Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Let there be snark.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

T R E 4 5 O N

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

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

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

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

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

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Reader Interactions

169Comments

  5. 5.

    Linnaeus

    Whoa. That’s some serious meta shit right there. Might even be the Humor Singularity.

  9. 9.

    lamh36

    ok, don’t judge me, but helps yeah I’m watching Conan The Destroyer and I Just finished watching Conan The Barbarian. and if I could, I’d be watching Red Sonya right after. Like I said…don’t judge me!

  10. 10.

    David Koch

    @Howard Beale IV: but stooge sirota has never been able to hold a job. he’s been fired from a dozen placed over the last 10 years. And speaking of drama queens and conspiracy theorists, Griftwald is trying to…. wait for it… make it all about him. Ranting it was all about him. ahahahhaahahhahahahahhaahahha

  12. 12.

    The Dangerman

    Late Night Open Thread? LATE Night?

    *checks watch*

    Damn, not even 11 on the other coast yet. Shameful.

  13. 13.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @lamh36: We love Conan the Destroyer. It’s so much like the best of our old D&D groups.

  22. 22.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @lamh36:
    Ha! I’ve gone on a jag of watching bad movies on Netflix, most of them featuring protagonists with extravagant hair and also dragons. The great part about watching bad movies on Netflix is that if you give a top rating to a bad movie they suggest other bad movies.

  31. 31.

    the Conster

    @John (MCCARTHY) Cole:

    Hitch was right!! She’s a fraud. She believed in the purity of suffering for others because Jesus, but not for her when it was her time to suffer. She withheld palliative care. We call that being a monster conservative.

  33. 33.

    opiejeanne

    I live in a somewhat rural neighborhood about 4 miles from the Redmond WA Microsoft campus; the houses are a mix of sizes and values. The house across from us is 17,000 sq ft, two doors down is a single-wide.
    I learned today that a neighbor has been sneaking into the yard across the street from her place and pulling weeds when the owners are at work. She left the pulled weeds in their gardens so they’d know someone had been doing this, I suppose so they’d be grateful, but the couple were a little disturbed and asked other neighbors until “Linda” fessed up.
    Linda had also been trying to round up other people willing to put in 3 hours a week to make it look nice, assuming they couldn’t afford a garden service. They are actually well-paid employees of Microsoft and this is a neighborhood with ditches for storm drains and weeds and daisies and other wildflowers and our ditch is no exception.
    On top of this odd Minding of Other People’s Business, Linda also said she’s been spraying a weed killer on her neighbor’s garden.
    Without their knowledge.

    I find it disturbing, and the self-important declaration that there are Standards here that are Expected.

    She’s probably the one who sent them anonymous letters about their messy yard over the past two years. Their yard really isn’t messy, but the utter nerve of this woman is stunning.

  35. 35.

    The Dangerman

    @SFAW:

    ….until he figures out the controls on his new Hoveround.

    Odds of Hoveround injury: 100%
    Odds of Hoveround injury while naked: 31%

    I think we all should pitch in for a GoPro so we can have it on video.

  40. 40.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Morzer: Were Chris and Andy ever involved? Even drunk, I credit Sullivan with better taste than seducing a jumped-up Thatcherite.

    @Roger Moore: Htich had his problems both in this bright Red days and later as a neo-con, but I think he got Mother Teresa just right. She withheld pain meds from dying people because it was good for their souls. Fuck her.

  43. 43.

    bago

    What was that old grafitti they found in Pompeii?
    “Everybody writes on walls except me.”

  47. 47.

    SFAW

    @efgoldman:

    Somebody post/say/link something to make me laugh

    1) Buddy wants you to be his campaign manager.
    2) Martha Coakley wants you to be her campaign manager
    3) Darrelle wants your advice on covering Megatron

    Oh, wait … make YOU laugh? Sorry, I was thinking of what would make me laugh.

    Apologies

  48. 48.

    Roger Moore

    @opiejeanne:

    I find it disturbing, and the self-important declaration that there are Standards here that are Expected.

    IOW, there are property values that she expects would be higher if the neighbors just took better care of their yards.

  49. 49.

    Morzer

    @bago:

    What was that old grafitti they found in Pompeii?

    “This one weird trick can stop your volcano from erupting”.

  50. 50.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @bago:
    Best grafitti I ever read;

    (One hand): “My mother made me a homosexual!”
    (A Different Hand) “If I buy her the wool will she make me one too?”

    Saw it in the head of the Mediterranean Coffee Shop in Berkeley, CA, way back in the Sixties.

  55. 55.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Morzer: I thought a Britishism was appropriate; if others have dirty minds, it isn’t my fault.

  57. 57.

    opiejeanne

    @Comrade Luke: Tolt pipeline trail is the closest one, about half a mile down our road, and lots of horsey people: I can walk about 500 feet and see either a lovely cow and some horses, or half a mile to a place with a couple of horses, a donkey, a small pig, and a pony.

  59. 59.

    opiejeanne

    @Roger Moore:Probably. Her place is tiny, the smallest house in the neighborhood (not counting the single-wide) and on the minimum 1 acre, Our values have all soared in the past two years, regardless of weeds which are common.

  60. 60.

    Keith P

    I’m shocked – SHOCKED – that JC would be OK with spray painting “I hate these things” on his fence.

  61. 61.

    opiejeanne

    @WaterGirl: I think they would be afraid to do that to our place, and We Would Know, having the longest weedy ditch in the area. We can afford a gardener but we don’t want to and I have tackled that ditch every year since we’ve lived here because the damned buttercups are a scourge. I will be planting things that can fight back.

    Interestingly, some sweet william has migrated from a garden area adjacent to the ditch and colonized it, coming back every year.

  62. 62.

    SFAW

    @opiejeanne:

    There are probably enough tech dweebs in the area that some wag could create an Early Warning System, such that when “Linda” sets foot on their property again, a 130 db klaxon goes off, along with the appropriate prerecorded message (e.g., “Get off our fucking property, you fucking nutjob!” perhaps augmented with the sound of a shotgun being pumped, followed by the sound of a shot.) Might take two or three times before she got the hint.

    [Note: if the locally-available facial recognition software is insufficiently advanced, they could always pay a teenager to keep an eye out and then push the button when “Linda” shows up.]

  64. 64.

    opiejeanne

    @efgoldman: We have no neighborhood associations, and I won’t live in one for exactly the reason you cite. We did it once and that was enough.

    I think the couple need to post a No Trespassing sign so that if Linda comes over again they can have her and her husband arrested (I’m sure he did the spraying).

  65. 65.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @SFAW: I actually know someone in that general neighborhood who could do that and would probably get a kick out of it.

  68. 68.

    Hal

    Lawrence O’Donnell had a great segment a couple of days ago about the IRS “scandal” in which he made several points that you never hear in this endless story.

    – No Republican group was denied tax exempt status. Not a one. In fact, there was only one group that was, and it was a liberal group.

    – Applying for 501c4 status is unnecessary. You can just claim it on your tax returns and the IRS is unlikely to deny you tax exempt.

    – The house committee has received over 67,000 emails from Lois Lerner, including the months before and after the 2012 election that the investigatory committee originally requested. All of those email are there for them to peruse. As the house has expanded it’s investigation, suddenly missing email.

    This whole scandal is nonsense simply to bring out the base, but it would be great if the media would report the whole story, not just lost emails, as if there is no more context to the story.

  72. 72.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    I actually know someone in that general neighborhood who could do that and would probably get a kick out of it.

    What geek wouldn’t?

    @opiejeanne:

    I like that idea and I know people who could do that; they work at MS.

    Well, maybe, but what kind of sound does the BSOD produce? Outside of the screams of the user, that is.

    But I’m sure that even the lowest-level keypuncher at MS could do it, because hardware is just so easy, or so I was often told by the programmers at a past employer or two.

    Just kidding (to some extent). If I recall, Redmond is loaded with more than just Windows programmers.

  73. 73.

    Suffern ACE

    – The house committee has received over 67,000 emails from Lois Lerner,

    I don’t know about you, but I might turn on my spam filter.

  74. 74.

    opiejeanne

    @WaterGirl: We got record amounts for the greater Seattle area the first three months of the year, and I’m still not adapted to gardening in the rain, being a California girl. The weeds have been luxurious but we have knocked down almost all of them except for the ditch, and I really don’t care about the weeds in the ditch.

  75. 75.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @WaterGirl: This is why people shouldn’t quote massive stretches of an article – some here push the limits on the front page and in comments; I won’t call out names.. Quote a short, trenchant, representative sample and then direct the reader to the original. Copyright law may be a mess but it exists for a reason. And fair use exists; use it and then point people at the source.

  76. 76.

    SFAW

    @efgoldman:

    Chris Ianella, maybe? I might be getting my names mixed up, too.

    How the hell do I remember all this shit,

    What? Were we talking about something? And who the hell are YOU? (You probably thought I was going to write “Who am I? Why am I here?” Although I don’t believe Stockdale was anything close to confused that night.)

  77. 77.

    Comrade Luke

    @opiejeanne:

    Your story isn’t that surprising to me. The intermixing of tear downs next to people who have lived in the same house for decades makes for an interesting mix. It’s the condescension and sense of entitlement of the big housers that makes me crazy.

    I’m in Kirkland, and it’s littered with McMansions next to ramblers. I live on a nice street, and the house next door is falling apart to such an extent that the roof is covered with tarp because they can’t afford to fit it. At least no one bothers the old lady that lives there.

  78. 78.

    opiejeanne

    @SFAW: I know a few code monkeys, some of whom work for MS, but most of the people we know are designers and do other things that I do not understand because my geek-fu is very small.

  79. 79.

    SFAW

    @opiejeanne:

    I know a few code monkeys, some of whom work for MS,

    Actually, that’s all MS hires. You know the old saying:

    If you have a million monkeys writing a million lines of code, it’ll certainly be less buggy than any version of Windows. And no self-respecting monkey would ever code something like “Bob” or “Clippy.”

  80. 80.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @SFAW: Is geek in that context directed at me or the person I know? I lack the technical competence necessary to be a geek of any kind.

  81. 81.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Yeah, some of the front page quoting makes me uncomfortable. Let’s hope Charles Pierce has a very liberal fair use policy!

    I don’t understand why the folks who violated Jim Wright’s fair use policy don’t issue an apology and try to make it right. Maybe it’s the same principle as doctors never telling families they are sorry because it can be used against them in court?

  82. 82.

    Roger Moore

    @SFAW:

    (e.g., “Get off our fucking property, you fucking nutjob!” perhaps augmented with the sound of a shotgun being pumped, followed by the sound of a shot.)

    Maybe you could talk to Darrell Issa about it. “Please step away from the weed.”

  83. 83.

    burnspbesq

    @opiejeanne:

    She’s probably the one who sent them anonymous letters about their messy yard over the past two years. Their yard really isn’t messy, but the utter nerve of this woman is stunning.

    She must be from Irvine. Ask anyone who has ever lived there about tyrannical homeowners’ associations.

  84. 84.

    opiejeanne

    @Comrade Luke: Yes, that describes this area but there aren’t too many McMansions right here; there has been a 1 acre minimum lot size for many years so you don’t see enormous new houses crammed onto tiny lots like you do in Blackhawk, in the SF area.

    Linda lives in a very nice rambler that was built by the guy who now lives in the single-wide. She doesn’t give him any shit. The people she’s picking on bought their place the same time we bought ours; we each looked at both houses and they preferred theirs because they didn’t see it as big a “fixer” as ours. We were willing to take on the fixer, 2100 sq ft and only 15 years old at the time. It had been on the market for nearly two years without a single offer and it had a lot of potential, while the other house needed work that they probably haven’t addressed in the past 4 years, such as a very damp downstairs/basement. That house the front door is on the upper level, the back door on the lower one.

    This is Hollywood Hill and not one of the very chi-chi neighborhoods, although there are people in this neighborhood with more money than God. The house across the street is massive but positioned on the lot so that it doesn’t overwhelm the neighborhood. It sits back from the street on a 7 acre parcel, and a big chunk of their lot is left to weeds.

  86. 86.

    opiejeanne

    @SFAW: My ex son-in-law was hired right out of UCI, but not as a code monkey. I don’t think he has written much code since he graduated, but maybe he’s unusual. He’s one of the designers, worked on the concepts for one of the newer Windows, probably 7.

  90. 90.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @WaterGirl: There actually is a lot of evidence that a simple apology – even in the vein of “I was doing the best I could, but I made a mistake and I am sorry,” is enough to avoid many malpractice suits. People understand mistakes happen and that things don’t always go right. My view is that, if you made a mistake, you should admit it. A mistake does not necessarily indicate malpractice. If you used use your best judgment and it didn’t work out as hoped, you should say that. It is not malpractice either.

  92. 92.

    MikeJ

    @SFAW:

    And no self-respecting monkey would ever code something like “Bob” or “Clippy.”

    When Bob came out I was a UI designer at AOL. They sent us early eval to try to get us to do a version for it. We passed.

  95. 95.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @SFAW:
    A coincidence. I’ve been playing with virtualization and one the things that I did in trying to test its limits was to load Windows for Workgroups and then I tried loading Bob. It ran. As soon as I’d done it I wished that I’d tested with Win 98 ME instead.

  96. 96.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @SFAW: Eh, we’ve dealt with the lawyer shit for a thousand years or so. Like ‘roaches, we will survive – not all of us, but enough.

  97. 97.

    SFAW

    @Roger Moore:

    Maybe you could talk to Darrell Issa about it

    As we used to say in me old neighborhood: “Fuck him, and anybody that looks like him.”

    If it were Issa doing the spray-the-neighbor’s-weeds thing, I would have the EWS use live rounds, not a recording of the sound. That evil motherfucker.

    Sorry

  98. 98.

    Kay

    @Hal:

    This whole scandal is nonsense simply to bring out the base, but it would be great if the media would report the whole story, not just lost emails, as if there is no more context to the story.

    The real story is both complex and boring, so they seized on the word “targeted” as if it means something nefarious all by itself. One would think it would matter A LOT if “targeted” means a whole category of applications rather than certain names or organizations but it does not.

    I also think it plays into (certain) peoples real dislike and distrust of the IRS and those would be the people who actually make big tax payments, so wealthier people, and they always get a bigger microphone.

    The idea that it’s unusual or unheard of to have to provide additional information in anything related to political orgs or reporting of finances is also just wrong. It’s incorrect. I’ve been the treasurer for a state-registered political org (tiny, 100 members) and also the treasurer for a statehouse candidate and I had to provide additional information for the org once and was actually audited on the statehouse candidate. I had to get every bank record, paper copies, to supplement an online filing. That was just this past spring. Almost two years after the election cycle where the candidate filed.

    If I were a Tea Partier (or worked for CNN) I’d be screaming that there’s a conspiracy in Ohio to shut down labor-friendly political speech, because in both instances I was reporting contributions from labor. I read the rules and one of the rules is they’re allowed to ask me if I followed them, and document that. We all knew that going in.

  101. 101.

    gian

    @efgoldman:

    ted rall, in pre 9-11 days IIRC did a local radio show on the hate-radio station called “stan watch” and toured the countries ending in “stan” and reported.

    was the late 90s
    hell I found I link where he talks about it.

    http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/next-stop-central-asia/Content?oid=1199165

    When I started doing “Stan Watch” on KFI radio in LA [a talk show in the late 1990s], I had a number of spoofs on the show that were meant to lampoon Americans disinterest in foreign affairs. So I chose news updates of the most remote part of the world that I could possibly think of–the Central Asian republics–and the joke turned on me because people really started following it and were really interested and really wanted to know what was going on. And so it ended up being revelatory to me that there were a lot of Americans who were very interested in international news, even from seemingly remote places, that weren’t finding it in their local newspaper or television news.

    ___
    anyway, I think of Ted in a not unkind way as the duck who let greatness roll off it’s back. If my last name was Tillman, and I saw him I don’t know I could overcome the urge to provide immediate fist-based dental surgery

  103. 103.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Kay: Targeted means that it tripped certain flags. A group that calls itself a “Tea Party X” creates a situation that requires closer scrutiny than a group that calls itself “We Support Kittens and Feeding the Homeless.”

  105. 105.

    gian

    @SFAW:

    the oft quoted Shakespeare – when he wrote “kill all the lawyers” had it in the context of the first step of setting up a tyrannical government.

    I guess lawyers = guns even though it’s pen and voice for lawyers?

  106. 106.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    Eh, we’ve dealt with the lawyer shit for a thousand years or so.

    A lawyer friend ‘splained to me, a long time ago, the basic/underlying meaning of the line ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” It gave me a greater appreciation for youse guys.

    Although, I gotta say: most of my work life involves reading Deps/Depos for civil suits, and there are more than a couple of your brothers who are dickheads. And I say that as someone who’s A-OK with the idea that a party is entitled to be well-represented. (Normally, I’d say “vigorous defense,” but sometimes it’s the Plaintiff’s counsel.)

    ETA: @gian: great minds and all that. (Although it doesn’t explain me, of course.)

  110. 110.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @SFAW: Motherfucker. Is there anything to which they won’t stoop? (Rhetorical)

  111. 111.

    Origuy

    I’m the president of a sports-oriented nonprofit. We’ve been a 501c7 for years. A few years ago we started converting to 501c3 status. One difference is that 501c3 contributions are tax-deductible. It’s taken years to get the IRS to accept our application. They cashed the check for the application fee a couple of months ago, finally, but we still haven’t been notified of the change of status. There’s no political issue here, it’s just that the process can take a long time.

  113. 113.

    Kay

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    I think it got all muddled up with peoples notions of “free speech” which as you know have very little relation to the legal concept :)

    That “free” word seems to really trip them up, As if it means “no one can ask any questions, ever, regarding anything you say or do that might be vaguely within a political realm”

    The paper record in the Sec of State document demand cost me 40 bucks because they don’t keep my transaction records handy forever and ever. I was told “free” Omnes! This is America! That means I never have to document anything or even respond to an inquiry, right?

  114. 114.

    MikeJ

    @SFAW:

    Although, I gotta say: most of my work life involves reading Deps/Depos for civil suits, and there are more than a couple of your brothers who are dickheads

    I was pissed off this week when I was on jury duty and the prosecutor spent a half hour questioning potential jurors who were victims of domestic abuse about their experiences, to the point of making the woman next to me break down in tears, as a way to taint the jury before any evidence had been heard. Not one person got dismissed and it just went on and on and on with “he hit me”and “he pulled a gun on me.” Everything people said was awful, and it all seemed prejudicial. I hope that the wife beater got a better lawyer for his appeal, because his public defender should have been beating the shit out of the prosecutor.

  116. 116.

    Nutella

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    Htich had his problems both in this bright Red days and later as a neo-con, but I think he got Mother Teresa just right. She withheld pain meds from dying people because it was good for their souls. Fuck her.

    She also refused to let the kind-hearted and naive volunteers who showed up to help out at her ‘hospitals’ wear gloves when working with patients. She thought that the probability of them catching the patients’ diseases would increase the amount of suffering in the world which would be an excellent thing.

  118. 118.

    David Koch

    In today’s posting Gaba (AKA Brainwrap) reveals from state stats that 9,000 people daily are still signing up for Obamacare plans with 26 million now covered

    My Gawd!

    Brainwrap says 23 to 28 million people have been covered under Obamacare.

    I wonder – the so-called progressives who wanted to “KILL THE BILL”, we they ever apologize for being so wrong?

  119. 119.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Kay: One of the problems for the legal profession is that we use words in very specific and limited ways but those words have very loose meanings in common parlance.

  121. 121.

    Fair Economist

    @Origuy:

    I’m the president of a sports-oriented nonprofit. We’ve been a 501c7 for years. A few years ago we started converting to 501c3 status. One difference is that 501c3 contributions are tax-deductible. It’s taken years to get the IRS to accept our application. They cashed the check for the application fee a couple of months ago, finally, but we still haven’t been notified of the change of status. There’s no political issue here, it’s just that the process can take a long time.

    Yes, the IRS is very slow on a lot of less-critical stuff, because they’ve had repeated budget cutbacks at the hands of the Republicans. And now what happens? Oh yeah, the Republicans are investigating them for being slow.

  123. 123.

    Kay

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    It has shades of the birth certificate for me, because I deal with those all the time. It was a perfectly ordinary state record until one day it became shrouded with mystery and intrigue. When they called up the state official and then wouldn’t accept her verification I was just out of ideas. I don’t know how to authenticate that record if she can’t! No one can if she can’t. It’s unknowable.

    Can you imagine if we had to do that for everyone? “And so I called the attending physician- “is this your signature, wait, are you even a physician?” It was just ludicrous. I was thinking, “Does it have the raised seal? Yes? We have to move on, then. Sorry. We can’t debate this forever.”

  124. 124.

    gwangung

    @David Koch:

    My Gawd!

    Brainwrap says 23 to 28 million people have been covered under Obamacare.

    I wonder – the so-called progressives who wanted to “KILL THE BILL”, we they ever apologize for being so wrong?

    My stand was always get the best we could, then improve.

    I STILL don’t see what’s the problem with that from a progressive perspective.

  125. 125.

    Yatsuno

    @Fair Economist: Tax Exempt/Government Entities (TE/GE) is also the smallest division of the IRS. The fact that they got swamped out of nowhere & got zero feedback from Headquarters is less than surprising. As far as what happened to the e-mails, who knows?

  126. 126.

    Kay

    @Yatsuno:

    It sort of pisses me off because the clear message is “don’t look at anything with ‘Tea Party’ on it” and I want political org regulation. I’m for that. We need more of it, not less.

  127. 127.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Kay: Birth Certificate or Certificate of Live Birth? Is there a difference? I am basically three years younger than Obama (born in IL) and my BC form is virtually identical in form to his. The dates, dates, and people differ, the form does not. Mine has never been questioned.

  130. 130.

    Yatsuno

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I’ve told this story before. I was also born in Hawai’i. I cannot get my birth certificate, as it is the property of the state of Hawai’i. When I got my passport, I had a Certificate of Live Birth and that was sufficient. Why is it not good enough for Obama’s birth? Or is my birth also suspect?

  131. 131.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Yatsuno: Well, your birth is probably suspect, but let’s not that attribute it everyone.

  132. 132.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): @Yatsuno: Fax me your birth certificates. Right now. Both of you. Don’t forget to include the credenzas.

    Edit: this is why FYWP doesn’t fully accept either of you as being worth of being replied to. It’s your birth certificates! Mystery solved.

    Edit 2: I wonder where MikeJ was born; he has the same problem. I demand to see his birth certificate, too.

  136. 136.

    The Dangerman

    OK, it would be acceptable NOW to post a LATE night Open Thread.

    If you are on the East Coast, anyway. West Coasters, sit tight.

    Yats, what’s this shit with the Mariners being well above .500?

  139. 139.

    SFAW

    @am:

    a right-wing American terrorist attacked the Olympic Games in Atlanta

    False flag! FALSE FLAG! Benghaz— oops, wrong thread for Benghazi

  140. 140.

    The Dangerman

    It’s NEVER the wrong thread for Benghazi and this is great news for John McCain.

  141. 141.

    Yatsuno

    @The Dangerman:

    Yats, what’s this shit with the Mariners being well above .500?

    You got me where this came from. I’m kinda enjoying it. It won’t last, but for now it’s fun.

  142. 142.

    MikeJ

    @Steeplejack: I would seriously injure (but not kill) somebody to get my hands on that 68 Coupe deVille from Across 110th Street. It’s amazing how Caddies went from being so cool to absolute utter shit in just a few years. Do a google image search and compare the 68 and the 72.

  143. 143.

    dance around in your bones

    Ok, where I live (the left coast) it’s only 10:30 pm, according to my computer. I am dying to go to bed – been a tough day – but cannot because I am caring for my three grandboys who are in various stages of passing out in front of the TV screen, watching some movie about Chasing Maverick’s, big wave surfer place.

    I just wish they would go the fuck to sleep.

  144. 144.

    MikeJ

    @The Dangerman:

    Yats, what’s this shit with the Mariners being well above .500?

    As a Red Sox/Mariners fan I’m afraid I may have inadvertently done a Freaky Friday to them some how.

  145. 145.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    I think I’ve managed to fix the ice dispenser on my fridge. A little plastic tab that held the ice dispenser door that was also part of the freezer door broke. I had to epoxy in a replacement for the broken part of the tab and then epoxied a Q-Tip to close the tab so the spring for the dispenser door wouldn’t pop out.

    ETA: I also had to replace the component holder(holds the switches and the light bulb) and replaced the light bulb with a LED light bulb.

  146. 146.

    gwangung

    @Yatsuno:

    You got me where this came from. I’m kinda enjoying it. It won’t last, but for now it’s fun.

    With two of their prized pitchers on the injury list and most of the offense crapping the bed? Yeah, it won’t last, but it’s almost likely to get better….(well, actually, offense in general will get better but BA RISP will go down, so….still good).

  147. 147.

    The Dangerman

    @Yatsuno:

    You got me where this came from.

    The Mariners should have gotten the damn memo; can’t have more than 1 of the 4 Major Sports Championships in ONE city in a calendar year (don’t worry, as long as the Dodgers have Dee Gordon as a key player, LA ain’t doing the double). It used to be having 2 consecutive championships, but we took care of that by shipping the Sonics to some weather-worn shithole midwest state (pardon any redundancies in this last sentence).

    Last I checked Cano was sucking; guess he warmed up with the weather (although I assume he hasn’t hit a HR in Seattle yet; that’s a man sized shot in that air).

  148. 148.

    eemom

    I think Omnes should show. And link to Soft Cell.

    Also too and speaking of birth certs, someone has a big 5-0 coming up this summer.

    /out-stalkering LBoots

  149. 149.

    Yatsuno

    @efgoldman:

    You were never really born. You’re a creature of the internet’s id.

    That would be of great comfort to my parents. Sadly my mom was there at my hatching & so was my grandmother.

    @The Dangerman: Cano is doing…okay. The young guns are the ones lighting up the offence right now. And Rodney is a monster of a closer.

  151. 151.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Yatsuno:

    The young guns are the ones lighting up the offence right now. And Rodney is a monster of a closer.

    Young Guns? The M’s have Cantor, McCarthy and Ryan playing for them?

  154. 154.

    SFAW

    @The Dangerman:

    can’t have more than 1 of the 4 Major Sports Championships in ONE city in a calendar year

    Unless you live in New York, and you’re playing Baltimore.

  155. 155.

    The Dangerman

    @Yatsuno:

    The young guns are the ones lighting up the offence right now.

    You made me look up Smoak; I had a good feeling about him this year and I think he sent out 2 on opening day. Pretty disappointing numbers for him (I used to follow players far closer when I was in Fantasy, but I had a Monster season a few years ago and “retired”). Again, probably a Seattle thing. There and San Diego. I’ve seen players hit the shit out of the ball down in SD, go into the trot, then watch the ball simply short hop the wall.

  156. 156.

    Anne Laurie

    @WaterGirl:

    Let’s hope Charles Pierce has a very liberal fair use policy!

    In some people’s defense, “we” did entice some of you stubborn bastids into going over to Mr. Pierce’s place on a regular basis… eventually. :)

  157. 157.

    Belafon

    @WaterGirl: What I think really blew Jim Wright’s gasket was that one of the sites copied his original post to their webpage and made it look like Jim had contributed it. They formatted it just like their other posts, and put is name on it in the same format as any other author. And then they didn’t include a link back to the original.

    I often wonder about the length of some quotes here, but they FPers have never claimed them as their own, or as if it belonged to Balloon Juice.

  158. 158.

    dance around in your bones

    @Anne Laurie:

    I am an frequent inhabiter – nay, one might say an habitué ! of Charles R. Pierce’s place. Yes, I am Charles R. Pierce’s bitch.

    Anyway, I always click over to see the Full Monty from Pierce. Plus, I still wish my grandkids would GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP!

  159. 159.

    burnspbesq

    @Origuy:

    It’s taken years to get the IRS to accept our application. They cashed the check for the application fee a couple of months ago, finally, but we still haven’t been notified of the change of status. There’s no political issue here, it’s just that the process can take a long time.

    See Internal Revenue Code Section 7428. If the IRS doesn’t respond in 270 days, you can file a declaratory judgment action in the Tax Court.

  160. 160.

    bago

    I think the premture release of Windows 8 was the kiss of death for Ballmer. He wanted his box on the shelves… I’m liking Software as a Service, but as DevOps, I am a bit biased.

  161. 161.

    ? Martin

    @bago: Ballmer was already dead. Microsoft had already crossed the line where they could control the marketplace. Two symptoms of the problem were the need to buy Nokia in order to replace lost OS sales with hardware sales, and the failure to launch Office on iOS in an effort to protect the OS sales that were already lost. Ballmer was at least smart enough to get these initiatives underway internally, but he was trying to preserve the 1995 Microsoft, and that died in 2008 with the iPhone and Android.

    Windows 8 was the type of move that Microsoft needed to make. It missed the mark, but the legacy Windows market is contracting and Windows 7.1 wasn’t going to reverse that. Reinventing is hard, but it’s necessary. Consider that Microsoft just launched an Android phone. Microsoft has figured out that with a commodity hardware market, there’s nearly zero value left in the OS. They have better markets to fight in.

  162. 162.

    MikeJ

    @? Martin:

    Windows 8 was the type of move that Microsoft needed to make.

    Desktops aren’t phones and crippling the desktop so that it’s as bad as a phone is a stupid idea. Yes, more people watch cat videos on phones than use traditional computers, but editing spreadsheets sucks on a phone.

    Nobody uses a phone because they love the UI. They put up with it because it fits in their pocket. Making desktops suck as bad as phones do should be a capital offense.

  163. 163.

    eemom

    @Anne Laurie:

    In some people’s defense, “we” did entice some of you stubborn bastids into going over to Mr. Pierce’s place on a regular basis… eventually. :)

    Oh well — some people don’t give a shit, but that is zero defense to “we’s” serial copyright infringement of the sainted Mr. Pierce, not to mention the hordes of others whose work is sucked up on a daily basis into the vacuous lack of capacity “some people” have for original thought.

    Technically speaking ‘zall.

  164. 164.

    WaterGirl

    @Belafon: Yep. Agree on all counts. One thing that really pushes my buttons is when people try to claim credit for work that is not their own. I worked with one man who did that to me more than once and I worked for another one who did the same thing.

    This was at a respected university, where you would think women would be treated equally with me, but that was most definitely not the case. We may have “come a long way, baby”, but there is still a long way to go.

  165. 165.

    WaterGirl

    @Mike J:

    Nobody uses a phone because they love the UI. They put up with it because it fits in their pocket. Making desktops suck as bad as phones do should be a capital offense.

    I had to quote that so I could see it one more time.

  167. 167.

    SFAW

    @another Holocene human:

    Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day. ..

    I’ve got a feeling that somehow, the Rethugs will find yet another way to fuck over the 99 percent-aaaayyyy.
    .
    .
    .
    Gotta make it rhyne, as Tom Lehrer might say.

  168. 168.

    Josie

    @eemom:

    There are times when original thought is overrated. I have always appreciated the tremendous amount of reading and thought involved in bringing us an overview of various writers’ opinions on a daily basis. It is similar to the “Abbreviated Pundit Roundup” on DKos and is valuable to me in staying updated on the great variety of punditry available.

  169. 169.

    Linnaeus

    @The Dangerman:

    but we took care of that by shipping the Sonics to some weather-worn shithole midwest state (pardon any redundancies in this last sentence).

    Oklahoma is not midwestern.

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