It is Friday. Even for a short week this was hell. But I got a lot of shit done too.
2.
DZ
It is probably irrational, but I won’t listen to prison songs. I went to prison for refusing to serve in the military in 1969, and I don’t want any reminders, however remote.
3.
Bruce Lawton
Prison song, really. A beautiful late summer Friday and this is your mindset? Get a life and let the rest of us enjoy life.
@DZ: I salute you. There is a chapter in Phil Beidler’s “Late Thoughts on an Old War” that is called “Wanting to Be John Balaban”. Your post reminds of it.
6.
Tommy
@DZ: Good for you. I come from a family of military folks. Not served myself (born in 1969 BTW). I’d be a guy waiting in line to serve if I thought it was needed. But not thought it was needed. I like to think if I was drafted into a war I didn’t agree with, well I might end up in jail.
7.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
May I bleg for my NAMI Stigma Busting Stroll? It’s a make or break year for this tiny affiliate. There’s a Team Bella Q. I can get another gig if it goes belly up, but then the programs (all free of charge) won’t be offered locally.
8.
Fuzzy
I chose the military over prison and never went near Vietnam so my mind was and is intact.
9.
c u n d gulag
The Zombies – one of the greatest, but still unacknowledged, bands of the 60’s!
See also, too, The Yardbirds.
One of MY ALL TIME FAV’S!!!!!!
Finishing a big report on the potential for renewable sources of energy for electric power production in the Lower Mekong Subregion – a lot of moving parts to nail down so looks to be a long weekend..
11.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@DZ: I salute you as well, and will drink something in your honor tonight. Most likely a margarita, up, with a touch of blue curacao added to make it pretty. I’m so predictable that one night, it was already made by the time we walked in. The owner asked me if I’d called ahead, and the bartender said “I saw her out the window.”
12.
Epicurus
@c u n d gulag: “Yardbirds”? Whatever happened to ANY of those guys….oh, yeah, that…I think we could use a new “British Invasion.” Far too much autotune in American pop music…you kids, get off my lawn!
@c u n d gulag: Amen for Yardbirds. For maybe younger and/or folks that don’t know.
The Yardbirds are an English rock band that had a string of hits in the mid-1960s, including “For Your Love”, “Over Under Sideways Down” and “Heart Full of Soul”. The group is notable for having started the careers of three of rock’s most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page, all of whom were in the top five of Rolling Stone’s 100 Top Guitarists list (Clapton at No. 2, Page at No. 3, and Beck at No. 5.
I try to stay hip with current music. But I admit I can’t get away from the 60s.
16.
Villago Delenda Est
Iran Plots Revenge Strikes Against US
Breathless Newsmax headline. Too bad the story is all powerpoint slide content. But it got at least one click, so mission accomplished!
17.
Karmus
What an awesome song. Love the bass line.
18.
eemom
Has it been mentioned yet that Obama is going on teevee Tuesday night to “make the case” for Syria?
@Yatsuno: You always pay for a three-day weekend. ALWAYS.
Jim Wright has an outstanding treatise on Labor Day.
20.
Villago Delenda Est
More utter crap from Newsmax that I clicked on so you don’t have to:
On his radio program Thursday, Fox host Geraldo Rivera announced that he had changed his mind and will now oppose the initiation of any hostilities against Assad, saying, “I can’t support this decision to get involved in the Syrian civil war.”
In an email statement to Newsmax, Rivera elaborated on his change of heart.
“If a punitive strike is called for in Syria,” Rivera said in an email, “why wasn’t a punitive strike called for in Libya after Ambassador Stevens and his three brave colleagues were killed last year in Benghazi?
Translation: I am Jerry Rivers, and I am a SERIOUS fucktard.
This ought to be fun. Part of Obama’s problem is that the Dems in Congress are not terribly inclined to go along with this thing, because the same disreputable asswipes who were all for invading Iraq are all for bombing Syria.
22.
Comrade Jake
@eemom: Why he’s choosing this particular sword to fall on is beyond me.
23.
joes527
@Villago Delenda Est: OK. I’m all out wrt bombing Syria, but that is some seriously f’d up logic Rivera is spouting.
@kindness: That was a prison song? I thought it was about jerking off.
30.
kindness
@c u n d gulag: The Clapton Yardbirds or the Beck/Page yardbirds?
@Shakezula: Yea, the guy is whacking it because he’s in prison & can’t see his babe. Listen to the words.
31.
joes527
@tybee: What drives me crazy is the dichotomy: Isolationism vs. Military Action. The very idea that there might be a way to be engaged in the world other than by dropping death out of the sky is completely dismissed.
With Americans opposed 9 to 1 and 217 House members No and Leaning No a one hour television speech isn’t going to change the dynamics. Especially when there’s little trust in the US government.
Thank you. I was one of the people praising The Zombies and that song (I remember posting The Butcher’s Tale from that album on a thread about war songs too).
Can we come up with a reason for posting songs by my beloved Kinks?
Specifically, there’s little trust in the “Intelligence Community” which is now utterly and irrevocably tainted with the build up to the utterly illegal and immoral war of aggression against Iraq. There are too many people in the “establishment” (both private and public sectors) who have less than honorable motivations for favoring a strike on Syria. The “humanitarian” grounds for it are a fig leaf to cover up much more base underpinnings. John McCain seems to get a sexual thrill from bombs being dropped, and the MSM loves them some breaking news involving hard to see bombs dropping on a nighttime cityscape.
This is another fucking morass that these assholes who will not have any personal skin in the game are all for plunging into.
Americans don’t do nuance. And, like a three year old, they want something NOW!; the concept of “deferred gratification” is absent from our political psyche.
“If a punitive strike is called for in Syria,” Rivera said in an email, “why wasn’t a punitive strike called for in Libya after Ambassador Stevens and his three brave colleagues were killed last year in Benghazi?
1) Because the Libyan government wasn’t involved in killing Ambassador Stevens and his three brave colleagues, and the Syrian government was very much involved in the use of chemical weapons. Yes, I know they all look alike to you and you can’t tell them apart. Try anyway. And if you can’t, shut the fuck up and leave policy to people who can.
2) I’m sorry, where did you say this mind-changing came from? Which part of the situation in Syria has changed in a way that made a previously good idea now seem like a bad idea? What does what happened in Libya a year ago have to do with what’s happening in Syria now? If you think Libya was mishandled because not enough bombs were dropped, why are we bound to mishandle Syria in the same way?
I can see why many people want to get involved, and why many people don’t want to get involved, but this guy’s reasons are a fucking joke. Ah, the media. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.
45.
Comrade Jake
@El Caganer: Caught that this morning. This stuck out to me:
They are embarrassed to be associated with the amateurism of the Obama administration’s attempts to craft a plan that makes strategic sense. None of the White House staff has any experience in war or understands it.
Allow me to go out on a limb and suggest that there’s more going on here than principled opposition.
Has it been mentioned yet that Obama is going on teevee Tuesday night to “make the case” for Syria?
There must be some real pressure being brought to bear on him to get our war on in Syria. Otherwise, why bother with something with so much downside and so little upside? With something so clearly unpopular?
@El Caganer: Fox News military analyst thinks Obama is amateurish. What other new thing will we learn today?
Find better sources. It’s not hard.
49.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: At this point, everything may be the Administration making as much noise as possible about the chemical attacks before it does nothing. If there is no UN or NATO backing and Congress says no, we won’t do it. This way, the Admin is on record as wanting and trying to do something about it. If and when Assad uses chemicals again, the Admin can say I told you so.
50.
joes527
@El Caganer: meh. A whole editorial ginned up by reading body language? Wake me when someone actually says something.
51.
Tommy
@Villago Delenda Est: My father wrote the book, I mean the actual book on the use of air power while teaching at the Army War College. Now he retired in 1998. Nothing close to a liberal. But I listen to him on issues of the military. He has been against all these wars. Thinks the “experts” on TV are dumb.
What drives me crazy is the dichotomy: Isolationism vs. Military Action. The very idea that there might be a way to be engaged in the world other than by dropping death out of the sky is completely dismissed.
It’s just the international version of what’s been The American Creed since 1980. Every government department whose job description doesn’t entail killing, beating or jailing people must be defunded as an extravagant waste. But for there’s no such thing as too much support for, too much spending on, or too much use of the remaining departments.
This is very, very simple for the wingtards. The near sheriff is for this. Therefore, they are against it, regardless of any actual arguments for it or against it. They can’t articulate any of those arguments, because they’re way too busy focusing on the near sheriff himself.
re. The Yardbirds–underappreciated, yes, but they were definitely a “thing” in the day. Between them and John Mayall’s Blues Breakers we had a veritable guitar god factory.
John McCain seems to get a sexual thrill from bombs being dropped
When I was watching Walnuts expounding his foreign policy the other day, I estimated we would probably be at war with at least twelve different countries right now if he would have won in 2008.
56.
MomSense
I have a question which ties in GWB’s Iraq war and the possible intervention in Syria.
For those people who supported the war in Iraq, was it because of the Bush administration’s representations of the chemical and/or nuclear capabilities and the possibility of those weapons being obtained by al Queda?
My understanding then was based on reading the CIA report before it was reclassified, the FT did a number of stories on how the CW had been destroyed after the first gulf war, lots of other good information coming from UN weapons inspectors, knowledge of the region, and my distrust of GWB for personal reasons (I predicted Iraq would happen before he was elected). I was not persuaded. I think that so soon after 9/11 and with the anthrax and just around the clock fear mongering it was very popular to prosecute a war.
In the case of Syria, I do not think the administration is manufacturing evidence for a number of reasons including some of the sources of the information and Assad’s history throughout this civil war and because of his father’s history of brutality. I also don’t see any political gain whatsoever for the Obama administration–none. This is unpopular. He also has been resisting calls for military action by his national security team, even former SoS Clinton for two years. I think the problem is that there are actually functional chemical weapons in use and those weapons falling into the hands of al queda is a real concern. If you believe that Turkey confiscated CW when it captured al Nusra members in Turkey this is more than a hypothetical concern. There is also just the issue of violating the international norms on the use of CW and the consequences of letting this slide.
I guess I am wondering to what extent some of the opinions are just based in war fatigue and not an assessment of the particulars of the situation in Syria.
Your dad and I are on the same page, for the most part, about the use of military force.
The “experts” are idiots. Real experts aren’t tapped, because what they say does not adhere to the predetermined narrative of the MSM. The narrative must be preserved at all costs.
58.
Yatsuno
@Ben Cisco: Most of this is of my own devising, so can’t really spread the blame too much. Although doing a last-minute lesson plan was fun. In a way that is totally not fun. At least surgery dates are set and a bunch of medical stuff got taken care of. So sleep will feel good tonight. Along with Laphroaig.
@Omnes Omnibus: I also wouldn’t rule out that Obama may be content with an agreement only for future use of chemical weapons. That is, no action based on what previously happened, but if there’s another attack, he’s pre-authorized to strike. And since he’s already signaled his willingness to do it, we now have an actual deterrent on the board.
60.
catclub
Paul Waldman at Tapped notes that Iraq is only quiet relative to someplace like Syria.
Does anyone else wonder how much all the Iraqi refugees have affected the Syrian war?
I am not sure what the sectarian breakdown of refugees was between Sunni and Shiite, and whether
Sunnis went to Jordan while Shia went to Syria, or not.
Specifically, there’s little trust in the “Intelligence Community” which is now utterly and irrevocably tainted with the build up to the utterly illegal and immoral war of aggression against Iraq.
That’s always infuriated me, the way the entire Iraq debacle was hung on “the Intelligence Community.” The CIA didn’t “fail” to get the truth on Iraqi WMDs. The CIA was told what facts the administration wanted to hear and told that it had better deliver those facts whether they were there or not, and when it looked like it might not, Cheney and Rumsfeld reacted by creating their own intelligence bureaus within the Pentagon set up pretty specifically for the purpose of confirming the party line.
There was no intelligence failure. There was a policy failure by the politicians in charge.
Has it been mentioned yet that Obama is going on teevee Tuesday night to “make the case” for Syria?
How shocking!
These dudes love nothing more than a big, macho I MUST WITH A HEAVY HEART TAKE THE NATION TO WAR speech.
Remember the prime time speech he gay to “make the case” for telling the pharm and insurance companies to fuck themselves and going with a single payer system?
Oh, and that awesome prime time speech in which he carefully and overwhelmingly “made the case” for prosecuting Bush and Cheney?
I’ve read it here that Obama knows the war resolution will die in Congress and he’ll be off the hook, but I don’t know. If that were the case, he probably shouldn’t have Kerry and Biden running around saying that Assad is Hitler, Jr.
Americans don’t do nuance. And, like a three year old, they want something NOW!; the concept of “deferred gratification” is absent from our political psyche.
As a sidenote and to continue on the intelligence community theme… this is also why people (politicians, but not only them) love to use our intelligence agencies for covert action rather than for their intended purpose, namely, gathering intelligence. Instant results yea, painstaking work nay.
That was indeed a byproduct of the lust for war on the part of the deserting coward, Darth “Five draft deferments” Cheney, and Feldmarschall von Rumsfailed.
They wanted their war, they created the “stovepipe” intel system to bypass analysts whose jobs are to separate the wheat from the chaff. The problem with that system of course is that the chaff is where all the sensational stuff to feed to the MSM is, to “build the case” for nuking the living shit out of Gleiwitz.
@Mark S.: I think as long as the House and senate debate, Assad is VERY unlikely to use chemical weapons. So never end the debate.
If the House and Senate refuse and THEN Assad uses chemical weapons, the next vote will be very quick in favor.
This SHOULD deter Assad from using chemical weapons again. All the more reason for the other guys to use them if they can lay it off on Assad.
71.
Ahh says fywp
Good for you?
I mean, are you always such an asshole, or do you have to work at it?
@Fuzzy:
What astonishes me is the overwhelming public support, across the political spectrum, for No.
If it goes down to defeat (and IIRC) it would be the first time since Wilson Congress hasn’t voted to give the President the go-ahead for military intervention.
There must be some real pressure being brought to bear on him to get our war on in Syria.
Or…he just honestly believes that using chemical weapons can’t be ignored strongly enough that he wants to make that case. Just how he stayed out of the Libyan conflict until ghadaffi threatened to massacre everyone in (IIRC) Misrata.
It could just be that this president believes that we have to respond to events like borderline genocide and chemical weapons use.
74.
Anya
@Comrade Jake: I really have no issue with POTUS making the case forcefully for why we should intervene in Syria. But, if the president loses the vote endorsing military action against Syria, I hope he will not take a unilateral action and US will play no direct role in any attack on Syria’s government. I hope he will say that the congress, representing the wishes of the American public, does not wish for US to be involved in a military action against Syria, and that he respects that vote. I am not encouraged by all the beat around the bush the administration is doing on whether the president will authorize action regardless of how congress votes.
When are you going to sack up and actually type the word you have constantly on the brain while you are constantly accusing of others of having it on the brain.
RACIST TUMBRELS!
76.
El Caganer
@? Martin: Just Benghazi? No Fast and Furious? No IRS? So many terrible, terrible scandals/impeachable offenses/war crimes/whatever-the-fuck-wingnuts-think; so little time!
Well, chemical weapons use IS bad. It’s too bad the US doesn’t have a consistent track record on this, because it would strengthen the case for intervention. Also, there is the slight problem of who is actually responsible for this. Everyone seems to assume that Assad personally ordered this, which makes a really stupid assumption: that the chain of command in Syria is intact and that there are unbreakable protocols in place for the release of chemical weapons in the Syrian armed forces. Also, too, that the rebels didn’t do this just to make Assad look bad. We know for a fact that Sarin was used, but by who? That’s the question, and there’s plenty of evidence that implicates the rebels every much as it does Assad.
So, who do we strike? Putin’s buddy Assad, or McCain’s good friends in Al Qaeda?
There was no intelligence failure. There was a policy failure by the politicians in charge.
This.
The CIA didn’t screw up. They provided excellent analysis. The problem was that the Bush administration cherry picked out only the things that made their case even if the intelligence or the sources were labeled unreliable by the CIA. I don’t know if you read the CIA’s intelligence estimate before it was re-classified, but it was excellent. I was working my way through it when they reclassified it and pulled it. I wished that I had printed the darn thing but I don’t think my little home printer could have survived that job and I probably would have spent a trillion dollars in ink cartridges anyway.
Police in Chaska say that three in-laws were accidentally shot by other family members in two separate incidents, one of which happened during a game of Monopoly. Officers say the first incident they responded to a number of days ago involved a man accidentally shooting his father-in-law in the foot with a handgun.
Police say alcohol was not involved and the entire incident was due to “negligent weapon handling.”
Then, this past weekend, officers said they responded to another shooting involving the family. This time, the father-in-law was apparently mishandling his handgun and shot himself in the hand while they were playing a board game. The bullet, after passing through his hand, then struck his wife in the stomach, police said …
Again, officers say alcohol does not appear to have been involved in the second shooting.
To be fair, every single state in the Union has cells of gun fetishists in it who will use a glock as a substitute remote control for their widescreen TV, in a pinch.
My own state, which gave you guys like Tom McCall, Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden, Mark Hatfield, Wayne Morse, and Peter DeFazio also gave you guys like Wes Cooley and Art Robinson.
None of us are prefect.
89.
Villago Delenda Est
The only thing Special Timmeh can think about IRT the Syria situation is who the President is. Nothing else concerns him.
This tells you all you need to know about Special Timmeh.
90.
Amir Khalid
@Trollhattan:
Dear God, I saw that picture of Sean Connery and now I need brain bleach.
91.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Mark S.: Look, everyone knows how smart the president is so when he’s doing something stupid, it’s only because he’s 11 moves ahead of us or his limitless compassion compels him to do so for the good of humanity.
@Anoniminous: The speech is what a president is supposed to do in this case.
I’m pretty sure he knows the people are against it.
I’m also sure he knows the fascist NeoConfederates aren’t inclined to say yes to ANYTHING he proposes.
I say wait and see.
93.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Doug Milhous J: Meaning you haven’t found a clever title yet.
94.
Trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Have a special interest in Minnesota, as my old man was born there. Myself, I was born in f$@%ing Steve King’s district, so I’ll always have that to brag on.
Or…he just honestly believes that using chemical weapons can’t be ignored strongly enough that he wants to make that case. Just how he stayed out of the Libyan conflict until ghadaffi threatened to massacre everyone in (IIRC) Misrata.
I think there’s another angle that he hasn’t wanted to state. There’s several rebel groups in Syria and the chemical weapons attacks focused on the more moderate groups, not on the al Qaeda affiliated groups. That might suggest that the al Qaeda groups were behind the attack, but that’s no better of a state than Assad being behind the attacks.
If the moderate rebel groups continue to be weakened through attacks like these, then we’re more likely to face an al Qaeda aligned overthrow. Considering that Congress has already granted quite a lot of authority specifically around diminishing the influence of al Qaeda, that’s Obama’s way into Syria, and that’s likely a significant element to why the administration is unusually eager to get involved here. Would an al Qaeda friendly Syria on Israel’s border be a better outcome than the US getting involved? I don’t think anyone would vote for that option, but that may be what’s now playing out.
But that’s a difficult rationale for the President to state publicly. Chemical weapons is a much better rationale and I believe is a rationale that he also backs. But the other thing might be what pushes this over the top for them.
people shouldn’t use handguns while playing board games.
Obviously he didn’t want to be the Scottie Dog so….
103.
Mike E
@c u n d gulag:
@kindness:
@Tommy: The Yardbirds are arguably the greatest band evah, but in the least they get big style points for naming their group after Charlie Parker.
This is one of the subtle things that may be driving the impulse, but you can’t very well state it because, well, it’s subtle. It doesn’t lend itself to soundbites. Furthermore, you really don’t want to elucidate on it too much. One of the reasons we’re still in Afghanistan that doesn’t fit in the media narrative is that having a presence there serves to monitor the less than wonderful situation in Pakistan where there are elements of Islamist radicals who would love to get their mitts on nukes, to use against any number of targets.
Al Qaeda guys with access to Sarin is scary, because you know these people are like our wingtards…some people are just not human to them, and using that gas in say a kibbutz is something they’d do in a heartbeat just because it’s disposing of their version of the mudpeople.
Either their absolute disdain for learning, even from experience, is polished to a fine luster or they really do believe themselves the epitome of NRA and founding father approved gun-control and management.
107.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s also quite helpful to realize that “the rebels” in Syria are not “The Rebel Alliance” by any stretch of the imagination. There are any number of disparate groups fighting the central government (which means Assad) in Syria, and they are often at odds with each other.
One of the ironies of Syria is Assad might well be the guy who’s most interested in preserving religious freedom in Syria, and some of his opponents the most dead set on imposing Sunni orthodoxy on everyone at gunpoint.
@Villago Delenda Est: I’d be less worried about it if Israel wasn’t next door. And that’s not just a concern for the people of Israel but also for the sometimes poor impulse control of the leaders of Israel and where that’s likely to lead.
109.
Amir Khalid
@Mike E:
I was under the impression they were one of the only two bands ever named in honour of the chicken. (The other being Little Red Rooster.) Wasn’t Parker himself nicknamed after the barnyard fowl?
Can’t follow this line of thinking without running into the fact overthrowing the Assad government almost certainly ensures some of the Syrian chemical arsenal will end up in the hands of Islamic terrorists – Al Queda or otherwise. IMO, this is one reason the Russians are supporting Assad. The main Russian port for their Mediterranean fleet is in Syria. If Al Queda, etc., get their hands on chemical weapons they are very likely to dump them on the Russian naval bases.
111.
Thlayli
Did Rivera seriously say “I am Spartacus because Benghazi”?
@Trollhattan: To be fair, gun fans have felt vulnerable ever since they got rid of the Monopoly howitzer.
Too true!
I believe Zardoz is in the top ten of totally strange movies that have actors in them that anyone can recognize, certainly. It’s a case of “You mean professionals made this?”
113.
Citizen_X
@Trollhattan: But the Banker just stares. “There’s something wrong here,” he thinks. The Race Car is seized, and forced to his knees, and shot…dead.
@Villago Delenda Est: Assad is also reliant on Hezbollah, and will need to throw them and Iran a cookie at some point, so the religious freedom thing might not be something he can spare. Some of the moderate rebels are Muslim Brotherhood backed, which will be interesting as Egypt is now formally outlawing the group.
I’m trying to imagine a more volatile combination of actors than this one, and all I can think to add would be the neocons. Hell, we’ve even got North Korea in the mix.
John Boorman is one of those directors who can be very, very good (Hope and Glory) but when he’s bad, it’s frickin’ epic.
Don’t forget, Boorman’s also the auteur of Exorcist II: The Heretic, with Richard Burton, which ends with Linda Blair rollerskating over a plague of locusts (don’t ask).
It’s also quite helpful to realize that “the rebels” in Syria are not “The Rebel Alliance” by any stretch of the imagination. There are any number of disparate groups fighting the central government (which means Assad) in Syria, and they are often at odds with each other.
This is a common misconception for virtually every insurgency in history. La Resistance in World War Two is probably the original archetype, generally portrayed as being 1) unified, 2) generically patriotic and 3) broadly supported by the public. When in reality, it was just as fractured and divided as the Iraqi insurgency, different groups were motivated by all kinds of different ideologies (I think you even had a couple of small fascist groups on the fringes – French fascists, whose racial/national superiority complex couldn’t allow for surrender to the fascists of another country), and the public support for them was… ambivalent, to say the very least.
The Afghanistan resistance was portrayed the same way in the eighties, and as we see in retrospect, about as ridiculously. Ditto Iraq, Syria, etc.
124.
kindness
@Mike E: When I was filling out my ipod I bought one of the Yardbirds Greatest Hits records. I had a tough time finding one with both the Clapton & the Beck/Page eras as I wanted both. Now when one kicks out on the Shuffle that the ipod is always on, I have to think which version of the band it is. Some you can tell. Some, not so much.
125.
Mike E
@Trollhattan: Heh…now you know why Craig Ferguson wants to see Connery play Superman, with the “S” shaved into his chest hair.
@Mnemosyne: Mr WereBear loves Excalibur, but I always have to leave at the end where the knight keeps coming back, “Really? I really have to throw away the sword? This sword?” and Arthur’s all, “I’m dying here! Ditch the sword already!”
Always cracks me up.
127.
Soonergrunt
@Comrade Jake: The facts that he never made his third star and he’s a paid flack for Fox news (which fact the WaPo didn’t reveal) might have something to do with it.
@Amir Khalid: Yes! His tour bus (glorified caravan, really) ran over a chicken, and he asked the driver, “Are you gonna get that yardbird?”, made them turn around so he could collect it. His bandmates were horrified, so Mr. Parker plucked, cooked, and ate the whole thing.
They immediately started calling him “Yardbird”, “Yard” and “Bird” for short. You know which one stuck.
131.
Soonergrunt
We had some fuckery with our anti-spam software recently. One of the computers I use to post was blocked for a while. John doesn’t ban people without informing them.
I don’t use a valid email address here, so I wouldn’t have gotten an email. Still, John does usually put a “hey, you effers are banned” message in the offending thread and I never saw one.
Still seems odd that I was trying to post from multiple different devices with different IP addresses and couldn’t get through until today.
134.
Soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: but if they were all from the same address range, they all would have been banned under the problem we were having.
Anyway, if you were intentionally banned you wouldn’t be back–he would have put something in the thread if it were an intentional banning even temporary.
I’ll admit, I don’t understand tech stuff, so I’m not sure how my work internet, my home internet, and my 3G internet would all be from the same address range. Is it geographical?
136.
kindness
Hey Soonergrunt, when do we get pics of the house?
137.
cckids
@Villago Delenda Est: Only just barely related to your post, but we dropped our youngest off at college this weekend. At the (too long) 3 days of parent schmoozing, I kept seeing a dad who was a doppelganger for Geraldo Rivera. I kept double-taking and/or being startled by him. It was like seeing a creepy clown or Frankenstein or something. Weird.
um, Cole ain’t the only one who bans people. Lady Passive-Aggressive has done it as well, and no she doesn’t announce it either. Similar to how she deletes comments she doesn’t like.
Other people in the same geographical area (seriously, one of them is about 1 mile from my office and 2 miles from my home) did not have any trouble. That’s why it seems so odd to me that my cable internet at home and my ISP at work and my 3G internet on my iPhone were all coincidentally blocked at the exact same time while other people in my area had no trouble. Since those are from three different telecom providers, is it possible for them all to have been coincidentally blocked at the same time when other people in the same geographical area weren’t? I honestly don’t know.
Anyway, if you were intentionally banned you wouldn’t be back–he would have put something in the thread if it were an intentional banning even temporary.
You are more clueless than I originally believed. Useful to know.
Other people in the same geographical area (seriously, one of them is about 1 mile from my office and 2 miles from my home) did not have any trouble. That’s why it seems so odd to me that my cable internet at home and my ISP at work and my 3G internet on my iPhone were all coincidentally blocked at the exact same time while other people in my area had no trouble. Since those are from three different telecom providers, is it possible for them all to have been coincidentally blocked at the same time when other people in the same geographical area weren’t? I honestly don’t know.
YOU WERE BLOCKED/BANNED/VERBOTEN/EXILED/SHAMED/SHUNNED.
That’s right, Timmy — you threatened me, and I was the one who got banned.
Does that finally make you feel like a man, or are you going to continue to feel compelled to show your pee-pee to everyone at every opportunity because you just don’t believe it yourself?
I think it was one of the Syria threads from a couple of days ago that got to a TBogg unit (over 300 comments). Mclaren put in a guest appearance, too. I don’t have the link handy at the moment.
154.
smintheus
This thread’s a classic demonstration of how overlooked The Zombies were and are. Great track from a great album, but the comments are about the Yardbirds!
Yatsuno
It is Friday. Even for a short week this was hell. But I got a lot of shit done too.
DZ
It is probably irrational, but I won’t listen to prison songs. I went to prison for refusing to serve in the military in 1969, and I don’t want any reminders, however remote.
Bruce Lawton
Prison song, really. A beautiful late summer Friday and this is your mindset? Get a life and let the rest of us enjoy life.
srv
@DZ: I will drink a beer in your honor tonight.
raven
@DZ: I salute you. There is a chapter in Phil Beidler’s “Late Thoughts on an Old War” that is called “Wanting to Be John Balaban”. Your post reminds of it.
Tommy
@DZ: Good for you. I come from a family of military folks. Not served myself (born in 1969 BTW). I’d be a guy waiting in line to serve if I thought it was needed. But not thought it was needed. I like to think if I was drafted into a war I didn’t agree with, well I might end up in jail.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
May I bleg for my NAMI Stigma Busting Stroll? It’s a make or break year for this tiny affiliate. There’s a Team Bella Q. I can get another gig if it goes belly up, but then the programs (all free of charge) won’t be offered locally.
Fuzzy
I chose the military over prison and never went near Vietnam so my mind was and is intact.
c u n d gulag
The Zombies – one of the greatest, but still unacknowledged, bands of the 60’s!
See also, too, The Yardbirds.
One of MY ALL TIME FAV’S!!!!!!
mainmati
Finishing a big report on the potential for renewable sources of energy for electric power production in the Lower Mekong Subregion – a lot of moving parts to nail down so looks to be a long weekend..
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@DZ: I salute you as well, and will drink something in your honor tonight. Most likely a margarita, up, with a touch of blue curacao added to make it pretty. I’m so predictable that one night, it was already made by the time we walked in. The owner asked me if I’d called ahead, and the bartender said “I saw her out the window.”
Epicurus
@c u n d gulag: “Yardbirds”? Whatever happened to ANY of those guys….oh, yeah, that…I think we could use a new “British Invasion.” Far too much autotune in American pop music…you kids, get off my lawn!
raven
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): It wasn’t much but I’m on your team!
raven
@mainmati: Below the Can Tho Bridge?
Tommy
@c u n d gulag: Amen for Yardbirds. For maybe younger and/or folks that don’t know.
I try to stay hip with current music. But I admit I can’t get away from the 60s.
Villago Delenda Est
Iran Plots Revenge Strikes Against US
Breathless Newsmax headline. Too bad the story is all powerpoint slide content. But it got at least one click, so mission accomplished!
Karmus
What an awesome song. Love the bass line.
eemom
Has it been mentioned yet that Obama is going on teevee Tuesday night to “make the case” for Syria?
Shit.
Ben Cisco
@Yatsuno: You always pay for a three-day weekend. ALWAYS.
Jim Wright has an outstanding treatise on Labor Day.
Villago Delenda Est
More utter crap from Newsmax that I clicked on so you don’t have to:
Translation: I am Jerry Rivers, and I am a SERIOUS fucktard.
Villago Delenda Est
@eemom:
This ought to be fun. Part of Obama’s problem is that the Dems in Congress are not terribly inclined to go along with this thing, because the same disreputable asswipes who were all for invading Iraq are all for bombing Syria.
Comrade Jake
@eemom: Why he’s choosing this particular sword to fall on is beyond me.
joes527
@Villago Delenda Est: OK. I’m all out wrt bombing Syria, but that is some seriously f’d up logic Rivera is spouting.
tybee
booman on syria: http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/9/6/103240/1304
kindness
Prison songs…You should check out The Vapors ‘Turning Japanese’. 80’s hit from a 2 album English band. Actually the albums are quite good.
piratedan
now on life #8
http://juneauempire.com/local/2013-09-05/kitty-falls-11-stories-mendenhall-tower-window#.UioDrz_3O5J
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: Thanks so much! Your official thanks letter is in the email.
raven
“Do What You Want, Be What You Are”-Daryl Hall, Sharon Jones
Shakezula
@kindness: That was a prison song? I thought it was about jerking off.
kindness
@c u n d gulag: The Clapton Yardbirds or the Beck/Page yardbirds?
@Shakezula: Yea, the guy is whacking it because he’s in prison & can’t see his babe. Listen to the words.
joes527
@tybee: What drives me crazy is the dichotomy: Isolationism vs. Military Action. The very idea that there might be a way to be engaged in the world other than by dropping death out of the sky is completely dismissed.
raven
Sara Smile / Ooo Baby Baby – Daryl Hall and Smokey Robinson
won’t you smile a while. . .
piratedan
@Shakezula: ding ding ding! or in this case fap fap fap!
Ted & Hellen
Has PBO gotten his war on yet?
Comrade Jake
Has Ted & Hellen gotten his troll on yet?
ETA: too late.
Anoniminous
@eemom:
With Americans opposed 9 to 1 and 217 House members No and Leaning No a one hour television speech isn’t going to change the dynamics. Especially when there’s little trust in the US government.
El Caganer
@Villago Delenda Est: Jesus Christ. That doesn’t even make sense.
El Caganer
Apparently the U.S. military isn’t 100% on board with the Great Syrian Adventure.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/us-military-planners-dont-support-war-with-syria/2013/09/05/10a07114-15bb-11e3-be6e-dc6ae8a5b3a8_story.html
gbear
Thank you. I was one of the people praising The Zombies and that song (I remember posting The Butcher’s Tale from that album on a thread about war songs too).
Can we come up with a reason for posting songs by my beloved Kinks?
raven
@gbear: Who’ll be the next in line for heartache?
Villago Delenda Est
@Anoniminous:
Specifically, there’s little trust in the “Intelligence Community” which is now utterly and irrevocably tainted with the build up to the utterly illegal and immoral war of aggression against Iraq. There are too many people in the “establishment” (both private and public sectors) who have less than honorable motivations for favoring a strike on Syria. The “humanitarian” grounds for it are a fig leaf to cover up much more base underpinnings. John McCain seems to get a sexual thrill from bombs being dropped, and the MSM loves them some breaking news involving hard to see bombs dropping on a nighttime cityscape.
This is another fucking morass that these assholes who will not have any personal skin in the game are all for plunging into.
Anoniminous
@joes527:
Americans don’t do nuance. And, like a three year old, they want something NOW!; the concept of “deferred gratification” is absent from our political psyche.
Villago Delenda Est
@El Caganer:
He’s a Faux Noise personality. Not making sense is a mandatory job requirement for him.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
1) Because the Libyan government wasn’t involved in killing Ambassador Stevens and his three brave colleagues, and the Syrian government was very much involved in the use of chemical weapons. Yes, I know they all look alike to you and you can’t tell them apart. Try anyway. And if you can’t, shut the fuck up and leave policy to people who can.
2) I’m sorry, where did you say this mind-changing came from? Which part of the situation in Syria has changed in a way that made a previously good idea now seem like a bad idea? What does what happened in Libya a year ago have to do with what’s happening in Syria now? If you think Libya was mishandled because not enough bombs were dropped, why are we bound to mishandle Syria in the same way?
I can see why many people want to get involved, and why many people don’t want to get involved, but this guy’s reasons are a fucking joke. Ah, the media. Can’t live with them,
can’t live without them.Comrade Jake
@El Caganer: Caught that this morning. This stuck out to me:
Allow me to go out on a limb and suggest that there’s more going on here than principled opposition.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@eemom:
There must be some real pressure being brought to bear on him to get our war on in Syria. Otherwise, why bother with something with so much downside and so little upside? With something so clearly unpopular?
Ted & Hellen
@DZ:
In all seriousness, good for you. I respect that very much. To stand up to all the societal and peer pressure shows great courage and resolve.
? Martin
@El Caganer: Fox News military analyst thinks Obama is amateurish. What other new thing will we learn today?
Find better sources. It’s not hard.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: At this point, everything may be the Administration making as much noise as possible about the chemical attacks before it does nothing. If there is no UN or NATO backing and Congress says no, we won’t do it. This way, the Admin is on record as wanting and trying to do something about it. If and when Assad uses chemicals again, the Admin can say I told you so.
joes527
@El Caganer: meh. A whole editorial ginned up by reading body language? Wake me when someone actually says something.
Tommy
@Villago Delenda Est: My father wrote the book, I mean the actual book on the use of air power while teaching at the Army War College. Now he retired in 1998. Nothing close to a liberal. But I listen to him on issues of the military. He has been against all these wars. Thinks the “experts” on TV are dumb.
Chris
@joes527:
It’s just the international version of what’s been The American Creed since 1980. Every government department whose job description doesn’t entail killing, beating or jailing people must be defunded as an extravagant waste. But for there’s no such thing as too much support for, too much spending on, or too much use of the remaining departments.
Villago Delenda Est
@Comrade Jake:
This is very, very simple for the wingtards. The near sheriff is for this. Therefore, they are against it, regardless of any actual arguments for it or against it. They can’t articulate any of those arguments, because they’re way too busy focusing on the near sheriff himself.
Trollhattan
What the heck–a Syria-Oz mashup.
http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2013/09/06
re. The Yardbirds–underappreciated, yes, but they were definitely a “thing” in the day. Between them and John Mayall’s Blues Breakers we had a veritable guitar god factory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zeza1xeWKM
Mark S.
@Villago Delenda Est:
When I was watching Walnuts expounding his foreign policy the other day, I estimated we would probably be at war with at least twelve different countries right now if he would have won in 2008.
MomSense
I have a question which ties in GWB’s Iraq war and the possible intervention in Syria.
For those people who supported the war in Iraq, was it because of the Bush administration’s representations of the chemical and/or nuclear capabilities and the possibility of those weapons being obtained by al Queda?
My understanding then was based on reading the CIA report before it was reclassified, the FT did a number of stories on how the CW had been destroyed after the first gulf war, lots of other good information coming from UN weapons inspectors, knowledge of the region, and my distrust of GWB for personal reasons (I predicted Iraq would happen before he was elected). I was not persuaded. I think that so soon after 9/11 and with the anthrax and just around the clock fear mongering it was very popular to prosecute a war.
In the case of Syria, I do not think the administration is manufacturing evidence for a number of reasons including some of the sources of the information and Assad’s history throughout this civil war and because of his father’s history of brutality. I also don’t see any political gain whatsoever for the Obama administration–none. This is unpopular. He also has been resisting calls for military action by his national security team, even former SoS Clinton for two years. I think the problem is that there are actually functional chemical weapons in use and those weapons falling into the hands of al queda is a real concern. If you believe that Turkey confiscated CW when it captured al Nusra members in Turkey this is more than a hypothetical concern. There is also just the issue of violating the international norms on the use of CW and the consequences of letting this slide.
I guess I am wondering to what extent some of the opinions are just based in war fatigue and not an assessment of the particulars of the situation in Syria.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tommy:
Your dad and I are on the same page, for the most part, about the use of military force.
The “experts” are idiots. Real experts aren’t tapped, because what they say does not adhere to the predetermined narrative of the MSM. The narrative must be preserved at all costs.
Yatsuno
@Ben Cisco: Most of this is of my own devising, so can’t really spread the blame too much. Although doing a last-minute lesson plan was fun. In a way that is totally not fun. At least surgery dates are set and a bunch of medical stuff got taken care of. So sleep will feel good tonight. Along with Laphroaig.
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: I also wouldn’t rule out that Obama may be content with an agreement only for future use of chemical weapons. That is, no action based on what previously happened, but if there’s another attack, he’s pre-authorized to strike. And since he’s already signaled his willingness to do it, we now have an actual deterrent on the board.
catclub
Paul Waldman at Tapped notes that Iraq is only quiet relative to someplace like Syria.
Does anyone else wonder how much all the Iraqi refugees have affected the Syrian war?
I am not sure what the sectarian breakdown of refugees was between Sunni and Shiite, and whether
Sunnis went to Jordan while Shia went to Syria, or not.
But i imagine they are part of the mix now.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s always infuriated me, the way the entire Iraq debacle was hung on “the Intelligence Community.” The CIA didn’t “fail” to get the truth on Iraqi WMDs. The CIA was told what facts the administration wanted to hear and told that it had better deliver those facts whether they were there or not, and when it looked like it might not, Cheney and Rumsfeld reacted by creating their own intelligence bureaus within the Pentagon set up pretty specifically for the purpose of confirming the party line.
There was no intelligence failure. There was a policy failure by the politicians in charge.
Ted & Hellen
@eemom:
How shocking!
These dudes love nothing more than a big, macho I MUST WITH A HEAVY HEART TAKE THE NATION TO WAR speech.
Remember the prime time speech he gay to “make the case” for telling the pharm and insurance companies to fuck themselves and going with a single payer system?
Oh, and that awesome prime time speech in which he carefully and overwhelmingly “made the case” for prosecuting Bush and Cheney?
Good times!
Mark S.
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
I’ve read it here that Obama knows the war resolution will die in Congress and he’ll be off the hook, but I don’t know. If that were the case, he probably shouldn’t have Kerry and Biden running around saying that Assad is Hitler, Jr.
Ted & Hellen
@Comrade Jake:
A lot of bad NSA press to keep off the front pages.
Chris
@Anoniminous:
As a sidenote and to continue on the intelligence community theme… this is also why people (politicians, but not only them) love to use our intelligence agencies for covert action rather than for their intended purpose, namely, gathering intelligence. Instant results yea, painstaking work nay.
? Martin
@catclub:
Quite a bit, and Lebanon is now becoming unstable because of all of the Syrian refugees. Jordan really needs help as well. What a mess.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
That was indeed a byproduct of the lust for war on the part of the deserting coward, Darth “Five draft deferments” Cheney, and Feldmarschall von Rumsfailed.
They wanted their war, they created the “stovepipe” intel system to bypass analysts whose jobs are to separate the wheat from the chaff. The problem with that system of course is that the chaff is where all the sensational stuff to feed to the MSM is, to “build the case” for nuking the living shit out of Gleiwitz.
Ted & Hellen
@Villago Delenda Est:
You forgot to include your president as one of those assholes.
? Martin
@Ted & Hellen: Benghazi!
catclub
@Mark S.: I think as long as the House and senate debate, Assad is VERY unlikely to use chemical weapons. So never end the debate.
If the House and Senate refuse and THEN Assad uses chemical weapons, the next vote will be very quick in favor.
This SHOULD deter Assad from using chemical weapons again. All the more reason for the other guys to use them if they can lay it off on Assad.
Ahh says fywp
Good for you?
I mean, are you always such an asshole, or do you have to work at it?
@Fuzzy:
Anoniminous
@Villago Delenda Est:
I agree. (So I’ll talk about something else. :-)
What astonishes me is the overwhelming public support, across the political spectrum, for No.
If it goes down to defeat (and IIRC) it would be the first time since Wilson Congress hasn’t voted to give the President the go-ahead for military intervention.
DaveinMaine
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
Or…he just honestly believes that using chemical weapons can’t be ignored strongly enough that he wants to make that case. Just how he stayed out of the Libyan conflict until ghadaffi threatened to massacre everyone in (IIRC) Misrata.
It could just be that this president believes that we have to respond to events like borderline genocide and chemical weapons use.
Anya
@Comrade Jake: I really have no issue with POTUS making the case forcefully for why we should intervene in Syria. But, if the president loses the vote endorsing military action against Syria, I hope he will not take a unilateral action and US will play no direct role in any attack on Syria’s government. I hope he will say that the congress, representing the wishes of the American public, does not wish for US to be involved in a military action against Syria, and that he respects that vote. I am not encouraged by all the beat around the bush the administration is doing on whether the president will authorize action regardless of how congress votes.
Ted & Hellen
@Villago Delenda Est:
The near sheriff is for this.
When are you going to sack up and actually type the word you have constantly on the brain while you are constantly accusing of others of having it on the brain.
RACIST TUMBRELS!
El Caganer
@? Martin: Just Benghazi? No Fast and Furious? No IRS? So many terrible, terrible scandals/impeachable offenses/war crimes/whatever-the-fuck-wingnuts-think; so little time!
GregB
@Mark S.:
President Obama is going to go to war, Congressional resolution or not. The war machine is in full gear.
All of the regional powers have been hankering for a go around and they are about to get it.
It is going to end badly for everyone involved.
? Martin
Well, we have our first official, court designated patent troll: Google.
Man, they really tripped over their own dick on this whole Motorola thing.
Trollhattan
@Anoniminous:
Should this come to pass, we may yet achieve my dream of watching Krauthammer spontaneously burst into flames. Totally worth it.
Mnemosyne
testing
ETA: Ah, good. Apparently the ban has expired.
raven
Well there you go, spend the rest of the afternoon arguing with the moron of the century Rotsa ruck GI.
Villago Delenda Est
@DaveinMaine:
Well, chemical weapons use IS bad. It’s too bad the US doesn’t have a consistent track record on this, because it would strengthen the case for intervention. Also, there is the slight problem of who is actually responsible for this. Everyone seems to assume that Assad personally ordered this, which makes a really stupid assumption: that the chain of command in Syria is intact and that there are unbreakable protocols in place for the release of chemical weapons in the Syrian armed forces. Also, too, that the rebels didn’t do this just to make Assad look bad. We know for a fact that Sarin was used, but by who? That’s the question, and there’s plenty of evidence that implicates the rebels every much as it does Assad.
So, who do we strike? Putin’s buddy Assad, or McCain’s good friends in Al Qaeda?
MomSense
@Chris:
This.
The CIA didn’t screw up. They provided excellent analysis. The problem was that the Bush administration cherry picked out only the things that made their case even if the intelligence or the sources were labeled unreliable by the CIA. I don’t know if you read the CIA’s intelligence estimate before it was re-classified, but it was excellent. I was working my way through it when they reclassified it and pulled it. I wished that I had printed the darn thing but I don’t think my little home printer could have survived that job and I probably would have spent a trillion dollars in ink cartridges anyway.
Villago Delenda Est
@Trollhattan:
Agreed. A win win for everyone.
Doug Milhous J
@eemom:
I’m too agnostic on this issue to write about it.
Just Some Fuckhead
If only Obama had used the bully pulpit..
Trollhattan
Gun kontrol in Minnesota.
Read more at http://wonkette.com/527709/minnesota-in-laws-just-cant-quit-accidentally-shooting-each-other-drinking-somehow-not-involved#O63oO0Evgh6rAc6C.99
This, the state that blesses us with Al Franken and Michele Bachmann. Take your lithium, Minnesota!
Villago Delenda Est
@Trollhattan:
To be fair, every single state in the Union has cells of gun fetishists in it who will use a glock as a substitute remote control for their widescreen TV, in a pinch.
My own state, which gave you guys like Tom McCall, Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden, Mark Hatfield, Wayne Morse, and Peter DeFazio also gave you guys like Wes Cooley and Art Robinson.
None of us are prefect.
Villago Delenda Est
The only thing Special Timmeh can think about IRT the Syria situation is who the President is. Nothing else concerns him.
This tells you all you need to know about Special Timmeh.
Amir Khalid
@Trollhattan:
Dear God, I saw that picture of Sean Connery and now I need brain bleach.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Mark S.: Look, everyone knows how smart the president is so when he’s doing something stupid, it’s only because he’s 11 moves ahead of us or his limitless compassion compels him to do so for the good of humanity.
Ben Cisco
@Anoniminous: The speech is what a president is supposed to do in this case.
I’m pretty sure he knows the people are against it.
I’m also sure he knows the fascist NeoConfederates aren’t inclined to say yes to ANYTHING he proposes.
I say wait and see.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Doug Milhous J: Meaning you haven’t found a clever title yet.
Trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Have a special interest in Minnesota, as my old man was born there. Myself, I was born in f$@%ing Steve King’s district, so I’ll always have that to brag on.
? Martin
@DaveinMaine:
I think there’s another angle that he hasn’t wanted to state. There’s several rebel groups in Syria and the chemical weapons attacks focused on the more moderate groups, not on the al Qaeda affiliated groups. That might suggest that the al Qaeda groups were behind the attack, but that’s no better of a state than Assad being behind the attacks.
If the moderate rebel groups continue to be weakened through attacks like these, then we’re more likely to face an al Qaeda aligned overthrow. Considering that Congress has already granted quite a lot of authority specifically around diminishing the influence of al Qaeda, that’s Obama’s way into Syria, and that’s likely a significant element to why the administration is unusually eager to get involved here. Would an al Qaeda friendly Syria on Israel’s border be a better outcome than the US getting involved? I don’t think anyone would vote for that option, but that may be what’s now playing out.
But that’s a difficult rationale for the President to state publicly. Chemical weapons is a much better rationale and I believe is a rationale that he also backs. But the other thing might be what pushes this over the top for them.
WereBear
@Trollhattan: Maybe… people shouldn’t use handguns while playing board games.
Just a suggestion.
Trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
Sorry ;-)
If Zardoz isn’t the strangest movie ever made, it’s at least the strangest Connery movie.
raven
@Trollhattan: Or A Fine Madness!
Trollhattan
@WereBear:
To be fair, gun fans have felt vulnerable ever since they got rid of the Monopoly howitzer.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
FTFY.
Villago Delenda Est
@Trollhattan:
Fighting over who gets to use the howitzer…that calls for gunplay, IMHO.
kindness
@WereBear:
Obviously he didn’t want to be the Scottie Dog so….
Mike E
@c u n d gulag:
@kindness:
@Tommy: The Yardbirds are arguably the greatest band evah, but in the least they get big style points for naming their group after Charlie Parker.
? Martin
@Trollhattan: Man, do they have some kind of exchange program with Florida or something?
Villago Delenda Est
@? Martin:
This is one of the subtle things that may be driving the impulse, but you can’t very well state it because, well, it’s subtle. It doesn’t lend itself to soundbites. Furthermore, you really don’t want to elucidate on it too much. One of the reasons we’re still in Afghanistan that doesn’t fit in the media narrative is that having a presence there serves to monitor the less than wonderful situation in Pakistan where there are elements of Islamist radicals who would love to get their mitts on nukes, to use against any number of targets.
Al Qaeda guys with access to Sarin is scary, because you know these people are like our wingtards…some people are just not human to them, and using that gas in say a kibbutz is something they’d do in a heartbeat just because it’s disposing of their version of the mudpeople.
scav
@Trollhattan: But iz oor gun fetishistz lerning?
Either their absolute disdain for learning, even from experience, is polished to a fine luster or they really do believe themselves the epitome of NRA and founding father approved gun-control and management.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s also quite helpful to realize that “the rebels” in Syria are not “The Rebel Alliance” by any stretch of the imagination. There are any number of disparate groups fighting the central government (which means Assad) in Syria, and they are often at odds with each other.
One of the ironies of Syria is Assad might well be the guy who’s most interested in preserving religious freedom in Syria, and some of his opponents the most dead set on imposing Sunni orthodoxy on everyone at gunpoint.
? Martin
@Villago Delenda Est: I’d be less worried about it if Israel wasn’t next door. And that’s not just a concern for the people of Israel but also for the sometimes poor impulse control of the leaders of Israel and where that’s likely to lead.
Amir Khalid
@Mike E:
I was under the impression they were one of the only two bands ever named in honour of the chicken. (The other being Little Red Rooster.) Wasn’t Parker himself nicknamed after the barnyard fowl?
Anoniminous
@? Martin:
Can’t follow this line of thinking without running into the fact overthrowing the Assad government almost certainly ensures some of the Syrian chemical arsenal will end up in the hands of Islamic terrorists – Al Queda or otherwise. IMO, this is one reason the Russians are supporting Assad. The main Russian port for their Mediterranean fleet is in Syria. If Al Queda, etc., get their hands on chemical weapons they are very likely to dump them on the Russian naval bases.
Thlayli
Did Rivera seriously say “I am Spartacus because Benghazi”?
Unbelievable.
No, actually it’s not.
WereBear
Too true!
I believe Zardoz is in the top ten of totally strange movies that have actors in them that anyone can recognize, certainly. It’s a case of “You mean professionals made this?”
Citizen_X
@Trollhattan:
But the Banker just stares. “There’s something wrong here,” he thinks.
The Race Car is seized, and forced to his knees, and shot…dead.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
YOU got banned? YOU got banned? And T&H just gets to spout his tripe and ruin every single thread?
? Martin
@Villago Delenda Est: Assad is also reliant on Hezbollah, and will need to throw them and Iran a cookie at some point, so the religious freedom thing might not be something he can spare. Some of the moderate rebels are Muslim Brotherhood backed, which will be interesting as Egypt is now formally outlawing the group.
I’m trying to imagine a more volatile combination of actors than this one, and all I can think to add would be the neocons. Hell, we’ve even got North Korea in the mix.
? Martin
@gogol’s wife: I’ve been banned recently as well.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
John Boorman is one of those directors who can be very, very good (Hope and Glory) but when he’s bad, it’s frickin’ epic.
Don’t forget, Boorman’s also the auteur of Exorcist II: The Heretic, with Richard Burton, which ends with Linda Blair rollerskating over a plague of locusts (don’t ask).
Amir Khalid
@Mnemosyne:
You were banned? Why?
gogol's wife
@WereBear:
Isn’t Charlotte Rampling in it too? I actually saw it when it came out and I have some vague memory of that. I dozed through most of it.
gogol's wife
@? Martin:
WHYYYYY?
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
I managed to send T&H over the edge in the process, so it was kinda worth it in and of itself.
Though I never got any kind of official notice, so it may have just been totally coincidental FYWP weirdness.
Chyron HR
@Amir Khalid:
Insufficient comments on how Trayvon Martin and/or the kids Sandusky raped “had it coming”. JC loves that stuff (apparently).
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
This is a common misconception for virtually every insurgency in history. La Resistance in World War Two is probably the original archetype, generally portrayed as being 1) unified, 2) generically patriotic and 3) broadly supported by the public. When in reality, it was just as fractured and divided as the Iraqi insurgency, different groups were motivated by all kinds of different ideologies (I think you even had a couple of small fascist groups on the fringes – French fascists, whose racial/national superiority complex couldn’t allow for surrender to the fascists of another country), and the public support for them was… ambivalent, to say the very least.
The Afghanistan resistance was portrayed the same way in the eighties, and as we see in retrospect, about as ridiculously. Ditto Iraq, Syria, etc.
kindness
@Mike E: When I was filling out my ipod I bought one of the Yardbirds Greatest Hits records. I had a tough time finding one with both the Clapton & the Beck/Page eras as I wanted both. Now when one kicks out on the Shuffle that the ipod is always on, I have to think which version of the band it is. Some you can tell. Some, not so much.
Mike E
@Trollhattan: Heh…now you know why Craig Ferguson wants to see Connery play Superman, with the “S” shaved into his chest hair.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: Mr WereBear loves Excalibur, but I always have to leave at the end where the knight keeps coming back, “Really? I really have to throw away the sword? This sword?” and Arthur’s all, “I’m dying here! Ditch the sword already!”
Always cracks me up.
Soonergrunt
@Comrade Jake: The facts that he never made his third star and he’s a paid flack for Fox news (which fact the WaPo didn’t reveal) might have something to do with it.
Trollhattan
@Chyron HR:
He’s more nuanced than that: Trayvon “had it coming, nay, forced it” and the Sandusky victims “wanted it.”
“Bell + Howell” is permanently etched on its forehead.
Trollhattan
@Mike E:
Am so saving that.
Mike E
@Amir Khalid: Yes! His tour bus (glorified caravan, really) ran over a chicken, and he asked the driver, “Are you gonna get that yardbird?”, made them turn around so he could collect it. His bandmates were horrified, so Mr. Parker plucked, cooked, and ate the whole thing.
They immediately started calling him “Yardbird”, “Yard” and “Bird” for short. You know which one stuck.
Soonergrunt
We had some fuckery with our anti-spam software recently. One of the computers I use to post was blocked for a while. John doesn’t ban people without informing them.
Mark S.
@WereBear:
Hey, it’s a fucking sweet sword. Want.
Mnemosyne
@Soonergrunt:
I don’t use a valid email address here, so I wouldn’t have gotten an email. Still, John does usually put a “hey, you effers are banned” message in the offending thread and I never saw one.
Still seems odd that I was trying to post from multiple different devices with different IP addresses and couldn’t get through until today.
Soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: but if they were all from the same address range, they all would have been banned under the problem we were having.
Anyway, if you were intentionally banned you wouldn’t be back–he would have put something in the thread if it were an intentional banning even temporary.
Mnemosyne
@Soonergrunt:
I’ll admit, I don’t understand tech stuff, so I’m not sure how my work internet, my home internet, and my 3G internet would all be from the same address range. Is it geographical?
kindness
Hey Soonergrunt, when do we get pics of the house?
cckids
@Villago Delenda Est: Only just barely related to your post, but we dropped our youngest off at college this weekend. At the (too long) 3 days of parent schmoozing, I kept seeing a dad who was a doppelganger for Geraldo Rivera. I kept double-taking and/or being startled by him. It was like seeing a creepy clown or Frankenstein or something. Weird.
cckids
@Chris:
Can’t live with them, it’s illegal to nuke them from space.
Fixt
eemom
@Soonergrunt:
um, Cole ain’t the only one who bans people. Lady Passive-Aggressive has done it as well, and no she doesn’t announce it either. Similar to how she deletes comments she doesn’t like.
catclub
@Mnemosyne: Is it geographical?
Yes, and based on the location of the IP server, which might be your telecom provider.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
Other people in the same geographical area (seriously, one of them is about 1 mile from my office and 2 miles from my home) did not have any trouble. That’s why it seems so odd to me that my cable internet at home and my ISP at work and my 3G internet on my iPhone were all coincidentally blocked at the exact same time while other people in my area had no trouble. Since those are from three different telecom providers, is it possible for them all to have been coincidentally blocked at the same time when other people in the same geographical area weren’t? I honestly don’t know.
Bob In Portland
@Comrade Jake: He was pushed. CIA wants it. The BND wants it.
Ted & Hellen
@gogol’s wife:
tee hee…
Ted & Hellen
@Mnemosyne:
I have it on good authority that you were banned.
Ted & Hellen
@Chyron HR:
Predictable. But still unbelievable.
Ted & Hellen
@Soonergrunt:
How is it I know more about this blog than you do?
Sure you’re not being phased out?
Ted & Hellen
@Mnemosyne:
You were banned.
Try to deal.
Ted & Hellen
@Soonergrunt:
You are more clueless than I originally believed. Useful to know.
Ted & Hellen
@Mnemosyne:
YOU WERE BLOCKED/BANNED/VERBOTEN/EXILED/SHAMED/SHUNNED.
So was I. You and me together. In the basement.
Mnemosyne
@Ted & Hellen:
That’s right, Timmy — you threatened me, and I was the one who got banned.
Does that finally make you feel like a man, or are you going to continue to feel compelled to show your pee-pee to everyone at every opportunity because you just don’t believe it yourself?
eemom
@Mnemosyne:
could you link to the thread where this happened, please? I am just curious.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: No way in hell should you have been banned over that.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I had asked Cole earlier in the same thread if he had posted something while in a blackout, so he may already have had his finger on the trigger.
@eemom:
I think it was one of the Syria threads from a couple of days ago that got to a TBogg unit (over 300 comments). Mclaren put in a guest appearance, too. I don’t have the link handy at the moment.
smintheus
This thread’s a classic demonstration of how overlooked The Zombies were and are. Great track from a great album, but the comments are about the Yardbirds!
Jebediah
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Not a lot of cash, but am now on your team. (Under my real name, of course…)
Vgpetrescu
Haha, thanks for sharing my video. I was kind of surprised by the huge jump in views.