Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Come on, man.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Fight them, without becoming them!

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

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

White supremacy is terrorism.

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

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

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

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

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Early Morning Open Thread

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marina

I attended Tampa’s pirate festival on Saturday. I’m feeling better now. Truth is, the event seemed subdued compared to previous years’ invasions. Here’s a shot of the fake pirate ship preparing to land at the Convention Center and disgorge dozens of tipsy councilmen, heart surgeons and bankers dressed in swashbuckler garb:

pirate_ship_2013

In past years, that channel would be so clogged with boats you could walk from the Convention Center to Tampa General without getting your feet wet. The lowish turnout couldn’t have been the weather, which was lovely.

It seemed to me the Convention Center staff had aired the place out sufficiently to remove the loser stench from the GOP Convention, but maybe it lingers in a way that is only detectable to Republicans. Oh well. Shorter lines at the loo, so it’s all good.

Please feel free to discuss whatever.

Reader Interactions

53Comments

  1. 1.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    … councilmen, heart surgeons and bankers …

    Could it be that these are the only people left who can afford to put a boat in the water?

    Naah, it’s probably the lingering stench of epic Republican fail that is scaring everyone away.

  2. 2.

    dr. bloor

    Truth is, the event seemed subdued compared to previous years’ invasions.

    Why would the pirates bother invading Florida if your governor has already deposited the state’s treasure chest in the Caymans?

    disgorge dozens of tipsy councilmen, heart surgeons and bankers dressed in swashbuckler garb:

    I smell a new Hiaasen novel.

  5. 5.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    Today is National Curmudgeons Day. I’m sure the folk gathered here will celebrate it properly.

  8. 8.

    Robin G.

    This post reminded me to try and get the kids I watch to check out the pirate episode of Doctor Who. The three year old has turned total screaming fangirl overnight, and as much as I love The Eleventh Hour, it’d be nice to watch more than just that one episode twice daily.

  10. 10.

    RAM

    I see over on Raw Story that snarling loser Bay Buchanan is the latest rat to scurry off the sinking right wing ship. In keeping with the right’s amazing ability to be wrong about just about everything, she’s decided to sell real estate, and as far as I can see, this is not a story lifted from the Onion. I would have thought her more the used car salesperson sort.

  14. 14.

    Mark S.

    Why did they put all those different colored flags on the pirate ship? It doesn’t look very pirate-y.

  16. 16.

    General Stuck

    How low will the banksters go? All the way down to fleecing the jobless

    Jobless Americans are paying millions of dollars in unnecessary fees to collect unemployment benefits because of state policies encouraging them to get the money through bank-issued payment cards, according to a new report from a consumer group.

    Banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., U.S. Bancorp and Bank of America Corp. seized on government payments as a business opportunity. They pitched card programs to states as a win-win: States would save millions in overhead costs because the cards would be issued for free. And people without bank accounts would avoid the big fees charged by storefront check cashers.

    On most planets, this would be called theft by deception. But Not on Planet Earth Profit.

  21. 21.

    Poopyman

    @Mark S.:

    Why did they put all those different colored flags on the pirate ship? It doesn’t look very pirate-y.

    Each flag represents a different letter of the alphabet. Of course, in the pirate alphabet every letter is “arrrr!”.

  22. 22.

    redshirt

    I forget what comic I read this in, but it went a little something like this (scene – pirates are on a beach with a big treasure chest in front of them):

    Pirate Captain: Y’argh. We bury the treasure here.
    Pirate mate: Ah, Captain, what if instead of burying the treasure, we use it to buy goods and services?
    Captain:……
    (takes out revolver, shoots mate)
    We bury the treasure here!

  23. 23.

    jibeaux

    I know it’s a serious note, but I just want to urge you if you haven’t yet to call your Senators and Reps about gun control. 1, we need to keep this going. Every time there’s some horrible shooting, there’s a short spike in the conversation for about 2 days and then no one talks about it again. That needs to change. 2, a Sandy Hook victim’s father was heckled at a town hall meeting, with NRA assholes yelling “Second Amendment” at him as he spoke. You can bet your booty those assholes are calling their reps. Do it for the victims.

  28. 28.

    General Stuck

    Brooks has been sneaking hits off Modo’s crack pipe again.

    It’s probably futile to try to change current Republicans. It’s smarter to build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast. It’s smarter to build a new division that is different the way the Westin is different than the Sheraton.

    Analogy fail. Billy Bob only stays at Motel 6. Otherwise, it sounds like the Custer Plan. Split your babies and adjust the bullshit.

  29. 29.

    redshirt

    @Baud: How lame. I pat myself on the back for deciding years ago never to wade into the comments there. Great front page stuff usually, but the comment section is… ug.

  31. 31.

    Baud

    @redshirt:

    I gave up on them in 2010. The front page was better than the comments, but not enough to make me want to hang out there. What they offer is quantity of information, and they do have good people there, but as a whole that community just went in a different direction than I was going politically.

  32. 32.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Baud:

    Kos made TTFN = GBCW yesterday. He’s getting tired of all of the drama queens and rep farming via diaries like that. I had to laugh at Kos saying that most people who did either eventually returned. Not me. I burned my bridge there back in 2006 and I haven’t had the slightest inclination to rejoin that fucking mosh pit of stupid. I do like to head over there to rubberneck the daily train wrecks though.

    Lately it’s been the RKBA assholes (2nd Amendment huggers) who have been raising hell to keep their ‘babies’ safe.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    Seems like they’re constantly doing purges over there. I’ll sympathize by noting some of that comes with being the big kid on the block and attracting the most attention. I always thought their biggest problem was a lack of identity about what that community was about. Like you said, a mosh pit.

  35. 35.

    kerFuFFler

    Gasparilla Day? I went to elementary school in Tampa and remember looking forward to the festival and the rides. Had kind of forgotten about it, so thanks for the reminder.

  37. 37.

    Jerzy Russian

    It seemed to me the Convention Center staff had aired the place out sufficiently to remove the loser stench from the GOP Convention, but maybe it lingers in a way that is only detectable to Republicans.

    I have wondered about this. Also too, what about the airplanes, taxis, shuttle busses, etc. that were used to move delegates too and from the venue? Do those things get aired out too?

  38. 38.

    themann1086

    So apparently the fever swamp view on the election is that Romney really won, but the Chinese and voter fraud (voting while black I guess) stole it for Obama. Overheard this from someone getting a Physics degree next year. This country is doomed.

  40. 40.

    Suffern ACE

    @themann1086: that scientist might be mad. But anyway, I can’t see china wanting Obama over Romney. That whole pivot to Asia thing doesn’t make them happy.

  42. 42.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @RAM: Heh. This is kind of like when some actor who was on a middling TV hit twenty years ago announces their retirement and people say: “Who? Oh, yeah. S/He’s still alive?” Arguably the only thing weirder than Willard sending Bay B out as a surrogate was dragging John Sununu out of the hate-infused mothballs he’d been sleeping in since he got fired from Crossfire in 1997.

  43. 43.

    aimai

    @General Stuck:

    Actually it seems pure Friedman–MoDo very seldom speaks marketing talk or of brands and customization. She’s all about the gossip and the pop cultural references.

  47. 47.

    Mike in NC

    Would love to see Lord and Lady Rmoney dressed up as pirates, since looting has been the story of their lives, but they lack a sense of humor.

  48. 48.

    General Stuck

    Obama is taking no prisoners on his march to the wingnut sea.

    WASHINGTON — Same-sex couples will be a part of the proposal for addressing immigration reform that President Obama is scheduled to unveil Tuesday in Las Vegas, BuzzFeed has confirmed with multiple sources familiar with the White House plan.

    That should be worth an entire chorus of squeals from right wing culture warriors. War is all hell.

  52. 52.

    Mnemosyne

    @jeffreyw:

    Bitsy! I love calico attitude.

    Since this is an open thread, I’ll mention that G and I got sucked into a Paul Williams documentary this weekend. The director isn’t very good and injects way too much of himself into it, but Williams himself comes across very well and you realize how many songs of his you still know even if you didn’t know they were his.

    Basically, it seems like the director went in with an agenda of showing how very, very sad it is to not be famous anymore, but Williams pretty much subverts that. He’s been in recovery for years and seems to associate being famous with being really fucked-up on drugs, so he seems very at peace with his current low level of fame. The director keeps trying to show him interviews that Williams did when he was at the height of his fame and all Williams can see is how fucked up he was (to the point that, in one outtake, Dick Clark calls him an asshole).

    I’m sure the fact that Williams is still making pretty good money from his songwriting to this day helps ease the pain of not being as famous anymore.

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