If you have 20 candidates in an hour-long debate and each gets a one minute opening statement you've already used up 1/3 of the debate.
— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) June 11, 2015
The Oscars are three and a half hours, but deciding on the leader of the free world needs to clock in at CSI length. https://t.co/ZuBn0maFSp
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) June 11, 2015
And there’s not a single Republican candidate that has more than a minute’s worth of ideas — even if you include the really bad ones.
But the NH GOP (state motto: Live Free or Die Trying) is unhappy that pruning the number of “serious” candidates down to a mere ten (including, possibly, Donald Trump!) will painfully limit their quadrennial grift bonanza. Warning, Politico:
A group of prominent New Hampshire Republicans has written an open letter to Fox News and the Republican National Committee, urging them to reconsider the criteria for the Republican primary debates on the network.
The letter, signed by 56 Republicans, including former governors, members of Congress, state legislators and delegates, warns that the current criteria threaten to “undermine the very nature of our process and the valuable service that states like New Hampshire provide to voters across the country.”…
“The first televised debate of the 2016 election cycle should place all candidates on even footing and allow each to make their case directly to the voters and your viewers,” the letter states. “Anything less would prematurely suppress the candidate field, and arbitrarily elevate candidates who benefit from preliminary notoriety and fundraising.”
The group suggests a new format that would include two panels that appear back-to-back, taking the top six candidates in public polls and randomly splitting them into the two panels, with the remaining candidates randomly split evenly among the other spots…
***********
Apart from bickering & idiocy, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Arclite
They need to cull the field. I propose cage matches. Whoever the last 4 left standing are get to debate.
raven
Rachel was on this like a duck on a junebug last night.
raven
“We are told the officer’s shotguns are out with their hands near the triggers”. The fucking quote of the day already from Mika.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: WTF is she talking about?
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: That’s not important, was the President holding a pack of cigs? That’s the important question.
/White House Press Corps fail
geg6
Well, you mean other than the fact that it’s Thursday?
Schlemazel
I take strongly objection to your statement that no potential candidate has a minutes worth of ideas! Why these fine gentlemen, and lady, have literally hours worth of horrific ideas for making America poorer, less safe, more angry and a bigger shithole than many third world nations. Good ideas they have could be written on the head of a pin with room left over for the obligatory Lord’s Prayer that’s true.
“My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.”
– Hedley Lamar, GOP hopeful
Valdivia
@BillinGlendaleCA: Even worse, this speculation has gone international and political blogs in Latin America started reporting yesterday. Because I was buried in work I had no clue what they were talking about. Now I will make sure that I don’t.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Valdivia: Though I did like Barnicle’s comment, “I’m surprised he hasn’t started drinking”.
Mustang Bobby
As David Letterman once noted, this looks like a group of people waiting for a tee time at a restricted country club.
Valdivia
@BillinGlendaleCA: Oh that is good. And apt.
So what is this with the cigarettes?
Barney
Here’s the obvious format:
Split the contestants into 2 random groups. They each compete in a televised semi-final, with viewers and a jury of experts awarding points between them to decide who goes through to the final. A few contestants are given a bye, because it’s obvious they should appear in the final debate. Since this is the Republicans, this is judged by the amount of money they bring to the process.
This is obviously a perfect system. Just don’t let the Republicans know it’s the Eurovision Song Contest one, or they’ll never accept it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Valdivia: The press is still looking out to see if the President really has quit smoking.
SiubhanDuinne
@Valdivia:
@BillinGlendaleCA:
The only thing I’ve seen about it is in Yr Wonket.
http://wonkette.com/587981/nine-things-president-obama-might-be-holding-besides-this-dirty-pack-of-cigarettes
Amir Khalid
@Barney:
I like most of this idea. But you don’t need to find a winner, do you? That’s what the primaries themselves are for; the debates are only supposed to help inform the voter about the various candidates.So you don’t need semi-final and final debate rounds. Just put ten candidates at random into Pool A and the rest into Pool B.
danielx
How does it go, show business for ugly people, something like that?
I’m still holding out for tossing them all in a pit of rabid wolverines. Whoever comes out alive…
JPL
Why do we have a Wednesday open thread?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: The Press demands a winner, we MUST have a winner.
Amir Khalid
@JPL:
Because it’s Wednesday. Duh.
ETA: Also because Randinho put up the Germany-Norway match open thread a day early, so the cosmic balance must be redressed.
Valdivia
@SiubhanDuinne: that piece is funny. It would have never occurred to me he was holding a pack of cigarettes.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid: But it’s not. It’s Thursday.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
Like I said, the cosmic balance needs to be redressed, so for now today is Wednesday. Work with me here.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: Wednesday was such a blah day, that now we get a do over. I like it. Personally, I have sod coming Friday morning and I could use an extra day for prep.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid: OK… here’s some slack.
@JPL: Personally, it sucked. No way do I want to go thru that again. In fact, can I just make it Friday and call it a week?
dmsilev
@danielx: I’m pretty sure that’s abusive towards the wolverines.
Gravenstone
@danielx: How many times must we tell you? Your proposed cruelty to wolverines simply will not stand.
Gimlet
These are not debates exploring differences between candidates but stump speeches in small chunk format.
A waste of time.
MattF
I propose a rotating stage. Choose between five and ten at random, have them debate for ten minutes– then rotate the stage and do the next group. Repeat until all candidates have appeared. It would be better to have the candidates enter through a playground slide, or perhaps an obstacle course of some sort.
Shakezula
Well gee, looks like some people aren’t happy with the results of the cunning plan to shut out anyone who doesn’t have a shit ton of money or the favor of people with same. Ha ha ha ha, suck it assholes.
@Barney: Or just split the contestants into at least three pieces.
Repeat.
Iowa Old Lady
This could be fun. (Well, for some definitions of fun) On the same night Fox televises its R debate with 10 candidates, the NH Union Leader will hold a CNN televised “forum” for R candidates. Candidates can choose which to participate in.
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150610/NEWS0605/150619874
FortGeek
I will do nothing today as a reward for finally–FINALLY!!–getting my replacement water heater working yesterday.
Took me 4 weeks. I figured out why the seller was getting rid of the thing, too. He claimed it had been working and that he’d swapped it out for a tankless system. What he didn’t say was that it WAS working, then it broke, and that’s why he went for the new one. Ass.
I had to wait a week for the final part I needed–the one that led the seller to sell–and all together I still paid out less than half of what I’d have paid for a new heater.
Baud
@raven:
It was a little painful.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Amir Khalid: 10 is too many if they’re actually interested in having the candidates give their positions and indicate differences among them. The network that has the “honor” of hosting these things should set aside a week for the Teabagger “debates” – 2 hours a day in the afternoon. Random draw of straws to see the pairings, no more than 4 candidates at a time. Moderated by someone from the League of Women Voters or a similar independent group (not someone from the press, not some TV talking head, not some retired political hack).
Of course, we know these “debates” are all about fake drama and gotcha 3-second sound bites, so …
Rachel made some good points about it in her beat-viewers-over-the-head way last night.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
RE: PBO’s ciggy photo — he’s totally holding a cigarette pack, and he’s clearly about to extract one and light up. So? He’s a grown man.
I gave up cigarettes three years ago after smoking for 20+ years. I’d tried to quit a few times before that, and I always failed. Why? Because my prior quit attempts were at the behest of someone else who was bugging me to quit, not because I was ready.
IIRC, during the 2008 campaign, Obama said he’d made a deal with FLOTUS that he’d give up cigs if she’d agree to his presidential run. He said it in a joking way, but it sure sounded like he quit because of pressure from others, not because he was ready.
Maybe he’ll never be ready, and he’ll sneak around smoking the occasional butt for the rest of his life. As an adult, that is his choice. I don’t get why it’s considered some giant scandal.
Joey Maloney
My day’s already well advanced, but it started out with a work emergency that required several hours working on the computer coupled with a long-scheduled appointment at a government agency that could not be rescheduled or postponed. So I ended up taking the laptop with me and tethering it to my phone, and splitting my attention between frantically trying to keep our largest customer from collapsing in chaos, and arguing with a particularly obstreperous Herbert.
Oh, and I left out the part where I got halfway to the agency’s office, already late, and realized that I’d forgotten the one original document that I absolutely had to have with me, and had to turn around and go back to get it.
OzarkHillbilly
Christopher Lee is dead.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Joey Maloney: I hope it was all worth it.
Thanks for the linky. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
raven
@Betty Cracker: I quit in 1968 in Vietnam because of the competition. The OJ’s wasn’t just an R&B outfit!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
The Village wants to portray him as Nixonian. This is the best they’ve got.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: Sorry to hear that. But he had a good long life, and a highly interesting one.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: And a long and happy marriage too.
ThresherK
@Amir Khalid: I went a bit bonkers trying to find a WWC game on TV that wasn’t even being played yet, it appears.
Snarki, child of Loki
Folks, you’re all missing the point!
The GOP are totally “in the bag” for the 2nd Amendment, so any GOP primary debates need to be “open carry” events.
Audience reaction, quickdraw rebuttals, survivors (if any) go on to the next round.
Any GOPers that refuse to participate are objectively comsymp libtard gun-grabber RINOs, amirite?
Germy Shoemangler
MattF
@Betty Cracker: Is this the really best the ODS crew can do? Ooooh, he claimed he was quitting but didnt’t. Bad Obama! Are we going to get a David Brooks meditation about how this is really a deeply serious matter?
Another Holocene Human
Okay, so I’ll be OT:
Aphids. Only solution is to spray with water hose?
Plant doesn’t seem to be suffering (it’s a viburnum). Do I just leave the nasty things alone?
I want to plant Camellias out there next year, about 5 foot away from the diseased hedge. Bad idea?
I’m in zone 9-ish. It’s supposed to freeze in the winter but never does because of the urban heating effect. Never hard frosts anyway. Wet. Swampy. Too damn hot outside and getting hotter.
RSA
If I were interested in helping Republicans… well, anyway, one possibility is to find out or ask all the declared candidates what their top three or five issues are, where they’re going to stake their claim, so to speak, with their candidacy. Then have a half-dozen or dozen reasonably sized debates, each on a specific issue, involving those candidates who care most about it. A single candidate might not come out on top, but I’ll bet that just one or two views would emerge per issue, and the best-performing candidates would probably adopt those views even if they hadn’t taken part in specific debates.
Another Holocene Human
Also, do aphids ignore monocots and palms? Serious question.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: Nah, that’s Tapper’s beat.
Another Holocene Human
@Germy Shoemangler: Some say elderly scientists should be segregated from their colleagues because their intellectual decay is a distraction in the lab.
72 is a faaaaaar cry from your mid 50s for the average adult. Sounds like he has a case of a the FOX’s–rigid thinking, paranoia, and lowered inhibition.
You know who is the most dangerous driver on the road? 16 yo male with other teenagers in the car OR 70+.
This guy clearly did not beat the odds.
debbie
@Valdivia:
Another conspiracy along the lines of Hillary’s wrought iron patio furniture disguised as a walker.
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human: My hubby controls aphids with applications of neem oil. He has also imported ladybugs for aphid-cide purposes in the past.
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Holocene Human: Ladybugs.
Germy Shoemangler
@Another Holocene Human:
Consider using neem oil mixed with water. Or, add neem oil with OHN (garlic + ginger + molasses). Dilute the ingredients in water and spray directly below the leaves (where aphids hide). Spray repeatedly 3 times per week for a plant with serious aphid damage.
I’ve used neem oil diluted with some water in the past. It’s not a chemical poison. The oil just provides an inhospitable environment for pests.
I don’t know. I suspect a rigid, assholish 72-year-old was probably an asshole at age fifty.
MomSense
@SiubhanDuinne:
I do enjoy Wonkette and the article about the wingnut piqued my fancy so I clicked. Oh my they actually do write the things we joke about but they are serious.
http://wonkette.com/588019/yr-wonkets-new-wingnut-admirer-wants-to-put-his-peen-in-a-liberal-lady-editor
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Holocene Human: Most scietists do their best work in their 20s and early 30s. By the time they hit their 40s most are well on the way to geezerdom.
Baud
The end is nigh for Twitter
MattF
@Germy Shoemangler: His ‘remarks’ were exceptionally dim, even for a Nobel laureate. I wouldn’t rule out cognitive problems.
Another Holocene Human
@Snarki, child of Loki: GOP is open carry for thee, not for me.
You can’t open carry into the Florida Legislature. They have two metal detectors, one for entrance, second for the gallery.
But cities and towns cannot pass laws restricting where you take your gunnnnnzzzz.
Another Holocene Human
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ve known some exceptions, but yeah.
Grad students are so plentiful, and easy to exploit!
Germy Shoemangler
@MomSense: The majority of RW trolls I’ve encountered on liberal blogs or local news comments sections have lots in common: they often name themselves after their favorite firearm, they often very subtly intimidate and threaten other commenters (by suggesting they know where they live or can get IP addresses) and are stalkerish around women.
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Holocene Human: Yep, Marie Currie being the definitive example of the exception that proves the rule.
Another Holocene Human
@Germy Shoemangler: Where should I get the spray bottle? The ones I’ve been buying have the pumps go bad and I’m fucking sick of it. Also, this hedge is huge (‘yuuuuuuge’).
And where can I buy neem oil?
As for “always an asshole”, I did say “lowered inhibition”. People with more frontal lobe activity keep their assy thoughts to themselves, but as that part of the brain degrades, that shit comes out again.
People can change, too. Due to emotional or health reasons. Like they weren’t constantly having assy thoughts, they were happy and open, but now they’re having repetitive, assy thoughts. And eventually, they share them.
Another Holocene Human
@OzarkHillbilly: And suffering from radiation poisoning too. She was a BAMF.
The Thin Black Duke
@Betty Cracker: Yes. And unlike some many oher actors in the twilight of their careers, Lee was exremely fortunate to appear in good movies before he died. For example, however problematic The Lord of the Rings trilogy was, I will always be grateful to Peter Jackson for giving the role of Suraman to Christopher Lee.
Another Holocene Human
@Germy Shoemangler: Some board I was on had a RW troll resident annoyance who named himself after MANDY MOORE when she was still a teenager. Ewwwwwww.
He also would try to switch nyms to avoid the time-outs he’d earned himself.
Germy Shoemangler
@Another Holocene Human: I found a bottle at a local garden center. The bottle had a spray top. I’ve also used dollar-store spray bottles in the past, so I don’t feel too bad when they clog and die. If you have no objections to buying neem oil through amazon, you could try them as well.
What I like about the neem oil is that it’s not a poison.
You’re right about the lowered inhibitions. I’ve seen that with older relatives. And the plus-70 crowd in movie theater audiences who gab through the whole film
Another Holocene Human
@OzarkHillbilly: They fly in, snack, and fly away. :(
Just One More Canuck
@Barney: @Amir Khalid: @danielx: Mad Max- Beyond Thunderdome was on last night and could provide ideas as to how to conduct a Republican debate – I am in favour of banishing them all into the desert, although pig feces could be useful as well
Germy Shoemangler
@Another Holocene Human: They’re always switching nyms, and then using the exact same wording, sentence structure and links and insults.
As if there’s a crowd of them, rather than one doughy guy in his underwear.
MomSense
@Germy Shoemangler:
Women receive unbelievable harassment and threats especially if they write about feminism and gun violence prevention. Melissa McEwen of shakesville has written about some of the threats she has received and it is terrifying. Our own ABL has been the recipient of truly horrible harassment.
Germy Shoemangler
@MomSense: And people are always saying how liberals should organize locally and run for office. With armed trolls on keyboards with their ugly little hate websites and showing up at town hall meetings, it’s easier said than done.
Meanwhile, some crooked conservative used-car dealer can run for some local office, members of the rotary club will show up to applaud, and he’ll appear on the ballot unopposed.
Another Holocene Human
@Joey Maloney: I’ve found that federal agency employees who were direct-hired out of college and never worked anywhere else are the worst.
Different parts of government are different, though; NIH and other scientific divisions are a bit different from DOT, GSA, etc. (In sciences the academic degree is a more practical background anyway, as compared to more regulatory agencies where some fucking industry experience would really fucking help.)
MomSense
@Germy Shoemangler:
QFT
Another Holocene Human
@Germy Shoemangler: They do it differently in my town. The ugly trolls do show up at public meetings but only rarely do they get much traction. What happens on the newspaper comments sections isn’t all that relevant. (Although one dumb commissioner talked themselves out of office on Facebook–not through inappropriate content, but by defending a big political disaster and becoming associated with it thereby.) The trolls actually spend more time attacking their own side. When the crooked pawn shop guy ran for mayor he got a laughable vote tally.
What actually happens is about 100-200 rich people control who gets on the ballot. They can purchase elections for a few thousand dollars. Only a few thousand people vote in the early spring off-off cycle elections. So far more populist candidates have failed to get out the vote. There has been some D v. R action but the actual people running the deal are all in each others’ pockets so it can be quite quiet.
Morzer
What makes me laugh is that every GOP candidate is going to have an opening statement that basically says: “I am not a kook” followed by an immediate attempt to demonstrate that no other candidate could possibly be more sympathetic and congenial to an audience made up of kooks.
And then I reflect that there’s a non-trivial chance that whichever kook wins the Deranged Beauty Pageant For The Cognitively Challenged could end up in charge of a rather large nuclear arsenal with a howling mob of “Christian” supporters who want to see the Apocalypse as soon as possible because that’s why Jesus was born blue-eyed, blonde and riding a velociraptor through Texas.
Valdivia
@Morzer: I thought their opening statements would be about outdoing each other in being the UnObama.
MattF
@Morzer: I suspect it’s turning into a competition between the denizens of the crazy-people-with-money crowd. One should bear in mind that, e.g., Donald Trump, is just the avatar for these guys– They’re all like him, they all got to where they are by being aggressively obnoxious. Wannabe politicians are a receptive, like-minded audience, but the big money is in charge.
Morzer
@Valdivia:
Oh I am sure that there’ll be lots of hot anti-Obama rage-stroking to be observed; I just happen to think it’ll be in the second part of the program after the opening statements devoted to apple pie, Reagan, Mom, Reagan, dangers of rock-n-roll, Reagan, hard-working,small-town, Evangelical, Midwestern/Texan/Alaskan/Onehorsedumbfuckville peasants and their supreme place in the pantheon of American virtue – oh, and, of course, Reagan.
MattF
@Morzer: You left out tax cuts. For the job creators.
gvg
@Another Holocene Human: RE:Aphids, a little dawn dish detergent plus horticultural oil. Any cheap sprayer, they all clog and don’t last so buy and toss when they die. There are 2 kinds of hort. oil. The old kind can’t be used in hot weather, the newer kind can be. I am not sure of the name difference but read the instruction label. For more ideas, check with your local extension service master gardener. Which state are you in? Florida has good agricultural extension agents and master gardeners.
I don’t care to use ladybugs because the kind that is mostly sold are non native and I am leary of releasing them into the wild. Its very hard to actually get the native type. The japanese type are easier to mass raise but they are named convergens because they get together in a mass to hibernate and that can be a bother if they pick your house to hibernate in.
Neem oil is a poison. Its relatively nontoxic, but it is in fact poisonous and that is why it works. It has some adverse effects on aquatic life and has been used as flea control on cats in other countries where some of them died per web search. Pollinators are safe because the insects have to eat the treated plants in order to be effective.
you can also just use soapy water without oil on aphids. Hort oil is just more effective.
SRW1
@Amir Khalid:
Come on, Amir. The phoning in of the points is the most entertaining part of the whole event. Especially if they also do the repeat in French:
“Monsieur Boush: deux point.”
Valdivia
@Morzer: Yes, of course. It always and forever must begin with Reagan.
Omnes Omnibus
@Morzer: You forgot Reagan.
Morzer
@MattF:
I think there are two contests: one is for prime position in the idiot grifter couldashoulda been a contender stakes aka The Herman Cain Memorial Award, the other is to be the most recent edition of Mythically Moderate Hip Republican Presidenting Corporate Person Daddy Word Salad Warbucks aka Rafalca von Hobbylobby-Romney 78.23/b.
rikyrah
Yeah, she thought it was love, but then something in her mind snapped…the watching of too many Lifetime Movies…
After she delivered them to Canada, she was gonna be a ‘loose end’, and everyone in the movies knows what criminals do wth ‘loose ends’.
……………………
Officials Say Prison Worker Joyce Mitchell Planned to Be Getaway Driver
‘She thought it was love’: Prison worker charmed by escapee
June 11, 2015
Joyce Mitchell, the New York prison worker being questioned in the escape of two murderers, was charmed by one of the inmates and planned to be their getaway driver until she got cold feet, senior government officials told NBC News.
One of the inmates, Richard Matt, established a relationship with Mitchell over a couple of months, the officials said.
“She thought it was love,” one of the officials said.
Instead of being the getaway driver, Mitchell went to the hospital and checked herself in, the officials said. As NBC News has previously reported, Mitchell checked in on Saturday, the day the inmates were reported missing, with “a case of nerves.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/new-york-prison-escape/she-thought-it-was-love-officials-say-prison-worker-joyce-n373571?cid=sm_tw&hootPostID=a4d571f7fd9c4a8b5c2993b3417a69a8
Morzer
@MattF:
A man mentioned Reagan. A man thinks that tax cuts and Reagan are the same thing for the broad-assed masses. A man has watched too much sub-par Game of Thrones recently.
Patricia Kayden
@Gimlet: Which sensible people will avoid like the plague. There is nothing that any GOP candidate could say that I would find remotely interesting. I don’t recall electioneering starting so dang early.
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
Believe me, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be able to forget Reagan.
Mind you, a really good bacon sandwich and coffee…
cahuenga
Maybe cull the field with a couple rounds of cow plop bingo. Nobody would likely notice.
WereBear
@Another Holocene Human: Dust those suckers with flour.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: And another:
Ornette Coleman has died, aged 85.
Godspeed to both elegants.
Morzer
@cahuenga:
If you want to really cull the GOP field, start with counting up to 3. That’ll winnow the ignorant fuckers down to something approaching Paul Ryan’s intellect and Rick Santorum’s decency.
Elizabelle
From a beautiful partial NYT obit on Ornette Coleman; they note there will be more to come.
Have to read what they put up about Christopher Lee, too.
cahuenga
@Morzer:
I’m only interested in seeing cow plop bingo televised nationally, which I see as the next logical step in reality TV.
I have a feeling it would be a lot like dropping acid.
Fred
@Snarki, child of Loki: I like it. And body armor is not allowed.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: That’s a real shame.
There was a guy who could put out an album entitled “The Shape of Jazz to Come,” and who had the chops to make that look like a factual statement, and not hubris.
rikyrah
The Rise and Fall of Two Florida Stoners Who Made It Big as Gunrunners
ByGuy Lawson | June 10, 2015
9182 views
In the summer of 2006, the war in Afghanistan was going badly. The Bush Administration’s surge of troops to Iraq had left few resources to deploy to Kabul, as a long shot Presidential candidate named Barack Obama said on the campaign trail. Desperate to turn the tide, the Pentagon decided to try to “stand up” Afghan security forces. Hundreds of millions rounds of various Soviet Bloc ammunition were required, rounds that could only be obtained by doing business with Eastern European arms dealers. Like all defense contracts, the solicitation was posted online, on the website fedbizopps.gov, to be open to competition from qualified bidders.
One such company was AEY, an outfit run by 21-year-old 9th grade dropout named Efraim Diveroli and his 25 year old part-time masseuse friend David Packouz. The two best buddy gunrunners—the two dudes—had entered a bid of $300M, hoping that they might beat Fortune 500 companies and win the geopolitically vital Afghan ammo contract. Until they received an email that would change their lives.
On January 26, 2007, David Packouz was parking his Mazda Protégé in the lot of his dive apartment building when his cell phone rang.
“Dude, I have good news and I have bad news,” Efraim Diveroli said. “What do you want first?”
“What’s the bad news?”
“Our first order is only for $680,000.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/theslice/florida-gun-runners-afghanistan
SectionH
@Another Holocene Human: You might try syrphid fly larvae for the aphids. They demolished the aphids we had in our zone 7 garden. And seemed to stick around to reproduce, not in such large numbers as we bought, but definitely there.
Camellias need protection from hot summer sun, esp. when they’re young. And they’re subject to scale – horrible things, practically make aphids look nice. But camellias are such gorgeous things – good luck with them!
raven
RIP Ornette Coleman
SectionH
Best triage of Republican candidates I’ve seen, from Kate Wilhelm
David in NY
@SectionH: I thought of that, but I hadn’t worked out the first round pairing yet. And who gets to be judge?
Just One More Canuck
@SectionH: @David in NY:
Santorum vs Huckabee: Two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
The WaPo agrees with you, Betty:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/06/09/let-president-obama-have-a-cigarette-already/
Amir Khalid
@Just One More Canuck:
FTFY
Germy Shoemangler
@SectionH: A few years ago we had an infestation of japanese beetles. Big fat ones, and it was one big orgy with them. They’d copulate two three four on top of each other. Ate our flowers and vegetables.
One of our neighbors hung up one of those beetle bags; supposed to attract and trap them. I think all it did was double the amount of japanese beetles.
samiam
“the current criteria threaten to “undermine the very nature of our process…””
So kind of like voter
suppressionfraud rules which are just fine with the GOP.SectionH
@David in NY: I dunno. How about “Call 999-666-1234 and vote now!”? The results would be… interesting, whatever they were.
piratedan
Geez… just hold it on Fox, take all the time you need. Let them all have their say in all of their glorious nuance. Then just capture the most telling bits for campaign ads against whomever is the battle royale winner in the fall. It’s not as if Fox News isn’t the GOP party channel already, might as well have some “original” programming where they all get in line to tongue bathe each other and bash the current President and talk about how they’re either rich (through shipping jobs over seas or inheriting the family money) or pious or both and how their plan is to restore America to its former greatness thru stricter abortion laws and how their trickle up economic policy just has to work this time through the efforts of baby jeebus and all gawd fearing Americans giving them a mandate.
ranchandsyrup
Gonna start un-burying myself at work after a week off and making some jokes about that hilarious “women don’t understand goodfellas” piece in the NY Post
cahuenga
@piratedan:
Plunder Games!
Germy Shoemangler
Imagine if there was a liberal news network (in an alternative universe). Instead of Fox News we had Dove News. 24 hour a day liberal commentary, talking points, etc. And imagine if there was a huge bench of democratic candidates for POTUS. And the debates were only being held on Dove News.
Dove News being run by Bill Ayers. Commentary by Rachel Maddow. Amy Goodman moderating the debates.
We live in a bizarro distopian universe. A place where Roger Ailes (who helped elect Richard Fucking Nixon of all people) and Karl Rove and the Kochs run things.
And yet there is nothing but OUTRAGE from the RW internet trolls. What else do they want?
Mark B.
It’s OK, none of those people have a shot at the job. It’s really an entertainment show. For dumb people.
Kropadope
@Germy Shoemangler:
It seems to me that in this fictional universe, the Democrats would have a lot of insularity-based problems.
Gravenstone
@Amir Khalid: Your reference, sir.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STMh9xCdzr8
Germy Shoemangler
Is Mara Liasson a republican mole? Every time I hear her on public radio, she has a way of framing things so negatively about the democrats.
Brachiator
@MattF:
Lindsey Graham approves.
Germy Shoemangler
@Kropadope: And all the Sunday morning talks shows featured Betty Cracker, Amir Khalid and Rikyrah instead of McCain and Paul Ryan.
Brachiator
I feel a disturbance in the Force.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/11/media/rupert-murdoch-stepping-down/
Brachiator
@Germy Shoemangler:
Wait. Is this another proposed Republican debate format?
Belafon
@Germy Shoemangler: Just because they can solve cell division doesn’t mean they’re socially intelligent.
Germy Shoemangler
And Anne Laurie
SectionH
@Germy Shoemangler: Ugh, Japanese beetles. We fought them for years. Tried various things, including nematodes, milky spore, and Bt, all of which attack the beetle grubs while they’re still in the soil. We did NOT use traps for the reason you mention. About the only thing that helped with adult beetles was both of us picking them off the plants by hand. It’s amazing how un-squeamish I got, how quickly, when I had roses to save.
Germy Shoemangler
@Brachiator:
My eyes!!
@Belafon:
One of the things we loved about the latest version of Cosmos was how women in science were given credit.
srv
Clearly, it’s Murdoch’s fault the only viable candidate you have is Hillary.
People want ideas, not broken records.
Germy Shoemangler
@SectionH: That’s pretty much how we ended up dealing with them. We’d go out to the garden about 6am and squeeze the japanese beetles to death between our thumbs and forefingers, cursing them all the time.
Germy Shoemangler
@srv: Citizens united might have something to do with that.
Sanders isn’t a viable candidate? Maybe according to Roger Ailes.
ranchandsyrup
@Germy Shoemangler: Yes, she is.
Belafon
@Brachiator: So, FOX is an aristocracy. And their viewers are happy about it.
SectionH
@Germy Shoemangler:
Not so sure about mole. “Tool” might be the word. I basically realised NPR was in the bag for the Republicans when I heard her
commentary oncommercial for their Nat. Convention in 2000.Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
Very sad. I did not see Ornette perform live, but I did see Charlie Haden, Ornette’s most soulful bassist, at various jazz venues.
And Ornette’s “Lonely Woman,” just beautiful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNbD1JIH344
Belafon
@Germy Shoemangler: Same here.
japa21
@srv: So you’re saying people have no interest in the Republican candidates. That’s good to know.
Germy Shoemangler
My Prediction Bernie Sanders will win the White House.
He’s a trifle more optimistic than I am, but it’s fun to read.
Elizabelle
@SectionH: I agree re Mara Liasson being a tool.
Check out an NPR ombudsman column defending her, and look at the language he highlights. Think about how she frames her reports.
A Fair and Balanced Look at Mara Liasson
Have not read the comments; might be some good insights in there. Along with the usual trolls, calling themselves “rational thinkers” and whatnot.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Does anyone know her opinion of the movie “Goodfellas?”
Germy Shoemangler
But that’s bullshit. I listen to her, and whenever she reports on Obama or Clinton or any other democrat, she uses very subtle negative language. And whenever she talks about whatever GOP nutbag is out there, she uses positive language.
She’s Jon Karl.
Elizabelle
@Germy Shoemangler: Agreed.
I would guess she is losing NPR listeners, not gaining them.
Morzer
@srv:
Clearly, it’s Murdoch’s fault you have no viable candidate.
People want sanity, not incontinent theocratic fascists.
bcinaz
Citizens United opened this Wingnut Welfare branch of the GOP. That ruling is like the Main Chance for every fringe yahoo who wants a years paid leave. If elections were publicly financed and every dollar account for, the field would shrink down to the few or one who truly believes they should be President. Riding in the Big Clown Bus is a way to pad your CV and get bigger fees on the lecture circuit, plus maybe a book deal.
toones
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: yep, you can no longer watch that show without the remote in your hand…
Zinsky
@Arclite: I’m afraid a cage match format would heavily (pun intended) favor Kris KrispyKreme of New Jersey. One flying drop by the butterball would break every bone in poor little sensitive Lindsey Graham’s body!