Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

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

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

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

Nothing worth doing is easy.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

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

Found liable for massive fraud, is required to post a massive bond, gets a break, then files a *fraudulent* bond!

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

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

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

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Warning: Fake Eclipse Glasses Aren’t The Only Hazard Out There

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127Comments

  3. 3.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    David Crosby says fellow rocker Ted Nugent has been kept out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because he’s not good enough, not because of his politics.
    Crosby responded to a fan’s question about whether political correctness kept Nugent out of the Hall by saying Monday on Twitter that Nugent “just isn’t good enough.” He also used an expletive to describe Nugent.
    Nugent told Albany, New York, radio station WQBK-FM last week he hasn’t been inducted into the Cleveland-based Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because of his support for gun rights and his membership on the National Rifle Association’s board of directors. The outspoken Nugent was a fierce critic of former President Barack Obama’s gun control efforts and said at a 2012 NRA gathering that he’d be dead or in jail if Obama was re-elected.
    Crosby has been inducted into the Hall twice for his membership in The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
    Nugent’s biggest hit is “Cat Scratch Fever,” which peaked at No. 30 on the Billboard chart in 1977.

  6. 6.

    TaMara (HFG)

    I figure since I have nothing much to add to the day’s events that other FP haven’t already addressed, I’ll try for comic and/or inspirational relief during the Dolt45 reign.

  7. 7.

    Old Dan and Little Anne

    I loved that song. I just watched that Vice video about this weekend. Ugh. Then Colbert who trashed drumph. My wife has been updating me on the son of her friend who was outed on FB for being in Charlottesville. Quite the Tuesday.

  12. 12.

    Mnemosyne

    “Da-Doo”

    “But the old Chinese man sold it to me anyway. For a dollar ninety-five.”

    Sharp-eyed viewers may recognize Tisha Campbell as part of the Greek chorus, which appears throughout the film.

  14. 14.

    Suzanne

    How do I put a photo in a comment, from an iPad? Someone did the most hilarious thing to the Confederate soldiers memorial here in AZ and I want to share.

  15. 15.

    Mnemosyne

    @Suzanne:

    Bo Derek seems to be utterly convinced that she can’t get work in Hollywood because she’s a conservative, and not because she spent her whole career sleepwalking through her husband’s shitty soft-core porn movies.

  18. 18.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Suzanne: I found out from that Croz twitter feed that Warren Zevon is not in the Hall of Fame. I suspect Mr Zevon might actually care less about that if he were still alive than he does now, but… Wow.

    @Mnemosyne: Kelsey Grammer whined about how hard it is to be a conservative in Hollywood, but nobody could hear him because of the reveres alarms of the dump trucks backing up to his house with the money NBC was then paying him to wring a few more seasons out of the worn out Frazier. He’s an asshole, but he is incredibly talented.

  22. 22.

    Mike in NC

    We’re blowing off the eclipse thing entirely because even though we live near a planetarium, all stores in town have run out of the special glasses.

  24. 24.

    Suzanne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, no shit. But yes, there is a memorial for them in front of the Capitol at Wesley Bolin Plaza, which is where all the prominent memorials are located. (Including a USS Arizona memorial, which makes more sense.)

  25. 25.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Rex: Darn, I was gonna post that. One of my favorite Internet Things.

    ETA: In case one of y’all hasn’t seen it, it’s the Total Eclipse music video re-dubbed with lyrics narrating what’s actually in the video

    ETAA: I whip my head to the right!

  27. 27.

    Jerzy Russian

    @Mike in NC:

    We’re blowing off the eclipse thing entirely because even though we live near a planetarium, all stores in town have run out of the special glasses.

    Can you find welder’s glass somewhere? Also, if you have a small telescope or binoculars, you can project the Sun’s image onto a piece of paper and that image would be safe to view.

  29. 29.

    khead

    So, is it worth it to try and cut up a few shoe boxes so my wife and I can “watch” the damn thing?

  32. 32.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Major Major Major Major: that’s one of the things I was thinking of

    @Peale: I watched a few episodes of Boss, I thought it might’ve worked if set in some vague, unnamed big city in some vague, unspecified post-war era, didn’t work set in the 21st century. But he made a good villain.

  38. 38.

    dmsilev

    @Mike in NC:

    We’re blowing off the eclipse thing entirely because even though we live near a planetarium, all stores in town have run out of the special glasses.

    I ordered some online, but for some reason two separate FedEx delivery drivers have decided to play silly buggers with dropping off the package. Guys, if I sign the thing on your door tag that says “I agree to let you drop off the package even if I’m not here to get it first-hand”, that means you can drop off the package even if I’m not here. It doesn’t mean leave another door tag thing saying “He wasn’t here. Oh well”. Sigh.

    At least the sun filter for my camera did get delivered (18 stops! That’s a lot of attenuation). Worst case, I’ll just look through the viewfinder (DSLR, so filtering the main lens will protect the viewfinder as well). It’s only going to be ~62% here, but that’s ok.

  39. 39.

    Anne Laurie

    Via Suzanne, in Arizona:

    This happened today. Whomever did it is funny and I have offered to buy whoever did it a spendy bougie craft cocktail.

    (Let me know if the image didn’t appear, okay?)

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I think the decision was that if we had a function to allow pictures/images to be placed in comments we’d have a serious troll problem. So a decision was made, sometime before I arrived here, that that function wouldn’t be allowed for anyone. I mean remember how quickly things went south when the front pagers’ comments were in different colors from everyone else.

  51. 51.

    Anne Laurie

    @Mike in NC:

    We’re blowing off the eclipse thing entirely because even though we live near a planetarium, all stores in town have run out of the special glasses.

    You may want to go to the planetarium anyway — even if they’ve run out of glasses, quite possibly some of the other visitors may bring extras.

    (The Spousal Unit ended up ordering a box of ten, supposedly to be delivered tomorrow, because that was the smallest package he could find on Amazon. Even though we’re only getting about 63% totality, he figures he’ll be the most popular fella in the office come Monday… )

  53. 53.

    Mike J

    @khead:

    So, is it worth it to try and cut up a few shoe boxes so my wife and I can “watch” the damn thing?

    I’ve only seen a ~40%, but it was very cool. Of course, I’m a geek so stuff like that is interesting to me.

  56. 56.

    Anne Laurie

    @Adam L Silverman: I opened up a fake “Add New Post” on the dashboad, and made Suzanne’s image an ’embed’ on the Add New Media thingie.

    Tamara’s probably got a simpler method, but I live by the motto Posted is better than perfect.

  62. 62.

    NotMax

    Anyone who has watched Republic of Doyle?

    Comes *this close* to working but something about it just doesn’t quite gel.

  63. 63.

    Mnemosyne

    I bought eclipse glasses for my office two weeks ago. HAHAHAHHAHAAAA SUCKERS I WIN!!!

    We’re also going to put the NASA live feed of the total eclipse on the big monitor in the conference room and get chocolate-glazed “eclipse” donuts from Krispy Kreme. If the line isn’t too crazy.

  67. 67.

    dmsilev

    @Mnemosyne: There are two large buildings filled (over-filled, really) with professional astronomers just a few hundred feet from my office. We’re prepared.

  72. 72.

    NotMax

    @TaMara (HFG)

    I think it’s that the cast seems to be acting at each other rather than with each other. There’s a void in the camaraderie department.

    Still, it ran for 6 seasons so hoping it improves.

  73. 73.

    lurker dean

    @dmsilev: I had been ignoring the eclipse but for some reason it just dawned on me that it’s probably something I should try to see/photograph. Dug around my junk and luckily found my 2 really dark nd filters, a 10 stop and a 9, which can stack. I’ve never photographed an eclipse but the common wisdom seems to be not to use the viewfinder and stick to liveview if the cam has it, even with nd filters. Can’t seem to find any solar glasses online, hopefully I can find some at a local store. Gotta practice taking some sun shots this weekend..

  79. 79.

    dmsilev

    @Mnemosyne: Good thought, thanks. The box I have on order is ten, and I should get it tomorrow if FedEx doesn’t play any more games with me. I have a bunch of minions to properly equip, but donating the leftovers is a great idea.

  80. 80.

    NotMax

    @Major Major Major Major

    back in the 70s, met a middle-aged gentleman who showed up as a guest to a party at the apartment who was a self-proclaimed expert in typography and told me he could identify any font.

    Dug through the eclectic stuff drawer and pulled out a printed business card from the 1880s to show him.

    Not only couldn’t he identify the font, he swore up and down he had never seen anything even close to it.

  81. 81.

    cs

    I’m male and gen x. I remember “Total Eclipse of the Heart” from when it was on heavy rotation on MTV. I personally didn’t like it at all. However, going through life, I’ve discovered almost every single woman of my generation, that I’ve personally met, loves this song. I’ve met very few men who did.

    This is a mystery to me. Not about the love of the song. Music is subjective and I’ve got no problem with people who have different tastes than mine. What puzzles me is the gender divide on it, and sometimes the sexuality divide. Most men I knew who loved it are gay. I have no idea why this song doesn’t seem to work on straight men, but seems to work for everyone else.

  82. 82.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    Ack! tried to fix a double reference, and the attempt at fixing it sent me to the spam bucket…. see if you can fish it out, it’s an interesting link on the history of the Futura font.

  98. 98.

    eyelessgame

    I am a major Steinman nerd, so any love for this song makes me … remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday.

  99. 99.

    Anne Laurie

    @Ruckus: It’s anecdotal, but Comic Sans seems to be easier to read for us dyslexics. (Since it was based on a typeface intended to be readable even when printed very small by crappy presses using worn-down metal type blocks, not a big surprise.)

  102. 102.

    Ruckus

    @Yarrow:
    Back in 19 hundred and 73 I know of a guy, a Marine, in a hospital and on a rather large dose of Thorazine who would regain censoriousness every so often and just start talking. Didn’t matter if anyone else was talking or had any relevance to anything. Then the Thorazine would regain control and he’d go back to sleep. Tucker reminds me of that guy. The thought just came to me that that man from 1973 probably would make a better president than drumpf. His thoughts were somewhat coherent if never on topic.

  103. 103.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dmsilev: Hannity had Sekulow on to discuss Sekulow’s legal foundation filing suit for documents or something about President Clinton talking with AG Lynch on the tarmac or something.

  105. 105.

    Adam L Silverman

    Time for me to rack out. I’ll catch you all on the flip. If the President tweets anything out while I’m offline, I’m sure someone else will post about it.

  106. 106.

    Ruckus

    @Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]:
    I do. That may be why we like it. It does seem to flow better and that’s an issue with dyslexics. It’s also possible that the formation of the letters makes them harder to misinterpret.

  109. 109.

    Anne Laurie

    @Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]:

    Do you find that personally to be the case?

    Yup.

    I’m obviously not cripplingly dyslexic (dysnumeric, yes) — it’s mostly in the middle of words that my brain trips me up. (Back in my wild youth, I knew it was time to stop cruising for room parties and go to bed when the hotel EXIT signs started to read EIGHT. I figured out it was actually that my brain was insta-reading E-I-X-T and ‘remembering’ it as the word eight, but it was a reliable indicator nonetheless.) Have always suspected that women in my generation weren’t considered “real” dyslexics because there’s only so many possible letter conjunctions that make sense in English, and we mostly-unconsciously figure out that ‘The god chased the red ball‘ or ‘Sam was the dog’ is *not* a probable sentence.

    Comic Sans is a ‘clean’ script, every letter looks like itself and not two or three possible characters.

  111. 111.

    Shalimar

    @Adam L Silverman
    1. Slavery is evil, therefore
    2. Time to take down statues of long-dead slave-holders.

    There, replaced the pointless digressions with something that follows logically.

  113. 113.

    Steve in the ATL

    @cs:

    I have no idea why this song doesn’t seem to work on straight men, but seems to work for everyone else.

    My wife will be relieved to know that I am straight.

    God, I hated that song. That and “Bette Davis Eyes”.

  114. 114.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @cs: @Steve in the ATL: I luuuurve “Total Eclipse” precisely because of its over-the-top emo cheesiness. Whatever the hell it is, it’s the absolute most of it that’s ever been. The combination of spectacularly crappy song and otherworldly bad video is mesmerizing. “Betty Davis Eyes” is only second-string cheesiness but still worth a smug giggle.

  115. 115.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    @Anne Laurie: @Ruckus: That’s Really interesting. I’m not in any way a a neurologist, but the recognition of symbols, and attaching them to meaning are definitely different parts of the brain. I’m sure research at some level has been done on this.

  116. 116.

    sm*t cl*de

    @Mike in NC:

    all stores in town have run out of the special glasses.

    Kids today. Does no-one have 5.25 floppy disks any more? They were the perfect opacity.

  117. 117.

    sm*t cl*de

    @Ruckus:

    in a hospital and on a rather large dose of Thorazine who would regain censoriousness every so often and just start talking.

    Don’t all of us regain censoriousness every so often?

  119. 119.

    Matt McIrvin

    Incidentally, if you’re looking for an easy way to view a partial eclipse, the easiest way I know is to look at the shadow of a leafy tree (if you have them). Every small gap between leaves is a crude pinhole camera. The round blobs of light projected on the ground will change to crescents.

  121. 121.

    prostratedragon

    From TPM:

    The Toronto tower had its initial debut in 2001, with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company proclaiming that Trump would join as “co-developer of the Ritz-Carlton hotel and residences.”

    I just know the Ritz-Carlton company really needed Trump’s help to develop a hotel (which of course became a fiasco from which R-C withdrew early on). Not the first time I’ve thought this about a Trump partnership, but this time it did catch the light in a certain way …

  127. 127.

    Wander Erection

    I’m driving my Mitsubishi Eclipse and listening to Journey’s “Eclipse” album while wearing me LA Clips cap on the way to St. Louis to see the natural phenomenon that rhymes with “sea-lips.”

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