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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Afternoon Open Thread

Thursday Afternoon Open Thread

by Betty Cracker|  May 8, 20141:36 pm| 77 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Always the damn frogs.

truck_frog

We tried to shoo the frog away at a stop sign, but it wouldn’t let go. Eventually, it fell off, hopefully landing harmlessly on the roadside and hopping into the adjacent swamp.

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Reader Interactions

77Comments

  1. 1.

    Mary G

    May 8, 2014 at 1:38 pm

    It wants to travel and see the world!

  2. 2.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 8, 2014 at 1:38 pm

    The judge in the John Doe investigation case in Wisconsin has re-issued his injunction after ruling that the appeal to the 7th Cir. was frivolous.

    Moved from an earlier thread.

  3. 3.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 8, 2014 at 1:39 pm

    @Mary G: “Give my regards to Broadway…”

  4. 4.

    Betty Cracker

    May 8, 2014 at 1:40 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: “Hello muh baybee, hello muh honey, hello my ragtime gal!”

  5. 5.

    Francis

    May 8, 2014 at 1:41 pm

    Vive la France!

  6. 6.

    JPL

    May 8, 2014 at 1:42 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: What happens now? Cheating is the new norm.

  7. 7.

    LT

    May 8, 2014 at 1:45 pm

    It fell off, and will live a long and very happy and healthy life in a beautiful swamp. Yeah, that’s what will happen.

  8. 8.

    Trollhattan

    May 8, 2014 at 1:51 pm

    What goes on in a frog brain when the earth below is whizzing past at 30?

    In global weather news, an El Nino condition–a very strong one–seems ever more likely. It could be verified and “announced” as soon as August. This is a Big Deal insofar as the effects on weather literally around the planet and more locally, the US West. We could transition from three years of drought (more than a decade in places) to precipitation well above average. Or not, this is propellerhead stuff I’m not qualified to comprehend, much less interpret.

    http://www.weatherwest.com/archives/1414

    Still have a long, hot, dry, fiery summer to endure.

  9. 9.

    Trollhattan

    May 8, 2014 at 1:53 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    “Club for Growth.” I’d like a club, and ten minutes with those putzes.

  10. 10.

    Violet

    May 8, 2014 at 1:55 pm

    @Trollhattan: We could use a little El Niño effect right now. It was supposed to rain today. First time in maybe three weeks. So far nothing.

  11. 11.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 8, 2014 at 1:59 pm

    @JPL: The defendant’s will appeal to the 7th Cir. A finding that something is frivolous is pretty severe. Basically, frivolous means that there is no factual or legal basis for the argument. I expect another stay.

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    May 8, 2014 at 2:01 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I am not a lawyer, let alone a judge like you. But does a US federal judge really get to rule that an appeal of his ruling to the court above his is frivolous? Were the federals conducting the John Doe investigation required to seek his leave to file that appeal?

  13. 13.

    c u n d gulag

    May 8, 2014 at 2:02 pm

    The frogs you always seem to find all around you are there to surround you, and protect their Queen.

    Funny, you don’t look like one!

    Maybe it’s how you belch out loud. :-)

  14. 14.

    chopper

    May 8, 2014 at 2:07 pm

    @Trollhattan:

    It’s looking more and more likely that it won’t be a very strong El Niño. Decent enough tho.

  15. 15.

    Hawes

    May 8, 2014 at 2:08 pm

    The Amphibian Menace!

  16. 16.

    Hawes

    May 8, 2014 at 2:09 pm

    Someone asked a poll question about whether or not you would personally waterboard someone.
    http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/would-you-waterboard-a-suspected-terrorist-easy-answers-to-difficult-questions/

    Guess what percentage said, yes.

    I’ll give you a hint, it’s somewhere between 26-28%.

  17. 17.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 8, 2014 at 2:10 pm

    @Amir Khalid: The John Doe investigation is a state level proceeding. As far as you question goes though, it gets into rather technical, procedural questions about who is allowed to do what and when. The defendants filed an appeal of a preliminary decision by the judge. Once that happens the judge is supposed to wait until the appeals court takes some action before moving forward with the case. There is an exception to this rule if the judge makes a determination that the appeal is frivolous. Yesterday’s order spanked the judge for acting before he made a ruling that he believed the appeal to be frivolous. Now he has made that ruling. He is free to issue his injunction. OTOH, the appeal is patently not frivolous and the the judge should get spanked again.

  18. 18.

    Elizabelle

    May 8, 2014 at 2:12 pm

    That was a Frog Action Hero.

    Hope it made it to a swamp, and not to a splat. Brave little dude.

  19. 19.

    Rich (In Name Only) in Reno

    May 8, 2014 at 2:13 pm

    “And there’s no silence in the night!”

  20. 20.

    Brian R.

    May 8, 2014 at 2:13 pm

    Kay Hagan came out swinging in defense of Obamacare this morning:

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/hagan-obamacare-burwell-hearing

    Looks like the conventional wisdom about Dems running away from the ACA can cram it.

  21. 21.

    dexwood

    May 8, 2014 at 2:13 pm

    Still enjoying the BJ calendar. Look at that handsome, smiling dog, Woody, in the right-hand, bottom corner.Yeah, he’s mine.

  22. 22.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    May 8, 2014 at 2:15 pm

    @Betty Cracker: My buddy was wearing a Michigan J. Frog t-shirt and someone said to him, “So, are you from Michigan?!” and he deadpanned, “No, the frog is.”

  23. 23.

    seaboogie

    May 8, 2014 at 2:15 pm

    “Froggy went a courtin’ he did ride, mmm hmmmm….” Apparently your princes will NOT be deterred, Betty – when will you wake up and:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3px06j0tIM

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    May 8, 2014 at 2:16 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Thanks for clearing that up for me.

  25. 25.

    Gin & Tonic

    May 8, 2014 at 2:16 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Speaking of spanking, your buddy Rogozin was flying to Transdniestria for Victory Day and the fascist Ukrainians wouldn’t let his plane into their airspace.

  26. 26.

    NonyNony

    May 8, 2014 at 2:18 pm

    @Brian R.:

    Looks like the conventional wisdom about Dems running away from the ACA can cram it.

    One Dem, somewhere, will run away from the ACA eventually though, so the conventional wisdom is saved!

    Also some Dem, somewhere, will embrace the ACA and get beaten. Which means that if they had run away from it they would have won! Another victory for conventional wisdom!

    (I’m glad to see Hagan realize that she can’t run away from the ACA. She’s GOT to tout the merits and remind people in NC of what they’re missing out on because their state government is overrun by troglodytes – and that one of said trogs is her opponent – if she wants to hold that seat.)

  27. 27.

    Iowa Old Lady

    May 8, 2014 at 2:24 pm

    Now there’s something you don’t see every day.

  28. 28.

    Trollhattan

    May 8, 2014 at 2:24 pm

    @chopper:

    Is there more recent info? The article I linked a few days old, and notes current conditions are similar to ’97-98, which was really big. IIRC a small El Nino can create dry conditions–a Nino we don’t need.

  29. 29.

    Elizabelle

    May 8, 2014 at 2:24 pm

    Incidentally, you will love the reader comments on the NYTimes story on Wonder Bread’s parent, Flowers Food, being the “most Republican company” in political donations. (Percentage of giving; obviously Americans for Prosperity and any Koch entity worth its sulphur gives more total money.)

    Many are calling Republicans The Wonder Bread Party. White, full of air, non-nutritive, empty of substance.

    Wonder Bread is poison. So are their politics. This entire article drips with irony.

    Makes sense that the most vacuous bread company would be Republican.

    What a perfect metaphor: a fluff-filled, lowest-common-denominator, value-removed product lacking sustenance and leading to constipation.

    Of course, some commenters are screaming “unions!” and “George Soros!”, but come on ….

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 8, 2014 at 2:27 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: That is very upsetting to Bob Romanov, I am sure.

  31. 31.

    JGabriel

    May 8, 2014 at 2:28 pm

    As a former Pennsyltuckian, I identify with that frogs desire to leave his home swamp by any means neccessary.

  32. 32.

    Bobby Thomson

    May 8, 2014 at 2:28 pm

    @Francis: When I saw the headline I thought maybe eventheliberal Richard Cohen was a new front pager.

  33. 33.

    kindness

    May 8, 2014 at 2:30 pm

    Let us know when the locusts hit Betty.

  34. 34.

    Tone In DC

    May 8, 2014 at 2:33 pm

    As a former Pennsyltuckian, I identify with that frog’s desire to leave his home swamp by any means necessary.

    Froggy has the Need for Speed. He’s been watching Kick Buttowski (sp) on Saturday mornings, no doubt.

  35. 35.

    scav

    May 8, 2014 at 2:34 pm

    @kindness: I worrying more about boils. Or maybe it’ll be the back spasms this time. flicks wine.

  36. 36.

    Poopyman

    May 8, 2014 at 2:37 pm

    @JGabriel: I resemble that remark.

  37. 37.

    SatanicPanic

    May 8, 2014 at 2:37 pm

    @Elizabelle: Wow, that’s a pretty fitting one. I’d be hard pressed to think of a company that did fit them better. Maybe Dollar Tree?

  38. 38.

    Trollhattan

    May 8, 2014 at 2:38 pm

    Seems GG thinks US helping locate missing Nigerian girls is rampant interventionism. Or something. Something bad.

    http://wonkette.com/548653/youll-never-believe-which-inhuman-monster-doesnt-care-to-find-nigerian-schoolgirls-its-glenn-greenwald#more-548653

  39. 39.

    Belafon

    May 8, 2014 at 2:44 pm

    @Trollhattan: It’s raining really hard right now in North Texas. I do not hear anyone complaining. We know we need a LOT.

  40. 40.

    Citizen_X

    May 8, 2014 at 2:44 pm

    @Trollhattan: Blog fight! Blog fight! One that’s not Freddie dB vs. Balloon Juice!

  41. 41.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 8, 2014 at 2:45 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Randa needs to be removed from the bench, at once, as he apparently does not understand what the word “frivolous” means.

  42. 42.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 8, 2014 at 2:45 pm

    @Trollhattan: OK, time for a drone strike to take this stupid motherfucker out.

  43. 43.

    chopper

    May 8, 2014 at 2:46 pm

    @Trollhattan:

    models for the nino 3.4 region (which the NOAA uses to call an el nino) are settling in around 1.5C. the nino of 1997/8 had an ONI value of about 2.5C.

    so it’ll likely be a good one, but nothing like the freakshow that 1997 was.

    forecast could change, of course.

  44. 44.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 8, 2014 at 2:48 pm

    @dexwood: Oh, he’s definitely handsome! A fine example of canine masculinity!

  45. 45.

    Amir Khalid

    May 8, 2014 at 2:49 pm

    @Trollhattan:
    There wasn’t a peep fromf Glenn Greenwald when the US sent the Navy to the Indian Ocean to look for a missing Malaysian plane a couple of months ago.

  46. 46.

    SatanicPanic

    May 8, 2014 at 2:54 pm

    @Citizen_X: unfortunately Freddie’s already claimed that our dislike of GG is based on homophobia. Who else can we battle with? FDL is old news, the GOS probably can’t get along well enough to organize for a fight. Atrios is even more navel-gazey than we are. I dunno, Gawker?

  47. 47.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 8, 2014 at 2:54 pm

    Imported from the dying “Oklahoma…so fracked up it’s west of the Rockies now!” thread:

    OT, but the President of Hobby Lobby has a hobby of his own…pushing his death cult on kids using public schools.

  48. 48.

    scav

    May 8, 2014 at 2:55 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Well, which of the two is he more likely to fly himself?

  49. 49.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 8, 2014 at 2:57 pm

    @SatanicPanic: My dislike for Greenwald is based on his mercenary nature, his sucking up to neo-feudalist slime like Paul Travelling Medicine Show, and, now, his clear indifference to the plight of a bunch of black girls who have been kidnapped to be sold into sexual slavery.

  50. 50.

    Chyron HR

    May 8, 2014 at 2:58 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    unfortunately Freddie’s already claimed that our dislike of GG is based on homophobia

    To be fair, so did John Cole.

  51. 51.

    dexwood

    May 8, 2014 at 2:59 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Thanks.

  52. 52.

    WayneL

    May 8, 2014 at 3:00 pm

    At least the frog didn’t come up in your toilet. The first time one did that to me in Florida, I about shit my pants. Not kidding.

  53. 53.

    ranchandsyrup

    May 8, 2014 at 3:01 pm

    BLM staffer confronted by armed men in UT. There’s going to be another act of “civil disobedience” near Blanding, UT on Saturday over a closed to vehicles recreation area. Good times.
    http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_25692048/recapture-canyon-utah-be-site-next-blm-showdownsee

  54. 54.

    Trollhattan

    May 8, 2014 at 3:05 pm

    @chopper:

    Thank you! Appreciate the further info–as I said earlier, I don’t understand it nearly well enough but am definitely interested. (We pay our flood insurance premium no matter what.)

  55. 55.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 8, 2014 at 3:09 pm

    From today’s “Shoot me now” file:

    Twit from The Blaze outraged at “cheap” society, throws Michelle Obama into the mix, in reference to the kidnapped girls in Nigeria, and Don Lemon unloads on the twit.

    The Blaze is a concentrated center of cheap outrage, based on fantasy.

  56. 56.

    rikyrah

    May 8, 2014 at 3:12 pm

    this would absolutely freak me out. …the frog…scare me to death.

  57. 57.

    LAC

    May 8, 2014 at 3:14 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: when they made glenn greenwald, they broke the mold. Now why they wasted time breaking a damn mold and let him get away is a mystery.

  58. 58.

    chopper

    May 8, 2014 at 3:20 pm

    @Trollhattan:

    i’m hoping hard that it doesn’t end up like 1997. that was a real shit year, weather-wise.

  59. 59.

    Trollhattan

    May 8, 2014 at 3:21 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Speaking of shooting, shut up, Krauthammer.

    “Climate change is superstition–like rain dance of Native Americans.”

    WTF do these people have to prove at this point? They know it’s real, it’s here and it’s worse than we’d allowed ourselves to imagine. Are the next quarter P&Ls that important?

    Oh, got it.

  60. 60.

    Trollhattan

    May 8, 2014 at 3:23 pm

    @chopper:

    You are NOT kidding. Brings back old, badder than bad memories.

    http://middlekauff.tv/rodeo.html

    That’s a the roof of a three-story house they’re plucking the dog from.

  61. 61.

    Patricia Kayden

    May 8, 2014 at 3:46 pm

    @Brian R.: Well, they voted for it so they should be proudly defending it. I’m sick and tired of Dems who vote for legislation and then allow Repubs to scare them into disparaging it. Doesn’t make sense. Repubs may be evil, but at least they vociferously defend their legislation (including bad legislation) — to the max.

  62. 62.

    Mnemosyne

    May 8, 2014 at 3:46 pm

    Betty, are you sure your mom didn’t take you out into the middle of a swamp and have you declared Queen of the Frogs when you were an infant? Maybe there are some pictures stashed away or something.

  63. 63.

    John M. Burt

    May 8, 2014 at 3:48 pm

    @c u n d gulag: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-03zJ4T_tkNY/UAwiQnyfG6I/AAAAAAAAADY/Tc6ETK6Q6bs/s1600/DSC02194.JPG

  64. 64.

    YellowJournalism

    May 8, 2014 at 3:50 pm

    All this frog talk reminds me of a joke book I used to check out of my grade school library called “The Yellow Brick Toad.” You wouldn’t think there’s enough frog jokes in this world to fit an entire book…

  65. 65.

    Patricia Kayden

    May 8, 2014 at 3:51 pm

    @ranchandsyrup: I’m sure Hannity will champion their cause against the evil federal government (only evil when a Democrat is in the White House, of course).

  66. 66.

    chopper

    May 8, 2014 at 3:56 pm

    @Trollhattan:

    well, krauthammer is a climatologist. he is, right?

  67. 67.

    Bobby Thomson

    May 8, 2014 at 3:57 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Well, duh. The Malaysian plane wasn’t black people.

  68. 68.

    lol chikinburd

    May 8, 2014 at 4:01 pm

    @seaboogie: Froggy went a-courtin’, he did ride; c-c-c-Crambone.

  69. 69.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 8, 2014 at 4:12 pm

    @chopper: Well, of course, in pretty much the same way I’m a syndicated WaPo columnist spouting off on a three times a week basis on shit have no expertise on, but do have an ideological agenda to push.

    You know, sort of like Trofim Lysenko.

  70. 70.

    cope

    May 8, 2014 at 4:25 pm

    Looks like one of those Cuban tree frog invasive types. You’re supposed to catch them and put them in the freezer for a humane (?) death.

    I also live in The Mildew State and have to be mindful when unfurling the umbrellas on the pool deck as Ricky and his friends like to climb up into the umbrellas during the day. This is the time of year they come out at night and hang around the pool croaking like crazy in an effort to connect with a significant other. In the past, I have scooped mats of eggs out of the pool and given them to my grandson who watches them turn into little tadpoles and then releases them into the wetlands in his neighborhood where (I hope) they all end up as food for the native species.

  71. 71.

    Betty Cracker

    May 8, 2014 at 4:26 pm

    @WayneL: Been there. Done that.

  72. 72.

    ranchandsyrup

    May 8, 2014 at 4:39 pm

    @Patricia Kayden: heh indeedy he will. won’t be happy until blood is shed.

  73. 73.

    Tone In DC

    May 8, 2014 at 5:34 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    The tree frog rant was classic, Betty. Thanks for that.

  74. 74.

    Ash Can

    May 8, 2014 at 5:41 pm

    @Betty Cracker: That is sheer poetry.

  75. 75.

    Comrade Mary

    May 8, 2014 at 6:09 pm

    OH MY GOD THAT IS ADORABLE GO TEAM FROG!

  76. 76.

    Elizabelle

    May 8, 2014 at 7:28 pm

    @Brian R.:

    It’s amazing to me that Thom Tillis is an “establishment Republican”, when a look at his record shows he’s Tea Party without the label. It fits the MSM narrative, but today’s “establishment Republican” is not a 1990s Republican.

    And we’re seeing so many articles about Democrats are doomed! Minorities won’t turn out to vote! In Louisiana, Mary Landrieu has to pick up support among whites because those minorities won’t turn out at the polls.

    Really? We can do something about that.

    Also: re Hagan: no one writes about how much buyer’s remorse North Carolinians might be feeling about the state’s hard right turn.

    14% of all voters turned out to vote in the GOP primary: maybe that does not say what pundits think it does. It’s not necessarily apathy. Why can’t it be extraordinarily unappealing candidates?

  77. 77.

    Cris (without an H)

    May 9, 2014 at 11:56 am

    FROGGY!

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