Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

I was promised a recession.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

You cannot shame the shameless.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

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

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

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

“woke” is the new caravan.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: Meanwhile…

Open Thread: Meanwhile…

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So I was reading Josh Barro’s twitter feed, and he retweeted this exchange from “Kasich strategist” John Weaver:

Ruffini seems to be a playa among the professional Repub #NeverTrumps, but if this tweet-string is indicative of that clan’s “thinking”, I’m not sure they are equipped to deal with the combovered cuckoo in their snug little nest…

“There’s our problem, guys — we’ve just been too bloody subtle with our dogwhistle pandering to racists, xenophobes & misogynists! If only we’d had the marketing genius to go full Breitbart before Trump beat us to it!”

Really? You guys think all you needed to win was an “authentic” demagogue? Someone with the “common touch” who could “appeal” to your willfully clueless voters?

And then you accuse Hillary Clinton of despising her own base!

Reader Interactions

263Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    And then you accuse Hillary Clinton of despising her own base!

    That isn’t even in the top million of things Hillary has been falsely accused of.

  2. 2.

    Hungry Joe

    A single (twice divorced) friend of mine met a woman and took her to Saturday night’s Padre game. Talking to her during the game he learned that she’s a Republican. Knowing that all was lost anyway, he told her that socialist Norway has the world’s happiest people. She said, “So why don’t you move there?” He said, “I would, but I’m waiting to see if the Padres come back in the ninth.” They didn’t, of course; likewise, the evening did not end well. But I told him it was a win because he came up with such a great line.

  4. 4.

    lollipopguild

    So many members of the Gop base are members of a cult. The Gold Cult, the Gun cult, the Unborn baby cult and many belong to all three cults. When you live and work inside your own alternate world were most people you know and speak to are just like you it can become hard/impossible to see any other way of thinking.

  7. 7.

    lollipopguild

    @Baud: Clinton knows and understands her Dem base better than some other Dem politicians much less any GOP ones. Reality has a well known Dem bias as do facts and the truth.

  8. 8.

    Aleta

    “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be”.

    – K Vonnegut

  9. 9.

    Mnemosyne

    I was planning for this to be a nice relaxing weekend, but it all went off the rails when my BFF texted me on Saturday morning and said that she and her sister (who is also a friend and who I only get to see once in a blue moon) were at the Happiest Place on Earth with their kids (who are great kids that I like) and did I want to drive 2 hours through LA traffic to go hang out with them? So I did. And then I had my writer’s group this morning because one of my favorite authors was speaking. Now I’m exhausted, but it was a fun weekend.

  10. 10.

    Schlemazel

    @lollipopguild:
    I think you have succinctly stated the problem. I just don’t see how we ever grow out of that. I am hoping that the angry cheeto destroys the GOP this year so that the shattered remains cannot be an effective election team for a generation

  17. 17.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @Hungry Joe: Isn’t SD supposedly an island of redstatery? May make finding dates with whom one doesn’t argue politics a bit difficult.

  19. 19.

    OldDave

    Since this is an open thread, and since I don’t recall the movie being mentioned in an earlier post (it well could have)…

    A big thumbs up for “Kubo and the Two Strings“. I’m a big fan of animation in any of its forms – and the amount of effort that has gone into this stop-action masterpiece is just astonishing to me. We saw it in 3D, and the added depth worked well and was natural, as it was in Laika’s earlier “Coraline“.

  20. 20.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mnemosyne: We missed you! Glad you had fun – I was thinking about you as I worked on my Regency werewolf story – wondering if you’d get a kick out of it.

  21. 21.

    J

    Can I just say NBC should never be allowed to cover the Olympics ever again. The games were great but the coverage sucks big time.

  22. 22.

    Aleta

    A guy in this rural conservative R small town I’m in (for a few more days) has been joking back and forth with my partner about their opposite politics since the summer before Gore/Bush. We ran into him at the fried food place last night, ate together, and talked about music, fish, the post office vs the delivery guy, ice cream, one joke about changing temperatures. For the first time in 16 years, not a peep from him about the R candidates.

  23. 23.

    divF

    @ThresherK (GPad): It is changing. San Diego County in 2012 went 51.5% for Obama vs. 46.4% for Romney.

    ETA: The congressional districts in the region (CA50-53) split 3 D, 1 R.

  25. 25.

    Baud

    @J: I read somewhere a while ago that NBC money for the rights to broadcast the Games are a significant percentage of the total revenues that the Olympics get.

  27. 27.

    Aleta

    @Aleta: As we left I asked him, why no jokes this year about the race? My partner said, “Yes you’re awfully quiet this year…why is that?’ He smiled, looked down, shook his head.

  28. 28.

    Schlemazel

    @Mnemosyne:
    There was a word in there someplace I bet. I keep running across new ones. I do the voodoo on a bunch of them & then delete until it is eaten then I know what words to avoid. Problem is I forget!

  33. 33.

    Corner Stone

    @Hungry Joe: I saw my first, “Trump That Bitch” bumper sticker this afternoon. A thirty-something blonde lady in a Volvo SUV at the grocery store.
    This is a brutally +R CD and I have seen a handful of “HRC for Prison” stickers but this was a first around here.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    Interesting. They’re splitting up states not into geographic regions but instead based on early vote and diversity of electorate. Iowa is more like New Hampshire than it is Ohio in this way of looking at it:

    As she has reoriented her campaign for the general election, her team has devised a structure that reflects not geographic contiguity, with its common weather patterns or vernacular music traditions across neighboring states, but instead the different type of campaigning she will need to win each one. Most importantly, the structure acknowledges the increasing importance of early voting, which offers Clinton the potential to lock in an early lead when ballots begin to be cast in late September.

    Can I just say that early vote is probably the best thing that ever happened for Democrats? :)

    Since ’08 Republicans have been like “we forgot about early vote! Again!”

    People like it because it’s convenient, it takes pressure off pollworkers and Bds of Elections, and it rewards hard-working and organized campaigns. What’s not to love?

  43. 43.

    Stella B.

    @ThresherK (GPad): That’s the OC. San Diegans rarely get excited about anything.

    When I first moved here, it was a Navy and defense industry town, but it’s changed since then. Since I refused to date Republicans, I didn’t get out much back then.

  47. 47.

    divF

    @opiejeanne: Duke Cunningham ended up serving prison time for taking bribes. The two scum members from the north county you might be thinking of are Darryl Issa (CA 49) and Duncan Hunter (CA 50). I seem to recall that Issa might be in trouble this cycle.

  49. 49.

    Corner Stone

    @Stella B.:

    San Diegans rarely get excited about anything.

    They get excited about at least one thing. “You stay classy, San Diego.”

  50. 50.

    Keith G

    I am concerned that Trump will likely never get his act together enough that this campaign season will feature a debate on policy – unless HRC could somehow convince Paul Ryan to debate her (yeah I know).

    Defeating Trump is okay, but he is just the flavor of the season. He can get squashed (because he is a fucking pus bag) without that defeat also doing damage to Ryan Republicanism.

  53. 53.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    I think “relax” is a forbidden word. Why that is, I have no idea, but I suspect that’s the word that landed your comment in FYWP detention.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    New Hampshire needs “persuasion” because of course they do. I have never actually been there so this is unfair but I think of New Hampshire as the prima donna of swing states :)

    Yeah, yeah, we know. They’re flinty, mavericky, independent thinkers. No one is the boss of them! :)

  55. 55.

    Steeplejack

    @Aleta:

    Aw, c’mon, you guys should have needled the shit out of him! Opportunities like this don’t come along that often.

  57. 57.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    And then you accuse Hillary Clinton of despising her own base!

    I didn’t realize Clinton’s base was the Washington press corp.

  58. 58.

    Baud

    @Kay: Part of me hopes Iowa goes red so we can finally have the courage to jettison their first-in-the-nation status.

    @Steeplejack: Right. He would have certainly done it if the shoe were on the other foot!

  61. 61.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @Stella B.: Aside from Arrested Development’s “Don’t call it that” rejoinder to “The OC”, I got nuthin.

    Aside from wondering what the NYC equivalent of OC is (I’m in suburban CT). I’m guessing, Westchester or White Plains?

  62. 62.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Partly bc of this disconnect with middle America, estab GOP thought good on paper technocrats without a common touch were enough

    Sweet fucking petunia biscuits, the self-deception in that statement. I think this guy just won the world Dunning-Kruger championships.

  63. 63.

    redshirt

    @SiubhanDuinne: Brinks Truck troll once used the word in user name. He was banned, and now the word is banned.

    Hey Adam, do you have the ability to unban words? For example, it’s unlikely the troll will use the rela-x word again for his user name.

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: NASA in 1987. Reagan era budget cuts. That was for the theatrical pilot. They actually released it for the theaters and its one of the few places you can hear the entire theme with the lyrics. Given the state of visual effects and the budget, the show wasn’t bad for its time. And the final season or two, once they went into space exploration was better.

  65. 65.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @J:

    I loved them! Thought the creativity, color and projection show was amazing!!!

  66. 66.

    opiejeanne

    @Stella B.: OC is changing, a big chunk of it is blue now, mostly Santa Ana but also parts of Anaheim and other pockets. I’d say when we left in 2010 it was heading toward purple.

    We lived about 3 blocks from Carl Karcher. We were in downtown Anaheim and our neighbors were about 50/50. We were still registered R even though we had been voting D for more than 30 years. Just didn’t bother to fix our registration, and we got an interesting look at what the idiots were up to.

  67. 67.

    gene108

    Really? You guys think all you needed to win was an “authentic” demagogue?

    Republicans have been pining for an authentic demagogue, since Obama took office.

    What they think they need to win the Presidency is someone, who can sell the American people on tax cuts for the rich, vague racist statements that are not racist on the surface, reforming Social Security and Medicare, and whatever else they want.

    The problem is not the platform or policies, just the messenger.

  69. 69.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: I remember enjoying the show immensely, but I wonder very much how it would hold up. Based on that opening, not well. Battlestar Galactica either, I’m sure. I’m not sure if any 70’s TV show could hold up today. Can you name an example?

  71. 71.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @lollipopguild: I was flipping channels and caught a bit of a show on the National Geographic channel. One line that caught my ear was something like:

    “Some say that the Northern Lights are visible spirits of the ancestors. Scientists say that they’re caused by charged particles from the Sun being caught by the Earth’s magnetic field at the pole and reacting with atoms in the atmosphere. Either way, it’s an other-worldly experience.”

    IOW, as Krugman says, “Shape of the world? Views differ!”

    :-/

    Yeah, knowing about cultural stories and traditions is valuable and important. But don’t present it as a scientific explanation.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who devoured National Geographic as a kid in the ’60s-early ’70s.)

  74. 74.

    divF

    @inventor: I took a look at Applegate’s website. He seems like the kind of ex-Marine officer that could go over in a district that includes Camp Pendleton. Also, CA 49 is only R+4.

  75. 75.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: Most can’t. I think that this one, either in movie or television form, would make a good remake. We certainly have the effects capability to do the concept behind it justice. Not saying it should be a reboot of the show. The show was itself based on a long tradition of Buck Rogers story material.

  78. 78.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Mnemosyne:

    relaxing

    is a FYWP forbidden word (as is relax).

    (I get it to appear by putting a pair of bold tags inside the word, with nothing in between the tags.)

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  86. 86.

    Baud

    Finally

    Relax don’t do it
    When you want to go to it
    Relax don’t do it
    When you want to come
    Relax don’t do it
    When you want to come
    When you want to come

  89. 89.

    Corner Stone

    @Steeplejack: I am right on the edge, man! The fucking edge!
    School term starts again tomorrow for TX and it’s a Clash of the Titans! And shit!
    He’s actually looking forward to it but he’s still on Summer Time, and the living’s easy.
    Shit’s getting real, yo.

  91. 91.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: I’m shocked really that no one has tried to date. Surely it’s in some pipeline.

    If not, perhaps we should form BJ Studios and produce it right now, as we know it would be a huge hit and we’d all become millionaires.

  93. 93.

    Kay

    Will the Mormon Church’s Support for Muslim Immigration Block Trump’s Victory?

    Yes, the huge Mormon vote in Pennsylvania is “blocking” Trump’s victory. Either he carries the swing state of Utah or all is lost.

    I love “Muslim Immigration” too. That’s a new category. We have that now, immigration quotas based on religion? I don’t know why Mormons would object to that idea!

  96. 96.

    opiejeanne

    @divF: @Stella B.: OC is changing, a big chunk of it is blue now, mostly Santa Ana but also parts of Anaheim and other pockets. I’d say when we left in 2010 it was heading toward purple.

    We lived about 3 blocks from Carl Karcher. We were in downtown Anaheim and our neighbors were about 50/50. We were still registered R even though we had been voting D for more than 30 years. Just didn’t bother to fix our registration, and we got an interesting look at what the idiots were up to.

  97. 97.

    Steeplejack

    Okay, I’ve blown it on Inspector Lewis. Guess I’ll catch it tomorrow (or later tonight, if I don’t fade out). Time to make a drink—purely for medicinal purposes, of course—and settle down for The Tunnel. Not sure that it has entirely succeeded, but I’m committed to finish it.

  106. 106.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Mennonites have a religious duty to welcome immigrants too. They love immigrants. We have a town here that was founded by them. I did contract work for one of their nonprofits- I stopped because it was too overtly religious for me but they’re definitely pro-immigrant.

  109. 109.

    Steeplejack

    Health report: My cold seems to be easing off already. I dozed a lot today, in between battling the forces of darkness on my brother’s ransomware virus. I’m sneezing less frequently and my nose is less runny—although I did reach the point where I’ve blown my nose so often that now it’s slightly sore. My eyes are still watering a lot, which is a hassle at the computer. I figure one more day of lying low and taking it easy and I should be all right.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    It’s really a crime that Obama doesn’t get more credit for the economy in Indiana. I was in Butler IN yesterday. I go there about once a year. Butler is like a small town ringed by manufacturing plants- the place pretty much exists at this point as a manufacturing hub. It is booming. Every plant is hiring. They have banners out front looking for people.

    It really doesn’t get any better in Butler. This is the peak. You would think NE Indiana (at least) would reject Trump.

  111. 111.

    Corner Stone

    @Steeplejack: 6th but he’s on AP track. It’s stupid but shit happens.
    Like Jack Reacher in that movie I told him, “Remember, you wanted this.”

  112. 112.

    PsiFighter37

    @Helen: Certainly went off much better than many (myself included) thought it would.

    The country has a lot on its hands to focus on now, though. For one, they don’t even seem to have basic funding for the Paralympics in place.

  113. 113.

    gene108

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I remember those opening credits, from when I saw it in the theater. They bored me to death. Just these women and some music, boring (I was four or five, when it came out).

    Enjoyed the rest of the film though and was a big fan of the show.

    The stuff my mom had to watch that she had no interest in because she had two boys…

  115. 115.

    redshirt

    @Kay: Kay I’ve read a lot of your recent posts where you bemoan the unfair coverage between candidates – if Clinton even pulled an iota of what Trump has, for summary, and she’d be done. Yet Trump almost seems to thrive on it.

    I know you are aware of the imbalance in media coverage. It even has an acronym: IOKIYAAR

    If this is true, and I think it is, then why are you surprised by anything this cycle anymore?

  116. 116.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks muchly.

    But is FYWP really this broken that if someone has a string XYZ in their handle, and gets banned, then any comment that contains XYZ gets thrown in the bit-bucket in the sky?

    Really?

    :-(

    I sure hope we don’t get a troll named “the” or “and” or “a”. Forget I said that. :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  125. 125.

    Corner Stone

    This is a headline on Yahoo News:

    Rudy Giuliani says Hillary Clinton has a secret illness. His supposed proof? Online videos.

  127. 127.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @redshirt: That’s kinda the way I heard it.

    The episode is here (the “digital extra – animals made” clip has the Northern Lights images (start around 2:45), but not the narration). As always, the photography is gorgeous.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  128. 128.

    redshirt

    @Corner Stone: Hey Corner Stone! Why do you have me pied? I’m very curious as I don’t think I’ve ever said anything to offend you. If I have, I’d like to apologize. Let me know please. Thank you. :)

    PS: If anyone could CC this for Corner Stone’s benefit, I’d be obliged. Thank you.

  129. 129.

    Adam L Silverman

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: It depends. There are two bins, for lack of a better term. One includes IP addresses, email addresses, and words that put a post directly in moderation. The other moves them automatically to the trash. I need to get a clear few hours and go through them and clean out the common terms – not the IP or email addresses – that have been in there for who knows how long.

  130. 130.

    Steeplejack

    @Corner Stone:

    “Remember, you wanted this.”

    Nice when you can hit them with an appropriate movie line.

    Sixth grade is tough—hormones, etc. Good luck to him.

    That was a good movie, but it had fuck all to do with the Jack Reacher of the novels (which I have liked until the last few, where it appears Lee Child is phoning it in and/or the publisher is holding a gun to his head to stick to a one-a-year schedule).

    ETA: Mmm, Rosamund Pike . . .

  133. 133.

    Brachiator

    @J:

    Can I just say NBC should never be allowed to cover the Olympics ever again. The games were great but the coverage sucks big time.

    NBC has the rights to future Olympics through the 2032 games.

    The best you can hope for is that NBC gets bought out in the future or that new technology renders them obsolete.

  135. 135.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @redshirt: Indeed. The posted responses might increase 3x, or might drop 3x as well (’cause people wouldn’t have to post ‘test’ and ‘is thing on’ and so forth any more.). I guess we have to be careful what we wish for!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  142. 142.

    Major Major Major Major

    @redshirt: we should have a post where everybody lists who they have pied! That would be interesting. And of course the hurt feelings would be fun.

    Maybe we shouldn’t.

    Right now the only people who are tripping my filter (off the top of my head) are shomi and NR. There’s more but they aren’t around a lot.

  146. 146.

    opiejeanne

    @redshirt: We lived in Riverside when the kids were little and medium-sized and there was a beach near Laguna, I think it was Pelican Point, and it was never crowded. There were a lot of stairs to get down from the parking area so the ice chest and other stuff were kind of a pain to get down there, but the kids and their friends were big enough to help.

  155. 155.

    redshirt

    @Aleta: LOL. The Malaprop. A friend’s mother was a Master. My favorite always was “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.”

    I was always like “Yeah!”

  158. 158.

    FlyingToaster

    @redshirt: Actually, it’s being sick and tired of someone’s constant trolling or lame attempts at same. Also because of being a nasty little shit.

    I have one person in the pie filter. They can stay there until November 9.

  161. 161.

    Corner Stone

    @Aleta: I lost the true love of my life during the 6th grade time frame. We were boyfriend/girlfriend in 1st and 2nd grade. Then I went to a different school for 3rd grade on. I was in a baseball tourney on a traveling team during 6th grade and I saw her between games. She was so beautiful. I’ve been ruined since that failure.

  162. 162.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steeplejack: Catch the Inspector Lewis series finale as soon as you can. I thought The Tunnel worked well. The French detective grew on me as the show progressed.

  164. 164.

    redshirt

    @FlyingToaster: Can’t you just scroll on by?

    I can tell you for example there’s not a single poster in this thread who’s banned.
    So your experience with your laser rocket arm is the same as mine, regular poster.

  165. 165.

    Glidwrith

    @OldDave: I will second the “Kubo” recommendation. Excellent animation, good storyline with characters that are shifted just outside the standard tropes so you aren’t sure what is going to happen.

  167. 167.

    catclub

    @Kay: They will tell you that business is good in anticipation of the GOP winning in November and ending the years of always winter and never christmas. under Obama.

    This is also why the stock market is at all time high levels. Nothing to do with the present administration.

  169. 169.

    FlyingToaster

    @redshirt: I’m already on blood pressure meds; I want to read ALL OF THE REST OF YOU. Even better, the pie comments make me smile, and therefore don’t raise my blood pressure.
    @Major Major Major Major: The one who calls the front-pagers names (though when I just checked, he hasn’t tonight) and hates all of the candidates — Hilz ‘specially — and… well, you get the drift. Life’s too short, and pieing is a smiley way of dealing with it.

    I do miss the old Sadly No dancing badgers.

  171. 171.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @FlyingToaster:

    I do miss the old Sadly No dancing badgers.

    One hopes that this helps.

    ETA: to echo Steep’s complaint, I just posted a link and it is hard to see. Bright blue has been a tradition for years; why was it changed?

  176. 176.

    fuckwit

    See Schwarzennegger, Arnold, failure of.

    Basically: a mostly-a-Democrat on social issues, who stupidly believed in the Magical Market Fairy and the Laffer curve, and had the manly Strong Authoritarian personality that the Villagers so adore.

    Failed governorship. Nearly bankrupted the state.

    Since ol’ Jerry’s been back, he’s turned everything around. And the GOP here is mostly a rump.

    That dog won’t hunt.

  181. 181.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: The real question probably is: does everyone who doesn’t have a Regency werewolf story have a Restoration vampire thing in the works?

  182. 182.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Omnes Omnibus: Only 10 hours? I am disappoint.

    I don’t think the link color (on the desktop version) has changed recently. It’s blue before it’s been clicked and a violet color that blends too closely with black once it’s been clicked.

    It’s bad, but not as bad as links in Disqus comments on Drum’s place. They’re the same color as regular text (or almost imperceptibly different). I have to remember to explicitly call out a link I include when/if I actually do so there…

    IOW, I could be worse!

    Manually putting bold tags in the links gets around the issue, here.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  187. 187.

    sukabi

    @Corner Stone: I’m pretty sure that someone with an hour of free time could compile a video of ghouliani’s latest public appearances starting with the repub convention and diagnose him as a screaming lunatic…no creative editing required. Of course that goes for the entire repub party.

  188. 188.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Ten hours is the max that YouTube will allow. Also, I can’t link to it, but I remember the link coloration as different and aligned with standard internet practice prior to the upgrade. I am sure that if Tommy were around, he would tell me I am using the internet wrong. And for that I apologize.

  192. 192.

    Mary G

    @Stella B.: @divF: @inventor: I am volunteering for Applegate, and Issa is having to work harder than he ever has, but the DCCC refuses to give Applegate any money or other support. The “logic” is that Issa has such a huge personal fortune that he can overcome anything, so why even bother? I’m infuriated.

  193. 193.

    burnspbesq

    @J:

    Can I just say NBC should never be allowed to cover the Olympics ever again.

    Sure, you can say it, but your views are officially irrelevant. NBC has the rights for 2018 amd 2020, for which it has paid silly money. Both Peyongchang and Tokyo are 13 hours ahead of US Eastern time, so expect to see almost nothing live.

  195. 195.

    opiejeanne

    @sukabi: I was surprised he crawled out of whatever spider hole he’s been hiding in since Katrina. Really, just remind everyone what an absolute failure you were at your damned job by pointing at someone who is extremely competent and pretending they’re not, all while outing yourself as completely unaware of how a functioning government works.
    Brownie, still incompetent.

  197. 197.

    Eric U.

    @Brachiator: NBC streaming was apparently pretty good for the olympics. At least a lot of the events either had no commentary or international commentators. But the app incorrectly diagnosed that I had the wrong cable company and there is no way to fix it. On the Roku, it had almost no content. I couldn’t get it to work on my computer either. I watched something on streaming earlier this summer, and they had the background noise turned way up high in the mix. I thought that was weird, but it was true on the regular broadcast as well. They have some real morons working for them.

  201. 201.

    Calming Influence

    No offense to anyone here, but pie-ing doesn’t seem to do anything. If I don’t like what is in front of my eyes, I move my eyes. In terms of changing a troll’s behavior, it’s the equivalent of a “protest vote”, because the person you’re protesting is completely unaware of what you are doing. I suppose if I were unable to keep myself from feeding trolls, it might be useful, so there’s that. (Sorry, just thumbing out loud.)

  205. 205.

    opiejeanne

    @amk: This is true.
    Brownie seems to think the photo op is more important than actually having the various agencies do something.

    Obama had aid sent on day 1 and has been in touch with the governor every day since, probably several times a day.

  206. 206.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Calming Influence: People who pie folk don’t see comments from people they find to be offensive. It makes them happier with their interface with this blog. I’ve never installed the filter, but I am not everybody.

  212. 212.

    burnspbesq

    Some of the NBC online coverage was actually quite good. The track and field commentators, whoever they were, were easy to listen to and very knowledgeable. The fencing, volleyball, and handball coverage was equally good.

    I don’t like Doug Collins as an analyst–he should have gone into much more detail about the defensive adjustments the US team made to turn a narrow escape over Serbia in the group stage into a blowout in the final–but Marv is like aural comfort food (I’ve lived with that voice for over 50 years). They could also make much better use of Rosalyn Gold-Onwude, who was a really good college point guard.

  213. 213.

    The Czar of All the Stupids

    My position is that so long as a candidate is personally appealing they *can be anything they want* policy wise

    Does that mean he’d be okay w/ Hannibal Lecter running as a Republican?

  215. 215.

    redshirt

    @Omnes Omnibus: Adam asked him in an other thread. I’ve asked him dozens of times now.

    The only alternative is he chooses not to reply to me, right? Look at his post history. He responds to everything. But yet here we can have a private discussion about Corner Stone.

    What’s your agenda, actually?

  217. 217.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: I’d been married to a Romanian-born woman for over five years. But it was a trip with my in-laws. At one point, there were animitronic eagles. They were from Spain.

  220. 220.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Just finished The Tunnel. Pretty good finish. In a bit I’ll switch over to the other PBS station and watch Inspector Lewis, which started at midnight (spooling on the DVR).

  221. 221.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @redshirt: Two possibilities: he ignores you for fun or he ignores you because he doesn’t care about what you say.

    I have interacted with him for at least eight years. I sincerely doubt that he has pied anyone. Feel free to disagree.

  223. 223.

    Hungry Joe

    @Mary G: My wife and I are going to drive up from San Diego and walk precincts for Applegate: I smell Issa’s blood in the water. We don’t have to match his $$, just raise enough to establish a solid presence and grind out a ground game.

  225. 225.

    sukabi

    @opiejeanne: he’s popped out a couple of times in the last few years, usually around a hurricane or flood and tries to give “advice” on how disaster management should be run… he’s apparently too bland to be called back on the talking head shows .(besides being a fucking embarassment, but really when has being an R-imbecile stopped the talking heads from booking them on their shows?)

  228. 228.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: Indeed, but now I’m genuinely curious, not just smart-ass curious: WTeverlovin’F with the eagles? Did they perch on the battlements looking menacing? Were they flying around? Were they touring from Spain?

  229. 229.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The hyperlink colors haven’t changed recently, I don’t think. But my frustration has resurfaced because I’m sick and because of the contretemps downstairs because people seemingly couldn’t see my hyperlinks.

    But the nonstandard colors have irritated me for a while. I looked hard, and most of my frustration is that the “after it has been clicked” hyperlink color is very, very close to the color of regular text. The “before it has been clicked” color is a more noticeable blue, but I don’t think it is as dark as “regular” HTML hypertext blue, so it can be a little hard to pick up in certain light and/or on certain monitors.

    And the reason for the change given at the time (last fall) was something basically to the effect that the site (re)designer was exploring the studio space and thought it would be cool to change the colors. Somewhat similar to the way Cole’s comments still appear with a different background color (although I think that was Alain’s doing) and code snippets also have a weird background color. Pointless and ugly.

    ETA: Okay, code snippets have a weird background color only on the mobile version of the site. SMDH.

  231. 231.

    seaboogie

    @Steeplejack: Agreed on the after click hyperlink color being so close – and word to the wise, you DO NOT want to click on the link that I sent to redshirt – bad earworm…..

  233. 233.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: There was an international art festival in Sibiu, Romania, when we were there. The Spanish dancing troupe were lead by the eagle. When we checked into our hotel, my ex and i chose the room overlooking the street because we thought it would be louder. As it happened, the Spanish dancers had rooms around the courtyard and had little interest in sleeping. My ex-in-laws got no sleep at all.

  234. 234.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @efgoldman: The pictures of lightly clothed native women were pretty rare in those days, as I recall. ;-)

    The space race coverage was fantastic.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  237. 237.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steeplejack: No recent change. I have been trying to be quiet about the stupidity because of my issues with Tommy. But since the “upgrade” links have been as you describe..

  239. 239.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: Oh, my!

    @Major Major Major Major: Don’t worry, I’m almost ready to start putting chunks of it out there. My problem is that I start re-writing when I ought to just keep writing, and worry about continuity, etc., later. But I just re-read the first three chapters and I actually still like it. A miracle!

  240. 240.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Steeplejack: I’m too near sleepytime to check, but my recollection was that the “theme” was picked by someone and Tommy tried to tweak things like the link colors to make them more visible and give us less to gripe about. But there were too many issues in getting the “simple” things like that fixed by him and Alain. My recollection is that things were much worse before he/they tweaked them.

    There are a few CSS tweaks out there, presumably they could be massaged some more if the code base here ever stayed stable enough to make it a one-and-done exercise. I don’t know enough about the stufff to do it myself, and I think Chuck has expressed frustration about how things like the FYWP antispam plugin breaks things.

    Hey, it’s free, so I try not to gripe too much. :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  242. 242.

    Brachiator

    @Eric U.:

    . NBC streaming was apparently pretty good for the olympics.

    I agree. I got to watch some of this, and it was often very good. I heard, but have not verified, that streaming viewership was very good compared to broadcast viewership. Maybe this points to a direction for future coverage.

  253. 253.

    seaboogie

    @Steeplejack (phone): I had to leave off that $10 musical *waves at ef* because that score is so crazy sticky. Over it now, thank dog. Still think it is amazing, but the earworms were the size of the ones in Dune.

    On the topic of that other song, apparently there is talk of Elsa being lesbian in the sequel, so that’s pretty groovy – right up there with our founding fathers being portrayed by actors of color in the musical that shall not be mentioned.

  254. 254.

    sukabi

    @efgoldman: judging by his behavior at the service for the policeman that were killed, he’s being “managed” he’s either too far in some bottle or has gone round the bend in some other fashion. Don’t think he’s let out that often.

  255. 255.

    Tripod

    @efgoldman:

    It’s a shitty deal for those who will be living in FEMA trailers for the next eighteen months, but I’m not real clear on how this is worse than the WV flooding this spring, or any significant flood.

  259. 259.

    Anne Laurie

    @Steeplejack: You sure it’s a cold, and not a new nasal allergy?

    Global warming is introducing new irritants to every climate zone, and yes you can develop ‘new’ sensitivities at any age. It’s ragweed season up here in New England, several weeks in advance of what used to be normal — ask me how I know!

    Also, if you’re not going out in public, chapped-lip stuff works on sneezing-chafed noses, too.

  261. 261.

    Steeplejack

    @Anne Laurie:

    Anything’s possible, but I’m pretty sure it’s just a cold. Can’t think of anything that has changed in my allergen environment in the last few days. And I’m fairly observant, because I used to fall prey to awful sinus infections when I was teaching/coaching swimming all day. I was always on the lookout to nip one in the bud.

    As for chapped lips and chafed nostrils, the ancestral balm of the Steepletonians is Mentholatum. Probably a Southern thing: 9% camphor and 1.3% menthol, resulting in a pleasant eucalyptus smell. Many curative powers. I thought I was out, but you prompted me to look in the hall closet (linens, notions and sundries), and I found a three-ounce jar that my brother (not the RWNJ one) gave me as a stocking-stuffer last Christmas.

    ETA: The housecat perked up from her doze at her workstation and wanted to smell the Mentholatum, in a “What is that heinous shit and yet I can’t turn away” kind of way.

  262. 262.

    philadelphialawyer

    @burnspbesq: I don’t get the hatred for NBC’s coverage. Not long ago, “watching the Olympics” meant a few hours in prime time, and that of canned material, featuring BS “human interest” stories, presented in the most rah-rah, “Go Team USA” way. Now, there are a half dozen or more networks, showing every sport, and practically every event, round the clock. Even the primetime, broadcast TV coverage is now much more focused on the competitions, and much less on manufactured “stories.” And the jingoism quotient seems to be reduced as well.

  263. 263.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Good thing you’re not still running for president or someone might take part of your second sentence out of context to hurt your campaign.

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