Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

This really is a full service blog.

A consequence of cucumbers

I really should read my own blog.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

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

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

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

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

The revolution will be supervised.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Oh, God, I wish I Was a Loofah

Reader Interactions

40Comments

  1. 1.

    Spaghetti Lee

    I hate power outages. I know, I know, rich American problems. Still, HATE ‘EM. I’d rather have surgery. Surgery at least you’re conked out the whole time.

  3. 3.

    Punchy

    NYC got crushed. If only all that destruction could have been specifically limited to Yankee stadium, I’d be giddy.

  4. 4.

    barath

    So I was just commenting that Romney’s plan for disasters is privatization, i.e. “disaster relief, brought to you by Enron”…

    And then I remembered that Enron was about to sell “weather derivatives” before they crashed and burned. Does anyone doubt that if you were to privatize disaster relief you’d get another corporation (or another thirty) trying to do the same?

  5. 5.

    jl

    @barath:

    If Enron had survived to do weather futures, they would have crashed the market. There wouldn’t be any weather any more. Which I guess either means perfect 72 degrees all the time, with puffy clouds passing under a friendly sun, and pretty rainbows in between the perfect showers. Or we would be an ungodly combo of Mars and Venus now. Not sure which.

    And, I thought Cole was going to get him some damn generators and retreat up the holler to live the rugged brave and pure live while he held off the Zomneypocalypse.

  7. 7.

    Dan

    Love that era of film making. The buck theater for a 13 year old in 1980 was great. Nighthawks, The Shining, Stripes, Rocky III, The Blues Brothers, Alien, Dressed to Kill, Caddyshack, The Blue Lagoon, and bad slasher films with naked girls. And no smart phones.

  9. 9.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    I hope you folks there don’t have to do without power long (if you lose it). It looks like the GOS is down and with their servers located in/near NYC, that makes sense. Kos said that if that happened that they may have a solution but he didn’t want to have to try it.

    Looks like that’s not an option for him now.

    I pulled our Honda generator out of storage today, dumped the storage gas, refilled with good gas and it fired up on the first pull. I always change the oil and tune it up before storing it so it’s easy to get ready in the fall. We’re used to being cut off (power, roads) during the monsoon season here on the Oregon coast and are well equipped with supplies to last between one and two weeks. I even installed fuel line taps on the cars so I can pump out some generator gas whenever I need to.

    Be prepared, it’s more than a boy scout motto. :)

  11. 11.

    MikeJ

    Got an electrical permit today, electrician comes Thursday to setup the box so a portable generator can plug in. I would have loved a built in generator, but the portable is much, much, much cheaper ($700 for 7500w, 9500 peak). I may even spring to make it dual fuel so I can hook it up to the NG line, but I’ll probably go this season on gasoline.

    Ready for the ice storms (or will be soon), hope they don’t come.

  12. 12.

    Yutsano

    @MikeJ: This winter is gonna be cold and icy as hell. I’m one of those masochists who can’t wait. Hell my window’s open right now.

  13. 13.

    MikeJ

    @Yutsano: Didja see the plea for a nov 29- dec 1 meetup on an earlier thread? On one day in that span. I don’t think I can make it for the entire three day period.

  14. 14.

    Yutsano

    @MikeJ: The 1st is a Saturday. That would be the best day for my schedule, unless we plan something rather lateish. We’ll keep dialoguing about it though.

  15. 15.

    magurakurin

    Queens FDNY scanner

    They just said 15 homes destroyed, 8 still burning in Rockaway. Pretty intense. The Ocean County scanners are filled with chatter from Point Pleasant NJ. They are rescuing people all over that beach town, sounds like a lot of water. Atlantic County feeds are all silent. Must be pretty crappy there. My family has a house in Lonport on Absecon Island, same island as Atlantic City. Bummer for house, but all souls are safe and sound in PA.

  16. 16.

    Politically Lost

    So Mrs. Lost is heading for a conference in Charleston S. Carolina next week and because she flies so much she scored me a ticket to go with her. I get to trip around Charleston while she works…YAY!!

    We’ll stay an extra couple days but, I’ll have two days to check the place out.

    Anyway, I’ve never been there. Anyone have any suggestions on what to go see for the two days I’ll have to myself?

    ETA: We’re going to fly on election day. I think it will be good to be distracted by the cross country flight and not having to subject myself to a constant load of media buffoonery.

  17. 17.

    dollared

    @Yutsano: I’m game for a meetup, although Friday happy hour is best for me . And we’re in the Seattle City Light zone, so no generator for me. Fucking arborists, how do they work?

  18. 18.

    dollared

    JC, I love your metaphor post. Especially the idea of the plebes dying while the rich people up above talk about their “disaster.”

    OTOH, I think TPM’s pic of sea water pouring into the World Trade Center site is a more apt metaphor. Every fucking bad decision we’ve made since November 2000 is wrapped up in that one foto.

  20. 20.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’m in Memphis on business, and just got back from the late night (11:00 pm-2:00 am) tour of the FedEx Super Hub. Fascinating and just amazing, the volume and variety of packages they process every night, and the combination of technology, machinery, and humanity it takes to get something from Mule Groin, Maine to Dismal Seepage, Utah. Overnight.

    But I sure wish I didn’t have to get up at 7:00 tomorrow this morning.

  22. 22.

    eclare

    @SiubhanDuinne: Glad you enjoyed it, and hope you enjoy Memphis. I work at Fedex, but at a regular, but necessary office job. But it’s the guys and gals at the hub who pay my salary. Good news, even though they are mainly part time, they get the same health care I do.

  24. 24.

    JoyfulA

    @JoyfulA: The last time I looked, Charlestown has a surprising number of Drinking Liberally sites. Surely, at least one of them will be celebrating election night. However, the Drinking Liberally site seems to be one of those down at the moment, so I can’t be specific.

    At 150 Meeting Street is Circular Church (UCC), one of the oldest continuously meeting churches in the South. If you’re there till Sunday, this United Church of Christ (Obama’s denomination) is a very liberal church that will welcome you with open arms. If you will be gone by then, you can still take a look at its interesting architecture and its very old graveyard.

  25. 25.

    jgaugust

    I just saw some photos of NYC taken by some amateur photogs and videographers. Holy. Fuck.

    Someone posted a few videos on a youtube channel showing the flooding. This is the channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/erutt1?feature=watch. For anyone who knows NYC, seeing the entire FDR completely submerged is mind boggling. That’s an 8-lane highway with at least an 8-10 foot barrier on the face of the East River and there’s gotta be at least 4-5 feet of water covering the entire 8-lane highway.

    Also saw some photos of the Avenue U subway stop in Astoria that was just a river.

    I haven’t the foggiest idea of how long MTA is going to take to clean all of that up. That’s just so much devastation to the public transit system of the city. Having lived there for 5 years and now living back on the west coast, I can’t imagine what my friends and family are feeling right now with no power and a public transit system that is utterly inundated with water and other damage.

    I decided to make myself dumber and read some shit over at the land of the Beckernuts. Their comments were in the majority about protecting their personal property with guns and ammo, how we should all be reading Revelations because this is the spaghetti monster getting angry at us for electing a king in Obama, and that NYC should just be eliminated generally. I cannot tell you how much I hate those people and how much I weep for the true idiocy of most of this country.

    My only hope is that this storm did not cause too many issues in the major urban areas where we need to GOTV to re-elect the President. I have legitimate election fears right now.

  26. 26.

    Raven

    50 homes destroyed by a fire in Rockaways.

    Heroic firefighters saved 70 people trapped in 50 burning houses with floods beneath them and a raging inferno above.

    The elite New York City firefighters waded through chest-deep water and paddled boats towards the blaze, scaling walls to help families out through windows.

    Damage to power lines caused by Superstorm Sandy sparked the fire in the Rockaways, Queens.

    The flooding meant fire engines could get nowhere near the cluster of burning apartments as the fire spread rapidly.

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2225130/Heroic-firefighters-wade-chest-deep-floodwater-rescue-dozens-trapped-burning-houses-Superstorm-Sandy.html#ixzz2AlvKK7k2
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

  29. 29.

    Bill

    For those with generators: today’s gasoline (esp. that with ethanol) is good for two things; rotting fuel lines and gumming up carburetors. DON’T store your genny with unstabilized fuel in the carb, you will be sorry. Be sure to shut off the fuel and run the genny (without a load) until it sputters and cuts out before you store it.

    I realize that out generators are getting far more exercise than we thought they would when we bought them. Even so:

    I also help out at a small engine shop now and again, and the number of gennys that “ran fine a month or two ago” is staggering. Every damn time, they’ve been stored with fuel in them.

    If you feel that you must store gasoline for more than three weeks, get a bottle of stabilizer and use it.

    If you need to store gasoline long term, 100LL from the airport stores well, in metal cans. Try not to breath too much exhaust from it, as it contains lead.

  31. 31.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @eclare: That was one of the points our tour guide made. He said many of them work full-time but at jobs with no health care, tuition reimbursement, etc. — so they work a few hours a night at FedEx in order to get the benefits. Very impressive.

  32. 32.

    LAC

    Thank Jebus the electricity never went out, though we had flickerings. No Stripes, but did sort of watch some of the Friday the 13th movies on AMC. But between the howling wind outside and my hubby going outside and down our basement to check on things (sayng those last famous words “I’ll be right back”. ) I couldn’t stay with it. :-)

    Scary stuff for real out there.

  33. 33.

    Incitatus for Senate

    @MikeJ: Hi, mind telling us how much that costs? I’ve got a similar size generator, would love to be able to plug it in properly instead of running extension cords.

  34. 34.

    Unsympathetic

    Baltimore was not much of an issue.. businesses here are opening up at noon today.

    I stayed up until 2am because I was promised 100mph winds.. however, the storm was essentially done at 1am.

  38. 38.

    kindness

    NPR said there was a foot to a foot & a half of snow in the W. Virginia mountains.

    Do your kids want to play in the snow John? Makes great pics.

  39. 39.

    dww44

    @SiubhanDuinne: Could someone provide links to unbiased posts that counter the meme that the ACA is the reason that employers are hiring only part-time workers so as not to provide healthcare?

    I’ve a severely conservative relative with whom I shared the NYT piece from the other day about the growing numbers of part-time workers. I made every effort not to politicize the article along the right/left political divide, but she insists that she’s heard, via the grapevine, that employers are telling employees(behind closed doorsI) that if Obama is re-elected and the ACA is not repealed they will lose their healthcare.

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