looked like until today.

    He’s a fucking 12 year old. I thought it was in the constitution that you had to have pubes before you can run for office.

    Also, Sully appears to have come down off the ledge and is criticizing Gallup and Assmussen, and Nate Silver says Ohio is not a tossup and is Obama’s.

  8. 8.

    Allen

    Had the volcano, one is enough. But I don’t remember 24/7 per-eruption news coverage either. Reminds me of the old “New Yorker” cover with the world ending west of the Hudson.

  9. 9.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Hal: Also, Sully appears to have come down off the ledge

    Krugman has climbed on, based on the number of yard signs around Princeton. Unless my snark-o-meter is off, which happens.

  11. 11.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @Nicole:

    He’s two?

    Dress him up, give him some candy and do the Hokey Pokey. He probably won’t know the difference.

  12. 12.

    22over7

    The high desert doesn’t get such weather, but fire in the summer is always a threat.

    I’ll be keeping an eye on it, though, for friends and family and everyone who might be.

  13. 13.

    cathyx

    I have learned not to put up decorations until the day of Halloween, because there is always always a blowing wind that will ruin all of my cobwebs.

  14. 14.

    Percysowner

    I’m in Northeast Ohio and we are predicted to be somewhat in the edges of Sandy. And joy of joys, our temperature has started to drop and is predicted to continue dropping into next week so we will either get buckets of rain of inches of snow. It’s not supposed to reach us until Wednesday, so I’m taking my daughter and voting early on Monday. Tomorrow I’ll be working on getting out early voting, so I may be sloshing around in the rain reminding people to vote.

  16. 16.

    quannlace

    Sandy’s evil eye is centered right here on New Jersey. Did all the stuff…filled up the car, got extra cash, nonperishable food, flashlights, batteries, blah..blah. Beyond transporting yourself to another part of the country, there’s only so much preparation you can do.
    Gave up listening to any more weather predictions. There’s only so much apocaleptic news you can take in. And you get fed up; any change in the storm, no matter what it is, is gleefully declared by the forecasters to ‘will only make things worse!’

  19. 19.

    MikeBoyScout

    Knocked doors today in the rain. It was a good day.
    Going to chillax tonight and knock some more tomorrow.

    Gekko/Galt is the anvil
    We are the HAMMER

    We’re Hammering it home

  20. 20.

    Corner Stone

    @Nicole:

    My own fault. NEVER tell a toddler you’re going to do something until five seconds before you’re going to do it.

    Word to you. Don’t tell any child pre-teen you’re “going to do” XYZ.
    They will hound your ass mercilessly.
    I sometimes think we should tie terrorists to a chair in a room and tell my son that “that guy” is going to play kickball with them as soon as he answers a couple questions.
    Game over.

  22. 22.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @Percysowner:

    …so we will either get buckets of rain of inches of snow.

    Not even concerned about the third and ugliest possibility? I’ll take torrential rains or a four-foot blizzard over an ice storm any day.

  23. 23.

    karen

    Anything that stops ads makes me happy. I’m in Maryland. Between the ads against and for Question 7 (Maryland Casino Bill) and for and against Question 6 (Gay marriage) and the Obama and Romney and Crossroads and Americans for Prosperity ads (because we get the runover from VA) I’m happy to get the break from ads.

    I just hope that if we lose power again that it’s for a short amount of time. And at least I have batteries, flashlights and a lanline phone this time.

  25. 25.

    Corner Stone

    @Raven: The Dawgs did my Cocks a favor, actually.
    As much as I want to see them pummeled into the dirt at every opportunity, their win makes other things actually possible.
    Now, of course, Lattimore gone makes those things much less likely.
    And I couldn’t watch any game today as I was otherwise engaged. But just saw the Lattimore replay and it made me a little sick to my stomach. That was hellish and just awful. Poor bastard.

  27. 27.

    owlbear1

    I’ve chosen to live in a city conveniently located between to active volcanoes, just so it’s quick and painless.

  28. 28.

    Raven

    @Corner Stone: Yea, I was saying earlier that I snapped my left leg in half when I was in JR High. I was lucky because it was “only” 18 bone fragments but not on a joint. It reminded me of Willis Mcghee’s but the chances of coming back are probably pretty slim. He’s so strong and fast but the knee isn’t built for that.

    Go Dawgs!

  29. 29.

    Kool Earl

    PublicPolicyPolling ‏@ppppolls

    New Washington Post poll showing Obama up 51-47 in Virginia very similar to the one we released for @HCAN on Thursday with him up 51-46

  30. 30.

    The Dangerman

    Florida goes down, USC goes down, and Notre Dame prepares to play their first real team this year (OK, Stanford, but that was at home and they got some home breaks). Tonight, I’m a Sooner fan for the first time in a long time.

  34. 34.

    KG

    So, California changed its primary system in the last election… We now have open primaries with te top two vote getters going to the general election regardless of party. I only mention this because Henry Waxman is being challenged by an independent. An independent who has actually been running ads in the LA market on broadcast and major cable channels, not just through cable companies. Find it kind of interesting

  35. 35.

    henqiguai

    @nellcote (#4):

    I only mock eastcoast earthquake response.

    Rockin’ and a’rollin’; sh!t shakin’ and shimmyin’, stuff (granted precariously balanced) fallin’ to the floor. Hey! We’re the damned cat go!

    Yep, that was my house for about 15 seconds here in north central Massachusetts. Big fun – because short of New Madrid cutting loose, the big one, here in New England, is only a myth.

  36. 36.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    @owlbear1:

    I’ve chosen to live in a city conveniently located between to active volcanoes, just so it’s quick and painless.

    Three weeks ago I was keeping a close eye on a smoking volcano out my hotel room window. It behaved, but I was surprised by a 2:00 am earthquake on the last day.

    Monday I’m flying through ATL to Birmingham. Both cities are safe from the storm but the airlines should be well snarled up and down the east coast, so who knows. First world problems, I know.

  37. 37.

    Geoduck

    @owlbear1:

    I’ve chosen to live in a city conveniently located between to active volcanoes, just so it’s quick and painless.

    That describes all of us living between Vancouver BC and Portland, OR. We’re also due for a major earthquake one of these days.

  39. 39.

    JGabriel

    __
    __
    Allen:

    Reminds me of the old “New Yorker” cover with the world ending west of the Hudson.

    It’s not that the world ends west of the Hudson, it just gets a lot smaller.

    Signed,

    A New Yorker

    .

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kool Earl: So where, other than Rasmussen and Gallup (whose outlier Willard lead is shrinking), is the Mittmentum? As I’ve said before, I’m a worrywart concern trool, and even I’m seeing a tie.

    also, too, do any Virginians think Powell’s endorsement is making, will make, a difference? Just curious.

  45. 45.

    redshirt

    Also too: I’m excited/a bit scared of this storm. I live high on a mountain, totally exposed to high winds. So if it’s 60+, well, I don’t know what will happen. Power out, I would assume. Prepared for that as best I can for now (no generator! Just ordered, but not installed for 2 weeks).

    But also excited – I’ve built an awesome stream to handle storms this size. Rock lined everywhere, with giant rock walls in key locations. I’ve spent most of the summer working on it, and it’s mostly done, so, show time!

  49. 49.

    PeakVT

    @Hal: Ohio has been so heavily polled it would be a real surprise (and highly suspicious) if Obama didn’t win there. Nevada hasn’t been polled as much but the results have been consistent. Ditto for Wisconsin. Obama’s baseline+WI+NV+OH = 271 = win.

  50. 50.

    Anne Laurie

    @cathyx:

    Also, I will confess to trick-or-treating well into my late teens. But I did dress up. I was a candy addict.

    My youngest siblings were born shortly after my ninth birthday. So I was dressed up for the first couple of years of high school, since somebody had to shepherd the little guys on their trick-or-treat rounds…

  58. 58.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Anne Laurie: My dad used to go to the town office and get voter-registration cards, which would go into the bags of any superannuated trick-or-treaters….

  59. 59.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    Not to rain on the holiday parade, but as a custodial supervisor at an elementary school for a year, Halloween is the worst. Dozens of parents show up with SUVs packed with chow, decor, boxes and misc. litter. They unload it, party and abandon the lot for someone else to deal with, driving empty vehicles home. The devastation and chaos is really disheartening. Takes a crew at least an extra 3 hours to shift the trash out before you can even begin looking at how to get caramel corn out of the carpets.

  62. 62.

    mdblanche

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mittmentum is so last Tuesday. The cool new bullshit meme is that Obama will win* thanks to the Electoral College. At this rate the media might have been reduced to reporting on the truth by next week, if Sandy weren’t riding in in the nick of time to save them.

  64. 64.

    SinnedBackwards

    There’s a local midi-church sponsoring “Harvest Night” for the poor little xtians who can’t be exposed to demons.

    They need a tag sign “Successfully stealing Pagan Holidays for almost 2000 years”.

  67. 67.

    Anne Laurie

    @efgoldman:

    I think the best thing Powell’s did was rile up the TeaHadis ahd cause a couple of Mittster’s surrogates to make unconscionable statements.

    I agree it was very thoughtful of General Powell to bait John “Prolapsed Pig Rectum” Sununu to push the Ni_CLANG horizon on camera. Even people who were voting Republican in the 1980s weren’t fond of Sununu, and exposing the ugly faces (literally!) behind Romney’s smiling mask is a good thing.

  68. 68.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    @Kool Earl:

    I wonder if the results were the other way would RMoney be “clinging”?

    Either way it’s all about the drama. Gotta have a nail biter.

  70. 70.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @efgoldman: I was thinking specifically of upper-level career diplomat, military/defense and the like, and their friends and neighbors. Chin-stroking totebaggers with security clearance, for whom the chin-stroking Powell might be influential. I admit I’m inventing a bullshit voting niche in my head, but like I said, I’m mostly just curious.

  71. 71.

    PreservedKillick

    Fun fact of the day: at this point in 2008 Obambi was at 52.9 in RCP average. Today? 46.9 (h/t to @MaxTwain)

    Another fun fact for the day: We elect presidents based on the electoral college, not the popular vote.

  72. 72.

    Anne Laurie

    @efgoldman: Thanks! Explanation here:

    As an aside, when John Sununu first appeared on the national stage, part of my job involved photocopying research articles at a midwestern university library. I first saw Sununu on tv right after copying a series of photos on the veterinary repair of prolapsed pig rectums. The resemblance—vast rolls of sweaty flesh never meant to see daylight, centered with a nasty little red wound —was unforgettable.

  73. 73.

    Haydnseek

    @efgoldman: Also, too, there was a hilarious site with the URL bushorchimp.com. The domain name is up for sale, the site is no more. Too bad, the photographs were great, and yes, that motherfucker really does look like a chimpanzee.

  74. 74.

    ? Martin

    @MikeJ:

    A town can cancel trick or treating? Huh?

    Only in red states from what I’ve seen, where people need to be protected from poisoned candy and the devil. Here in CA we do whatever the fuck we want. The neighborhood over basically walls themselves off and has a massive party – bounce houses, hayrides, and simply insane quantities of candy. That’s where my kids will be on Wed, along with a few thousand of their friends. It’s quite the sight.

    @RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: From what I’ve seen, the school halloween stuff rose when towns decided it was too unseemly to have a normal halloween, so parents moved it inside and into the schools. It’s just a normal school day here – kids will dress up, but there’s no other business.

  78. 78.

    SiubhanDuinne

    YIKES!! huge thunderclaps and now angry rolling thundergrowls. Must be the fringe edge of Sandy? Been a long time since weve had weather noise in Atlanta.

  81. 81.

    PurpleGirl

    @Anoniminous: He may not know it but the NYC subways flood quite regularly. Anytime there is a lot of rain in a short period of time, the tunnels flood. I’ve been at Queens Plaza when they closed the subways and there are no extra buses coming through to get every one home. Yeah, it could get very ugly at the Battery, but also any of the low-lying areas and the subway tunnels. It’s not exactly new or a surprise.

  82. 82.

    Randy P

    My storm prep consists of leaving town. This trip was already scheduled weeks ago. I put away a bunch of loose stuff, plants and trash cans before leaving. I’m bracing myself for a swimming pool in the basement and whatever else I find when I get back.

  83. 83.

    redshirt

    NYC is in serious risk if global warming causes big rises in the sea level. Action should be taken NOW, in fact, in order to save the city. Alas.

  86. 86.

    Mnemosyne

    @? Martin:

    Trick or treating was cancelled and/or heavily discouraged for a long time in the Chicago suburbs. Turns out when an unknown person is going around putting cyanide into Tylenol capsules with no apparent motive, it makes municipalities a little antsy about having kids take candy from strangers.

    I spent a lazy day watching TCM and knitting. Village of the Damned (the good one, with George Sanders actually bothering to act), House of Wax (again, the good one, with Vincent Price), and The Hound of the Baskervilles (with Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes). Next, we’re going to a local park to tour a Victorian house and hear all about Victorian death rituals and superstitions. If I have time tomorrow, I may swing by the Autry Museum and check out their Day of the Dead celebrations.

  87. 87.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @redshirt: in that truly awful puff piece on Bloomberg in last Sunday’s NYT, he mentioned a lack of action on climate as one of the reasons for his Disappointment with Obama. Bloomers could single-handedly fund a PAC to raise the issue, but he’s too busy raising money for Scottie Brown, who will save him from that snippy lady who dares suggest he and his kind are not, in fact, the creators of everything.

  89. 89.

    redshirt

    Also too: To save NYC, we’re going to have to block the sea – there’s only 2 obvious spots this can be done effectively: The Verrazano Bridge, and the Throgg’s Neck Bridge. At these spots, giant dams must be raised that can effectively hold back 10-20 feet of additional water.

    They must also open to allow shipping, of course, and the normal flow of seawater.

    Poor dolphins who get stuck on the wrong side of the wall when closed.

  90. 90.

    Zelma

    I am sitting on the shore in South Jersey on a barrier island, pretty much exactly where Sandy is predicted to hit. Tomorrow I will pack up my dog, my cat and my husband and evacuate to the mainland as ordered by the authorities. We will be staying with my cousins who live in the middle of Cape May County and hope that being six miles from both the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware Bay will be safe.

    But I have decided that – unless my house floats away, which seems unlikely, as it has been here for a century – I will save money by this move. You see, none of the assorted Democratic fundraisers will be able to reach me for the next three or four days. As I seem unable to say no to an in-person appeal for support (I can click through the dozens of emails I receive every day), I have a feeling that Sandy will be good for my bank balance.

    Seriously, this is pretty scary. I’ve been through more than a few big storms in my many years visiting and living at the shore, but this one sounds really ominous.

    Has anyone else noticed how hard New Jersey has been hit by Mother Nature since Christie became governor?

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    @redshirt:

    Not just that — it changed the products that we buy every day. It’s hard for younger people to understand, but “tamper-free packaging” is something that only started after those murders in 1982. Up until that point, it never occurred to anyone that someone would deliberately tamper with a product and then put it back on the shelf to poison strangers.

    And, like all good Halloween stories, the Tylenol story ends with, “And the murderer is still out there somewhere, because they never found out who did it.”

    ETA: G just reminded me that those happened exactly 30 years ago this year.

  94. 94.

    Rosie Outlook

    @Nicole: Try telling him you will go visit on Tuesday. If he wants to go during the hurricane, say, “No, we’re going on Tuesday.”. This tactic usually works with a child too young to understand the passage of time. Good luck!

  95. 95.

    redshirt

    @Mnemosyne: Indeed. Though I wholeheartedly support tamper proof packaging. Good innovation!

    Our collective History is shaped by specific individuals in the same way evolution is shaped by specific events – asteroids, ices ages, global forest fires, etc. Long, slow evolution is suddenly shaken up by a specific event, and its aftermath. Just as the acts of single individuals at specific points in history drastically altered the course of our collective societies.

  96. 96.

    Mnemosyne

    @Nicole:

    I may be confused about where you and the grandparents are in relative relation to the storm, but any chance they could come to your house instead? I’m guessing that would be enough of a thrill for the 2-year-old that the “trick or treating” part would fall by the wayside.

    Also, too, depending on how chaotic things are, indoor malls sometimes offer trick-or-treating. But I suspect that the whole trick-or-treating part is much more abstract compared to the prospect of seeing his grandparents.

  97. 97.

    Anoniminous

    @PurpleGirl:

    I know, for a couple of years I took the 1 from 207th Street at the top of Manhattan down to South Ferry. It got “interesting,” sometimes.

  98. 98.

    Elizabelle

    @Mnemosyne:

    TCM is showing a reconstructed version of Lon Chaney’s famous “London After Midnight” at 6:30 am Eastern on Halloween.

    Original print has been missing for years; this is put together from stills. Silent film from 1927.

    TCM is showing Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” (with Catherine Deneuve) and a lot of good programming. No “Psycho”.

    PS: I’d like to see “Village of the Damned.” Sounds quite good.

  99. 99.

    Comrade Dread

    (Keep in mind, those of you outside the Sandy zone, sooner or later there will be a hurricane or a tornado or a tsunami or a volcano eruption or a plague of boiling frogs in your neighborhood, and the Juicer community has long memories for mockery.)

    Yeah, considering I live in Los Angeles which any day could have the earth open beneath us and spill us down directly into the fiery pits of hell, I would never mock a natural disaster. Also, I have basic human empathy.

    And I’m okay with my taxes going to disaster relief because sooner or later, I’ll be hitting the rest of your states up to return the favor.

  100. 100.

    Rosie Outlook

    I watched “The Devil’s Advocate,” with Al Pacino and Charlize Theron. Living as we do in a society based on greed and usury, both big-time sins, does anyone ever feel like Charlize’s hapless wife, unable to get anyone else to consider that she’s not crazy, that she and Keanu Reeves really have become part of hideous evil?

  101. 101.

    Comrade Dread

    @Rosie Outlook: Yeah, that was sort of the point. Reeves’ character was putting his career ahead of everything, including the mental health of his wife and it was all so banal. So ordinary. So when he finally reaches the place where he learns the truth, you’re left wondering if he’ll take the devil’s offer.

    Even when he turns it down, the ending is still rather bleak as he gets a chance to undo some of his decisions, but starts to slide down another path towards the same destination.

    I thought it was a well done, if disturbing look at how easy it is to cross lines without even realizing you’re doing it.

  102. 102.

    Mnemosyne

    @Elizabelle:

    I think I put “London After Midnight” on the Tivo, but I’ll double-check. This was the second time I had seen “Village of the Damned” and I was surprised at how poignant George Sanders’ performance was, especially since this was late in his career when he could often get quite lazy.

    I’m Tivoing a couple of other horror movies on TCM on Halloween, but I can’t guarantee their quality: “The Ghoul,” with Boris Karloff, and “White Zombie,” with Bela Lugosi. We’ll see!

Comments are closed.