Next thing you know, they'll be mandating safety inspections and trying to license drivers!
https://t.co/6oNe7HROLN
pic.twitter.com/ZdKbd3WHeM
— Billmon (@billmon1) October 27, 2015
.@AlwaysaGoodday1 And then they'll be telling us we can't drive our own goddamn cars when we're drunk. Goddamn government.
— Billmon (@billmon1) October 27, 2015
One of life’s great tragedies: You can regulate cars, but you can’t regulate stupid. (And Fox News is America’s Leader in cheerleading Stupid.)
***********
Speaking of stupid, my godsdamned rhinovirus is never going to go away, and now I have a barometric pressure headache, too. On the other hand, praise GotJunk, there’s half a truckload of weighty could-be-useful-just-not-in-this-house that’s become someone else’s problem, which means the delivery service will be able to bring in the new appliances tomorrow. The Circle of Stuff.
Apart from that, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
It may not be a virus — it could be non-allergic rhinitis, which is annoying as hell. Not to get too personal, but it apparently can crop up when one is approaching or in menopause. Nasonex seems to help with mine.
Goblue72
Isn’t Outnumbered that sexist Fox News show (duplicative, I know) where a bunch of Fox Barbies bring a guy on to interview, a la a bunch of sorority girls fluffing the college QB?
slag
To be fair, we’ve allowed the car to decimate our cities, our health, and our planet. Seems only right to extend the same courtesy to the gun.
BGinCHI
Well, I won’t be watching the GOP debate here in Norway because it’s not on.
Torture is illegal in this country.
Even the Stress Position of watching a dozen idiots vie for a job they don’t even believe in.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Initially misread that as Nanosex.
Which is a whole ‘nother ball of wax.
dmsilev
I just got informed that a piece of equipment we were expecting in early December has been delivered. Wonderful, except that the infrastructure is nowhere near ready. How to make a project manager cry: “You know that power and chilled water upgrade that we thought we had two months to finish? Can you do it in two weeks?”. Fun times.
PaulW
we need to protect ourselves from the BLIMP MENACE.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@NotMax:
I think that would go into yesterday’s sexbot thread.
hells littlest angel
If I can give my ten-year old daughter a cute pink car to drive around town, she should certainly be able to tote around a cute pink handgun without being harassed by police officers. (Of course she’s white!)
Oh …
JPL
@PaulW: The blimp is down, the blimp is down! Unfortunately, there are thousands without power because of that darn blimp.
@BGinCHI: It will be past your bedtime. I’m not watching because I don’t have cable. All I need to know, I will find out on this web site. How many different ways can you say tax cuts.
Arm The Homeless
@PaulW: We cannot allow a blimp gap!
Any juicers out there have interesting stories about Windows 10?
I had to get a new laptop and I haven’t even had any time with an OS since Win7.
mai naem mobile
During HRCs Benghazis hearings last week, Rep. Adam Schiff brought up about how we all get unsolicited garbage emails from people who are long time friends and you don’t quite know how to tell them to stop sending you such garbage. The thing Schiff doesn’t realize is that conservatives don’t delete those. They actually believe the emails and forward them.
Gimlet
Open thread?
Well, what did that debt ceiling agreement controversially do that couldn’t get done with ordinary Congressional business?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Also, too, it’s taking longer to read than I expected, but I’m liking Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton (the book that the current musical is based on). Chernow clearly admires Hamilton but isn’t afraid to point out where the guy screwed up. There are times when you can almost hear the author slapping his forehead, like when Hamilton runs around the streets of NYC challenging people to fistfights during some of the demonstrations over the Jay Treaty.
A little dry at times, like most historical biographies, but recommended if you like them.
srv
Where is the Congressional Hearing on the Balloon-Juice website redesign?
shell
Rhinovirus. What a doctor calls a cold when he wants to sound smart.
Are you getting all this cold, torrential rain by you? Cant be helping. A hot toddy might.
dedc79
Sadly, we’re way more likely to see the further loosening of existing gun control measures (see, e.g. the NRA’s “Hearing Protection Act“), than an expansion of background checks.
Arm The Homeless
@Gimlet: There is less leverage for the hostage takers during normal order. The same reason why legislative pork was ubiquitous during the final week of budget negotiations.
If we ever get a SCOTUS that doesn’t see the FEC as an abomination, we might get a limit on the time in which campaigning can be done.
MattF
I saw that comment about cars earlier today– but hadn’t realized it was from a FOX news host. I know, it’s just words, and what do words mean anyhow… right?
catclub
@Gimlet:
Everyone is already saying that it will pass. However, Just remember that Kevin McCarthy cannot count.
I am predicting it will fail the first time. Or the vote will be held open extra long to change votes.
Happy to be wrong.
Yatsuno
@Gimlet:
Raise the debt ceiling without tax cuts for the rich and ending Obummercare.
MattF
@Yatsuno: You forgot about defunding Planned Parenthood.
catclub
@slag: also, to be fair. I would assume the guy on Fox meant “they have no background checks to buy a car, so why should they have one for guns?”
Nevermind all the regs there are on cars and driving. No background check.
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): There’s some allergic rhinitis, but mostly it’s a convention-acquired virus, by the yellow-phlegm metric. I’m turning 60 next month & menopause is well in my rear-view mirror, praise goddess.
Ridnik Chrome
@PaulW: “It’s the blimp, Frank, it’s the blimp!”
Heliopause
NORAD guy being interviewed on TV just now said that the blimp has “weather parameters”. That is, it protects us from Russkie cruise missiles except when the weather’s bad. Your tax dollars at work.
Gimlet
@Yatsuno:
Definitely worth the show of strength and bullying the Republicans needed to show the party faithful they were truly in charge.
Emma
Nope. Not stupid. I used to think that until I realized that there was a definite agenda behind it. These people are evil, flat out encouraging all the racist, misogynistic, poisonous thoughts and beliefs of their listeners. This is on purpose and without any excuse.
Roger Moore
@Arm The Homeless:
So Windows 10 and OSX walk into a bar…
Anne Laurie
@shell:
Just starting to piddle down here. Torrents predicted for later this evening, by both the weathercasters and my sinuses.
But the GotJunk guys finished just as the first mizzle started, and the worst of the rain is supposed to be gone by tomorrow afternoon when the appliance delivery is due, so that’s a small blessing.
Gimlet
The little nut doesn’t fall far from the nutty tree. Some ironing to be talking of pedophilia in Morman country.
SALT LAKE CITY — LGBT activists’ next goal is legalizing pedophilia, Pastor Rafael Cruz — father of Republican senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz — told BuzzFeed News on Wednesday.
“Can you comment or include in your presentation the damage that is being done by the LGBT and what they have done to partner with the pedophilia and the 3 million children a year that are victimized by them?” asked the man, who identified himself as Pastor Martin of Dayton, Ohio, with a group called Protect the Innocents.
“I think that’s the next thing that they’re going to push, to try to legalize pedophiles,” Cruz said. “Pedophilia, you have all these laws to forget about — we have laws on the books about statutory rape. You have to basically throw away the statutory rape laws to legalize pedophilia.”
Germy Shoemangler
@dedc79: I had suggested in earlier threads that the uptick in gun crime might be attributed to all the guns flooding the market in 2009 and 2012, when the ammosexuals got scared the Kenyan Usurper might take their weapons away.
I just saw this:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/10/police-bust-gun-smuggling-ring-in-east-harlem.html
The police grabbed a bunch of guns in a Harlem sting operation:
the Conster
I’m on my 2nd cold in 6 weeks. I didn’t know it was possible to produce so much snot. I’m a fucking national resource if anyone can figure out a purpose for it. Good grief it’s so gross.
NotMax
@Heliopause
Puts one in mind of the military’s $2+ billion dollar (each) planes that couldn’t go out in the rain.
benw
This sounds like more of that robot sex I’ve been hearing about.
FlipYrWhig
@PaulW:
THE HELICOPTERS WERENT LAUGHING!
Yatsuno
@FlipYrWhig: I demand you fax your credenza immediately!
Ahh Robert Gass.
@MattF: How could I forget slut shaming?
NotMax
@Roger Moore
“What’ll it be?”
“Well, as it’s just the pair of us, 10 drinks, please.
catclub
@FlipYrWhig: I will fax you my credenzas.
M. Bouffant
@Arm The Homeless: I installed Windows 10 on a six-yr. old laptop; the first wk. the taskbar & Start icon occasionally stopped reacting to mouse clicks, ‘though worked again after a restart, after the first couple of updates that stopped & all is good.
Again, this is on a laptop that came w/ Vista (& has outlived its battery). Other than the above, the transition from 7 to 10 was seamless, ‘though I haven’t tried the Cortana talking robot (& probably won’t).
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
This exposition on the budget deal is the first one that I’ve seen that talks about the Partnership provisions (Title XI). It’s still a bit opaque, but this jumps out at me:
Emphasis added.
Is that a red flag? Is it a give away to these Partnerships?
(I thought the whole point of a Partnership was that it was a pooling of interests and responsibilities.)
“Hey, that’s the Partnership’s doing. Not me. Not my fault. I’m just a lowly Partner. Get the money over there, Mr. IRS Man.”
Anyone?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
catclub
Ha! I was wrong.
Elizabelle
TCM has programmed Disney cartoons against the GOP debate. I think that’s about perfect.
Three Little Pigs, The Big Bad Wolf, Ichabod and Mr. Toad; Escape to and Return from Witch Mountain.
J R in WV
@M. Bouffant:
I recently bought a Acer laptop with Win 8.1/free upgrade to Win 10. I overwrote it with Ubuntu 14.04, a version of Linux – this specific version is a long term support release.
I had some initial trouble with the new BIOS replacement, UEFI, but there is a flag in the pre-boot where you can turn off UEFI and use BIOS instead.
UEFI was intended to keep people from installing unapproved software on the hardware they buy and own, but it seems to have fallen through on that front. It’s working well so far. Acer makes good hardware.
I quit using Windows a couple of weeks after I retired from running a large Windows software development shop. And good riddance!
Yatsuno
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Jeebus. You could cheat right in front of the Revenue Agent’s face and they wouldn’t be able to catch it.
SinnedBackwards
@BGinCHI:
I cannot think of any meaning of the word “debate” that encompasses the likely unfolding of tonight’s klown-krashcade. “Dog and pony show” is at least somewhat neutral in describing it. Bloviating misinformation and opportunistic soundbites would do as well.
It’s just more of the catastrophic equivalency narrative that we allow from the plutocrats’ media servants.
Elizabelle
I wonder if the word “rise” actually means “oligarchy” in Republicanese.
From the annals of disgraceful campaign financing:
Carolina Rising, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, spent $4.7 million on ads praising Thom Tillis in his NC Senate race. 98% of that money came from a single donor, whose identity remains undisclosed.
NY Times reporting. I wish someone would put a Bozo nose on Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts for letting this level of corruption boil.
And this is one reason why the rightwing Wurlitzer was so rabid against the IRS.
Guillotines or jail terms. And public shaming.
The reader comments are interesting.
Jeffro
About to hear Bernie speak in a bit – brought my 10 year old with me. Should be a memorable evening!
J R in WV
Anne Laurie,
I’m sorry you’re feeling down, sinus and colds do that to you. We had some odd kind of rhinovirus a couple of weeks ago that Mrs J picked up at our family doctor’s office. Then I caught it from her.
At first she thought it was a reaction to her flu shot, but not, she never has had anything like that, and I haven’t had the shot yet so can’t be that.
Once it started working on me, I started doing tiny sips of bourbon, and kind of gargling it around deep in the back of my throat. It burned, which I thought meant it was killing viruses and bacteria.
I don’t know if it had anything to do with it, but I got over it much sooner than Mrs J did. Even though I caught it 3 days later than she did. The Doc told us to use Vicks on our chests, and that the old wives tale was to put a goober of Vicks on your feet at bedtime, then put on socks to keep the salve from getting all over everything.
Mrs J’s grandma told of the two hat method of curing a bad cold. You get a quart of good whiskey, put a man’s hat on the lower bedpost of your bed. Then go to bed, and drink until you see two hats! When you wake up, you will be cured [except for the hangover].
Gin & Tonic
@Gimlet: Any chance of you posting a damn URL?
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: Tell us about it! Glad you went!
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
Well, I used Google to search for the lead paragraph, and then went to BuzzFeed and used their internal search engine, no luck anywhere.
It sounds like what he would say, though. All kinds of lies about what liberals and progressives believe.
For example, I believe that Mr Cruz senior should be tarred and feathered, and sent across to Cuba on the back of a Great White. But that isn’t part of the Democratic Party platform, so he shouldn’t fuss at them on my account.
larimegimp
Sylv starts chemo on Tuesday morning.
Tomorrow she gets blood drawn to get her baselines determined and make sure she can start treatment, but assuming that all checks out, she gets her first cycle next week. She’s nervous, but determined. One day at a time.
Thank you all again for your support!
sloan
Debate predictions:
Fiorina claims to have video of Loch Ness monster.
Jeb! shivs Rubio with a ball point pen, invokes “stand your ground” law.
Ted Cruz manages to be even more creepy. Sees post-debate bounce.
Trump rates everyone’s daughter on scale of 1 to 10.
Rand Paul shows up dressed like Batman. Nobody notices.
Christie orders Papa Johns pizza and doesn’t share with anyone.
Kasich lights himself on fire to get noticed. It doesn’t work.
Carson literally sleeps through the whole thing. Standing up, eyes wide open. And is declared the winner.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Since it’s an open thread, there’s a potentially interesting development in the police shooting of Corey Jones — phone records show that he was on the line with roadside assistance when he was shot:
http://tinyurl.com/pyy4dk9
Hopefully he wasn’t just on with a hold recording the whole time.
Tom
Making some roasted broccoli with olive oil and crushed garlic for dinner, along with some grilled beef.
Other than that, trying to decide if I should do some of my paid work or wait until tomorrow. I could continue my Discworld re-read. (I’m on “Wyrd Sisters” now.)
Gin & Tonic
@J R in WV: That lack of linky happens all the fucking time, and a) it’s frustrating and b) gives a bad name to gin-based cocktails.
Jeffro
@sloan: you forgot “media pre-declares Rubio, Kaisch, Christie winners”
SFAW
@Yatsuno:
Wasn’t it Michael (i.e., with the credenza he faxed to Cole)?
Agenda for the evening: watching the Mets, hoping that Collins has Lagares start in center, Cespedes in left, and either Conforto or Uribe at DH.
And Cuddyer in the KC dugout. Or maybe the 15-day DL, and bring up Herrera (or Mario Mendoza, even).
SFAW
@sloan:
Unlikely. Rubio finds the debates boring, he’s off campaigning or doing other fun stuff, like spray painting “Batista Si! Castro NO!” on Rafael (Bienvenido) Cruz’s limousine.
SinnedBackwards
@catclub: Plenty of background check when you buy a car. It’s done by your insurance company.