Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

American History and Black History can not be separated.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

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

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

This fight is for everything.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Bark louder, little dog.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

He really is that stupid.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Celebrate the fucking wins.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Saturday Evening Open Thread: Calibrated

Saturday Evening Open Thread: Calibrated

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Not often I get the chance to use the C.R.E.A.M. [Cash Rules Everything Around Me] tag sarcastically.

What’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

114Comments

  1. 1.

    Schlemazel Khan

    Perhaps they have seen someone protest naked before? Do the name Godiva ring a bell?

  2. 2.

    Iowa Old Lady

    Obviously OT, but I just wrote to the maker of the vegetable drizzle product in that obnoxious ad telling them I will never buy any of their products because that ad is so annoying.

  7. 7.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I’m assuming this is an iconic display of the renowned English stiff upper lip?

  10. 10.

    redshirt

    Since I follow Trump on Twitter, he’s saying word is there will be no charges for Hillary over EmailBadClintonGate.

    Yay!

  15. 15.

    JPL

    @redshirt: A reporter from CNN said that a source told him that, Hillary would not be indicted and the announcement would come before the convention.
    Hillary spoke with Todd this afternoon, and said that she did not receive information, that was classified at the time. She has no idea when they will finish the investigation.

  17. 17.

    smith

    @Doug R: H

    hopefully Boris Johnson won’t get any ideas.

    I saw an interesting column in the Guardian today about how the pressure on male politicians to perform masculinity contributed to the Brexit mess. The point was that men are expected to project an air of certainty and confidence even if they are uncertain or vulnerable. Johnson, Gove, Farage, and Cameron gave the impression that they knew exactly what they were doing, and that reassured voters that whatever the outcome there would be competent people at the helm. One of the big shocks post-Brexit is that there was no Plan B. No one had thought through what to do if the dog caught the car after they’d pointedly implied that all the bases had been covered. At least Boris, et al. didn’t think to push the performance to the point of nudity (actually I think Gove would have been worse).

    As an aside, I wonder if one of the things that confounds Obama’s critics is that he has declined to put on the man performance the way it’s usually done. Not that he’s not masculine, it’s that he’s willing to acknowledge nuance, uncertainty, and shades of gray when he presents his positions. Lots of people don’t know how to process that.

  19. 19.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Iowa Old Lady:
    I have no idea what product you are referring to, however, if annoying ads are the stopper than American industry is dead.

    and, good for you! We do need more people refusing to buy products because of bad adverts

  20. 20.

    JPL

    @redshirt: I just found part of the Clinton/Todd interview and I am still looking for the entire thing..
    link

    She was asked about the meeting with her husband and Lynch, and appeared to say it didn’t bother her, since they were not talking about the investigation. That part of the conversation was odd though..

  23. 23.

    redshirt

    I really want Clinton to win but like others have said, I’m not looking forward to 8 years of constant CRISIS! BREAKING SCANDAL! which has no basis but will dominate the news and the talking heads for close to a decade.

    I just hope at some point we can grow out of it. Will 16 years straight of Dem Admins be enough?

    Doubtful.

  25. 25.

    redshirt

    I’m vaguely excited as I’ve gotten into my first Twitter war and it’s with a group called “BERNIEORBUST”. The insanity is fully on display. Here’s an actual quote:
    “Trump is not as evil as Clinton”.

  27. 27.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @redshirt:
    2020 . . . if we do our jobs & win a bunch of state houses (like Ohio, Wisconsin) and undo the gerrymandering of 2010 we can shut these bastards out of national government for a decade. Personally I believe that 2020 is too late to undo the damage and prevent worse yet to come but we need to aim for 2020 and try to remediate as much damage as possible & try to get the US back on track.

  28. 28.

    FlyingToaster

    @Iowa Old Lady: Oddly, I don’t get to see those ads. I get men’s underwear (‽), StyleWe, Zulilly, Wayfair, men’s razors (‽), and other clothing/grooming ads. They might surprise me, but they haven’t managed to annoy me yet.

  31. 31.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @FlyingToaster: It autoplays. There’s sound, which isn’t so bad because I can turn my speakers off. But it drags you back from wherever you are on the page and makes you stay where you could watch it until it’s done. That’s unforgiveable.

    ETA: And, btw, it does this repeatedly.

  33. 33.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @JPL: Well, Chuckles the Toddler was involved, so it had to be odd and stilted in order to keep the motherfuckin’ horse race narrative intact.

  34. 34.

    debbie

    @redshirt:

    FB likes to suggest pages I might be interested in. Twice, they’ve suggested “Truth for Trump.” When I hover over the name, it turns out there is only one person who’s liked the page. Bet it’s Don Jr.

  35. 35.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Baud:
    It is not for me, I would prefer the giant meteor. It is for my grandkids. They don’t deserve what they are bout to have dimped on them

  39. 39.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Schlemazel Khan:
    There’s a new e-commerce idea for some ambitious entrepreneur: a site where you can go and bitch about ads you hate. Presumably the advertisers would use the feedback to improve their adverting.
    Of course such a website would have to be supported by sponsored content. And ads.

  40. 40.

    redshirt

    OT! Anyone have some advice: There’s a robin or robins who’ve tried building nests on my garage the past three years. The first years the eggs hatched but there was an incident with me and the baby birds and they freaked out and jumped out of the nest and I’m not sure they made it. Second year, wind blew down the nest, eggs smashed. This year, the wind has brought down two nests, smashing the eggs.
    I just noticed Mr and Mrs Robin have built yet another nest in the same spot.

    Should I move it? Am I crazy enough to try and secure it against the wind?

  41. 41.

    lollipopguild

    @smith: Thanks for passing this on with your comments, I think you are spot on with this but this is too subtle for TV and the stupider parts of the internet. After 8 years of drunken frat boy bush we have had two terms of an adult human who understands that life is hundreds of shades of gray that have to be dealt with and can be dealt with.

  42. 42.

    Felonius Monk

    @Baud:

    I’m amazingly relieved Alan Greenspan never felt the need to protest anything.

    Let’s hope Mrs. Greenspan has no desire to protest anything either.

  43. 43.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Baud:
    Faith is a game for suckers. Given the world we are leaving them (including the shitty education that is now the norm) I don’t think they are going to be more equipped than the current rabble.

  44. 44.

    Adam L Silverman

    @JPL: I posted that several weeks ago. CNN’s report indicating this came at the end of May/beginning of June.

  47. 47.

    Suffragete City elftx

    @redshirt: My first question to any of them is where are his taxes? For some strange reason they then ban me. Whocuddanode?

  49. 49.

    redshirt

    @debbie: I learned on BJ recently that that’s an urban myth. Birds don’t have much of a sense of smell.

    But it’s going to get blown down eventually, so doing something now seems like a good idea.

  50. 50.

    Keith G

    @Baud: Speaking of Greenspan, one wonders if this woman was gripped by irrational exuberance.

    But, maybe it was just animal spirits.

  53. 53.

    debbie

    @redshirt:

    From Scientific American:

    No matter how flighty birds appear, they do not readily abandon their young, especially not in response to human touch, says Frank B. Gill, former president of the American Ornithologists’ Union. “If a bird’s nest is disturbed by a potential predator during the nesting or egg-laying stage,” he says, “there’s a possibility that [it] will desert and re-nest. However, once the young are hatched and feeding, [their parents are] by and large pretty tenacious.”

    I wouldn’t move it unless the babies have hatched. Even then, you’ll be dive-bombed by the parents. Let them alone. They’ll either figure out how to build a more secure nest or move on to a better place.

  54. 54.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: Or I’m the 4th Branch of Government and I shot my friend in the face and made him apologize to me-gate.

    Or I’m an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court who regularly goes hunting with the 4th Branch of Government who shot his friend in the face and made him apologize and is now being sued for FOIA access and I refuse to recuse myself from the case now that its at the Supreme Court-gate.

    Or I’m the Secretary of Defense and refused to put my investments and ownership stakes and assets in a blind trust so that every time we have a DOD meeting where we’re discussing and/or making fiscal, fiduciary, procurement, and/or budgetary decisions I have to turn things over to Wolfowitz and go stand in the hallway-gate.

    Or we had to make Wolfowitz Deputy Secretary of Defense instead of the Director of Central Intelligence because it doesn’t require a Senatorial confirmation hearing and between his perpetual zipper malfunctions directed at the faculty, staff, and students at SAIS when he was Dean and the fact that we’ve threatened his wife that if she opens her mouth about any of this he’ll refuse to issue her a Get/Jewish divorce meaning that she won’t be able to remarry-gate.

    Or I, as the 4th Branch of Government who shot my friend in the face and made him apologize to me have adopted the conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the first World Trade Center bombing and is really behind al Qaeda and all other forms of Islamic extremism and terrorism created by a crazy woman with a PhD we’ve paid $75 grand by the DOD to write a history of bin Laden instead of just shelling out $13 for Peter Bergen’s Pulitzer Prize winning one and we’re using her to mule misinformation to Judith Miller who writes it up as fact and after its published in the NY Times we use it as factual argument for invading Iraq in the material we brief to Congress seeking authorization because she went from being Saddam Hussein’s biggest booster inside the beltway to his biggest detractor as soon as the Defense Attache at the Iraqi Embassy broke off their affair-gate.

    I can go on if you’d like.

  55. 55.

    Adam L Silverman

    @FlyingToaster: I get Internet order brides from various parts of Asia. And clothes. Which is interesting because I don’t buy clothes, or even search for them over the Internet, and I don’t shop for women over the Internet either.

    And that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

  56. 56.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @redshirt:
    You might put a box up there for them to build in. I wouldn’t think moving the nest would make them move I think they would just start building again. But then, do you really want to help repeat failures? Maybe they would produce many more robins who can’t get it right

  59. 59.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    I get ads for adult incontinence undergarments and various Adventure Belts.
    Have you any idea how many Adventure Belts there are? I do.

  60. 60.

    debbie

    a crazy woman with a PhD we’ve paid $75 grand by the DOD to write a history of bin Laden instead of just shelling out $13 for Peter Bergen’s Pulitzer Prize winning one

    Now, if they’d only cite that as an example of government waste. I remember Bergen’s reporting about OBL before 9/11. Chilling.

  61. 61.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    I have Tom Levenson’s new book to start tonight. I finished his Newton book from 2009 last night.
    Cheers, all. And have a good evening.

  62. 62.

    smith

    @Adam L Silverman: God, those were nightmare years. Now I’m having flashbacks to Plamegate; the stacking of DOJ top to bottom with right wing loyalists with orders to destroy Dem candidates-gate; and the miraculous disappearance of a vast number of WH emails from a private RNC server the day before they were due to be subpoenaed-gate (and did the FBI ever interview anyone about that one?). And speaking of investigative interviews, who can forget that the President fought formation of a 9/11 commission tooth and nail, and then refused to testify unless it was in private, not under oath, and in the presence of that 4th branch of government? And the Clintons are untrustworthy?

  64. 64.

    lollipopguild

    @Adam L Silverman: You have a second career as a stand up comic waiting for you. You are 100% correct sir! The rules do not and never will apply to the right wing in our country. God bless us everyone.

  65. 65.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Ultraviolet Thunder:
    I’m afraid to google it, whats an adventure belt?

    When I first signed up for FB I listed my birth year as 1922 as part of the ruse. I got some very interesting ads & even the more mundane ones featured the crypt keeper as spokes model.

  66. 66.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I am still cracking up that one of the things Obama thanked Joe Biden for at the WH Correspondents Dinner this year was not shooting anyone in the face.

  67. 67.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @smith: Did all that happen during Bill Clinton’s third term or during Obama’s pre-term?

  69. 69.

    redshirt

    @smith: They managed the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq as if it was a right wing think tank project.

    Stunning! And yet we have to compete with them on a “level playing field” because of Crooked Hillary or some such.

    Sanders cultists are right one regard – we do need a revolution. How can we wipe out this media and right wing?

  71. 71.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: I don’t read them anyway, but based on what I’ve read about Spencer’s run on Sam Wilson Captain America he should have known better. And I’m not sure how he gets his now beleaguered and mystically conflicted protagonist out of the mess he’s written him into.

  74. 74.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Iowa Old Lady:
    I turn it off for sites that I want to support. I wish it allowed me to turn off specific ads so I could be more precise but that is a start.

  80. 80.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: Nope, go back and read Atwell’s post and scroll down to the Red Skull talking to Sin. Skull absorbed, somehow (I don’t read these books) Professor X’s telepathic abilities. That’s partially how he was able to control the living embodiment of the cosmic cube 9 year old girl and to manipulate his way close to Cap to pull off the plan. So there’s no Professor X to come to the rescue.

  82. 82.

    FlyingToaster

    @Adam L Silverman: I only shop for non-stylish clothes (much like the blogfathers’ walking into Cabelas and demanding the fat guy shorts) for me, and school/play clothes for WarriorGirl. I don’t see how searching for “girls tank tops size 10-12” gets me to StyleWe. Justice, Old Navy, JCrew, sure, but StyleWe and Zulilly? And then the whole y-fronts and razors thing. I am allowed to buy my husband a) socks and b) Gildan T-shirts from ACMoore (Or topical t-shirts from science museums around the planet). Otherwise, I stay out of his sartorial choices. And he’s had a full beard since 1981, so the razor thing is just dumb.

    It would make more sense if they were selecting my screen real estate to advertise books or batteries or soldering irons or knitting needles.

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: You want to contact the local wildlife rescue folks, they should be able to help you. Or, if you’re going to build something around the nest to ensure its secure, perhaps a carpenter.

  86. 86.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @FlyingToaster:
    THey have highly sophisticated algorithms that take into account more than just what you have searched for or bought. The know your zip code and age, they can take a pretty good guess at your income, politics and beliefs. They try to match you to stuff that similar people have bought. I’m sure it will get more accurate & more intrusive into your personal details as they learn how

  87. 87.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: I still love comic books though! Just read your paragraph for my reasons.

    How about Stephen Strange then? Or Reed Richards or Tony Stark with some tech. There’s a dozen ways to write yourself out of this when you want to. That’s why comics are a fantastic medium – you can do almost whatever you want.

  88. 88.

    Adam L Silverman

    @JPL: If the Clinton campaign is smart, and they are, or someone at one of the PACs are smart, and they usually are, every time the press or the Trump campaign or one its surrogates starts this stuff, the Clinton supporter should just start asking the media when they’re going to cover the whole list of these, plus Governor Christie’s missing cell phone and the private email account he hid from the US Attorney, and Trump’s various scams and swindles, and where’s the expose into the son in law who inherited a slum lord empire from his Dad when his Dad went to prison, or the fact that there’s a pending, with a corroborating witness lawsuit alleging that Trump raped and threatened a 13 year old girl?

    If they do this, then the media will learn real damn quick. The system will be pressured into responding differently.

  90. 90.

    Baud

    @Shell:

    Obamas on Prairie Home Companion.

    Ever since they mentioned Balloon Juice, they’ve moved up in the world.

  93. 93.

    Pogonip

    @smith: “…men are expected to project an air of certainty when they are uncertain.”

    My father solves this problem by saying “I don’t know” in his scariest drill sergeant voice.

  95. 95.

    smith

    @Adam L Silverman: Ah, but those are just ALLEGATIONS. Who knows if they’re true? It wouldn’t be fair to smear people based on rumor and innuendo, would it?

    That’s unlike the case with the Clintons, because we know a priori that they are crooks. In the famous words of an esteemed journalist, “Is it irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to.” In my opinion that summarizes the very nadir of the fourth estate, a low point we still seem to be mired in.

  97. 97.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: Heh. Yeah, there’s a couple, but this isn’t a carpentry job either. In the future I should probably just prevent the robins from building nests at these spots, which would be easy to do.

  98. 98.

    Anne Laurie

    @FlyingToaster:

    It would make more sense if they were selecting my screen real estate to advertise books or batteries or soldering irons or knitting needles.

    They’re not selling what you need/want, they’re selling what they’ve been paid to sell. The fewer ‘normal’ internet-buyers on a given site, I believe, the more desperate the algorithm-bots get!

  102. 102.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: Well that’s all the Marvel Comics news I have for you for the evening. You’re on your own from here on out.

  104. 104.

    Scott Alloway

    @debbie: Not so. That’s an urban myth. Having “rescued” birds over the years (including one starling I brought inside, raised and released), the parents – and sometimes other birds – will feed the hatchlings.

  106. 106.

    J R in WV

    We had a flycatcher trying to build a nest, moss and mud, over the front door. Which is under a big eave, and so would be dry, but TRAFFIC, and cats and dogs.

    They usually build on top of a downspout from a gutter to the wall, which is usually successful. Maybe this is some off-spring, and the parents or senior off-spring have the good spots on the gutter-to-downspout pipes?

    Anyway, I scraped off all their work a couple times a day, and after a week or so they gave that effort up. Birds are actually bird-brained, operating on instinct from long ago. But somehow they seem to keep on reproducing.

  107. 107.

    Bex

    @Iowa Old Lady: Thanks. I don’t have Chrome. but another commenter suggested a solution and I changed a setting and can at least stop that stupid Larry King-Jesse Ventura-veggie shit while I am reading the comments.

  110. 110.

    Bex

    @Iowa Old Lady: It is unforgivable. I have to click on either Larry King or Jesse Ventura every time I click on a new post or comments to kill the thing. I can’t click away the veggie shit. It just goes to Marzetti salad dressings, a total crap company I’ve had issues with before.

  111. 111.

    Anne Laurie

    @redshirt:

    Excelsior!

    New York’s state motto.

    Because, if the nuns in my parochial school were to be believed, you can’t emblazon Bullshit! on all your state’s legal documents. (‘Excelsior’ is also what they called the wood shavings used for packing delicate items, pre-styrofoam.) Stan Lee was an NYC kid, of course, so he would’ve known that joke, too.

  112. 112.

    Mnemosyne

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Click 2 Flash seems to take care of most of the obnoxious ads for me but still allows enough non-annoying ads through that I feel like I’m not cutting off revenue.

  113. 113.

    redshirt

    @Anne Laurie: Stan Lee is so awesome. For my entire life this man has been performing and producing for my entertainment. He helped invent the new mythology – and Super Heroes are the new modern Mythology of Gods and Devils and Heroes and Quests and such. What Would Buffy Do? is a far more relevant inspirational for me than Jesus. Or Superman.

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