Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

This fight is for everything.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Everybody saw this coming.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

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

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Second rate reporter says what?

Good lord, these people are nuts.

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

After roe, women are no longer free.

People are complicated. Love is not.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

I was promised a recession.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: First and Last to Appear

Open Thread: First and Last to Appear

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This post is in: 

This is from Grant Hart’s new album, The Argument, which is about Milton’s Paradise Lost and an unpublished William Burroughs story called “Lost Paradise” (which I can’t find anywhere). I think that’s what the kids used to call a “concept album”. I’m out for week or so. In the meantime, I hope you stay clear of Lucifer, unless of course you’re looking for him.

Reader Interactions

83Comments

  2. 2.

    raven

    There’s something fishy in the California kidnap-murder case:

    Police found letters from Hannah Anderson in the burned home and garage of James DiMaggio, but they did not release the contents.

  4. 4.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    and an unpublished William Burroughs story called “Lost Paradise” (which I can’t find anywhere)

    Well, duh…

  5. 5.

    ranchandsyrup

    @raven: Was just having this conversation. On the one hand I feel bad for speculating. On the other hand, her affect seems off and I can’t reconcile how she didn’t know that her mom and brother had been killed. Also, the 13 phone calls between her and her abductor right before everything went down.

  7. 7.

    The Moar You Know

    I hope you stay clear of Lucifer, unless of course you’re looking for him.

    Fucker owes me money. Him and Soros. I didn’t get into voting Democrat as a public service.

  8. 8.

    raven

    @ranchandsyrup: And you go to a fundraiser a week after your mother and brother are tortured and murdered? Well, I get all fucking jumped on for wondering about shit so here I am. I wonder.

  9. 9.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @ranchandsyrup:

    Whole thing is bizarre. Almost perfect for August…all it needs is a shark.

    Oh, wait, is that vile Grace harridan covering this like one of her cheap suits? Then we’ve got a shark. Mission accomplished!

  10. 10.

    Bubblegum Tate

    A commenter at the AV Club has coined a brilliant new term for Ayn Rand fans: Shruggalos. I vote that we add it to the lexicon here.

  13. 13.

    ranchandsyrup

    @raven: She posted a selfie and a pic of her nails yesterday. She could be trying to get back to “normalcy”. I don’t really know what’s going on though and there is no “right” way to handle this. But I wonder as well.

  14. 14.

    Belafon

    @ranchandsyrup: The guy did pick her up from cheer leading practice, which was common for the family. I’m not going to speculate any more than that, though.

  15. 15.

    ? Martin

    Egypt is really turning into a mess. The military has now gotten the secularists and the MB into an unwanted alliance – the former wanting the democratic process to work which the military is now preventing, and the latter for being excluded from that process.

    Saudi Arabia is now publicly supporting Egypts crackdown on the MB, which is only going to prolong this.

  16. 16.

    The Moar You Know

    @ranchandsyrup: I think everyone is having the conversation. That her family didn’t find anything hinky about some forty-year old guy hanging out with their 16-year old daughter, not to mention taking her on multiple out-of-town trips, is flatly not credible.

    I’ve known my next door neighbors ten years, we know each other very well, hell, they’ve practically raised my dog, but I won’t let their teenagers in my house unless my wife is home or their parents are with them. Pick them up from school? Take them on trips? Not in a million years. You just don’t do shit like that, not these days.

    I don’t want there to be “the other shoe to drop” but it looks like that’s coming.

    ETA: you ever been out to Boulevard? What a hellhole.

  18. 18.

    ? Martin

    @raven:

    There’s something fishy in the California kidnap-murder case:

    Yep. That’s what I thought right after learning that DiMaggio’s dad did the same thing. This is going to wind up in an ever darker place.

  19. 19.

    Paul in KY

    @The Moar You Know: Oh shit!!! You didn’t sign Soros’ contract, did you?! Tell me you didn’t!

    Lucifer’s, well that’s all standard stuff, no problem there…but George Soros!!

  21. 21.

    gian

    @raven:
    A story up on MSN or MSNBC last night referenced letter or envelope as D&C and Hannah….

    I expect there is more to the story than has been releases. She may be a long term abuse victim

  22. 22.

    Paul in KY

    @? Martin: How does Saudi Arabia explain their support on a crackdown of ‘The Muslim Brotherhood’? I would say their PR guys (cause you know they’re all guys) are earning their money right now.

  24. 24.

    burnspbesq

    That Grant Hart record is interesting. If you listened to it without knowing that he was a member of Husker Du, you sure wouldn’t guess that. Ultimately I decided not to buy it, but it’s worth a listen.

  26. 26.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Paul in KY:

    Yeah, given that the Wahabbists make the MB look like a gay pride parade, and they’re the co-rulers of that shithole, you have to wonder.

  27. 27.

    The Moar You Know

    @Paul in KY: The worst part is that fucker late pays or no pays and you call him and he doesn’t pick up the phone. And I KNOW the old Greek sonofabitch is there, he just doesn’t want to pay up.

  29. 29.

    rikyrah

    JORGE RAMOS: NEW FUSION CHANNEL WILL BE IMMIGRATION, EVERY NIGHT, UNTIL REFORM PASSES

    by Van Le

    —————————-

    A new cable channel, Fusion, is hitting the airwaves this October, and Jorge Ramos is warning Republicans that the new channel will be on their case, all the time, about immigration until reform becomes a reality.

    “We’re going to come out on Oct. 28th, and if the House doesn’t approve immigration reform by then, then there’s going to be a new, very loud voice in Fusion, talking about immigration every single night until immigration reform passes,” Ramos said in an interview with The Huffington Post.

    Fusion will be a joint ABC News-Univision effort that will be programmed in English and aimed at English-speaking Latinos (especially younger Latinos). Ramos–who currently anchors the nightly news program “Noticiero Univision” and hosts the Sunday news show “Al Punto”–will host a primetime segment. Ramos is also a very influential advocate of immigration reform, and his comments that the new channel will “own” the issue upon its launch should worry House Republicans who believe they can stall away the pressure for immigration reform until the pressure to pass a bill dies down.

    http://americasvoiceonline.org/blog/jorge-ramos-new-fusion-channel-will-be-immigration-every-night-until-reform-passes/

  30. 30.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @raven: Sigh. I’ve seen too much stuff on Discovery ID. The first thing I thought about when I heard about Hannah Anderson was the case of Nicole Kasinskas.

  32. 32.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    I hope you stay clear of Lucifer, unless of course you’re looking for him.

    Why wouldn’t people be looking for light?

  33. 33.

    burnspbesq

    Piolin is headed to Sirius XM.

    http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-fi-ct-piolin-radio-20130813,0,5216427.story

    Buried deep in the article this little tidbit about his departure from KSCA/Univision Radio.

    But on July 22, Univision Communications and Sotelo abruptly terminated their more than 10-year association after the company received a complaint from a Univision employee, who alleged that Sotelo had sexually harassed him for several years.

  35. 35.

    Redshirt

    Anyone read Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman”? Lucifer is a semi-major character in it, and he’s awesome. So awesome he got his own spin off series that is supposed to be great too (haven’t read it yet myself, am dying to).

    Poor Lucifer – the ultimate patsy.

  36. 36.

    Suffern ACE

    @Paul in KY: Ummm. If I recall, the MB movement is a widespread movement in the Arab world and one of the things they probably would get rid of are more than a few of the royal families in the region. They are a popular movement. The Saudis would prefer doctrines that support the virtues of having the House of Saud in charge of Saudi Arabia.

  37. 37.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Oh, wait, is that vile Grace harridan covering this like one of her cheap suits?

    This wouldn’t fit with The Evil One’s usual narrative, would it? She’s usually more missing/dead girl, evil man who took advantage and killed her. The Gary Condit narrative, redux forever.

  38. 38.

    ? Martin

    @Paul in KY:

    How does Saudi Arabia explain their support on a crackdown of ‘The Muslim Brotherhood’?

    Well, above all else, SA is highly authoritarian so they’re somewhat instinctively siding with the Egyptian military here who run the country. I think it’s tempting to assume an islamist alliance between SA and MB, but MB have been highly disruptive in Egypt for quite some time, and SA favors stability. It’s in their economic best interest to have a stable Egypt, even if it’s a secularist Egypt.

  40. 40.

    Yatsuno

    @? Martin: There is a strong contingent of the MB in SA as well, but the royals keep that well under wraps. The Wahhabis know this alliance is a two-way street; they make too much noise against the royal family, they’ll lose their influence over Mecca and the gravy train of oil money. This deal has existed for almost a century, the players know their roles here.

  42. 42.

    The Red Pen

    @Bubblegum Tate:

    A commenter at the AV Club has coined a brilliant new term for Ayn Rand fans: Shruggalos. I vote that we add it to the lexicon here.

    Seconded.

  47. 47.

    Face

    That’s what I thought right after learning that DiMaggio’s dad did the same thing

    Say what? Explain please!

  48. 48.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Bubblegum Tate:

    OK, I’m probably short a cup of coffee to understand what this new term is derived from, so clue please? Perhaps a boxload of clues.

    I thought “Randroids”, “Randanistas” and just plain “Sociopath fuckheads” covered them quite well.

  49. 49.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @fuckwit:

    Yup, that pretty much covers Yatsuno’s post 44, allright!

    Partei discipline must be maintained! Brother Andropov, proceed with the pogrom of the infidels!

  52. 52.

    Belafon

    @Redshirt: I used to collect the Sandman back when it was new, though I don’t have all the issues (some now fetch more than $40). Good stuff.

    I love the story about Gaiman being the only comic book/graphic novel writer to get a short story award. After he won it, the members of the group changed the rules so that comic books couldn’t win them.

  53. 53.

    ? Martin

    @Face: His dad did the same thing.

    Roughly 24 years ago, when James Lee DiMaggio was a teenager at El Cajon Valley High School in San Diego County, his father had a violent breakdown after being spurned by a 16-year-old girl, the daughter of an ex-girlfriend, according to court records and news archives.
    __
    It was 1989, and James Everet DiMaggio had been lavishing attention on a teenager, at one point offering to whisk her away to a better life. When she turned him down, he broke into her family’s house, tied her boyfriend up, and told them they were going to die as he handled his sawed-off shotgun, the woman recounted in an interview with CBS 8 in San Diego.

    Nobody was hurt – the girl escaped. DiMaggio was killed 18 years to the day after his dad committed suicide.

    But it’s really odd to have a kid follow the same sort of criminal roadmap (where the criminal act isn’t a form of a business – like racketeering, etc.) It couldn’t have been a secret between the families – it was a local event. So there had to be some degree of awareness of this from Hannah and her family. I find it a bit difficult to believe that this snuck by everyone. We’ve seen some cases of teenagers conspiring with others to off their parents. It’s extremely rare, but it does happen. This is almost a perfect setup for that. There’s some really, really weird aspects to this case.

  56. 56.

    Face

    @? Martin: Thanks for the update. What struck me was the myriad phone calls between the 2. 13 calls to a 16 year old seems extremely odd, unless she’s interested in what he’s saying.

    Also, did she even make an attempt to convey her plight to the Idaho ranchers (hikers?) who ran into both of them just before capture? No screaming or attempt to run away?

  59. 59.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Face:

    Thanks for the update. What struck me was the myriad phone calls between the 2. 13 calls to a 16 year old seems extremely odd, unless she’s interested in what he’s saying.

    The NSA could probably tell us…

  60. 60.

    Belafon

    @Face: This is all speculation, but they could have had something going, and his decision to kill the rest of her family might not have involved her at all. I wonder if the mom found out what was going on, and he did all that, and took her, before he got arrested for having sex with an underaged child? Depending on the phone calls, they might not have been actually doing anything, but he decided there was something between them.

    All speculation at this point, but at 16, I wouldn’t lay much on her at this point.

  61. 61.

    Belafon

    @Yatsuno: That’s the best thing about having a black man as president, even though I worry for his and his family’s safety. I want this festering boil lanced and cleansed.

  63. 63.

    Yatsuno

    @Belafon: Remember though: we’re the REAL racists for pointing this shit out. After all, thanks to our saintly and ineffable Supreme Court we are a post-racial society. So it’s really our fault.

  65. 65.

    Roger Moore

    @Yatsuno:

    Please do keep fornicating that poultry, wingnuts.

    Purity above all. There must be no dissent, especially not within the party leadership who are supposed to be putting together the party platform.

  66. 66.

    burnspbesq

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Somewhere in Alabammy, some old white guy read that story and said something along the lines of “that’s what we get for allowing wimmin to go to college.”

  70. 70.

    Roger Moore

    @Belafon:

    I want this festering boil lanced and cleansed.

    I would love that, too, but I’m not convinced it’s what’s going to happen. I’m worried that the crazy is more like a herpes virus. Having Those People in the White House is causing a flare-up and making it infectious. After the flare-up, the infection will go latent again until the body politic’s immune system is weakened again.

  71. 71.

    rikyrah

    UH HUH

    UH HUH

    ………………………..

    Wikileaks Founder Assange: “I’m a Big Admirer of Ron Paul and Rand Paul”
    Assange also lavishes praise on Matt Drudge and the conservative movement

    Today, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange gave an interview to Campus Reform and revealed that he’s a “big admirer” of the craziest libertarian racists in US politics: Ron and Rand Paul.

    Assange says the far right (represented by these two bigoted kooks) is America’s “only hope.”

    College-aged support for libertarians and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) represents the United States’ “only hope” in politics, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange told Campus Reform early Friday morning.

    “The only hope as far as electoral politics… presently, is the libertarian section of the Republican party,” said Assange, in response to a question about the recent swell of college-aged and youth-based support for libertarianism.

    “The libertarian aspect of the Republican Party is presently the only useful political voice really in the U.S. Congress,” said Assange. “[I] am a big admirer of Ron Paul and Rand Paul for their very principled positions in the U.S. Congress on a number of issues.”

    And he didn’t stop there; Assange also lavished praise on the ugliest race-baiting right wing news aggregator in the US, Matt Drudge:

    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/42405_Wikileaks_Founder_Assange-_Im_a_Big_Admirer_of_Ron_Paul_and_Rand_Paul

  72. 72.

    The Red Pen

    @El Caganer:

    Didn’t know [the “Day by Day”] guy was still around. And he still isn’t funny.

    If possible, he’s gotten less funny.

    A while back, I noticed a lot of blegging on his site. I got the impression that the Invisible Hand of the Free Market wasn’t rewarding his expenditure of talent. I was hoping he’d hang it up.

    A lot of Freeper types don’t like the comic because the people are drawn too sexy and that makes them uncomfortable.

  76. 76.

    Redshirt

    @Belafon: Wow, original copies. You’re cooler than I. I jumped in on the bandwagon with the trade paperbacks.

    What an incredible story – any fans of myth with some disposable income should pick up the full Sandman run. It’s amazing.

  78. 78.

    Southern Beale

    @Roger Moore:

    I’m worried that the crazy is more like a herpes virus.

    Excellent analogy. Many have observed that today’s GOP is really just the John Birch Society, re-emergent. And correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t Bircherism start as a response to the end of Jim Crow?

  79. 79.

    burnspbesq

    @Southern Beale:

    And correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t Bircherism start as a response to the end of Jim Crow?

    I think you’re wrong about that, at least in part. The founders of the JBS were predominantly Northeastern and Midwestern captain-of-industry types, who were united primarily by hyper-zealous anti-Communism (including seeing Commie influence behind everything they didn’t approve of). The JBS opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 primarily because they thought the civil rights movement was a Commie plot (although their stated reasons for opposing it relied heavily on Tenth Amendment rhetoric).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society

  80. 80.

    Bob In Portland

    @ranchandsyrup: Yeah, feeling a little creepy about this. I prefer caution for the moment until more comes out.

    There not only is the question about how much she knew about the murders but also how much responsibility do you give to a 16 year-old who is in the temporary custody of a murderous psychopath.

    We’ll find out soon enough.

  81. 81.

    gbear

    an unpublished William Burroughs story called “Lost Paradise” (which I can’t find anywhere)

    Grant Hart was a friend of Burroughs. Burroughs personal secretary contacted Hart to see if he wanted to turn the text into a songs.

  83. 83.

    Anne Laurie

    @Bubblegum Tate: That’s not fair to the Juggalos. From everything I’ve read, most of them are damaged individuals from hard-luck backgrounds looking to form the kind of ‘family’ they’ve never experienced.

    Randroids, OTOH, are adolescents and/or sociopaths looking to exploit anyone ‘weak’ enough to give them an opening. The adolescents grow out of it!

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