• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Mobile Menu

  • Four Directions Montana
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2024 Elections
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / 2015 / December / Archives for 23rd

Archives for December 23, 2015

My neighbor Cinderella

by Tim F|  December 23, 201510:00 pm| 82 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Popular Culture

Tonight my extended family had a big solstice/holiday-themed gathering, and as part of the official airing of grievances I made my annual complaint that you still cannot find an inflatable lawn Totoro anywhere in the US*. Totoro is the big guy on the left.

totoro

My brother in law missed the reference, so I explained My Neighbor Totoro as a sort of Japanese Snow White, Toy Story or Frozen : one of those children’s classics that more or less every kid in Japan has seen or recognizes immediately. To illustrate the point his daughter has not yet seen Frozen (I am witholding names to make sure no one calls youth services) but she can sing that song like a pro. You know, the song you can hear in your head right now even though you don’t own a TV and have not watched a movie since Taxi Driver. The conversation turned to what qualifies as a stone cold childrens’ classic outside the US. I guess that in many places the answer is Snow White, Toy Story and Frozen. Still, I know we miss out on quite a lot. You have thriving film industries in India, China, Hong Kong, many countries in Europe and of course Japan. From Russia, shows like Nu, pogodi! and Crocodile Gena would probably count.

Did you grow up outside the US or spend time abroad? When you imagine a great kids’ classic, what comes to mind? I think it would be a fun project to make a collection of films that small kids rewatch until the DVD wears out in the non-English speaking world.

***

(*) Also, I have a new grievance this year: it should be much easier to find a toddler shirt that says ‘La di da di we like to potty’.

My neighbor CinderellaPost + Comments (82)

Roberts, Race and Physics

by Tom Levenson|  December 23, 20157:42 pm| 71 Comments

This post is in: Activist Judges!, Open Threads, Post-racial America, Science & Technology

I’ve been stewing for a couple of weeks about what was said by Fat Tony and Chief Justice Roberts during oral arguments on Fisher v. University of Texas, the latest attack on affirmative action.

Scalia’s hankering after the good old jurisprudence of Plessey v. Ferguson receive much notice, but I was (perhaps unsurprisingly, given my day job) at least as troubled by Roberts’ musing on the importance of diversity to a physics classroom.

Much of Roberts’ train of thought was no doubt shaped by prior jurisprudence on the criteria by which preferences could be accepted, but his specific choice of the physics classroom as a presumed space in which diversity would not show a particular benefit to the assembled students seemed to me to reflect a common and pernicious mistake, and error about both the practice of science and the ways diversity actually produces its effects.

So I wrote about it — and The Atlantic put it up on their site today.  Here’s a taste:

Roberts’s question about the “benefits” minorities might bring into a physics classroom suggests a classroom in which nothing outside physics may usefully impinge. That is, at best, a fatally narrow view. Roberts is thinking only about the answers, not the process of arriving at them. Actually doing science involves everything about the person doing the work—as, for example, the way Einstein turned his anger and pity for his father, a casualty of the rat race, into the goad that led him to so much of modern physics.

The piece turns on two stories: that told by Einstein in what he called “Notes for an Autobiography” and another, by the physicist Kaća Bradonjić, whose history I learned last week at a Story Collider performance.  She talked about childhood, war, exile and general relativity — and it was both wonderful, and the crystallizing narrative that captured, for me, the difference between thinking about physics (any inquiry) as a body of results, and physics (any inquiry) as it’s being done, contingent in time, space, and the individual minds and lives of the people doing it.

Wright_of_Derby,_The_Orrery

Anyway — y’all might enjoy, and if you’re interested, now you know where to go.

Image: Joseph Wright of Derby, The Orrery, c. 1766

Roberts, Race and PhysicsPost + Comments (71)

This is How You Defeat the Islamic State and Other Islamic Extremists!

by Adam L Silverman|  December 23, 20156:00 pm| 48 Comments

This post is in: Silverman on Security, War, THIS WAS AWESOME

Yesterday Thanos at Little Green Footballs highlighted (highlit?) this CNN report about an attempted al Shabaab attack in Kenya. On Monday al Shabaab fighters stopped a bus who’s police escort had broken down, stormed onto it, and demanded that the Muslim passengers get off the bus so that they could easily identify and target the Christian passengers left on board. Things did not exactly go as planned. The Muslim passengers refused to follow al Shabaab’s instructions, the Muslim women gave some of their hijabs to the Christian women, hid the other Christian passengers, and the Muslim passengers told al Shabaab that: “If you want to kill us, then kill us. There are no Christians here”. While there were still two men killed in the attack – one Christian passenger that tried to flee and the driver of a truck that was on the road behind the bus – the al Shabaab attackers left and the other 100 or so passengers and the driver survived. Kenya’s security forces were reportedly in pursuit of the attackers.

The quick thinking, courage, humanity, and generosity of spirit of the Kenyan Muslims on that bus defeated al Shabaab’s attackers and their attempt to impose an extremist interpretation of Islam by violence. The actions of the Kenyan Muslims on that bus in safeguarding their Christian fellow citizens are a shining example of what needs to be done to defeat not just Islamic extremism, but the backlash rhetoric, politics, and extremism that it engenders. Al Shabaab, al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other similar groups can only achieve their objectives/ends (win) if they scare everyone regardless of religion or nationality into providing the ways and means that they do NOT actually possess. On Monday al Shabaab was denied those ways and means and lost! This is how they, al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and other extremist groups regardless of doctrine, ideology, or nationality will be defeated: by the basic humanity and courage of the very people they seek to set against each other.

This is How You Defeat the Islamic State and Other Islamic Extremists!Post + Comments (48)

Open Thread: Big Hairy Audacious FAIL

by Anne Laurie|  December 23, 20155:30 pm| 45 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Assholes, Schadenfreude

Ed Kilgore, at NYMag, this morning: “Straw Poll of Wall Street Political Mavens Could Be Jeb Bush’s Last Victory”…

In what is likely one of the final national presidential polls of 2015, from CNN/ORC, Jeb Bush comes in at 3 percent, a fairly typical result for him in recent weeks. A year ago, a survey from the same pollster put Jeb at 23 percent…

So in that context, it’s interesting to see Bush actually win a who’s-going-to-win straw poll among readers of Politico‘s Morning Money “tip sheet” (Political intelligence on the intersection of Washington and Wall Street). These presumably shrewd observers either know something the rest of us don’t and can’t perceive, or they are projecting their threatened faith in Establishment Republicanism onto the GOP electorate despite all the available evidence…

Russ Choma, at Mother Jones, adds insult to injury:

… Last winter, months before Jeb Bush announced he was running for president, a Miami intellectual property attorney filed a trademark request for the word “Jeb!” on behalf of a mysterious Delaware corporation called BHAG LLC. As we discovered this summer, BHAG was an acronym for Big Hairy Audacious Goal. This phrase came from one of Bush’s favorite business management books, and when he was governor he used this term to motivate his underlings. It wasn’t until Bush, as a declared candidate, filed his financial disclosure form in July that the world learned he directly owned BHAG.

One of BHAG’s few activities was to trademark “Jeb!” As is par for the course, the US Patent and Trademark Office accepted the submission and requested additional information before it would grant the trademark. But according to that office, on November 9 Bush’s application was officially abandoned. Technically, Bush has until January 9 to restart the process, but for now the name is not trademarked and open for anyone else to try to grab….

Bush’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment…

As Peggy Noonan might say, let us savor.
***********
Apart from well-earned schadenfreude, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Open Thread: Big Hairy Audacious FAILPost + Comments (45)

Holiday Greetings Part Two

by John Cole|  December 23, 20155:23 pm| 84 Comments

This post is in: OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUDS

hohofuckyou

In addition to what Betty said, I think what pisses me off the most about this whole war on Christmas thing is that I dunno if this is already incorporated into atheist already, but I am a LAZY atheist. What I mean by that is I don’t think about God. Because I don’t think he/she/it exists. Unlike Dawkins and others, I also don’t think it’s my fucking job to prove to believers that God doesn’t exist. I just am happy not dealing with the whole damned mess.

Which explains why I get so pissed off when the Talibangelicals and jeebus freaks drag me into their bullshit when they start trying to run the country in accordance to their religious beliefs, or start bashing on gay people or telling women what to do with their bodies or trashing whomever they have chosen to be the target for their special brand of love this week. So when they drag me into this whole Happy Holidays/ Merry Christmas bullshit, they’re demanding that I fucking do something one way or another, and it pisses me off. For me, “season greetings/happy holiday/happy hannukah/merry christmas” is fundamentally no different than “hola/have a nice day/take it easy” or some other standard greeting. It’s just a meaningless pleasantry we’ve become accustomed to saying. So when someone demands I say Merry Christmas it’s as stupid as someone demanding I say “Have a nice day” instead of “take care.”

It’s just stupidity and a pain in my ass. It’s just wingnuts finding some other way to put us at each other’s throats, and in addition to that, it’s someone I don’t know or care about forcing me to have to think or do something about something I don’t want to think or do anything about.

I just want to be left the alone. I’m a conscientious objector in the War on Christmas.

Holiday Greetings Part TwoPost + Comments (84)

The War on Happy Holidays

by Betty Cracker|  December 23, 20153:48 pm| 121 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Assholes

Several of you have mentioned being bullied into saying “Merry Christmas” to people instead of “Happy Holidays.” Fox News is behind it, of course. The Fox News audience is so sloshed on eggnog spiked with spite and self-pity that they’ve deputized themselves as a national holiday language police squad. The irony is that the effect is so un-Christian it would make Baby Jeebus sit up in his manger and spray all three wise men with projectile vomit.

I’ve experienced this phenomenon myself this season, albeit in mild form. There’s a local grocery chain that I just adore, but I did some work for them years ago at their corporate headquarters, and they are an exceptionally conservative, Jesusy outfit (or were at the time). This year, I suspect the word has gone out to their staff that they are under no circumstances to wish customers “Happy Holidays” but instead an emphatic “Merry Christmas.” Or maybe some staff at my local branch are just freelance language policing — I honestly don’t know — but it’s noticeably different this year.

Anyhoo, most staff are perfunctory about it. But I can tell when the “Merry Christmas” is truly meant as a cultural marker rather than a sincere expression of holiday cheer. How? I’m not sure I can describe it, but there’s a malicious gleam of anticipation in the speakers’ eyes as they mouth the words, as if they are just salivating to catch you out as a fellow Christian who will respond with your own triumphant “Merry Christmas!” or as a hell-bound heathen Happy Holidayist at whom they can sneer.

At first, I wondered if I was just being paranoid about this. But an encounter at the checkout line yesterday convinced me it really is a plot. I usually just say “you too!” in response to “Merry Christmas,” but this time, I said “Merry Christmas” back. The cashier leaned in and whispered mock-confidentially, “At least it’s not illegal for us to say that. Yet!”

I wanted to rump-pah-pah-punch him in the junk. But I settled for rolling my eyes instead.

Please feel free to share your Happy Holidays persecution stories here or discuss whatever — open thread!

PS: In a no-doubt futile bid to keep this thread from spiraling into a spoiler-filled Star Wars discussion, I will once again offer a link to a hidden Star Wars thread. It requires desktop mode if you’re on a mobile device, but all you have to do is click the image below to be transported to a galaxy far, far away where you can discuss the movie (or argue about the idiocy of fellow viewers’ opinions) without ruining it for those who haven’t seen it yet.

Force Awakens Hidden Thread

The War on Happy HolidaysPost + Comments (121)

Happy Festivus

by John Cole|  December 23, 201512:15 pm| 183 Comments

This post is in: Get off my grass you damned kids

festivus

Let the airing of grievances commence.

Happy FestivusPost + Comments (183)

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Recent Comments

  • emjayay on Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Fading Neom Dreams (Apr 17, 2024 @ 3:08pm)
  • WaterGirl on Arizona In The Crosshairs (Apr 17, 2024 @ 3:07pm)
  • WaterGirl on Arizona In The Crosshairs (Apr 17, 2024 @ 3:07pm)
  • lowtechcyclist on Arizona In The Crosshairs (Apr 17, 2024 @ 3:06pm)
  • Baud on Arizona In The Crosshairs (Apr 17, 2024 @ 3:06pm)

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Balloon Juice Meetups!

All Meetups
Talk of Meetups – Meetup Planning
Proposed BJ meetups list from frosty

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8
Virginia House Races
Four Directions – Montana
Worker Power AZ
Four Directions – Arizona
Four Directions – Nevada

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
Positive Climate News
War in Ukraine
Cole’s “Stories from the Road”
Classified Documents Primer

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Political Action 2024

Postcard Writing Information

Balloon Juice for Four Directions AZ

Donate

Balloon Juice for Four Directions NV

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2024 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc