Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Hot air and ill-informed banter

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

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

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Let there be snark.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

The willow is too close to the house.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

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122Comments

  1. 1.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    Re our internet service – us, too. Is CenturyLink a national service, or one of those little regional ones? I’m tired of them going out. This is the third time in six weeks – the last time was for 26 hours.

  2. 2.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    So, all you tech wizards – who should we contact for an ISP if we don’t/can’t use cable?

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    Reposting from the borked thread below, I think we may have finally boiled Wingnut down to its essential core:

    I am Spartacus because Benghazi.

    Read the whole thing if you’re bored, but it really does end up coming down to that one sublime sentence.

    (via Wonkette)

  4. 4.

    imonlylurking

    Just got back from the Maya exhibit at the Science Museum-a late birthday present for myself. It’s really something-you can really see how much work has been done on that period.

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    @The Fat Kate Middleton: If you don’t want to deal with The Cable Company, unfortunately your main alternative will be The Phone Company. DSL tends to be somewhat slower and cheaper than cable internet, but depending on what you want from your connection the slower part may not matter to you.

  8. 8.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @dmsilev: all that typing, much of which I skimmed, and not a hint of what she thinks happened in Benghazi. I really want to know what the paranoid cartoon in their heads looks like

  10. 10.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    @dmsilev: OK, maybe I don’t really, like, hate you. I’ll check this out. My husband is laughing at me, saying we have no choice. If we want cable, it’s going to cost us $4,500 to bring it in. Not. Worth. It.

  11. 11.

    dmsilev

    @The Fat Kate Middleton: Sorry. You do have to admire the sheer intensity of the wingnutitude. Though if someone could translate the below from gibbering loon into English, that would be appreciated:

    I am Spartacus because of insanity over brown bagging it, and women in chain mail bikinis — and these are my middle fingers at all that.

  14. 14.

    Gin & Tonic

    @The Fat Kate Middleton: CenturyLink is a national company, formerly known as Qwest Communications. They are quite large. I’ve bought business-class circuits from them in a number of locations.

    In response to your other question, there are options, but it helps to know where you are located. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out, in many locations there are only two viable options, but in many cities there are more than that. It may be just your local telco; if that happens to be Verizon and you’re in a FiOS service area, you’re in good shape.

  15. 15.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @dmsilev: Not sure about the brown bagging, but there has been yelling about the sexism of the chainmail bikini book covers for literally decades. She’s undoubtedly one of the skiffy types who hates all that PC crap.

  16. 16.

    22over7

    Seriously, somebody please explain to me what the precise fuck these people see in the Benghazi whatever. Do they think that Issa is sitting on a blockbuster scandal or something?

  18. 18.

    Dead Ernest

    A couple of things;

    First, Cornerstone. Did I miss a GBCW post or “going to climb Everest, see you in a few months” or some such?
    I’m not suggesting anyone chase him down, biopsy all his posts to zero in on a likely zip code or exhume any other poster’s gardens looking for DNA.
    Granted it was an acquired taste but, Damnitall, I did acquire it and now I miss him (though I have a suspicion that he may be ‘playing’ here under a re-assumed nym).
    Anyone know how he/she/? is?

    Next: F.K.Middleton and others: the ‘burp’ in accessing B.Juice happened to me as well via ATT. The problem is likely close to the Blog, not anyone’s ISP.

    Final: I avoid reading comments on YouTube the way I avoid stepping in poop on the sidewalk, the way I avoid banging my head against bees’ nests to see what will happen but, for the video above, I surely was amused by;

    ‘Wow. The one with the black hair is HOT!’

    Cheers all.

  20. 20.

    dmsilev

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: She’s apparently an SF author, and the sidebar to that page notes that one of her books won a Prometheus Award. For those who don’t know, that’s an award that, well, let me quote from Wikipedia: “The Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society”.

  22. 22.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    @Gin & Tonic: Thanks for this. I should have remembered the Qwest thingy … we used to get bills from them. Our phone service here in rural Iowa is iWireless/Tmobile, which we really like. But our ISP -CenturyLink – as I noted, is separate. It’s DSL, of course, and out here, we really have no other choice but DSL. I’d just like think there’s some other company we could use.

  23. 23.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @efgoldman: I guess if Benghazi is as important as the fact that this lady has to bring a sandwich to work, and that scene in Stars Wars, you’re probably right.

    @22over7: the closest thing I’ve heard to a substantive critique was Huckleberry Graham saying it proved Obama’s “light footprint” policy had failed. In other words he and John McCain were denied another war. So their problem isn’t that four Americans were killed, it’s that more Americans weren’t.

  25. 25.

    22over7

    Why would Issa sit on anything? He’s been flinging shit on the wall for months. The House would sell their tiny shriveled souls for something they could use to impeach. So what are they waiting for?

  26. 26.

    IowaOldLady

    @dmsilev: I clicked on that! Now I feel dirty.

    Four Americans were “set up” to die at Benghazi? The cup of crazy overfloweth.

    Man, that’s disturbing.

  27. 27.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    @Redshirt: We had the dish for five years … wind and tornadoes kept making it unworkable. I can’t tell you how many times spouse and I went out to the hill and reset the dish. It just got really, really old – especially in -20 degrees weather.

  29. 29.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @efgoldman: Pronounced skiffy, spelled sci-fi. :D

    @dmsilev: IIRC, there has been a winner or two of that award that were a bit offended by it.

  30. 30.

    raven

    Just watched “The Company You Keep”. I liked the subject matter but, like Lions for Lambs, Redford just doesn’t have much directorial pizzaz anymore.

  32. 32.

    Pogonip

    I think Sarah has, perhaps inadvertently, invented a Kevin Bacon type game. She made the first move: “I am Spartacus because of Benghazi.”. Now I’ll make the next move: “I am Pogonip because of Spartacus.”. Let’s see how long it takes to get to “I am [something] because of Kevin Bacon.”

  34. 34.

    dmsilev

    @IowaOldLady: “Obama deliberately let Americans die at Benghazi” is pretty much Accepted Truth in large swaths of wingnuttistan. They’ve never been quite clear on why he would do such a thing (beyond the obvious that Obama is Evil of course), but they’re convinced that he did.

  35. 35.

    Hal

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    In other words he and John McCain were denied another war. So their problem isn’t that four Americans were killed, it’s that more Americans weren’t.

    It is issues like this that make me thrilled it was Obama who won in 2008 and not McCain. If it had been McCain, I think we would have no end in sight for either Iraq or Afghanistan, and I shudder to think what McCain would be doing in Libya, Syria, or now Egypt.

  38. 38.

    raven

    I once put together a group of clips from popular film that referenced literacy. Spartacus was great. There’s a scene where Antontitus (Tony Curtis) the poet wants to become a warrior. Kirk blows him off, “Anyone can fight, an animal can fight. You are a singer of songs. . .”

  40. 40.

    Redshirt

    @The Fat Kate Middleton: You should get a bunch of those old school, 70’s dish’s. The big ones. And then have them all angled to point at the cable Dish. And then re-route auxiliary power to your forward shields. That should work.

    Or not.

  42. 42.

    Hal

    Driving to work today I saw a Miss Me Yet sticker on the side of a mini-van. I was driving over a bridge and had to fight the urge to try and ram the Van over the side.

    What kind of delusional mind actually thinks anyone is missing GWB? I’ve come to the conclusion that there are people so embarrassed they voted for Shrub twice they are desperate to re-write history to make him at least an OK President, if not downright wonderful.

  44. 44.

    srv

    The Wingularity was a lie, but the equivalent moment for Libertarians may be a Very Real Thing(TM)

    Randolarity? Benghazilarity?

  46. 46.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Hal: Someone put one of those up on the wall at my office.

    Someone else added devil horns and a twirlable mustache.

    Quite an improvement.

  47. 47.

    Yatsuno

    @raven: He makes much more money off the Sundance stuff. I think he just makes shit now either out of boredom or to stay in the director’s union.

    @Hal: I will say this about Dubya: whatever the Charlie Foxtrot it turned out to be, Medicare Part D did fill a necessary hole in health coverage for seniors. Of course it’s a total fucking mishegas, but the concept is in the right place.

  49. 49.

    raven

    @Yatsuno: I dunno, I mean there is an undercurrent there where he’s trying to explain the anti-war movement. I guess in the sense that he knows the films won’t be popular you may be right. Where’s that doofus from last night with his insanity about the Titanic, he’ll explain it!

  50. 50.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Hal: I’ve come to the conclusion that there are people so embarrassed they voted for Shrub twice they are desperate to re-write history to make him at least an OK President, if not downright wonderful.

    And a great many of them will be on TV tomorrow morning urging Obama to show leadership by giving in to Republican demands.

  53. 53.

    srv

    Finally, a real man steps up:

    Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.) said on Saturday that he will now “work to investigate as to what laws were broken by the Administration,” according to a statement provided to the Free Beacon.

    “The NSA violations recently reported by the Washington Post are very concerning as it appears the Obama Administration has abused the authority granted to them by Congress,” Inhofe said.

  55. 55.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Yup. And eventually my new granddaughter will ask for a pony under the Festivus tree.

    And you will give it to her, cause you’re grandpa. Congrats.

  56. 56.

    Narcissus

    So I clicked on a newsmax link to find out what spice I need to prevent diabetes and the website killed my browser.

    So I still don’t know what the magic spice is

    please help

  57. 57.

    dmsilev

    @Yatsuno:

    No reversing the polarity of the neutron flow?

    In my professional life, I’ve actually done that. Yes, seriously.

    OK, neutron ‘beam’, not ‘flow’, but still.

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    @22over7:

    Do they think that Issa is sitting on a blockbuster scandal or something?

    Obviously, Issa is a liberal sellout who’s hiding all the secrets about Obama’s scandals. It’s the only explanation for why Obama hasn’t been thrown out of office already.

  61. 61.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Narcissus: I’ve seen that said about cinnamon and turmeric. And GAAAAR-leeek has kept Larry King alive, it seems. And there was if my increasingly crowded memory serves a college town legend about whole nutmeg. I never tried it.

  63. 63.

    Ruckus

    @The Fat Kate Middleton:
    If you have DSL and live in a rural or semi rural area there is probably only one phone company and only their lines. So no matter who you paid for DSL service they are going to provide it. The company you pay is either the owner of the lines or is renting service from them and reselling. When I lived in NorCal I bought service from a business reseller for my DSL but the lines were owned by ATT.

  64. 64.

    Yatsuno

    @dmsilev: Heh. I figured the BBC writers got it from some sort of real sciency thing. It does sound entertaining in Pertwee’s voice.

  65. 65.

    Roger Moore

    @Narcissus:

    So I still don’t know what the magic spice is

    I have a close acquaintance in Nigeria who will be happy to provide you with that information, but first he’ll need you to set up a joint bank account.

  66. 66.

    Gin & Tonic

    @The Fat Kate Middleton: More seriously, there are Dish-like services like BroadbandBlue and Exede, which appear like they could be HughesNet resellers. There’s microwave-based, like Signature.

    It appears the Iowa Utilities Board surveys the state of the market every two years or so and issues a report – you may want to call them.

    But, ultimately, you’ve made tradeoffs to live where you do, as do most of us not named Willard Romney. This is one.

  67. 67.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    @Ruckus: Yeah, this is exactly what my tech son says.

    @Gin & Tonic: I’m not sure what you mean by “dish like services,” but I’ll check them out. Thanks for doing the research on this … and for remembering where I live in that context. Back in the day, I attended any number of conferences having to do with providing internet service to rural Iowa. All I can say, it was all very sketchy, especially that which had to do with how the telecoms of the time could make money off said services and areas.

  71. 71.

    Roger Moore

    @Yatsuno:

    Actual science people change the polarity on things all the time. I’ve found, for instance, that there are some problems with my mass spectrometers that can be fixed by temporarily reversing the polarity and then switching it back. It’s kind of fun because I can pretend to be a Star Trek character who can fix any problem by switching polarity of the something or other. We even have one instrument that has a “fast polarity switching” mode that lets it change polarities in milliseconds in case you need to use both polarities in a single experiment.

  72. 72.

    Yatsuno

    @Roger Moore: I just find it amusing that a sci-fi cliché has a real world application. Which brings the whole chicken-and-egg argument into play as to which got created first.

  78. 78.

    Suzanne

    So. I had promised to take Munchkin the Elder out for pho. Went over to our favorite place, Pho DaLat, but they were closed for remodeling. Checked Yelp, and went to another highly rated pho place….only to find out that they had no vegetarian options. Went to a third place, got about halfway through the food, when kiddo found an entire caterpillar in her soup. Needless to say, left without eating another bite (or paying, for that matter).

    Stopped at Chipotle to pick up dinner for Mr. Suzanne, when I realized I accidentally left my wallet at home. The kind folks at Chipotle gave me his meal for free.

    Was planning to take the girls and the Luna-Lu to the park, but the wind and dust are kicking up.

    Oi.

  80. 80.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    when kiddo found an entire caterpillar in her soup.

    EWWW. Though an entire caterpillar is better than half of one.

  82. 82.

    Botsplainer

    Went to the Kentucky State Fair today. Got the usual round of shitty food – corn dogs with gristle, skin and fat tubes in the center, dried out pulled pork sandwiches, less than perfectly cold overpriced beer. Daughter got gut busting deep fried Samoas – I was too smart to try them. Also, I skipped the Krispy Kreme doughnuts used instead of buns on the dressed bacon cheeseburgers (which I also didn’t get).

    Last year, there was a lady in a fatty scooter with blue hair with tats of the cast of some soap opera all over her arms. This year, in the same area (next to the judged quilts), I heard a woman yell at a kid “git back here afore some stranger snatches you”.

    Good times…

  83. 83.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    @raven: That is so very cool. And my biologist husband pointed out that Lancashire is where the first test tube baby was born.

  85. 85.

    mclaren

    Blog’s been down for me since late afternoon. Murphy the Trickster God only knows why.

    Because you’re using piece-of-shit Windows 7. The four chronic well-known bugs in Windows 7 are: the “no network bug,” the “no sound bug,” the “blackscreen on boot-up” bug, and the Rundll32 bug.

  86. 86.

    Roger Moore

    @Yatsuno:

    Which brings the whole chicken-and-egg argument into play as to which got created first.

    I’m pretty sure that the real scientists doing it came first and the science fiction writers using the terminology came second. There would still be uses for reversing the polarity on my instruments- and good internal reasons for calling it that- even if Gene Roddenberry had never been born.

  87. 87.

    Suzanne

    @Botsplainer: Deep-fried Samoas either sounds amazing or repulsive. I can’t decide which.

    Ether way, I’m sure my digestive system would revolt, if you know what I’m saying.

  89. 89.

    mclaren

    @Baud:

    I’ve never understood the Spartacus admiration. Didn’t he lose?

    The movie Spartacus was a proxy for the McCarthy red scare. The writer of the screenplay, Dalton Trumbo, was blacklisted and the 1960 film Spartacus was the first instance in which the McCarthy was lifted — Trumbo got screen credit for it. From 1952 to 1960, Trumbo had had to write screenplays and let other writers stick their names on ’em.

    Marcus Licinius Crassus is pretty obviously Senator Joe McCarthy. Set the Wayback Machine for the Kennedy Camelot years and you can see why the film was so popular — “McCarthy crushed us with the blacklist and the witch hunts, but he couldn’t defeat us.” Basically a feel-good film for liberals which especially appeals to American progressives because the hero conveniently gets defeated at the end. This gives American progressives cover for feeling morally wonderful about all their lost struggles because they’re so morally superior to the Republicans who actually win.

  90. 90.

    mclaren

    @Roger Moore:

    There would still be uses for reversing the polarity on my instruments- and good internal reasons for calling it that- even if Gene Roddenberry had never been born.

    If you want to something authentically star trekky, you’d have to try “Cross-circuiting from A to B.” Exactly what that equates to in real tech is your guess as well as mine.

  92. 92.

    Alison

    Hey, any Bay Area folks want to buy a pair of Giants tickets? Sunday 8/25, Lincecum Gnome giveaway, view reserve seats…?

    In other news, can it be winter tomorrow please? Tired of hot weather keeping me from doing things :/

  94. 94.

    Suzanne

    So I got some of that Trader Joe’s Speculoos Cookie Butter for the first time. I think my mouth just came.

  100. 100.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @snetzky: Good pho is yummy, we go to a place up in the northern part of the city(Montrose) that’s run by Koreans. Then again, all the restaurants with asian food up there is run by Koreans.

  102. 102.

    Suffern ACE

    @dmsilev: ooh! Because he is in league with the Muslim terrorists who were shooting at us and also he thought killing those Americans would silence critics at home and of course if he had helped it would have hurt his election chances and and he was too busy lazyily sleeping that night to give the order to help. That’s why.

  103. 103.

    PurpleGirl

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Aren’t samosas always deep fried?

    Yes, samosas are. But I think the deep-fried thing here is a s’more — an American junk food sandwich made with graham crackers, toasted marshmallow and chocolate.

  104. 104.

    Suzanne

    @PurpleGirl: No, it’s a Samoa. It’s a kind of Girl Scout Cookie (maybe called Caramel DeLite where you live)…. Cookie with chocolate, caramel, and coconut on it. About the greatest cookie ever. Tied with the Candy Cane Joe-Joe.

    And…..FUCK. The dishwasher just officially Gave It Up.

    FUCK.

  105. 105.

    Mnemosyne

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    The one on Honolulu by the sewing machine store? That was the first place I had pho — I had to look around at the other tables to figure out how to eat it (chopsticks or fork for the noodles, spoon for everything else).

    I spent much of the day trying to figure out why my Fitbit hadn’t fully charged, only to discover that I’d misread the instructions and the 5 blinking lights meant it was done, not that it was still charging. Le sigh.

  107. 107.

    Steeplejack

    @Suzanne:

    I couldn’t post in the earlier thread because FYWP was in a coma, but I wanted to add one thing to the dishwasher recommendations.

    My brother has an upscale model (can’t remember which) that works great except that when it gets done it beeps about every three minutes until you acknowledge its great job by opening the door or pressing a button. It’s not loud, but it’s obnoxious in his open-plan kitchen/family room. Don’t know how you would check that ahead of time—maybe look at the owner’s manual?—but it might prove the difference between Model A and Model B.

    The only other thing I have to add is that almost any dishwasher you get now is going to be much quieter than what you’re used to. Happy hunting!

    ETA: It’s a cliché, but Consumer Reports has great reviews and ratings. Subscription to the Web site (even a temporary one) is very cheap.

  110. 110.

    The Sailor

    @dmsilev:

    No reversing the polarity of the neutron flow?

    In my professional life, I’ve actually done that. Yes, seriously.

    How is that possible?

  120. 120.

    dmsilev

    @The Sailor: Neutrons have a property called spin which very roughly speaking makes them little magnets. For a lot of applications, you don’t care about the spin, so you take the neutron beam as it comes out of the source with all of the individual spins pointing in random directions. This is called unpolarized. Sometimes you do care, in which case you do various things to get all of the spins pointing in one direction, called polarizing the beam. Generally when you do that, you look at one polarization and then flip it to look at the opposite.

    Hence, reversing the polarity of the neutron beam.

  121. 121.

    gravie

    That Matryomin music video was mind-boggling and brilliant! Why make theremins shaped like matrushka dolls? Why not?

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