I think I would nominate Twitter for the Nobel Prize if they would just raise character limit to 200 or so.
— billmon (@billmon1) June 29, 2013
@fgbjr Deeply envious. One more example of why Chinese world domination is inevitable.
— billmon (@billmon1) June 29, 2013
.
.
Fortunately, you don’t have to sign up for Twitter to eavesdrop on on people — Billmon, for instance.
Joseph Nobles
Alas, this is the only way I can read Billmon these days. He blocked me for calling Snowden a clown show. My only consolation is that the evidence keeps piling up.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
I am in the midst of a slow-motion romantic relationship break-up, and it’s going to last at least another week. Ugh.
askew
This Snowden/Greenwald saga is getting downright bizarre. Greenwald is going on Fox & Friends tomorrow to rip Obama again. Ecuador is now throwing Snowden and possibly Assange under the bus. This is going to make a great HBO miniseries someday.
srv
I see Jesus’ General snarking at GG’s twitter, worried since he stopped blogging due to illness.
srv
@askew: I guess he didn’t get enough of being called an “Obama Apologist” on Fox the other day.
mdblanche
“Oh moon of Alabama we now must say goodbye…”
@askew: Assange too? You mean the Ecuadorians might be preparing to expose him to the fascist menace that is Sweden?
Suzanne
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Just rip that Band-Aid off and end it. No drama.
Kitteh update: MORE IMPROVEMENT! She is now fully sitting upright, and her eyes are totally back to normal. She’s continuing to eat more and more. YAY.
Big R
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): You probably can’t pull the trigger because you keep hoping they’ll come to their senses. They won’t. Or maybe they already have, which is why you’re breaking up. Either way, you’ll get on with the morning and healing process sooner the sooner you actually end it. And waiting for that other shoe so long will make it a kind of a relief when it finally drops. But I’m sorry. It’s hard to go through that. I ought to know.
Big R
@Big R: ugh, autocorrect. Mourning.
Yatsuno
@Suzanne: YAY HAPPY KITTEH NEWS!! I guess the meds are clearing out her system well then.
Suzanne
@Yatsuno: I hope so. She still isn’t strong enough to leave the sink, though. She’s been hanging out there for the last week. Hopefully she’ll be up to walking around soon.
danah gaz
Emily Gaz: So it’s just better to hit him already instead of making a plan! – our kid, on the difference between assault 1 and assualt 2.
I told him that isn’t what I’m trying to teach him. He just giggles.
Danah Gaz: Emily! Stop it!
Emily Gaz: We are horrible parents. Really, really horrible parents.
Danah Gaz: You did this. Just sayin’. You. Not me.
Emily Gaz: Who told him kids get high off deodorant? Who taught him to argue against any rules by saying that we boss him around because of our white privilege? Who taught him that Hitler loved dogs and sucked at art? You did this.
Danah Gaz: I did NOT tell the kid he could get high off of deodorant! He learned that shit at school. I told him nutmeg. And the rest of it… well yeah… but it’s ALL TRUE! (Oh and hitler was a mediocre painter, he mostly did okay, except for faces)
Emily Gaz: (Quoting Kid Gaz) You know who *else* was the worst [parent] in history!! – our kid, on our failure as parents
Danah Gaz: well, he *was* a pretty bad parent…
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Big R: @Suzanne: thanks. I’m replaying “les miserables” over and over tonight, if that gives any indication how much this hurts.
danah gaz
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): I’m starting a pool on how long it takes you to abandon all pretense and simply change your ‘nym to “Sibling Nonspecific Firearm of Random Adjective Followed by a Noun That Describes a Mental State”
=)
Suzanne
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Hugs. Ending a relationship will never be easy, but it doesn’t have to take so long. And if you’re like me, you’ll feel better afterward, even if it goes badly.
Amir Khalid
@danah gaz:
I am strangely drawn to the meta-ness of this nym suggestion.
MikeJ
@Amir Khalid: Sadly the Unitarian Jihad name generator seems to be down.
Strike that. The one linked from the unitarian johad page was down. This one is up: http://rumandmonkey.com/widgets/toys/namegen/3705/
danah gaz
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): I hope things get better for you soon.
I’ll withhold contributing my own relationship advice, except that I think suzanne is probably on the right track.
Amir Khalid
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
This song, by any chance?
piratedan
@Suzanne: glad of her recovery! TY for the update Suzanne
piratedan
should be fun times on Faux and friends as each of them try to outdisdain each other for the loathing antipathy of regard and contempt that they hold the administration in. How they wish they could return to the manly halcyon days of Bush the Lesser, when evil was black and good was white and God was on their collective shoulders, alas, heady days those were…. I just wonder how many out there are going to make their collective saving throws as we leap from crumbly precipice to unsteady outcropping with nary a concern for dot connection or logical application of facts and deeds.
Elizabelle
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
Hugs. So sorry.
Did you used to post as Arguing with Signposts? (The AWS) ….
And very glad Suzanne’s cat is on the mend.
danah gaz
@piratedan: getting my gender markers changed with the SS office before the swing state voters mess up the next election and the next pig administration ruins my chance.
I’m not looking forward to a Republican president, I’m not so sure Hillary will run either.
Emerald
@askew: It’s nearly time the PLs and the right wingers melded. They have a common ODS base, after all.
Big R
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): One more day to revolution….
? Martin
How hot was it here today? Very hot.
? Martin
Gah
Fort Geek
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): You’ve got my sympathies. It took 2-1/2 years of me trying to be “just friends” with my first love before I finally closed the door and turned away from her. Took a bit longer before I stopped wanting her to come back.
? Martin
Interesting read on Snowden and Greenwald
BillinGlendaleCA
@? Martin: I thought that was your weather on Sunday, but happy you survived.
Steve Crickmore
Obama’s cynicism continues to be breathtaking but the focus, even from Balloon Juice is on ‘the warts and all’, of the leakers and the free press, and not Obama and his groupthink, slightly duplicitious, administration, the polar opposite we were promised.
Obama:
raven
@Steve Crickmore: Just let me say, fuck you.
Steve Crickmore
@raven That is exactly the response the neocons now, cross Obama wants for our friends. So much for ‘winning the hearts and minds’ and the Nobel Prize for Peace.
raven
@Steve Crickmore: Oooo, boogie boogie. . .
different-church-lady
@Steve Crickmore: In other words, it’s not groupthink that bothers you so much as it is that people don’t embrace the same groupthink you have.
raven
“The European Commission will sweep its offices for electronic listening devices and other security breaches, a spokeswoman said Monday.”
Stupid fuckers are going to do it NOW!
Thlayli
Via LGF, statement by Whiny Little Shit:
Firstly, nothing has happened to your citizenship. You just changed from a citizen with a passport to a citizen without a passport.
Numero two-o, the passport itself reads: “This passport is the property of the United States Government. Upon demand made by an authorized representative of the United States Government, it must be surrendered.” The State Department has 100% discretion over who can and can’t have a passport. There was no violation of rights here.
Steve Crickmore
The groupthink is the lying or perjury is fine if you are a senior member of the adminsitration i.e Clapper, or if you smear the leakers, as the administration has tried to that is o’kay but if you expose those state lies by telling the truth, even heavily redacted, as a leaker, you are a traitor. Why even bother with two and half year presidential campaign if the candidate does the exact opposite of what he said his missión as a transcendent polltician was, when he comes into office; Obama often stated multilateral approach to his allies, not just in spying targets, new government ethics, transparency, “whistleblowers are patriotic”, all themes which ring very hollow and false in hindsight.
raven
@Steve Crickmore: This motherfucker isn’t a “whistleblower”.
Bobby Thomson
@Steve Crickmore: English, mother fucker! Do you speak it?
Kay
@? Martin:
There’s more to that story, too. At the time of the “don’t touch my junk” story, the TSA workers were reaching the end game of a long fight to unionize.
They actually did unionize in August of 2012. It took years and years. I’m surprised the writer of that piece didn’t include it, because he specifically mentions “labor rights”. Maybe he didn’t or doesn’t know.
When Bush formed the TSA that was the GOP’s one and only objection, that TSA workers would join a union.
I still wonder about the timing of “don’t touch my junk”, honestly.
amk
@Steve Crickmore: So, definitely, surely, positively 100%, he won’t be getting your vote next time then?
Steve Crickmore
@raven:It depends whether these spying programs broke the law..That is a open question.
Steve Crickmore
@raven:It depends whether these spying programs broke the law..That is a open question.
Steve Crickmore
@amk: @amk: No, I put a lot of energy into saying that Obama was a better candidate than Hillary , the old politics and represented a new departure the way Washington worked. I really thought that Obama had enough healthy skepticm and intellect to overcome all the establishment blandishments. You remember the differences. Hillary had a record of being untruthful and Obama would engage our allies and talk with our enemies, now it seems our ‘friends’ will be suspicious of talking with him. Why wouldn’t they be?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@? Martin:
Mark Ames FTW!
Thanks for the link. I can go to bed with a smile on my face.
geg6
Jeebus, is this Crickmore dude twelve years old or something? Yeah, Obama said he’d open all top secret files because TRANSPARENCY!11!
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but not only has the US spied on our allies and they spied on us (does the name Jonathan Pollard ring any bells?) but so has it always been and ever will it be. And they won’t be doing it in the open where we can all see.
Ben Cisco
Since this is an open thread:
Dear Oklahoma: Promoting a positive image – ur doin it rong.
Seriously, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Over.
Aimai
@? Martin: wow! That is fascinating ! I highly reccomend it!
Kay
@Thlayli:
I don’t understand “exiled”. He’s both the subject of a manhunt and also exiled?
They want to bring him back, obviously. It’s the opposite of “exiled”
I know this is PR – for public consumption, part of what he considers a defense strategy, and I’m okay with that, I don’t think it will WORK but what the hell, why not, but it’s so far out there, “stateless”, “exiled”, none of these things are accurate.
Who is it directed to? The countries he’s appealing to ( heads of state) know what these terms mean.
Linda Featheringill
My comment was eaten. Very sad. It was wise and wonderful and full of human warmth and stuff.
Sob!
[FYWP]
Ben Cisco
@Kay:
Indeed; he’s aiming squarely for those individuals who don’t know what those terms mean (or are willing to ingore what those terms mean).
Ken J.
Digression, particularly for @annelaurie: my Twitter obsession has been the 10-week fallout from the Michelle Shocked kerfuffle in San Francisco on March 17. @mshocked, and from a string search on that handle you can probably figure out who the Twitter voices of sanity are.
I have lost the ability to listen to the album “Short Sharp Shocked” with the joy it used to bring.
Kay
@Ben Cisco:
These countries have their own laws. They’re not just winging it on a case by case basis. At some point a compelling narrative doesn’t matter. At some point it’s lawyers sitting around a room saying “stateless? well, no, not really”
He’s already been through this. HK very carefully parsed their statement right down the middle, they made no claim as to the “political exception”, they refused to give him a specific legal status as to extradition. They did a lot of handwaving and sent him on his way.
amk
snowden boy doesn’t want russian asylum any more ‘cos he doesn’t like them conditions. Talk about ‘dictatorship’.
amk
@Steve Crickmore: It must be nice to live in utopia.
Baud
@? Martin:
Thank you. Amazing piece.
Xenos
@raven:
John S.
@? Martin:
Don’t let John Cole catch wind of that piece. I’m not sure he can handle what a piece of shit Greenwald really is.
Botsplainer
@amk:
Poor Special Ed. He fucked up and trusted Greenwald’s inept lawyering, Assange’s ego, and the competence of shithead hacker collective wikiliki.
ROFLMAO
debbie
@raven:
When someone starts the conversation off by saying, “Everyone knows that everyone spies on everyone else, but…,” you know you’ve entered the Silly Season.
Sibling Nonspecific Firearm of Random Adjective Followed by a Noun That Describes a Mental State (fka AWS)
Who had less than 8 hours? :P
Maude
@amk:
BBC online headline : Snowden broadens asylum requests. Har, har.
the Conster
@? Martin:
Great article. Mark Ames really nails Greenwald’s shtick and makes his cult followers look like the organ grinder monkeys they are.
FlipYrWhig
Every one of these Snowden statements sounds like he’s straining to split the difference between Rorschach and V.
Ben Cisco
@Kay: Acutally, I meant that the comments were for local consumption – as you said, the other countries have people that know what they’re doing; only the Snowden fluffers would take what he says and run with it.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Suzanne: I’m reminded of something a friend told when I was going through a nasty breakup: “Yeah, but if it didn’t end badly, it wouldn’t end.”
fuckwit
@Thlayli: Obama’s dad got into the same kind of hot water, and for the same kind of entitled schtick. He was mouthing off about his government, pissed them off, got fired, got blacklisted, he couldn’t get a job, and when he tried to leave the country, whomever he pissed offf in Kenya revoked his passport. So he got stuck there, running out of money, relying on his dad’s name to get by. He died without much of anything left.
What not too many people realize, is that even though our President came from humble American beginnings (son of a single mother, never knew his dad, raised by his grandparents, etc) his grandfather was something of a towering figure in Kenya, and his dad grew up there as a spoiled rich kid from a prominent family, and died there somewhat humbled.
Yastreblyansky
@Joseph Nobles: Billmon blocked me today for not supporting Morsi constitution. I tihink. He favorited a tweet of mine at almost the same moment. I have a big sad.