Here’s a reason to give a shit about hockey even if you don’t give a shit about hockey.
Reader Interactions
208Comments
Comments are closed.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 208 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Here’s a reason to give a shit about hockey even if you don’t give a shit about hockey.
Comments are closed.
c u n d gulag
USA!
USA!!
USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Normally I’m not overly patriotic, but I’ll make an exception now that the stakes are this high!
BGinCHI
Rumor is that Bieber is going to leave music and crime for a slot at Greenwald’s new media venture.
Watch this space.
burnspbesq
That’s still not enough reason to care.
Now, if you were to say that if the US wins, US consumers would get genuine Molson and Labatt products instead of the brewed-under-license swill we are forced to endure, I might get somewhat interested.
Absent that, the only sporting event today that matters is the Duke -Penn lacrosse game.
BGinCHI
What time is the actual game? My stupid cable doesn’t list who is playing, just “Hockey semi-final.”
Fucking Comcast.
Mike E
I’ve lowered my expectations since yesterday’s kick in the junk…we’ll lose AND Bieber get’s dual citizenship.
eta @BGinCHI: I think they toss the biscuit at 12:07pm
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: That’s odd. I had heard he is joining the cast of True Detective.. If I understand it correctly, he will be playing a character called the King in Yellow.*
*How is that for a way to plunge people into madness and despair?
some guy
should be an awesome game, trying to get the last edits finished so I can power up the plasma picture device.
J.
That is awesome. Hope Team USA wins.
OzarkHillbilly
@Omnes Omnibus: You sure about that? I heard he was going to play a victim. Oooops, wait a minute, that was Boehner. My bad.
PaulW
I don’t care how the game ends. Just Baker Act the Biebs move on.
Makes one pine for the heady days of Lindsey Lohan
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: I assume he wears a white sheet and they piss on him.
Sounds like one of those actors who can only play himself.
raven
@BGinCHI: Noon NBC Sports Channel.
also
http://www.nbcolympics.com/tv-listings
Belafon
Bieber is just an entertainer. Loser keeps Cruz!? Now that I would go for.
BGinCHI
@raven: Thanks fellas. I’m on it.
Poopyman
@OzarkHillbilly: No, that was The Fool in Orange.
Jibeaux
Frank Luntz is supposedly leaving the political world for sports commentary. Because when you look at Frank Luntz, the connection to athleticism is obvious.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: Dyspeptic much?
Belafon
@Omnes Omnibus: I had never heard of the King in Yellow until mentioned in regards to True Detective, but it seems that at the time, it was a very influential set of stories: Lovecraft and others read them. You can get them for free for the Kindle, and probably others, but I have a Kindle.
ETA: I have read so much, yet there is so much left to read.
Poopyman
@Jibeaux: Rusty Limbaugh badly wanted to be a Monday Night Football announcer, so the bar is already set.
Jibeaux
@burnspbesq:
Oh I definitely disagree.
/go heels
/the women won too
raven
@Belafon: And then there is the silly article saying you MUST know the book to get TD.
Schlemizel
@Mike E:
Only game I cared about was yesterday & it was critical the right team win. I happen to know some of the women on the US team & a couple who got cut from Canada. Canada sacrificed some speed & skill to get muscle and it worked for them. In order to compete the US will probably have to crawl into that hole with them & the womens game will become just like the mens. That makes me very sad as until now speed and skill mattered more.
The NHL all star games in Sochi contain probably the best players in the world but they do not play the game at its best. I have the U22 World Cup final from this year on DVR and I’ll bet dollars to donuts that it is a better game than the gold game will be. Finland beat Sweden and there was very little of the NHL bullshit that I have seen in these Olympics (and tons of every night in the NHL) but a much more exciting game.
raven
@Poopyman: He didn’t just want to be.
OzarkHillbilly
@Poopyman: DAMN! Zimmerman, Joe the Plumber, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Grandpa McCain, Rush RedundantTreeBranch… It’s so hard to keep the right wing victims straight anymore.
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
Only on days that end in “y.”
Today’s Friday, so you get a free side order of misanthropy. You’re welcome.
raven
I give a shit about hockey every 4 years. The purists and fucking Duke fans have no impact.
BGinCHI
@burnspbesq: I don’t remember you ever having any anthropy, come to think about it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Belafon:
Those stakes are mighty high.
burnspbesq
@Jibeaux:
No matter what happens on the field or court, you’re still a third-rate school that cheats to keep its athletes eligible.
Omnes Omnibus
@Schlemizel: And I remember a time when guys my size (5’10”, 180) could play international level rugby.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
Seems to be the default state.
Jibeaux
@burnspbesq:
Aww, that butt does sound real sore. Aquaphor for that, stick to the classics.
Poopyman
Yippee! The tornado watch for Northern VA, DC, and most of MD just came out and lasts through 5 PM. Right now it’s breezy with temps near 70 and VERY humid, so things could easily get exciting.
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: They still can. For Andorra.
burnspbesq
@Villago Delenda Est:
Given the current state of things, if you’re not dyspeptic, you’re not paying attention.
BGinCHI
@Poopyman: Winds right now here are 30 MPH gusting to 50.
I’m just glad I have my own hair.
boatboy_srq
@burnspbesq: DITTO.
There is nothing worse than “watered-down-for-the-US-market” imported brews. All the pricing of an import, none of the enjoyment experienced when consumed local to the brewery.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
Old Navy saying: “If you remain calm while everyone around you is in a panic, perhaps you don’t fully understand the situation.”
Mike E
@Schlemizel: I thot the bigger ice would make some changes in strategy necessary, but the physical gambit paid off for Canada and the US women just broke down in the end. Sad. I’m over it and have moved on to figure skating judging poutrage.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: Good point. I should have said top level international rugby.
burnspbesq
@Jibeaux:
Not at all. Holes played fifteen minutes of fantastic defense in the second half and deserved to win. I’m not gonna say anything about the remarkable disparity in free-throw attempts, no siree, not me, that had not a thing to do with the outcome.
catclub
@burnspbesq: “third-rate school that cheats to keep its athletes eligible. ”
So still top tier for NCAA.
BGinCHI
@Mike E: Figure skating is not a sport. It’s an activity.
Discuss.
Same with snowboarding: if you do tricks it’s an activity; if you can knock the other guy/gal off the course then it’s a sport.
Also, curling is a sport. Because shut up that’s why.
raven
@burnspbesq: Yea because that whiny fucking asshole that coached YOUR team never impacts the officiating. Little Ratso looking punk.
burnspbesq
@raven:
You just hate him because he’s a West Point REMF.
Mike E
@BGinCHI: Love the curling. I want Irish Hurling to be made into a winter sport, just because.
raven
One bunch of arrogant, entitled assholes don’t like the other arrogant, entitled assholes.
Growin’ up rusty shack,
All I had was hangin’ on my back.
Only you know how I loathe
This place called Tobacco Road.
raven
@burnspbesq: I hated him more until I finally was able to find out he at least did a tour as a redleg in Korea.
BGinCHI
@Mike E: That would be top drawer.
I had some friends who played for County Offaly and holy shit were they amazing. I went to a bunch of practices and matches and I was amazed.
No reason they couldn’t do it on snow with metal studs.
burnspbesq
@raven:
No coach can affect how ACC officials call a game. At that level of incompetence, calls become random. There is no way to predict which team Karl Hess or Jamie Luckie is going to fuck on any given night. Hess fucks Duke at least twice a year.
raven
@burnspbesq: There is no such thing as an ACC basketball official.
SatanicPanic
I used to defend Bieber. I was like, “who cares, he’s just some kid with a goofy haircut who sings songs for teenagers, doesn’t make him a bad guy” I was wrong. He is a tool.
raven
The top college basketball officials can take on a heavy workload. The officials work as independent contractors. They take assignments from different conferences. There is no limit as to the number of games an official can squeeze into his schedule.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: Sounds a lot like broomball. A game, that when played at the IM level in the Midwest, really consists of whacking people with taped-up, cut-down broomsticks while running around on ice. So many painful memories of Delt-Phi Delt games….
Comrade Mary
@burnspbesq:
Oh honey, you can keep those under ANY circumstances. Rice is for stir-fries!
Mnemosyne
@Belafon:
I just finished reading them. They start off great (“The Repairer of Reputations” is blockbuster weirdness with a fascinatingly unreliable narrator) but they kind of devolve towards the end as we start getting endless “decadent” stories about the lives and loves of art students in Paris that, to modern eyes, are kind of “meh” (girls going around the city without chaperones! the scandal!)
IMO, the “True Detective” link is going to be that they’re the kind of stories that are really impressive to people who do a lot of meth and LSD and come up with their own twists on the bare bones that are there.
burnspbesq
@raven:
Pedantic, and pointlessly so. If you work ACC games, you’re an ACC official.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jason Chaffetz on MSNBC whinging about Ukraine. I guess the great RNC boycott is over?
Suffern ACE
@SatanicPanic: I’ll still defend Bieber. He may be a fool, but I can’t stand the not standing. He could have been one of the greats. He had phrasing that we hadn’t seen since Frank Sinatra passed. He was that good. What a waste. You obviously hadn’t been following his career before he went off the rails and tried to make popular music.
I think there might be some snark in there, but I need to speak up for fanless when they are down. It’s a knee jerk reaction.
srv
Curling would be a lot more exciting if the balls would exploe.
Suffern ACE
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:And what pray tell ought we be doing about Ukraine. Until last week we wanted them to join Nato and the EU and be our bestest friends. Should we be arming the resistance? Sending in troops to restore order?
ETA: Edited to remove a thread derailing article.
Mike E
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He’s forgotten Poland, clearly.
Lurking Canadian
No matter what happens in the next two hours, there are only two Olympic events that matter. Jones won one yesterday and Jacobs won the other one today.
The rest is commentary.
raven
@burnspbesq: The point is you are wrong. Hess has worked 77 games and 19 were ACC. I realize it is impossible for someone like you to admit you are wrong so fuck it. Why not call them “Duke” officials? If they work a Duke game they are Duke officials.
SatanicPanic
@Suffern ACE: I just objected to people teasing him about his percieved effiminacy. Didn’t want to join in on that.
Villago Delenda Est
@SatanicPanic:
I’m sure Camille Paglia would weigh in on any perceived effeminacy. The way she routinely does for the US military for allowing girls in the clubhouse.
KG
oh, Noisemax is so sweet, leading this morning with Boehner “threatening” suicide over raising the minimum wage.
SatanicPanic
@Villago Delenda Est: Does she have a male equivalent of Madonna she can unfavorably compare him to?
KG
@BGinCHI: so snowboard (and ski) cross is a sport, but halfpipe and the other one aren’t?
max
Both goalies looking solid.
max
[‘Hrmmm.’]
Villago Delenda Est
@KG:
OK, that brought a Gary Larson Far Side to mind. The one with the dog and the washing machine…
beltane
@KG: We’ll know if he’s for real if he starts cutting himself in despair. Otherwise, just words.
Lurking Canadian
@KG: threat or promise?
KG
@Lurking Canadian: potato, potato
@beltane: maybe he’ll go for death at the bottom of a bottle?
SatanicPanic
@KG: I always had him pegged for that kind of drunk
KG
@SatanicPanic: Frank Gallagher with an expense account?
Another Holocene Human
@Schlemizel: fwiw, I’m with you on that.
ericblair
@Suffern ACE:
If we aren’t doing anything, we should be doing something. But if we are doing something, we shouldn’t be doing it or we should have done it sooner.
So we should support the protesters. Except when the protesters are protesting the friends of the people who support some other protesters, which in that case makes them fascist thugs. Except these fascist thugs are opposing the fascist government who are buddies with the fascist thug government that is oppressing some other protesters, except from the first point these fascist thugs are the friends of some other protesters so are good.
So, in summary, we should be doing something to stop some fascist something or other. Except whatever we’re doing, not that.
Hope this helps. Have a nice day.
Another Holocene Human
Bieber has always been an a-hole. I’m sure his parents have a lot to do with it, but he’s always, always been an a-hole and now it’s obvious to everyone. I don’t give a shit if he can sing.
? Martin
@Jibeaux:
Let’s throw all of our support behind Frank’s desire to change careers. So long as he’s out of politics, we all win. But it’s nice to see that the GOP is so far around the bend to get guys like Luntz to feel dirty.
PaulW
scoreless game so far. that’s only because Martin St. Louis hasn’t seen the ice yet…
Comrade Mary
1-0 Canada, in case anyone’s paying attention.
Onkel Fritze
Goal! Oh Canada!
PaulW
okay, so, maybe St. Louis DID get some ice time…
Comrade Mary
Also, too, an EXCELLENT omen: “EVERYONE RELAX: #RobFord ISN’T wearing a Team Canada jersey at Real Sports right now”.
(Background: Ford wore Argos and Broncos jerseys right before each team lost big.)
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: Easy to get thru West Point back in late 60s. Had a need…
Comrade Mary
@PaulW: Jamie Benn, actually.
Paul in KY
@raven: Great War song!
max
@Comrade Mary: 1-0 Canada, in case anyone’s paying attention.
That was a gorgeous goal. Man.
max
[‘Well done to Team Canada.’]
SatanicPanic
@KG: I don’t know Frank Gallagher. I was thinking of this coworker I used to have. He’d often get weepy with a few drinks in him. One of my friends was partying with him, noticed he was gone. After searching around for a few minutes, found him, fully nude, in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, crying. I shouldn’t laugh because that dude probably had a real problem.
Tommy
I am not much of an NHL fan. But the larger ice and the fact they seem to try and play hockey and not kill each other in the Olympics, gosh I can’t stop watching the sport. And being in St. Louis we have T. J. Oshie. I think there might be parades for him when he gets back.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@KG:
Several sources are reporting that Boehner recently bought an $850,000 condo in an exclusive community on Marco Island, Florida. Boehner insists that he only bought the condo because he and his family often vacation in Florida and they no longer wanted to rent there. My money says he’s going to retire from Congress at the end of this session – before he loses the speakership in the next one.
KG
@SatanicPanic: Frank Gallagher is William H Macy’s character on Shameless. Incredible show on Showtime, really, really worth a watch. He’s basically drunk himself to an early grave.
Gene108
@BGinCHI:
There are no style points in sports. There are style points in figure skating.
QED Figure skating is not a sport.
Yatsuno
@Comrade Mary: I’m sooo conflicted. I always cheer for the ancestral homeland but the Bieber bet brings out my inner patriot. Maybe this wouldn’t matter so much if I didn’t have family on both sides of the border.
Omnes Omnibus
@SatanicPanic: That seems like a real cry for help.
Tommy
Oh a happy story. My brother was dating this women. On like their third date she said she wanted to go see the Blues play. She had season tickets to them. I was like she might be a keeper. They are now married and have a wonderful little girl.
I don’t mean to say women don’t know sports. My mom could do the play by play for the Cardinals. It just is I don’t run into many of them.
Comrade Mary
@Yatsuno: How about if I threaten you with taking Ford if the States loses? How would that affect your ability to root fully for them?
Yatsuno
@Comrade Mary: AAAACK! USA! USA! USA!
(still conflicted, but don’t want you to up the ante to Harper)
Comrade Mary
@Yatsuno: /puts PMSHWTFBBQ card back in the deck, sighs
Paul in KY
@? Martin: He didn’t feel dirty. He just saw that his Goebbels shtick wasn’t working like it used to & like a typical Repub he cut & ran.
Paul in KY
@Tommy: The big ice is the only way hockey should be played.
Said by a non-hockey fan.
cckids
@Belafon:
That is one of the ongoing joys of my life.
Comrade Mary
BTW, Jonathan Quick is VERY well-named!
max
@Tommy: But the larger ice and the fact they seem to try and play hockey and not kill each other in the Olympics, gosh I can’t stop watching the sport.
The Olympics is fun, because you know all the players if you watch the NHL. It’s like one extended All-Star Game.
And being in St. Louis we have T. J. Oshie. I think there might be parades for him when he gets back.
He should get a parade. He’s awesome.
Sadly, US is looking over-matched here – Canada is solid on defense and offensively they’re skating rings around the US.
max
[‘Maybe they can get something going in the third.’]
Comrade Mary
… and the Norm McDonald feed is very helpful for those of you who can’t play radio or tv at ‘work”.
Tommy
@max: Yeah they do look overmatched right now. That it is only 1-0 is, well a good thing. The game IMHO has been played on the ice, well on Canda’s side.
Belafon
@Mnemosyne: They’re next on my list after I finish Sherlock Holmes. I am reading while I am on the elliptical or bike at the gym.
SatanicPanic
@Omnes Omnibus: Literally.
different-church-lady
@BGinCHI:
Ah, so he’s not really leaving crime then.
[ducks]
Schlemizel
@Mike E:
Figure skating is for kids not good enough to play hockey! :)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m about the same & could have played hockey when I was that age but would be tiny today,
Comrade Mary
If it’s any comfort, certain objective measurements are actually dropping in Canada right now.
Face
Hopefully minus the rape accusations.
Yatsuno
@Comrade Mary: I’m amazed there’s that much activity. Oh well. Harper needs his grift money from somewhere I guess.
Tommy
@Schlemizel: My uncle (well my father’s uncle) was a speed skater. About 6’2 and 180. Not an ounce of fat on him.He went to Northwestern. He’d note that some Blackhawk players would come work out at Northwestern and they were both larger and faster then he was.
Heck I used to live in DC when the Caps were terrible. I’d often get tickets right on the ice. I was stunned how large these folks were. How fast. I am something of a small dude and I watch football and think to myself I could take that hit. I watch the NHL and think, I don’t want that person to hit me like that :).
Culture of Truth
Who’s winning?
Schlemizel
@Tommy:
TJ is from Warroad Minnesota – a town of MAYBE 1700 that has two Olympic Hockey players calling it home this year. Those folks are as nuts about the game as the Canadians & have produced an astounding number of great High school, college, Olympic and NHL payers.
Schlemizel
@Paul in KY:
Absolutely! Said by a life time hockey nut.
But it is a numbers game. There are not enough great players to staff all the NHL teams. If yo are going to compete & you don’t have enough outstanding players you goon it up. Particularly in an 80 game season thugs are going to do better over time. The style of play was invented by the Canadians and you are seeing it more and more in international play because it can work. I think if the NFL played on 200×400 rinks they would still have thugs and all the ugly they bring.
raven
@Schlemizel: So it’s like every other pro sport, overextended.
Schlemizel
BTW – I received my birthday gift today. its a 1959-60 Gopher hockey sweater with number 5 on it. That was Herb Brooks sweater & number.
I will be wearing it tonight when Minnesota takes on Minnesota-Duluth
PaulW
Bad news, it’s looking like the US is gonna be stuck with Bieber.
Schlemizel
@raven: it all about the Benjamins!
Here is Warren Zevon with the perfect NHL song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUb0C0iI_GE
Comrade Mary
@PaulW: Assume nothing. We were down 2-0 yesterday with less than 4 minutes to go.
raven
@Schlemizel: Well, what else would professional sports be about?
JPL
@PaulW: Rumor has it that the bieber is settling in Atlanta.
raven
@Comrade Mary: we who?
Omnes Omnibus
@Schlemizel: Dennis was the tallest of the Hulls and he was 6′. Bobby and Brent were 5′ 10″. Stan Mikita was only 5′ 9″. And so on.
Tommy
@Schlemizel: I read a story about that town the other day. No US team has ever won a gold medal and not had somebody from Warroad playing. Makes me think of the town my parents live in. Their football team is something like 200-10. They were kicked out of their conference cause they had won it 17 years in a row. They now travel to other states to play.
It is a town only a little larger then Warroad. 10,000. But somehow they put a football team on the field that is really, really good.
Comrade Mary
@raven: We Canuck broads.
gogol's wife
YellowJournalism, YellowJournalism, if you’re out there, I gave you the wrong link to the Shirley Temple tribute by Self-Styled Siren. This is the correct one:
http://selfstyledsiren.blogspot.com/2014/02/in-memoriam-shirley-temple-1928-2014.html
For some reason I gave you a link to an 18th-century Russian poem. I’m sorry!
There’s also a great interview with her in 1988 by Diane Rehm out there in google-land.
Violet
@gogol’s wife: They just replayed that interview with Diane Rehm on her show this week. Either Wednesday or Thursday. Might be available on NPR website or her show’s website since it was just this week. Really good interview.
As for this game, the USA seems outmatched.
WaterGirl
@KG: Just came back BJ threads after making lunch. I saw this comment
Not remembering for sure whether this was about Justin Bieber or Ted Nugent or any of the other reprehensible people that were being discussed when I broke for lunch, I thought that comment was really harsh.
I scrolled back up to see who was being discussed, and when I realized it was Boehner, I didn’t think it was so harsh after all.
raven
@Comrade Mary: Can’t we block these here ferriners IP addy’s?
Comrade Mary
@raven: The Swedes? We’re not scared of them.
WaterGirl
@ericblair: This was a most excellent summary.
Tommy
Come on USA.
raven
@Comrade Mary: :)
Violet
Oh, no. Now we get Bieber.
Comrade Mary
Both my heart and my constitution require that I say “Sorry” now.
Sorry. You guys really were fierce and scary all through the Olympics. I don’t know what happened today.
We’ll keep Bieber and we’ll loan you Ford for a reality show, OK?
Yatsuno
@Comrade Mary: Nope. A bet is a bet. But don’t expect us to give him no Obamacare or nothin’.
Can I just say I’m secretly cheering?
Violet
@Comrade Mary: What happened is that Canada was better. I listened to some of it on the radio and saw the last fifteen minutes or so on the TV. Canada was just better. They deserved to win.
catclub
@WaterGirl: McCain and Graham are the ones who propose this particular foreign policy approach. It all depends on what the present President has done. Then demand the opposite.
Tommy
@Violet: That they were. I watched the entire thing and it sure didn’t feel like 1-0. More like 5-0. My parents always taught me to lose like a winner. Shake their hand and wish them well. So go Canada.
different-church-lady
Dammit, where are we going to put him?
max
@Comrade Mary: I don’t know what happened today.
Uh, Quick was really great and kept Team USA in the game even though the US just couldn’t keep it out of their end. When the US did get it out Canada had no problems clearing. Basically Team USA got outskated (but not outgoalied).
Also, Jamie Benn is awesome, which I knew since he plays for the Stars. {big smile}
I had been hoping the Finns would beat the Swedes, but no. So I’m rootin’ for Team Canada.
max
[‘For reasons of Norwegian ancestry, I can hate the Swedes.’]
Violet
Congrats to Canada! Well deserved win. I’ll be pulling for Sweden in the finals, though.
different-church-lady
@Comrade Mary:
Wait… Ford isn’t a reality show now?
Tommy
This is my favorite pic ever. After the US beat Canda in hockey. This wonderful lady had a sign that said:
I feel like those that share a border to the north with us, we can have some fun and poke them. This below pic is funny.
http://www.timws.com/canada/canadahealthcare.html
Violet
@different-church-lady: We can put him in a jail where he deserves to be at the moment for the various laws he’s broken.
Gravenstone
@different-church-lady: How about Florida? I’m sure they can find something to deal with him.
ronin122
Yeah Canada played much better today. It was their guys on their own end that won the game. Well now I’m torn as to who to root for in the Gold Match (6 members of my NHL team playing for the two, so gotta give them support).
Poopyman
@different-church-lady: Kansas. How about, ohhhhh … Abilene.
And he’s not allowed to drive or travel. At all.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@different-church-lady:
Kingsville, Texas
srv
Ted Nugent apologizes!
Poopyman
@srv: My! How big of him.
raven
@srv: Street-fighter my fucking ass.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Street fighter language as in freikorps.
Tommy
@raven: I mean he called Obama a mongrel. Is that code, or really just calling him a sub-human. I just went to Webster and it defines:
I can tend to be polite to folks. But Ted has long ago stepped over the line of acceptable behavior IMHO. He ought to be shunned. Nobody ought to allow him in polite circles.
Tractarian
I was bummed about this result, then I cheered myself up by looking at the medal table for the 2012 (non-Winter) Olympics:
Canada finished behind such sporting powerhouses as Lithuania, Azerbaijan, and North Korea.
KG
@srv: someone (CNN, I think) called him out as it not being a real apology in that he didn’t actually apologize to the president for calling him a subhuman mongrel, but to the politicians he supports because this was bad press. apparently, when they called him on that and asked if he was apologizing directly to the president, he said, “yes.”
it’s really just one more slip of the mask, bu we can’t point that out, because it’d be playing the race card.
KG
@WaterGirl: i just feel like if you’re going to commit suicide, you might as well try and make it happen by doing something enjoyable to you… but that’s just me.
Tommy
@Tractarian: You do what you do where you live. My 4 year old niece was over the other day and she was confused by something she saw. I had to explain that was a hockey stick. I don’t live in the south but here in the midwest ponds don’t freeze over. We don’t grab a hockey stick and go play.
raven
@Tommy: He’s a fucking racist ass punk and a coward. Fuck him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jesus, what a moran
NotMax
@raven
It’s now over 10 months since his predicted deadline for his being “dead or in jail” passed unfulfilled.
Speech of April 14, 2012:
Batting a thousand in being outrageously, doltishly wrong there, Ted.
canuckistani
@Tractarian:
There are only two medals that matter. Men’s Hockey and Women’s Hockey. The rest are just sops to those countries where they don’t play hockey.
jl
@canuckistani: No, curling is the happening game. Hockey is so old school… wait, Canada swept those too?
Southpark was right!
Edit: the Yahoo sports site is so confusing. Summary says Canada swept men’s and women’s curling, but when I click for details, it descends into chaos. But, regardless, Southpark was right! I admit it now. I was wrong.
Tractarian
@canuckistani:
Are you referring to Ice Hockey or Field Hockey?
(True fact: the IOC only refers to one of these sports as “Hockey” without a modifier.)
@Tommy:
What, they don’t have running tracks and swimming pools north of the border?
Tommy
@raven: Yes. Yes he is. Look I like I live in a nation where folks can think and say things I don’t agree with. But when you say those things, racist things, maybe somebody running for the Governor in TX shouldn’t bring you to their announcement.
It just blows my mind.
The only way I can figure this out is that the person knows there are racists in this world, and there are. And by courting Ted he is going after their vote. It is that simple and ugly at the same time. They need to be called on this. They are going after a racist vote.
jl
@raven:
” He’s a fucking racist ass punk and a coward. Fuck him. ”
It takes a certain kind of courage to poop yourself and walk around in it for a week to dodge the draft, and then brag about it.
SFAW
@NotMax:
So far …
Let’s wait to see what April 15 brings. (Besides a tax payment to the IRS, of course.) If even a stopped clock is right two times a day, maybe Ted will be right, for once.
FSM willing.
SFAW
@jl:
Not so sure about that. Mrs. SFAW stopped using a curling iron awhile ago, and I don’t think the SFAW-ette uses one either.
NotMax
@SFAW
His deadline would have been April 14 of last year (speech made in 2012).
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: I live in the Midwest as well. Ponds here freeze over. Also, virtually every elementary school playground has two ice rinks, one with boards and one that is open.
Tommy
@Tractarian: I bet they do. Sports is a strange thing. As a kid I played soccer. My niece at like 3 started to swim. I find myself as comfortable in water as I do on land. So I spent a ton of time with my niece in the pool. I am sure she will never swim in a competitive manner.
jl
What is odd about the Nugent blowback is that all his vile baggage was known. And most of it was admitted by the Nugent himself. For some reason it was old news, so the guy was considered an acceptable accessory to the well appointed wingnut gun fetishist GOPer. He was the guest of some nutjob GOP Houser to a SOTU address, right?
And Nugent, it appears, tried to tone down his madness, and kept the hate mongering bigotry (of all kinds, not just racial) down to acceptable dogwhistles, and played in subtle harmonics.
But with vicious loons like Nugent, it goes to their heads, and they cannot maintain. So, inevitably, he breaks Kay Fabe and mouths off, and now suddenly, people notice the guy is a vile hate addled sexual predator monstrosity. And it’s an issue.
I feel so sorry for that jackass Abbott, wrong guy at the wrong place when the firecracker blew up in his hand,
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: We don’t have that where I live.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
IIRC, Tommy is downstate, as we used to say. Closer to St. Louis than to Chicago.
SFAW
@jl:
Fixed. I wouldn’t have done so, were he not perhaps the foremost example of a chicken hawk in this country. I mean, even Cheney didn’t go around popping off the way Shit-For-Brains Nuge does. (Although Cheney’s hunting partner might disagree, I guess.)
jl
@Omnes Omnibus: Then how come the Netherlands beat everyone’s butts at speed skating, and the U.S. got nothing?
jl
@SFAW: I was being sarcastic, in case that was not clear.
MikeJ
@jl: Skating is the sport of national myth in the Netherlands. It’s more important to the Dutch than baseball was at the height of its popularity to Americans.
tybee
@BGinCHI:
i thought that was played in an irish bar. or, more likely, in the gutter in front of an irish bar.
SFAW
@jl:
You’ll have to ask the U.S. Coach, Diana Moon Glampers.
SFAW
@jl:
I shoulda picked up on that, sorry. Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
Paul in KY
@Violet: I’ll go with our Northern & Western Hempishere buddys
Vamanos le Canadians, ay!
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: A pond appeared in my back yard this week due to an abundance of rain and then warm temperatures melting the abundance of existing snow in my yard. And yes, it is now frozen over. oh, yay.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: The Dutch have always been competitive at speed skating.
@Tommy: I understand that. The Midwest from Chicago on north is a different place. We have ice and snow all winter. It’s also where the vast majority of American hockey and speed skating stars are from.
jeffreyw
cookie
raven
@jeffreyw: Linkey
jl
@Omnes Omnibus:
” The Dutch have always been competitive at speed skating.”
But before this year, they were always polite enough to leave a couple for other countries.
McCain might start worrying about the Dutch threat. Surely Canada is on his wardar now.
Violet
@jl: It’s the crappy new wind tunnel-tested skating suits. Blame the suits!
Thursday
Sport is a social thing: the best athletes go into the sports that are the national favourites. The biggest reason why the US got so much better internationally is hockey is becoming a more popular choice. Though I tolerate little BS about “how bad the NHL is”: that’s a spurious claim by people who either haven’t thought about it or let their bad memories tint their eyeballs.
http://politecompany.blogspot.ca/2005/02/other-in-defence-of-nhl-hockey.html
catclub
@MikeJ: Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates.
Nothing like that in Greece – marathon running.
Eric U.
@burnspbesq: please to be naming the school that doesn’t. Joepa’s legacy was supposed to be that people got an education, but that appears to be somewhat questionable. And he was only one of very few that even gave that lip service.
bemused
@jl:
Courage? More like being terrified enough to do anything to get out of serving. I thought I heard that he cancelled an interview on CNN yesterday 2 hours before because he was “sick”. I immediately thought he was too chicken shit to go on. Yet he was able projectile tweet later. Real tough guy.
Capri
@Gene108: Using that logic, boxing is not a sport either.
Calouste
@different-church-lady:
Ford is a reality show, he just doesn’t have a regular slot yet. At the moment his show is only on irregularly and then sharing the news slot.
Amir Khalid
This contrarian but not quite anti-evolution argument from Slate’s William Saletan, sounds like something our Tom Levenson might want to have a go at.
gogol's wife
@Violet:
Yes, the link to the interview is here:
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-02-19/special-rebroadcast-dianes-1988-interview-shirley-temple-black
I love the fact that all but one of the people who call in are men.
Villago Delenda Est
@srv:
The only apology Obama should entertain from Nugent is a Captain Needa apology.
Violet
@gogol’s wife: It was a lovely and charming interview. The men seemed besotted by her.
LanceThruster
I wouldn’t mind keeping him on the hopes of him becoming Canada’s James Dean.
Even if it happened, you could say he had a ‘good run’ and not worry in the least of what the world of creative arts has ‘lost.’
LanceThruster
@srv:
Homer Simpson: Good news, everyone! I got in a fight with the garbage men and they’re cutting off our service!
Marge Simpson: Oh, lord, now what are we going to do? Just let the trash pile up?
Homer Simpson: Hey, I’d rather live in a dump than in a world run by snooty garbage men.
Lisa Simpson: Dad, is this another one of those situations that could be solved by a simple apology?
Homer Simpson: I never apologize, Lisa. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way I am.
Tripod
US speed skating shat the bed. There were the typical litany of federation and coaching problems over the last couple of years that lead to the disaster.
Elie
@Tripod:
They were clearly unprepared and boy, what a humiliation — across the board … WOW
what were some of the issues that you have heard?
Elie
an article on the US speed skating issues
http://www.jsonline.com/sports/olympics/us-speedskatings-problems-in-sochi-illuminate-organizational-dysfunction-b99209036z1-246273471.html
Tripod
@Elie:
Financial malfeasance, grievance filed with the USOC by the athletes against the federation, multiple coach & athlete training cliques, the out going head is widely reviled, abuse charges against a coach….
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-02-23/site/ct-spt-0224-speedskating-main–20130224_1_skaters-national-racing-program-sochi