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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sunday Morning Open Thread

Sunday Morning Open Thread

by Betty Cracker|  September 7, 20149:06 am| 127 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Friday night’s sunset at an unspecified shoreline on Tampa Bay:

IMG_3196.JPG

That seemingly floating city in the distance is St. Petersburg (not the Russia one).

Got football to watch today? We’ve got both baseball AND football viewing on the agenda. Plus the making of potato salad, grilling of sausages and sampling of various ales.

Feel free to talk about whatever.

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Previous Post: « Alright, Fess Up
Next Post: Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Falling Up »

Reader Interactions

127Comments

  1. 1.

    delosgatos

    September 7, 2014 at 9:12 am

    You can’t see Russia from your shoreline?

  2. 2.

    Betty Cracker

    September 7, 2014 at 9:17 am

    @delosgatos: Only when Putin rears his head…

  3. 3.

    Poopyman

    September 7, 2014 at 9:19 am

    Potato salad, grilled sausage, and various ales? Set an extra place at the table. If I jump in the car now I’ll be there by, uh, (checks google Maps)… midnight.

  4. 4.

    PaulW

    September 7, 2014 at 9:20 am

    Gonna be at Selmons to watch the Bucs this afternoon. GO BUCS!

  5. 5.

    Amir Khalid

    September 7, 2014 at 9:22 am

    Alas, there’s no football to watch this weekend. No club football, anyway — it’s internationals week: Euro 2016 qualifiers, friendly matches. I really don’t give a damn about international matches unless it’s the World Cup, and I’m ticked off that Liverpool’s star striker Daniel Sturridge just injured his thigh while training with England. He’ll miss at least one Premier League match for Liverpool. Grumble.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    September 7, 2014 at 9:25 am

    @PaulW: Go Bucs! Still getting used to the uniform makeover. The font is vaguely Klingon-ish, which I like. But the rest of the redesign strikes me as a fashion atrocity. Oh well. I’m loving Lovie. And really excited about Gerald McCoy, who will have a HUGE year, I hope.

  7. 7.

    Botsplainer

    September 7, 2014 at 9:40 am

    My wife, lovely woman that she is, breaks my heart by loving neither smoked sausage nor my potato salad (which is forty kinds of awesome, and includes red potatoes, red onion, minced garlic, real mayo, brown mustard, barbecue sauce, green olives, black pepper and capers). Everybody else who tries it loves it.

    She also has trouble with my Parmesan-truffle risotto that I like to serve with the Christmas tenderloin.

  8. 8.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    September 7, 2014 at 9:40 am

    Have to dig up 2 huge flower gardens. The county will be plowing them under on a road project next year. They paid us a littel for the stip of land they are taking and the flowers & trees on that strip. So today we are digging up bulbs and rhizomes and roots then moving them to our sons yard.

  9. 9.

    MattF

    September 7, 2014 at 9:41 am

    Spent some time this morning getting pissed off at Dan Balz for his ‘Both Sides Do It’ contribution:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/why-polarization-could-persist-after-obama/2014/09/06/4bc3b0d8-352e-11e4-a723-fa3895a25d02_story.html

    He cites Mann and Ornstein’s view that Republicans are the problem, but his view is that if only Democrats were more cooperative, everything would be better. And anyone who disagrees is venting an opinion, while what he says is a fact. Forgive me, but venting a contrary opinion is all I can do here.

  10. 10.

    Iowa Old Lady

    September 7, 2014 at 9:46 am

    @Botsplainer: The woman is mad. Come cook for me. I’ll appreciate you.

  11. 11.

    gene108

    September 7, 2014 at 9:48 am

    Tech Question:

    I have an early 2008 Model MacBook Pro, 2.5 Ghz processor. I replaced the original 250 GB hard drive with a 1 TB Hybrid Solid State Hard Hard Disk Drive, SATA 6.0 Gb/s, 5400 rpm, 32 MB cache.

    I saw all the big numbers and was like, “ooooooohhhhhhh, my computer will be super fast like the new ones…”

    Then I realized my SATA interface is at 1.5 Gb/s and my cache is 6 mb, cause it is old and the system could not optimize all the big numbers of the new harddrive.

    Anyway, I have a problem, to which I have not found a specific solution on the internet.

    The computer runs really, really, really HOT!

    And I’m not doing much with it, for fear of a meltdown, other than have a few tabs on Firefox open going to websites such as Balloon Juice and maybe YouTube and one Facebook game.

    Any idea how to get the computer to not run so damn hot?

    P.S. Old hard drive failed and has gone on to meet the great Hitachi hard drive cloud in the sky, so putting it back in is not an option.

  12. 12.

    satby

    September 7, 2014 at 9:49 am

    Betty, didn’t realize you lived so close to my mom in St. Petersburg! Or were you just passing through Tampa? I’m going down there around November if I can line up a dogsitter, so I hope we can set up a Tampa area Balloon Juice meetup.

  13. 13.

    MattF

    September 7, 2014 at 9:51 am

    @gene108: It’s possible that the airflow is blocked in some way. You might look for some local tech joint that will take off the case and clean the insides.

  14. 14.

    WereBear

    September 7, 2014 at 9:52 am

    @Botsplainer: I married a wonderful man who only likes spice when it comes on Chinese dishes and sets one’s hair on fire.

    But it sounds like we are well-matched, in a potato salad kind of way.

    Still, anyone who looks for a clone of themselves risks getting into one of those identical twins/thrill killer kinds of scenarios, so it’s just as well I don’t share my spouse’s love of military history (he’ll watch a movie just because of the kind of planes it features.) We do have a lot of things in common, even if I’m baffled by his lack of interest in science fiction.

  15. 15.

    satby

    September 7, 2014 at 9:53 am

    @MattF: Yeah, even if the Rs are the acknowledged problem, somehow it’s always on the Dems to fix it by compromising harder. The mark of a true shill for the Rs right there.

  16. 16.

    Iowa Old Lady

    September 7, 2014 at 9:56 am

    @satby: Sort of like an abused wife.

  17. 17.

    different-church-lady

    September 7, 2014 at 9:59 am

    @gene108: I dunno if Solid State drives are known to run hotter. One tip is to prop up the back of the machine about a half inch so there’s some airflow under it.

    Sometimes my creaking six year old MacBook goes into fan overdrive because some combination of Flash and a Firefox script is making the processor do loop-de-loops. I’ve figured out that quitting and restarting FF will take care of it an the machine will return to a normal temperature in a few minutes.

    Flash is an evil pig of a thing, and it’s possible your FB game is relying on it.

  18. 18.

    max

    September 7, 2014 at 9:59 am

    Looking for John McCain? Try a Sunday Morning Show

    For 11 weeks this year, Americans did not see John McCain, the Arizona Republican senator, on any of five Sunday news shows.

    The republic survived his absence, but it was highly irregular for the Sunday shows — NBC’s “Meet the Press,” CBS’s “Face the Nation,” ABC’s “This Week,” “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “State of the Union.” When it comes to appearing on these programs, Mr. McCain might as well have his own segment: Since the beginning of 2009, he has appeared 97 times, more often than any other current or former politician, according to The Upshot’s analysis of data collected on the shows by American University researchers.

    In honor of Mr. McCain, The Upshot has created the McCain Count, a measure of how often figures from politics, journalism and other walks of life appear on the Sunday morning talk shows. Even with smaller audiences than they once had, these shows continue to play an outsize role in influencing the debate in Washington and among the roughly eight million viewers who tune in each week.

    max
    [‘People actually watch that bullshit. Jesus Christ.’]

  19. 19.

    Mike in NC

    September 7, 2014 at 9:59 am

    @MattF: Dan Balz is about 10 times worse than “both sides” David Broder ever was. Maybe they pay him to be that way.

  20. 20.

    Gin & Tonic

    September 7, 2014 at 10:01 am

    Since Sunday, when I was growing up, was a day for religion, here’s a couple of more-or-less religious tidbits.

    Jihad is apparently not only for Muslims. Here’s evidence of Russian Orthodox clergyactively aiding and supporting eastern Ukrainian separatists.

    And here’s a tweet from the AJC about their visit to Ukraine in support of democracy and pluralism. Interestingly, they use the popular hashtag #RussiaInvadedUkraine.

  21. 21.

    Mike in NC

    September 7, 2014 at 10:02 am

    @Botsplainer: We recently visited the German Gourmet deli in Falls Church, VA. Twenty types of sausage in the meat case: a glimpse of heaven!

  22. 22.

    JPL

    September 7, 2014 at 10:02 am

    @max: I’m going to try to watch Todd’s interview with the President.
    Wish me luck.
    JL-0 at this point.

  23. 23.

    elmo

    September 7, 2014 at 10:03 am

    Open Thread, and the thread below is stone cold, so I’ll tell my range gun-virgin story here.

    Boyfriend had several handguns and long guns, and the range was way out in the hills, so we made it a whole day. I was having a grand time. At one point, he asked me if I wanted to try his .357 mag revolver with some thirty-eight ammo.

    Sure, I said. The thirty-eight is in the truck, he said, go load it up how I showed you.

    Okay. Off I go to the truck. I see boxes marked .357, and boxes marked .22, and boxes marked 9mm, and – oh! A box marked .380, which any elementary school kid can tell you is exactly the same as .38.

    So I took the oddly short little .380 rounds and put them in the chamber. This is fun! Only the first shot doesn’t go off. Don’t know why. Second shot does go off. Third, nope. Fourth, nope.

    So I called him over. What’s wrong, I asked?

    He looked at what I had done – got very pale – and asked me, Why aren’t you dead?

  24. 24.

    Pogonip

    September 7, 2014 at 10:03 am

    @Betty Cracker: When he rears his head, do the townsfolk wave at him?

    Was anyone else surprised that the Jack the Ripper DNA story disn’t get more coverage? British news outlets and the Jerusalem Post picked it up, and so far, that seems to be all.

  25. 25.

    JPL

    September 7, 2014 at 10:04 am

    MTP starts out with the every one hates him, no one loves him and everything is spinning out of control.

  26. 26.

    MattF

    September 7, 2014 at 10:04 am

    @Mike in NC: There’s a pretty famous German deli on the east side of Manhattan that has a vast selection of sausages. My sister refers to them as ‘the Nazis’. But in a positive way.

  27. 27.

    WereBear

    September 7, 2014 at 10:06 am

    @gene108: What you’ve got is the Major Deegan Expressway (hard drive) placed through the center of Manhattan (the snarl of connections with the rest of the computer.)

    Under those circumstances, things get hot.

    Is your memory maxed out? That’s the only cheap route to upgrade I can think of… but then, my days of soldering stuff on the motherboard are far in the past.

  28. 28.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    September 7, 2014 at 10:07 am

    @max:
    Its nice the NYT is willing to publicly acknowledge the situation. Maybe in a year or two it will even be possible to question the value of Grandpa Walnuts appearances.

  29. 29.

    Iowa Old Lady

    September 7, 2014 at 10:10 am

    @JPL: I saw a headline about MTP “retooling,” which I assume is a pun.

  30. 30.

    PurpleGirl

    September 7, 2014 at 10:13 am

    @gene108: My netbook was running hot and I got a fan to place under it and that helps a lot. Could you get a fan for under the MacBook.

  31. 31.

    bemused

    September 7, 2014 at 10:14 am

    @MattF:

    Paul Krugman snark: Shape of the planet, both sides have a point.

  32. 32.

    WereBear

    September 7, 2014 at 10:14 am

    @Pogonip: Wow. Seems to have a better provenance than the claims of author Patricia Cornwell.

  33. 33.

    Botsplainer

    September 7, 2014 at 10:16 am

    @WereBear:

    Still, anyone who looks for a clone of themselves risks getting into one of those identical twins/thrill killer kinds of scenarios, so it’s just as well I don’t share my spouse’s love of military history (he’ll watch a movie just because of the kind of planes it features.) We do have a lot of things in common, even if I’m baffled by his lack of interest in science fiction.

    We always laugh at the awkwardness if we order the same thing at restaurants, which seems to happen more frequently these days.

    As if the waiter is judging us as boring.

    @Mike in NC:

    We recently visited the German Gourmet deli in Falls Church, VA. Twenty types of sausage in the meat case: a glimpse of heaven!

    Sounds awesome!

    When my wife came back from a pre-Christmas tour of Bavaria and the Rhine Christmas markets several years ago, she’d brought back several pounds vacuum-sealed packages of sausage just for me. Goddamned sniffer dogs hit on her suitcases, and TSA confiscated them (as that brain spongiform thing was on the rise) even though they were pork products and thus allowed by law.

    I think she told the bastards to have a nice grill party as they snickered.

  34. 34.

    Poopyman

    September 7, 2014 at 10:16 am

    @gene108: I know it’s attacking the symptom rather than the cause, but a quick and cheap way to keep from frying your machine might be with one of these.

  35. 35.

    JPL

    September 7, 2014 at 10:18 am

    @Iowa Old Lady: Whether it’s a new moderator or not, it’s the same show. They stopped the interview to critique and parse his words. I had to walk out of the room.

  36. 36.

    Botsplainer

    September 7, 2014 at 10:19 am

    @Pogonip:

    This dude’s story falls apart quickly – other sites were merciless in the takedown.

    Cornwell had it right – the confluence of Sickert’s travels with other Ripper hints is overwhelming.

  37. 37.

    Howard Beale IV

    September 7, 2014 at 10:22 am

    This has been a very bad week for young female singers. One appears to have committed suicide here in the US, and two from a K-pop group died from a car accident they were in.

  38. 38.

    Gene108

    September 7, 2014 at 10:23 am

    @elmo:

    Have several non-life threatening experiences with assuming .2 and .20 are not the same, usually with ho e work assignments.

    We have to do question 1.20, which everyone knows is the same as 1.2 and for the life of me I do not know why everyone else is saying the homework is hard. I MUST BE A SUPER GENIUS !!! ;-)

  39. 39.

    Botsplainer

    September 7, 2014 at 10:25 am

    Found this awesome site via some clickthroughs mocking the New Misogyny.

    http://wehuntedthemammoth.com

    Devastating.

  40. 40.

    Gene108

    September 7, 2014 at 10:27 am

    @WereBear:

    What do you mean by is my memory maxed ?

    I do not think it is. I 800+ GB’s free on the hard drive, but I still have the original 2GB RAM the system came with.

    Are you suggesting I upgrade the RAM?

    It is a solution I had though about

  41. 41.

    Suffern ACE

    September 7, 2014 at 10:29 am

    Never pass up an opportunity to order pate.

  42. 42.

    Just One More Canuck

    September 7, 2014 at 10:31 am

    @Mike in NC: There’s a local chain in the Hamilton area (Ontario that is) that makes all of the traditional sausages, plus some great recipes of their own (Chicken Mango is a favourite). My wife’s mom and step dad live there so everytime we visit or they come to us, we get a large order of sausages,

  43. 43.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 10:34 am

    First question out of Chuck Todd’s mouth, in the Obama interview:

    Are you preparing the country to go to war?

    This after a ridiculous setup piece: [scary ISIS; he was golfing shortly after journalist was murdered; sense the world is spinning out of his control; his approval ratings are low; Democrats are desperate to distance themselves from him …]

    Shoot me now.

  44. 44.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    September 7, 2014 at 10:36 am

    @Elizabelle: Did Obama slap him and tell him to pull his head out of his ass?

  45. 45.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 10:37 am

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    MTP “retooling”

    Beyond perfect. Explains Joe Scarborough being added, for balance.

    Only watching to see what they do; otherwise haven’t watched a Sunday morning show for 2-3 years, and eager to return to that record.

  46. 46.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 10:39 am

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    I was typing, so didn’t catch the president’s expression. If MTP showed it. Could have been Chuck sitting there with a “Gotcha” expression.

    Did I mention the setup piece noted Obama said he does not have a strategy?

    Now Obama seems very mildly testy, although he’s dealing with a not bright interviewer trying to put words in his mouth.

    And ISIS is such an existential threat to us.

    Scary Muslims.

  47. 47.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 10:40 am

    Boots on the ground.

    I wish we could put boots up the ass of our journalamists.

  48. 48.

    Bystander

    September 7, 2014 at 10:43 am

    Once the Toddler asserted that the world was spinning out of PBO’s control! as if it were ever, you know the interview is going to be comments in Fox-style reductio ad absurdism.

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    September 7, 2014 at 10:43 am

    @Elizabelle: Don’t forget to pull their heads out first.

  50. 50.

    Bystander

    September 7, 2014 at 10:44 am

    Absurdum. Not absurdism as auto-screw up would have it.

  51. 51.

    Southern Beale

    September 7, 2014 at 10:44 am

    That awkward moment when you realize that group your armed militia found camping in the Arizona desert are not, in fact, illegal immigrant and smugglers but in fact, wildlife biologists studying bats.

    Oops.

  52. 52.

    WereBear

    September 7, 2014 at 10:44 am

    @Gene108: I have found that maxing out the memory RAM increases the size of most caches and lets me get another year or so from my Macs before I bump my head on slowdowns and incompatibilities.

  53. 53.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 10:45 am

    @WaterGirl:

    They need their eyes and ears?

  54. 54.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 10:46 am

    Do we think President Obama has been too poll-driven?

    A: He hasn’t been poll-driven enough. Democrats are fleeing him.

    Oh, that was JoeScar. He knows what the American people think. Maybe that nice John Boehner told him.

    ETA: I can see why I won’t be watching this show again.

    Chuck Todd: We know what September is going to be about. It’s going to be about ISIS and … something else. Whatever.

  55. 55.

    JMG

    September 7, 2014 at 10:49 am

    There are two kinds of TV shows on Sunday mornings. NFL preview shows and Washington talk shows. Why anyone watches either one is beyond me, but it’s noteworthy how similar their formats and banality are.

  56. 56.

    Violet

    September 7, 2014 at 10:49 am

    I detest Chuck Todd but am watching the interview with the President.

    When MTP opened they had a long desk with Chuck Todd in the middle and two people on either side of him. Andrea Mitchell and Joe Scarborough were two of those. It’s just another panel show. I can’t see how this is “different”.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    September 7, 2014 at 10:49 am

    @Elizabelle: No, I was just thinking that it might get kind of crowded in there, what with their heads and the boots up their asses. Now that I think of it, though, a little discomfort might not be a bad thing.

  58. 58.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 10:50 am

    @max:

    NYTimes story was edifying, and here’s the list of guests’ appearance by number. It’s extraordinarily Republican (and GOP-leaning) top-heavy.

    OH: Chuck’s back: September is going to be ISIS and Ebola. ‘Kay.

    But first, we’re going to talk about what a hypocrite President Obama is on immigration.

  59. 59.

    MattF

    September 7, 2014 at 10:51 am

    Speaking of Russia, here’s a posting by Masha Gessen on the NYRB blog about Russia’s inexplicably high death rate:

    http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/sep/02/dying-russians/?insrc=hpbl

    Kinda long, but worth reading if you’re trying to understand what’s going on there,

  60. 60.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 10:52 am

    @WaterGirl:

    Just don’t use your good boots, is my only advice.

  61. 61.

    JPL

    September 7, 2014 at 10:54 am

    @Elizabelle:
    @Violet:

    I just couldn’t continue to watch. The everybody hates you opening did me in.

  62. 62.

    Suffern ACE

    September 7, 2014 at 10:55 am

    @Elizabelle: yeah. Look at the polls. We overwhelmingly want to help solve this Islamic schism once and for all. I’m tired of sitting on the sidelines when it is clear to me that the Shia interpretation is 100% correct and worth dying for. I’m full on elevener, I am I am. Which beats waiting for the secular humanist liberals to show up and seize the day in the levant.

  63. 63.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 10:57 am

    PBO making a GREAT argument for why electing Democrats this fall is so important, on all the issues Democrats will legislate that are popular with the American people.

    PBO just mentioned “the punditry.” Good for him on talking about pundits thinking this would be a good year for Republicans.

  64. 64.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 10:58 am

    @JPL:

    Yeah, it was truth in labeling on what would follow.

    I’m listening half heartedly, playing 4-suit solitaire, and glad that PBO is our president.

    Tools and fools meet the press.

  65. 65.

    WereBear

    September 7, 2014 at 10:59 am

    @Elizabelle: As a teen, I would watch such shows, because they would occasionally explain things and outline opposing points of view.

    Now? That’s the last thing they want to do!

  66. 66.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 11:00 am

    panelist: “He was TRYING to make the case for why the midterms matter …”

    He made the case, fool.

  67. 67.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 11:01 am

    Don’t know when PBO granted Toddles the interview, but I hope it was close to cocktail hour.

  68. 68.

    Suffern ACE

    September 7, 2014 at 11:01 am

    @Elizabelle: they’re edgy. Suck on Tom Friedman or this. They’re edgy. This is punk rock. This is they’re soljah boy tellum moment.

  69. 69.

    JMG

    September 7, 2014 at 11:02 am

    @WereBear: I am old enough to remember when Meet the Press was a panel of actual reporters asking questions. No panel bloviating! That ended sometime in the Nixon administration, though.

  70. 70.

    different-church-lady

    September 7, 2014 at 11:06 am

    @Botsplainer I saw the words “gaming journalism” and all the structural supports in my brain collapsed.

  71. 71.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 11:06 am

    Chuck’s introducing a new feature on Meet the Press:

    Who Needs Washington?

    I kid you not. It’s about mayors in the heartland (Houston!) going their own way without that DC gridlock.

    Houston, Seattle, Detroit, Oklahoma City mentioned. But it’s OKC they’re spending the time on.

    Aha, they’ve added a penny a sale tax — TAX RAISES — to fund good things.

    And they got an NBA franchise. Well all right.

    All without a penny of debt, and without Washington. And now the mayor — or whoever — is dissing Washington.

    Report over.

  72. 72.

    Kathleen

    September 7, 2014 at 11:11 am

    That looks like the view my daughter has from her backyard in Ruskin. The back of the house they rent abuts a wildlife preserve and lake. She’s taken some beautiful shots of that at sunset. She is rooting for Bengals today and hates Steelers (sorry John). I rather like the Steelers myself but cannot admit to that in Cincinnati.

  73. 73.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 11:12 am

    One mayor wants more preschool funding, and they’re going to get it done. Without Washington.

    But wait, aren’t Democrats into preschool funding? Not mentioned. They’re just part of the great divide. And some mayor just said the president is supposed to be the bridge. Or something.

    Cuz the president isn’t working with Congress.

  74. 74.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 11:13 am

    After the break is the segment about the president playing golf after James Foley’s murder.

    Voiceover by Obama: “I should have […] about the optics….”

  75. 75.

    max

    September 7, 2014 at 11:14 am

    @JPL: Wish me luck.

    ‘Men, some of you may not be coming back…’ Good luck!

    @Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]: Its nice the NYT is willing to publicly acknowledge the situation. Maybe in a year or two it will even be possible to question the value of Grandpa Walnuts appearances.

    I suspect the very best way to deal with the situation is for big muckety-muck Democrats to stop going on those shows since they’re right-wing havens anyways. Then they’ll morph into Fox, and then they’ll be redundant and then no one will care and then they’ll get cancelled. McCain will probably be their very last guest.

    max
    [‘But you know politicians and TV cameras.’]

  76. 76.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 11:15 am

    Sixteen minutes to go on my first and last MTP of the year.

    I don’t think you can have a realistic view of what’s going on in politics and not be deeply disturbed by what’s portrayed on this program.

  77. 77.

    max

    September 7, 2014 at 11:16 am

    @Elizabelle: It’s extraordinarily Republican (and GOP-leaning) top-heavy.

    Yup. So Democrats should quit wasting their time appearing.

    OH: Chuck’s back: September is going to be ISIS and Ebola. ‘Kay.

    OK, so September will be about everything but ISIS and Ebola. Got it.

    max
    [‘Bring back the sharks.’]

  78. 78.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 11:19 am

    Chuck showed polls: Democratic senate candidates lagging in Arkansas and Kentucky, although Mark Udall doing ok in Colorado.

    Chuck intones to effect of: any thought that Democrats were catching up over the summer not borne out by my polls.

    We shall see.

  79. 79.

    Iowa Old Lady

    September 7, 2014 at 11:20 am

    The open scorn these people voice is a sign of how out of touch they are. The country voted for Obama twice by convincing margins. That’s the poll that matters.

  80. 80.

    different-church-lady

    September 7, 2014 at 11:20 am

    @Elizabelle:

    I don’t think you can have a realistic view of what’s going on in politics and not be deeply disturbed by what’s portrayed on this program.

    Televised political shows are to politics what pornographic videos are to human relationships.

  81. 81.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    September 7, 2014 at 11:20 am

    @JMG:
    We were just talking about that at work this week, I mentioned how they used to have 3 newspaper reporters grill the guest and “the kids” at work were amazed.

    The same thing has happened in late night talk shows. Carson an Allen and Paar made th guests the focus of the show and got the most out of them. The batch since Leno & Letterman are all about the host & making them the center of the show. Russert was the most important person on the show & that has been the model.

  82. 82.

    Kathleen

    September 7, 2014 at 11:22 am

    @Violet: You are a brave woman. Chuckles the Toad could be interviewing Jesus Christ and I wouldn’t watch it. What an arrogant, insufferable, soulless entity. If these so called “journalists” read anything or paid attention to Obama’s speeches, they would understand his reasoning and approach regarding how the US should approach the Middle East and other countries. What I’ve read and heard from him is very clear to me. But then “reading” and “putting in context” is not Chuckles’ job.

  83. 83.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    September 7, 2014 at 11:22 am

    @different-church-lady:
    That is unnecessarily insulting to the entire porno industry!

  84. 84.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 11:22 am

    PBO: mentioned he would love a vacation from the press. You and me both (for your sake).

    PBO talked to the families, but he should have anticipated the optics [of golf]. That’s part of his job.

    ETA: and he noted that it’s important to him to “get the policy right.”

    I cannot imagine the families begrudged him a round of golf, after a heartfelt conversation on the phone. The press, not so pure.

  85. 85.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 11:24 am

    The WaPo reporter took PBO’s comments as “blaming the press.”

    Disgusted with her.

  86. 86.

    JMG

    September 7, 2014 at 11:25 am

    I think Scarborough is part of a trend to come in which political talk shows will mirror sports programs and have ex-pols as the commentators just as it’s all ex-players on sports shows.

  87. 87.

    Gin & Tonic

    September 7, 2014 at 11:26 am

    @MattF: There’s a pretty famous German deli on the east side of Manhattan that has a vast selection of sausages. My sister refers to them as ‘the Nazis’.

    There’s a German meat and sausage place in Hartford, CT, called Adolf’s. Truly. The jokes, they write themselves.

  88. 88.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    September 7, 2014 at 11:27 am

    @max: @max:

    I really like the idea of Dems refusing to appear (not gonna happen, too many bloated egos) but my guess is the pundits would use it as further proof the Dems are not cooperating. What the could do would be to complain LOUDLY every time they are on, cite the numbers & give examples. Put those jackholes on the spot & they will stop inviting Dems to save themselves from embarrassment. Then the Dems won’t be on & can point that out even more clearly.

  89. 89.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 11:28 am

    @different-church-lady:

    It’s manufactured consent (for warmongering) and blame Washington for everything. Without calling out the actual bad actors.

    Done with MTP, already tailed off watching NBC, which was my favorite network decades ago. Better to catch BBC World News.

    The Obama-bashing was appalling. Wonder what this crew would have said about President Lincoln.

    Refreshing: they concluded with Hillary Clinton bashing.

    I am not sure a Republican national politician was ever mentioned. Would have to check the transcript.

  90. 90.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 11:30 am

    @JMG:

    Politics shows as sports shows would be more honest, because that’s what it’s become for too many. My team good, your team bad.

  91. 91.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 7, 2014 at 11:32 am

    @Elizabelle: Chuck showed polls: Democratic senate candidates lagging in Arkansas and Kentucky,

    Extry! Extry! Dog bites man! Stop the presses!

    That NYT list of Sunday guests dates from 01/09? Here’s a more recent count from Steve Benen last week

    Steve Benen
    @ stevebenen31 Aug
    Top 2014 Sunday show guests, in order: Rogers, McCaul, McCain, Peter King, Kinzinger, Netanyahu (all conservative white men) #liberalmedia

    The only real surprises is that McCain is so far down the list, and a foreign head of state outranks any member of the party that holds the White House and the Senate. Vaguely embarrassing that cement-headed jackass Peter King is seen as someone worthy of discussing policy, but he’s only more obviously stupid than the others on this list.

  92. 92.

    different-church-lady

    September 7, 2014 at 11:33 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Politics shows as sports shows would be more honest, because that’s what it’s become for too many. My team good, your team bad.

    DING DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

  93. 93.

    JMG

    September 7, 2014 at 11:36 am

    One more note. Todd knows perfectly well poll aggregation is the only sane method for evaluating them, but since NBC paid for polls, those are the only ones he’s allowed to cite as the One Revealed Truth. All the networks do that, which starts their commentary off on the wrong foot before it begins.

  94. 94.

    Hill Dweller

    September 7, 2014 at 11:38 am

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    The open scorn these people voice is a sign of how out of touch they are.

    The Beltway openly hates Obama. I realize part of it is they know he has absolutely no respect for them, but that doesn’t entirely explain their disdain. They never came close to hating Dubya like this, and he damn near destroyed the country.

  95. 95.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 11:41 am

    I did not expect Meet the Press with Chuck Todd to be good.

    But I was surprised at how shabby and biased it was. Very interesting, on the tails of the NYTimes story (on American U analyzing Sunday show guests), and on Benen’s more recent appraisal.

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    The open scorn these people voice is a sign of how out of touch they are. The country voted for Obama twice by convincing margins. That’s the poll that matters.

    Very true.

    We all get our Sundays back!

  96. 96.

    Iowa Old Lady

    September 7, 2014 at 11:45 am

    Peggy Noonan seems to be on the TV Mr IOL is watching.

  97. 97.

    Violet

    September 7, 2014 at 11:45 am

    @JMG: The opening of MTP where Chuckie Todd–he looks like a goateed beaver to me, so I’m going to start calling The Goateed Beaver–announced his guests, he did it in a sports announcer voice. Family member sitting next to me on the sofa looks up and says, “Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!” It does sound like that “Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! Nitro, nitro, nitro!” voice they use for car races. Politics=sports for those guys.

  98. 98.

    WereBear

    September 7, 2014 at 11:45 am

    @Hill Dweller: They never came close to hating Dubya like this, and he damn near destroyed the country.

    They and Dubya were all frat boys together. They don’t let a little thing like the welfare of the country mess up what’s important: namely, getting a rich and powerful person to give them an insulting nickname and ask them for a little favor. Like they are actual friends, you know?

    While President Obama expects them to be adults with responsible jobs. Ha! Like there’s any fun and ego-patting in that!

  99. 99.

    WaterGirl

    September 7, 2014 at 11:49 am

    @Elizabelle: Kentucky? Isn’t the democratic candidate in KY holding her own against McConnell, who is not only the incumbent for a majority leader who has been in office for a million years?

  100. 100.

    burnspbesq

    September 7, 2014 at 11:50 am

    Plenty of football on tap today. No Premier League, but several Euro 2016 qualifiers and a metric shit-ton of college games.

    Oh, wait …

  101. 101.

    PurpleGirl

    September 7, 2014 at 11:51 am

    @Gin & Tonic: Schaller & Weber has a fine selection of sausages and meat products. They also used to have a store on Steinway Street in Queens. But that was years ago. I often bought at the Steinway Street store.

  102. 102.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 11:54 am

    @WaterGirl:

    I think Allison Lundergan Grimes is down maybe 2 points, give or take. Don’t know the specifics of the poll, and wonder how Kynect (Obamacare by another name) might factor in there.

    ETA: Or McConnell fatigue.

    It’s sad that Democrats are running from Obamacare in red states. They are not going to get votes from Obamacare haters, and its provisions are actually popular.

    Especially if you call your program “Kynect” and keep it away from that dark dude in the White House.

  103. 103.

    burnspbesq

    September 7, 2014 at 11:55 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    I’m ticked off that Liverpool’s star striker Daniel Sturridge just injured his thigh while training with England. He’ll miss at least one Premier League match for Liverpool. Grumble.

    Super Mario to the rescue!

  104. 104.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    September 7, 2014 at 11:57 am

    @gene108: I had a similar experience with a Seagate Hybrid drive on a PC laptop. I eventually got it working Ok (by updating the drive firmware version, IIRC), but I replaced it with a Crucial SSD when the price was finally reasonable. Sector size issues could be a problem on PCs once they got bigger than 512 GB (IIRC), but shouldn’t be on a Mac.

    There’s a decent Computerworld article on some of the user-reported problems with earlier versions of the drive.

    tldr; It’s not a RAM or interface speed issue. Update the firmware on the drive (and your Mac BIOS/firmware) to the latest version when you can if you haven’t already. If that doesn’t take care of the problem by itself, then you will probably need to (backup and) re-partition and reformat the drive with Disk Utility. Make sure you run Software Update first in case Apple has updated Disk Uitility as well.

    HTH a little. Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who loved the idea of the Hybrid drive, but it just never worked as well as it should in my experience.)

  105. 105.

    burnspbesq

    September 7, 2014 at 11:58 am

    Man, today’s Republic of Ireland starting eleven is comprised of eleven seriously ugly men. Come on you bastards, make us proud!

  106. 106.

    Iowa Old Lady

    September 7, 2014 at 12:03 pm

    @Hill Dweller: I wonder if their hatred comes partly because they sense their growing lack of influence, due to internet sources of information. Obama is young and net-savvy enough to be part of the group moving away from such info sources as Sunday shows. That plus his smarts makes him scorn them, and they see him as a focal point for their dwindling influence.

    /armchair psychoanalysis

  107. 107.

    bemused

    September 7, 2014 at 12:07 pm

    @MattF:

    Russia’s death number is astonishing. 7 million with population half of US which had 2.5 million americans die in 2012.

  108. 108.

    ruemara

    September 7, 2014 at 12:08 pm

    You should try watching MHP. Obama’s a liar, according to the Unite The Dream (organization I’ve never heard of) guest, because he won’t do an executive action on immigration to fix things. The religious side working on immigration agrees, because this is a moral issue so why won’t Obama use EO to fix it? Obama is bad, Obama won’t do his work, why won’t Obama do what’s right? Congress, obviously, does not exist.

  109. 109.

    WereBear

    September 7, 2014 at 12:12 pm

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Reformatting! Of course!

    Always a good idea after a major firmware update… though I’m far more used to it in PCs, which seem to expect you to reinstall the whole operating system every year, too…

  110. 110.

    burnspbesq

    September 7, 2014 at 12:16 pm

    @ruemara:

    It’s a coalition of immigration activists and non-AFL-CIO labor activists (SEIU is involved somehow).

    Typical single-issue advocacy group. “Our issue is the only issue that matters, and we should get 102 percent of our agenda enacted instantly because we’re more worthy than any other single-issue advocacy group.”

  111. 111.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    September 7, 2014 at 12:20 pm

    @Kathleen: Just be very quiet about your Steelerism, and we’ll let you stay.

  112. 112.

    ruemara

    September 7, 2014 at 12:21 pm

    @burnspbesq: I can get single issue advocacy, but since when does failure to issue an EO of undefined type = liar who is immoral and abandoning us? You can advocate for anything but advocates who don’t understand law and politics are doomed to fail.

  113. 113.

    burnspbesq

    September 7, 2014 at 12:26 pm

    Georgia 0-1 Republic of Ireland. Aiden McGeady on the counterattack in the 24th minute.

    Go you Ancestral Homeland!

  114. 114.

    WereBear

    September 7, 2014 at 12:26 pm

    @ruemara: Not to mention but that the single issue really does hinge on a lot of other issues that will come along for the ride. Why not advocate for ALL of them?

  115. 115.

    burnspbesq

    September 7, 2014 at 12:29 pm

    @ruemara:

    advocates who don’t understand law and politics are doomed to fail.

    Aww, they understand, they just think it’s Obama’s job to Sweep Away All Obstacles to the Attainment of Our Cause Which Is So Clearly Just and Righteous.

    They think he’s got a unicorn that shits green cards hidden in the basement of the White House, and he won’t let it out to do its thing.

  116. 116.

    burnspbesq

    September 7, 2014 at 12:32 pm

    Oh, brother.

    http://unitedwedream.org/breaking/

    Lago de Perros en Fuego?

  117. 117.

    ruemara

    September 7, 2014 at 12:35 pm

    @WereBear: Why take a tone that is sure to piss off the people most likely to support your cause? Because I was damned pissed.

  118. 118.

    The Thin Black Duke

    September 7, 2014 at 12:36 pm

    Why are you guys subjecting yourself to this bullshit?

    Do you want your heads to explode like those poor son of bitches in Scanners?

    Did you really expect anything different because a new sock puppet is sitting in Mr. Gregory’s old chair?

    There isn’t any news to be found on TV anymore, it’s just stupid and hateful propaganda designed to reaffirm the biases of the people watching.

    The people who matter, the people who can actually make a difference, don’t watch these idiotic Sunday morning TV shows.

    Unfortunately, what the problem is is getting these people to vote.

  119. 119.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 12:36 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Very possibly. LOL.

  120. 120.

    Elizabelle

    September 7, 2014 at 12:38 pm

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    Cannot argue with a word that you wrote.

    GOTV, bitchez!

  121. 121.

    Kathleen

    September 7, 2014 at 12:47 pm

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Tee Hee! I’ve had an issue with Mike Brown for years because of the stadium debacle. I believe he lied about his financial status to get tax breaks from the county, then for years after fielded horrible football teams, showing his contempt for both Hamilton County and Bengal fans. I don’t have problems with Marvin Lewis or the team per se, but I think that stadium and team are hexed because of Mike Brown’s bad karma.

    My brothers cringe at my anti Bengal stance in public. One Sunday we were at a sports bar in Sharonville watching the Bengals play New England on TV. I was cheering for New England. My one brother told me after the fact had anything untoward had happened to me I was on my own.

  122. 122.

    Kathleen

    September 7, 2014 at 12:50 pm

    @The Thin Black Duke: Could not agree more.

  123. 123.

    Betty Cracker

    September 7, 2014 at 12:58 pm

    @satby: I’m in the boonie fringes of the TB area. Keep me posted when you’re visiting. Not sure how many of us are in the area.

  124. 124.

    Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)

    September 7, 2014 at 2:13 pm

    @Pogonip: Because the Met thought Kosminski did it even in the 19th century, they just couldn’t get a conviction because of an uncooperative witness so they had him put away instead. After he was locked up (in a lunatic asylum) they called off their patrols. That was it, end of story.

    All of the rumor mongering since then has been people greedy for sensation.

    There are still unsolved serial murders out there. There are even other taunting letters to police. But. You know. Mythos.

    The Independent’s story is odd. If double blinding is so f***ing important to solve a criminal matter why aren’t they concern trolling about that when testing evidence in cases where the perp is still alive and at large?!?! Scientific standards my pimply ass.

  125. 125.

    Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)

    September 7, 2014 at 2:14 pm

    @WereBear: Patricia Cromwell is a fiction writer.

  126. 126.

    Ronzoni Rigatoni

    September 7, 2014 at 4:07 pm

    The sunsets here are of course glorious. But I can’t stand the heat like I used to. Ready to move out to the northern climes and buy a small trailer for the winter. I love Florida but I do a lot of stuff outside. It’s been horrible the last 2 years. Even my local farmers are complaining.

  127. 127.

    Steeplejack

    September 8, 2014 at 3:29 pm

    Redacted.

    Ran some tests to see what FYWP thought was spam. Turned out to be the phrase “reality checker.” Go figure.

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