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It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

This blog will pay for itself.

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Not all heroes wear capes.

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

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

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Technically true, but collectively nonsense

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People are complicated. Love is not.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

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

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Comment Issues, Open Thread

Comment Issues, Open Thread

by | 168 Comments

This post is in: ,

Hearing from Adam that there’s some issues with comments, I changed one thing but it’s bedtime, so I won’t be up to see if commenting improves tonight or not.  I did upgrade the WordPress version this afternoon, so I’m sure that’s had some side-effect and made our anti-spam engine twitchy.

So…for whatever reason, our connection to Akismet’s anti-spam service is suddenly wonky and so comments aren’t being treated normally. I’m sorry for the inconvenience but I suspect it’ll right itself shortly. I’ve tried to rescue hundreds of comments from trash/hell and hopefully new ones won’t be so-consigned overnight while I sleep.

 

Meanwhile, open thread!

Reader Interactions

168Comments

  2. 2.

    ThresherK

    I thought I made a comment sometime like 4am ET this morning and I went back and it wasn’t there.

    Kinda asleep at that time so maybe I thought I did while not actually hitting “Post”. Granted, many ideas I get at that time of night are better left in my inner monologue.

    Thanx for your tireless efforts.

  6. 6.

    Mnemosyne

    Open thread! I just got home from spending most of the day at this year’s LA Times Festival of Books. I managed to not buy as many books as I did last year (and regret not buying a couple of bargain books I probably should have — oh, well!) I also managed to continue my track record of asking questions of the panelists that are somehow confusing and difficult to answer. I really should have someone help me formulate these things, because the people I ask always seem confused by what my question is.

  7. 7.

    lamh36

    FYI I did post a comment but it went into moderation. I’m thinking it’s back to not living open links

  8. 8.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    G just got back from visiting his family in Chicago and said that his aunt finally got her wish and K (her grandniece, my and G’s niece) is really interested in fashion and clothes at age 11 and loves to go thrift shopping. Of course, aunties have to be careful what they wish for, because K decidedly has her own taste and doesn’t let G’s aunt dress her up like a little doll the way she always dreamed, so now K is “difficult.”
    ;-)

  11. 11.

    Alain the site fixer

    @ThresherK: if so that greatly predates my updating the site today mid afternoon. Seeing as I’m in bed on tablet and barely able to type three words without an error, I’ll not comment further. But I’ll search for your comment as a marker of a known time/event. Thank you!

  13. 13.

    lollipopguild

    @Mnemosyne: Try running your questions past your friends to see if they are as clear as they should be. You can also run your questions past all of us hear at Balloon Juice, if you dare.

  15. 15.

    Mnemosyne

    @lollipopguild:

    In their defense, it wasn’t an easy question to answer — basically, How can I as a white person include characters of color in my books without looking like a jerk?

    (FWIW, they confirmed that I was going in the right direction by doing my research and then getting beta readers to read my work and let me know where I’d made glaring errors, so I did get useful answers even if my question was kind of a mess. It doesn’t help that I’m one of those annoying people who gets nervous and starts to ramble when you put a microphone in my hand.)

  18. 18.

    James E Powell

    Watched quite a bit of French election coverage on whatever channel was streaming on my twitter. Two things:

    1) The French left has an equivalent of the American Clinton-Sanders argument with similar vitriol and hysterical claims and

    2) French politicians use “Je” or “I” almost always while US politicians almost always use “we” when talking about their campaigns.

  19. 19.

    lollipopguild

    @Mnemosyne: You are at least aware of the problem and trying to do the right thing. I read a lot of sci-fic in the 60’s and 70’s and “Tom Clancy” type novels in the 80’s and early 90’s. The writers usually were all white and so were the characters in the novels. They started putting a few non-white characters into some of their novels and the results were from awkward to lame to quite racist.

  22. 22.

    lurker dean

    nate silver is doing a wonderful job trashing ron fournier right now, lol.

    @NateSilver538 2h2 hours ago
    No attempt to refute the evidence on Comey. No reporting or facts. Just [sigh]. From a former DC bureau chief turned “both sides” pundit.

    @NateSilver538 34m34 minutes ago
    You’re the former DC bureau chief for the Associated Press, and you literally don’t understand how fractions work.

  25. 25.

    Adam L Silverman

    I’m going to bed soon, so I expect everyone’s comments will just go into moderation.

  27. 27.

    Ruckus

    Also on a sad note, I went to a sports awards banquet last night that I go to every yr and of course ran into a few old friends. One couple (my age maybe + 2 or 3) that I worked with 25 yrs ago told me their daughter died 3 weeks ago and it wasn’t pretty. They have had custody of her two kids and have been raising them and now they will have to do that till they grow up. I knew her when she was a little girl and this sucks. And of course there was an In Memoriam section of the program and I knew some of those people as well. At the end of the evening I was drained.

  32. 32.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Lawrence O’Donnell has been using Sean Hannity’s clean record as a counterpoint to make O’Reilly look worse

    Gabriel Sherman‏Verified account @ gabrielsherman 9h9 hours ago
    Fox News contributor Debbie Schlussel accuses @ seanhannity of inviting her to his hotel room after taping his show.

    If I remember correctly who she is, Debbie Schlussel is a hard right true believer.

  33. 33.

    Mike J

    Jim Roberts‏ Verified account @nycjim
    Monica Crowley, who lost White House job over plagiarism, registers as lobbyist for pro-Putin Ukrainian oligarch.

  34. 34.

    amk

    More than 3/4th of the french voted against the xenophobe and the beebs seems it fit to ‘cover’ her racist voters’ reactions only.

  38. 38.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:
    Thanks. On top of all that I’ve had 3 friends pass in the last 6 months. 2 of them I’ve known for 45 and 50+ yrs, the other over 30.
    You reach a certain age and yeah people you know start dying. Still a tough thing to see so many go.

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: Everyone is going into moderation for random things. The blog is currently semi-broken and some have called it a night.

  43. 43.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Agreed from this end as well. I can understand if I used a restricted word, but nothing I typed was past a 3rd graders level. Or my normal writing level.

  47. 47.

    Mnemosyne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I suppose that this is my big chance to take the microphone and run with it but, as I established earlier in the thread, I’m not very good with a microphone and usually ruin it by rambling and not staying on point with what my original point was supposed to be even though it sounded like a good point in my head when I was thinking it.

  53. 53.

    Another Scott

    I’m watching a “Nature” show on white-tailed deer. It’s kinda interesting, but not enough to prevent me from hitting the sack soon.

    ‘night all.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  55. 55.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I get that Alain is not in a position to fix this on a Sunday night – hell, the fact that he replied is impressive.

  59. 59.

    Lyrebird

    @Mnemosyne: I should be asleep, but anyhow, when I started working for a Big Corporation, before switching to what I do now, I was encouraged to write down any question I had before asking it in the (rather high-pressure) staff meetings they had.

    Seemed to help.

  62. 62.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: I don’t have any idea what the issue is. It is completely random. I’ll shoot Alain an email so he can check again in the AM.

  65. 65.

    CaseyL

    @Ruckus: I’m so sorry – that’s heartbreaking. I’m getting to that age, too. Growing number of my cohort developing cancer, heart disease, or needing multiple joint replacement. And a couple of deaths, but those were premature (one very dear friend died of alcoholism). It does suck, not least because I wonder when it’s my turn.

  67. 67.

    Mike J

    @James E Powell:

    The French left has an equivalent of the American Clinton-Sanders argument with similar vitriol and hysterical claims and

    Mélenchon thinks Hamon supporters should have gone for most electable person near their views. And now he refuses to support the anti-fascist.

  78. 78.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: I am. Or at least going offline for the night. Decided to see how mucked up things are before doing so.

    As of right now I’ve got moderation cleaned out. I have no idea how long it will stay that way. I’ve emailed all the other front pagers to let them know what is going on and ask them, if they’re popping in overnight, to please check the moderation folder. Alain will get back on the hunt for the problem and a solution in the AM.

  79. 79.

    efgoldman

    @Alain the site fixer: Alain, once again during the day I had a problem for maybe 45 minutes / an hour with the site timing out when I clicked down from the front page to a comment thread. Is this an artifact of you working on it with the site open?

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: Thank you. I am familiar with the one last check impulse – and the extra work that comes from doing it. I appreciate it, if no one else gets the PITA that the one last check entails.

  83. 83.

    efgoldman

    @Mnemosyne:

    You jackals are going to force me to go do housework or something.

    mrs efg could use the help. She’s been sick with a really bad cough for two weeks (yes, finally, she went to the doc under duress from me and he gave her an Rx (non-narcotic) med that really helps.)

  84. 84.

    lurker dean

    @Adam L Silverman: true. but hopefully it stings that someone with silver’s stature is openly accusing him of both-sides-ism, even if he doesn’t seem to quite understand why.

  86. 86.

    amk

    @lurker dean: I don’t see how ron fucking fourier, who volunteered to work for mcangry’s campaign, is a bothsidesdoiter. He is a fucking rw clown, who damaged AP forever.

  91. 91.

    efgoldman

    @Major Major Major Major:

    if you’re serious I’ll pick something up at the airport.

    I’m never serious.
    It’s something I used to ask my co-workers to do when they went on vacation. I ended up with a bunch of souvenir pencils and postcards. I did like the one from Ireland with the leprechaun on top.

    Here’s a picture of Uncle Ho contemplating capitalism.

    Talk about somebody spinning in his grave!

  97. 97.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Another Scott: he was an OSS asset during World War 2 as well. He made the jump from anti-colonialism to communism after the west turned its back on him.

    ETA: his early writings are about the Vietnamese independence struggle, the People’s struggle stuff doesn’t show up until later, though obviously there were often Marxist elements to any educated man’s anti colonialism in that era.

  100. 100.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I know what it is. On Friday I sat next to a guy on the train who said everything wrong was his fault. Told him I was glad for him to be taking over for me and that I’m rid of that responsibility. But it may have worked the other way around. Bastard may have passed on his curse and now I’m doubling down.

  103. 103.

    efgoldman

    @Another Scott:

    Uncle Ho worked at the Parker House and might not view Capitalism all that badly…

    One of a bazillion “if only… instead of… ” decisions in history

  104. 104.

    Ruckus

    @CaseyL:
    Well I’ve got the cancer thing and I need a hip and knee. But I’m waiting until every step comes with a scream for the replacements. Only one of the 4 people I have known for a long time had reached my age. That girl was in her late 30s.

  106. 106.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Mnemosyne:

    …including one of my all-time favorite Morrissey tracks.

    No, it’s not “There Is A Light (That Never Goes Out).” I’m not that much of a fucking cliche.

    Well, it’s also not really a Morrissey song, so you’re safe ;)

  109. 109.

    jl

    Get rich licking envelopes at home, 15 minutes a day.
    Click HERE to subscribe to my newsletter.

  111. 111.

    Steeplejack

    John Oliver did an epic beatdown of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner tonight on his HBO show, with a Bill O’Reilly “tribute” montage as a finisher. Excellent! It’s on again at 1:40 and 2:02 a.m. EDT.

  119. 119.

    Steeplejack

    Reposting (FYWP):

    John Oliver did an epic beatdown of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner tonight on his HBO show, with a Bill O’Reilly “tribute” montage as a finisher. Excellent! It’s on again at 1:40 and 2:02 a.m. EDT.

  123. 123.

    NotMax

    All in the family. Sound familiar?

    Saudi Arabia‘s King Salman issued a decree late Saturday naming one of his sons, an air force pilot who has taken part in coalition strikes against the Islamic State group, as the kingdom’s new ambassador to the U.S.

    The appointment of Prince Khaled bin Salman to Washington signals the kingdom’s eagerness to strengthen bilateral ties under President Donald Trump. As the king’s son, the prince has a direct line to the Saudi monarch.

    Saudi Arabia is the world’s third largest defence spender. Prince Khaled’s appointment positions him as an influential broker in deals with U.S. manufacturers.
    [snip]
    Prince Khaled will be replacing Prince Abdullah Al Saud, who served in the post for just 18 months. Though a member of the royal family, Prince Abdullah was not seen as part of the inner Al Saud circle and is not a direct grandson of Saudi Arabia’s founder, King Abdulaziz. Source

    On the brighter side,

    Toy shops are thriving in eastern Mosul, with Iraqi children once again able to buy dolls, teddy bears or action figures after Islamic State was driven out of the area.

    The militant group banned toys with faces or eyes during the three years they controlled Iraq’s second largest city, including any anthropomorphic animals, which they deemed a form of idolatry.
    [snip]
    “Everything a child might want is available. Before there was a lot of things banned like images and faces, now a child can come choose whatever toys they want,” he said.

    Parents say buying these toys for their children will help them move on after three years of war and terror. Source

  125. 125.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Mnemosyne: I and many others would correct you if you said it, quickly because it’s not important but because you might not know that it isn’t a song only by Morrissey.

    Although the high-quality instrumentation should give that away.

    It’s to my mind different from a movie, where it’s normal to refer to a movie with actor x as “an x movie”.

  128. 128.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    It’s to my mind different from a movie, where it’s normal to refer to a movie with actor x as “an x movie”.

    And yet it’s ontologically incorrect to do that, because you should be referring to it with the director’s name as the possessor of the movie since it’s “A Film By …” in the credits.

    Even so, if you refer to Pulp Fiction as a Samuel Jackson movie rather than a Quentin Tarantino movie, people can figure out what you’re talking about.

  130. 130.

    Steeplejack

    @Mnemosyne:

    And yet it’s ontologically incorrect to do that, because you should be referring to it with the director’s name as the possessor of the movie since it’s “A Film By . . .” in the credits.

    That’s a laugh. Not every film is credited as “a film by” the director. I doubt it’s even a majority.

    You could write a monograph on the arcane conventions and variations of film credits.

  131. 131.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Mnemosyne: I’d say it’s more correct for movies since the common perception is not that a movie is of one person in the same way a song is, plus the metonymous usage is much more common when discussing a film than a song. Ontologically I don’t know if I would even allow a movie to “be by <a human>” except for some serious auteur stuff.

    But if your threshold for acceptance is that people be able to figure out what you’re talking about then yes you’re fine.

    Edited to fix HTML error.

  135. 135.

    danielx

    Well, there’s a comment issue – I’m in moderation. I totally and utterly hate loathe it when that happens…..

  136. 136.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mnemosyne: Then it would make sense to credit a song to the author, for ‘Yesterday’ it would be John Lennon & Paul McCartney. The song I’m listening to is also credited to them, ‘Give Peace a Chance’, Lennon recorded it while still in the Beatles, so it’s Lennon & McCartney song.

  137. 137.

    danielx

    Now I’m starting to wonder if Alain started this thread and put in deliberate moderation bugs just to fuck with us. Or am I being too paranoid about site wrangler sadism?

  141. 141.

    joel hanes

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    If I remember correctly who she is, Debbie Schlussel is a hard right true believer.

    Correctamundo. A sometimes print columnist, so you can google up some of her output if you want to feel sickened.
    A hating, bigoted mind as ugly as Coulter’s or Limbaugh’s, but only half as clever. Think Pam Geller.

  143. 143.

    joel hanes

    Wow, NotMax beat me to a different punch.
    You’ve gotta get up pretty damned early in the morning with this bunch.

  144. 144.

    joel hanes

    A favorite bumpersticker from years ago, appropriate for Science marchers :

    Subduction leads to orogeny

  149. 149.

    Elizabelle

    Good morning out there. From this side of the pond.

    Perhaps that will make it through the FYWP filter …

  153. 153.

    Elizabelle

    @greennotGreen: Good morning from Barcelona. Sorry to hear the timeline has shortened.

    We need more fine people like yourself, not less. I hope you had a peaceful night, and that you are up to joining us to comment, as you feel up to it.

    Hell, I think you should be allowed to choose the blog topics. As long as they’re not too far above our paygrades.

    Best to you, dear greennotGreen.

    (And does your name have anything to do with parrots?? You will be happy to hear that we have green parrots in the wild here in Barcelona, scrabbling alongside the pigeons for food. They tend not to hang out on statues, as their pigeon cousins do … I did see a blue heron, hanging out with the pigeons near the Cascades fountains yesterday. Was cool.)

  157. 157.

    joel hanes

    we have green parrots in the wild here in Barcelona

    There’s a colony/flock of mitred conures, a green parrot with red on the back of the head, that lives near the intersection of El Camino Real and Mathilda in Sunnyvale, in Silicon Valley. They’re well-established, and seem to have stabilized at 30 to 40 birds. I’ve been watching them for 30 years. My ghod they’re noisy — when the flock travels, high in the air, to a currently-fruiting tree somewhere, you can year them for miles.

  159. 159.

    Elizabelle

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: John Lennon seems the most revered Beatle. I find art with his image on many travels; most recently a table at a hilltop cafe in Madeira. Will have to pull down some photos although you and Le compte Botsplainer have raised the bar a bit high for my photographic skills.

    @Patricia Kayden: Another country heard from. Buenos dias.

    @joel hanes: Not close enough to the parrots to know if they raise a ruckus. They get mucho competition from a small Spanish salesman in our neighborhood shouting “Butane!” with his worldclass lungs, for hours on end. Sounds like “Day-TANA-a”, and I’m starting to learn the Spanish term for “Shut up!”. Is of no use, though.

    Bring on the parrots. At least they’re not doing it for filthy lucre.

  160. 160.

    Elizabelle

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: John Lennon seems the most revered Beatle. I find art with his image on many travels; most recently a table at a hilltop cafe in Madeira. Will have to pull down some photos although you and Le compte Botsplainer have raised the bar a bit high for my photographic skills.

  162. 162.

    Elizabelle

    @joel hanes: Not close enough to the parrots to know if they raise a ruckus. They get mucho competition from a small Spanish salesman in our neighborhood shouting “Butane!” with his worldclass lungs, for hours on end. Sounds like “Day-TANA-a”, and I’m starting to learn the Spanish term for “Shut up!”. Is of no use, though.

    Bring on the parrots. At least they’re not doing it for filthy lucre.

  164. 164.

    TenguPhule

    @danielx:

    Or am I being too paranoid about site wrangler sadism?

    Never attribute to malice what can be explained by lazy programming code.

  165. 165.

    TenguPhule

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Like the stupid comments downstairs?

    Gonna have to be a bit more specific then that. Needles in a stack of needles, so to speak.

  166. 166.

    TenguPhule

    @lurker dean:

    @NateSilver538 34m34 minutes ago
    You’re the former DC bureau chief for the Associated Press, and you literally don’t understand how fractions work.

    I understands its a job requirement for management.

  168. 168.

    J R in WV

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Lawrence O’Donnell has been using Sean Hannity’s clean record as a counterpoint to make O’Reilly look worse

    Gabriel Sherman‏Verified account @ gabrielsherman 9h9 hours ago
    Fox News contributor Debbie Schlussel accuses @ seanhannity of inviting her to his hotel room after taping his show.

    If I remember correctly who she is, Debbie Schlussel is a hard right true believer.

    I haven’t been out there making passes at co-workers for a long time, but isn’t there a big difference between making a polite invitation to a woman you are attracted to and telling someone that if they don’t get on their knees and blow you, you’ll destroy their career?

    Maybe the problem is that hard-right wing-nuts have trouble telling the difference between an invitation that might lead to a consensual sexual encounter and major league sexual harassment where a grossly unattractive old guy makes demands and threats at the same time. These are not the same thing, and one is, if done right, privately, politely, way more acceptable than the other thing with threats and one-sidedness.

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