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They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: There’s Always A Even Worse Opinion

Open Thread: There’s Always A Even Worse Opinion

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Okay, I know, but this is also political (she said piously). Dave Roth at Vice Sports on the ultimate in Superbowl-related piggish ignorance:

… Mistakes like this make experts out of everyone, and the NFL in particular has a way of bringing out the barstool expertise in our least expert humans. But while Twitter was unsurprisingly awash in scalding-hot certitude after the Seahawks overthought their way out of a Super Bowl win, something was missing. Something somehow even more valueless than all the other definitionally without-value takes on the most obviously duffed playcall of this Super Bowl. There was not yet a take that was both pandering enough and luxurious enough to bring this mistake into focus. Luckily for all of us, America’s most inessential public figure—a boiled ham that owns several troubled casinos, a lacquered pink doof who has chastised Gary Busey on television—was also watching the Super Bowl. Luckily for all of us, Donald Trump deigned to rise from his extremely exclusive and very popular sofa made of premium caviar to deliver the single hottest take on Super Bowl XLIX’s pivotal play.

(Why am I doing this to you? Because I have to go out and shovel approximately 14″ of new drifting snow, even though it’s still coming down, since the Spousal Unit has convinced himself it can’t wait till morning and I want to be where I can keep an eye on him. If I suddenly disappear from the blog, either one of us has had a coronary incident, or for once the Blogmaster decided to read one of my posts before bigfooting it… )

ETA: Aaaaand we’re done (for the night).

For the record, we’ve been lucky so far this winter… it’s nice light fluffy snow; the snowplow guy showed up to clear the driveway; the Spousal Unit bought a new electric snowblower to deal with the walkways; so I only had to deal with the front steps, the top of the car, the back steps, dig out a three-foot-square dog toilet at the base of the back steps, and another smaller square around the gas vent. People are much worse off in, say, Chicago. But if you trust the tv weatherpeople, we’ve still gotten a whole winter’s worth of snow in the last ten days, and it’s given me more aerobic exercise than I wanted.

Reader Interactions

101Comments

  5. 5.

    Karmus

    Thank you for bringing to my attention the thoughts of Toad of Toad Hall. I was previously unaware.

    Actually, I could have done without knowing.

    I guess all the stupidity one has to put up with here in Florida is to balance out not having snow here. Or Trump. It may almost be worth it.

  6. 6.

    max

    Because I have to go out and shovel approximately 14″ of new drifting snow, even though it’s still coming down, since the Spousal Unit has convinced himself it can’t wait till morning and I want to be where I can keep an eye on him. If I suddenly disappear from the blog, either one of us has had a coronary incident

    Been there and done that. No coronaries.

    max
    [‘I found that hitting it when it gets to 6″ or so and then doing again (and again…) was a lot easier on the old bod.’]

  8. 8.

    Suzanne

    Trump is hilarious. What a clown. I lovez to pointz and LAFF.

    I’m sure POTUS eats Trump’s hate like love.

    I am so tired that I may puke.

  9. 9.

    pacem appellant

    Lemme see if I have this straight. A washed-up businessman with no business sense commented on commercial festival I didn’t watch blaming some aspect of that commercial’s spectacle on the sitting president of the free world. How is this news again? If I want s**t-stained commentary from barely mobile carpet heads, I can go to downtown Berkeley BART station. And it’ll probably smell better too.

  10. 10.

    Zinsky

    Sounds like the morally and serially financially bankrupt Mr. Trump has a serious case of ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome). Well, I have a song that is perfect for him – click here.

  18. 18.

    Schlemazel

    IT’S TRUE! Obama also is responsible for Trump’s hair style, the Patriot’s air pump and NYC nt getting the snowpocalyps they were promised.

  19. 19.

    joel hanes

    Middle-aged and older shoveling deep snow
    should stop every ten minutes and rest for two to five minutes.
    to contemplate the beautiful snowy night
    and to meditate on the passing of the years.

    Also, those “lighweight” shovels with huge blades and short handles are mankillers – if the snow’s at all heavy,
    you can’t lift even a half-full blade, and shouldn’t try.
    A regular long-handled square-nose shovel
    (like you’d use to pick up sand or dirt off concrete)
    is what you need for the snowplow-created berm
    at the end of the driveway.

  20. 20.

    Suzanne

    @JPL: LMMFAO. Man, there are some people who are such assholes that it passes tragedy right away and immediately goes straight to farce. Trump is farce. And as such, I LAFF.

  21. 21.

    Buddy H

    Obama made a fool of Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Remember his monologue about the birth certificate? He had some choice one-liners about Trump, his reality show, and his birther nonsense. “Well played, sir” Obama said, while Trump glowered in the audience.

    It’s personal. It has less to do with policy and more to do with ego.

  22. 22.

    Schlemazel

    Боб в Портленде: your Pooty-Poo wants to go back to the Stan? Who’da thunk?

  24. 24.

    Jeffro

    I thought the title of this post was in reference to Rand Paul saying today that vaccines cause “profound mental disorders”.

    If ever there was a reason why the Establishment Wing of the GOP wasn’t gonna support this loon…and there are so many to choose from…here it is. Not because they give a hoot about vaccines or kids, but science is science and Paul’s now out there with Truthers, Goldbugs, and the rest. Not exactly a winning formula for 2016 (or ever)

  25. 25.

    Buddy H

    Very touching to see Rand Paul so deeply concerned about mental disorders.

    During one of his speeches, a woman in the audience told him she was worried about being unable to afford her anti-anxiety medication to help with her insomnia.

    His reply? He advised her to use Benadryl to sleep at night.

    Thanks Doc!

  26. 26.

    Tenar Darell

    @max: Yep. After a herniated disc, slow and steady and in shifts is the only way I can shovel. After dithering I decided my next shift would have to be tomorrow morning.

    @Anne Laurie
    Sorry you’re outside right now in the blowing and drifting. I chickened out. Hope you’re going slow. Stay warm.

  28. 28.

    jl

    @Jeffro: You havea better opinion of the GOP than I do, Fox News and Christie are both trying to play the measles epidemic. Rand Paul is just too inept and blatant about it.

  29. 29.

    Tree With Water

    Good for you. There aren’t enough god fearing women in the world today willing to shovel snow on command of their husbands. Although I suppose Hawaii and Florida must be full of them. I bet you two are Baptists.

  31. 31.

    Jeffro

    @efgoldman: Noted, but that’s why I said the Establishment Wing won’t go for it…they want/need someone (anyone? Bueller? Bueller?) who can win in the general.

  32. 32.

    Pogonip

    Anne, if you can afford to pay someone to clear the snow, it’s well worth it. Likewise a snowblower.

    My dad and my son have a race for the snowblower every time it snows. I haven’t tried it but they say it’s a blast.

    If he makes it another 4 1/2 weeks, my dad will be 88. I think he’s got a pretty good chance, and so does his dr.

  33. 33.

    BGK

    Could all the Republican derp about vaccines be some kind of dogwhistle about the HPV vaccine and thus more of their creepy obsession with other people’s sex lives? Because the alternative is that they’re pro-disease, and that’s not a pleasant alternative.

  34. 34.

    NotMax

    They play American football in Kenya?

    Who knew?

    (Trump, of course, in what passes for his mind has never, never, never made a questionable decision nor a bad call in any situation whatsoever.)

  37. 37.

    Culture of Truth

    I can honestly say I would have run on that play, but I like the run.

    Yeah, I spent two hours this morning, and two hours this evening, shoveling and scraping, and still didn’t make a meeting I intended on going to. It’s icy out there and the commonality to the above comment is I’m getting cautious in my non-youth.

  39. 39.

    Pogonip

    @Schlemazel: I’ve done pretty much the same thing with an empty plastic storage box. Still do, when breaking up curbside ice sculptures left by the snowplow. My landlord blows the sidewalk, God bless him.

  40. 40.

    jl

    @BGK:

    ” Could all the Republican derp about vaccines be some kind of dogwhistle about the HPV vaccine ”

    I think its because they think it will play well with the GOP primary base. It’s not like they mean a word they say about anything. They’ve played their base for rubes and dupes and marks for years. Why should now be any different?

    They figure they can talk crazy for the primaries and the corporate media will help them sweep in under the rug in the general. This has not worked well in the past. But they can’t help themselves, and besides some ambiguous talk about income inequality and wage stagnation (which some of them have also trotted out in the past, IIRC Huck and Santorum), they seem to be coming out of the gate even crazier than previous two cycles.

    It’s what the do, dammit!

  41. 41.

    Schlemazel

    @Pogonip:

    I cheated.

    My brother was a Russian linguist in the Army. They sent him to Monterey for a very intense immersion program so that he can read, write & speak Russian like a native. As long as I don’t bug him for stuff he has given me a few words when I ask. But I don’t ask often because he is not excited to do it. He happened to read BfP while lurking here & sent me that.

  42. 42.

    Jane2

    @Schlemazel: Known as a sleigh shovel in these parts of the frozen tundra. It takes all the strained muscles and back issues out of shoveling and lifting snow. I have a fairly small driveway and walkway, so don’t need a snowblower, but the sleigh shovel does the trick quite nicely.

  43. 43.

    srv

    Deal!

    Jeb Bush has major problems in Iowa. His vocal support for immigration reform and the national education standards known as Common Core bother many in the state’s Republican base.

    A Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll of likely participants in the state’s 2016 Republican caucuses shows nearly two-thirds consider Bush’s positions on those issues to be a deal-killer, or something they’d consider when deciding whether to support him. Just 32 percent have no problem with those stands.

    Freedom Bias! What would that sign say?

    Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Monday that he’s okay with the idea of service industry workers returning to work without washing their hands after touching their unmentionables, as long as customers are made aware of the situation.

    Tillis made the declaration at to the Bipartisan Policy Center, at the end of a question and answer with the audience. He was relaying a 2010 anecdote about his “bias when it comes to regulatory reform.”

    And WTF is a Thom?

  47. 47.

    seaboogie

    Donald is still stinging from this: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1CHWA_enUS602US602&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=obama%20trump%20correspondents%20dinner

    And the profile of The Donald’s hair structure, I just can’t even begin to imagine anyone collaborating in that being a good idea. When der Donald shuffles off this mortal coil, the tell-all book that everyone will want to read is not from the ex-wives, but from whoever was responsible for the hair. I’d buy it! (especially if it included diagrams)

  48. 48.

    PurpleGirl

    @srv: So, we’re going to see signs that say “Please note that food handlers may not have washed their hands before returning to the food tables from the restroom.”

    Any restaurant or fast food place that posted a sign like that would lose my business right quick.

  51. 51.

    jl

    @BGK: @srv:

    Also too, the reactionary BS about vaccines allows them to put in a slam on the supposed nanny state, pitch BS about Freedom, and show their ignorance and/or consciously lie about American history when, dammit, everyone did what they damn well pleased and it all somehow just turned out great.

    So, you have Tillis spewing nonsense about how some absurd and obviously totally undefined information availability will make it OK for restaurant employees to decide for themselves whether to wash their hands after they take a shit during work hours. And the base must be pleased with nonsense as srv notes.

    it’s all BS. As I noted in another comment, state mandated smallpox vaccinations go back 200 years in the US, with of course attendant controversy. But still, it is not some new nanny state commie idea. But whatever, red meat for the base, throw it out to them, or die, politically.

  52. 52.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @srv:

    Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Monday that he’s okay with the idea of service industry workers returning to work without washing their hands after touching their unmentionables, as long as customers are made aware of the situation.

    Okay, so I’m at Applebee’s and I go to the restroom and there’s someone in the next cubicle taking a dump and a lengthy noisy pee. And as I’m carefully washing my hands, I notice this person just leaving without so much as a desultory rinse. So I go back to the floor and head for the salad bar, and I see the same person filling the lettuce bowl. With their hands. And I say, “Um, what the fuck, weren’t you just in the toilet and didn’t you leave without washing your hands?” And the person says, “I would like to make you aware that I just touched my unmentionables.” And I say, “Well, okay then, carry on.” Is that how it’s supposed to work?

  53. 53.

    catclub

    @Buddy H:

    Obama made a fool of Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

    I think that was the one where they were waiting to announce that Osama Bin laden was killed.

  54. 54.

    beltane

    @PurpleGirl: How about “This establishment does not require that food handlers wash their hands after using the toilet. Please be advised that your meal may contain trace amounts of feces, menstrual fluid, and other effluvia along with any associated microbes. Freedom isn’t free. Nobama!”

  55. 55.

    catclub

    The only conspiracy theory that works for me is that the bosses demanded that Marshawn Lynch NOT get the game winning touchdown.

    But giant brain fart is the winner.

  57. 57.

    Mike in NC

    Haven’t picked up a snow shovel in seven years, and have no intention of ever doing so again.

  58. 58.

    SFAW

    @gogol’s wife:

    Snow sucks.

    Or blows, in the colder climes.

    Especially when the Canada Clipper comes outta the NW, a-whoppin’ and a-whuppin’ .. oh, wait, that’s a Number 6

  63. 63.

    Gin & Tonic

    @SiubhanDuinne: I was in a restaurant having a beer and deciding what to eat, sitting at the counter by myself, observing the staff. Including the guy who went from handling frozen food to handling raw food to handling finished food. With his ungloved hands, not stopping between processes.

    I finished my beer and went to speak to the manager on duty who said, in essence, “what’s the problem?” I paid for my beer and left. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a dive, it was a respectable-seeming restaurant in a major metro area.

  64. 64.

    KS in MA

    Happy shoveling! Out here in W. Mass., it’s about stopped snowing (at about 13 inches), and my snowblower didn’t break down, bless it. I do keep hoping to see gangs of teenagers coming down the street, shovels in hand, hoping to make some money … but, too bad, they’re not in evidence. Talk about nostalgia for a bygone era!

  65. 65.

    beltane

    @jl: We used to say the Republicans want to turn this country into a cesspool in a figurative sense, now we know they mean an actual cesspool. A nice cholera outbreak would make them feel all warm and freedumb-y.

  66. 66.

    SFAW

    @seaboogie:

    the tell-all book

    Book? How many damn pages does it take to say “He was a not-very-bright, self-important asshole who got where he was on Daddy’s money, and had more business failures than George W. Bush.”? I mean, even in fifth-grade-book-report mode, or Anne-Elk-Theory mode, about the best you could stretch it out to was 100 words.

  73. 73.

    PurpleGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: I went through a phase of reading medical history/mystery books; the stories about Typhoid Mary and such. It was a long, hard fight to get those public health regulations.

  74. 74.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @PurpleGirl:

    I remember reading about how hard it was just to get surgeons to wash their hands before plunging them into patients’ innards.

  75. 75.

    opiejeanne

    @SiubhanDuinne: Another excellent reason to avoid Applebees.

    Gawd, icky icky ICKY! I can’t think of the grownup word that accurately describes my reaction, not just revulsion, something far beyond that. Nearly vomit-inducing.

  78. 78.

    Tree With Water

    “ETA: Aaaaand we’re done (for the night)”. “We”? So then your husband is not the good Baptist I thought he might be.

  79. 79.

    SFAW

    @Cervantes:

    Not my own, anyway.

    Maybe Trump has a few bucks he could spare? Actually, more like a few liens he’d like to unload. (People here and elsewhere talk about Caribou Barbie being a grifter, but I think Trump beats her eight ways from Sunday in that field of endeavor.)

  80. 80.

    Mandalay

    @Suzanne:

    Man, there are some people who are such assholes that it passes tragedy right away and immediately goes straight to farce. Trump is farce.

    And here’s another one:

    Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) introduced an “Obamacare Repeal Act” that would repeal the Affordable Care Act “as if such Act had not been enacted.”

    The text of Cruz’s bill to repeal the 2,700-page law — which spawned another 10,000 pages of regulations — barely runs onto the third page.

    A clown trying to establish his lack of credentials for becoming president.

  81. 81.

    Tree With Water

    @SFAW: Go read the tonight’s NY Times breakdown of Chris Christies opulent ass ways as a public servant. The taxpayers of New Jersey are some of the biggest chumps in the world to put up with it.

  82. 82.

    SFAW

    Aaaaand we’re done (for the night).

    Well, if you’re not totally bushed, can you come over and do mine?

    I shoveled out part of the driveway so Mrs. SFAW could get into the garage after work, but there’s still plenty to do. (Of course, our plow guy will do the driveway in the wee hours, but there’ll still be enough for me and the kid to do in the AM. Although Mrs. SFAW wants me to take it easy, let our son do most of it. We’ll see.]

  84. 84.

    SFAW

    @Tree With Water:

    Thanks for the tip, but I have approximately zero desire etc. etc. But Christie doesn’t go around talking how fucking rich he is, and then pull the “none of your damn business” dodge the way Trump does.

    I have no idea if Fred was a good businessman, or a grifter like his kid. But if he was straight, he must be turning over in his grave.

  85. 85.

    FlyingToaster

    Anne,
    Watertown had about 16 inches (because we never got the two hours of threatening ice pellets that didn’t made it north of Brockton), and it’s been 10 degrees since about 6. The final snow berm was 3’high x 4’deep x 15’wide. NOT heavy, just a huge fucking amount of it. Since our driveway is 2 cars wide and one car long, we really spend all of our time waiting for the plows to quit plowing us in.

    The Plows have plowed in all of the sidewalks. We will not be shoveling anything but a path for the postman, because the south side (along the through street) is already taller than my 4’4″ seven-year-old.

    @Tree With Water:

    There aren’t enough god fearing women in the world today willing to shovel snow on command of their husbands.

    You do realize that we’re in Massachusetts, right? Where it snows every winter, and everyone owns a couple of shovels, and in responsible families, the kids shovel too. And, while I can’t speak for Anne, I couldn’t be bothered to fear any invisible friend deity. Mind you, I do fear 16″ of snow.

    @KS in MA:

    I do keep hoping to see gangs of teenagers coming down the street, shovels in hand, hoping to make some money … but, too bad, they’re not in evidence. Talk about nostalgia for a bygone era!

    We had one of those 4 years ago; he graduated from HS, and alas, nobody replaced him.

    I bought WarriorGirl a shovel two years ago when she was 5. She did 3 rounds of shoveling in the last storm and 2 in this one. And she still gets 2 days off from school ;)

    My hope is that she’ll be so used to shoveling that she’ll follow in her uncle’s (my brother) footsteps and form her own shoveling cabal. He and 4 of his friends had our whole neighborhood covered, and when he left home, my youngest sister took over.

    And, alas, WG’s shovel is going. So I’ll probably hit AutoZone later this week and pick up a new telescoping shovel for her.

  87. 87.

    burnspbesq

    @SFAW:

    Ahhh, yes. Not exactly high on my list of reliable sources, either.

    However, google “FCC” and the first three links are to news stories at WSJ, Verge, and Endgadget reporting the same thing.

    WSJ says proposed rules will drop on Thursday. The comment period is going to be EPIC.

  88. 88.

    SFAW

    @FlyingToaster:

    Mind you, I do fear 16″ of snow.

    Wimp. Why, when I was a kid …

    Snow in Watertown, who’d’a thunk it? Just be careful sledding down Palfrey Street.

  90. 90.

    Elizabelle

    @srv:
    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I take it Thom Tillis’s business background is not food service? “You want salmonella with that?”

    Does this man have an actual area of expertise? Yeesh.

  92. 92.

    opiejeanne

    @Elizabelle: I think it means we can bet that he doesn’t wash his hands after he tinkles. He probably thinks it’s cute to say that his mama taught him not to pee on his hands.

  94. 94.

    FlyingToaster

    @SFAW: I’m afraid to drive down Palfrey. Especially when it’s not cleared down to pavement, yet. I’d slide right past the “Do Not Enter” signs and all the way onto Mount Auburn. And die like a Cambridge cab.

    *I actually parallel Palfrey every morning on Summer to take WarriorGirl to school.

  95. 95.

    SFAW

    @FlyingToaster:

    MANY years ago, back when I was playing Lax and was in relatively good shape, I used to run it. Not a lot of fun, neither up nor down.

    Sledding down it toward Mt. Auburn, I half-expect you’d end up on Arsenal before hitting a parked car or something.

  96. 96.

    Mike in NC

    @Elizabelle: This imbecile Thom Tillis is 100% owned by the Koch brothers and their local kingpin Art Pope. Spent years in the NC House working on tax cuts for the rich, while screwing everyone else.

  97. 97.

    DissidentFish

    I can’t believe they actually killed a kid to make an insurance commercial. Thanks, Obama!

  98. 98.

    Tree With Water

    @SFAW: In the two were finalists in a Mr. Obnoxious contest, Trump would get my vote too. Then again, I’m not a New Jersey taxpayer. I’d be genuinely ticked if I was.

  100. 100.

    cokane

    david roth’s prose is just way too try hard and overwrought. seriously who can actually sit and read through paragraphs of that when its conclusion is so obvious?

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