Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

“But what about the lurkers?”

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

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Books are my comfort food!

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

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Reader Interactions

89Comments

  2. 2.

    Alex

    I mentioned this in the Hagel thread around post 100, but seriously… Jennifer Rubin has gone completely insane.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/02/26/hagel-confirmed-58-41/

    She praises the “Concerned Women for America” who were very concerned over Chelsea Clinton marrying a Jew.

    Actual quotes from Jennifer Rubin (I added the bold)…

    “Had the American Israel Public Affairs Committee opposed Hagel publicly, I do not think he would have been confirmed.”

    “We have two parties: the Hagel Democrats and the pro-Israel Republicans. Only one party considers national security serious enough to place it above loyalty to the White House.”

    “One can hardly wait for the Hagel Democrats to appear at the impotent AIPAC’s conference next month to express their support for robust Israel-U.S. relations. Sometimes, even the most cynical of us find that Washington hypocrisy is truly stomach-turning.”

  7. 7.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    Sorry to flog a series here and I won’t do it again, but I recommend a series from Denmark called The Protectors, about the PET the Danish version of the Secret Service, an excellent series.

  10. 10.

    Suzanne

    I have “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” on my DVR. I need to get around to watching it.

    Next exam: April 12. Arrrrgh.

  11. 11.

    PsiFighter37

    Going to sleep, have to wake up in 6 hours. I really need to start getting more sleep, but I find that I generally function okay even with 6 hours. Not really sustainable, but I can’t bring myself to go to sleep early enough to get 8 hours when I have to wake up at 6:15-6:30 AM.

  12. 12.

    dance around in your bones

    @Suzanne:

    It really helps if you have read the book before. I watched it twice – first time I fell asleep; next time I made myself stay awake. Kinda slow and convoluted – personally, I liked the book much better.

    You can also keep the Wiki page open as you watch the movie – I find myself doing that more and more lately for whatever reason. Dementia, prolly.

    Like, just now I nudged the remote with my knee and am now lost in the TV zone.

    (Ok, I hit ‘previous’ and got back to “The Best Years Of Our Lives” from 1946 on TCM. I am so retro).

  13. 13.

    the Conster

    Cruising Netflix I ended up with watching We Have a Pope. It’s funny and thoughtful and doesn’t mention pedophilia, but the scene with the Cardinals in conclave killing time by playing volleyball while their choice is AWOL is pretty great.

  14. 14.

    jl

    Here’s some good news. And I hope this is a sign of the House GOP learning how to…. cave in like a hole in the sand. And Violence Against Woman Act wasn’t even high stakes in their book (that is, big money wasn’t directly involved). Let’s see how they hold up when Uncle Sugar starts sequestering defense contractors. I guess the usual gang of GOPers will get up and wail that Obama is conniving to make the cuts worse than they have to be. But that will last about a week, and soon the House GOP will no longer be able to hide the fact that they have not done squat.

    Boehner calling the Senate an ass and complaining that they should originate funding legislation will get laughable too. (Edit: it should be already, but is probably not due to our failed corporate media experiment).

    The Big Cave
    There are some procedural smoke and mirrors involved to save face, but it appears that the House leadership is relenting on the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act…

    http://editors.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/02/the_big_cave_2.php

  15. 15.

    Mandalay

    There is an interesting article in the British Daily Telegraph about Tony Blair crawling out of the woodwork and spewing self-pity. But most revealing are the reader comments that follow the article.

    In Britain Blair is a pariah. He is hated and despised by millions for his role in the Iraq War, yet here Bush does not get that treatment. The nation just seems glad to be rid of the doofus, and anxious to put Iraq in the past, but that’s about it.

    In Britain they are still clamoring for Blair to be expelled from the Labour Party, and put on trial for war crimes. He is reviled by millions as a liar without conscience. But however bad Blair may be for his role in the Iraq War, surely Dubya is many times worse. How come Bush got off so easy?

  16. 16.

    Mike in NC

    “Ironclad” I recall was a medieval gore-fest starring Paul Giamatti as a king with a bad British accent.

    Check out the trailer for Season 3 of “Game of Thrones”. Dragons!

  17. 17.

    Suffern ACE

    @Alex: man. Chuck Hagel, the man responsible for destroying our independent military. Does anyone at the post actually read what she’s writing over there? If I were to write that I think the UN should decide who the secretary of defense was and allow it to set our military priorities, Fred Hiatt would probably place me on leave.

  18. 18.

    Violet

    @PsiFighter37: Not everyone needs eight hours of sleep. Unless I’m really tired, I wake up after seven hours. That’s just when I wake up when there isn’t an alarm. OTOH, a family member needs nine hours of sleep.

    So since seven hours is my normal, six hours is okay for me because I’m only short one hour. But for my family member, six hours means three hours short on needed sleep, so it’s a bigger deal.

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    Sabah state, on the northeastern tip of Borneo, has been the subject of territorial disputes since before there was a Malaysia or a Philippines. Here’s a report on the latest incident, which is going on right now.

    It’s weird that we lease Sabah from the Philippines for just 4,500 ringgit a year, as the story notes. For that kind of money, you can’t rent a room in Sabah, never mind a house.

  20. 20.

    Mandalay

    @PsiFighter37:

    I really need to start getting more sleep, but I find that I generally function okay even with 6 hours.

    Well I just finished reading this article which suggests that you are probably incorrect….

    Tests on people who slept less than six hours a night for a week revealed substantial changes in the activity of genes that govern the immune system, metabolism, sleep and wake cycles, and the body’s response to stress, suggesting that poor sleep could have a broad impact on long-term wellbeing.

  27. 27.

    Gex

    @Mandalay: American exceptionalism. We just can never be all that bad because we are the good guys, the facts on the ground notwithstanding. American atrocities all get swept under the “mistakes were made” rug, we shrug, and then move on to our next dunderheaded mistake.

  33. 33.

    dance around in your bones

    Ok, you guys have convinced me it’s time to go to bed. 10pm here on the left coast.

    Up at 7am to make breakfast and lunchbox for the oldest grandkid !

    But – Guys and Dolls w/Marlon Brando (1955!) on TCM! What to do?….prolly fall asleep while watching. Then wake up later and turn the TV off in the middle of the night. My life….

  34. 34.

    Redshift

    @Alex:

    “Had the American Israel Public Affairs Committee opposed Hagel publicly, I do not think he would have been confirmed.”

    There is no rational way to square the idea that Hagel is the screaming disaster for Israel that American Likudniks are claiming he is with the idea that AIPAC could have stopped the nomination but decided not to get involved. Rubin, of course, is not hampered by rational thought.

    (Personally, I think both ideas are false, but it is a plain fact that at least one of them must be.)

  37. 37.

    dance around in your bones

    Marlon Brando used to be so slim and handsome.

    Then he got fat and hammock-y in Tahiti.

  38. 38.

    ? Martin

    Since someone brought up Rubin. This is appropriate:

    God knows, policy positions are a problem. But they are not the problem. The problem is that the party is fanatical—a machine of rage, hate, and resentment. People are free to scoff and pretend it isn’t so, but I don’t think honest people can deny that we’ve never seen anything like this in the modern history of our country. There’s a symbiosis of malevolence between the extreme parts of the GOP base and Washington lawmakers, and it is destroying the Republican Party. That’s fine with me, although I am constantly mystified as to why it’s all right with the people I’m talking about. But it’s also destroying the country and our democratic institutions and processes, which is not fine with me.

  39. 39.

    TheMightyTrowel

    Small OT rant:

    Fucking Australia! I’m trying to buy a new laptop to replace by arthritic and decrepit 7 year old Dell (seriously guys, 7 years 10+ countries, 1 MA, 1 PhD, 2 postdocs – for a piece of shit dell, it’s done a good job). I’ve settled on a Lenovo T430 and I know what specs I want. If i buy it in Australia it will cost me 2100 AU$, if I buy it in the states it costs ca. 950 US$. Trying to find a US retailer that will ship abroad. if i keep it under $1000 there’s no import duty, if it ends up over $1000 I’ll ship it to my cuz in hawaii who I’m visiting in April. Still. Motherfucking wankers adding all sorts of fake tax. to more than double the price of a simple laptop!

  40. 40.

    dance around in your bones

    @Mnemosyne: I can actually record it for later, but I can’t be arsed to do that. I’d rather watch sweet slim Marlon and fall asleep with that in mind.

    @Omnes Omnibus: Thanks for the tip. Still liking watching the young Brando. Not asleep yet, sigh.

    ETA: Actually, listening to the Waitresses while watching Marlon is a good compromise.

  41. 41.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @? Martin: Dear god, the photo of Graham with that piece makes him look like Henry Gibson’s Illinois Nazi leader from the Blues Brothers.

  43. 43.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Mandalay: From skimming other blogs, because a lot of Americans thought invading Iraq was a good idea and aren’t sorry they went, even if they acknowledge that the justification was a transparent pack of lies.

    Also, too many people think torturing prisoners is necessary (and only “unserious” people would say otherwise!). They pat themselves for intestinal fortitude for accept the “tough choices” and “price of freedom” to save their own skin.

    Unbelievable.

  46. 46.

    Another Halocene Human

    I’m being treated for pneumonia and bronchitis. The RN said my lungs were “bad” from inflammation. Prescribed an albuterol inhaler among other things and I’m a little bit scared of it. Wish me luck.

  50. 50.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Amir Khalid: I’ve always thought that the Bay of Sulu or the province of Sulu must have been a truly beautiful place for Gene Roddenberry (USN vet) to have held it in his mind all those years to inspire the name and origin of one of his Star Trek characters.

  51. 51.

    Another Halocene Human

    @eemom: First time I saw it I wanted to leap in through the screen and — well, you know.

    Watch him run screaming in the other direction because he was gayer than Liberace?

  53. 53.

    dance around in your bones

    Oh, come on guys! You don’t get the physical appeal? Those arms? That body? Forget all the other stuff – isn’t that what a lot of guys do with teh grrls?

    Jeez, I can still appreciate a nice set of buns in bluejeans, and I’m no spring chicken.

  55. 55.

    eemom

    @Another Halocene Human:

    Prescribed an albuterol inhaler among other things and I’m a little bit scared of it. Wish me luck.

    Good luck, but no need to be scared of that. As a long term asthmatic, I can assure you it is the kindest of friends.

    It is a short term relieving measure, though. You need to get the underlying issues looked at and addressed.

    /a mom, in addition to being a horny old toad for young Marlon

  57. 57.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: As a guy, I get the idea that hot is important, but idiot meathead comes into play. One generally has conversations before and after. Drunken one night stands don’t count. Of course, I once broke up with a girl largely because she wrote that a situation had made her a “reck.” This was in a hand written letter on paper so typos don’t enter into it. The fact that I had just met an interesting South African girl may also have played a part. But, seriously, “reck?”

  58. 58.

    Anne Laurie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    He was an idiot meathead. Perhaps I am missing something here.

    That would be ‘the desire to have sex with a good-looking guy’, I do believe.

    Actors aren’t required to be either smart or politically sophisticated, which is why those actors who demonstrate either quality are noted as remarkable. As long as ‘the talent’ looks good & can remember to recite other peoples’ writing (or read the cards/teleprompter convincingly), they’ve done their job.

  60. 60.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Mnemosyne: You might be right. But as regards screaming fans, Brando once quipped to a young actor: “Be careful what you wish for.”

  62. 62.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Two things:

    (A) Brando played a lot of meatheads, but AFAIK, he wasn’t actually stupid. The tales of his troubles with scripts sound more like the struggles of an undiagnosed classic dyslexic than someone who was too dumb to learn them.

    (B) Sometimes the hotness is so strong that blows past your awareness of how dumb the person is. You can get through a good three or four weeks before the stupidity becomes oppressive.

    ETA: Ah, okay, you meant the character, not the actor. Yeah, he was charismatic and you could understand what Stella found appealing about him since she wasn’t all that bright herself, but there was way too much creepiness in Stanley for me to be strongly attracted to the character.

  63. 63.

    eemom

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    what a difference a W makes.

    But srsly, dude — how did you manage to turn this around so that I am the advocate of mindless, animal-based attraction, and YOU are the holdout for intellectual compatibility?

  64. 64.

    Amir Khalid

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    “Reck” is an actual word, although it’s archaic and was clearly not the one your friend was going for. Let’s be generous and call it a malapropism.

  65. 65.

    Another Halocene Human

    @eemom: Well, I was reading all the warning labels. Plus, first time with an inhaler, so many steps to remember and things written in ALL CAPS BOLD.

  67. 67.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Another Halocene Human: I was probably looking for an out. I did mention the SA girl, yes?

    @eemom:

    how did you manage to turn this around so that I am the advocate of mindless, animal-based attraction, and YOU are the holdout for intellectual compatibility?

    Hey, my type has always been hot and smart. Yeah, as a result, I have spent a good deal of time single. Note also that I excepted drunken one night stands from my standards.

  69. 69.

    Anne Laurie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Actually with the idiot meathead remark, I was referring to Stanley Kowalsky.

    Written by a (very) gay man with a taste for rough trade. But there are plenty of real-life female Blanche DuBoises out there, and not all of them are dipsomaniacs/suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder.

    I’ll admit I’ve never gone to bed with a hot idiot meathead, but I’ve certainly gotten involved with one or two people whose neuroses I wouldn’t have overlooked if they hadn’t attracted me physically.

  70. 70.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Amir Khalid:

    Let’s be generous and call it a malapropism.

    Let’s not. I was 25, she was 21, and she was starting to talk about “when we get married.” Eek.

  71. 71.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Anne Laurie: You know that I am not denying the importance of physical attraction, right? All I was really saying, since it appears that I need to spell it out, is that, if we flipped the sexes, that I would not find the character hot. The meathead aspect was too much. This is something that would not necessarily be true for others.

  73. 73.

    Anne Laurie

    @Omnes Omnibus: Absolutely.

    I’m sure there are people in my past who shake their heads and think to themselves, jaysus, I hit that? but it would’ve been my personality rather than my hawtness that got them into that plight.

  77. 77.

    eemom

    and now, omfg, I have to be up and out the door in like 4 hours to do lawyer shit. How did this HAPPEN? Good night.

  78. 78.

    dance around in your bones

    @Omnes Omnibus: Nah, just Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful?

    So what’s offensive about that? I thought it might be apropos considering the thread. But perhaps I repeat myself.

  80. 80.

    dance around in your bones

    @eemom:

    I feel for you.This place is addictive, and I don’t even have any lawyerly stuff to do in the morning. g’night!

  88. 88.

    Randy P

    @dance around in your bones: My Mom loved that film. I used to think it was OK, but after I read the original Damon Runyan stories I can’t stand what they did to his characters. Pretty fun to watch Brando sing & dance though.

    Good morning, BJ. Probably a dead thread. I always have this problem, getting up early & getting interested in the midnight subject.

  89. 89.

    handsmile

    Movies and Brando and hotness and gayness and desire in general, and no one (not even Mnemosyne!) thought to mention “Reflections in a Golden Eye”?!

    Starring Brando and Elizabeth Taylor, and directed by John Huston, it’s never been a critic’s favorite and was a commercial failure. Its subject matter, sexual desire (hetero and homo) and repression, and the despairs of both, on a US army base during the 1940s might have something to do with its reception. An underappreciated example of hothouse Southern Gothic cinema.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062185/

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