Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

No one could have predicted…

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

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

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Let’s finish the job.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Post Hiccup Open Thread

Post Hiccup Open Thread

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We had a minor issue with the hosting company.  How did you all spend the juice-free morning?

I understand that Firedoglake has some excess bandwidth now that Tbogg has retired…

Aaaaaaand now my work computer is blocked by the site’s security system.

Posting this update from my phone.  Just sit tight, and we’ll (meaning mistermix) will get everything fixed, and we’ll get right back to our regularly scheduled Tedium.

And I’m up again!

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  1. 1.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    I was busy the last two days and didn’t learn until this morning that Arsenal signed Ozil from Real Madrid.

    Wish they would have captured another striker with Podolski out, but maybe they can make it to the winter window without it becoming critical.

  7. 7.

    Tractarian

    How did you all spend the juice-free morning?

    Cowering in a corner and shaking, furiously pressing F5.

    Just kidding, didn’t notice

  8. 8.

    Yatsuno

    I did e-mail you, but only because I was feeling oppressed. The error was sort of a known issue last week, so I figured it would resolve sooner than later.

    Do. Not. Want. To. Work. Today. But I have a time-sensitive meeting that would be a bitch and a half to reschedule.

  10. 10.

    Howard Beale IV

    Google just announced the codename for Android 4.4.

    KitKat.

    Wonder how much they’re paying Netsle to use that name…..

  12. 12.

    kindness

    I wondered if I had posted something so abhorrent, so criminally insane and outrageous that they had suspended my account.

  14. 14.

    Ash Can

    We had a minor issue with the hosting company.

    “The hosting company folks aren’t available for comment due to their broken jaws being wired shut.”

  15. 15.

    cleek

    i spent my time googling “plantar fasciitis” – which is when a horde of little fascists invade the bottoms of your feet and set up a little slave colony.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @kindness:

    If they won’t suspend Special Timmeh, then nothing is sufficiently abhorrent, criminally insane, or outrageous enough for anyone else to be suspended.

    I figured it was some sort of billing issue as well, seeing as it happened during the first working day of the month, when the beancounting asshats are back at their desks causing trouble.

  18. 18.

    Punchy

    @Howard Beale IV: In this case, wouldn’t the marketing agreement work the other direction? Shouldn’t Nestle be paying Google to use that name and get the KitKat name back into the MSM? After all, Google could choose any nonsensical name they want….

  19. 19.

    eemom

    Y’all really need to implement an emergency alert system and a temporary shelter for when the blog goes down.

    I mean considering how many of us depend on this place for basic sustenance 24/7, it’s just common courtesy.

  20. 20.

    Ted & Hellen

    Obama sure is enjoying getting his war on, posing with his big, manly war making finger pointing not at all suggestively from his nuclear powered crotch while he takes an oh so very important war making phone call in the Offal Office where all presidents love getting their mother fucking war on.

    Now remember, these pictures are not at all staged, nor in any way posed or framed for propaganda purposes. Commanders in Chief always stand awkwardly with one dress shoe on the floor and one on the top of their desk, pointing all invasion-like with their fingers from their private regions as they make emphatic and undeniably convincing warlike points to the dial tone on the other end of the line about how he needs this goddam war goddammit to take the focus on NSA and other Snowaldian matters

    It’s great that he is so very different from George W Bush.

  24. 24.

    CaseyL

    First, I thought it was a technical glitch at your end, and figured it would be fixed at some point.

    Then, I didn’t see Cole or ABL or anyone talking about it on Twitter, so I thought…. …is it me? Is it something I said? Is my account suspended and felt vaguely and bemusedly guilty.

    Until I remembered: I don’t have “an account”! BJ does not, yet, require registration!

    I concluded the problem was therefore the site, not me, that had been suspended. Guilt fled; and life was worth living again.

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Yatsuno: I emailed mistermix too, because I’ve been having that security blacklisting thing recently and thought this might be the latest iteration. Somehow I must have missed the problem last week.

    BTW, can we all just give a shoutout to mistermix for invariably responding promptly and informatively about these issues? Even if his answer is something on the order of “We don’t know what’s going on, we’re working on it” — it’s still nice to know that your request or complaint didn’t just disappear into the æther. And sooner or later, he manages to get whatever-it-was fixed.

    Thanks, mm!

  29. 29.

    max

    We had a minor issue with the hosting company.

    That was a head-scratcher. I couldn’t figure out if ‘This Account Is Suspended’ meant my uh, ‘account’ (IP) or the BJ account. A not at all helpful cgi page from the hosting company.

    How did you all spend the juice-free morning?

    Listening to various pundits confuse themselves about Syria.

    max
    [‘This is how the gross, rotten sausage that no one wants to admit they helped make gets made.’]

  30. 30.

    Face

    @eemom: I agree with this. We need to establish an Alternate Juice Site we can all go to when this blogs kicks. A place for information and swearing. Doesn’t Southern Beale have her own blog we could drop in on?

  31. 31.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Ted & Hellen: I’m quite certain that GW Bush would also have taken time out of his busy G20 schedule to meet with leaders of LGBT groups to make a point to his dear friend Vlodya. They’re indistinguishable, I tell you.

  33. 33.

    RareSanity

    @Howard Beale IV:

    I have a feeling that if they didn’t actually write a check to Google, they were more than happy to allow Google to use the name free of charge. The name KitKat will be plastered all over any kind of tech reporting, as well as mentioned countless times in conversations.

    I would also think that Nestle probably approached Google with the idea, seeing as how this the first brand that has been used as a release name. That being said, whomever at Nestle that came up with the idea, is a freaking marketing genius.

  35. 35.

    srv

    This website has the weirdest outages. Never a normal 404 message, this time it was the non-suspension suspension banhammer.

    This is probably a prelude to Obamacare.

  36. 36.

    Mandalay

    The lines are being drawn…

    In a boost for Obama, John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor both pledged their support for military action after the meeting.

    So if Congress gives their support to Obama, and all goes well, the big losers will be Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. Unkind people might start calling them spineless appeasers, enemies of democracy, or gutless wimps who are unfit to be president.

    OTOH, if Congress says no, or things go awry, Boehner and Cantor will be in deep, deep shit.

    This looks like a win-win for the nation.

  37. 37.

    Elizabelle

    Crossing my fingers that Pres. Obama does not appoint Larry Summers to the Fed.

    No Larry Summers. No way.

    It’s not a real popular idea with NYTimes reader commenters. Is this story a trial balloon?

    The spreading expectation that President Obama will name Lawrence H. Summers to lead the Federal Reserve Board appears to be working against the central bank’s efforts to stimulate the economy.

    The jitters even have some analysts betting that a Summers nomination could lead to slower economic growth, less job creation and higher interest rates than if the president named Janet L. Yellen, the Fed’s vice chairwoman.

    Spreading expectation among whom? Politico staff? Villagers? Janet Yellin’s friends?

  40. 40.

    Amir Khalid

    @Ted & Hellen:
    One of my suspicions was that John Cole had banned everyone but you from Balloon Juice, so that his favourite commenter and bestest friend in the whole wide world would never again have to endure the mockery of the Kewl Kids Kommenters.

  41. 41.

    ranchandsyrup

    Was in a meeting this morning and my counterpart across the table seemed distracted. Finally she admitted that she was looking at the remnants of nail polish on my fingers. Our 2 y.o. daughter is way into the nail polish these days and I didn’t do such a great job of removal.

  42. 42.

    Belafon

    @srv: Well, the original page said “To all of you users that have been yelling “FWYP” at me, well, I’m tired of your shit and I’m shutting down for the day.” Luckily, someone gave the word press servers a Snickers, and all was better.

  43. 43.

    Mandalay

    @Ted & Hellen:

    as they make emphatic and undeniably convincing warlike points to the dial tone

    Win. You may have a lot of detractors, but none of them are funny.

  44. 44.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Amir Khalid:

    OK, I’m going to need a check (US dollars only) for a new keyboard as sarcasm dripped off my screen on to my keyboard and now the function keys are sticky.

  45. 45.

    Tonybrown74

    @Ted & Hellen:

    I don’t normaily don’t feed the trolls, but this is too funny:

    Obama sure is enjoying getting his war on, posing with his big, manly war making finger pointing not at all suggestively from his nuclear powered crotch while he takes an oh so very important war making phone call in the Offal Office where all presidents love getting their mother fucking war on.

    Admit it. You came, probably twice, when you typed this, didn’t you.

    Just admit you secretly want to get your mandingo on so that we can all do away with the fake pretense. You are really bad with the fake pearl clutching contrarianism.

  46. 46.

    Dee Loralei

    YAY! I didn’t do anything to deserve it! Because honestly, I couldn’t think of what horrible, attrocious appalling thing I could have possibly said that was remotely as bad as some of the other commentors on here. Thanks for fixing it SG And Mix! And who ever else did it. I was having serious withdrawals.

  48. 48.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    I’m keeping TBogg in my RSS reader because I know he’ll be back intermittently and I know it’ll be worth reading.
    Spent last week in Alabama so I’m enjoying a few days back in cool Michigan until I have to jet off again. Mostly just having dumb arguments on FB over Syria.
    Is it just me or is this Syrian situation playing out like a Shakespeare tragedy where the protagonist gets painted into a corner in the second act and you know there will be a lot of blood before the curtain falls? Except real life and way, way more tragic.

  49. 49.

    Ted & Hellen

    @Gin & Tonic:

    They’re indistinguishable, I tell you.

    Why do you say that?

    I just pointed out how completely and not at all alike they are. Try to read for meaning and intention.

  51. 51.

    Ted & Hellen

    @Elizabelle:

    So over the white house pose that it takes MONTHS, I tell you, nay YEARS I tell you, to make these kinds of decisions, as PBO weighs very carefully for WEEKS I tell you all the pros and cons..

    What a load of horse shit.

    It’ll be Summers.

  52. 52.

    Ted & Hellen

    @Mandalay:

    This looks like a win-win for the nation.

    I’m sure what you really mean is that it looks like a win-win for PBO’s political career/legacy.

  56. 56.

    Ted & Hellen

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    recommend they read it before they vote on Grampy and Huckleberry’s little jerkoff operation.

    What in the name of this new fresh hell are you babbling about? This is Barack’s baby. In case you had not noticed, he’s been prez for five years now.

    What a laughably Botwellian attempt to rearrange reality.

  58. 58.

    Ted & Hellen

    @Amir Khalid:

    would never again have to endure the mockery of the Kewl Kids Kommenters

    Ha.

    I welcome your mockery. It reassures me I’m on the right track.

  61. 61.

    Roger Moore

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Why, for heaven’s sake?

    Because those are the rules of their code naming system. Each code name starts with the next letter in the alphabet, and they’re all named after sweets. Since I’ve been using it, they’ve gone through Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, and Jelly Bean. The next letter is K, and there aren’t that many sweets that start with K.

  63. 63.

    Mandalay

    @Ted & Hellen:

    I’m sure what you really mean is that it looks like a win-win for PBO’s political career/legacy.

    Not at all. If Congress gives their support but things go badly then Obama loses, but he can stand that, and is never running for office again anyway. And Democrats in Congress can (lamely) claim that they were just backing their president.

    But some prominent Republicans will have some serious explaining to do on their position regardless of the eventual outcome. It’s just a matter of whether the peaceniks or the warmongers get put on the spot.

  64. 64.

    MikeJ

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Why, for heaven’s sake?

    It’s just the way the sequence runs. Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean.

    ETA: damn your faster fingers, Roger Moore.

  70. 70.

    Mandalay

    @Villago Delenda Est: That is the only objective commentary I’ve seen in the MSM on the grounds for attacking Syria.

    In particular, it’s the only MSM article I’ve seen that points out:
    – Some of our “hard evidence” for Assad’s culpability is coming from Israel…hardly a disinterested party,
    – Syria is not a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, and therefore is not violating it. That may seem a moot point, but the Administration is claiming that the CWC provides legal justification for their intervention, which is nonsense.

  75. 75.

    stinger

    @CaseyL: I always think it’s me. Or else that my company’s firewall put the kibosh on surfing. BJ is such an innocuous site, though!

  76. 76.

    TooManyJens

    I would make more fun of the Android naming scheme if I weren’t using an operating system that requires you to memorize a series of big cats to figure out which version you’re on. At least you can tell that KitKat comes before Licorice Whip or whatever. How the fuck am I supposed to remember that Lion is after Snow Leopard?

  77. 77.

    dance around in your bones

    I was jonesin’ for the Juice this morning.

    FSM must have beat the hosting company furiously about the head and shoulders with his noodly appendages until they relented and restored our Juice. Thanks, FSM :)

    Thanks mistermix and soonergrunt, too.

  78. 78.

    Steeplejack

    Spent the morning reading Lee Child’s new Reacher novel, Never Go Back, which finally showed up on the Nook, so I missed the Balloon Juice outage. Although I did get that “Account suspended” message once last week. Weirdness. And FYWP. Or maybe FYISP?

    Never Go Back is really good, so if you’re a fan of the series don’t be in doubt. Sometimes these series can get tired and the author starts phoning it in—and Lee Child has had a few clunkers—but this one is good.

    Although maybe my mood was affected by the unbelievable weather here in NoVa today. It’s sunny and 80°, and there is a crackling energy in the air. Beautiful!

  79. 79.

    A Humble Lurker

    @Ted & Hellen:
    This actually makes me more confident in Obama. If some one as invested in his being the same as GWB as you can only come up with pictures (that support your point of view…somehow…?) and not, you know, policy, dude must be doing all right.

  84. 84.

    Felonius Monk

    I become very irregular without my morning Balloon Juice. Please don’t let this happen again.

  85. 85.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @eemom: I check in every now and then to have a look but nothing’s been posted there since mid-August. Really, not a very interesting FB site. And there’s no conversation. But it would be a good place to update on site issues.

  86. 86.

    baquist

    Two things in my morning I get cranky without: Tea and Balloon Juice. This morning was painful, to say the least. Sooo glad you paid the bill!!

  88. 88.

    LanceThruster

    How did you all spend the juice-free morning?

    Cursing the darkness. Candles are for DFH’s.

  90. 90.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Mnemosyne:

    No, it just means that while Israel would have committed a heinous act of murderous terror, it did not violate a treaty it signed.

    This is, I realize, a subtle point, but please remember: many things can be perfectly legal and not be right.

    As Mandalay points out, to damn Syria for violating a treaty it is not a party to is lame. Very lame. Make the argument on moral grounds, not legal ones.

  91. 91.

    Mnemosyne

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    No, it just means that while Israel would have committed a heinous act of murderous terror, it did not violate a treaty it signed.

    Great, so the people who are constantly complaining that Israel has secret nukes will STFU about it now since they never promised to not have nukes? Or will they continue to have their double standard where it’s A-OK for Assad to use chemical weapons on his own people because shit happens in war but horrible for Israel to have nukes?

    For the record, I’m against both Assad having and using chemical weapons and against Israel having nukes, but I’d like the people who are being inconsistent to explain why one case is okay and the other one is bad.

  92. 92.

    Soonergrunt

    @Mnemosyne: “For the record, I’m against both Assad having and using chemical weapons and against Israel having nukes, but I’d like the people who are being inconsistent to explain why one case is okay and the other one is bad.”
    Good luck with that.

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