Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

We still have time to mess this up!

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

He really is that stupid.

“But what about the lurkers?”

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Pop Culture Break

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Pop Culture Break

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From NYMag‘s Vulture blog:

It’s a busy time at HBO. Game of Thrones continues to dominate the pop-culture news cycle, plus Darren Aronofsky’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam books is getting off the ground, and Damon Lindelof’s take on Tom Perrotta’s novel The Leftovers is about to premiere. But not all adaptations move forward as expected: The HBO version of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods isn’t happening after all. Vulture caught up with HBO’s president of programming Michael Lombardo last night at amfAR’s 5th Inspiration Gala to get the skinny on the network’s current state of affairs.

When George R.R. Martin said that he might extend the Game of Thrones series to eight books, did that make you delighted or horrified?

Delighted beyond comprehension…

The whole production seems so daunting that I didn’t know if an eighth book would be considered one more obstacle.

No, no. Honestly, I mean, the thought that we would end it [is upsetting] — by the way, there’s so many stories left to tell, I just hope [showrunners] Dan [B. Weiss] and David [Benioff] are still game. It’s a little bit of a personal challenge I don’t think they contemplated when we initially found our location in Belfast, what that meant for them personally … Belfast is not the most cosmopolitan of cities to spend half of the year….

Also, is anybody else curious about CBS’s upcoming summer series Extant?

On the positive side, for me: Spielberg, Halle Berry, Goran Visnjic. On the negative: Spielberg’s AI [*shudder*] , and Terra Nova.
***********

Apart from all that, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

158Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Feedly has been down all day, so I don’t know what I’m supposed to be outraged at right now.

  4. 4.

    lamh36

    So last week, I told ya’ll I won’t be going to DC next month. So I cancelled my PTO request and I cancelled my WH tour request.

    So anyway, I got over that. I had already asked for 3 days off for my b-day, so I requested an extended PTO request and have decided that I will be going to Hawaii for my Bday (Nov 5th, trip dates anywhere between Nov 3rd-10th, but I want to be IN Hawaii on someone’s beach for the actual day of my bday, Nov 5th)

    So for the rest of this week, I will be researching and planning this trip, and by next week. I’ll be paying for at least the plane portion of my trip.

    So any advice ya’ll want to give me about planning the trip, or links that would be helpful, will all be greatly appreciated.

  7. 7.

    gene108

    Question:

    I am cleaning up the deep dark drawers of my desk at work and I have found many CD’s/DVD’s I used in years past to take back ups, as external hard drives, the cloud and other modern conveniences were uncommon or non-existent 10-15 years ago.

    I do not need the back ups any more.

    What is the best way to dispose of these CD’s/DVD’s?

    My instinct tells me dumping them in a landfill is not the optimal way to handle it.

  10. 10.

    Kropadope

    @efgoldman: Just look at it as them taking their country back, promote it is such, and magically all the Tea-partiers are on board with Obama’s withdrawal. In fact, they’ll soon be lobbying for a withdrawal of the US army from our own country,

  12. 12.

    nancy darling

    I think Halle Berry is one of the most beautiful creatures that has ever walked the earth.

  14. 14.

    Keith G

    What’s on the agenda for the evening?

    Chores almost done. Been listening to Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s Journey of Dreams (1988) Very beautiful.

  17. 17.

    Howard Beale IV

    It’s obscene enough that Apple’s sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in cash in offshore havens to avoid Uncle Sam-now these fucks think the can ram down the throats with their purchase of Beats to replace the 3.5mm TRRS connector with the Thunderbolt connector?

    At least the EU has woken up and is investigating this nonsense. And as far as I’m concerned, if you offshore any funds from your operations, don’t even think of trying to repatriate them-especially if we drop our tax rate in the future.

  18. 18.

    lamh36

    @raven: I want to go to Honolulu, so Oahu is the island right?

    My plan is to stick to just one. The easy part is buying a ticket and reserving a hotel. The harder part is deciding what I want to do once i get there.

    I’m a pretty regimented person when it comes to vacations, so I like intenararies, but with opening to do other things not on the list as well.

    I’m not an “excursion” seeker, so no paragliding or hangliding, or mountain gliding and I’d prefer not to be all breathing hard and out of shape trying to hand with more adventurous people, but I don’t mind a moderate walk or two.

  19. 19.

    Howard Beale IV

    @raven: The one’s who have suffered the worst have been the Chaldeans. At least Hussein left them alone before we started to stir the pot the first time. The second go-round we damn near made them a footnote in history.

  20. 20.

    Gin & Tonic

    @gene108: The better consumer-quality paper shredders will shred them. Do that, bag them, and they’re just like plastic in the trash. Some municipalities will also have designated e-waste pickup dates/locations and/or shredding events. Depends on where you live. But there is nothing remotely hazardous about them.

  25. 25.

    Cacti

    Tom DeLay hails Cantor’s defeat as a victory for “Christian spiritual revival”.

    Damn.

    Even one Jew in the country club was too much for them.

  26. 26.

    Suffern ACE

    @lamh36: 1) Puka Dogs
    2) La Mariana Sailing Club
    3) the Polynesian Cultural Center (it really isn’t that cheesy)

  28. 28.

    gene108

    @Howard Beale IV:

    At least the EU has woken up and is investigating this nonsense.

    Are you talking about the off-shore accounts or the replacement of the 3.5mm TRRS with a Thunderbolt connector?

  30. 30.

    Howard Beale IV

    @gene108: Beats headphones are such an abominations ther is no way in hell I’d buy any Apple product if they ditched the 3.5mm TRRS connector-it’s bad enough they changed what was universally accepted as the Nokia AV standard (left/right/mic/ground) and reversed it (Left/right/ground/mic) just to be pricks about it.

  31. 31.

    dexwood

    @gene108: I make a kind of whirligig out of them. A hole drilled in each CD at top and bottom. Link 5 or 8 of them with wire and fishing lure swivels. Hang from a tree. They sway and twist in the wind, and reflect beautiful colors.

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    @lamh36

    Which island?

    And all beaches in the state are public property (small exception for some few slivers of sand abutting active military bases). Even the most chi-chi private luxury ‘exclusive’ resort is required to provide public parking for beachgoers (though the actual parking spaces are often not the easiest to find).

    @raven

    Slight amendment: Never go there unless have a solid reason to do so. The improvements made to roads to and from Kihei has made the trip much better and quicker. In town, however, traffic congestion is still King.

  36. 36.

    beltane

    @Cacti: This is why I’ve always found WASP-worshiping Republican Jews like David Brooks to be ridiculous. They can shill for the RW all they want but they still won’t be fully accepted except by other Jewish right-wingers.

  38. 38.

    nancy darling

    @raven: Ditto on Maui if you can only go to one island. Good snorkeling, Hana is fabulous. Hana hotels were really expensive when we were there—it’s been a while. We stayed at a place called the Purdy Ranch. It was sort of a B&B. Had the most fabulous breakfast made for us. We went horseback riding through the rainforest with one of the owner’s daughters.

    Don’t let the lizards scare you. They are all over the place in even the finest hotels and condos. My Mom was with us and she moved her bed out from the wall and shook out her linens every night. The little girl at Purdy Ranch advised my Mom to “just treat them like your teddy bear”.

    If you are going to Haleakala Crater, take a warm jacket.

  39. 39.

    gene108

    @Howard Beale IV:

    That’s why I’m confused:

    You wrote in #20

    It’s obscene enough that Apple’s sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in cash in offshore havens to avoid Uncle Sam-now these fucks think the can ram down the throats with their purchase of Beats to replace the 3.5mm TRRS connector with the Thunderbolt connector?

    At least the EU has woken up and is investigating this nonsense.

    Sorry for being slow, but it is not clear which one the EU is investigating from the above sentence. “This nonsense” could either refer to the connector or the off-shore accounts.

    It kind of makes me chuckle to think the EU will be investigating the connectors Beats uses after the Apple takeover. I have a picture in my mind of Cook getting hauled in front of the EU, in Brussels, to defend the change in connectors.

    Though from the last sentence, you probably mean the off-shore accounts.

    And as far as I’m concerned, if you offshore any funds from your operations, don’t even think of trying to repatriate them-especially if we drop our tax rate in the future.

  40. 40.

    RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual

    I just hope Orphan Black is renewed for a third season. I’ve enjoyed the show so much.

  41. 41.

    lamh36

    So basically, the House Repubs will have to choose between Pete Sessions (Racist-Texas) and Kevin McCarthey (R-Bleh)

    And Boehner saying he will be re-elected as Leader.

    Okay then Boner…

  42. 42.

    Howard Beale IV

    @efgoldman: +1.

    When I travel, I use my Nokia BH-905i Noise-cacneling headphones-works great on aircraft. When I’m at home, I’ll switch between my Sony MDR-V7506s or Shure SE-425s depending if I’m active or doing critical listening.

  43. 43.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @efgoldman: We WASPs don’t want him. Nothing to do with his being Jewish – after all, we want Scarlett Johansson – everything to do with his being David Brooks.

  44. 44.

    lamh36

    Tom DeLay said Eric Cantor’s loss was a victory for “Christian spiritual revival”…Wow talk about a loaded statement.

    I’ll say again what Booman said in his post on Cantor…”
    The national Republican Party just lost their only remaining Jewish member..”

    There are literally NO NON-CHRISTIAN MEMBERS of the Republican caucus!

  45. 45.

    Howard Beale IV

    @gene108: The EU mandated a single charger connector (microSD) four years back-not only could the EU give Apple grief on their accounting shenanigans I could see them pass such a mandate on a headphone jack as well.

    Naturally, Apple, being the 1st class assholes they are, bundled an adaptor.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    @lamh36

    Yup, Honolulu is Oahu. Big city with all the usual big city pluses and minuses. But one can still drive around to the North Shore and be out in the boonies to experience less congested, more old-timey Hawaii scenery and atmosphere.

    (There’s a chain of shops called ABC which cater to tourists and stock a lot of kitschy crap, beach items, and such. In Honolulu, there is a least one intersection at which, if one turns a full 360 degrees, one will see six ABC Stores.)

  49. 49.

    max

    @Howard Beale IV: Microwave ‘em.

    Yeah. Throw two in there, run the microwave for six or seven seconds, and then rub the shiny side of one against the shiny side of the other and then into the trash. (The microwave will cause them to crackle and flake irregularly which should be good enough, but rubbing them together detaches big pieces of foil away which kills the data and the disk deader than hell.)

    max
    [‘Go Rangers!’]

  50. 50.

    NotMax

    No interest in Extamt, but curious enough to give another summer series, The Strain a chance to grab me. Premieres on F/X on July 13.

  51. 51.

    max

    Huh.

    Iraq Said to Seek U.S. Strikes on Militants

    The Obama administration has carried out drone strikes against militants in Yemen and Pakistan, where it fears terrorists have been hatching plans to attack the United States. But despite the fact that Sunni militants have been making steady advances and may be carving out new havens from which they could carry out attacks against the West, administration spokesmen have insisted that the United States is not actively considering using warplanes or armed drones to strike them.

    OK, well, in this case, I’d back airstrikes, presumably by planes operating out of Ankara and Incirlik. I am not real keen on this backing whatever Syrian ‘moderates’ are left, but knocking down ISIS is fine. We have been backing the Kurds, so letting ISIS get rolling on them strikes me as wrong.

    Of course, this might makes the Saudis mad, and Jimmy cracked corn and I don’t care.

    max
    [‘This kind of thing is much more suited to aircraft than ground troops anyways. It’s a fuckin’ big desert, and there’s nothing there.’]

  52. 52.

    ruemara

    I’m sorry, but AI was actually pretty good, so whatever.

    I got my laundry done. It seems like nothing, but I’ve been working so much overtime, I didn’t have time for two weeks. And last weekend, I shot the ren faire. In another week, I shoot a music festival.This weekend, I need to finish a logo, update a production schedule, and another production schedule and then I’m going to vegetate at the movies. Malificent, Edge of Tomorrow, and How to Train Your Dragon.

    Working full time has left me with this curious feeling of wealth. Seeing 3 movies? Extravagance!

  53. 53.

    ? Martin

    @Howard Beale IV:

    It’s obscene enough that Apple’s sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in cash in offshore havens to avoid Uncle Sam-now these fucks think the can ram down the throats with their purchase of Beats to replace the 3.5mm TRRS connector with the Thunderbolt connector?

    A few things:

    1) It’s Lightning, not Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is an Intel standard that Apple helped develop and promoted.
    2) Apple almost certainly isn’t replacing TRRS with Lightning. They are almost certainly replacing it with Bluetooth 4 and a non-shitty codec, and falling back to Lightning to both charge and provide audio, so you can keep listening on the go. The spec for Lightning is almost identical to the spec for BT. And if you don’t want to buy Apple or Beats headphones, buy any other preferred brand of BT headphones. Maybe with some competition in the space, everyone will step up their game.

    Every opportunity to embrace an open wireless standard, Apple has done so before anyone else in the market. Apple has killed more legacy analogue connectors than anyone. This would be both.

    The problem with TRRS is twofold:

    1) It consumes an excessive amount of volume relative to the value it delivers. It’s a one-trick pony in an increasingly miniaturized world. It doesn’t do anything but take up battery space for most users.
    2) Because it’s analogue, you can’t do anything new with it. If you plug your $300 headphones into a device with a shitty DAC or amp, it’s going to sound like shit. There’s no data returning to the device, either. With a digital interface you can offload noise cancellation processing to the phone. You can put sensors in the headphones for other purposes. For example, pausing the music when you take the headphones or an earbud out, and playing it when you put them back in. For people that exercise, the ear canal is one of the best places to get biometric data – you can get very accurate heart rate, pulse oximeter, body temp, even glucose readings from there.

    My problem with the critique of Beats is that the people leveling them never bother to talk to the people that buy them. Yeah, Beats don’t sound very good in your listening room, but they aren’t marketed to you. Beats are designed so you can hear Kanye over the noise on a bus. They’re designed to drown out street noise. Perfect sound reproduction is a fucking joke when you have 80dB of industrial noise 10 feet from you. You don’t seem to get how completely out of touch you sound relative to the market of people that buy them. Do they sound like shit? Well, maybe, but the jackhammer isn’t doing the music any favors either, but at least with Beats you can hear it.

    Beats outsells all other headphones on the market. Maybe they are doing something right, and you just aren’t open minded enough to consider what it might be.

  54. 54.

    Howard Beale IV

    @max: I was actually hoping that the Iraqi’s were playing a rope-a-dope maneuver and lining ISIS for a massive squeeze play, but I guess that ain’t happening.

    And I’d sure like to know who the fuck is bankrolling ISIS-I’d like to send a W88 their way….

  55. 55.

    ? Martin

    @Howard Beale IV:

    At least the EU has woken up and is investigating this nonsense. And as far as I’m concerned, if you offshore any funds from your operations, don’t even think of trying to repatriate them-especially if we drop our tax rate in the future.

    Apple didn’t offshore any funds. They pay taxes on all revenue generated in the US. In fact they’re often the largest or one of the largest corporate taxpayers in the US (usually depending on what kind of tax breaks the oil companies are getting). They paid 2.5% of all US corporate taxes last year.

    The funds in question are what they earn overseas, and they spend quite a lot of money overseas as well. Ireland is their central bank for that money.

    That’s not to say that the US wouldn’t benefit by that money being repatriated and then spent here, but they need a reason to spend it here, and they don’t really have one as yet. I’d like to see that money come back home, but it needs to do something productive. They’re already building out an absurd new campus. They’ve paid for a new assembly plant in Texas and an expansion of their call center there. They’ve invested in new manufacturing in Arizona as well. They could blow it on useless stuff, but that’s not reasonable to ask them to do.

  56. 56.

    Violet

    @lamh36: Really enjoyed the Pearl Harbor memorial. Make a point of going if you’re going to Oahu.

    Did a trip up to the North Shore too–just had a day there waiting for plane to depart in the evening (had stayed on another island)–and enjoyed that a lot. Didn’t take too long to drive there from Honolulu so you could stay in one and get to the other.

  57. 57.

    lamh36

    Haven’t watched Rachel Maddow in awhile but I wanted to see what she had to say about Cantor. Gotta say, her segment on “Modern US Political Shockers Chart” was stellar.

    If you missed it, you def want to go back and watch it online when it comes.

  58. 58.

    drkrick

    @Baud:

    better than Syria and Iraq

    I believe that’s Egypt’s new national motto.

    Kind of like Arkansas and Mississippi?

  59. 59.

    Billy K.

    Also, is anybody else curious about CBS’s upcoming summer series Extant?

    Could not care less about anything on the networks, aside from Sleepy Hollow.

    SATSQ.

  60. 60.

    Howard Beale IV

    @? Martin:

    They’re already building out an absurd new campus. They’ve paid for a new assembly plant in Texas and an expansion of their call center there. They’ve invested in new manufacturing in Arizona as well.

    And the capitalized expense percentage is what, exactly-especially if it’s amortized over years, if not decades, not counting the kickbacks they get from the states in terms of tax credits/abatements?

  61. 61.

    hildebrand

    I think HBO missed a great opportunity by not getting American Gods to work. That would have been a great one or two season series.

  63. 63.

    rikyrah

    White Iowa Teacher Tells Black Student To Call Him ‘Master’

    By Ben Norton on June 11, 2014 at 4:38 pm

    Roosevelt High School senior Jabre White was doing what so many of us were taught to do, respectfully addressing authority figures, when his teacher responded in one of the least respectful, and most dehumanizing, ways of all.

    In a recent interview with The Des Moines Register, White says that, when he politely told his economics teacher Shawn McCurtain “Yes, sir,” the latter corrected him, insisting he “say ‘Yes, master.’”

    White stood up for himself, replying, “Who the f— are you talking to? You’re nobody’s master, and this is not the slave days. If you thought it was funny, it’s not.” When he later reported the incident to Roosevelt High School’s white Vice Principal Joseph Blazevich, White claims that Blazevitch “didn’t seem surprised about what the teacher said.” Instead, White says, Blazevich “was more interested in about what I said. He was upset that I dropped the f-bomb.”

    After White’s mother asked Blazevich to investigate the incident, however, he did say that it was “terrible” and “shameful,” and claimed that “the instructor was very remorseful.” Nevertheless, it is unclear whether McCurtain has been punished for the way he treated one of his African American students — though he did call White’s mother to apologize for the remark. According to a district spokesperson, McCurtain is still employed by the school district.

    http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/06/11/3447560/white-iowa-economics-teacher-tells-black-student-to-call-him-master/

  64. 64.

    David Koch

    @beltane: the corrupt New York Times just figured that out

    I’m being attacked for this but David @Redistrict Wasserman says Cantor religion “the elephant in the room.” Culturally out of step w/ Dist
    — @jonathanweisman

  67. 67.

    ? Martin

    @Howard Beale IV: Well, domestically they’re running pretty close to break even I figure, so my guess is their domestic tax rate will go down.

    But even if they expand their capex significantly, it’s going to be cheaper to borrow the money at 1.5% than it is to repatriate it. If we had a borrowing rate at 8%, I think you’d see them more likely to pull money back. The same argument that we give that the nation should be borrowing and building infrastructure with these low rates, keeps Apple doing what they’re doing.

    And I’m not sure where the EU investigation is going to go. The US tax laws that Apple is operating under date back to the 80s. Congress never bothered to change these laws. And Ireland had this setup long before the EU came close to forming, back when Apple had significant operations there – both manufacturing and support. They still run some operations out of there now.

  68. 68.

    chopper

    @Cacti:

    Tom DeLay hails Cantor’s defeat as a victory for “Christian spiritual revival”.

    watching the GOP at work is like watching a repeating clip of a retarded kid running his bike into a lightpole, forever.

  70. 70.

    Suffern ACE

    @Howard Beale IV: I think they are like the Tamil Tigers. No government is funding them. They may have supporters in the local population, but they aren’t being supported by anyone but themselves.

  71. 71.

    NotMax

    Every time Louie Gohmert opens his yap, the collective intelligence of human discourse is lessened.

    Have gone from wondering if he can walk and chew gum at the same time to marveling that he is able to simultaneously walk and breathe.

  72. 72.

    Belafon

    And the boy in Extant is the one from Looper.

    I bought a 10inch dobsonian telescope last week. It came with a 9mm lens, which is enough to have Saturn big enough to see a gap between the planet and the rings. So, obviously, I had to order more lenses. They’ll be here tomorrow. Right now, Saturn is easier to see than Mars or Jupiter. Those just show up as large dots right now.

    Saturn was so cool I had to show the neighbors.

  73. 73.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @NotMax:

    Have gone from wondering if he can walk and chew gum at the same time to marveling that he is able to simultaneously walk and breathe.

    I marvel that he is able to breathe.

  74. 74.

    Suffern ACE

    @beltane: yeah. They only elected him five times before. What, did all the other Jews move out of his district, leaving him exposed.

  75. 75.

    SFAW

    @efgoldman:

    Hockey game.

    I tried watching a game, but there wasn’t one on anywhere.

    There was hockey, but it seemed that the Kings were the only team that showed up. One wonders how they arranged it to shove the puck into their own net. Twice.

    F’ing Rangers. One would have thought that, with their proverbial backs against the wall, they would have come out hard, and played a full 60 of tough-ass hockey. Instead, we got the JV scrubs from Matignon (or maybe Catholic Memorial) out there.

    The Kings are certainly an excellent team, but twice as good as the Rangers. Maybe the Rangers will decide to take the next game seriously. Perhaps Vigneault will explain the world to them before then.

  77. 77.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @efgoldman: The man was the House Majority Leader? Why the hell should he run a GOTV operation? I mean, he’s got all this power flowing from his office, right? It should just be a given that so powerful a politician has no need at all to engage in getting people to vote for him…they just should, because he’s a power! Yeah, that’s the ticket!

  78. 78.

    ? Martin

    @efgoldman: Well, they do have good marketing. Another idea that Beats brought to the market was over-ear headphones that didn’t make you look like a 70s roller disco king. Skullcandy was working on creating this market, but Beats beat them out on that front, in part by paying DJs and athletes to wear the product, just like Nike and Tide and everyone else out there. But there were almost no over-ear headphones that people would wear in public before Beats came along. There wasn’t a big market for over ear with 3.5mm connectors. There wasn’t a market for fashionable ones. Let’s not pretend that Sennheiser was sitting there on the shelf at Target being ignored. They never bothered to show up.

    Look, marketing is thrown around as a pejorative by tech purists. Always has been. Many audiophiles (and purists of any technical area) have this sort of reverse-marketing thing going on – buying what isn’t popular and holding that up as evidence that it’s better. And that leads to idiocy like $130 USB cables and danceable speaker cables for $7000 a pop. Tell me the buyers of those products aren’t victims of a different kind of marketing.

    Marketing works just as well for excellent products as it does for crap, so it’s hardly a litmus test for the quality of a product. There’s 10 million pairs of Beats out there, pulling down $1B a year. That’s a big market. You can dismiss it as fashion, but fashion is a big market as well, and you and I are no less susceptible to that either. Nobody buys ugly-ass cars. So just because some kid didn’t pass your acoustical purity test doesn’t mean he isn’t thrilled with his Beats. He just cares about different things than you do. And that’s okay. It doesn’t make your world worse.

  79. 79.

    SFAW

    @Suffern ACE:

    What, did all the other Jews move out of his district,

    I apologize for this, but, the first thing that came to mind when I read this was Juden ‘raus!

    20 or so years ago, one could probably say that as a semi-joke. Now, with the American Taliban taking over, it’s no longer absurd.

  83. 83.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Villago Delenda Est: this is where the Tip O’Neill “All politics is local thing comes in. Dave Obey, a liberal Democrat from my hometown, kept getting re-elected as his district changed. And why? Because he took responded to his constituents. He answered their questions, explained his positions, and did his best to help them solve their problems. He was able to retire undefeated.

    ETA: His replacement, Sean Duffy, sucks donkey balls.

  86. 86.

    SFAW

    @efgoldman:
    Yeah, but the way they played tonight, they should have lost 6-2. I’m not one who subscribes to the Henrik-is-king cult thing, but he played pretty well – but also got lucky on a couple or three. (He has a way to go before he comes up to Brodeur’s waist, so to speak. And he’s no Dryden or Roy or Parent, either.)

    I was debating whether to type “CM” in my first comment, I figured you would get it, but probably no one else. But you’ll note that I didn’t talk about the CM and Matignon Varsities – that would have been insulting to them, based on tonight’s play.

    Maybe they’ll get their shit together before the next game. And maybe I’ll beat Mahe Drysdale, straight-up, no head start. (Drysdale? Hell, I’d be happy to be able to stay within 750 meters of Pertti Karppinen.)

  87. 87.

    ? Martin

    The problem with the Cantor analyses is that he lost by 7,000 votes in a district with 750,000 people. That’s less than 2% of the electorate. Simply shifting who turns out by a little would have tipped that race. So the polling is useless.

    The lesson from Cantor’s loss is that the primary system is fucking idiotic. IRV would have saved the taxpayers money and probably returned Cantor to the House with a full district (and therefore more representative) turnout.

  88. 88.

    James E. Powell

    @? Martin:

    The funds in question are what they earn overseas,

    Please. The locus of earnings is pretty much up to the corporation, its affiliates and partners, etc. It’s accounting magic and there is no need for it to bear any relationship with reality. After all, reality itself is an artificial construct.

  89. 89.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @NotMax: Distinction without a difference, but full marks for pedantry. Well done, sir.

  90. 90.

    James E. Powell

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    Dave Obey, a liberal Democrat from my hometown, kept getting re-elected as his district changed. And why? Because he took responded to his constituents.

    That’s how Dennis Kucinich stayed in office in a district that included a lot of Republican suburbs. The Republican district drawers finally got rid of him by combining his district with another popular Democrat and making the district mostly hers.

  91. 91.

    SFAW

    @efgoldman:

    Thanks. That’s the story/punchline I was remembering, of course.

    And then Tip and the Gipper had a beer and saved Socialist Security, or something like that.

    @efgoldman:

    And plenty of people get hummers.

    Perhaps, but they don’t talk about it when there are kids around.

  92. 92.

    Central Planning

    Traveling for work. Fire alarm just went off. FD showed up about 10 minutes later

    I don’t see smoke so maybe I’ll get back in there in a reasonable amount of time.

  95. 95.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @efgoldman:

    Apparently you’re not old enough to remember the Pacer.

    You are going to call out the Pacer without mentioning the Gremlin. Dude, wtf? Seriously. Damn.

  96. 96.

    lamh36

    @ruemara: I’ve seen all except How To Train Your Dragon, which I do plan to see. Of the 2, I enjoyed Edge of Tomorrow much more than Maleficent, which is NOT to say that Maleficent wasn’t good

  100. 100.

    Little Boots

    @? Martin:

    could be. generally majority leaders know how to count the votes, but he could have lost track.

    and open primaries are kind of stupid. but still. he was incredibly unlikable, and that may have caused him problems.

  101. 101.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    You are going to call out the Pacer without mentioning the Gremlin. Dude, wtf? Seriously. Damn.

    As well he should(n’t). The Gremlin was pretty sorry, but the Pacer was about three levels of fucked-up-edness (stylistically speaking) beyond the Gremlin. There was a reason it was the least-stolen car in America, and it wasn’t because of a kick-ass anti-theft device.

  102. 102.

    lamh36

    Ok, I never realized how much dancing in movies Christopher Walken’s actually done! Just spend the last 4 minutes watching this. So for your viewing pleasure…Christopher Walken Dancing to CC Music Factory’s “Everybody Dance Now”

    http://youtu.be/ERvKa51J8iw

  103. 103.

    Little Boots

    @Little Boots:

    and he’s the epitome of insincere, crony capitalist politician. some people care about that, but they always get swallowed up in the end by the gun fondlers and christian crazies and bullshit artists. still, it may have cost him some votes.

  107. 107.

    ? Martin

    Let’s try this again:

    See, that’s where people blow it. I do almost all of my music listening on a Lîbratøne Zîpp. I love it and it’s playing almost every hour that I’m home and awake. You’d probably tell me sounds like shit and has no stereo separation and all that, but its reasonably loud and portable and so I can take it to the garage and on the patio and I can turn it way up and hear it over my tools and it won’t get screwed up by sawdust and all that.

    You define music lover as someone wanting perfect acoustics. I’ll never have that in the garage, so my alternative in your world is silence. I love music, but that mostly means that I want to hear it as often as I can. The quality isn’t that important to me because I have kids and power tools and a dog and everything else. So long as I can hear 90% of the song I want to listen to, I’m ahead in my world. I can’t afford to build that quiet space. Maybe when the kids are off to college, but from the time I was a teenager until about when I turn 51, my music listening has to adapt to the rest of my life.

    I think a lot of Beats users are like me. They’d rather listen on the bus than not listen on the bus. Music lover to them is about having their music with them all the time, so they need to feel comfortable wearing their over-ears on the bus and walking down the street. They need to be able to overcome the ambient noise, etc. Maybe they would prefer to have the kind of listening experience you aim for, but it’s not going to happen. This is the next best thing for them.

  109. 109.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @SFAW: À chacun son goût. Weirdly, I have reasonably positive memories of the Gremlin. I have an aunt who owned on while I was in high school. She was willing to loan it to me whenever I asked. My Volvo owning parents seldom trusted me with the car ( for good reason – unbeknownst to them, I nearly flipped the car within an hour of getting my license – gravel on a chicane, could have happened to anyone. Did my 10 y/o brother who was in the car with me ever narc? No, the kid never narced about anything – ever.) Therefore, the use of the Gremlin was appreciated.

  111. 111.

    MikeJ

    @efgoldman:

    Anybody who bought or buys Beats headphones, before or after the takeover, deserves what happens to them.

    Beats and Apple are the perfect marriage of value for money companies.

  112. 112.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @lamh36: Holy fuck (please excuse the language), that is brilliant. Thank you for posting it. Also too, the next time I am in NOLA, you need to show me food and music. Please?

  113. 113.

    Mnemosyne

    “It’s 106 miles to Chicago. We have a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.”

  116. 116.

    Violet

    @Tommy: Funny you mention the Fiero. Just saw one today. Looks quite the wreck. Parked in someone’s driveway in a house near me but one I don’t go by often. Did today because of road construction on my usual route. It was blue. Not sure if it was still driveable.

  120. 120.

    srv

    @Howard Beale IV:

    And I’d sure like to know who the fuck is bankrolling ISIS-

    Well, we and our allies were, now in more ways than one:

    The militants rolled past the major northern city of Mosul and into Tikrit, the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s hometown, also seizing oil fields in Salahuddin province. In Mosul, gunmen looted the central bank of $420 million

    Those are probably our Benjamins.

  121. 121.

    Console

    There’s a couple of summer shows that I’ll try out, but I learned my lesson a while ago about trying out every pilot that has an interesting premise. The vast majority of TV shows end up being underwhelming. Especially the network ones (and very especially the Spielberg ones).

    I was really psyched for that Neil Gaiman show though. Too bad.

    Right now though it’ll be True Blood (which I tolerate), Rectify, The Leftovers, and The Strain that I watch in my summer rotation. I’ll actively check for reviews on Tyrant and Intruders and then pick those shows up if they are good.

    What’s been surprising though is that while I’m a big prestige drama nut, almost all the best shows this year have been comedies. Rick and Morty, Broad City, Silicon Valley for the new shows, Louie and Veep for the older ones.

  123. 123.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Tommy: I made out once with a girl in a Fiero. The inconvenience was not at all outweighed by the car’s performance.

    Also, what were you talking about with your immigration thing in the earlier thread? if you want to criticize, you owe it to people to be specific.

  126. 126.

    Tommy

    @Violet: It was a terrible car. But it took the miles. I come from a car loving family. Here is my favorite pic of all time:

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/webranding/8114170277/

    That is my mom on her first date with my dad. They have been married 47 years. That pic was taken in a ’57 Thunderbird. A few years ago dad found the car in TX. Bought it and gave it to mom.

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/webranding/6105429650/

    My brother and I always thought this level of love was the coolest thing ever.

  129. 129.

    Console

    @NotMax:

    I’m way behind, only watched the first episode. I was going to watch it with a coworker but we haven’t had the same schedule in a while so I’ve been holding off. I did love that first episode though. They went in a direction with the show that I didn’t even remotely fathom.

  130. 130.

    NotMax

    @Console

    Never watched it, but it would have to go some to surpass the opening credits of The Avengers or The Prisoner.

    (Not the best by any means, but for sheer slickness and cooliosity, always liked the opening of the long-forgotten series T.H.E. Cat.)

  131. 131.

    gwangung

    Hm. For local folks, I’ve written a one act that’s getting an airing here.

    It’s a marriage of cutting edge (and the brain hacking I write about IS possible) science and fan fiction, with just enough serial numbers filed off that Marvel and Disney lawyers won’t get concerned.

  132. 132.

    Tommy

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Immigration. My family came here from the Isle of Skye Scotland in 1873. We are letter writers so I have a lot of documentation. My favorite is him saying, it is a direct mail letter, asking for support to become an elected judge. This is 1903.

    In less then a single generation he went from being an immigrant to running to hold public office (he won the election BTW). What I was getting at is I want this for others. I don’t care if your skin color is different. You speak another language. I just wish we’d throw our doors open and said come on in.

    I am 100% sure my family has rocked this nation. Given more then we have taken. I want others to have this.

  133. 133.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Tommy: Really, you are not willing to explain your weird immigration comment? Just say what you wanted to say.

  134. 134.

    nellcote

    @lamh36:

    how much dancing in movies Christopher Walken’s actually done!

    He was pretty great in Pennies From Heaven.

  136. 136.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Tommy: So, you are just saying that you are in favor of immigration? Who said something against it? Names? Links?

  137. 137.

    Console

    @NotMax:

    I always like to pretend there was no such thing as TV before Buffy the Vampire Slayer. X-Files if I’m feeling generous. But seriously though, I’ve forgotten all about The Avengers, such iconic music.

    True Blood’s opening credits are essentially this mix of sex and religion crossed with ominous southern iconography (road kill, KKK, etc). Very unsettling, but with a really fun and catchy song laid over it all.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxINMuOgAu8

  138. 138.

    burnspbesq

    @Howard Beale IV:

    Get a grip, dude. If you don’t like what Apple is doing, talk to Congress. It’s kinda hypocritical to ask a company to pay more tax than it is legally obligated to pay unless you’re prepared to do the same.

    And the updated connector spec for headphone use is Lightning, not Thunderbolt. Which is the port that anyone who cares about the quality of what they are listening to is already using, to feed a digital signal to an external DAC/headphone amp. The DAC part of the chips that Apple sources from Cirrus for use in iOS devices is pretty competent, but the headphone amp is for shit.

    Also too, the earnings that US companies keep offshore aren’t being stuck in mattresses in Cork. It’s being invested, and the dividends and interest on those investments are Subpart F income, so it’s false to state that no U.S. tax is being paid on the cash that is stashed.

  143. 143.

    max

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): @Tommy:Nope, here.

    ?

    Many people came here. It is not an understatement to say boat loads of them. Boat loads. I think that is like the coolest thing I can say. Boat load of people came here …. and why folks don’t need to fear a Hispanic person or so such changes where they live. Embrace it. I don’t know what a Volkswalk for charity is, but I can assure you I will find out :).

    I think he’s saying the German-American types in IL should not be afraid of Hispanics moving in. I think.

    (Volkswalk – volk is folk, basically, walk is uh, walk! So People’s walk, very approximately.)

    max
    [‘Although volk has some uh, unpleasant historical connotations of recent vintage.’]

  144. 144.

    Console

    @NotMax:

    Hah, if I had to pick a phrase that defined True Blood, “too blatant an overabundance of gratuitous T&A” would do it.

  146. 146.

    Steeplejack

    @max:

    I think Omnes is referring to the part before that:

    Maybe this isn’t the place to post this . . .

    I read a few comments about immigration here last night that really irked me. These thoughts I am about to write have been in my head the entire time. I need to get them out . . .

    That is, what comments irked Tommy, and why?

  147. 147.

    NotMax

    @Console

    Have to admit having a huge weak spot for setting up a dichotomy between visuals and a song. So much that it became practically a trademark in stage shows I directed, way back when was doing such things.

    One instance which leaps to mind was in a production of Annie Get Your Gun. The stage completely black, except for two overhead spots casting a cone of light down on Annie and Frank, who were positioned at completely opposite ends of the stage apron, fairly screaming a love song to one another.

    Got a standing-O on that number every night of the run.

  148. 148.

    max

    @Steeplejack: That is, what comments irked Tommy, and why?

    Yeah, that part was random.

    Fuck if I know. I do know that a lot of white people in VA sure do hate them some Mexicans, even though there are almost no Mexicans here. (Most of the Hispanics around here seem to come from points further south, unlike Texas.)

    Southern Illinois (south of E. St. Louis) was pretty pro-Confederate back in the day, so perhaps that has something to do with whatever he was on about.

    max
    [‘{shrugs}’]

  150. 150.

    NotMax

    @max

    IIRC, Cantor’s district includes at least parts of Richmond, an area which to this day eagerly embraces many of the, shall we say, more florid aspects of the antebellum period.

  153. 153.

    tybee

    @efgoldman:

    Apparently you’re not old enough to remember the Pacer.

    oddly, there is an attorney here that has a completely restored, black on black, pacer.
    it really doesn’t look that weird anymore with all the other modern small cars that have lots of glass.
    and, no, i have no idea why one would restore a pacer. a javelin or amx, yes, but a pacer? and when was the last time you saw a gremlin?

    ETA: and i see omnes beat me to the gremlin.

  154. 154.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    À chacun son goût. Weirdly, I have reasonably positive memories of the Gremlin.

    OK, so why you bustin’ them re: including the Pacer but not the Gremlin? Is this the old “It was ugly, but I had fun in one, but that doesn’t diminish the ugliness” thing? If so, then I don’t get what your issue is. I didn’t say the Gremlin was a beautiful design, I just said that the Pacer was significantly uglier than the Gremlin. That thesis did not preclude the Gremlin’s “beauty.”

  157. 157.

    Howard Beale IV

    @? Martin:

    Nobody buys ugly-ass cars.

    Half of the Subaru’s meet the definition as being ugly-ass-they’re definitely not at all stylish.

    No matter how much polishing of the turd you do-it’s still a turd.

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