Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

This fight is for everything.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Giving up is unforgivable.

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Reader Interactions

207Comments

  5. 5.

    MisterForkbeard

    Thanks, Alain! It’s not an easy job. especially when the BJ server is powered by a hamster wheel.

    Fundraiser for more hamsters, maybe?

  6. 6.

    Ivan X

    I am outraged that this web site that provides me with insight and community for free multiple times a day doesn’t work perfectly in all regards 24/7.

  7. 7.

    piratedan

    ty Alain, I know we’re a persnickity lot of jackals, but we do adore our beloved Balloon Juice

  9. 9.

    Shell

    Hi, I just got my first mobile device, a Fire tablet, so forgive me if this has already been discussed to death. But when I Try to access BalloonJuice and click on an individual post, the comments page is half obscured by a blank space.

  13. 13.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Shell: yeah, it’s an issue with the mobile theme and I’ve not had the time to work with the vendor on that since there keep being fires to put out!

    For now, scroll to the bottom of the page and switch to the desktop view. It’s the best option for now, I’m afraid.

  15. 15.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Just for some silliness I thought I would share with you the ads that David Hassellhoff is doing for Farm Foods since he moved to Britain with his new British wife. They are silly and they are funny and really give a sense of what it is like for an American (like my husband) moving to the UK to live.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uODSNjYq_Q

  16. 16.

    Alain the site fixer

    @MisterForkbeard: When the time is right, John will announce things. I’m doing a redesign and we’ll see how far that goes to improving site performance and behavior.

    After that, we can look at architecture. Or I might try to rebuild the site from scratch into a blank WordPress database to scrub lots of crap, we shall see.That would entail re-importing all the contents of the db that we want to keep and leaving the ones we don’t, and I’m not sure I really want to do that, tbh.

    Ok since the crisis seems averted for today, I’m outta here. I have lots to do in meatspace today.

  17. 17.

    A Ghost To Most

    Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former White House staffer and contestant on “The Apprentice,” claims in a new book set to be released on Tuesday that President Trump had an unprecedented idea for his inauguration.

    “He asked me, ‘Omarosa, what do you think about me getting sworn in on “The Art of the Deal?”’ she writes in “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House.”

    “I said, ‘Instead of the Bible?’” she continues.

    “Yeah. The Art of the Deal is a bestseller!” Trump replied, according to her account. “It’s the greatest business book of all time. It’s how I’m going to make great deals for the country. Just think how many copies I’d sell—maybe a commemorative inauguration copy?!”

    daily beast

  19. 19.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I like recent comments, but wouldn’t miss it. Much appreciate the wizardry and vaudoo you do, Alain, to give this Luddite a place to talk politics in the tubes

    @A Ghost To Most: with the crew, with those two, anything is possible, even probable. But I think she may have put some gilt on that turd. trump’s lizard-brain survival instinct is keen when it comes to the Jeebussites.

  21. 21.

    Alain the site fixer

    Ok, I adjusted some resource calls and now there should be less warning thrown up about mixed content. Another band-aid, but it’s long overdue.

  33. 33.

    Doug R

    @A Ghost To Most:

    “He asked me, ‘Omarosa, what do you think about me getting sworn in on “The Art of the Deal?”’ she writes in “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House.”

    “I said, ‘Instead of the Bible?’” she continues.

    “Yeah. The Art of the Deal is a bestseller!” Trump replied, according to her account. “It’s the greatest business book of all time. It’s how I’m going to make great deals for the country. Just think how many copies I’d sell—maybe a commemorative inauguration copy?!”

    Mein Kampf sold more copies, 10 million in Germany alone vs about 1 million for TAOTD.

  35. 35.

    Gelfling 545

    @A Ghost To Most: It could well be the case that some or a lot of her book is not true but I don’t think anybody could say it’s impossible, or even unlikely at this point.

  36. 36.

    A Ghost To Most

    Alain, I don’t want to intrude, but if the work is too much, and you could use another hand, let me know. I’m a longtime programmer and DBA, now retired. I probably don’t know jack about how this is all built, but I’m a quick study with time on my hands. Your call; I’m just as happy if not. I have an off-road trailer to design and build.

  38. 38.

    HRA

    Today has been the most trying in getting my info to stick forever and I am on a desktop.
    Test

  39. 39.

    debbie

    @Alain the site fixer:

    To repeat myself, I love the new way to edit! No more teensy type!

    ETA: And because I forgot to say so last comment, thanks for everything you do here, Alain! Your whine tolerance is commendable!

  41. 41.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Gelfling 545:

    You’re missing the point. “Recent comments” shows you the most recent comments on all posts. Especially useful late at night when traffic is slow and you’d like to know where people are commenting at all.

  42. 42.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @Mnemosyne: Our appointment is on the 20th. Will know then. But I will say that if they turn us down I will start a shit storm the likes of which this country has never seen. I have a bunch of Royal Navy buddies that would be happy to go into bat for me, and believe me you do not want to cross a bunch of retired Warrant Officers.

  43. 43.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Alain the site fixer:

    Because of “Android phone,” I assume that Platonailedit is talking about the mobile version of the site. I can confirm that when you post a comment you do not get any edit functionality at all. In fact, you don’t even get the five-minute timer or a “request deletion” button. The comment just posts with a Reply button at the end.

  44. 44.

    The Midnight Lurker

    Came home for lunch and I see Chris Collins has suspended his campaign. And my understanding is that the ballots up there are already printed and out! What’s a grifter to do?!!

    In other news – out canvassing. Space Force is hot! QAnon is not.

    And this is a bit distressing… I keep meeting women who tell me that they want to vote against Trump in November, but their husband/boyfriend/father won’t let them!. Fucking voter intimidation in the home! More on this later. I’m going out again now. Peace, Juicers!

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    @Steeplejack

    Prezactly. Especially useful when one has multiple tabs of BJ open, rather than randomly refreshing them to see if there’s anything new.

    Gotta be a way to reconfigure it (or construct it anew) to be dependent on time. Say, limiting the totality of what it is searching through to only as far back as an hour, with a default “No new comments within the last hour” message if the search comes up empty.

  47. 47.

    BC in Illinois

    @Calouste:
    The Constitution specifies the oath of office. It doesn’t mention the tradition of a book, or even that someone else should administer the oath.

    Theodore Roosevelt did not use a Bible when taking the oath in 1901. Both John Quincy Adams and Franklin Pierce swore on a book of law, with the intention that they were swearing on the constitution. Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on a Roman Catholic missal on Air Force One.

    He could be sworn in on his tax returns.

    It Trump were to be inaugurated again — (“May it never be!”) — he could administer the oath to himself. (It could be on a teleprompter, since he would be unable to memorize all 35 words.) He could then be presented with the vestments of office, anointed, take his place on the throne, and then receive the acclamation of the assembled people (largest crowd ever!) that they will give him their obedience:

    I here present unto you Donald, your undoubted President. Wherefore all you who are come this day to do your homage and service, are you willing to do the same?

    He would like that.

    And, if you want to do a truly traditional “in-AUGUR-ation,” someone could do an augury, which I thought had to do with the examination of entrails, but apparently could also involve the interpretation of the weather and of the flights of birds. (In downtown DC, this would involve pigeons.) If the signs were inauspicious, then the ceremony would of course be postponed or cancelled.

    Wikipedia: Coronation

  48. 48.

    Raven

    I got back to the dock a couple of hours ago and drove to the old school motel some goddamn where in Massachusetts. It was a rally nice 4hr trip that consisted mostly of fishing since we only were underway for about 30 minutes each way. There was a family of about 20 and they caught the shit out of black bass and fluke. I caught “a whole bunch” and gave the to a nice dude from Gambia who got sick as a dog despite the fact that it was very calm! Couple hours watching Tiger and I’ll head back to Providence for the reunion. My flight is at 6:30 am and the TSA site says Logan is busy at 4:30 on Sunday so I’ll light out at 3:30 am.

  49. 49.

    Ruckus

    @The Midnight Lurker:
    I’ve voted in two states and several precincts in one, CA. I’ve never seen two adults in the booth, unless one was a poll worker showing the person how the system works. So if they are telling you their whatever won’t let them vote, I’d say they are at the very least kidding themselves, but I’ll go as far as saying they are lying. And if they are willing to lie then they can vote the way they want and lie to the whatever. They want to vote for shitgibbon but don’t want you to think they are racist. It is of course possible I’m wrong. But several women telling you that?

  56. 56.

    The Midnight Lurker

    @Ruckus: I don’t think they are lying to me. Their eyes dart around at the other houses in the neighborhood when they talk to me. They seem genuinely nervous. One woman I suspect may be being abused, but I have no evidence. I explain that no one is allowed in the ‘booth’ with them, but in a lot of precincts, we don’t have genuine booths, but kinda tables with a half-ass screen. I also explain that they can mail-in their ballot, but feel that I have to be honest and tell them that that will trigger all sorts of political mail to the home. I honestly believe this might be a real problem. I haven’t kept an accurate count of the number of these women, I’m ashamed to say, but I’m probably up to a couple of dozen at this point. Gotta run now, but please post your thoughts and I’ll get back to them as soon as I can. P.S. – This is in North Texas, not Cali.

  57. 57.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    For the umpteenth time, you (everybody, not just you in particular) need to also specify whether you are using the desktop or mobile version of the site. They are basically two separate applications, so what applies to one doesn’t automatically (or often, apparently) apply to the other.

    I assume from “laptop” you are using the desktop version. Nyms appear to be sticking for some short period of time (one hour?).

    ETA: Of course you need to make sure the “Save my name” box is checked.

  58. 58.

    Steeplejack

    @NotMax:

    I detailed a simple solution in a post a few days ago.

    Basically: a very small table (five or six entries) with the desired information for the most recent comments—nym, which thread, time stamp, etc. When any new comment is made, insert a record in the small table and delete the oldest record.

    Voilà! You’ve got a table that always contains the info for the five or six most recent comments. You don’t even have to “search” it; just grab all five (or six) records to display on the reader’s current page.

  61. 61.

    dmsilev

    @The Midnight Lurker: Situations like this are why I think that mail-in voting is great but we still need the in-person booths as well. Mail-in has the problem of people in abusive relationships etc. not being necessary able to keep their vote private.

  66. 66.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Steeplejack: a lightweight key/value store that sits in front of the server for exactly this sort of thing. It’s where you put data that is accessed every request and would otherwise cause performance issues. For example session information.

  67. 67.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack:

    I don’t use mobile at all. I thought laptop made that clear. I always check the box. The nym sticks for a while and then disappears. I don’t spend the entire day on BJ so usually by the time I check in again, it’s gone.

  72. 72.

    The Dangerman

    Anyone up in the Seattle area know if they had to shut down Tacoma Narrows bridge last night for the joy rider? That would make for a fun Friday commute. When I lived near SeaTac (90’s), if memory serves (and no reason it should), typical landing pattern is from South to North, which means those flights might have been impacted, too. Good grief, some people at the airport losing their jobs today.

  74. 74.

    Lapassionara

    @The Midnight Lurker: Do you have early voting? In SC, we would go to the County office building for early voting, during the day, when others (I.e. husbands) are working. Then they would have to be good liars. Or the candidates/parties usually have poll workers at polls on Election Day. You could raise this issue with the candidate’s leadership, and see if they have ideas for enforcing the secrecy of the ballot. Sounds to me like they have abusive husbands.

  76. 76.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Sorry for my asperity. This whole upgrade/​maintenance clusterfuck has my teeth on edge.

    P.S. Glad you came back to the earlier thread and saw my Midsomer comment. Agree with you about even the scenery looking hokey. It looks like a YouTube video, and I keep waiting for someone to come into frame and get hit in the balls—in a hilarious way, of course.

  82. 82.

    The Dangerman

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Most of the times … we landed north to south.

    That could be the dominant one; when I flew into Seattle in inclement weather (insert Seattle weather joke here), it was often North to South. But, I recall watching aircraft come in over where I used to shop (don’t recall if store would be Federal Way or Kent) and it was pretty cool to watch the 747s come in. Cool and noisy. Ah, Seattle, if the weather hadn’t driven me away (was stuck in an ice storm on I5 near downtown my last Winter there … I was envisioning the newspaper stories … “foolish SoCal transplant perishes on I5 …)

    ETA: 0 for 2. It was Des Moines.

  84. 84.

    chris

    @schrodingers_cat: I had to get out the warm housecoat and slippers this morning. It was 10C at 7AM and I’ve gotten used to it being 20C and rising. Thank dog the global warming is over.

  85. 85.

    Ruckus

    @The Midnight Lurker:
    As I said I could be totally wrong but it just struck me that there were multiple women saying this. You were there, I wasn’t, so your reaction/take has to be better than mine. But it does sound somewhat odd. Then one has to remember that there are a lot of men who think they are king, that everything within reach is their’s to control. Wait, don’t we all know an ass like this? Why yes, yes we do, the head ass, top of the dung heap, one glorious ass, the shitgibbon.

  88. 88.

    Yarrow

    @The Midnight Lurker: What’s the demographic info on these women? Age? Race? Suburban? Rural? Urban? Any obvious religious leanings? Is there any pattern in it?

    It sounds like there could be some abuse situations there, but there could be some cases where they don’t want to tell you they’re voting against your candidate. You could tell them that one of the great things about American democracy is that ballots are secret and it might sink in a bit.

    Thanks for canvassing!

  89. 89.

    Ruckus

    @Steeplejack:
    Which would actually be pretty simple.
    Type Major(space), copy, paste, paste, paste.

    @Major Major Major Major:
    That may be because you are working on it. And you see why it’s a fucking mess. Your expectations are low. Plus Samwise makes up for a lot.

  91. 91.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Steeplejack: yes, and then I restored that functionality to the WordPress default. I’m not tremendously interested in fixing non-reproducible browser errors, which seem to be a problem with WordPress or ads I have no control over, at a distance, for a small minority of users, for free, in my spare time.

    ETA @Ruckus: that’s mostly it tbh. No point fixing (see above) when the issues are lower level.

  92. 92.

    zhena gogolia

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Are you saying that the fact we have to put in our nym and e-mail every time we want to comment is a minor problem for a small minority of users? That might send me away from the blog for good, if so.

  94. 94.

    Another Scott

    Testing…

    Editing…

    ETA – Had to enter my ‘nym and e-mail to post the original message. Was there when I did the 2 edits…

    ETAA – ‘nym and e-mail still there after doing a page refresh.

    IOW – seems to be working pretty well for me, here. Chrome on MacBook Pro with UBlock Origin loaded.

    YMMV!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  98. 98.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Major Major Major Major: I’m experiencing it, on two different laptop/desktop computers, and have been for a while. I have the same symptom as she does – it remembers for a while, then it’s gone.

  100. 100.

    Gin & Tonic

    Although I now have that in-line edit function that all the cool kids were talking about the other day.

  106. 106.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Steeplejack: Not nobody. Now that he’s got the keys, and we know he’s a geek, he’s supposed to fix everything people don’t like about this blog. Today. For free.

  108. 108.

    Another Scott

    @zhena gogolia: Are you sure it’s not something on your end?

    I can close the B-J tab, close Chrome (which saves all active tabs), restart Chrome (all tabs reopened and B-J not loaded). Open a new tab, load B-J. Come back to this thread, and my ‘nym and e-mail are still filled in.

    Lots of things were wonky yesterday because the site was being worked on at various times. The site seems OK for me now (and since around 3:15 PM EDT today).

    Have you tried a forced full-refresh of the B-J web page (shift+refresh-button) in case there’s some mangled cache entries on your browser?

    Otherwise, dunno.

    Good luck.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  110. 110.

    zhena gogolia

    All I know is, I’ve been reading this blog since about 2007, and until recently, it always saved the nym and e-mail address so you didn’t have to type them in every time. Now it doesn’t. And apparently it will stay that way. So commenting is too annoying, and I’ll stop.

  111. 111.

    Haroldo

    I use a laptop (aka ‘desktop’), Windows 10 and Chrome. It’s easy enough to pull my name and email from a list provided by (presumably) Chrome by right clicking on my trusty mouse. Do other browsers provide this function? In addition, from other comments it seems as though that is not the case for mobile apps. Is this true? If so, I could see me getting kinda grumbly.

    Howevah……I am very grateful for the ‘insight and community’ (as Ivan X in #6 puts it) provided by this blog for free (and/or for contributions, which I highly encourage). So….more patience would be my counsel. As always, YMMV.

  113. 113.

    Ruckus

    @Major Major Major Major:
    I’m sure some of us see that fixing a broken, worn out ship is a waste of time and effort. I saw a WWII destroyer in dry dock to be repaired yet again, in 1971. It should have been turned into a fishing reef about a decade prior. Throwing good money after good money after good money after…… always gets the same results. Some will not see this, which is why someone decided to patch a patch on that patched up destroyer and send it to Vietnam. The crew didn’t think it would make it to the Pacific, let alone to Vietnam. Such is life.

  123. 123.

    Yarrow

    @zhena gogolia: What it means is that the European Union recently changed their laws regarding data use. Everyone has had to adapt and it’s taking awhile for the changes to make their way through systems. Meanwhile, it’s kludgy and kind of sucks, especially for FYWP.

  124. 124.

    Ruckus

    @zhena gogolia:
    Because a 16 yr old piece of software that’s been hacked to nearly dead is grasping for air? The idea of the blog is great. The people who comment are almost all great, even the trolls are reasonably behaved and the pie filter fixes the rest.
    Stay for the people, the commenting issues will be resolved, but it takes time. Yes it’s a pain in the ass, we all know that, we all suffer about the same. Sure some have more problems on any one day but it all comes around to each of us. As I understand it there are over 5 million comments. That’s not a tiny blog database. It was probably never understood that it would grow this big, have commenters from around the world and be this local and yet this worldly. Crotchety ole John Cole is worth the effort alone. A clumsy, pissed off dog/cat lover, who falls over in the snow, naked mops (and we all know where he got that idea) can’t find mustard, loses his car in a field, sobers up….. Damn that’s worth the price of admission alone.

  127. 127.

    Corner Stone

    I don’t get this. The BJ community can raise $50K for people running for office, several thousands for pet rescue(s), but we (!) can’t hire a full time pro to build this place from the ground up? Someone who is not invested in the outcome other than getting it serviceable, aka consistently workable?
    I don’t mean a steady layout of thousands a month like this was the WV branch of Amazon. Just put it together then fix it as needed a few times a year.
    My time is valuable and I get paid for my work. I don’t know why we’d expect some different outcome in this scenario. The only people I know who work for free are on the Trump Team. How’s that working out?

  129. 129.

    Corner Stone

    @Yarrow:

    I checked the “Remember me” box but it didn’t help. Oh well.

    I’ll never forget those three nights on the Blue Danube…if that helps.

  132. 132.

    Corner Stone

    @Major Major Major Major: I honestly don’t know why anyone here would touch the backend of this blog. It would be like furry Steve with a bad bowel problem. I would not do it for any amount of money, much less for no amount of money.

  133. 133.

    Corner Stone

    @Yarrow: That’s not what my internal cache says. And all my credit card receipts are for Yarrow Ticktock. And you still deny?

  136. 136.

    Ruckus

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    You have to learn how to say no in a way that doesn’t shout “Fuck NO!”
    One of the ways I used to do this was to raise the price on the next project. Ten percent if they just annoyed me, 25-50% if they really pissed me off. Did a 100% raise one time with a 50% deposit. Customer was a prince. Not! Got paid up front and collected the balance COD. Of course it still wasn’t worth it but it chased away an asshole and I made a very healthy profit. Another time we were working late to finish a job for a customer and he showed up about 5 hrs to go. I put him to work doing bullshit stuff on his job to shut him up. At about 11:30pm we were done. He told me he’d never complain again, and he didn’t. He stayed a good customer for for another 12 yrs, making a total of 25yrs. Always paid on time, always pleasant, sent us plenty of work. It’s called customer training.

  137. 137.

    Haroldo

    @Corner Stone: We might have come to that point in this blog’s life. I would be willing to contribute, for sure.

    What I don’t know is what a complete site make-over (or, probably more likely, complete rebuild) would cost. I’m guessing it ain’t cheap. Would the cost be prohibitive? Dunno. We’ve IT professionals here that could make that estimate.

    Probably good to start this conversation.

  141. 141.

    chris

    How did I not know this? LOL

    Did you know that, in 1972, a CBC radio host held a contest to choose a Canadian national simile (à la “as American as apple pie”), and the winner they chose was “as Canadian as possible under the circumstances.”I love that so much. I love Canada.— Annabolish ICE (@ifihadlegs) 9 August 2018

  144. 144.

    Hafabee

    @The Midnight Lurker: Here in my WV precinct we just have several long rows of tables in the local Ruritan building; no partitions whatsoever. We use optiscan ballots. Oh, and to try to motivate their folks to vote, this notice was in our local weekly paper last week:

    PUBLIC NOTICE July 26, 2018

    Proposed Amendments to the WV Constitution to be on the November 6, 2018, General Election Ballot.

    Title of Amendment: “Amendment No. 1: No Constitutional right to abortion Amendment”

    Summary of Purpose: “To amend the West Virginia Constitution to clarify that nothing in the Constitution of West Virginia secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of abortion.”

    Title of Amendment: “Amendment No. 2: Judicial Budget Oversight Amendment”

    Summary of Purpose: “Providing that the total general revenue appropriations to the judiciary may be reduced in the budget bill, and setting forth the required procedures to be followed by the Legislature to enact any decrease in the total general revenue appropriations to the judiciary to an amount that is less than 85 percent of the amount of the total general revenue appropriations to the judiciary in the most recently enacted budget; providing that when requested by the Legislature, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals must appear and be heard and answer inquiries relative any budget bill; and conforming language relating to the introduction of the budget and matters that may be taken up during extended sessions to more recent amendments to the constitution.”

  145. 145.

    Ruckus

    @Haroldo:
    Alan has said exactly that, a full rewrite is necessary. Every kludge that’s fixed, affects 14 others that have been done over the years. The new EU law has effected everyone, as M4 has said. So a do over. Which because there is a lot of comments, commenters to handle, not as easy as just taking a theme from WP and hitting go. Then a lot of the things that people like about the blog are kludges that have to be redone and applied to the theme, tested and… I think you can see where this is going. Alan and M4 are working on it. It takes time. I’ve built blogs twice and once tried to move a blog from Blogger to WP. What in the hell ever possessed me to try that, I’ll never know. Doing this from scratch rather than a theme would be a labor of unrequited love for an owner with some skills and a major job for a programer.

  146. 146.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Haroldo:
    Given an Oracle database and some front end tools, I could have this thing singing. Instead, I will support the beleaguered blog masters as needed. Do we need a fundraiser to re-engineer things? I’m in.

    Bitching about problems only pisses off the people with a shot at fixing them.
    This stuff is complicated.

  148. 148.

    CarolPW

    @Ruckus: Our small business (my sister, me and a friend) has three hourly rates listed on our internal rate sheet. The first is “friends and family,” companies we have worked with before and enjoy, then “standard” for businesses we don’t know, and finally “assholes and enemies” for those that started in the standard rate and were shit to work with. The A&E rate is ridiculously high, sufficient to make us quite content as we do their work.

  149. 149.

    Ruckus

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    Understand. I had those when I worked in pro sports. People ask for something, in writing btw and then scream when provided what they asked for. (I used to work for a drunk, enough said.) Second best day of my life, giving the CEO my 2 week. Best day was being told I would be honorably discharged in 3 days. Ran around screaming like a little girl for 15 minutes. I LOVED the navy. Some can relate.
    ETA, Some drink to forget, some drink for courage, some drink to get through the day. Some have other reasons which we don’t need to go into.

  151. 151.

    Haroldo

    @Ruckus: I can supply enthusiasm, cheerful outlook, and dough.

    @A Ghost To Most: Please see above. It looks as though there is nascent momentum for a phoenix, tho’ this blog is not actually burned to ashes, and I’m a bit leery of using the phrase ‘nascent momentum.’

  152. 152.

    Ruckus

    @CarolPW:
    LOL

    sufficient to make us quite content as we do their work.

    What I was really hoping for in this particular instance was that the customer would just go away and keep his money. Oh well, at least I found the key and got paid well for the search.

  153. 153.

    Another Scott

    @Haroldo: I think we all need to just be patient. Remember M^4’s comment at #128 above – Cole is very strongly opinionated about what the Blog should and must be like. We have to wait until Alain and M^4 have him on board before getting too excited about some B-J v19.

    My 0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (“Who had to re-enter his ‘nym and e-mail to post this, but isn’t too annoyed by that.”)

  155. 155.

    MomSense

    Hmmm I just realized I may be noticing all the things that need deep cleaning in my house because I’m not on BJ as much. If the website stays wonky, think of all the productive things we could do.

    Also decided to forget about the cholesterol and grill hamburgers from a local farm.
    I

  156. 156.

    Haroldo

    @Another Scott: My first posting counseled patience. Talking about this stuff shouldn’t hurt, tho’. (And, no, I really hadn’t noticed any strongly held opinions about anything on this blog. I don’t know why you’d say this.)

  159. 159.

    Ruckus

    @MomSense:
    I’ve found that having to fill in my name all the time keeps me from scads of real work. It exercises my hand, which seems to help with some of my issues, so BJ being broken is a wonderful thing. This is something I learned in the great recession, look for anything positive, besides being positive that the world is shit.

  162. 162.

    satby

    Just playing to see if my info stays.

    (My browser keeps it as a dropdown list anyway, but it still takes some keystrokes to open).

  164. 164.

    Mandalay

    @Hafabee: That Amendment No. 2 looks like it was written in a manner that was carefully crafted to confuse voters. It could have been written in plain English and be half the length and much easier to understand.

    And it’s doubly strange since Amendment No. 1 was so clearly presented. But I suppose there are lawyerly reasons why it has to be written so that its meaning is opaque rather than clear.

  166. 166.

    satby

    @Mandalay: not strange at all. They want the troglodytes to vote affirmatively on the first amendment but want to get them to vote against the second one without making it obvious that that’s the goal. People won’t even try to parse that out, they’ll just vote no.

  168. 168.

    zhena gogolia

    This truly is the last comment — I need to set the record straight on what the exchange has been. It’s been nice to know you all, but since you all agree that I’m an “asshole,” I’m done. I was not told to be patient. I’m very good at that. I was told that this problem was not going to be fixed because it’s only a small minority of commenters who have it. And I was told that with a great deal of attitude.

    I’m an usher in my church, have been for fifteen years, and have never been paid a dime for it. That doesn’t mean I can just not show up, or tell the people who come in the door that they’re assholes, much as I would like to. It’s good to find out that not a single person has risen to my defense. Bye.

  171. 171.

    NotMax

    @zhena gogolia

    Hey, just arrived to catch up on the thread!

    The response to you was unnecessarily curt and dismissive. But to bolt the barn because an ass brayed in your direction? Please take some time to rethink that. Your comments are always a joy.

  172. 172.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    I don’t think you’re an asshole, and I share your concerns. I hope you come back after a (justified) cooling-off period. Who knows? By then all the blog problems will probably be fixed. //

    I went out and did some errands in the driving rain. That seemed to help my mood. The ionized air, I’m sure.

  173. 173.

    Corner Stone

    @zhena gogolia: I personally would not read it that way. I am offended because I thought it was my job to insult you, apparently on random Tuesdays.
    It’s a Saturday afternoon thread. At least I think it’s Saturday. I just got back from 10 days on the east coast. Don’t you wanna ask me about that? Hmmmmm??

  175. 175.

    Corner Stone

    @zhena gogolia: You know what I missed while on my trip? Toilet paper. No joke. Hotels, even good ones like Hilton and Hyatt have the…ummm…shittiest TP on the planet. It’s like, “Just spend the extra $.17 a roll and get the good stuff, for dog’s sake”.

  177. 177.

    Steeplejack

    @Another Scott:

    My results:

    Lenovo notebook, Windows 10, Firefox 61.0.2 = 497.

    Samsung Galaxy Tab S2, Android 7.0, Chrome 68.0.3440.91 = 523.

    Motorola Moto X (first gen), Android 5.1, Chrome 68.0.3440.91 = 525.

    Motorola

  178. 178.

    Major Major Major Major

    @zhena gogolia:

    I was not told to be patient. I’m very good at that. I was told that this problem was not going to be fixed because it’s only a small minority of commenters who have it.

    I wasn’t going to lie to you. Fixing front-end website errors is completely a process of triage.

  179. 179.

    Corner Stone

    @zhena gogolia: Towns? TOWNS!?? I will have you know we were in NYC, PHI and DC.
    I was struck once again at how much DC is more like a southern city than I had remembered. From the people action to the traffic to the taxi drivers. Everything was more like the south than PHI or NYC.

  180. 180.

    Another Scott

    @Steeplejack: Heh, got you beat!

    MBP, macOS High Sierra, 10.13.6, Chrome Dev 68.0.3440.106 = 528.

    You need to do some updates!

    :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (“Dunno why it’s Chrome Dev – it’s just the standard Chrome.”)

  181. 181.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Major Major Major Major: Essentially, putting the button back did two things:

    1. Fixed the problem for all devices currently in my possession (my range of testable environments)
    2. Fixed the problem for most users

    What we’re left with are errors that can be esoteric and are sometimes even unique from user to user, and which I cannot reproduce. The cost-value ratio on the rest of the task has changed dramatically, so there are now higher priorities.

  183. 183.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Major Major Major Major: Well, it still doesn’t remember my nym for long. I don’t think my environment is too out of the ordinary – Chrome 68 on Windows 7, no plug-ins or ad blockers or any crap like that. Really vanilla systems (two of them) on which this behavior hasn’t changed in a while.

  185. 185.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Gin & Tonic: The other thing is, the search space for what could be wrong is enormous (recent wordpress updates, one/two/thirteen fighting outdated/poorly-patched plugins, outdated or even buggy theme, or interactions between any of these and the newer GDPR browser changes, or something else). Plus some percent of the problems are always going to be due to individual setup. I would not be surprised if some of the problems people are having are ad-related. Etc.

    Hell, it took the wordpress team a couple patches just to get this right after their own GDPR update, and that’s just for the wordpress core! Meanwhile on this site we have shit like magically vanishing plugins. It’s extremely difficult to troubleshoot an inconsistent codebase, if it even is a back-end issue.

    At any rate, I don’t even have a PC, so I can’t test your setup anyway.

  187. 187.

    The Midnight Lurker

    Hi Juicers. I don’t know if any of you are coming back to this disaster of a thread, but I just got back from canvassing and thought I follow up on my earlier posts (see 44 & 56).
    First off, let me clarify. I did NOT see all these women in a single day. There were only two today but I’ve been encountering this ‘my husband won’t let me vote’ shit all summer long. I don’t think they’re lying to me to cover up the fact they are Trump supporters. I can usually tell the posers. Also, most Trump supporters down here wear their love for the man on their sleeve. Even the women.
    One of the women today seemed to be in distress but didn’t say anything. I asked her if she was okay, and she said she was, so I stayed on message. But I fear she’s hiding something. Her house had a weird ‘bleachy’ smell to it that set off an alarm bell in my head, but I couldn’t tell you why. This was this encounter that triggered my post. I’ve had a strange feeling of guilt over it all day long. I may go back to her house in the next few days when her husband is away. Hey, maybe she was just doing a Saturday morning cleaning thing, but my ol’ P.I. spidy sense was really tingling.
    Yarrow & Ruckus: The demo is female, white, middle aged (early twenties to forties). As I recall, and I am really kicking myself for not making better notes on this, but the majority (almost all) were in the suburbs. We have these strange used-to-be-upper-middle-class but now are blue collar-ish neighborhoods popping up everywhere. This is where I’m seeing this trend more and more. I’m not trying to alarm people (God knows you people accuse me of that enough) but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t bugging me.
    Lapassionara: Yes, we have early voting! It starts Oct 22nd! What a great idea! I will discuss this with the ladies at HQ at our regular meeting later this week. Thanks.
    As a footnote, I am getting really tired of all the posts whining about the site. Alain, the Major and others work their butts off to keep this rust bucket afloat, and I’m certain Mr. Cole pays them in the loose Krugerrands he has laying around the house. Suck it up, bitches. P.S. – my shit works fine so maybe it’s just your fucking attitude.
    Anybody got a problem with this… I’ll be lurking in the next few threads and we can take it up there. Peace out.

  190. 190.

    Ruckus

    @The Midnight Lurker:
    Been gone, playing on trains for a while.
    Like I said you are there, I’m not, you know the area, I don’t.
    But if you are getting a bad vibe just talking to them when hubby is not around….. It does sound like something weird is happening. Be careful for yourself and keep an eye open for a pissed off spouse with a gun. It is TX after all.

  191. 191.

    The Midnight Lurker

    @Corner Stone: Sometimes, I have to go to all the trouble to reenter my ‘nym’ as well. And a couple of times, I too, could not post. The difference is… I don’t bellyache about it.

  192. 192.

    Ruckus

    Also a thought just occurred to me, the EU law as about privacy, at least partially if I remember, could it be that there is a time limit to retain your name and email/password as accessible as it would have to be to be seen all the time? Maybe this is just as good as it can be, one less place to be able to get your info.
    On that note, I got a text from a political organization that should not have my phone number. I’m wondering how they got it. I normally get emails from this org but never a text, because they shouldn’t have my phone number. Thursday eve or Friday I got an email from them, then late last night I got the text. I’m emailing them to find out who what why how.

  194. 194.

    The Midnight Lurker

    @Ruckus: Thanks, partner. I haven’t seen a gun yet, but my friends, family and co-workers think it’s only a matter of time. I’m not a tough guy (although everybody says so). I am a gorilla of a man but I’m not bulletproof.
    But some things are bigger than ourselves…

  196. 196.

    M4

    @Ruckus: All the rules that apply to other identifying information apply to cookies, basically. So there is a time limit of some sort.

  202. 202.

    Platonailedit

    @Major Major Major Major: Your condescension will be acceptable if the problem was fixed. A fucking simple sticky login can’t be blamed on that ‘global issue’ when other fywp sites don’t have this problem.

  203. 203.

    Platonailedit

    Too little, too late, assholes. You mofos enabled this thug knowingly and wantonly.

    The Boston Globe is proposing a coordinated editorial response from newspapers across the U.S. to Trump's attacks on the news media.

    "We are not the enemy of the people," said Marjorie Pritchard, deputy managing editor for the editorial page of The Globe. https://t.co/QUnTTf2CfG— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 12, 2018

  204. 204.

    Another Scott

    After glancing through this, I can see why Alain and M^4 are talking about starting over:

    Comment Plugins

    Even comment plugins are collecting personal information. So just like with contact forms, one of the easiest ways to make sure you are compliant is to add a consent checkbox. But again, this can fall under what is called lawfulness of processing.

    WordPress native comments

    Disqus GDPR (currently working towards compliance)
    Jetpack GDPR

    A consent checkbox was recently added to native comments in the latest WordPress 4.9.6 Privacy and Maintenance Release (as seen below).

    […]

    Analytics, Tracking, Remarketing

    Any third-party service or plugin that collects data. This includes things such as Google Analytics, A/B testing plugins, heat map services, remarketing platforms, etc. In regards to Google Analytics itself, it might be recommended to anonymize the IP.

    Anomymize IP in Google Analytics

    As of April, Google launched a new data retention settings for Google Analytics. These controls give you the ability to set the amount of time before user-level and event-level data stored by Google Analytics is automatically deleted from Analytics’ servers. You can access these settings under Admin → Property → Tracking Info → Data Retention.

    Google Analytics data retention

    Do you need a cookie prompt if you’re only using Google Analytics reporting and not display advertising? It depends. Check out this great post from Jeff on GDPR Compliance with Google Analytics – Do You Need Cookie Consent?

    Google Analytics GDPR
    AdRoll GDPR
    Hotjar GDPR

    […]

    Third-Party APIs

    Even third-party APIs collect data. A good example of this is Google Fonts. Most of you probably are using Google Fonts, whether it’s baked into your WordPress theme or you manually added it. You really have to look into each API and find out data the provider is collecting. In some cases, data collection is allowed for lawful bias without consent (Recital 49).

    […]

    This can be a lot of work and downright confusing as some companies, even Google, might not provide simple yes or no answers. Check out this conversation between developers on whether or not Google Fonts are GDPR compliant. You could always host your Google fonts locally on your own CDN and this then resolves the issue.

    We’ll keep this post updated as some WordPress plugin developers are currently working on adding GDPR compliance features. Or even more scary, many haven’t even started yet. If you have concerns regarding a plugin you have running, check with the developer directly to see how they plan to handle GDPR.

    Lawfulness of Processing

    While simply asking for consent as shown above is the easiest way to comply with GDPR, it’s not the only way. In fact, in some cases, data processing is permitted without consent due to the term known as lawfulness of processing. Here are just a few examples:

    Contractual Necessity

    Data processing is permitted if it’s necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract (Art. 6 (1) b)

    Legitimate Interest

    Data processing is permitted when it’s necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child. (Art. 6 (1) f)

    Note: This does not apply to processing carried out by public authorities in the performance of their tasks.

    For further examples, we recommend checking out the post on Lawful Basis for Processing by White & Case LLP.

    […]

    Summary

    As you have probably grasped by now, GDPR is a really big deal! It’s impacting almost every WordPress site on the web. The deadline has come and gone, therefore we encourage everyone to take the time, do your research, and ensure your site is fully compliant. If you don’t, you could be looking at some pretty hefty fines!

    What a nightmare.

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  205. 205.

    Aleta

    @zhena gogolia: Don’t leave. You’re not an asshole and people talking about their experiences with clients doesn’t describe you or the issue.

    My thoughts are probably irrelevant to others’ take, more of an other perspective. Lots of people here do serious volunteer work in some kind of organization. (Includes all teachers and caretakers.) That might even explain why there’s an unusually generous community here and why we’re drawn to how JCole rolls.

    It’s not easy going back and forth between the top responsible person and the public, all while doing the service work and trying to improve the operation and represent it. An advantage of not being paid is you can supposedly set limits, but still that’s hard. You always feel pressured to do more than you can and do things you didn’t sign up for, and you take grief from all sides and then go off and think about if it’s worth it.

    Most volunteers want to get something, just not money. (Or hope to get money eventually.) Professional experience, even if not paid. Spiritual or artistic expression, or status or a resume. To be thanked in public or to work inside a community. Get access to an opportunity you couldn’t have by yourself, like being with animals or children in need, or creating something good with people we like. I get a little of all those benefits from a time-intensive volunteer job a couple months a year, along with grief and occasional rudeness and cluelessness and a smidgeon of outrageous disrespect and sexism and things that went wrong. Lately anxiety too.

    I get upset but so far it still adds up to an opportunity I’m lucky to have.

    Personally I don’t agree with the idea that not being paid affects how I can respond to people. As a volunteer I get more leeway and choice, to my advantage. It means I’ve probably escaped being fired after I’ve been rude to people. It doesn’t make it OK. When the pressure gets to me I try to apologize for my problem or mistake, no matter who else is a jerk (unless they are bad to the bone Repubs). That’s probably because (in our org) there’s something more important to preserve and I can trust that the people I work with feel the same.

    One more opinion. Goes without saying, the tech work for the blog is irreplaceably important. Meanwhile Cole is responsible for the safety and privacy and freedom of everyone who comes in, a big deal these days. And the bills too and all the grappling. Years ago I had an aikido teacher who would say something like ‘lots of people develop very good physical skills, but without developing the self-control to be honest/kind/have a good heart/straightforward’ (something like that). He had been a student of and lived for a while with the big kahuna himself, and another thing he talked about was how much respect Ueshiba openly showed to his wife (not culturally required then) and to everyone around him. Without the tech work there’s no physical blog, but Cole puts the other part into the structure too. He seems very smart to me. Things like this are less permanent than they seem while they’re here.

  206. 206.

    J R in WV`

    @zhena gogolia:

    We just got back from a picnic. It was out at the Dam, at a camp one may rent for parties, with kayaks and swimming. It was pretty, but warm when we left the house, but then a storm blew past and the temps became cool and breezy, it was wonderful.

    I worked to support hundreds of users in a state agency with a great deal of control over the hardware and software on users desks. In spite of that control, users inherently have control over some parts of their working environment. Once a friend called up to tell me that the text from her mainframe login had disappeared.

    I was extremely puzzled after talking to her. Fortunately she was in my building as opposed to being a 4 hour drive away, so I said I would be right there. The moment I saw her situation it was clear what happened. She set her screen background color to a bright yellow (odd, but whatever) and the problem was that the text of the mainframe login box was, bright yellow. Invisible.

    It is possible that your situation is unique — the combination of drivers (little sub-programs that connect parts of a computer system together, etc) hardware, network connection, monitor, etc, with the operating system (windows/mac/linux/ release number, browser and it’s unique settings both obvious and obscure — such that adding a comment is different for you than any other B-J user’s working environment.

    If some of these invisible parameters are causing your problem, it is impossible for Major^4 to solve your problems specifically and deliberately. This doesn’t mean that your problem will never be solved, no matter how you construe that situation. It means your problem will be solved in the course of future fixes, updates and upgrades, when it happens.

    You will get at least all the support you have paid for in this situation.

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