Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Democrats are back in array!

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Nothing worth doing is easy.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

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119Comments

  5. 5.

    vestigial

    Two grand? Good heavens, what how many graphics cards do you have? You can build a very decent system for a grand.

  8. 8.

    JPL

    John, I don’t donate often because I hate, hate paypal but with the calendar, I could donate through Amazon.. Set up something so we can help you out… Just not PayPal. In the olden days, I just sent a check to fdl but for obvious reasons not anymore.
    also too, your team sucks, just sayin

  11. 11.

    John Cole

    There is no reason to donate, so don’t. I still have my Macbook Pro. I’ll just tear my pc apart and use parts from my old one to figure out what blew up and replace it.

  12. 12.

    JasonF

    Political hypothesis: over the last five years or so, we have witnessed a 180 degree inversion of the old aphorism “Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.”

    Discuss.

  13. 13.

    RedKitten

    Two grand seems like an awful lot, but I suppose you know what you need. We cheaped out on our desktop, and I regret it. I had to futz around heavily with the settings of Civ V to even get it to play, and it’s still a lot slower than I’d like.

  14. 14.

    Dee Loralei

    I’m rooting for your Eers, if that helps. And they did just score! And recovered a fumble on the 50. So it’s not all bad, dude. Sorry about the PC.

  15. 15.

    JGabriel

    John Cole @ Top:

    … my desktop pc just blew up. Cuz I have two grand just lying around to buy another.

    I’m with vestigial on this. You can build a damn good PC for $1000-$1200. Hell, these days you can build a pretty good box for about $700-$800, and a perfectly reasonable system for $400-$600, including, let’s say, an AMD 7750 or NVidia 550 Ti graphics card.

    Here’s Tech Reports Christmas System Building Guide to get you started.

    .

  17. 17.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    Since it’s an open thread .. new smartphone here. Any clues on how to get this site to open in the mobile version? It seems to go back and forth with the normal web page at random.

  18. 18.

    BC

    No, no, no, John, your desktop pc did not blow up because it thinks you have 2 grand around to fix it or buy a new one. It blew up because it knows you DON’T have 2 grand around to fix it or buy new. You have to understand the reasoning of the machines. I never tell one car how much I spent to fix the other, don’t even talk about it when riding in the non-fixed car. You have to be smarter than your machines.

  19. 19.

    smintheus

    Read the NYT obit of Charles Durning, was surprised by its account of his exploits in WWII. Read some earlier reports dating back several years, and…they don’t add up. Either reporters have misrepresented or badly jumbled what he told them, or Durning was a fantasist.

    By various accounts, he: Enlisted at the age of 17 (1940); was drafted at 21 (spring of 1944); served as a rifleman; served in artillery; was in first wave going ashore at Omaha Beach (June 6, 1944); landed on Normandy in a glider and fought his way back to the beach; was badly wounded by a mine about June 16, recuperating in UK for 6 months; was sent back to front and found himself fighting in Battle of Bulge; was captured with his entire unit (which would have to be an artillery unit), marched to Malmedy, and was one of few to escape from that infamous massacre [the Malmedy survivors are well documented, and Durning wasn’t one of them]; was later badly wounded in chest and spent rest of war in hospital. Somehow or other you have to fit in other episodes as well: being the sole survivor when his entire unit was wiped out in a machine gun ambush; getting shot in the legs by a German machine gun; and fighting hand to hand with a young German rifleman in a field in Belgium, when Durning says he was stabbed about 7 times before killing the kid. And then there’s the fact he claimed he was awarded 3 purple hearts and a silver star, but left the Army in 1946 as only a PFC.

    Love Durning’s film roles, but what the hell is up with all these fantastical claims about his war record? And how can newspapers publish obits that don’t seem to take any trouble to sort out such a sweeping array of claims about the deceased’s war record? I don’t doubt he served in the military during the war, for which he deserves credit. But if he embellished, that’s part of the record as well and ought to be told.

  22. 22.

    Maude

    @smintheus:
    It’s in his military file. That’s where they got the information for his obit. His NYT obit would have been written earlier and then added to when he died.

  27. 27.

    smintheus

    @Maude: What ‘military file’?

    These stories about Durning’s war exploits have been circulating for the last decade or so; they include more details than the NYT reported, and the more details you lump in the less plausible the whole becomes.

    Durning himself talked about his being stabbed multiple times in a field in Belgium; how can that fit into a career in which he spent the summer and fall of 1944 in a hospital in the UK?

  29. 29.

    pseudonymous in nc

    Shitty venue, shitty weather, shitty crowd, shitty performances. I like bowl games that aren’t in the Brown Christmas part of the US, but this isn’t one of them.

  30. 30.

    mai naem

    @Sly: Friedman doesn’t know shit about Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe is a POS dictator asshoal. Ian Smith was an asshoal too but Zimbabwe becoming independent much later than other African countries should have helped Mugabe pick a better template for running the country. Instead the tinpot dictator ran it into the ground.

  35. 35.

    pseudonymous in nc

    My next PC may well end up being one of those boxes the size of a CD ROM drive, now that I’ve pushed off most of my storage to a NAS. No real reason to have the big tower, since I don’t really play games or do anything graphics intensive. The Raspberry Pi shows that you can put a redonkulous amount of computing power in an itty-bitty space these days.

  36. 36.

    smintheus

    @Maude:

    I don’t find you credible.

    Credible about what? If you don’t believe that these things have been reported about his war record, then you can easily determine whether I’m telling the truth…by doing a bit of your own research to verify them.

  38. 38.

    Mudge

    @smintheus: The man’s dead. I don’t care if they say he was the second coming..he was traumatized by his war years and became a damn good actor. I fail to understand your outrage. He will not benefit by any exaggeration. Of course, maybe Judith Miller wrote the obit.

  39. 39.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @efgoldman:

    From a personal point of view, they’re a pain in the ass. You can’t save anything, even if its a work-related shortcut, to your desktop.

    You’re thinking more about the Chromebox, though, with its browser-based UI and web-based applications suite. Nettops, and the Intel NUC in particular, are proof-of-concept for hardware, not software: you can bung a SSD inside and install Windows, or treat it as a headless *nix server box, or whatever you like. There are definitely hurdles in terms of cooling, but the inevitable shift away from mechanical hard drives and the power efficiency of modern silicon is already heading that way.

  41. 41.

    dr. luba

    @Sly: The country is in worse shape than we thought! Apparently there are no taxi drivers in Zimbabwe! Friedman had to talk to a farmer: “Speaking with a local farmer from the unpopular Palestinian community here….”

  42. 42.

    Mike in NC

    @David Koch:

    Remember when Reagan insisted the military desegregated during the Pearl Harbor attack based on his viewing of the film, “Tora, Tora, Tora”.

    Your link to that book also noted the whopper that Reagan told about being present at the liberation of a concentration camp, when in fact he spent the entire war in Hollywood. Our failed media isn’t a recent development.

  43. 43.

    tothemainerborn

    You still have two days to drink your ass off and do obnoxious shit if you want, so–golden opportunity! In three days it will be something you did “last year.”

  45. 45.

    redshirt

    More fluffy, light, white snow in Maine. This winter is already worse than last year and we just began. Global Warming is an obvious fraud.

    Skiers must be loving it. Wish I were one, kinda. Skiing kind of sucks. And $$$.

  49. 49.

    RobertDSC-iPhone 4

    Does Pittsburgh have no Craigslist to buy a machine?

    My new iMac was bought that way. It’s finally integrated with the arrival of the correct VGA adapter. Now with a bit of a hack, I can run the external monitor and darken the iMac’s busted screen. Good times.

  51. 51.

    redshirt

    @efgoldman: Wet snow’s the worse. We had a week of storms last week, one of which was 4 inches of snow, 1.5 inches of rain. Wowzie! I’ve never felt heavier snow, and had to keep telling myself “This is how lots of people have heart attacks! Take it easy!”. I can’t help myself though.

    The snow tonight is like God’s own powder. I can see night skiing at Sunday River from my house.

    If your last year’s plow guy has half a brain, he’ll show up. $$$ after all. Can’t hurt to call him. Plow guys live for this.

    I’ll stick with Senor Plow, however.

  54. 54.

    redshirt

    @efgoldman: I know you probably think you’re in the far North in RI, but let me tell you how SOUTHERN you are. Very! For example, your Spring starts 6-8 weeks ahead of Spring up here, and your Fall lasts 4 weeks or so longer. It’s a dramatic difference for not very far, mileage wise.

    I hate the snow. So I chose the snowiest place I could find. Yay me!

  58. 58.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @redshirt:

    We’re suffering with 65 degrees and sunny here on the south Oregon coast. It got so bad we had to open the doors and windows on the house as the sun had heated it up to 83 in here. If it holds I’m thinking about pulling the motorcycle out tomorrow for a short run.

    It’s tough but I know we will survive! ;p

  60. 60.

    different-church-lady

    No, no, it’s a PC, it only costs like $238 dollars to replace.

    That’s what PC people always try to get me to believe, at any rate…

  63. 63.

    redshirt

    @efgoldman: ME rules in some regards, not so much in others. A weird place, to be sure. But cold! I feel ya, however. I send pity out to any and all my Western/Northern NY Brothers and Sisters. That’s the worst weather around, I harbor no illusions. I pour one out for the unfortunate soles of Rochester.

    Why is Blackstone Valley weather so different than the rest of RI? Elevation, or lack thereof?

  64. 64.

    Rosie Outlook

    We got five inches today and maybe another inch tomorrow . I don’t mind snow; it’s the ice storms that make me stay inside.

    Jenjen, are you here today? How are Jonesy and the dogs getting along?

  65. 65.

    Dupe70

    All I can say is go Rice! Actually went to the game and it was a blast after we got past the fumblitis in the first half.

  66. 66.

    different-church-lady

    BTW: is it common in the college game to go for it on 4th and goal from the 1? In the second quarter?

  69. 69.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    I made a wonderful chicken stir fry for dinner tonight. Question, is there anything better in the world than fresh bean sprouts lightly kissed with a hint of soy sauce for about 30 seconds? I don’t think so.

  70. 70.

    Brachiator

    @Maude:

    It’s in his military file. That’s where they got the information for his obit. His NYT obit would have been written earlier and then added to when he died.

    But there is also something off here. An appreciation of Charles Durning in the LA Times, which should get things right, notes that the actor was a kind and jovial man, but then goes on to claim that he had a potentially explosive temper which he had to hold in check. It gives an anecdote in which the actor, after a rehearsal in which he has to hit another actor with a prop chair, is quoted as saying, Bruce Banner like, “you wouldn’t want to see me when I’m angry.”

    The article goes on to cite Durning’s war experiences as a source of this, without providing any details at all, and even comes close to the odd and lazy suggestion that fighting in a war by definition scars every veteran and makes him or her potentially deranged. It is one of the oddest, and pointlessly oblique articles that I have read about an actor in a long time.

    Ultimately, I figure I have to ignore a probably inaccurate obit and just remember Durning’s often great performances. Whatever the facts of his life, may he rest in peace.

    I also see that the great R&B singer Fontella Bass passed away recently. Congress should play her hit “Rescue Me” every day until they get this Fiscal Cliff mess resolved.

  73. 73.

    Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    If your’re anywhere near Tillamook, you might want to stock up on that non-tax bourbon you pay twice the cost for, just to keep you from hanging yourself from the rafters.

  74. 74.

    MikeJ

    @different-church-lady: Nah, $400-50. If you’ve got a dead desktop you ought to be able to build a live one better than what you had for that amount, unless you had exotic parts in to begin with. Yes, if you have a $1000 video card and it dies, it’ll cost you a fair amount to replace. Other than that, yeah, there’s no reason to spend anywhere near $2k on a home computer.

  75. 75.

    Pangloss

    It was cloudy all day, but the sun came out for about 15 seconds right about the time my Loyola Ramblers beat DePaul for the first time since 1989.

  82. 82.

    Lojasmo

    Last time i had a desktop PC was 1997.

    Currently, the wife and prog are running macbook pros, and my primary machine is an ipad with bluetooth keyboard.

  83. 83.

    CaseyL

    Cat update: I was able to bring Oscar home from the vet. His temperature is normal. They left the IV catheter in his leg in case, FSM forbid, he gets feverish again and has to be rehospitalized. But he’s home! It’s wonderful!

  84. 84.

    Yutsano

    @CaseyL: YAY! You needed a good bit of news on this shitty weekend. Doesn’t change plans to meet up next weekend if you’re so inclined.

  85. 85.

    luc

    The first thing to check for on a “problematic” PC is likely accumulated dust on the graphics card and processor heat sinks.
    Good luck!

  87. 87.

    baldheadeddork

    Make sure it’s not the power supply before you throw out the entire computer.

    And email me if you want help configuring or building a new system for a lot less than two grand.

  90. 90.

    The Sailor

    @MikeJ: Nah, $400-50. If you’ve got a dead desktop you ought to be able to build a live one better than what you had for that amount, unless you had exotic parts in to begin with.

    Nope. My time is worth something, and I don’t have the time to fuck around downloading stray drivers and figuring out whether they are compatible or not.

    And by the time I spec out a Windows box for my needs it’s as expensive as a Mac.

    If you want a stupid computer, get a smart phone.

  91. 91.

    Rosie Outlook

    Dean’s remark about not trusting Republicans with money made me laugh. A long-standing principle among us moderates is “You can’t trust the Republicans with your money, you can’t trust the Democrats with your guns, and you shouldn’t trust any of them in the dark.”

  92. 92.

    Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    You’re truly in the sweet spot. Last summer we found liquor at twice the Oregon price in Washington ,

    Next visit we’ll stock up in California.

  93. 93.

    Lyrebird

    I’m just catching up from the McCurdle thread below, and I really think the PONPONPON video bit at 1:29 needs to be made into a little animated gif thing. (where she is apparently farting rainbows)

    Wonketteers pull such things off, I know, but I lack the necessary skillz for this. And silly Japanese pop videos are much more worth my eyes’ time than McCurdle’s self-absorption.

    TG4BJ! (Thank Goodness for Balloon Juice!)

  94. 94.

    danielx

    Hate to encourage substance abuse, but watching the senior cat (a long haired version of TUNCH) wallow in his catnip pile after begging for it is definitely top shelf cheap entertainment.

  95. 95.

    danielx

    @baldheadeddork:

    Second the motion – have replaced power supplies more than once to fix dead computers or those with bizarro problems. Rule #1: get twice the power supply you think you need.

  96. 96.

    marv

    Just wanted to say, as pretty much a lurker here, that today is the anniversary, so to speak, of Wounded Knee, 1890, and I just thought that somebody on a blog like this should make note of it.

  97. 97.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin):

    It’s a good place to live if you like no sales taxes and cheap booze…lol! Our cheap booze supplier is about ten miles from our house, a nice short trip.

    @danielx:

    And make it a good one, not some lightweight POS. Corsair, Antec, Thermaltake, Silverstone or the like. Opinions vary, read user product reviews (with a grain or two of salt) as user opinions are valuable. Get one that is silver rated, gold is even better. Bronze will do in a cash pinch as long as it’s got a comfortable cushion in output.

  98. 98.

    Mnemosyne

    @smintheus:

    I’m guessing it’s a combination of a couple of things:

    1) Durning was an actor, and actors love to tell good stories, even when those stories are not what civilians would consider “true”

    2) There was probably more than one Charles Durning who fought in WWII and deadline-driven research is crappy research, especially on a holiday

  100. 100.

    Mnemosyne

    @danielx:

    We can’t give our older cat ‘nip because it makes him paranoid. We can practically see the black helicopters hovering over him.

    The two girls are fine with it, though.

  102. 102.

    DesertFriar

    @efgoldman:

    Well having grown up and lived in East Providence and Rumford until the ’90s, I’d like to point out the New Mexico is a Blue state. Living in Las Cruces, if I get nostalgic for snow in the winter, I can drive about 1.5 hours up to Cloudcroft for snow and outdoor ice skating.

  105. 105.

    mclaren

    You can build yourself a kick-ass quad core 3 Ghz desktop machine for $200. If you think you need to spend two grand, you’ve been hitting the bottle wayyyyyyyyyyyy too much.

    I’m not even going to respond to the ignorant incompetent sociopaths like Soonergrunt who gibber drivel about how worthless a sub-$200 quad-core machine is, how linux isn’t ready for prime time, ad nauseum. Fools like this are so stupid and so grossly incompetent it’s amazing their brains generate enough energy to move their fingers over the keyboard of his laptop to let ’em type this laughably clueless twaddle.

  106. 106.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @mclaren: Protesting way too much there, sociopath.

    PSU is definitely first thing to check, and that’s a cheapish fix even if you go for a premium one with high efficiency (and you should) . Given the Cole menagerie, there’s a chance that the cooling has been screwed up by pet hair in the vents.

  107. 107.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @mclaren:

    If I want a kickass machine I sure as hell wouldn’t be running anything AMD right now. Good cheap machine. Yes. Kickass machine? Nope. I will give you credit for not mentioning the AMD FX processors though.

    I wouldn’t have either. :D

  108. 108.

    JustRuss

    I feel your pain, still reeling from the Beaver’s 4th quarter Alamo Bowl implosion. Offensive line, how does it work?

    As for the PC, I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than $500 on one, and I do a fair amount of gaming. Find a halfway decent HP on sale at one of the box stores, buy a power supply and video card from Egghead, and you’re set.

  111. 111.

    wasabi gasp

    The FYWP moderation thing kicked in on my second link. It was sexy.

    And loud.

    Loud and sexy.

  118. 118.

    A Farmer

    Everybody knows Cole took his Soros money and invested in guns and gold, so he’s fine for getting anything he needs. Except his soul back. Old George doesn’t let those go.

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