Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

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

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Our messy unity will be our strength.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

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

Good lord, these people are nuts.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

All hail the time of the bunny!

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

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

You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Previous Site Maintenance / Newsflash: Posting on Balloon Juice is Irregular

Newsflash: Posting on Balloon Juice is Irregular

by | 219 Comments

This post is in: ,

Here’s something that will clearly be an eye-opening revelation to some of you: If posts on this blog appear every 2 minutes, every 2 hours or every 2 days, posting your complaint in the comments is not going to change that.

Let me elaborate: As long as this blog is run by unpaid volunteers that have real jobs, posting is going to happen when it happens. It’s been that way for years, yet there’s constant, tedious, pointless bitching about it in the threads. I can understand complaining when comments don’t work, when the blog crashes, etc., because we have solicited money to work on those issues, and we are. But for the life of me I don’t get why some of you think complaining about posting frequency will alter the fact that, I repeat, we all have jobs.

And while I’m ranting on, here’s a bit of news that will make all the whiners check their sugar, increase their goddam benzodiazepine intake and soil their fucking underwear: this site, Balloon Juice, will be DOWN on SATURDAY NIGHT from about 6 PM until I DON”T FUCKING KNOW WHEN because we’re finally changing servers.

After it comes up, if God, Bieber and the ghost of Alan Turing will it, the site will be EXACTLY THE SAME as it was before, meaning what is broken will be broken and what works will work. Then, when we’re sure that everything is the same as it was, only faster, we will roll out a new site design. That design will please exactly NONE OF THE WHINERS I am sure but we’ll fucking do it anyway. Then, after the new design is in place, we will work on fixing the glitches and inconveniences in a way which, again, will cause nothing but pain to the unsatisfiable.

I now understand why Cole is such a cranky fucker.

Reader Interactions

219Comments

  4. 4.

    Zifnab

    That design will please exactly NONE OF THE WHINERS

    You know who else complained about whiners? Hitler.

  5. 5.

    Maude

    Don’t take the complaints seriously. I don’t read them.
    Shouldn’t take long to upgrade the server. The site is staying on the same hosting service and it’s still WP.

    Okay everyone: Email Cole and tell him we were called names.

  8. 8.

    MikeInSewickley

    And now you know why every IT helpdesk person I know seems to drink…a lot…and often…also, too.

  10. 10.

    c u n d gulag

    Uhm, I wasn’t whining or complaining.
    I was merely asking why I couldn’t edit – since that’s usually NO problem.
    I wasn’t accusing anyone – I was curious. Maybe it was because of something I had done.

    Love this blog, and my fellow commenters (well, most of them anyway)!

    Keep up the good work!!!

  12. 12.

    c u n d gulag

    @Baud:
    I think to you need to retake “Sex Ed Class.”

    BJ’s will have nothing to do with any “baby boom” – at least, not by themselves. ;-)

  13. 13.

    DiTurno

    WHERE’S MY PIZZA??? YOU PROMISED ME A GODDAMNED PIZZA!1!!1 THIS BLOG SUX!!!

    Hey, at least I’m not whining.

  14. 14.

    Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal mistermix

    @Cassidy: I know you’re joking but the serious answer is that you can’t see what else has been posted as you’re working on a post, so the one time when you don’t read the blog is while you’re writing a post. That’s what makes this “step on” shit so tedious. Also, too: a lot of people read B-J and don’t comment and therefore don’t give a shit about “stepping on” a post. This whole “step on” thing presupposes the dumb notion that the only thing people read is the first screenful of content on their browser.

  15. 15.

    Schlemizel

    Jay Zeus, I was joking! relax dude.

    Sorry if my little attempt at humor didn’t work, I was not trying to be mean

  17. 17.

    Felonius Monk

    Bitch – Bitch – Bitch!

    Whine – Whine – Whine!

    And where’s Cole’s f*ckng Mustard?

    Also too, THANKS FOR ALL THE HARD WORK keeping this place going!

  18. 18.

    jeffreyw

    Insert amused complaint here. Mention some long lost comment that covers this very thing. Reference irony and metaphor. Chuckle at the rubes on the other team.

  20. 20.

    Cassidy

    posting your complaint in the comments is not going to change that.

    Yes we know, because you all don’t read your own blog.

    unpaid volunteers that have real jobs, posting is going to happen when it happens

    Well, for one, you all said [some variant of] “Why yes, John. I’d love to be a part of a public forum where I can express my thoughts and have other people comment on it.” Secondly, I don’t think anyone expects you guys to post when you should be working, but again, looking at the site to make sure you’re not stomping on any other unpaid volunteer’s electronic musings would at least give the semblance of organization and thoughtfullness instead of the Keystone Kops shit of late.

    But for the life of me I don’t get why some of you think complaining about posting frequency will alter the fact that, I repeat, we all have jobs.

    Considering no one has suggested otherwise or objected to that, it’s not a mystery why you don’t get it.

    So, my advice, go back to work or your day off, whichever one it is, drink a beer or something work appropriate, maybe go rub one out, and then take a look at your site before you hit submit.

  21. 21.

    The Moar You Know

    hahahahahahaha welcome to every day of my life, mistermix.

    /IT manager for a bunch of developers who think they can do my job better than me

  22. 22.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    We didn’t make Cole a cranky fucker, he came out of the womb that way.

  23. 23.

    Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal mistermix

    @c u n d gulag: I wasn’t aiming it at you, and after we migrate, I’m going to take a solid look at the comment stuff. One reader contributed a “quote and reply” fix to one of the plugins. I’ll see if I can get that to work. But first, we migrate and then we re-theme.

  28. 28.

    jl

    I’d like a dress code for the front posters. Mrmix is obviously wearing Cole’s cranky pants, which is gross. Probably didn’t even wash them first.

    Edit: and more fiber might do some good re the blog problems. Two prunes in the mornings. And peas, BJ Blog peas! Have you eaten your peas today?

  31. 31.

    Cassidy

    @Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal mistermix: Mix, I love you guys, as much as I can love words on a screen. You’re good people. I was partially joking. Here’s the problem with your answer: a) open a tab and hit refresh. I’m not a technology guru, but I’d be surprised if that couldn’t be done. b) If you’re regular commenters are involved in a very active thread, don’t you think that deserves some respect? If Kay has provided a well written thread on voters rights (as is normally the case) don’t you think that deserves some consideration and respect?

  33. 33.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal mistermix: Which is why the one new back end feature should be a queue. The little server could spew out a post at an interval of say 10 minutes or so. You just tell the server that you’ve got something to post. If the queue is empty, it doesn’t post anything.

    There’s this orangy site that has done this for years.

    Beyond that, to paraphrase the Stroustrup: There are only two types of blogs, those that people complain about and those nobody uses.

  34. 34.

    NonyNony

    I now understand why Cole is such a cranky fucker.

    I got to the end, then had to scroll back up to the top and see that Cole did NOT in fact write this message.

    But I applaud you guys. I honestly don’t understand complaints like @Cassidy above me here. This site is free to me, except for money that I’ve voluntarily given to keep the community running. If we wanted to read a site that paid a full-time editor to check the posts, time their posting and whatnot we could do that, but we’d all have to pony up money for it and I doubt in the end it would be worth it.

    Hell half the fun around here is the betting pool on which regular poster will bitch about a previous post getting stomped, which front pager will crack first on a given day, and which bizarre error FYWP will crop up with first in a given 24 hour period. More fun than Intrade ever was…

  35. 35.

    Amir Khalid

    I stand on my right to complain repeatedly about BJ site issues I understand only vaguely, if at all. So there!

  36. 36.

    PurpleGirl

    Please don’t take Alan Turing’s name in vain. If one must reference a spiritual presence, make it St. Vidacom of Cathode…

    St. Vidacom of Cathode protect us from Murphy.

    May the server change proceed without problems.

  37. 37.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    Personally, I blame Obama. It’s always his fault, just ask a) anybody who identifies themselves as a Republican or gliberatarian, or b) a firebagger.

  39. 39.

    Chickamin Slam

    I am sure cardinal fang … err mistermix .. had his Bursitis flare up again. Grumpiness.

    We love you anyways … if the site is slow I’ll just wait and play pin the tail on the Breitbart.

  40. 40.

    Cassidy

    @NonyNony: NOrmally, the issues are just annoying and an “is what it is” kind of thing. But, if you’re gonna throw up a post bitching about people bithcing about you not paying attention, then I’m more than happy to address the issue.

  43. 43.

    Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal mistermix

    @Cassidy: Let me give you a real life example: this morning’s post that caused me to get irrationally pissed was published one minute after Kay’s (basically we hit publish at about the same time). I noticed it and re-scheduled the post to be 20 minutes later. Second comment in the thread: bitching about two posts within 20 minutes.

    Hence my use of the term “unsatisfiable” in the rant above.

    Frankly, I don’t give a shit if this blog has 20 posts in 20 minutes, because that means that 20 things are worth posting about. So I start from a point where I think the whole “stepping on” thing is stupid. Then when I try to accommodate the stupidity, more bitching.

  44. 44.

    Betty Cracker

    I can attest that “post-stepping” can happen no matter how scrupulously one reads the blog and checks for new posts before hitting send. I always take a look in the backroom before I post, but it’s not always possible to tell if someone else is about to post something or just working on a draft that they may tinker with for hours or days before posting.

    I have also looked at the backroom, seen nothing in queue, checked the front page SECONDS before hitting “publish” and STILL accidentally “stepped on” someone’s post. I’m not sure how that happens — maybe the person I stepped on was working on something in another app before posting, maybe WP is just as buggy in the backroom as it is in the front, etc.

    Anyhoo, I view it as part of posting on a group blog. I honestly don’t give a rat’s ass if someone posts right after me. I can see where it could be annoying to commenters as it tends to shift readers to the more recent thread, but I’ve seen conversations continue on multiple threads, so it’s not an insurmountable problem. I’m not sure there’s a solution to that aside from scheduled posting, which would be impossible for all of us, I think.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    Have you eaten your peas today?

    Some day when I have enough gumption to type it out, will share my recipe for pea soup which was taken back by a relative in the government there to whom I has served it and thence used for a state dinner in Brazil for whoever the visiting pope was at the time (think it was 1978).

    Have a copy of the official menu (calligraphy, not printed). The soup is listed under my name (herein x’d for whatever anonymity I may still possess) as Crema de ervilhas a la XXXXX.

  47. 47.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @The Moar You Know: Back in 2007, when they got new computers, the IT department put out a summary of the new computers, including the way the hard drive was partitioned. The FAQ portion was in a Q&A format, and one of the questions was:

    Q: “I am a developer. Can I repartition the drive as I need?”
    A: No.

    Well, we got the machines. The hard drive was partitioned into C and D drives. The C drive partition was 4GB, which was OK, unless you were a developer. Went to install VS2005 and the service pack, and immediately ran into trouble: The Service pack only expanded on the C drive, and took nearly 2GB of space. We repartitioned the drives.

  48. 48.

    2liberal

    you should work in post-sales tech support , i am sure your sunny disposition would go over very well /snark

  49. 49.

    cmorenc

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I don’t get the Beiber hate, what has he ever done to you.

    Because Beiber is the quintessential example of someone successfully parlaying being a saccharine twerp whose main talent is making tween-something girl’s loins go all tingly and sweaty into the scale of commercial success they get unimaginably filthy rich off of. And too few of us could get dates with the really hot girls in high school. And we’re mightily annoyed right now with the unjustness of Beiber becoming a huge commercial success while manifold numbes of immensely better musical performers struggle and starve working in dives, and we’re still annoyed after all these years cause the hot girls couldn’t care less about reciprocating our interest.

    THAT’S WHY.

  51. 51.

    Garbo

    My cat’s breath smells like cat food. Blog posts don’t appear according to my imaginary schedule. Pounding beers makes me have to pee. Whahn!

  52. 52.

    max

    If posts on this blog appear every 2 minutes, every 2 hours or every 2 days, posting your complaint in the comments is not going to change that.

    Did someone complain about it? One would hope sensible people would tell them to shut up. (Hey, that sticky cache thing meant people were posting and they weren’t showing up, which meant hard work posting for naught.)

    will be DOWN on SATURDAY NIGHT from about 6 PM until I DON”T FUCKING KNOW WHEN because we’re finally changing servers.

    No biggie.
    ‘The cable is going down for a minute.’
    ‘What?! How long is going to be out for?! Is that going to break everything?’
    ‘No. I’m just switching cables. It’ll take a few seconds. Your radio might be interrupted.’
    ‘But it’s not going to break anything?’
    ‘It shouldn’t.’
    ‘Because I don’t want …[blah blah blah]’
    [later] ‘Ya know, I shoulda just skipped telling you because it’s taking me way longer to explain it than to just do the switch.’

    Then, when we’re sure that everything is the same as it was, only faster, we will roll out a new site design.

    Smart. Avoid compound mistakes where you can’t quickly find the problem. One war at a time!

    Then, after the new design is in place, we will work on fixing the glitches and inconveniences in a way which, again, will cause nothing but pain to the unsatisfiable.

    Thanks for the hard work dude!

    max
    [‘If this changeover hinges on finding the mustard we’re all screwed.’]

  56. 56.

    JCJ

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    “6 p.m. in which timezone? Jesus, can’t you even try to be informative?”

    Damn east coast bias. They think it is all about them while all of us good midwesterners, especially those of us in Wisconsin, are clearly superior.

  57. 57.

    Comrade Mary

    For the love of Three-legged Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ, I don’t understand why a single goddamn reader of this blog should ever fucking complain about intermittent posts. This is not a fucking bus stop in fucking January: it is one of many blogs and online reading material available to you.

    Sure, this is one of my favourite places, and I will feel sad if hours go between posts, but if you want hydro-fucking-phonic content farming go to Mashable or Buzzfeed or some other place where underpaid kids are threatened with the wrath of Gruumpy Cat if they don’t POST! POST! POST!

    And if FPPers post closely together, again, not a big fucking deal. You scroll or you swipe and you see the next one. Not rocket science. Not brain surgery. Not even Poetry for Scientists.

  58. 58.

    BGinCHI

    I’m at a funeral and so haven’t been on here much this week but Jesus, who is doing all the complaining?

    How can you complain about the posts here? Go the fuck elsewhere if you don’t like the content or the regularity of posts or whatever.

    Christ, the internet is full of this kind of thing.

    Yes, I’m cranky.

  61. 61.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    lolwut? The blog is working better than it has been in almost eight years. What’s the problem?

  62. 62.

    cvstoner

    The silver lining, of course, is that enough people care about what you are writing to bitch. You could be operating a blog where nobody gave a crap. So, good problem to have, no?

  64. 64.

    the lost puppy

    Is there some reason people who are irritated by multiple posts can’t just ignore them?

  67. 67.

    Eric U.

    I came here because Atrios linked to the site. I stayed for the whining. For the love of all things Beiber, please don’t take it away!

  68. 68.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @JCJ: Darn tootin’.

    @Comrade Mary: Ooh, let’s get meta. I don’t understand complaining about the complaining about the complaining about posts on the blog. Cranky blog owner spawned cranky blog commenters. In a way, it could be seen as an homage – demented and sad, but an homage.

    @NotMax:

    Dude, the methadone clinics close at 5

    Plan ahead, you junkie slacker.

  69. 69.

    Maude

    @Schlemizel:
    You set this off. Had I known, I would have commented about lack of posts.
    It’s the nerves over the server upgrade. HostingMatters is very good at this.

  70. 70.

    Cassidy

    @Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal mistermix: Eh, you’re not hurting my feelings. I normally don’t feel more than annoyed about it. I’m just responding to your bitching. I will say that you and DougJ tend to post a lot of stuff, a significant portion of which can be filed under filler. I’m not knocking it. Not every post can be of something of grave importance. Kay, Tom, and Tim tend to post less, and to a lesser extent Betty, and those always appear to be the ones that get stomped on (at least in my view). And since they post less, they tend to be meatier posts with more room for conversation beyond dicking around with a smartphone and who’s drinking/ eating something trendy and overpriced. Just food for thought.

  71. 71.

    lojasmo

    For the record, the wife is in Chicago, and the boy is at school. He gets to take his drivers license exam today in about an hour.

    I get to drink beer, since my wife is away, and beer makes me SNORE like nobody’s business (even with my mandibular advancement device in)

    Lojasmo +1 if you can fucking believe that.

  73. 73.

    Comrade Mary

    @Omnes Omnibus: Forget the baby boom: I think everyone on this blog should be blessed with a fully malfunctioning female reproductive system.

    PMS FOR ALL!

  74. 74.

    Amir Khalid

    Actually, the lack of a new front-page post bothers me less than a lack of new comments under existing posts. The latter makes me feel lonely, kind of like everyone else has gone to sleep off whatever they’d been taking.

  75. 75.

    Cassidy

    And for the record, Beiber is a talented young man. Yes, he’s a little too pretty, but it isn’t his fault that pop music is generally crap. Don’t hate the player.

  78. 78.

    the lost puppy

    Balloon Juice, will be DOWN on SATURDAY NIGHT from about 6 PM until I DON”T FUCKING KNOW WHEN because we’re finally changing servers.

    Somehow, I think I will survive. Anybody who bitches about it needs to get a life. Since I myself have no life, I believe it can be done.

  80. 80.

    Baud

    Balloon Juice, will be DOWN on SATURDAY NIGHT from about 6 PM until I DON”T FUCKING KNOW WHEN because we’re finally changing servers.

    I still plan to hit refresh on my browser every 5 seconds.

    YOU CAN’T STOP ME!

  82. 82.

    the lost puppy

    @Cassidy:

    beyond dicking around with a smartphone and who’s drinking/ eating something trendy and overpriced. Just food for thought.

    Nailed it. I feel bad for the ppl reading this blog who can barely afford to get by reading about all this foodie indulgence or the latest techno-gadget — they won’t comment because they are embarrassed or ashamed (and completely unable to relate, subsisting on Ramen noodles and going to the library to get on the internets) but I know they are out there.

  84. 84.

    the Conster

    Bam is talking about Palestinians like they’re people with rights, in Jerusalem, while asserting Haaretz Israel. Occupation and/or expulsion is not an option if Israel is to exist, and so far he’s got them cheering for two states/two peoples, and biggest cheer yet for stopping the settlements.

  85. 85.

    The Moar You Know

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent): I let the developers do whatever they want to their machines. That’s their playground.

    It’s the network, switches, security settings, IDS, and routers – and all the rest of it – that I become a class-A asshole about.

  86. 86.

    cmorenc

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    @cmorenc: Ok thanks for the explanation and now I will get off your lawn.

    And don’t let me catch you walking across my flowerbed either, you juvenile delinquent.
    :=)

  89. 89.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @The Moar You Know: Those I’ll let you have. To tell you the truth, I wish I didn’t have to do as much of that at home. If I could afford it, I would pay for an IT person at my house.

  92. 92.

    Eric U.

    @Betty Cracker: my daughter spoiled all such plans because she would just disappear with the damn car — for days. It makes me cranky when I have to walk home from the pub. My son is a good kid, he’s getting his license soon. Hopefully he will be a bit more reliable

  94. 94.

    Cassidy

    OT…hyperextended my elbow this past weekend and strained my bicep, plus sore knee from deadlifts….I need a stiff drink.

  96. 96.

    Baud

    @the Conster:

    Via TPM:

    A heckler briefly interrupted President Barack Obama’s speech to the Israeli people Thursday at a university in Jerusalem, which drew boos from the crowd.
    . . . .

    “You know, I have to say, we actually arranged for that, because it made me feel at home,” Obama added. “You know, I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I didn’t have at least one heckler.”

    ETA: I think he was talking about Chuck Todd.

  97. 97.

    Amir Khalid

    @the Conster:
    It’s a hopeful sign, but we don’t know yet if it’s an actual start on the way to a more even-handed mid-East policy. I’ll reserve judgement until we see (or don’t see) an actual shift in the current policy.

  98. 98.

    shortstop

    I think you should keep the site down from 5 p.m. Friday until 9 a.m. Monday. Teach some of the biggest whiners how to have a non-pathetic weekend.

  100. 100.

    maya

    Being one of the left coasters here I am always arriving on the tail end of a post or several posts. Makes no nevermind to me, however:
    You’d think some bright, young, thing, (not an old fart like me) would be able to come up with an app which would time-release posts to the blog, any blog, thus eliminating the habit of and complaints about “stepping on ” someone else’s post(s).

    A contributing writer’s post would be automatically placed into a queue, like any cheap printer does and fed out onto the blog in a preset time interval. I have a blogspot blog and you can predetermine release of a post simply by setting a date and time for it to be posted, but that function would be too complicated for posters on a drinking binge here, obviously. Something simple along an automatic preset function.

    Here’s an opportunity for someone smarter than me to come up with an inventive app that could reap a small fortune for her/himself and revolutionize the blogging experience as we have known it. Bring us out of the dark ages and into the sunlight of science and industry where we can all prosper and live together in peace and harmony, including Ted& Helen, who,BTW, does have a point now and again. “He also serves who only stands and trolls”

    And I too cast my one vote to bringing that man with the balloon back to the logo. Does/did he have a name?

    That is all. Proceed to ridicule.

  103. 103.

    YellowJournalism

    I could tell this wasn’t Cole because the crankiness lacked that distinct, satisfying crankiness that Cole’s Fuck You posts have. Also, Cole calls us much worse names than “whiners,” and we love it.

  104. 104.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t know, they make you do that, to get your license in Maine. And fail you if you are more than a foot away from the curb or not parallel to it.

  105. 105.

    Todd

    Then, when we’re sure that everything is the same as it was, only faster, we will roll out a new site design. That design will please exactly NONE OF THE WHINERS I am sure but we’ll fucking do it anyway. Then, after the new design is in place, we will work on fixing the glitches and inconveniences in a way which, again, will cause nothing but pain to the unsatisfiable.

    Just for this, I nominate this piece of artwork as the finest post I’ve ever seen on the mighty Balloon Juice.

  106. 106.

    ? Martin

    So, Obama just made the cardinal mistake of supporting brown people, and there’s no FP post about it? What kind of fucking carnival blog do you people run here?

  108. 108.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @maya: Sounds like this suggestion.

    Though, if we didn’t have something to complain about, it wouldn’t be Balloon Juice, would it?

  109. 109.

    srv

    You know, mistermix, we don’t all come here to hear the FP’ers whine and complain and say nasty things about other people and ourselves…

    Tell Cole he’ll be getting an email from me shortly.

  110. 110.

    Baud

    I can’t believe that it’s been over an hour and there isn’t a new post up. Where the fuck is everybody?

  111. 111.

    geg6

    @the Conster:

    Lovely! I was so upset with the Prez yesterday with all his kissing up to that facist, Bibi. Looks like I was mother fucking him too soon.

    Of course, he does this all the time. Makes me think he’s backing down on something really important to me or being too wishy washy about things. And then, it turns out he’s doing exactly what I want him to do. I should know better by now.

  112. 112.

    Suffern ACE

    Unfortunately, all of the complaints might be valid. Which is why I’m proposing that we set up a user committee as kind of a external board of directors to provide advice and oversight.

    Also, we’ve noticed that while some FPers claim to be SMEs, there are very few who are actively enhancing their expertise and developing their skill sets. The committee will formalize that process through a process of periodic reviews of deliverables and formal annual reviews.

    All in favor, say aye.

  114. 114.

    JPL

    @? Martin: The speech was historic because of where he was. Bibi is probably not happy that he challenged the crowd to push leaders towards peace.
    I loved when he went off topic and mentioned that all parents want a future for their children.

  117. 117.

    JPL

    @geg6: I’m a little disappointed about the site being down but at least we should have some pictures before hand of the pup.

  118. 118.

    shortstop

    @the lost puppy: I never worry about people who have more time or disposable income than I doing things I’m not doing or buying things I’m not buying. But people in temperate climates need to SHUT THE FUCK UP about their weather. Heh.

  119. 119.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Yo, Mistermix, a friendly tip:

    Attempts at reverse psychology do not work on this crowd. Waving your hand at us like you’re some sort of Jedi is futile.

    Also, creating an avalanche of email in Cole’s inbox will lead to a full inbox. If he doesn’t have a “delete all” feature, this will cause finger twitching sort of the way life causes the Dark Lord to snarl. Not pretty.

  120. 120.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @schrodinger’s cat: And, in Texas, you fail if you hit the curb at all during the parking. It’s supposed to be about being able to control your vehicle. We just went through it with my oldest.

  123. 123.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @schrodinger’s cat: And, in Texas, you fail if you hit the curb at all during the parking. It’s supposed to be about being able to control your vehicle. We just went through it with my oldest.

  125. 125.

    the Conster

    @geg6:

    Mrs. Greenspan is with the prez, and on MSNBC made a point that O has the upper hand now and that Bibi has been weakened and pointed out how hard it’s been for him to form a government and noted that someone in Israeli media said that O had them at Shalom. Also, O took his jacket off so Bibi had to also, showing everyone who’s whose bitch now.

  126. 126.

    Woodrowfan

    you know, Nickleback really isn’t that bad. Sometimes they’re quite good actually.

  130. 130.

    muddy

    @Rosalita:

    because he’s an little arrogant little shit who looks like has a load in his pants all the time.

    Damn straight! I saw a kid yesterday wearing those idiotic pants, skinny to the knee, and then the butt starts just above the knee. I used to make fun of my son and his friends who 15 years ago were wearing giant pants. At least they were proportionate, and had belts above the butt. I used to joke that if any of them had little ones they couldn’t find mommy or daddy because they would be lost in a sea of billowing denim.

    But these skinny jeans with the dumped load just above the knee – he couldn’t even walk right, and had to step each foot way to the side to keep his pants on. Thank the stars he wasn’t on my lawn at least.

  132. 132.

    gbear

    Can we have an open thread soon? I need to post something in a thread that isn’t about making unreasonable demands.

  133. 133.

    ? Martin

    @Soonergrunt:

    Further to this, there really is no such thing as “stepping on” the other postings. It’s not like the previous discussions get locked out when new postings are put up.

    Well, there sorta is. It’s not the fault of any of the FPer but how the site is designed and set up. There’s only one top post, and the comments are a single thread, so there’s no concept of parallel discussions reinforced by the site. That means that if you want to be in a conversation, you need to be in the top post, and you need to jump onto the bottom of the stream. Sites like DKos had the stream, but they also have the notion of ‘here’s the subset of threads that are active’. As a result, the conversation isn’t necessarily in the top post, rather it’s in the subset of active posts. When a new one comes on board, if its interesting, it gets ranked up and hits the active list. If it’s not, it passes by. So ‘stepping on’ is determined by the commentators, not the FPers. Basically, you have to earn it.

    There’s a reason DKos became as successful as it was, and a lot of it had to do with the site design. It’s what drew users in and kept them there.

  137. 137.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    Is there some reason people who are irritated by multiple posts can’t just ignore them?

    @the lost puppy: The vile, pedophile-endorsing social outcast currently going under the handle “Ted and Hellen” continues his miserable existence, instead of doing the right thing and ending his life at the end of a rope tied to a rafter, because the Balloon Juice commentariat can’t ignore anything.

  138. 138.

    Debbie(aussie)

    I love this place. Almost woke the other-half up lol.
    Just got home from collecting daughter from airport. Home for a visit, great to see her. I can’t go straight to sleep after a drive. ( 2am here& a pleasant 17deg)

  139. 139.

    RareSanity

    hahahahahahaha welcome to every day of my life, mistermix.
    /IT manager for a bunch of developers who think they can do my job better than me

    @The Moar You Know:

    In fairness, it’s not necessarily that we think we know more about IT than the IT “guys”. It’s just that we understand the subject better than Dave in Marketing and Suzie in Accounting.

    Because of that, “because I said so” answers are insufficient when something IT related is getting in the way of us doing our job.

    We actually have enough knowledge of the subject to debate/argue with you about it.

    ETA: In the case of our IT people, it’s pretty hard to argue that the people that are developing the network security bits for the communications products we make, know less about IT related issues than the IT guys.

  141. 141.

    Kevin

    As a long time reader who rarely ventures to the comments, I’m taking mistermix side on the “step on” issue.

    Some of you commentors don’t seem to realize that the vast majority of the traffic on this site doesn’t give a crap about your deep and oh so important thoughts. And we come here for the actual bloggers. So, i actually like coming here and seeing a lot of posts, and i don’t look at time stamps to see when because, seriously, who cares?

    I’m sure you all have wonderful personalities and things worth saying…but i don’t, nor will i ever, care! So keep the free blog posts coming fast and furious mistermix and the rest, ignore the whiners.

  142. 142.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    Lovely! I was so upset with the Prez yesterday with all his kissing up to that facist, Bibi. Looks like I was mother fucking him too soon.

    Of course, he does this all the time. Makes me think he’s backing down on something really important to me or being too wishy washy about things. And then, it turns out he’s doing exactly what I want him to do. I should know better by now.

    @geg6: Obama doesn’t forget. I knew he was setting up Bibi for something good yesterday when they did the embrace, “Israel is our BFF”, and all that crap, and then sure as shit, he shoves the knife in all the way to the hilt and out the other side with the “two-state solution is the only path, and the settlers are a huge problem” speech today. I laughed my ass off all the way into work over that one – the newscasters didn’t even know how to spin it.

    Bibi picked the wrong horse, went public about backing the wrong horse, and is going to spend the next four years wishing he’d kept his fucking mouth shut.

  144. 144.

    RareSanity

    @Raven:

    Damn right it is…

    I’ve got the iPad tuned to one game, my phone tuned to another, and another game streaming on the computer.

    Did I mention that I am actually at work? Damn I love March Madness!

  145. 145.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    We actually have enough knowledge of the subject to debate/argue with you about it.

    @RareSanity: As it turns out, most developers think this way.

    And you really don’t. Not even a little.

    ETA: read your edit. You would be an exception.

    ETA2:

    I’ve got the iPad tuned to one game, my phone tuned to another, and another game streaming on the computer.

    Did I mention that I am actually at work? Damn I love March Madness!

    You would not be doing this on my network.

  146. 146.

    TooManyJens

    @Suffern ACE:

    Unfortunately, all of the complaints might be valid. Which is why I’m proposing that we set up a user committee as kind of a external board of directors to provide advice and oversight.

    Remember when ED Kain decided he was our ombudsman? Good times.

  147. 147.

    Raven

    @RareSanity: Me too and I have a all day meeting with a dude from your alama mater that I can’t get out of tomorrow. Fortunately the Illini play at 4:40!

  149. 149.

    West of the Rockies

    The posts here stink! And the portions are too small….

    Seriously, my only real beef is when you guys put up three or four competing open threads in the span of an hour.

  150. 150.

    TooManyJens

    @gbear:

    I need to post something in a thread that isn’t about making unreasonable demands.

    I always think of Zorak and Moltar from Space Ghost: Coast to Coast when I see the phrase “unreasonable demands.”

  151. 151.

    RosiesDad

    Thanks for a well needed laugh. In the grand scheme of my life, just knowing that others can be as cranky as I would like to be provides me with great solace.

  152. 152.

    shortstop

    @RareSanity: One of my clients is a multinational corp. I laughed my ass off a couple of years back when these emails from U.S. ops and India ops arrived in my inbox at the same time:

    “Everyone kindly cease streaming March Madness. You are slowing the servers to a crawl.”

    “Everyone kindly cease streaming the Cricket World Cup. You are slowing the servers to a crawl.”

  153. 153.

    RareSanity

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    That’s a mighty broad assumption you’re making.

    I hate to burst your bubble, but most of it isn’t all that complicated to understand. Although I do love to listen to IT guys regale us with stories of the complexity of Active Directory, traffic shaping or firewalls.

    I look at DBA’s a little differently because what they do IS really complicated, and I don’t even pretend to understand it fully.

    But don’t let me stop you from telling your fishing stories about the multiple layers of complexity for network, server and user management that we mere mortals could never understand in a million lifetimes.

  155. 155.

    RareSanity

    You would not be doing this on my network.

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    Unless you can prove that what is going over my SSH tunnel through the firewall is not work related, yes it would! LOL

    I say I am doing real-time monitoring of a customer’s radio system for troubleshooting purposes.

    All kidding aside, our R&D group has two DSL lines that are completely separate from the corporate network, so we can basically use them as we please. Hell, the corporate network doesn’t have the bandwidth to stream that much video.

    BTW, I can’t edit it, but I would like to apologize for some of the smugness in my last post. I just read some of your edits replying to my edit, and it appears that the level of smug used was unnecessary.

  156. 156.

    West of the Rockies

    @Rosalita: Actually, I always thought he looked rather buttless. Doesn’t he wear those skinny jeans that suggest an almost concave posterior?

  157. 157.

    MattR

    @RareSanity: It’s a good time to be working from home. The only thing I still have to do is go move the second TV from the bedroom into the living room.

  158. 158.

    Svensker

    My goodness. Your cornflakes must be all soggy sitting in that bowl o’ pee. Who did it, do ya know?

  159. 159.

    RareSanity

    @MattR:

    I work for a Japanese company, they don’t trust people to work from home during normal business hours. Of course they expect you to work from home during non-business hours, but it is not allowed during business hours.

  161. 161.

    Soonergrunt

    @RareSanity: do they pay you to work from home during non-business hours?
    If they don’t, I’d tell them to take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

  165. 165.

    RareSanity

    @Soonergrunt:

    Yeah…the thing about that is they still expect shit to be done on time even though we are understaffed in R&D. It doesn’t happen everyday, and it just helps to actually get stuff done.

    It’s one of the little give and take political issues of being working in Japanese company. We are not expected to be in the office for the same amount of time as the Japanese employees, they basically work from 9am to 9pm everyday…they don’t get much done during that time, but they’re here.

    They pay us pretty well (slightly higher than industry average), and the thing that makes it more tolerable to me, is I get free, week-long trips to Japan once a quarter…where I have the option of bringing my wife and son with me.

    So all and all, I have a pretty good deal.

  166. 166.

    MattR

    @RareSanity: You bring up one of the downsides from working from home. I am always at work (and I don’t get snow days). But then again, I was on call for support 24/7 back when we had an office for me to go in to.

    Personally, I am getting sick of not being at the corporate HQ. It is so much easier when you can walk over to someone’s cube, plant yourself in their face and make them deal with your issue rather than relying on emails and phone calls that can easily be ignored. But I am not willing to move to Atlanta and don’t really want to look for a new job either. So the status quo continues.

  167. 167.

    RareSanity

    @MattR:

    Hey!

    I grew up, and currently live in Atlanta and I love it! :-)

    I get what you’re saying though. I think that for jobs like development or support…ones that don’t require being in the office everyday…the compromise should be that there are one or two days during the week when everyone is require to be the the office. Then for the other 3 or 4, you work from home.

    I get waayy more done when I’m at home then in the office, mainly because the phone isn’t ringing as much, and there aren’t people “stopping by” my office.

    I guess easy access can be a double-edged sword.

  168. 168.

    Soonergrunt

    @shortstop: No, I lived it, too. That’s another reason I’m glad that I’m a Fed now.

    @RareSanity: We’re understaffed, too. And there’s no help on the way. But the result for me is voluntary overtime. And yes, it’s a fucked up system that will give me all the overtime I can handle but won’t hire more staff. Thanks, Teabaggers!

  169. 169.

    MattR

    @RareSanity: Atlanta is a nice place to visit and the winters are definitely nicer. But given that my sister moved from Athens to Philly and is about to have her first kid, I think she (and my mom) would kill me if I moved from Jersey to Atlanta. That and I have an apt I can’t sell.

    I used to be more productive from home when my focus was on a system that I was intimately familiar with and that I was the senior developer who could make my own decisions about the best way to fix (or expand) things. But now that my primary focus is on the new system we are converting to, I have to rely on other people much more for help with procedures or access to systems and it makes everything take so much longer.

    Ideally I would love to be in a situation like you describe – in the office a couple days a week and home for the rest. But that would require effort on my part :)

  170. 170.

    Raven

    @RareSanity: I’ve worked from home for 9 years andf it saved my life. Athens to Tech and then Athens to Gwinnett were both killers. I gained weight and stayed pissed off. I swim every day at lunch and ahve my pups with me. If I were trying to advance it would be different but all I want to do is stick till max SS and what will be a 20 year retirement. Wish me luck!

  172. 172.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    Hell, the corporate network doesn’t have the bandwidth to stream that much video.

    @RareSanity: Neither does mine. You are a lucky bastard. My dev group does not have the extra bandwidth, they all want to watch NCAA or whateva flavor of the week is in sports, and I’m constantly having to be the asshole.

    No worries about anything said. I’m also a forensics guy, which I used to not say anything about, but when people found out it lead to some unfortunate incidents of machines having “accidents”. Which conceals nothing, but then makes me fix a perfectly good machine. So now I tell them this upfront, and tell them that as long as there’s no CP and they don’t stream my network to a grinding halt I don’t give a shit about what they’ve been up to. No, that’s not corporate policy, but I’m not going to fight a war I can’t win.

    Being a forensics guy sucks, BTW. There are some varieties of pron that I flat-out would be much happier not knowing existed.

  173. 173.

    RareSanity

    @Soonergrunt:

    But this unpaid overtime builds character. How can we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps if we are getting paid for the actual amount of work we do?

    That’s just crazy talk!

    I really hate conservatives. They’re the only group of people that disparage actual work.

  174. 174.

    RareSanity

    @Raven:

    You lucky bastard…I hate you! (not really, just jealous)

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    Yeah I hate the instances were, “what is seen cannot be unseen” is really, really bad. It’s fine if you “accidently” walk in on Salma Hayek, just as she’s stepping out of the shower (who the hell would want to “unsee” that? I submit, no one). But with some of the stuff that can now be found on the internet…not so much.

  175. 175.

    Soonergrunt

    @RareSanity: “I really hate conservatives. They’re the only group of people that disparage actual work.”
    It has been my experience, both as a Fed and as a contractor to the federal government that the people with the worst work ethic are federal employees who self-identify as conservatives. It’s like they think their main job is to reinforce every negative stereotype about federal employees that conservatives have.

  177. 177.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    Being a forensics guy sucks, BTW. There are some varieties of pron that I flat-out would be much happier not knowing existed.

    I’ve done discovery work in large scale litigation where we were basically handed the hard drive to someone’s computer and asked to go through it to look for relevant documents. Even if you screen for keywords, etc, you find really disturbing stuff. I cannot believe that people don’t have enough sense to just do that on their home computers.

  179. 179.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    @Soonergrunt: Fed contractor here as well.

    I have seen Bush/McCain/Romney bumpersticker supervisors who think nothing of putting in a three hour workday for weeks on end – claiming 8 of course, saying they’re “working from home”. Leaving your VPN connection up for weeks at a time ain’t working. I can see the traffic that goes through those things.

    I’m all for the return of seat audits and not allowing offsite work. My current group doesn’t – every single person must be in the office for 40 minimum per week, period, no exceptions.

  181. 181.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    @Raven: Civil litigation tends not to drag people’s home machines into things unless they also use those for work. I need to have some cause to subpoena a machine.

    If they do so they are idiots. Most companies give people work laptops. They should use them, but only for work. Keep that shit compartmentalized.

    If you don’t, well, then I’m probably going to end up going through your home machine too.

  182. 182.

    Raven

    @Forum Transmitted Disease: So, if you have a work machine that you only do “work” stuff on and a home machine that sometimes you do work stuff on?

    And I suppose you can subpoena an external hd. They had a case in the paper where a dude got popped and he had a pw protected HD and he gave them the PW. I guess they could have gotten in anyway. Plus, you can figure out what’s on a machine from the service provider can’t you?

  183. 183.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    @Raven: Sorry dude. I know you’ve got a good thing going. Small contractors can’t allow it too much as we’re actually responsible for results.

    Not the case with big contractors!

  184. 184.

    RareSanity

    @Raven:

    I think he’s saying that if you do it on your work computer, it can be legally searched if the company gets involved in litigation.

    If it’s on your home computer, it could only be legally searched if you, personally, were sued.

  185. 185.

    dance around in your bones

    Doesn’t everybody keep at least ten open tabs of Balloon Juice like I do? That way you can bounce around w/o regard of ‘stepping on’ situations.

    Heck, I even have miles long threads saved in an add-on called Pocket (used to be Read it Later) just in case the Apocalypse hits like it’s going to on Saturday night when BJ is down.

    :::sobs into her pillow:::

  186. 186.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Raven: If a lawsuit involves your workplace, your work computer and anything on it could be looked through during discovery. Your home computer and email, not so much. I never use home email for work and I do not access it from a work computer. Also, if I work from home and do not have access to an office laptop, I use a VPN and do not save anything to my home machine. No sense in giving people an excuse to ask to see my home stuff. Shit, they would discover that I read Balloon-Juice, and you know what that could do to a career.

  187. 187.

    Raven

    @RareSanity: OH. I was thinking, for instance, you were streaming the hoop, and they wanted to know that. I always figure there are as many people streaming stuff IN the office as at home.

  188. 188.

    RareSanity

    @Raven:

    I do know this one…if you access corporate resources, or have software on your home computer that was provided to you by the company (meaning they paid for it), then your home computer is at risk of being subpoenaed.

    ETA: Not just to see what you’re doing, but if the company gets sued for something, and it’s possible you may have (or have access to) information related to the lawsuit.

  190. 190.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    @Raven: In that scenario I can subpoena them both. And I’ll get that subpoena granted everytime.

  192. 192.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    And if you work for the state?

    @Raven: No contest there. Where I have gotten into some pissing matches is when the computers involved belong to employees of major DoD contractors.

    I’ve won every one of those.

    The really bad ones have been when the computers have been Fed property. I’ve won every one of those as well, but had my search scope restricted, and litigating that mess took over a year.

  194. 194.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Forum Transmitted Disease: Question for you since you seem to do this fairly frequently: Do you think that using a VPN from your home computer so that you are effectively on the work machine is sufficient to quash a subpoena for the home HD? I think it at least gives one a leg on which to stand.

  196. 196.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    @raven: Well, just do as Omnes suggests above, I certainly do. I don’t have work email on my phone, my tablet, my laptop or my home computer. I don’t have VPN connections to work on those machines either. I keep all that shit on my work laptop, which has all the same rules in reverse: no home email, no home VPN access.

    The only shitty thing is that if I go on vacation (what’s that?) I have to take a tablet and a laptop. Would rather not, but most IT guys are on call 24/7/365 as you know. Hope we can get big enough to be able to hire me an assistant someday.

    ETA: As someone above noted, Balloon Juice could be a career killer. I think they were joking. In some work environments it could be.

  198. 198.

    raven

    @Forum Transmitted Disease: I don’t think that’s even possible for me. When I say “work” on my personal machine I mean email and there’s no way I’ll be changing my patterns of working in my upstairs office but answering email all hours of the day and night from my own machine. On the upside, I’m not doing anything that is against the law.

  200. 200.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    Question for you since you seem to do this fairly frequently: Do you think that using a VPN from your home computer so that you are effectively on the work machine is sufficient to quash a subpoena for the home HD? I think it at least gives one a leg on which to stand.

    @Omnes Omnibus: Nope.

    VPN servers keep access logs, at least mine do, and when we had a reasonable suspicion that an employee had waltzed off with the source code for a million-dollar plus piece of dev software we’d written (he had quit, made a lowball offer to the government on the project he’d been working on for us, the gov handed it over to him, and he was developing software for it within 48 hours) all it took was me providing the judge my VPN log showing he’d been logged in for ten hours the night before he gave his notice. I got to search every damn device he owned.

    ETA: I also keep file access logs as well, so I can see who tapped a file and when. Not everyone does that, but everyone should.

  204. 204.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    @raven: There are people who will fire you for being a liberal, and there are work environments – a lot of DoD ones come to mind – where ANY political websites could piss off the wrong guy.

    For example, if I were to go to DKos and write “Rand Paul is a fucking asshole”, and the project is being funded by a plus-up written by Paul, and an overzealous staffer finds it and then decides to read all my DKos posts and figures out who I am and where I work, and then somebody from Paul’s office asks to look at our logs and there’s my machine hitting DKos when the post was made, well, me being out of a job might be the least of my problems.

    And I’m not pulling this scenario out of my ass. This shit has happened.

    Far more often, usually it’s someone higher up in the IT department who rats out an employee for not being with the program/endangering the program/being a liberal. That shit happens all the fucking time. Luckily for me, there is no one higher than I in IT here, but I still keep my political postings – and browsing in general – on a separate machine and network. It’s just good practice.

  207. 207.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    Never having worked in any of those environments I guess I am naive.

    @raven: Just good practice. I refer to DoD because that’s what I know, but there are some private environments, those with high value IP (I’ll use Apple as an example) that are far more paranoid and strict than anything I, Omnes, or anyone else has laid out here.

    Shit, Apple has their own police force.

  208. 208.

    shortstop

    @Soonergrunt: Not only that, but they’re the ones who screech about the worthlessness of government with zero sense of irony.

    One of my best friends, a wonderful guy with the best-developed sense of social justice (and accompanying willingness to take action instead of just whining all day) I’ve ever seen, is the identical twin of a fundie wingnut. I mention the identical twin part only because I find it hilarious that these two ever shared real estate of any kind.

    Anyway, the wingnut twin is an engineer at the EPA and not only does almost no work at any time, he also uses his workday and work computer — see, I’m tyin’ together two threads of conversation here — to bash Obama, Democrats, teachers’ unions, all government unions that don’t include him, government in general, all things liberal, black people, non-Christians, members of the LGBT community, women, immigrants and the Cubs.

    Okay, I give him a pass for the last despite being a fan myself; I’m not blind to reality.

  209. 209.

    shortstop

    @Forum Transmitted Disease: Best practices is right. If you keep those personal walls in place, you never have to worry about who’s seeing what. I had a client for whom I did so much work that they gave me a loaner PC loaded with their business-specific software, just because it was easier for them. I never so much as looked at my personal email on that laptop.

  210. 210.

    Soonergrunt

    @shortstop: “he also uses his workday and work computer — see, I’m tyin’ together two threads of conversation here — to bash Obama, Democrats, teachers’ unions, all government unions that don’t include him, government in general, all things liberal, black people, non-Christians, members of the LGBT community, women, immigrants and the Cubs.”
    Doing the bolded stuff on a US Government computer can be grounds for termination. And unless he’s a dues-paying member of a union, they won’t do anything more than the very minimum to help him. Even then, it depends on the Local.

  211. 211.

    shortstop

    @Soonergrunt: I know. I would love to see that bastard lose his job. However, my friend, his twin, prefers not to have to put him up on his couch for the rest of their natural lives. So, I defer to my pal and refrain from ratting out the jerk.

  214. 214.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    Doing the bolded stuff on a US Government computer can be grounds for termination.

    @Soonergrunt: And yet they do it every day. I run our mailserver – I run everything here, more or less – and I keep former employee mailboxes open, in case they get some mail that a current employee ought to be getting. Well, I know which ones are the right wingers, as they’re the ones with the full mailboxes who keep getting daily right-wing chain emails, plus personal stuff that would curl your hair from the sheer hatefulness of it (I’ve read more “dead nigger” jokes than a Klansman) and it’s all sent from guvvies working at government computers.

    I’ve only reported one. Some guvvie had a side business selling conversion kits to turn your AK/AR to full auto. He sent a sale offer out to the people on his “safe” list, one of whom was a recently departed employee of ours. That one required documentation and a few phone calls, as that is a full-on fucking federal crime. I don’t know what happened to the asshole. Probably nothing, but a guy can hope.

  216. 216.

    Ted & Hellen

    They whine because they have no life outside of this blog. It is expected to serve not only as a place to bitch about social and political matters, but to make friendsies and reassure each other of their rightness and courage in supporting Himself.

    Carry on.

  219. 219.

    SamR

    Wow people are complaining that the posts that they read for free as the result of volunteer work are not coming at the ideal pace? That’s messed up.

    Keep up the good work.

Comments are closed.