Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

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

This fight is for everything.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

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

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

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

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

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

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

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

You are here: Home / Music / Monday Evening Open Thread

Monday Evening Open Thread

by | 132 Comments

This post is in: ,


(via Huffington Post)

Been a busy day around here already, so have a musical interlude. Miley Cyrus spent her childhood performing on a Disney soundstage, and even ‘Little Princess Froggy Dimples’ is smart enough to know Trump is a menace who must be defeated. Also, major Boomer nostalgia, per the YouTube description:

Music guest Miley Cyrus performs Odetta’s rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Baby, I’m in the Mood for You” for the Tonight Show audience.
***********

Apart from warm nostalgic fuzzys (I love Odetta!) what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

132Comments

  1. 1.

    BruceFromOhio

    Ms Cyrus has received/receives a lot of grief for her activities, which comes with the territory of being a performer, and an entertainer. I say, hats off to you, make it work for you, as long as you don’t lose yourself out there somewhere, and you aren’t harming anyone else, go for it and Gaia bless you. Your screw-ups are going to help you learn, and your voice will serve you long after the lights fade and the glitter is gone.

  3. 3.

    Patricia Kayden

    Miley is pretty liberal despite her Southern roots. Not too sure about her Father though. I remember awhile back when she came out firmly for marriage equality. The usual suspects were not pleased.

  4. 4.

    BruceFromOhio

    Hey, I was told to ‘prepare for turbulence.’ I chugged my gin and tonic, doused the spliff, tightened my seat belt, and am sitting here with my face buried in the pillow on my lap. Are we gonna turb this lence or is thus just another dumpster fire press conference, all piss and no substance?

  5. 5.

    SenyorDave

    Been wondering about debates. Talked to my brother, who is in sales, is good at reading people, and is far more perceptive than I am. He thinks Hillary should repeatedly bring up tax returns, and hammer him over what he’s hiding. He also thinks that she should talk about what things were like in 2008, when we were in full meltdown, and contrast it with current times. I generally agree, although we split on the Birther issue, I think she should press it, he thinks nobody is going to change their mind over it (if it bothers them, it probably always bothered them).

  10. 10.

    Major Major Major Major

    @singfoom: Good question! There are sort of two different measurements–the comments are binned into the emotions, and then the same comments are binned with the positive/negative screen. So if a comment has a lot of ‘joy’ it will add to ‘joy’ and it will also add to ‘positive’.

    If somebody has a big positive and a big negative then it means we use lots of each, probably in separate comments. Most people seem to comment about 60% positive, 40% negative.

  13. 13.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    @Patricia Kayden: I may be wrong about this but I am pretty sure Mileys grandad or great grandad was an elected Dem at the state level and I’m pretty sure Billy Ray Cyrus is a Dem. I,however,may be confusing them with another country music family. I’m too lazy to Google.

  18. 18.

    Major Major Major Major

    @schrodinger’s cat: code here

    For each person, it takes your comments and checks each word against a list of ~14,000 words which are scored on those ten axes; it adds up the values on each axis for each word, and divides by number of posts.

    And to respond to AL’s comment last night, yes, it excludes quoted things, it’s just the actually written stuff.

    ETA: @MattF: I suspect that the top commenters have similar scores because that is just how modern American English blog communication is shaped, and we’ve written enough to get a sort of normal score. I’m going to look at the trolls next and see if they’re different.

  19. 19.

    geg6

    I quite like Miley, actually. Have for a long time. Well, a couple of years anyway. She does a great version of “Jolene.” And yes, she’s pretty liberal.

    One of my guilty pleasures is The Voice. She was a guest mentor last year and, watching her mentor the contestants, I kept saying to myself that she was giving some of the best advice I’ve ever heard anyone on that show give. And lo and behold! They’ve made her a judge this year. Along with Alicia Keyes. I’m quite excited to watch starting tonight.

  20. 20.

    singfoom

    @Major Major Major Major: I’ve never written anything in go, it reads like a mix of javascript and ruby to me. What’s your opinion of the language? Also, not to be nitpicky, but don’t you need more than a single word to understand sentiment? Doesn’t that get into a semantic analysis? I don’t have a good example right now, but a given word could mean something different based on the usage and the words around it…

    Cool program though, thanks for posting the gh link.

  21. 21.

    Botsplainer

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Billy Ray seems to come from the left populist side of country and bluegrass, like Ralph Stanley, Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner, John Prine and Johnny Cash.

    There’s always been an active group looking out for the little man.

  22. 22.

    Alain the site fixer

    Ok folks, the main updates are complete. I’m taking a break for a little refreshment and then I’ve got some more tiny tweaks to enact.

    I’ll be making a post later tonight and then again tomorrow to get problem reports so please don’t clutter up AL’s post with gripes about the site! :)

  24. 24.

    The Dangerman

    ….what’s on the agenda for the evening?

    Kershaw v. Bumgarner on Day 1 of the last week for Vin Scully.

  26. 26.

    jacy

    Trying to get my work situation situated — which entails going through 275 more emails. (Yes, that’s the actual number, not hyperbole.) The summer of my discontent has wreaked havoc with my professional duties. But this is the week! No matter what the stupid people around me do to attempt to further derail me, I will not be derailed.

    I am trying to come up with a reward system. A beer for every 20 emails? Trying to figure out a rate that will leave me still able to attend to the emails, and I was never good at maths.

    And, for my health, I am not going to look at cable news for the rest of the week.

  27. 27.

    Gemina13

    @geg6:

    Okay,I’m off to YouTube to see that, because Dolly Parton’s version always makes me want to punch the man who’d break her heart. And cry.

  28. 28.

    Schlemazel

    @Major Major Major Major:
    I am stunned (seriously) to see that I have such a large number of positive comments. I often feel I am too negative . . . I guess I could do worse!

    I have been out of the loop a lot recently for a number of reasons & missed the start of this, how did you come by these numbers?

  29. 29.

    Major Major Major Major

    @singfoom: I really like go. It reads sort of like ruby because they’re both heavily influenced by smalltalk, so they both get their bursts of expressive syntax from that. If that one looks like javascript that’s because I’m using a library that implements a jQuery-style interface on top of go for HTML parsing. Otherwise some of the bracketing is java-esque in both js and go.

    It’s also very, very fast.

    The sentiment analysis is very basic, yeah, and it can’t detect things like sarcasm obviously. Just a cute little thing I was working on to practice go.

  31. 31.

    jl

    @SenyorDave: I hope HRC really starts hammering Trump directly on issues.I hope she does that in the debates and generally in the campaign. That is the one area where I think Trump will utterly and repeatedly fail at a convincing response.

    I think attacks focusing on personality, or campaign posturing and etc, just plays to strengths of the Trump campaign, which is psychological manipulation through misdirection and lying, and WWE style dominance stunts.

    So, HRC has to have some material prepared on the birther issue, but should not take it too seriously on anything the Trump camp reveals to be its own terms. If taken too seriously on the Trump campaign terms, Trump will try to draw HRC into BS lies about her campaign starting it in 2008, and HRC will get bogged down in that.

    So, at some point, after a stinging attack calling out Trump (and importantly, the GOP leadership) for exactly what they are doing (which is using the admission of one lie to segue into launching another lie for the purposes of cheap squabbling over BS nonsense to distract attention from fact that Trump has not one, not a single one, solid policy proposal and no understanding of issues), HRC just has to say it is all silly crap and start talking issues,.

    I thought Obama and WH press staff did great on birther issues and snowed the way on how to handle it.

  33. 33.

    Schlemazel

    @delk:
    Be careful. When I had mine I left the hospital feeling as good as possible and then a couple hours later the drugs wore off! Don’t over do it and for sure don’t go running around town until you have had a chance to relax & recover fully.

  34. 34.

    Anne Laurie

    @Alain the site fixer: I got one “You must update your WP screen” when I logged on just after 3pm, and YAY! one click, immediate ‘updating’, no further interference.

    That makes me a happy front-page user — and a grateful one.

  35. 35.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Schlemazel: See #19 above.

    A while back, redshirt idly wondered if there was a way to predict when JC would bigfoot somebody. I had been meaning to brush up on some data mining/machine learning stuff anyway, so I went ahead and got the timestamps. While I was doing it–I had the links anyway–I went ahead and downloaded the posts, why not? (This is how my brain works, I’m a digital packrat.)

    So this is based on posts from June and July.

  37. 37.

    Feathers

    @Botsplainer: Dolly Parton is Miley’s godmother, so not surprising at all. Back when there was all the “uproar” over her “behavior,” I saw a YouTube of her singing a country song, straight with acoustic accompaniment, and remember thinking, she’s going to be around for a while. She’s got the chops.

  40. 40.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Anne Laurie: Glad to hear it! You may see a private recipe example since you were logged in. No one else sees it, it’s just to show you how things look. I’ll be making a recipe post later I know you’re not so much the recipe sharer, but should there be other things of interest for which a specialized widget might help, please do let me know.

  42. 42.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    @jl: Moby was on the Stephanie Miller show this AM. He had lunch with Bill Clinton and had some not so good things to say about the Clinton campaign. Gawd, I sincerely hope that one of higher ups in the Clinton campaign were listening. He said that the Clintons are running a 90s campaign in 2016. He compared it to a DJ playing Indy music and thinking people were going to like it because the DJ thought it was good music.He thinks the HRC needs to work on ‘stunts'(my word,not his) to keep the attention on her….he wasn’t talking about Trump kind of stuff but just doing unusual stuff for attention like getting a pic with the Queen or sky diving. I think he’s got a point.

  49. 49.

    Miss Bianca

    @BruceFromOhio: Miley’s got a great voice and presence – and she’s taking risks. She has so outgrown her “Hannah Montana” days and landed on the other side as a grown-up artist. I salute her!

  50. 50.

    JGabriel

    @SenyorDave:

    I generally agree, although we split on the Birther issue, I think she should press it, he thinks nobody is going to change their mind over it (if it bothers them, it probably always bothered them).

    He’s right, no one’s changing their mind on the birther issue. But that doesn’t mean Hillary shouldn’t press Trump on it in the debates. It’s a good idea to preach to the choir once in while, throw’em a bone as the saying goes – that’s how you get us to sing.

  52. 52.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Major Major Major Major: Seconded.

    As I noted somewhere along the line, my weekend travel was, thankfully more joyous than that of efg or raven, as I went to visit my delightful grand-daughter, but then the joy was compounded when we were informed that next spring, delightful grand-daughter gets a promotion – no pay increase, but new title: big sister.

  56. 56.

    Miss Bianca

    @efgoldman: Oh, my dear, what a terribly trying experience for you and mrs efg. Glad you’re back, and that you both had good friends with you to help.

  57. 57.

    Trentrunner

    @Mai.naem.mobile: Consider the source. I’m going to bet Moby doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

    Also, if Hillary tried the kinds of thing you list, she’d be accused of being “desperate” to win, resorting to “gimmicks” that are unbecoming of a presidential candidate.

    While Trump takes a giant shit on the floor and sticks his stubby vulgarian fingers in it.

  61. 61.

    JMG

    @Mai.naem.mobile: Oh, yeah, Moby. He’s run a lot of winning campaigns. I realize the desire to give advice to Clinton is strong, but this was off the charts wrong. She can’t be who she isn’t. That’d play to every negative stereotype about her.

  62. 62.

    jl

    Video of Trump enthusiastically advocating intervention in Libya, back in the day.
    More slam dunk evidence that Trump’s self-proclaimed inerrant clairvoyant wisdom on foreign policy is a bunch of fantasy and lies.

    Will our miserable incompetent and corrupt press take notice and point it out?

    Watch This
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/watch-this–3

  64. 64.

    bystander

    There was a Professor Charles Muller of the University of Strasbourg who analyzed literature by counting the occurrence of each word in a text. Actually, his grad students did the counting. Major’s system reminded me of it. Muller was convinced that Balzac did not write the last quarter of La peau de chagrin because of a lack of a certain words and the use of others that hadn’t previously occurred.

    The apocryphal story was that his grad students hated him. In some collective fit, they trashed his files and spread the events of May, 1968, to Strasbourg.

  65. 65.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    How in the world did I end up on this list? I don’t think I comment all that often. Where are NR and srv?

    (That’s actually a pretty cool chart. I hope you will say more about what criteria you used, both to select the commenters and to identify the emotions.)

  67. 67.

    Trentrunner

    Al Giordano tweeted something interesting today:

    It’s the final debate that counts. You’d rather start slow and end hot than start hot and fizzle out.

    I had been assuming the first debate would matter most since it would draw the most viewers.

    But I do remember in 2012, after Obama’s first lackluster performance, him kicking ass in the final two debates gave me (and the country) boost, and he went on to win, of course.

    Thoughts on debates’ relative importance to each other?

  70. 70.

    Mnemosyne

    @efgoldman:

    I’m glad it went as well as could be hoped. I agree that if the asshole murderer has a bunch of outstanding debt along with the property, it’s better to let his asshole family deal with it and not increase your own stress level.

  74. 74.

    Shell

    But I do remember in 2012, after Obama’s first lackluster performance

    Its funny. I remember his being so criticized for that debate. I just thought he looked tired and wanted to say, “You know he does have a day job…”

  75. 75.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Trouble editing, so for Major^4:

    Tried to add to my #68 — I saw your explanation earlier about how emotions were assigned and weighted, so that’s fine.

    But I’m still perplexed as to how you chose the commenters you did. I don’t see Amir Khalid, Aimai, Kay, Applejinx, Satby, Suzanne, TaMara, Elizabelle — and that’s just a quick off-the-top-of-my-head listing.

  76. 76.

    delk

    @Schlemazel: Thanks–I had rotator cuff surgery in January so I’m ready and aware for the pain to ramp up. Walking my dog is my big daily exertion, and he’s being boarded for a few days.

  79. 79.

    jl

    @Shell: Romney won the first debate using a Gish Gallop strategy (rush through jumble of statements and assertions with supporting, or not supporting, facts and figures as fast as you can talk). Romney’s strategy didn’t work because, it is pretty hard to keep up if others can prepare for it, and if you get slammed in the fact checks following the debate.

    Not sure media is willing to fact check Trump at all. But I don’t think Trump can do a Gish Gallop. Preparing one does take some self-discipline and willingness to do quite a bit of work. While I think Romney did them for years and was an expert at it from his hedge fund days.

  80. 80.

    Felonius Monk

    @efgoldman: I’m sure it’s a relief to have this task behind you. Sounds like you have some good and caring friends. Best wishes to you and Mrs. efg as you continue on.

  84. 84.

    Miss Bianca

    Speaking of music, time for a Totes Adorbs Office Kitty update: I knew Lefty was becoming a Teenage Girl Kitty when she was all like “aw, naw, don’t cuddle me!” but now it’s been confirmed by her fascination with the Youtube videos of the Monkees that I’ve been streaming while I work.

  88. 88.

    Schlemazel

    @delk:
    I have had a bunch of surgeries & never got hit like that before.

    Anyway, take care & here’s to a speedy recovery!

  93. 93.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    @efgoldman: I’m sorry. The only part that doesn’t utterly suck is knowing that that part, at least, is behind you. May the rest of the road be less dreadful.

  95. 95.

    Schlemazel

    @jl:
    I would expect the Clinton team would work pretty hard at fact checking the Drumpster fire. They should have a ton of ready made “that is pure BS” replies in hand before the debate because so much of his sludge is easily guessed. They as he spews they could hand out the facts & pretty much do the reporters job for them.

  97. 97.

    Keith G

    @Shell:

    I just thought he looked tired and wanted to say, “You know he does have a day job…”

    According to those who were working for him at the time, he was notorious for his disdain for the process of preparing for the debates and did everything he could to avoid spending much time on it. After his sucky performance, he turned his attention to doing it right.

  102. 102.

    Gelfling 545

    @Feathers: Several years back when, no doubt for sins in a past life, I was condemned to watching Hannah Montana with my grandduaghter, I thought Miley was, even at that young age, quite a good comic actress as well.

  103. 103.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    Oy vey. I made Moby sound like an arrogant moron and he really didn’t come across as one. BTW, he’s been an HRC supporter from the beginning. He said Bill Clinton said that the campaign was going to dump lots of money on teevee ads and he thought ‘earned’ media would be a better/additional thing the campaign should be doing. He thinks Trump is going to get votes,partly because he’s just out there all the time,like the Kardashians. I think HRC in a photo op/policy meeting with the Pope,Justin Trudeau, the Brit Royals on poaching or land mines is stuff that would be covered. ‘Stunt’ is a word I shouldn’t have used. Anyhow that is all I am saying on this topic.

  107. 107.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’ve been reading through the threads rather haphazardly, so it’s quite possible this has already been discussed, but here in the south we have a somewhat serious shortage of gasoline. There was a pipeline spill in Alabama about ten days ago — Colonial Pipelines’ largest spill in 20 years — which has played merry havoc with getting fuel to the pumps all across the southeast. The governors of AL, GA and TN have all declared states of emergency.

    I drove about 10 miles north of my apartment today, a route that takes me past at least a dozen service stations, and every single one of them was closed. Anecdotally, I’m seeing and hearing similar reports from friends and local/regional FB peeps. There were a handful of places open on the weekend, but they were few and far between, and prices had jumped by 30-40-50, even 60¢/gallon just since last Thursday. No telling when things will get back to normal.

    (And of course the only thing anyone seems to care about right now is gas availability and price. Gods forbid we should have any concerns about what that leak/spill is doing to the environment.)

  110. 110.

    jl

    @Mai.naem.mobile: I like Moby’s music. Did an amazing collaboration with Public Enemy a few years ago. He seems like a smart guy. But not sure his suggestions wrt HRC are helpful.

    In the current debased news media infotainment environment, I think a really wild stunt HRC could pull, would be to start hammering issues, and Trump ignorance, fantasy and bald face lies about issues, and challenge celebrity news-tainment chitcat divas to pay attention. That kind of wild stunt would make a parachute jump look pretty tame.

    In half-way sane election cycle, the video I posted earlier in this thread, showing Trump to be a bald-face liar wrt to one of his main campaign themes would be a devastating issue for the rest of the campaign. Will it even be noticed before we possibly elect an ignorant liar and incompetent bigot to the WH?

    Edit: I think Moby is greatly bothered by same thing that bothers a lot of us: something very wrong when Trump, obviously so unfit, can get this far, and almost promoted by worthless news media.

  111. 111.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Miss Bianca: I look forward to listening a few years on when she’s had pplenty of time for exploring the borders. Would love to hear her cover more of the greats (Cline), esp. in the jazz arena (Krall), and whip up some of her own tunes.

  112. 112.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Omnes Omnibus: Could be the sampling. Could be that the vast majority of your comments are neutral, and the emotional ones stick in your mind but aren’t actually at the forefront in the aggregate. Could be the corpus I used–most sentiment analysis corpi aren’t free, so I used what was available.

    One thing I was thinking of doing is a sentiment analysis by tag.

  113. 113.

    Miss Bianca

    @Hafabee: Damn, that’s cool – that’s the coolest “slowdown” version I’ve heard since Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” – which a friend of mine did for me.

  114. 114.

    Gelfling 545

    So I was at my daughter’s when a parcel arrived for my son in law. He says it’s his “combat flip flops“. Oooookay. So he shows me the shoes & the website & it all seems pretty cool to me. He says the shoes are comfortable for him, not an easy thing as Afghanistan turned his right foot into essentially a bag of skin with miscellaneous bones in no particular order. It’s nice to be reminded that there are folks out there trying to do some good in the world.

  115. 115.

    Keith G

    @efgoldman: Maybe more (quantitatively) as well. Recently, death rates have been going down, but the total number of humans alive on the planet is going up. So, even with a lower rate, more people are dying….maybe. Sounds like the basis of an Algebra I word problem.

  117. 117.

    Mnemosyne

    @Keith G:

    FWIW, this would have been a shit year for Patton Oswalt even if the only person who had died had been his wife. I think he gets to complain at least a little about this being a shitty year since he was personally affected.

    Since 2012 was the year where my father-in-law and my own father died within six months of each other, you’d better believe I was praying for that goddamned year to be over.

  118. 118.

    Gemina13

    @Keith G:

    I do believe there’s an average amount of people that die every year. That’s not what I’m asking for; I simply want this year to be done.

  119. 119.

    J R in WV

    @Peale:

    Yeah, me too!!! Where’s my graph!!! And how come people get in as commenters when they’re front pagers commenting on their own threads? Bitch, bitch, gripe!!!!r ;-{ )

    Major^4, good work, interesting report. Could we get a version we could enlarge so I can read it? It’s pretty small type on my laptop, I dunno how someone with a tablet or phone could read any of it.

  123. 123.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):

    No kidding, it sure can.

    I just got word that a former colleague and one-time very close friend is in the hospital with hydrocephalus (hydrocephaly). And Charmian Carr (Liesl) died last night. And the husband of one of my very favorite writers (Louise Penny) also died last night. And another of my favorite writers, W. P. Kinsella, died a couple of days ago. And so many dear Balloon-Juicers going through their own health challenges or family losses, sometimes both at once. And another unarmed black man was executed by Tulsa police. And and and and.

  130. 130.

    Brachiator

    @SiubhanDuinne: A co-worker died too young recently. But within a few weeks another co-worker got married, another saw the birth of his first child, another celebrated his kid’s first birthday. For me, it was a reminder that no matter how much we may want to stop and note our tragedies, life goes on. Hopefully we can find those moments of grace and hope.

    I hope you can find some positive moments as well.

  132. 132.

    gogiggs

    I’m old enough that even my kid was too old for Hannah Montana, so I was never exposed to Miley.
    Then, one day, YouTube, for reasons I can’t even guess at, suggested that I watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2ua3O_fdCY

    And, how can you not love that?

    I can’t say I’m a fan, but I’m surely not a hater.

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