Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

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

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

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

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Everybody saw this coming.

The new republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

This fight is for everything.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

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44Comments

  2. 2.

    Yutsano

    Okay I’m in love. Berlin is bar none my favourite city in Germany and that was the most memorable stop on my visit to Germany. I love the fact he did a tribute to a city that has so much history and yes loss and death. Not to mention I’ve taken the train from Potzendamer Platz. :)

  3. 3.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    I was watching Lawrence O’Donnell’s show, and one of the guests was a woman who tackled the Tucson shooter while he had to reload his gun. She mentioned that she put out an offer to all of the gun nut wannabe vigilantes, who like to pretend they could have taken Loughner out:

    (Paraphrasing) If you go to one of those fantasy firing places where you have to shoot pop-up bad guys, and perform perfectly (all bad guys dead, no dead innocents), she will pay your way. If you fail, you pay her 3x the fee. For some reason, she has had no hotshot takers.

  7. 7.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    @MoeLarryAndJesus: one is inside Mick Jagger’s prostate. The others are under a glacier in Antarctica, on the moon, inside Halley’s Comet, at the bottom of Loch Ness, under Piers Morgan’s hair, and under a desk at the HQ of Private Eye magazine.

  10. 10.

    Eljai

    I just saw part of that David Bowie video on Democracy Now! and I was going to go on Amazon to check out the song. But, of course, I only go to Amazon via Balloon Juice because I do what I’m told and there was the Bowie video again. How synchronous. I may be in an endless Bowie loop now.

  15. 15.

    donnah

    Bowie is now and always has been the epitome of cool. Cool style, cool music, cool presence. He was years ahead of his time in music and in creating different personalities to present his work. Happy Birthday, Mr Bowie! You rock!

  16. 16.

    Allen

    I (vaguely) remember in my college years, quite close to Canada, there being a raging debate on the proper pronunciation of Bowie. Went on for weeks.

    Got up to let the little cat out (you have no idea how much noise a cat can make hanging, willingly, onto a doorknob). The Tunch sized cat is sitting on my lap, intrigued by the movie I’m watching, and my favorite, Dr. Strangelove. First saw it in ’64 when I was 13.

  17. 17.

    Linda Featheringill

    To our friends in Australia:

    If you’re having difficulty reaching a comfortable temperature, may I recommend a fan and a wet tee shirt. I’m serious. Relief will be instant and will last until the water has evaporated. Then you can repeat.

    The reports sound like you’re having a terrible heatwave. Please take care.

  18. 18.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    Over at Politico they are running a short piece about the White House response to the “Deport Piers” petition. The short response doesn’t say much but they do plan on having a longer response. But the reason I bring it up is because in that thread I read a comment I seem to be seeing more of:

    The Democratic Party has become the party of the Anti-Semites, Anti-Christians, Anti-Caucasians; home of the Racists, the Haters, the Elitists, the Homosexuals, the Tanstesticals, the Pansexuals, the Illegal Aliens, the Ex-Cons, the Ex-Felons, pro Islamists , the Moral Relativists, the Bigots, the Pagans, the hate-America movement, the Marxists, the Communists, the Socialists and the Anarchists.

    You see, if us white folks (I.e. Christian-god fearing, of course!) were just left alone to our proper place this country would be in much better shape! Remember the good ol’ days of 2001-2008? See! AMIRITE?

    Up here in northern New England overnight temps have been -15C or lower for more than a week and we got down to -26C the over night. I would send some of it to you in Oz but I don’t have a fan big enough.

  20. 20.

    Schlemizel

    @Swellsman:

    Happy Birthday – I hit 62 yesterday so you have a ways to do but enjoy 44 while you can.
    Here for your enjoyment are some other people we shared the day with:
    James Longstreet . . Evelyn Wood
    Butterfly McQueen . . Larry Storch
    Soupy Sales (my fav!)
    Charles Osgood . . Shirley Bassey
    Bob Eubanks . . Yvette Mimieux
    David Bowie . . R Kelly
    Jason Giambi . . Carl Pavano
    Jose Ferrer . . Steven Hawking
    Bill Graham, the rock promoter not the grifter
    Jesse Garon Presley, stillborn twin brother of Elvis
    Little Anthony [Gourdine] (of & the Imperials)

    Quiet a mixed bag ‘o nuts
    Graham Chapman (Monty Python’s Flying Circus)

  25. 25.

    Schlemizel

    @Thlayli:

    I know they have a club team but have not heard of any interest in moving up from there. Given the love that Canadians have for that toilet with palm trees it wouldn’t surprise me if they fielded a pretty decent team.

    Huntsville, Al. has a D-I hockey team. Its actually an artifact of the space program. When we kidnapped the Nazi’s after WWII we stashed them in Huntsville (gawd knows why) and they asked for an ice rink as one of their perks. Huntsville actually has a pretty active youth hockey program & the UoA a D-I team!

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    Barney, being Frank about lowering defense budgets.

    I once asked Alan Greenspan in a hearing what the economic impact would be of cutting military spending versus other types of spending. His answer was that to the extent that your national defense requirements allowed you to cut the military, it would almost certainly cause less of an economic impact than most other cuts in spending. He analogized this to being able to pay less for insurance if prudent. This is not true of all expenditure—for instance, some research and development has spillover effects, and such spending can and should be protected. Cuts in overseas bases, however, have no negative economic effect, nor does reducing nuclear stockpiles that exceed our current security needs.
    __
    The question regarding the economic impact of military expenditures is not whether spending on the military versus not spending at all will have a positive effect. If we are serious about long-term deficit reduction, then spending cuts have to come from somewhere, and the relevant question becomes whether cuts of the right sort in the military—excessive overseas basing, excessive military intervention, a nuclear weapons stock far greater than is needed—are more or less damaging to the economy than equal amounts of other federal spending.
    __
    Given the numbers involved, the major trade-off in putting together a total deficit reduction package is between the military and health care, by far the biggest nondefense spending item in our budget. Reductions in Medicare, Medicaid, grants from the National Institutes of Health, aid to hospitals, etc., clearly will have far worse social consequences than equivalent cuts in the military and, I believe, more damaging economic effects, because there is more of an economic multiplier from the health expenditures than from military spending.  Source

  27. 27.

    Schlemizel

    BTW – since I know you are all on pins & needles waiting to hear. #2 Notre Dame fell to #1 Minnesota last night 4-1! The PA people even played “Sweet Home Alabama” during one of the breaks.

  31. 31.

    Trinity

    This song has become my earworm. I woke up with it playing on a loop in my mental jukebox.

    Love Bowie.

  32. 32.

    Ramalama

    I liked this new Bowie song/video though the literal (Capricornian?) part of me kept looking at the female face in the video and wondering, “What’s she doing there?” I mean, c’mon I know about Iman. And this lady’s not even singing in the video. Which means it must be the problem of Art. Art requires her to be there for a reason that isn’t obvious.

    And then I thought of this song, because for me it was similarly evocative, though nothing to do with either David Bowie or the debt ceiling; hockey or the paint peeling:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPKDfBdxkMM

  35. 35.

    Citizen_X

    @Yutsano: I just saw Wings of Desire for the first time. Gorgeous, gorgeous movie, and uses the Berlin setting so beautifully. Also mentioned Potzdamer Platz prominently. All I could think while watching was, “I’ve got to get back to Berlin soon.” Was there in the early 90s (a few years after the movie)–the Wall was mostly down, Potzdamer Platz was still a bombed-flat wasteland. Now Bowie comes out with this lovely thing. Maybe the world’s trying to tell me something?

  36. 36.

    kindness

    Who is the woman in the video with Bowie?

    I’ve always loved Bowie. I was devastated when he broke up The Spiders From Mars, but he grew from it. My Deadhead friends never understood how I could like Bowie and the Dead. Yea well, back in the 70’s Jerry & the boys were a cult of their own and most my devotee friends could allow someone to like Bob Marley but Bowie was a note too far for them.

    Btw, the Furthur New Years shows were the AWESOME! Hey John, go over to gnomesandhobbits.com and buy the 30th and 31st shows. You will not regret it.

  39. 39.

    gbear

    Jimmy Page turned 69 today.

    For an odd contrast: Andy Summers of The Police turned 70 last week.

  40. 40.

    handsmile

    @Felanius Kootea: , @kindness:

    OMFG! Humphries is a professional acquaintance of mine! She is well-respected and quite successful as a painter, represented here in New York by the Greene Naftali Gallery in the Chelsea arts district. Here is a link to her page at the gallery, with images of selected works:

    http://www.greenenaftaligallery.com/artist/Jacqueline-Humphries

    The projections of her and Bowie’s heads in the video are the work of her husband, video artist Tony Oursler.

  41. 41.

    Herbal Infusion Bagger

    One of my regrets is never seeing Bowie live. Had the chance when I was 15 (my older sister wanted to take me), but there had been an riot at another concert nearby the week before and my parents freaked, and vetoed me going.

  42. 42.

    Herbal Infusion Bagger

    @kindness:

    Yea well, back in the 70′s Jerry & the boys were a cult of their own and most my devotee friends could allow someone to like Bob Marley but Bowie was a note too far for them.

    Maybe too poppy/glam during the Ziggy Stardust/Aladdin Sane days. But the Berlin albums he did with Eno, were groundbreakingly experimental for their time.

  43. 43.

    bjacques

    Lovely tune.

    Tony Oursler also did stuff with Laurie Anderson back in the day. Bowie revisited Berlin in his cyberpunkish “Outside” album in the mid 1990s. It was a murder mystery “to be continued…” but it never was. The turn of the millennium was more upbeat than “Outside” threatened, so it’s probably just as well. It’s still one of my favorite of his later albums.

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