Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

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

Come on, man.

The willow is too close to the house.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

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

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

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

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

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

We still have time to mess this up!

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

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

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Friday Afternoon Open Thread

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From the SQUEEE File, a policeman in Australia took in an orphaned joey:

Via Buzzfeed:

Constable Scott Mason adopted the 4-month-old kangaroo after it was rescued from its mother’s pouch and brought into the station on Wednesday. After a short social media poll, the animal was named Cujoe.

OMG, he’s so damn cute! (The kangaroo ain’t bad either.) Open thread!

Reader Interactions

198Comments

  4. 4.

    J.

    Thank you. Ever since Cuteoverload shut down, I’ve been bereft of cute. (I wish I had a pouch I could go hide in.)

  12. 12.

    Mnemosyne

    @geg6:

    Yeah, the keepers are pretty upset because she was their old lady (relatively speaking). But, as the zoo director said, it’s one of the hazards of having a zoo in the same area as a large park with natural predators in it.

  13. 13.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @Mnemosyne: A zoo must look like an all-you-can-eat-buffet to carnivores.

    The local zoo has two cheetahs and when they were relatively new, there were rabbits in their enclosure. The cheetahs did what cheetahs do, much to the horror of on-lookers. They prefer their nature sterilized and G-rated.

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’ve never been ice-fishing, and the only ice skating i’ve done (attempted) was on an indoor rink, but I’m told you hear the cracks before you see them

    Adam Jentleson ‏@ AJentleson Mar 10
    Blunt breaks with McConnell again: “I certainly wouldn’t mind voting on the nominee that the President has”

    It’ll be fun to watch old man McCain, who’s probably watching that Ann Kirkpatrick commercial obsessively, late at night with only a glass of ice and a bottle of vodka for company, with some NSFW commentary. Things are gonna get broken in Sedona.

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    @Germy Shoemangler: Lord, that is one persistent bird. I’ve heard they’re fairly ill-tempered too, so I don’t blame the cyclists for speeding onward! I’ve been chased by geese, and that was scary enough!

  19. 19.

    NotMax

    Little known that the teats in the pouch can produce two kinds of milk, the type delivered dependent on the age of the offspring suckling at any given moment.

    “Regular or hi-test?”

  23. 23.

    Mnemosyne

    @efgoldman:

    ef, I’m bringing my comment up from the previous thread just for you:

    I’ve been doing research for my historical novel and it turns out that French refugees fleeing the Terror who went to the US would almost certainly have ended up in Philadelphia. And you know who else was living in Philadelphia at the same time … ?

    …

    That’s right, Hitler. I was surprised, too, but you can’t argue with history.

  27. 27.

    MattF

    @Ben Cisco: There sure seems to be a lot of something going around. There’s a guy I need to talk to at work but he’s been missing– and the other day, a co-worker mentioned “Oh, yeah, Jeff’s got pneumonia.”

  28. 28.

    gvg

    @srv: wanting to pay some of their own costs isn’t the same as demanding they pay us tribute. they just have to buy or build some more of their own equipment, not nessesarily buy it from us.

  31. 31.

    debbie

    @Amir Khalid:

    I saw ELP in Boston in the early 1970s. They were so much better than Yes, which for some reason got all the attention. It was also the first laser light show I’d seen. Not much compared to today’s shows, of course, but pretty amazing back then.

  33. 33.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @Mnemosyne: They were wild – the enclosure hadn’t been used in quite some time, so they’d populated it. If I remember right, they went in and relocated the remainder of them after that incident.

  34. 34.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    I watched some of Nancy Reagan’s funeral. I had forgotten how much of a natural Ron Reagan Jr was at glad handling kind of stuff. Wonder if any Dems had ever approached him about running for some kind of elected office if he was even interested.

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    Italics fail in #36. Fix:

    EL&P rehearsing an orchestration of Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man on a cold, cold day in Montreal,, 1977.

  37. 37.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ben Cisco:

    As MattF said, this season’s nasty cold has been turning into pneumonia for some people — I think satby said it happened to her. Follow your doctor’s orders and feel better!

  39. 39.

    Mnemosyne

    @TaMara (BHF):

    I’m pretty sure the zookeepers don’t want their charges eating wild animals with who knows what kind of parasites.

    They do a Cheetah Run at the San Diego Wild Animal Park that looks fun — it’s basically a greyhound racetrack, but for cheetahs. Apparently cheetahs are the safest big cat to work with because they were partially domesticated by the ancient Egyptians.

  41. 41.

    Mnemosyne

    @efgoldman:

    There apparently is a Ben Franklin rap that got cut from the show. It may show up on the “Hamilton Mixtape” album coming out next year. But I think LMM knew he would never be able to top Howard da Silva in “1776.”

    “Not everyone is from Boston, John.”

  42. 42.

    trollhattan

    @Mai.naem.mobile:
    I can see the Republican attack ad, now: “Junior! Wrong Reagan; wrong for America! You’re no Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan…JUNIOR.”

  43. 43.

    Felonius Monk

    @Mnemosyne:

    As MattF said, this season’s nasty cold has been turning into pneumonia for some people

    Folks 65 and older should be getting the vaccines: PCV13 and PPSV23. Also, those under 65 with risk factors. (see this)

    Talk with your Doc

    [Disclaimer: I am not a doctor nor did I spend last night at a HolyDay Inn Express.]

  50. 50.

    Amir Khalid

    @humboldtblue:
    To me, it seemed like Hillary was just being polite about someone who recently passed away. But don’t fucking hide your feelings about her. Tell us how you really fucking feel.

  51. 51.

    dr. bloor

    @humboldtblue: Beat me to it. The woman seems to go searching for dog shit to step in.

    As Betty Bowers said on Twitter, “That’s like praising Nero for his low-key advocacy for firefighting in Rome.”

  52. 52.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @humboldtblue: Criticizing her for remarks giving some gentle praise – “in particular Mrs. Reagan” – at a funeral? Really?

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  53. 53.

    humboldtblue

    Fuck being polite, you don’t get to re-write fucking history and then claim it was just to be polite. There’s a quilt out there with a few thousand fucking names on it that started the fucking conversation about HIV/Aids and none of those names are fucking Ron and Nancy Reagan. Clinton completely fucked this up and no amount of “she was being polite at a funeral” is going to change that fact.

    It’s an inexcusable and fucking horrific twisting of history.

  54. 54.

    Peale

    Oh noes. Now we’ll have two weeks of how the gays who support Hillary don’t know how to properly hold grudges. I, for one, am running out of fainting couches.

  55. 55.

    dr. bloor

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: There were any number of things you could gently praise Nancy for, aside from her legendary skills as a blow job artist. Choosing to speak about the Reagans and AIDS was pointless and, quite frankly, provocative to many of the Democrats voting for the other guy in the primary.

  57. 57.

    dr. bloor

    @Peale: My gay brother can’t hold any grudges any more because he died in the nineties, in part due to the pathetic governmental response to the crisis in the eighties.

    Unlike my brother, I am alive and I am far more inclined to hold a grudge in this sort of matter. Go fuck yourself sideways.

  59. 59.

    humboldtblue

    @Chyron HR: Yeah, platitudes, that’s a nice way to divert from the fact that she was factually incorrect. But hey, she was being nice. Fuck you, you simpering fuck, she sat down with her staff and decided she would say those words knowing they were so far from the truth they may as well have come from Trump. No wonder she’s allowed Sanders to remain in the game so long, dipshits like you look the other way while she shits yet again on people who she is asking for support.

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Not going to (nor would) defend the negatives of LBJ, but found it interesting at the time that pictures of him at his ranch in the years after he left office showed him having grown his hair long.

  63. 63.

    Amir Khalid

    @Peale:
    Indeed. Speaking politely of nasty people is a thing one must often do in politics and diplomacy. Calling out people’s faults at every opportunity might gratify, but it can antagonise them at the worst possible time. Hillary’s been a diplomat and she knows this.

    @dr. bloor:
    So you’re going to take it as a personal provocation when Hillary says anything nice-ish about someone you disapprove of? Okay, noted.

  64. 64.

    Chyron HR

    I used to be a Democrat, but ever since 9/11 Hillary started beating Bernie in the primaries I’ve been angry about Chappaquiddick the Reagan administration.

  65. 65.

    Major Major Major Major

    Koop deserves a lot of credit for his AIDS response… Who appointed him again? A lot of the action was behind the scenes.

    Anyway, count me on team Gays Who Don’t Know How To Properly Hold A Grudge. Not like resentments are toxic or anything.

  69. 69.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Amir Khalid:

    RIP Keith Emerson — name partner in the legal firm progressive rock trio Emerson Lake and Palmer.

    This is bad. One of my friends from school considered him a hero and performed with him a number of times after he became a professional musician and producer. He’ll be devastated.
    Better go offer condolences.

  70. 70.

    A Humble Lurker

    @Amir Khalid:

    Indeed. Speaking politely of nasty people is a thing one must often do in politics and diplomacy. Calling out people’s faults at every opportunity might gratify, but it can antagonise them at the worst possible time. Hillary’s been a diplomat and she knows this.

    She could have said any number of harmless things about Nancy Reagan instead of that. That was a mistake, and if she doesn’t at least walk that back she’s gonna be in trouble.

  71. 71.

    Central Planning

    The preview picture of the video makes it look like he’s doing something to the kangaroo.

  72. 72.

    Brachiator

    Has anyone heard of this musical, apparently fairly popular, called, Hamilton?

    I think it is loosely based on some of the American founding fathers. Not sure which ones. They are all fairly obscure.

    I had heard a couple of the tunes, but only recently started listening to the Broadway cast album seriously.

    It is righteously da bomb!

    Right now, I am seriously enjoying the song that introduces General Washington, Right Hand Man.

    HERE COMES THE GENERAL ladies and gentlemen
    HERE COMES THE GENERAL the moment youve been waiting for
    HERE COMES THE GENERAL the pride of mount vernon
    HERE COMES THE GEN- GEORGE WASHING TON

  74. 74.

    Amir Khalid

    @dr. bloor:
    I’m sorry about your brother, and you’re right to be angry at the Reagans about their part in his early death. But I think my point about the needs of politics and diplomacy still stands.

  75. 75.

    dr. bloor

    @Major Major Major Major: Go read some history, Koop was an appointee who threw away his script, much to the chagrin of Ronnie’s administration.

    And “behind the scenes” isn’t shit. Go look at the funding numbers in the eighties, they’re pathetic. If white Republicans had started contracting kaposi sarcoma out of the blue, St. Ronaldus would have created a fucking Manhattan Project in a week to figure out what was happening.

  77. 77.

    satby

    @humboldtblue: She’s referring to Nancy Reagan’s embrace of Rock Hudson as he was slowly dying of AIDS. Up to that point people treated it as if it were the plague, Nancy’s refusal to ostracize her old friend did start a wider conversation on AIDs.
    And it’s a funeral, for an old lady. That’s the only positive tithing I could say about Nancy too, if I had to.

  78. 78.

    PurpleGirl

    @J.: Have you tried watching kitten cams? There are a number of people associated with no-kill cat shelters or who rescue cats/kittens themselves and who have their charges on camera 24-hours a day for periods of time. (Usually until a litter is ready to be adopted and then a few days the cams are down until they have more kittens and moms.)

    Shelly in Canada is working with a feral colony and currently has a couple of pregnant moms in her house. She will have the moms spayed after they have weaned the babies and the babies will also be spayed before being adopted out. Sable had her babies one or two nights ago and over 1,000 people were watching.

    http://livestream.com/tinykittens/savina

  79. 79.

    humboldtblue

    @Amir Khalid: She wasn’t saying nice things about Nancy Reagan’s dead ass, she was crediting that fucking pez dispenser with noble actions she never performed and she didn’t have to go near the fucking subject at all if all she wanted to do was praise that silly old bint.

    She’s a fucking terrible politician and she’s always been a terrible politician and we’re gonna have to support her dumb ass because the options are even worse than they were in 2000, 04, 08 and 12. It’s yet another unforced error from someone who should be far beyond making them, but as long as Nancy Reagan gets some nice words, fuck the people who were actually affected, right?

  81. 81.

    dr. bloor

    @Amir Khalid:

    So you’re going to take it as a personal provocation when Hillary says anything nice-ish about someone you disapprove of? Okay, noted.

    No, I get provoked when Hillary spouts ahistorical nonsense sure to insult others when, as others (and I) have noted, there were any number of other things she could have mentioned.

    You can go fuck yourself too.

  83. 83.

    raven

    @satby:

    Just how “low-key” was Nancy’s advocacy? So low-key that most people would characterize it as not advocacy at all. After the disease’s first cases were identified in 1981, President Reagan waited until 1987, almost at the end of his second term, to speak publicly about the disease. His communications director, Pat Buchanan, described AIDS as “nature’s revenge on gay men.”

    Nancy herself even turned down a request from her old friend Rock Hudson, who was dying of AIDS in 1985, for help in getting a transfer to a hospital with better treatment. She believed the favor would be inappropriate, though the couple reportedly performed many other favors for Hollywood friends.

  84. 84.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @dr. bloor: One could also take Hillary’s comments as a reflection of the times, and conditions reinforced by Reagan and his administration, and a slap at them.

    E.g. “(AIDS and gay people had been so demonized by the Republicans that when ) Nancy (finally) stood up and helped (Ronald realize that maybe actual human beings were needlessly suffering) by talking about it….”

    Buzzfeed:

    Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had released the first medical report about the emerging illness in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report in June 1981, the disease was still seen in 1984 as something that only affected gay men and, to a lesser extent, intravenous drug users.

    Even as the death count grew, discussion of the “gay plague” was taboo in many places — including the White House. It wouldn’t be until 1986 that Surgeon General C. Everett Koop would bring the policy discussion to the national level with his groundbreaking report on AIDS.

    President Reagan did not give his first major public address on the disease until a year later, on May 31, 1987 — well after the number of AIDS deaths in the United States topped 25,000.

    […]

    When President Reagan finally decided that he would not ignore the disease, he gave his first major public address on the issue on May 31, 1987 — at the request of another Hollywood star, and longtime friend of Hudson’s, Elizabeth Taylor.

    The speech was given at a fundraising dinner for the American Foundation for AIDS Research, or AmFAR, that was held at the start of the Third International Conference on AIDS — nearly six years since Gottlieb’s first report on the disease.

    Hillary’s remarks weren’t an attempt to rewrite history. They were an attempt to say something nice at her funeral. Maybe Reagan only finally said something about it in 1987 because Nancy finally spoke up. If so, that’s a good thing (even though it was far, far too late). Maybe it was just Reagan paying more attention to Liz Taylor than others (maybe even including his wife). Who knows.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Of all the things to get mad at her about, some people are going nuclear over remarks at a funeral for a 94 year old woman who was a first lady. It’s disturbing to me.)

  88. 88.

    Peale

    @humboldtblue: You’ll have to point me to the posts where you were honestly considering Clinton as your candidate before I really am ready to join you in your anger at this latest outrage.

    Nancy did have the reputation as being the more concerned voice within that administration that was genuinely silent about AIDs. Much like Laura Bush was supposedly friendly to the idea having gays around even as her husband was running anti-gay marriage amendments on state ballots to help him in his reelection. Both Nancy and Laura are not really counted as effective advocates.

    It probably would have been better for Hillary not to mention anything about AIDS during that time, but had she not done so, we’d be getting the same flip out.

  89. 89.

    satby

    @humboldtblue: By the way, I was at the bedside of one of my friends who died of AIDS back then. So not unaffected myself.
    Like all Republicans, they acted when someone they knew was affected by the problem, just as Nancy advocated for Alzheimer’s after Ronnie died.

  94. 94.

    humboldtblue

    @satby: Nancy Reagan ignored Rock Hudson even up until the point where he collapsed in a Paris hotel in 1985 and Reagan didn’t issue a public statement about the issue until 1987. By that point more than 6,000 people had died of Aids. That’s why Clinton’s words are so goddamn confounding, there was no reason to even address the issue and certainly not with the ahistorical bullshit she said.

  95. 95.

    trollhattan

    @Amir Khalid:

    Dunno, I did a BJ quick topic search and only come up with Hamilton, George. Does this have something to do with currency redesign?

  96. 96.

    satby

    @raven: Ok. I seem to erroneously remembered that she was more helpful and I thought it was actually Rock Hudson coming out that started the bigger conversation anyway.
    And I still think if you are asked to speak at a funeral you have to produce nice thoughts, even if everyone in the church knows some of the sentiments are extremely rosey.

  98. 98.

    humboldtblue

    @Peale: You’re going to have to fuck off, I don’t have to explain any fucking decisions about Clinton to your silly ass. She just made yet another unforced error, shit on people who support her and the party, but you want comment section truthering. Go blow a goat.

  99. 99.

    raven

    @satby: She didn’t make the comments I saw as a speaker at the funeral, she made them as part of an interview on a split screen. I personally think humboldtblue is correct, she could have thought of a million other bullshit things to say.

  101. 101.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    I hope the baby will be healthy. I understand it’s hard to raise orphan kangaroos.
    The name Reagan should never appear in a sentence with HIV or AIDS except to note that they killed thousands in the US and millions worldwide with their ignorant homophobic denial about the epidemic. :: spits::

  102. 102.

    geg6

    @satby:

    Agreed. It’s about the nicest thing I could come up with to say about her. Not that it was all that great, but she apparently felt badly about how Ronnie and his aparatchiks made her shun him. I know I’ve read accounts that say it really bothered her and she nagged Ronnie until he finally acknowledged that there was such a thing as AIDS and that they had a friend who had suffered horribly from it.

    It isn’t much, but if I was stretching to find something to say at a fellow First Lady’s funeral, that’s probably what I would have come up with, too.

    Hillary can’t win for losing with some people. And far too many of them are on our side and almost all of them are men. I’m really getting sick of it. It just pushes me further and further into her arms, frankly.

  104. 104.

    dr. bloor

    @Major Major Major Major: Anyone who would cite Koop’s appointment as some sort of sign that Reagan had a heart at all, much less one in the right place, deserves anything that comes their way. Koop was a military, anti-abortion hard line hardass who everyone–including Reagan–assumed would bring his Conservative views to public health. His going semi-Brennan after he got the appointment wasn’t expected by anyone, certainly not Reagan.

    I’m sorry, but that’s disingenuous at best and ahistorical ignorance at worst.

  105. 105.

    trollhattan

    @raven:
    Maybe it triggers a response in some and not others? I know from simple tetanus shots that usually I don’t respond much but a couple have made my arm feel like I tried to block a locomotive.

    My needlephobic kid has completed her Gardasil series with no adverse reaction, so “whews” all around for that.

  107. 107.

    Peale

    @raven: yeah. although it will go down as the Reagan funeral speech blunder. I did think it odd that she’d be asked to speak there. I was guessing that she might attend as she is a former first lady, but it is unusual to make the pulpit available to anyone who wants it. But thanks for the context.

  108. 108.

    Ridnik Chrome

    Am I the only person who noticed that they named that poor baby kangaroo after one of the founders of the Symbionese Liberation Army?

  109. 109.

    trollhattan

    @Peale:
    That would be AWESOME. They could make it smell like Coppertone, like the Canadian hundred supposedly smells like maple syrup.

    Got a pocket full of Hamiltons
    My pants smell like the beach

  111. 111.

    Amir Khalid

    @Peale:
    George Hamilton was the star of Love at First Bite, my all-time favourite Dracula movie. Well, my favourite except for that horrible disco song.

  112. 112.

    raven

    She just apologized.

    “After facing strong waves of criticism online for a couple of hours, Clinton apologized, offering the following statement:

    While the Reagans were strong advocates for stem cell research and finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, I misspoke about their record on HIV and AIDS. For that, I’m sorry.
    “

  114. 114.

    geg6

    @satby:

    I, too, lost a good friend to AIDS at that time. I saw the complicated reactions people gave him. People, to this day, who won’t discuss it. I believe the accounts that Nancy browbeat that idiot husband of hers to finally face facts and acknowledge the disease and its toll. None of that excuses her husband’s inactions or her caving to his wishes over their friendship with Hudson. No one hated the Reagans more than I but even I can’t get upset about Hillary literally finding the least evil thing she could to say about a fellow First Lady.

  115. 115.

    delk

    I’ve been in a bit of a funk since I heard about Nancy. PTSD and surviver’s guilt coupled with a deep sadness of long lost friends has hit me harder than I thought.

    I READ THIS today. A lot of it hit home.

  116. 116.

    debbie

    @geg6:

    And if someone did want to take a stand, I can’t imagine a worse place than at a funeral for someone who didn’t.

  117. 117.

    WaterGirl

    @Amir Khalid: I wondered if that was the nicest thing she could think of to say. Hoping that’s the case rather than her actually believing what she said. Still saying that was offensive to everybody who lost anyone to AIDS.

    edit: Or, what humboldtblue said, about a millions times better.

  120. 120.

    Technocrat

    @geg6:

    I’ve always wondered why people become politicians when they have to put up with this 24/7. I don’t know why we expect young people to go into politics.

  121. 121.

    A Humble Lurker

    @raven: Thank God. Also, ridiculously cute video. I would’ve said so earlier, but I figure it went without saying.

  122. 122.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    He’s gonna hafta borrow a fuck if he wants to give one to somebody

    Mike Debones ‏@ mikedebonis 16m16 minutes ago
    POTUS mentions stimulus: “Unemployment’s now under 5%. [Pause.] Thanks Obama.”

  123. 123.

    Betty Cracker

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    The name Reagan should never appear in a sentence with HIV or AIDS except to note that they killed thousands in the US and millions worldwide with their ignorant homophobic denial about the epidemic. :: spits::

    Agreed, except I put the blame on RR since he was the president.

  124. 124.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @raven: The fact that a politician would feel compelled to issue an apology for speaking too positively about the Reagans’ record on HIV/AIDS is in its own way more damning than any criticism of that record would have been…

  131. 131.

    Germy

    After facing strong waves of criticism online for a couple of hours, Clinton apologized, offering the following statement:
    While the Reagans were strong advocates for stem cell research and finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, I misspoke about their record on HIV and AIDS. For that, I’m sorry.

  133. 133.

    indycat32

    @Ridnik Chrome: I thought they named it after the rabid killer dog in the Stephen King novel of the same name, though with a slightly different spelling.

  134. 134.

    chopper

    @Germy:

    i half expect cole to FP this story and wring his hands over the fact that ‘hilz is gonna lose over this sorta shit’.

  135. 135.

    Germy

    Headline:
    Pope set to replace Vatican ambassador who hooked him up with anti-gay activist Kim Davis

  136. 136.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @indycat32: I think King named the dog after the terrorist. He was kind of obsessed with the SLA for a while. “The Stand” originally started off as a book about them.

  137. 137.

    NotMax

    @Germy

    Half a loaf.

    By that time Ronnie wasn’t a strong advocate for anything other than maybe drool buckets.

    Nancy became a public advocate once the disease personally impacted her life, not one moment before.

  141. 141.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: I say it because it has great meaning to me. I don’t give a goddamn what else he did, people that were my friends died because of his policy. I get jumped on by people that want to tell all about the other shit he did and I don’t care. I see a similarity with what’s gone down here.

  143. 143.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Germy: Oooh. That’s interesting. Francis apparently doesn’t like being played by the right wing. Good for him.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  145. 145.

    Technocrat

    @Baud:

    Don’t you get discouraged! Despite the little Samoan fiasco, we might need you as backup in November.

  147. 147.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: I see the same similarity. I am a terrible grudge holder, but I’m not sure how you let it go when you see friends dying, senselessly, because of a terrible policy or lack of inaction.

    I am also feeling a similarity to all the black people being murdered by police, I don’t see that anybody would forgive the whitewashing of that.

  151. 151.

    WaterGirl

    @Mnemosyne: I don’t think that’s fair. Seems to me that he was regretting upthread that he has to vote for her because she’s the best we’ve got.

  152. 152.

    NotMax

    @Germy

    Sheesh. Putting “Pope” and “hooked him up” in the same headline is enough to make any editor worth his salt tear his/her hair out.

  155. 155.

    Germy

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Every photo of Kim Davis I see, I swear she’s Dick Cheney’s sister.

    @NotMax: that’s true of all repubs. If it doesn’t affect them personally, it ain’t important. If Jim Inhofe’s house gets flooded repeatedly, maybe he’ll have a change of heart. Slim chance, because he’d need a heart first.

    @chopper: HRC should set up a conference call with Cole. A nice one-on-one debate, some questions, a good cry together, promises to keep in touch in the future…

  159. 159.

    trollhattan

    @Baud:
    Little known fact: Cole now houses her email server. Steve sleeps on top, causing significant cooling system issues..

  164. 164.

    Technocrat

    @Baud:

    When I say “backup”, I mean in the House Of Cards sense. As in, two three episodes down the road, BAM President Baud.

    You just need to hatch an ingenious plot to make it happen.

  166. 166.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    Mnemosyne might know something about it. I understand she has mentioned it a time or two.

    I’m joking a bit. I really am seriously getting into the album for the first time, but I know a great deal about Hamilton, and had read many reviews and appreciations of the play.

    It was on my back list to get to, and I enjoyed what I had heard before. But I am surprised at how much I am enjoying the work. For me, the hype has been vindicated.

  167. 167.

    Mnemosyne

    @WaterGirl:

    He’s been bitching about Hillary since day one, so it’s hard to see this reaction as anything other than more of the same. Note that I am not saying (and will not say) anything even vaguely similar to dr. bloor.

  172. 172.

    Peale

    I’m not certain what to make of this product. it seems that Soylent 2.0 is actually Soy, but since it isn’t available in this country, how can we be certain?

  174. 174.

    WaterGirl

    @Mnemosyne: Maybe read your first sentence again? Let’s say he has been totally critical of your favorite candidate, it still seems cold to read about humboltblue having lost all those friends because of Reagan and dismiss it because he really dislikes Hillary. YMMV

  175. 175.

    Mnemosyne

    @Amir Khalid:

    Which one? They switched it out to a different song on the video release because they didn’t want to pay for the music rights.

    The original song actually works pretty well and the dance is specifically choreographed to it: “I Love The Nightlife.”

    Also, it out Mel Brooks’d Mel Brooks when it comes to Dracula movies. It actually holds up pretty well as a period comedy now.

  176. 176.

    debbie

    @NotMax:

    Nancy became a public advocate once the disease personally impacted her life, not one moment before.

    Which is what conservatives do. Ohio Senator Rob Portman, at about the 11th hour, came out in support of same-sex marriage only because his son was gay. He had not just discovered that. I’m sure he hid it until he could hide it no longer and then tried to put a positive spin on his previously cowardly stance.

  178. 178.

    Technocrat

    @Peale:

    That…cannot be real. Can it? Peale, this is the best thing I’ve seen this week.

    Somebody’s Marketing department is in for a rude awakening.

  180. 180.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne: I’m now looking forward to the upcoming audiobook

    Hamilton: The Revolution, which the show’s creator Lin-Manuel Miranda has dubbed Hamiltome, will arrive April 12. EW reports that the book’s co-author, Jeremy McCarter, will narrate lyric annotations as well as the book’s intro, while Mariska Hargitay (who is a big fan of the show) will read the prose portions.

    Miranda was quoted in a release as saying, “Mariska, in addition to being the #1 fan of the show, represents, to me, much of what Hamilton is about — tough, smart, and New York. She’s an essential part of this city; it feels only right for her to narrate the story. And she has a killer voice! I want to hear her telling the story.”

    The audiobook will include a PDF of the show’s libretto.

    I’m not throwing away my shot.

  181. 181.

    Mnemosyne

    @WaterGirl:

    Based on past history, I doubt that specific commenter’s sincerity, but YMMV.

    Again, please note that this does not and will not include any other angry commenter on the thread and applies solely to that specific person.

  183. 183.

    Technocrat

    Wow. This is such a fail:

    Why is it named Soylent?

    Our name was inspired by Harry Harrison’s 1966 science fiction novel Make Room! Make Room!, which explores the impact massive population growth could have on world resources. In the book, “soylent” is made of soy and lentils and is a new food source used to accommodate overpopulation

    This is why you never skip the LAST page of the book.

  184. 184.

    Brachiator

    @Germy:

    The Hamilton cast has returned to the White House. Some sort of educational project with Michelle Obama.

    I was looking at some of the YouTube comments to the songs. Apart from the usual snark wars, you had stuff from teens and college age kids, going, “shit, I never knew history could be so cool,” as well as an incredibly pithy background piece from a self-described female history nerd letting loose with some Hamilton knowledge.

    Yeah, I can see the obvious educational uses. But I can see how the songs can simply fire up a kid.

    No, Hamilton will not make your delicate wash brighter, but it is well done and fun, and inspiring.

    And it is a serious antidote to the way that history is too often taught, as nasty tasting medicine to be swallowed by the teaspoon full

  192. 192.

    NotMax

    @Technocrat

    In their defense, the product was around since the 1950s or maybe early 60s. It was a box of individually wrapped, sort of chocolate flavored nougat-like cubes.

  194. 194.

    SciNY

    As a college student and future physician-scientist in the 80’s, I find HRC’s original comment re: the Reagans and HIV/AIDS deeply unsettling. From a public health perspective, the response was clearly inadequate to the task, and ultimately cost many lives until the homophobic attitudes of civilian policy makers were challenged by the activist community, allowing scientists and health professionals to do their jobs and save lives. Even though I’m slightly leaning towards HRC, this “misspeaking” is such a big and strange error that I can’t imagine how it happened. She has to do more to make this right. Otherwise it’s gonna hang out there like holocaust denialism-lite. If we are gonna hold the Orange one to account for his divisive and fact-free rhetoric, our side has to do better than this.

  195. 195.

    WaterGirl

    @Timurid: “…you click the “SUBMIT TO ISIS” button.”

    Thanks for the laugh out loud on an otherwise not so fun day.

  196. 196.

    humboldtblue

    @WaterGirl: I only lost one friend, I was referring to the aids quilt that commemorated the thousands who had died.

    And I could not give fewer fucks what mnemosyne thinks about sincerity so you shouldn’t either, at least not when it comes to me.

  197. 197.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mai.naem.mobile:

    Yes, he seems to have inherited much of his father’s undeniable personal charm with none of his wacky ideas, twisted ideology, or intellectual vacuity.

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