Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

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

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

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

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Republicans in disarray!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Steelers vs Broncos Open Thread

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108Comments

  3. 3.

    Corner Stone

    Hmmm, a dump off, a hand off and then a 5 yard hot out check down. Let’s see when Ben throws anything over 12 yards next, for a completion.

  4. 4.

    p.a.

    Talib wasn’t playing the ball on that endzone pass. But St Peyton’s team can’t be allowed to fail.

  6. 6.

    Big R

    Open thread, so I’ll whine about how I feel like poo. I picked up a sinus infection when I went to the doctor’s office to get treated for bursitis. Note to the University: sending your mid-thirties graduate students to the Student Health Center as their PCP means that said grad students are exposed to SICK UNDERGRADUATES. Public health management, how does it work?

    Okay, whinery done. Go sportsball!

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    Not a fan of either team. I don’t really care who wins, though it would make Cole and my neighbor happy if Pittsburgh prevails.

  8. 8.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    Is this the thread where I come to bitch and whine about how much I hate American football?

  11. 11.

    Corner Stone

    @Big R:

    Note to the University: sending your mid-thirties graduate students to the Student Health Center as their PCP means that said grad students are exposed to SICK UNDERGRADUATES.

    If you went to my PCP you’d be exposed to SICK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL KIDS.

  12. 12.

    scav

    @raven: I was wondering about that. A) Funny how colleges have undergraduates and, moreover, that graduate students only wander across them, especially side ones, in health services; and B) heavens knows that mid-thirties people are utterly protected from ailing hoi-defined-by-age elsewhere where 30-year-olds are properly cherished.

    ETA: Moreover, are the graduate germs one would encounter in a graduate-only PHP so much classier than the grubby undergraduate ones?

  15. 15.

    Corner Stone

    I guess you don’t have to actually throw the ball more than 5 yards when you’ve got a complementary running game going like that.

  16. 16.

    raven

    @scav: I asked them if they were going to check the chlorine in the outdoor pool we just jumped in! (They didn’t, may 55 degrees killed everything. It damn near killed me!)

  17. 17.

    scav

    @raven: It’s 4º outside. Me and my Amtrak germs are not getting near any exterior water — better man than I Gunga Din.

  24. 24.

    p.a.

    @raven: I was on an informational picket line at noon-1pm today; 35°f, 5mph, and I was coooold. Used to work outside, but that was 15+ years ago. I’m soft.

  27. 27.

    redshirt

    Rooting for the Steelers so New England stays at home next week.

    Might regret it though cause I think Denver is a paper tiger with Manning as QB. But NE never plays well in Denver. So… go Steelers! (PUKE!)

  30. 30.

    JCJ

    Watching Iowa – Michigan on the Big Ten Network – lots of ads for the Klown Kar Kavalcade . I feel bad for Iowa Old Lady and others who have to see this stuff every time they turn on the TV. Jeb? and Marco have particularly weak ads.

  31. 31.

    Svensker

    @redshirt:

    Might regret it though cause I think Denver is a paper tiger with Manning as QB. But NE never plays well in Denver. So… go Steelers! (PUKE!)

    In that case, go Broncs!

  38. 38.

    PurpleGirl

    @Betty Cracker: Downton Abby. Even though I could watch the Dem debate and then catch Downton Abby another day (having access to WLIW-PBS besides WNET) I don’t like debates.

  39. 39.

    David *Rafael* Koch

    They’re going have to put Osweiler in. I realize the receivers have dropped some catches, but Manning is throwing too quickly to compensate for the lack of velocity and screwing up the receiver’s timing.

  42. 42.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @JCJ: We record everything and skip ads when we watch, so they are not usually a problem. The maddening thing about them is what they assume about you, the viewer. I refuse to be the person they’re talking to.

  43. 43.

    Germy

    Poor Thomas thought he could go on a job interview and find another butler job easily. Instead he gets the third degree: “Are you married? Why not?”
    Holy shit, I hope he finds a job in a clock shop somewhere. He could fix clocks, sell them, and finally enjoy life…

  44. 44.

    JCJ

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    They really are bad. My wife really liked the Bernie Sanders ad that was on a little while ago. There has just an ad for Hillary that I liked as it showed clips of Trump, Cruz, Christie, Jeb? and some other one showing how awful they all are.

  46. 46.

    Mike J

    @Germy: Jules et Jim is on tonight. Only Truffaut I’ve only seen once which was right after breaking up with my girlfriend and “best” friend.

  47. 47.

    raven

    @Mike J: I’m Mad, The Animals

    Took him home with me, let him in my house
    Let him drive my Cadillac that I could not afford
    When I found out he’d been messin’ ’round with my baby
    You know I’m mad like Al Capone
    I said I’m mad like Sonny Liston, yeah

  49. 49.

    max

    Rooting for the Steelers because sick of hearing about fucking Payton Manning.

    max
    [‘Not that I’m expecting them to win.’]

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Luthe: When I get a chance to put one up. They cut one road and pulled down the cameras to watch the birds on the live internet streams because they were convinced that while they were asleep the FBI snuck some ninja’s in and put them up. Not very aware of there surroundings are they.

  57. 57.

    Big R

    Fair comments for my whine, so I’ll expand my complaint (since I’m feeling a little better, and recognize that I shoulda got the pushback I got):

    Basically, if you are a funded GA, at this uni you are required to use the student health insurance, which treats the student health service as your PCP. The part of this that is utter nonsense is that the university is forbidden from PROVIDING you with student health insurance. So you HAVE to buy the crappy uber-narrow network that requires you to go through SHC for everything.

    The much simpler, and much more equitable method of providing health insurance to GAs would be to treat them as employees. But if you treat them as employees, then they might do things like organize, and then the administration would have to – horror of horrors! – collectively bargain with them.

    As far as my age goes, frankly I’m just starting to get to the age where my body is starting to fall apart. It’s a new sensation, and combined with the poo-feeling of being sick (honestly, a sinus infection turns me into a giant baby), I’m feeling pretty sorry for myself. Luckily, the Juicitariat fixed me of that toot sweet.

  60. 60.

    Big R

    @raven: It doesn’t help that I’m pretty openly contemptuous of my students. I know I need to work on that, and I am, slowly but surely. But when I have to mingle with the undergraduate population, I grind my teeth.

    ETA: No, I’m not openly contemptuous of them TO THEM. In class, and in conversation, I at least try to be pleasant and professional. I’m not That Professor – at least not on purpose. My evaluations suggest that some of them at least saw through the ruse.

  61. 61.

    p.a.

    @Anoniminous: Great position in 1st half too! All fg’s.

    This game will turn on some stupid ref call. Letting them play all game, then one will stick his nose in.

  63. 63.

    David *Rafael* Koch

    Patriots can start booking their hotel rooms in Santa Clara.

    No way these two can stop them; not the way they’re playing.

    And as I type, Mile High Stadium is booing manning.

  64. 64.

    raven

    @Big R: Do you read Gin and Tacos?

    Ed is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Midwestern Liberal Arts University after receiving his Ph.D. in political science from Giant Midwestern Public University and teaching for three years at Giant Southern Public University. He teaches Intro to American Government, Public Opinion, Elections, and The Presidency to a select group of very lucky boys and girls each semester. His academic research studies the spatial and geographic context of political behavior – partisanship, turnout, and public opinion.

  70. 70.

    David *Rafael* Koch

    @p.a.: historically that has been true, but watching Manning’s noodle arm reduce their offense to one dimension doesn’t inspire confidence.

  75. 75.

    Big R

    @raven: My uni has a similar system to the one he describes. I have been uniformly told, “Just let the chips fall where they may; cheating students invariably bust themselves when they don’t actually know the material.”

    In other words, we have faith in the system, so long as the system is “us.”

  79. 79.

    raven

    @Big R: I was a language requirement away from and undergrad in it many moons ago. I was under the care of Vocational Rehab and my counselor said “what the hell are you going to do with that”? I got out.

  80. 80.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Big R: What subject do you teach? Can you try and get a research assistantship or a fellowship instead?

    I had and E & M prof who was contemptuous of his students. Since there were 5 students in the class that contempt was pretty had to hide.

  81. 81.

    Big R

    @schrodinger’s cat: In this department, fellowships are reserved for first-year students – and having your own classroom is the highest status you can have as a GA. I have been promised a 300-level class next fall, which, in addition to being better (read “more motivated and interested”) students, will be more related to my interests. Right now I teach Intro to American, which at least has the benefit of being something I know a little bit about; but having sixty mostly-freshmen who mostly just want to get through with a minimum of work makes me tear out my already-receding hair.

  82. 82.

    Big R

    @raven: An B.A. in political science really qualifies you for one thing: further education.

    Okay, two things: further education, and being someone’s assistant. But I repeat myself.

  85. 85.

    ? Martin

    @Big R: None of my faculty are successful in that ruse. The problem is that you can’t hide it from your colleagues and the staff, and if nothing else they will give you up in subtle, unintended ways. Sometimes they will give you up in obvious, deliberate ways.

  87. 87.

    Felonius Monk

    @Big R: @schrodinger’s cat: You both might enjoy this from a Math Prof at Vanderbilt (be sure you click the link):

    I often hear complains that I don’t encourage my students enough. I am told that students work very hard and need to feel good about themselves. And I make them feel good very rarely. So I decided to make a special “feel good about yourself” page for my students. Click and hear (perhaps the first time) words of encouragement coming from your Professor

  90. 90.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Felonius Monk: Prof. K would tell us to our face if we asked a question that is was stupid. He hated teaching would barely even look at us while teaching. This was graduate level electromagnetic theory from Jackson and we were all grad students in physics.

  91. 91.

    ? Martin

    @Big R: The biggest problem I have (I’m the guy that does the scrutiny) is in courses that are predominantly non-majors or courses where the subject matter is sufficiently disconnected from what the students think they should be learning (which happens a lot with freshmen).

    So you have students that believe this is just busy-work from the outset. More fundamentally, students today don’t buy into this ‘recipe’ approach to education where everyone needs so many credit-hours, regardless of what you already know or don’t know. They are much more outcome-driven than the university system is set up to be, and because universities are not attuned to either being clear about those outcomes, or communicating the connection with those outcomes, students feel like they’re just being run through some stupid exercise so that their tuition dollars can be harvested.

    The question that needs to be answered is ‘specifically, what does a student with a degree in XXX need to know to be considered qualified’. Too often the answer is a variation of ‘120 credit units of stuff’, and nothing more specific. Until that is addressed, this problem is going to get worse and worse.

  92. 92.

    Big R

    @? Martin: Uhhh…can we figure out a way to get together and let me pick your brains? I’ve gotten some good guidance from other sources as well, but I’ll take help wherever I can find it.

    I promise, I really do try to take the teaching seriously; it’s just hard to give a rip when the students don’t communicate.

  93. 93.

    Felonius Monk

    @schrodinger’s cat: I never had anybody that bad. I did have a few, mainly as an undergrad, that made it clear they didn’t want to be there, but not to the point where they’d belittle a student. But there were some characters.

  94. 94.

    Satby

    @raven: it’s been in the single digits all day here, and snowing; but the girls decided to go build a snowman and then smash it while singing “Let it go” at about 5pm. Which they did in 10 minute spurts because they had to come in and warm up their hands and face. But there’s some sort of epic snapshot story out there now about it.

  96. 96.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Big R: Try to make it more interactive, perhaps get your students to participate more? Convey your joy for the subject matter you are teaching.

    I have some idea of what you are saying. As a grad student, I have taught Intro Physics to engineers and majors and to pre-med students. Teaching pre-med students was much harder, because they didn’t care about the subject but wanted an A nevertheless.

  97. 97.

    ? Martin

    @Big R: Unfortunately, my diagnosis is one that is probably largely our of your control. That is, the student’s expectation is likely a course with minimal hassle and where learning is not a priority (over maintaining GPA, etc.) and your only real direct recourse is to deliver that to them – as much of a fluff course as you can tolerate.

    The larger problem is widely organizational, and you’re not going to have the clout to push that along.

    The intermediate solution for you is to see if you can teach at least the occasional upper-division elective for majors where you’ll have a group of students that chose to be there, are studying a subject that they are genuinely interested in. Just having a course like that in your rotation to look forward to can help a lot. And of course, having a course in a topic that you are interested in as well helps.

    Some of my faculty will teach those courses as overloads (more commonly they teach the grad course as overload) simply because they know how much they help their overall teaching.

    My encouragement is that you’re in a more common situation than you may realize. This is widespread and my guess is that you’re going to need to thread a needle between what the administrations expectations are, what the students expectations are, and what you can actually deliver on. You may want to see if there are colleagues that can help manage the administration expectations. I do a lot of that for other units – working with some gang-ho new person to the job that is going to solve all of the problems in higher education starting with these here junior instructors. Helping them to realize that the instructors are in just as difficult of a situation as the students is always the starting point.

  98. 98.

    Corner Stone

    @Big R: I am paying to be there and you could not give a damn less than to have contempt for me for being enrolled in your “class”? Move on before I pants you.

  99. 99.

    PurpleGirl

    @Satby: Sounds like they had a good time and enjoyed the afternoon. You are providing them with experiences they will always remember and never would have had otherwise.

  100. 100.

    Big R

    @Corner Stone: A) When you actually pay to be there, then you get to make that argument (and given the nature and pattern of financial aid at this institution, you ain’t payin’). B) If you’re paying to be here, and you’re not, then you know, act like you’ve made an investment worth having. Because when you say to me, “I’m paying your salary,” my response is, “Then make me fucking earn it.” Because if you don’t care, and you are (by your very words), paying for it, then why should I? My paycheck is the same either way.

    Hot takery, right here, folks. Get your hot takery.

  101. 101.

    goblue72

    @p.a.: Pats are not losing that game. Manning is so beatable that I expect that Pats to use “ManningFace” as one of their audibles.

  102. 102.

    Corner Stone

    @Big R:

    A) When you actually pay to be there, then you get to make that argument (and given the nature and pattern of financial aid at this institution, you ain’t payin’). B) If you’re paying to be here, and you’re not, then you know, act like you’ve made an investment worth having. Because when you say to me, “I’m paying your salary,” my response is, “Then make me fucking earn it.” Because if you don’t care, and you are (by your very words), paying for it, then why should I? My paycheck is the same either way.

    Good Sweet Christ. Someone, somewhere actually hired you to teach courses?
    And no, assface. I am not a student in your current institution. Why would I have to remind a professional that s/he is being paid to do their job? Make me fucking earn it?
    God damn, son. Find some nearby convenience store or greeter job. You have no business being anywhere near a facility of education.

  103. 103.

    goblue72

    @Luthe: Putting up another Oregon post will just prove that the FP posters on this blog were completely wrong – the “sober” and “realistic” reformed Republican centrists, like the blog host – while proving that the “wild-eyed hippies” calling for those militia guys heads were right.

    Every day those assholes sit there is another day that Black America gets spit in its face. There is no eleventy-dimensional chess going on with the Feds. There is no grand scheme or master strategy.

    There is just as it always has been – one law for whites, one law for blacks. These these armed criminals sit there eating their Funions, driving around in stolen Federal vehicles and stealing Federal employees Social Security numbers – instead of being either behind bars or dead – is just proof of that.

  105. 105.

    Corner Stone

    @goblue72: How so? Big R is spitting in the face of every student that comes through the doors of his/her institution. How is this on me that Big R is a fucking douche canoe?

  106. 106.

    goblue72

    @Corner Stone: I don’t see Big R “spitting in the face of every student”. I see someone venting about the frustrations in dealing with today’s average college student body – something Ed over at Gin & Tacos does on nearly a daily basis.

    I do see you flying off at the handle, though.

  107. 107.

    Corner Stone

    @goblue72: Ok. So someone who tells their student to “make them earn their salary” is just fine with you as far as a mentality.
    Ok, troll.
    Everyone, sorry for feeding this troll. I will not feed this fucking trollie troll troll any further.

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