Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

The revolution will be supervised.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

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

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

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

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Come on, man.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Consistently wrong since 2002

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

The willow is too close to the house.

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

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Really, Jar-Jar?

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Really, Jar-Jar?

by | 123 Comments

This post is in: , ,

I’m not registered on Twitter, because I can barely keep up with this site, thanks all the same. Not to mention the pain I would no doubt bring to so many gentle souls, since I really have trouble parsing the insensitivity here…

Daniel Fleetwood got his dying wish, and more power to his friends and family and even the Disney Corporation for making it possible. But I suspect those people have a lot more on their minds right now than getting offended about some jerk making jokes on Twitter.

***********
Apart from explaining how I have just made myself The Worst Person on the Internet (and between the GOP debate and the Mizzou crisis, there’s been a *lot* of competition this week), what’s on the agenda for the day?

Reader Interactions

123Comments

  1. 1.

    Germy Shoemangler

    Back in 2014 he tweeted “nothing sadder than a hot person in a wheelchair”

    He knows a lot of facts and can recall them quickly on a gameshow, but he’s not someone I admire …. Watson (his computer rival on Jeopardy) has more emotional intelligence.

  6. 6.

    bystander

    It’s mostly just kind of dumb. Wonder if Jennings has issued the obligatory apology. “I’m sorry if some people are offended. That was merely collateral to my real goal of making light of some guy’s death.”

  7. 7.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    I don’t have any problem with a silly tweet based on a news story. Sadly, because we can have either the Internet or nice things, but not both, some dickhead will be sure to bring this to the family’s attention and demand loudly that they be outraged.

  12. 12.

    The Golux

    The few times I’ve looked at someone’s twitter feed I’ve found it bewilderingly difficult to tell who is responding to who. It all seems like a disorganized pile of thoughts, streams of consciousness intermingling randomly.

  20. 20.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @The Golux: That’s one of the reasons I’ve stayed off twitter, anyway I’m not a twit. I don’t care what you’ve heard from the others.

  21. 21.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    Only the answers are in the form of a question. The questions are supposed to be in the form of an answer. d’uh

  22. 22.

    Schlemazel

    @Baud:
    I’ll take rhetorical questions for 200, Alex.

    I find the joke hilarious but obviously badly timed & not really for public display. As a guy with a very sick & twisted sense of humor I try to be super conscious of jokes that might cross the line. I still fail but at least never this spectacularly.

  23. 23.

    Another Holocene Human

    Okay, open thread: finally got a car yesterday!!

    It took all day. 12 hours away from the house, on the road to Orlando, all over Orlando. Left the SunPass at home and had to pay cash tolls but that actually went okay. (My wife got cheated by a toll taker once, for over $3.) It must not be a politician dumping ground job here because there was none of the attitude I remember from Massachusetts. Anyhoo.

    Got in mega late, have to pull an extra long shift at work today AND I have to rent a large vehicle today for a training on Saturday. Sleep is a distant dream at this point, fuck my life.

    Had to kiss a bunch of frog cars. One actually smelled like gym socks–danger, Will Robinson! And had to get down to the right price so it didn’t exceed contents of conjugal bank account. Thank god my wife was there with me because I might have given up in disgust and gone to Ikea instead.

    To others I would recommend checking out Hertz Auto Sales (but you have to inspect the car in person). However, I actually ended up getting a car from a normal dealership. It was a used car they had advertised at their best price online so it was no haggle and no bullshit. I had actually tried Carmax first but they did engage in a lot of BS and it was all for nought because the price was a thousand dollars too high. Like, they advertise the easy purchase but they actually set their prices a little higher than the rest of the market right now and it seems like a lot of dealers have caught on that there’s a virtue to finding a buyer on the internet and selling the car without drama. Well, that’s my story.

    Epilogue: I feel a little sad about my 156k miles dented Toyota Corolla. I hope it goes overseas to a new home or some skinflint buys it at auction. The innards were lovingly maintained while the outside (and the headliner) look like utter shit. I hope it’s not at the parts/scrap point. However, it’s a big monkey off my back so– bon voyage.

  24. 24.

    PurpleGirl

    Yes, I’m going there… The guy is a weird looking goony bird. His nose looks like a beak. His eyes are small and beady. He’s an immature jerk. I hope he lost of his winnings to taxes and to church tithing. (It appears he’s a Mormon… do most of them have a low emotional quotient?)

  32. 32.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Another Holocene Human:

    To others I would recommend checking out Hertz Auto Sales (but you have to inspect the car in person).

    That’s how I bought my 1988 Pontiac 6000 LE Safari wagon; at Hertz Auto Sales in Traverse City, Michigan, in January 1989. I still have the car; it’s my certified antique.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @MomSense: I’m still working on building up my campaign’s analog team.

    I’m hoping the new comment system here allows us to send individual comments to Twitter and Facebook. I figure it’s the most cost effective way to get my name “out there.”

  35. 35.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    I’m sure that there’s a message somewhere in the ratio of “hearts” between KJ’s and Time’s tweets (40x).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  37. 37.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I have made jokes that involved my dead mother (I said I have a twisted sense of humor) that were not at her expense but certainly could have been very offensive and hurtful if I was normal. Because of my humor I have a pretty good gauge & I could see this joke as hurtful to friends & relatives of the dead guy no matter if the butt of the joke is SW. This is a joke I would only tell if I was sure of my audience not shout out in public. As others have pointed out Kenny has a mind for fact but may need a little help on social issues. Many of us with that condition have learned to live with it without getting smacked too often.

  38. 38.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    You could always commission an “artist” to paint a creepy picture of you with a bathrobe wearing Jesus and I guarantee that would go viral.

  39. 39.

    Baud

    @MomSense:

    Excellent idea! And since I’m a Democrat, I don’t have to limit it to Jesus. I can have portraits done with all the gods!

    Me and Buddha in the sauna.

    Me and Krishna on the golf course.

    Me and the Trinity playing poker.

    I like it.

  40. 40.

    WereBear

    @Another Holocene Human: The innards were lovingly maintained while the outside (and the headliner) look like utter shit.

    From just this sentence my Sherlock Holmes deduced that you live in Florida. (Which I already knew, but I’m totally familiar with the clue.)

  42. 42.

    Mike J

    So who’s upset by the joke? I suppose the guy’s family has the right to be, but they aren’t the ones complaining. Why would I give a shit about anybody else being offended?

  43. 43.

    p.a.

    @Mike E:

    In telecommunication and electronics, baud (/ˈbɔːd/, unit symbol Bd) is the unit for symbol rate or modulation rate in symbols per second. It is the number of distinct symbol changes (signaling events) made to the transmission medium per second in a digitally modulated signal or a line code.
    Baud – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Or a scam online-only political campaign hoping to cash in on federal matching funds.

  46. 46.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    And I’m wide awake at 4:30 PST. But accompanied by aging, sprightly whippet Polly, who is famous for sleeping with house guests at every opportunity.

    We did the tenting of the covers several times in the night. She stands very close and shakes her ears to wake you up, so that you can hold up the comforter for her to go under. After a while she gets hot and emerges to sleep on top of the covers. Repeat.

  48. 48.

    jon

    I made pretty much the same joke on the Book o’Face. The reactions were, in order:

    1. I was waiting for someone to go there. (2 likes)
    and
    2. Jesus, Dad (6 likes, including my own)

    I just said the reviews were quite critical so far. It’s about the movie, not “Haha! Cancer did a funny thing! Fuck that guy!” Kicking up, not down. Disney and Star Wars can take it. Poor guy is still dead even if I’m silently reverent and properly mourn him with a respectful lowering of a light saber.

  49. 49.

    Baud

    @Marc:

    The majority party in Congress gets a complete pass on governing based on the excuse that Obama was not nice enough to them. Why should I deny anyone else the same privilege?

  50. 50.

    bemused

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    I usually call it a night from internet in early evenings so I just read your reply to my Alex Jones comment. I’d definitely stay away from a hair cutter, manicurist or doc, dentist, etc., who is a Michael Savage/Jones/Fox fan. Doesn’t exactly inspire trust in someone who has access to your body parts, lol.

    Two of our in-laws are firm Republicans, rest are Dems, but we all just stay away from politics. It’s just not worth it, they aren’t willing or able to process “liberal” facts and matriarch mom who’s been a life-long Dem since she was a teenager in the Great Depression doesn’t want family time disrupted by politics. She would get annoyed when, otoh, her husband, very staunch Dem, who loved to start talking politics at the drop of a hat with anyone, anywhere, would talk too long. He wasn’t verbally combative. He just mused thoughtfully aloud questioning today’s Republican policies and relate how FDR programs saved their families and communities. The Republican son would sit there and grit his teeth, not say much.

    A few years ago sis-in-law casually said she liked to listen to Michael Savage and thought he was funny. I almost fell off my chair and I reacted in horror. OMG, how can anyone think Savage is funny or something like that. We left that subject pretty quickly and changed to safer topics, didn’t want to upset mom. What also amazed me is that she was absolutely stunned that I was that horrified!

  51. 51.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Schlemazel: Humor that punches down has to be done either delicately — something conservatives never seem to grasp — or done so over the top (think Mel Brooks) that it makes you laugh in spite of yourself. I tend to err on the side of Brooks.

  54. 54.

    Frank

    I’m really surprised at how many Balloon Juice commenters did not know “Who is Ken Jennings?” (Where’s your geek cred?)

    Yes, the tweet was both funny and insensitive as all good snark should be.

    Also, too, way to go “Time”. Let’s make sure as many people as possible are “offended”.

  56. 56.

    OzarkHillbilly

    America’s poorest white town: abandoned by coal, swallowed by drugs

    In the first of a series of dispatches from the US’s poorest communities, we visit Beattyville, Kentucky, blighted by a lack of jobs and addiction to ‘hillbilly heroin’

    From the article:

    Courier, the mining company owner, took a similar line, saying welfare had dragged Beattyville down. “It’s made things worse. It’s disincentivised people from even trying. You can’t create a handout and expect people to pull themselves up. You have to give them the incentive to improve. I feel sadness that they’re being trapped,” he said.

    and

    Wilma Barrett does not have much sympathy for people in Newman’s position, even though she too has come to rely on government assistance.
    “We owned a farm and we dig our own coal out of the hill. I had a heart attack and had to quit work four years ago. That’s when I started coming over [to the food bank],” she said. “I have a milk cow, chickens for eggs. We didn’t need a hog this year as we had some meat left in the freezer from last year.”
    Barrett and her husband pull in about $1,100 a month in welfare payments and food stamps. But she has little time for younger people she regards as unwilling to work. “If you’re not picky about what you do, there’s always something. A job that pays $6 an hour is better than zero. I was raised on a farm with a couple of mules. I have three children and all of them know how to work.”

    Specks of dust and all that…

  57. 57.

    WereBear

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yes, I’m familiar with the song. “A job that pays $1 an hour and kills you slowly is an honorable way to live. Health is a privilege. I’m here, miserable and bitter and my children hate me for the abuse, but I did it my way.”

  59. 59.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    In honor of the balloon-juice commentariat, I think you should insert yourself into the classic dogs playing poker.

    @bystander:

    Good idea especially if Baud!1! wants to reach out to the crossover Republican voter.

  67. 67.

    Peale

    @OzarkHillbilly: obviously the solution is to cut them off so that there is incentive to do more than selling drugs. Cause there’s naturally going to be so many opportunities develop when no one has any money at all.

  69. 69.

    rikyrah

    His slave catching just doesn’t stop.

    ……………

    Carson swipes Sanders at Christian college
    By Jonathan Easley

    Ben Carson took a shot at Bernie Sanders in an address to students at the nation’s largest Christian college on Wednesday, warning against “unscrupulous politicians” offering free college that will add to the national debt and hasten “the destruction of the nation.”

    Just 12 hours after the fourth Republican presidential debate concluded Tuesday night in Milwaukee, Carson told students at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., that a successful democracy depends on “a well-informed and educated populace.”

    “If people are not well informed, they just [listen to] unscrupulous politicians and news media and off the people go in the completely wrong direction, listening to all kinds of propaganda and inculcating that into their way of thinking,” the GOP White House hopeful said.

    http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/259830-carson-swipes-sanders-at-liberty-university

  70. 70.

    catclub

    @PurpleGirl:

    It appears he’s a Mormon… do most of them have a low emotional quotient?

    How would you rate Mitt Romney on emotional quotient? For an animatronic version of a human.

  71. 71.

    rikyrah

    November 12, 2015, 07:59 am
    Trump blasts Wall Street Journal over ‘third-rate’ editorial
    By Jesse Byrnes

    Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump went after The Wall Street Journal Thursday morning over an editorial critical of his comments on a major trade deal.

    “There’s so much misinformation, but you would think that a paper like The Wall Street Journal would call for clarification,” Trump said on “Fox and Friends.”
    “But they don’t do that, they just write. That’s why they’re not a respected paper too much anymore,” Trump added.

    The newspaper said in its editorial that, based on Trump’s comments in the fourth GOP debate Tuesday night about the trade pact, “it wasn’t obvious that he has any idea what’s in it.”

    “I know it intimately, although it is 6,000 pages,” Trump responded on Fox News.

    http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/259911-trump-blasts-wall-street-journal-over-third-rate

  75. 75.

    rikyrah

    ‘Y’all gotta go cause we got pizza.’

    That’s some cold azz shyt right there.

    …………………………………………….

    Garden City’s mayor says residents who wanted to plead with the City Council to save their homes weren’t allowed to speak because officials had a pizza party planned after the meeting.

    Speaking one day after he and other City Council members walked out of session without taking public comment from at least seven former homeowners facing eviction, Randy Walker said the meeting’s main purpose was to swear in new officials.

    Those meetings don’t usually feature public comment — and a party was planned immediately afterward, he said.

    “It’s a happy occasion,” Walker said. “We had food waiting. We had pizza coming out of the oven at 7:45 (p.m.).”

    The explanation was hard to swallow for Nicholis P. Dunsky, whose home was foreclosed because of back taxes. He faces eviction and brought his family to the council meeting.

    “That’s a … (poor) excuse,” he told The News. “We felt like we didn’t matter.”

    The controversy arose because Garden City, like several suburbs, acquired tax-foreclosed homes from Wayne County before they were offered on public auction. The homes were then sold to developers, including JSR Funding of Warren, that plan to flip them for profit.

    http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2015/11/09/foreclosed-homeowners-thwarted-garden-city-council/75493992/

  76. 76.

    Botsplainer

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I once stopped in Beattyville and saw a guy who had a hunchback, was dragging a leg and had 3 nostrils, I shit you not.

    That was the same weekend where we went to a clogging show/squaredance at the nearby state park resort. During intermission, www were walking behind a couple of dancers. A boy and girl, about 16-17. He was nagging her animatedly, and she looked annoyed. Finally she explodes and drawls “For the last time – I WILL NOT SLOW DANCE WITH YOU, RICHARD! You’re my brother – that’s gross.”

    I guess sis was looking pretty good.

  77. 77.

    rikyrah

    College students confront subtler forms of bias: ‘microaggressions’\

    Teresa Watanabe and Jason SongContact Reporters

    USC junior Vanessa Diaz was raised in Dallas. But at a party two years ago, she was asked if she could speak English.

    When Diaz became offended, the other student tried to pass off the question as a joke. But it did not amuse her, any more than the idea of Mexican-themed parties on Greek Row featuring students in sombreros and fake mustaches.

    “Because of the society we live in, it’s not OK to be overtly racist,” Diaz said. “But that doesn’t mean everything is OK.”

    Some call it the new face of racism — not the blatant acts of bias that recently led to the University of Missouri’s campus unrest and resignation of the president and chancellor. Instead, a phenomenon known as “microaggression” — everyday slights and snubs, sometimes unintentional — is drawing widespread attention across college campuses and kicking up a debate about social justice and free speech rights.

    Students are sharing their experiences with microaggression on websites and Facebook pages at Harvard, Oberlin, Brown, Dartmouth, Swarthmore, Columbia, Willamette and other universities.

    In the last eight years, researchers have conducted more than 5,500 studies on the topic documenting how such seemingly minor slights harm student performance, mental health and work productivity, said Derald Wing Sue, a Columbia University psychology professor and leading expert on the topic.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-colleges-microaggressions-20151112-story.html

  78. 78.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: If you can’t tell the difference between what you consider a tasteless joke and holding somebody down and cutting their hair against their will, than you have bigger problems than I can help you with.

  79. 79.

    rikyrah

    This is why we can’t have nice things. There is absolutely no excuse for ANY Democrat, let alone a Black Democrat, to go along with ANYTHING that helps our Robber Barron Governor. So, whatever Madigan does to you Duncan, you brought on yourself. And, you know how much I dislike Michael Madigan.

    …………………………

    State lawmaker who crossed Madigan to help Rauner says Democrats ‘vindictive’

    State Rep. Ken Dunkin, the Chicago Democrat who denied House Speaker Michael Madigan crucial votes against Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in Springfield this week, is defending his decision to break from his party, saying Democrats were being “vindictive” and trying to embarrass the rookie governor.

    Dunkin, a supporter of imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, also said he got something for his non-votes, with Rauner agreeing to turn on the spigot of lucrative tax credits for filmmakers, which have been on hold during the budget impasse.

    The 13-year lawmaker spoke a day after he twice refused to cast votes during Democratic attempts to overrule Rauner on spending for child care and services for the elderly and disabled.

    Those votes stemmed from a monthslong struggle over Rauner’s decision to use executive authority to force the cuts to the programs while the two sides have been locked in a stalemate over a spending plan for state government. Rauner contended for months that the state didn’t have the money to pay.

    Dunkin says that while Democrats were preparing to use their supermajorities to overrule Rauner on the cuts, he was working behind the scenes to strike a deal. By his telling, Rauner agreed to roll back the cuts as long as any override attempts were assured to fail.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-state-lawmaker-who-crossed-madigan-to-help-rauner-says-democrats-vindictive-20151111-story.html

  80. 80.

    NotMax

    Not recommendations, more like notifications of a few unusual offerings on TCM soonish.

    Friday, 8 a.m. – Remember? (1939) – Greer Garson and Robert Taylor take a stab at comedy.

    Sunday, 2:15 a.m. – Abar, The First Black Superman (1977) – Slapdash, disjointed and decidedly low grade zircon dug up from the blaxploitation period.

    Sunday, 8 p.m. – The Strange One (1957) – Ignore the desultory direction and overly strained and angsty turn of some of the other cast. Ben Gazzara (in his first film role) walks away with it in a story of bullying, sadism and barely concealed homoeroticism at a military school.

  81. 81.

    burningambulance

    I was considering a joke about the dead fella myself but couldn’t put it together quite right – basically, the angle was that it was part of Disney’s strategy to avoid spoilers leaking out.

  82. 82.

    rikyrah

    They’ve already paid out FIVE MILLION? Yeah, no wonder they want the video suppressed.

    …………………………………

    The video that might rip Chicago apart — and why you need to see it

    There is a video that could tear Chicago apart.

    It will go viral if released, and the world will see something ugly and frightening on the Southwest Side.

    It comes from a police dashboard camera. City Hall worries that political hell may be on the way. Activists are primed. The politics of race and police use of force are at hand.

    And a court hearing is scheduled for next week on whether it should be released to the public.

    All this is going on just below the surface. All the players know what’s at stake, so I thought you should know about it, too.

    The video, without sound, is said to show Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old African-American reportedly with PCP in his system, holding a small knife. He was shot to death by a white Chicago police officer, Jason Van Dyke, on the night of Oct. 20, 2014, at 41st and Pulaski on the Southwest Side.

    ………………..

    Attorney Jeff Neslund, a former prosecutor, helped quickly secure a $5 million settlement from the city for McDonald’s family. I figure Mayor Rahm Emanuel did not want the video shaping his mayoral-runoff election campaign.

    “It shocks the conscience,” Neslund told me. “The video was disturbing. It was described accurately by one of the witnesses as an execution. He was on the ground, and the police officer kept shooting.”

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-police-shooting-video-kass-met-1111-20151110-column.html

  83. 83.

    b1narys3rf

    I guess darker than dark humor is a victim of today’s SJW/Tumblrina culture, unless it’s delivered via, say, a hot Netflix show. My supposition is this is more about overly committed Star Wars fans whose very souls are riding upon the quality of this new movie than anything else. And I confess I mentally created the same joke, just about word for word, but decided not to “bless” the internet with it, figuring out that someone else would. Voila.

  84. 84.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Your distinction in there even being levels of tastelessness gives permission for continuing tolerance of lesser tastelessnesses.

    Romney himself called it “youthful exuberance.” I appreciate your assuredly genuine solicitousness, but I have no problems in distinguishing tastelessness. I certainly don’t go to the level of okaying some and condemning others. But whatever.

  89. 89.

    rikyrah

    Luvvie weighs in on the University of Missouri protests

    …………………

    About Mizzou, White Supremacy and Freedom Fighting

    Awesomely Luvvie — November 11, 2015

    The state of Missouri has been a racial hotbed in the last year and a half, starting in Ferguson with the killing of Michael Brown Jr., in August 2014.

    The Black students at the University of Missouri have been protesting the mishandling of incidents on campus, and the football team boycotted taking the field until the President resigned. He finally did on Monday (because they cannot risk losing $1 million a week without football) so people celebrated that victory. However, it was short-lived because yesterday, Black students started getting terrorized on campus. An anonymous comment was posted to the network YikYak from someone claiming that he’ll shoot every Black person he sees on sight.

    Mizzou barely flinched at it and took to Twitter to say there are no threats on campus BUT then they today, a boy named Hunter Park was arrested for making threats. If 2+2=4, that one equals 5 because how were there no threats yet someone is now in custody?

    Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s Mountain Dew.

    It is legit crazy out here. Black people are being terrorized in their own country, at a university where they are paying to attend, for daring to ask to be treated like whole humans. Death threats. In 2015. Oppression deja vu is what this is and we’re living in racism Groundhog Day. This is unacceptable.

    http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2015/11/about-mizzou-white-supremacy-freedom-fighting.html

  91. 91.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: Yes, and you are the one inimitable source for defining what is and what is not acceptable humor. Woe is unto me for I will never come close to meeting your standards for acceptable behavior.

    Oh and I don’t give a rat’s ass what Romney called it, bullying is bullying.

  92. 92.

    a different chris

    @Baud: Jesus, seated, smiling Baud standing behind, hand on Jesus’ shoulder, to help guide Him along the proper path. The other ideas are too over-the-top to be truly offensive to the intended audience.

  93. 93.

    Gin & Tonic

    So it appears Lyndon LaRouche has endorsed Martin O’Malley. That should be the beginning of his breakout, right?

  94. 94.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: Not just bullying, but a physical assault.

    I thought the Jenner quip was kind of meh, myself, but I’m sure it was directed at the film and that it never occurred to him that the family would see it. Hardly the same as an assault.

  95. 95.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Oh, and I do know bullying. I was thrown into the dead space behind lockers during high school — at a girls’ school. So please stop with the sanctimony.

  96. 96.

    ThresherK

    I am at a major national coffee chain. At about 10:00am EST the music changed to all-holiday, all the time. (Well for 15 minutes, at least.)

    Let the war on The Holidays begin!

  97. 97.

    sparrow

    @Schlemazel: The joke was funny. The only people that could be offended are the guy’s family. So maybe an argument not to put it on the WWW, but pretty much any other scenario where they aren’t there, it’s fine. If we can’t laugh at death, we are a sad, sad people.

  98. 98.

    benw

    @ThresherK: Locked and loaded!

    Did you keep the name of the coffee chain secret to protect their privacy, or are you just unwilling to admit you’re having DD coffee and two Boston cremes for breakfast, again?

  99. 99.

    catclub

    I hate to write this, but Megan McArdle has a column that is very sensible. (509 comments – I did not try those mangos.)

    At Bloomberg View, saying that the gold standard is stupid goldbuggery, and also saying that inflation should be higher.
    This actually refutes what the GOP candidates were spouting in their last debate.

    search goldbugs-take-center-stage-at-republican-debate for the link.

  104. 104.

    ThresherK

    @catclub: By my reckoning the only holiday mentioned was the Xmas one. And The Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping'” was there, so not a total loss.

    But how to categorize the songs that are all wintery, don’t mention any holiday, and nobody likes to hear after January 1st? “Winter Wonderland”, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”, et al.

  105. 105.

    rikyrah

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I wanna have sympathy….really, I do.
    But, my heart has been hardened by their repeated stupidity in voting against their own best interests.
    Also, They’ve always been there…how come the media is doing stories on them NOW?
    Robert Kennedy told you about these folks in 1968.
    Hmmmmmmmm

  108. 108.

    rikyrah

    Police misconduct complaints by whites more likely to be upheld

    Over the past five years, whites in Chicago were almost seven times more likely to have their police misconduct complaints sustained than African-Americans, even though blacks filed three times more complaints against police officers, according to an analysis based on a new public database.

    The Chicago Police Department’s Internal Bureau of Investigation and the Independent Police Review Authority examined about 17,500 complaints of police misconduct between March 2011 and September 2015 in which the complainants were not anonymous. Of those, 61 percent were filed by African-Americans, 21 percent by whites and 12 percent by Hispanics, according to an analysis by The Chicago Reporter and City Bureau, a Chicago-based newsroom and journalism training lab.

    But of the complaints sustained, only 25 percent were filed by African-Americans, compared to 58 percent by whites and 15 percent by Hispanics. Each group represents about a third of the city’s population.

    “Race matters,” said Craig Futterman, law professor and director of the University of Chicago’s Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project. “It matters in terms of who is most likely to be victimized by police abuse, it matters in terms of who is most likely to be believed when there is a complaint, and it matters within the Police Department in terms of racial bias.”

    The analysis of police complaints is based on the Citizens Police Data Project, a website containing misconduct complaint records for more than 8,500 Chicago police officers. The project is under the umbrella of the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit journalism production company, which released the information on Tuesday. A collaboration with the University of Chicago Law School’s Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, where Futterman works, the project is believed to be the most expansive public database of its kind.

    http://chicagoreporter.com/police-misconduct-complaints-by-whites-more-likely-to-be-upheld/

  111. 111.

    Gin & Tonic

    @benw: you’re having DD coffee and two Boston cremes for breakfast

    You make it sound like there’s something wrong with that.

  113. 113.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @ThresherK: A couple years ago at the Y, people complained that religious Christmas carols were being used as background music in exercise classes. Last year, people complained that all the music was secular, not Christian. Victims gotta be victims.

  114. 114.

    PurpleGirl

    @catclub: Mitt Romnay and his wife both have low emotional quotients. In evidence her Ann, her comment about having to sell stock to cover living expenses when in grad school. Almost anything he said showed that he doesn’t understand human emotions. I like your allusion to animatronic existence.

  115. 115.

    catclub

    @WereBear:

    I’m here, miserable and bitter and my children hate me for the abuse, but I did it my way.

    Least popular verse of Sinatra classic.

  116. 116.

    catclub

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Last year, people complained that all the music was secular, not Christian.

    I remember reading about one of those Christian camps/clinics to cure the gay. They did not allow secular music – like Bach. Only the recent Christian pap.

    Bach not Christian. wow.

  117. 117.

    Emma

    The Internet allows us to believe that we don’t need standards of polite behavior. It also allows us to forget that our nearest and dearest are not the only ones listening.

  120. 120.

    Peale

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’m not certain what exactly can be done about Eastern Kentucky. As the article notes, their primary industry isn’t competitive nationally, let alone internationally. There’s not much that can be done to restore coal if it costs $60 per ton to extract in KY, but only $12 in Wyoming. It’s not like that industry should be subsidized. There isn’t a coal shortage and never has been. It’s also strange that the other industry – prison outsourcing – still can’t be price competitive with Michigan. I’m curious to find out how, when Kentucky wages are so low, that Michigan was able to undercut Kentucky for Vermont’s prisoners. I wonder what kind of tax incentives Michigan is giving to support its prison industry. Is that considered a strategic investment in the future for Michigan?

  122. 122.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @debbie:

    It depends on who you think the target of the joke is. I think the target is the Disney/JJ Abrams movie itself since the joke is saying that it’s the movie that killed the guy.

    It’s not the best joke ever, and the twist that someone above put on it implying that Disney killed the guy to avoid spoilers getting out might be a little more pointed at the actual target, but I think it’s a joke about the movie being so bad it can kill people, not about the guy’s death.

  123. 123.

    Keith G

    @WereBear:

    I mean, yeah, it’s funny. I have a geeky side. But totally inappropriate and rude. So there’s that.

    A huge slice of humor comes from that which is rude and majorly inappropriate. But to be good, it has to have some crafty construction to it. This joke did.

    I listen to comedy as much as I can and attend live performances as much as my budget will allow. Jennings constructed about as good a once sentence joke as I have encountered in a long time. I hope he has not apologized.

Comments are closed.