Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

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

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

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

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

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

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

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Come on, man.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Now Is Not the Time

Now Is Not the Time

by | 344 Comments

This post is in: 

Now is not the time to be a dick on Balloon Juice.

I repeat:  Now is not the time to be a dick on Balloon Juice, especially after the wonderful post from Cole last night.

Monday Night Open Thread

It’s also a spectacularly bad time to be cruel, and cruelty is never acceptable on Balloon Juice.

So, Cacti, you are out for a month.  Bye, bye.

Balloon Juice is a community, not a place to come and shit in the living room, day after day.

This is probably a good time to announce a small change in the Balloon Juice comment policy, which can be found in the footer of every page.  If you try to get around a time-out, by changing your nym, or using a different IP address, etc, that will now count as an additional violation of the comment policy.

Open thread.

 

Reader Interactions

344Comments

  2. 2.

    kindness

    I wish there was a way to get their real IP addresses.  I’d be curious where they are posting from.

  3. 3.

    Trollhattan

    Not everybody gets a welcome response even after accomplishing something great.

    [After reading her son’s debut novel, The Sun Also Rises]

    It is a doubtful honor to produce one of the filthiest books of the year. What is the matter? Have you ceased to be interested in loyalty, nobility, honor and fineness in life? Surely you have other words in your vocabulary besides “damn” and “bitch”—Every page fills me with a sick loathing—if I should pick up a book by any other writer with such words in it, I should read no more—but pitch it in the fire.

    Ernest Hemingway’s mother, Grace
    Letter to Ernest Hemingway
    4th December 1926

    Families, right?

  7. 7.

    OId Man Shadow

    I was… kind of still a little pissed that we didn’t have our guy’s back and wonder what’s going to stop us from doing that again if things don’t go our way?

    I was… am…kinda still pissed that we didn’t show any fight against the GOP for a month.

    I’m kinda still pissed that we have to ask MVP to come in with four months to go and try to clean up our mess and save the free world and should she do that, it will be taken as the correct thing to do instead of something we should never do again and should she not do that, it will be her fault, not the fault of the people who ground things to a halt for a month and demanded it.

    There’s no going back now, so I’m happy people are finally rallying and excited and fighting again.

    But the Great Freakout of 24 wasn’t the proper function of a Democratic party, but a gigantic clusterfuck that we seem to be very lucky was handled as well as it was by Mr. Biden and Madam Vice President Harris.

    That’s the last I’ll say about it and I’m not going to begrudge anyone their joy or excitement at seeing Ms. Harris front the ticket nor am I going to stomp on other people’s feelings if they’re upset about the Great Freakout of 24.

    Peace. Harris ’24.

  9. 9.

    KatKapCC

    After their response to a commenter this morning, this seems like the right move. Because that was just gross and cruel.

  10. 10.

    Ohio Mom

    It’s one thing to say “I told you so” ONCE, another thing to never shut up while being gratuitously nasty about it.

    On another note, my father’s first cousin’s daughter just became a grandmother. It sounds distant but I am very good friends with the new grandmother.

    I tried figuring out my relationship to this new being — second cousin twice removed is my best guess but mostly I’m flumoxxed. Will be mailing a box of board books as a Welcome to The Planet gift this afternoon.

  12. 12.

    WaterGirl

    @schrodingers_cat:  We were able to do this because multiple people sent me email about the cruel comments.

    If *you think someone is violating the comment policy, then send me an email when you see the comment, and let me know the thread.

    After Cole’s thread last night, he isn’t in the mood to tolerate that kind of crap, so this is not going to be a good time to be a dick in the Balloon Juice comments.

    Reminder: the comment policy says no personal attacks.

    This won’t be a “speed trap” but it’s not a good time to violate John’s comment policy, which is really not strict at all.

    edit:

    *and by “you”, I mean everyone.  You all have my email address.

  13. 13.

    brendancalling

    Looks like I missed all the hullabaloo.

    It is definitely not the time to be a dick. I’ve been reading folks’ comments here over the past few days, and TBH some I have vehemently disagree with (to put it charitably).

    But I also know, from previous experience with loss, that sometimes people need to get it out, and in a safe place. So I’ve largely kept my big mouth shut.

    As long as we’re all on board with defeating Cheetolini the Sequel, that’s the important part.

  17. 17.

    Old School

    Tomorrow evening at 8 PM ET, I will address the nation from the Oval Office on what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people.— President Biden (@POTUS) July 23, 2024

  20. 20.

    dmsilev

    Thank you. By and large I appreciate the light hand that John has on comment moderation, but there have to be limits, and a nice long timeout for crossing them is definitely warranted.

  22. 22.

    Geminid

    @KatKapCC: And very typical of the commenter as well. A well-deserved suspension in my opinion.

    Not that my opinion matters or should matter. I expect the people who run this forum will do as they see fit and that is how it should be.

  23. 23.

    gwangung

    @Ohio Mom: Being gracious is always a winning move.

    And…being delighted in a new life and in figuring out the relationship is also a winning move.

  24. 24.

    Old School

    @WaterGirl:

    I can’t tell whether that’s serious or sarcasm.

    It’s sarcasm.

    I was first on two straight posts – you can tell Baud isn’t here – and I realized the same comment I posted on the Vance thread could also be used here.

    It’s like I found my own “Blech”!  Or maybe not.

  25. 25.

    KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))

    @OId Man Shadow: I’ve been staying out of the fights, but all I’ve got to say is, ditto.

    I just did my stress test this AM & was stressed to see how out of shape I am, & how fast my knees cried “uncle.” I won’t be knocking doors this year (but I already knew that). But I’m ready & excited to do everything I am capable of doing to elect our first Black, Asian, woman President, and a Senate and Congress to support her.

    Time is short. It’s time to unite and get to work.

  27. 27.

    Jess

    @brendancalling: We all need to take a dump on a regular basis, but civilized adults don’t do it on the living room floor. If people can’t be civil, they don’t get hang out with those who are trying to do the right thing by each other.

  30. 30.

    bbleh

    @OId Man Shadow: as to this, I think a LOT of us DID have Joe’s back and pushed back on the “Joe Must Go” tide as hard as we could (without descending into mindless cultism or outright dickitude).  But all along I (and others) said it was Joe’s decision and we would respect it.  I still think it was his decision, with — appropriately — input (some stories say some of it hard & unpleasant) from respected advisors like Obama and Pelosi.  So yeah there were some who were happy to throw him overboard (for whatever reason), but in the end he was the one who made the call, and given the situation he was caught in — unfairly to be sure, but caught nevertheless — I can’t say it was wrong.

    And OMG what statesmanship.  Can you imagine the Felon doing anything remotely similar?

  32. 32.

    narya

    @Old School: Except “Blech” is Ozark Hillbilly’s standard comment, I thought? OH is the one with Blechs and Baud is the one with no pants.

  34. 34.

    KatKapCC

    @Old School: Kinda hope he ends it by putting on the shades and giving us the trademark Biden grin, saying, “Six months of Dark Brandon, folks. Buckle up!”

  36. 36.

    ArchTeryx

    What happened with Cacti?

    I’ve just been trying to calm my sorry ass down and get behind our shiny new and ready-to-rock ticket. I just can’t afford personal grudges and other such junk, there’s just too much at stake for my family and I. More than I ever have in my life, I need the Ds to win this Presidential election.

    I’m just worried that I did something offensive somewhere, considering how I got sealioned. How many others more polite pied me or considered me part of the problem? I just don’t know. If I did something wrong, I want to know about it so I can fix it. It’s what I do.

  38. 38.

    Chris Johnson

    I haven’t been pie-ing obvious trolls, but have built up a little list cutting BOTH directions, first before Joe stepped down, and then after. In some cases, I was able to take a name off the list seeing how they reacted to getting what they’d been lobbying for, and seeing how they adapted to the rapidly changing situation. So, my pie list has on the whole NOT been anyone I thought was straight up a ruble-earning troll, but always people who I thought had got swept up in bad narratives and were being giant dicks about it.

    And now, my list gets one name shorter, and I’m happy about that. Here’s hoping it continues to shrink as people settle down, until it is once more ‘no pie today. How about conversation with people of all different perspectives?’.

  41. 41.

    bbleh

    I must have missed the particular comment in question.  I note that one frequently referenced in comments a few threads ago is no longer there, so perhaps it has gone to the spam pile.  But as noted, there’s no place for personal nastiness.  I mean, if you’re at a party and start making comments like that to someone, you’d better be planning on leaving immediately afterward, right?  So.

    Now, back to our regularly scheduled donating, volunteering, and preparing to vote.

  45. 45.

    KatKapCC

    @ArchTeryx: In the morning thread, a commenter said they would be stepping back from the blog after the mishegas of the past few weeks, and also because they and their family were dealing with a lot of awful medical issues. Cacti’s response was derisive and mean.

  46. 46.

    hueyplong

    Glad the limit-tester has found out there is one.

    I had decided to leave, and put up a couple of responses on non-contentious subjects (Vance, West Virginia) so as not to be petulant on the way out the door.

    So this thread is pretty timely for me.

    Had already started to miss the pre-July site.

  48. 48.

    Hildebrand

    Thank you.

    One of the hallmarks of this top 10000 blog is that Mr. Cole and all the front-pagers work like mad to create and maintain an actual community.  I am ever so grateful for that.

    It is a rare thing on the internet these days, and I support you and all of the others for making sure that we take care of this beautiful collection of misfits and oddities from around the world.

  49. 49.

    lamh47

    Wow…I seemed to have missed alot since my last time posting over here on BJ!

    Hi BJer’s.

    OG commenter here/longtime lurker here (lamh36).  I took a bit of a life break, only patching in a few times a year with a comment or two here.  I’ve still been posting like crazy on my socials and other places I felt, IDK more seen, but haven’t been a full time BJer for a while.

    With the dawn of a new day for politics, Dem politics in general and we need all hands on deck to beat the orange menance and his MAGA minions…I figured it time to come out from my usual lurking status.

    I missed some of you guys (you folks I know).

    I was so sad and angry and mad for Joe Biden on Sunday, but thx to the call of 44,000 Black women supporters/leaders etc for Kamala Harris and Joe Biden…I came out of that call with a new found sense of not only hope, but fighting spirit.

    I’m still mad and pissed for Joe Biden, but I’ve put some of that anger aside (folks on my shit list is gettin long) for after I do all I can to get Kamala Harris over the finish line and into the WH.

    To do that it will def take a diverse group of people to get behind MVP and battle the MAGA sexism/racism and misinformation to come her way.

    So IDK, I’m still sad, but also excited as a Dem, but of course as a Black woman, who even last time I was active on BJ, ya’ll may recall I was (still am) a big Kamala Harris supporter.

  50. 50.

    ArchTeryx

    @WaterGirl: Thank you. DBAD is a policy I really try hard to follow, and if someone is a dick to me (unnamed example in last comment) that’s what the pie filter is for. Also why I avoid mentioning the sealion by name; it avoids drama. Easier to just pie him and move on.

    I’m still wondering exactly what happened with Cacti that got him a full one month ban. I saw some of the responses, but never the original comment. If only as an example of what NOT to do, want to see what the hell he said that started the bruhaha in the first place.

  54. 54.

    danielx

    I’d say well played, except it’s not play and obnoxious commenters are not humorous.

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    You don’t “interact” with me, that’s true. Instead you post nasty comments about me every day.

    I ignore 90% of them but I am permitted to defend myself and I don’t care at all if that sends you into another “poor me” spiral. If you don’t want a response don’t do it. Simple. I’m not your punching bag.

  57. 57.

    JaySinWA

    Good to see public notice of the banning.

    It appears at least one of the offending comments was deleted. I would suggest that in the future instead of literally deleting and making responses to it not make much sense, that the comment be overwritten with a brief note that it was deleted for comment policy violation.

    Thanks for all you do here.

  58. 58.

    Bugboy

    *tap tap* Is this on?

    I just want to say, that of all the places I have decided are not a good place to be for my mental health lately, Balloon Juice (and Hullabaloo) is not one of them.

    Thanks,

    Bugboy

  59. 59.

    Chris Johnson

    @ArchTeryx: If you’re calm and kind you won’t get banned and have it stick. It takes open trollage or malice, and it looks like you’ve gotta be mean.

    I’ve had my times in my 15 years posting to Balloon Juice, and I can tell you in general terms: if it’s tempting to be an edgelord, and really snipe at somebody, maybe don’t. It’s okay to stay mad at other people here so long as you’re good at giving them space.

    I know in my awareness of you (you know I’m a furry and roomed at a con with Babsiwuff, right?) that you’re really having a hell of a time right now. I wish there was more that I can do. I have lived on disability SSI myself, and I’m on Section 8, I’m just not nearly as endangered. But I do feel that for the foreseeable future, (a) we can fight off the MAGAs, (b) keep your head down as best you can and I see no reason why you can’t be very safe, because (c) they are WAY more interested in fighting each other right now and going forward. They’re factionalizing. It’s scary, I agree, but that’s why you should stay well back.

    I think of you, and I hope my thoughts can bring some measure of comfort. Again, keep your head down, and they’ve got way more to pay attention to right now. Go gently. Isn’t that what this thread advocates?

    You reaching out and going ‘have I done wrong, am I in trouble?’ in this thread speaks to your character. I for one notice <3

  60. 60.

    raven

    @ArchTeryx: from 45 above

     

    In the morning thread, a commenter said they would be stepping back from the blog after the mishegas of the past few weeks, and also because they and their family were dealing with a lot of awful medical issues. Cacti’s response was derisive and mean.

  61. 61.

    Jess

    @bbleh: At that point, I started to wonder if Joe really was slipping. I don’t trust the establishment Dems all that much, but I do know that there is usually a gap between the time when everyone around an elder is aware that they’re losing it, and the time when the elder is ready to admit it themselves. It was starting to sound like Joe was in that place. The whole situation sucked, but maybe no one was actually to blame for Joe stepping down (not that some players didn’t have ill intent).

    As much as I have come to admire Joe, I heard from so many people younger than me that they hated the fact that they were being forced to choose between two old white men. I expect they’re mostly overjoyed to have Harris take over. I think she’ll do at least as well as Joe would have, and she represents a step forward for many younger voters. I’m sad about Joe, anxious about the election, but mostly at peace with how things were dealt with. I think the Dems as a whole managed the situation as well as could be expected.

  62. 62.

    WaterGirl

    @hueyplong: I hope you don’t leave.  Hopefully this un-civil war on Balloon Juice has about run its course.

    Plus, anyone who keeps it up, after last night is basically saying “fuck you” to Cole, and from what I’ve seen, Cole is not a big fan of that.

    Cacti was banned once before, got out of jail when we set everyone free and started over a few months ago.  Which we do every few years.

    There will not be another chance if he gets himself banned a second time..

  64. 64.

    WaterGirl

    @lamh47: Had to approve your comment since you have apparently had another birthday! :-)

    Nice to see you!

    edit: okay, now that I have taken a moment to read your comment, it’s not just nice to see you, it’s wonderful to have you back!

  65. 65.

    Jess

    @KatKapCC: I just got my Dark Brandon yard sign last week, and I’m not taking it down! (I’ll put up a Harris sign next to it as soon as they’re available.)

  66. 66.

    raven

    Cacti has repeatedly attacked my Vietnam service even though I was also part of the anti-war vet movement. Apparently that is ok but this is beyond the pale.

  67. 67.

    Villago Delenda Est

    If I ever go into this space, someone needs to let me know.
    And, I’m now sending $5 a week to Kamala. VICTORY IN NOVEMBER!

  68. 68.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    I’m mostly a reader, not a commenter, but the comment threads the last few days have not been nearly as bad as I expected. That is tribute to the mostly unseen work of Watergirl and others (TaMara!!). Thank you all!

    This is a very nice place and I think almost all of us appreciate those of you who keep it that way. This week more than most.

  71. 71.

    WaterGirl

    @ArchTeryx: Oh.  There’s a progression.

    First offense: 3-day time out.

    Second offense:  1-week time out.

    Third offense:  1-month time out.

    Offend even one more time after returning from a 1-month time out, gone for good.

    (it’s all in the comment policy if anyone wants to read it.)

  72. 72.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    My better half ignores me when I become too much of an asshole.  Life’s pie filter.

  73. 73.

    pluky

    @Ohio Mom: You’re right

    — Father’s first cousin is your first cousin, once removed.

    — That person’s child is your second cousin.

    — Each successive generation is one more step removed from second cousin to you.

    — to your grandchildren the newborn would be a fourth cousin.

  76. 76.

    WaterGirl

    @lamh36: Well, when you turn 38, you can post a comment as 37, send me an email saying that you want to change your nym to whatever, and I can go in and change your previous comment to the new nym.

    Then your first actual comment with the new nym will go right through.

  77. 77.

    ArchTeryx

    @Chris Johnson: You roomed with Babs?!?! Damn I envy you. DJ Babsiwuff, aka the Hot Pink Beat of Toronto, is an absolute firecracker. She can be a little too serious about being a Social Justice Warrior at times and we’ve had our occasional spats. but for the most part I love her to pieces.

    Yeah, it’s been rough. The 1970s and 1980s were a *BAD* time to be mentally disabled, especially autistic. The model was “blame it all on the mother” and they wanted to put me in an institution and let my (undiagnosed) Crohn’s kill me. It’s never been “I’m going to kill you,” it’s always been, “I’ll just put you in a place you can’t escape from, withold care, and watch you die,” which is even worse. There’s a reason things like Project 2025 give me nightmares. Watching the Republican House actually throw a kegger on live TV celebrating millions of oncomng deaths, after they voted to repeal all of the ACA, also left an impression I will never, ever forget.

  79. 79.

    hueyplong

    @WaterGirl: Because of your action, I’m not “leaving,” but I am going to mainly lurk for a while because I don’t feel enough on top of the current situation to comment intelligently.

    This place has lots of intelligent, articulate and empathetic people, so it’s usually enjoyable to read even if that’s all you’re doing on it.

  82. 82.

    Ken

    @KatKapCC: “On reflection, I think I was too harsh about that Supreme Court ruling on my immunity. It has definite possibilities….”

  83. 83.

    Old School

    @raven: Attacking anyone is not OK.  As we all know, Cole doesn’t read the blog, so issues need to be reported.

  84. 84.

    Lyrebird

    @raven: Yes, I have seen that happen, too.  Hopefully the revised commenting policy will help.  FWIW I have been unsure whether you want anyone to stand with you when you get an ad hominem attack.  Even IRL I am not strong on knowing when people are joking, like there’s been a commenter Just Some F-head, might know Cole in real life.  Clearly they are used to talking shyt as a way to be friendly, in a way I never learned.

    If you or Villago or any of the other Vets ever feel singled out unfairly and don’t take it like that, and you want some commenting backup, send up a flare ok?

  85. 85.

    eclare

    @ArchTeryx:

    That image is burned in my brain, too.  We knew they were heartless killers, but to celebrate?

    I have insurance through the ACA.

  87. 87.

    bluefoot

    @OId Man Shadow: This is pretty much where I am.  With some extra caution thrown in because whether we like it or not, racism and misogyny are large motivating factors with a lot of voters. And caution about what this may mean for how future nominations are conducted.

  88. 88.

    Ken

    @WaterGirl: Don’t be cruel, don’t attack other commenters, don’t be a dick.

    I’m thinking there’s an implicit “except to Republican politicians” for two of those?

  89. 89.

    ArchTeryx

    @KatKapCC: So basically he shit all over someone that desperately needed a vacation from the massive amount of online mishegas that has been going on. I wish I’d seen that comment, I’d have offered my support. People really need mental health breaks from all this crap, and it’s still the “silly season” in American politics. I’m glad he got his ass booted out for a month, then.

  90. 90.

    WaterGirl

    @raven:

    Cacti has repeatedly attacked my Vietnam service even though I was also part of the anti-war vet movement. Apparently that is ok but this is beyond the pale.

    We have to know about the comment in order to do anything about it.

    I was out all morning, and I would have had no idea that anything untoward was said except that people emailed me about it.  And we all know that Cole doesn’t read his own blog.  (Okay, not really true, but likely not much in real time because he’s so busy.)

    If you see something, say something. :-)

  92. 92.

    OId Man Shadow

    Hopefully this un-civil war on Balloon Juice has about run its course.

    Yeah, I was still in a bleak and nasty mood this morning, but what’s the point?

    I want people to be happy and excited about Democrats winning the election. It’s literally an election that means life or death to some people. I think about women with health complications in pregnancies who will have nowhere safe to go.  I think about trans-teens being outlawed in America and forced into mental asylums or bible brainwashing camps.

    I’m still sticking with non-partisan for now. But assuming the party doesn’t do anything stupid in the ensuing six years, I might come back so I can vote in the primary against Schiff and give his primary opponent money.

  93. 93.

    Geminid

    @ArchTeryx: It was egregious in it’s context and came after dozens of other insolent comments. This guy’s been suspended here before for the same. If people don’t go out of their way to insult other commenters they are generally tolerated.

  94. 94.

    raven

    @Lyrebird: Well my horrible comment in response to Thin Black Dude’s foxhole comment got me in deep shit with a couple of “long time commenters” so I guess what goes around comes around.

  95. 95.

    Nelle

    @raven: I’m sorry that happened to you.   I am here so erratically that I missed calling that out for you.  I did see this this morning and thought it just gratuitous cruelty that was an affront to the community.

  96. 96.

    Expletive Deleted

    Just wanted to say before this thread also expands to a zillion comments, to BJ at large and Cole and the gang that I appreciate this place for helping keep me sane and informed.

    Even amid the ugliness (which, oof guys) it’s been very helpful and to be able to turn to this blog and the comments now that I am not on any of the big socials. Calming down after the first announcement and getting excited after the second by reading the saner info, speculation, and links here (thank you pie filter).

    So yeah, the last two days would have kinda sucked more without this place.

  98. 98.

    CaseyL

    @lamh47: 

    Hello! Welcome Back! It so good to see you! Please stick around!

    Re: Banning/Time Out-ing. There are unfortunately a few regular, long-time commenters who are feuding with one another. That’s not great, but it doesn’t spill over into every thread everywhere.

    What Cacti was doing is different: being cruel to everyone, all the time, for (near as I can tell) shits’n’giggles. And this is not the first time, per WG. (I dimly remember pie-ing Cacti at some point in the past, but can’t remember why.)

    So good riddance on that one. I’m cautiously un-pieing some people, and Cacti’s presence made that difficult as many people felt compelled to respond to the taunts.

  99. 99.

    sab

    @WaterGirl: Thank you and I agree about this morning and Cacti.

    I seriously disagreed with other commenters (Kay and MomSense, for example) but I never doubted that they were doing the best in their eyes and were trying to save the country. They may well have been right. Kay got a bit nasty but since she felt at least as strongly as I did on my side I just pied her until things settled and we both calmed down.

    Cacti was simply mean and nasty to someone obviously in pain other than over politics. Just stomping.

  100. 100.

    ArchTeryx

    @raven: What capacity did you serve in the Nam? I come from a military family myself. Father was a WWII fighter pilot, sent home due to an accidental injury. Machine gun malfunctioned while loading and cut a nerve in his arm. Lucky for him. Most of his wing fell to the Luftwaffe over Italy afterward.

  101. 101.

    bbleh

    @Ohio Mom: @pluky: coming from WV, where such things are of paramount importance, I think Ohio Mom is right — 2nd cousin twice removed.  Fourth cousins would be Ohio Mom’s grandchild and the new arrival.

    Another way to think about it: how many generations back is the nearest common ancestor, minus 1.  Eg if your nearest common ancestor is just 1 generation away (mother / father) then you’re siblings, but if the nearest is 2 generations away (grandmother / grandfather) then your parents are siblings and you are first cousins.   And the “removed” thing makes up for differences in generation: you’re cousins if you’re of the same generation relative to the common ancestor, but if you’re of different generations, then you do the “removed” thing from the nearest (upward) cousin.

  102. 102.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @WaterGirl:

     

    @schrodingers_cat: I asked you this on yesterday’s thread. Several months ago you and WG discussed a disinformation game/project. It was set up by  a British university. I’d gone to it and thought I bookmarked it but I apparently  didn’t. Do you have a link? I want to pass it onto a friend of mine. I’ve tried doing a Google search etc without success.

  107. 107.

    Tony Jay

    Good move. Argue, disagree, take the Lord’s name in vain if you must. Snark, slap, scold, shout, suggest new and exciting ways to self-impregnate. That’s all part of this site’s unique charm. You can even be an obsessive, one-note blowhard, a rabidly blinkered partisan bore, or a tiresome egotist who tries to make every single bloody thing about themselves and goes into foot-stamping tizzies if anyone has the temerity to doubt their divinely bestowed wisdom. I’ve got away with that for years and I don’t think it – quite – meets the necessary arsehole quota required for banhammering – though it’s a close one.

    But being a dick by persistently targeting and insulting other commentators, that’s out of bounds. Troll can just be pied for their trollishness, what Cacti did was worse and has no place in a civilised blog. Or here.

  108. 108.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: I missed that whole thing so I didn’t understand the foxhole reference.

    We all need to be steady as she goes so we can get back in this fight for the soul of the nation.

    I feel like we’re starting to get there.

  109. 109.

    ArchTeryx

    @WaterGirl: Oh, I know. I figured either Cacti violated it three times in a row in that thread, or this was their third offense in violating DBAD in comments.

  110. 110.

    kindness

    Cacti was one of my first pied members.  Haven’t seen the posts in a few weeks and I’m thrilled not to have seen them.  It got to the point where I felt if people were wasting my time or mental energies, they got pied.  We’ll see how fast I unpie people.

  111. 111.

    Bugboy

    @Villago Delenda Est: Was Amanda Marcotte there at one time?  I thought it was there that I got cross-wise with her for suggesting many many moons ago that precisely the thing that happened in the fallout from Dobbs was going to happen eventually.  She took that as me saying “woman shouldn’t worry their pretty little heads”, which is not at all what I was saying.

    What was I saying?  What we have 2 words to describe right now: President Harris.

  112. 112.

    Kay

    I think it probably helps Dems that media are pretending there’s some doubt in the outcome of the candidate. It’s completely dishonest but normies are probably somewhat paying attention and they’ll like it. Yesterday they were “who do you think it will be?” Oh, it’s a toss up between Dean Whathisame and Harris. Tight as a tick.

  113. 113.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @bbleh:

    And OMG what statesmanship.

    Biden is a master at this stuff and everybody always overlooks that.
    And thanks for articulating a response that captures what I’ve been feeling.

  117. 117.

    lamh47

    @WaterGirl: Awesome sauce!  thx Watergirl.

    been almost 12 birthdays since I first started that lamh36 Nym :-)

    Figured with my new found wisdom and age, I should probably update it…LOL.

  120. 120.

    ArchTeryx

    @raven: My best friend’s father, later county sheriff in Grand Isle, Vermont, also was REMF and did maintenance. Though apparently his base was attacked during the Tet Offensive, so he saw combat. When your base is under attack, of course it’s All Hands On Deck.

    I’m not gonna shit over your service, nor will I say that cliched “thank you for your service,” either. You did an honorable thing for this country and from a military brat, I’m glad you made it home okay.

  121. 121.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: TBD made a reference to “being in a foxhole” with BJ’ers and I said I doubted if many had ever been in a foxhole. It was an offhanded comment and he apologized and I said I didn’t think it was necessary and that “I got it”.

  124. 124.

    eclare

    @kindness:

    Same.  After only “pie-ing” one commenter for years, I have around eight commenters pied now.  A few weeks ago almost every thread was 30-40% pastry.  It seems to have calmed down.

  127. 127.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Trollhattan: For reasons, I was reading some stuff about Ring Lardner yesterday and learned that Hemingway considered him a major influence, to the point that in high school, Hemingway used “Ring Lardner, Jr.” as a pseudonym.

    Never personally saw the appeal of Hemingway. But I’m an illiterate cretin. There’s lots of well-regarded stuff I don’t get.

    As for the recent events, I bowed out yesterday when the attacks were getting unrelentingly personal. I was pissed too. I got over it. I understand people needed to grieve on their own schedules, and for most that did not mean they’d vote against Kamala. But still, the nastiness was hard to bear.

  128. 128.

    lamh47

    I’ve alreay mentioned this twitte thread to John, but gonna post it as well.

    A very simple thread, giving those who don’t know a simple crash course in why MVP Harris’ AKA sorority and the Divine 9 groups (D9) will be an important and powerful part of the push towards electing MVP Harris for POTUS.

    Simply stated…a built in legion of foot soldiers ready to stand up and work for their fellow soror!

    @naima

    This a great, simple thread to educate the unfamiliar with AKA and the D9…

    https://x.com/naima/status/1815788195470078413

  130. 130.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    I don’t know what happened on this blog and I refuse to go find out.

  131. 131.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @OId Man Shadow:

    I might come back so I can vote in the primary against Schiff and give his primary opponent money.

    Yup on the vote against somebody like Schiff in the primary and give their primary opponent money.  Should our senior Senator run for reelection, that’s what I plan on doing.  Oh wait, if he runs again, it’ll be unopposed in the primary (“It’s Colorado, Jake).  Then it’ll be nose-holding time…for the gazillionth time over the decades.

  132. 132.

    WaterGirl

    @Tony Jay:

    Argue, disagree, take the Lord’s name in vain if you must. Snark, slap, scold, shout, suggest new and exciting ways to self-impregnate. That’s all part of this site’s unique charm. You can even be an obsessive, one-note blowhard, a rabidly blinkered partisan bore, or a tiresome egotist who tries to make every single bloody thing about themselves and goes into foot-stamping tizzies if anyone has the temerity to doubt their divinely bestowed wisdom. I’ve got away with that for years and I don’t think it – quite – meets the necessary arsehole quota required for banhammering – though it’s a close one.

    But being a dick by persistently targeting and insulting other commentators, that’s out of bounds.

    Boy, it’s so tempting to ask Cole if we can add that to the comment policy. :-)

  133. 133.

    Paul W.

    I have not had time to get deep into the comments, I’m actually Joy-scrolling which I need to stop, but just want to register that if everyone in this whole political process just gives each other a little more grace when dealing with personal decisions and closely held feelings then it will be much better in the long run.

    We have time for people to take a break and regain their focus and energy, and for everyone else who is fired up let’s get going. No need to rub things in peoples faces – looking at you PSA who won’t shut up with self-important congratulations for “helping inform” the president of what the “majority of Democratic voters want”. No acknowledgement at all for Biden voters, it’s just poor form at a time when we should be coming together.

  134. 134.

    eclare

    @lamh47:

    Kamala is speaking at another D9 sorority’s convention later this week, I can’t remember which one.  The energy there will be fierce!

  135. 135.

    Kay

    Andrew Yang has endorsed Harris so that’s the election. The Yang Gang are unbeatable.

  136. 136.

    kindness

    @bbleh: I was a math/science geek.  English was always my worst subject.  I probably should have used a hyphen.  My bad.

  141. 141.

    M31

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: ​
     

    lol Ring Lardner (senior) has one of my all time favorite quotes, it’s a conversation between a dad and backseat kids on a car trip:

    Are you lost daddy I arsked tenderly.
    Shut up he explained.

  143. 143.

    lamh47

    Biden latest play with Bibi is kinda brilliant.  Will Bibi cancel his meeting with the POTUS to avoid the families?

  145. 145.

    Bugboy

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: As a biologist I always wondered how literature majors got by.  Seems like such an easy job to read a bunch of books.

    Then I tried to read Moby Dick all the way through.  It’s taken me 45 years, but I’ve still not gotten to the whale.

    I tried to read House of Seven Gables. I’m pretty sure I didn’t finish that one.

    I did ok with LOTR, though.  Several times.

  146. 146.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Bugboy:

    Was Amanda Marcotte there at one time? I thought it was there that I got cross-wise with her for suggesting many many moons ago that precisely the thing that happened in the fallout from Dobbs was going to happen eventually.

    Hmmm, that doesn’t jibe with what Marcotte was saying for years on Pandagon. I was never a fan of hers but she always and succinctly nailed what the forced-birthers were all about and how women should work like hell to preserve abortion rights.
    Maybe she had a weak moment spending all her time being an insufferable music snob.

  150. 150.

    ArchTeryx

    @raven: That always gives me a smile. Most people know that term from the movie Aliens, of course: “We’re in the pipe, 5×5.” They tried to do their research, and the first part of the dropship jockey’s statement made sense for a reentry/deorbit trajectory. But the 5×5 never made any sense, because they didn’t actually have radio comms with Hadley’s Hope Colony. Maybe she was using it to refer to having a good signal from the nav beacon, but hellifino. It amused my father too, so it’s a fond memory.

  151. 151.

    karen gail

    I have to laugh; here one gets a time out. If you think that is harsh join Stonekettle Station; Jim Wright will airlock you and you will neither be seen nor heard from again.

  152. 152.

    Citizen Alan

    @Trollhattan:  I never once considered telling anyone in my family that for nearly 20 years I had a side gig writing for table top RPGs, mainly for White Wolf Games, or that I had published an urban fantasy novel, because I felt sure most of them would have considered it signs of Satanism.

  153. 153.

    Kay

    @KatKapCC:

    Me too. I actually give him some credit for not going on the now-familiar trip to MAGALand. Usually it’s “I’m an independent” then someone on the internet laughs at them so they are forced to go MAGA.

  154. 154.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah:

    “Breaking: the President of the US Biden has invited the families of hostages to the meeting with Netanyahu scheduled for Thursday at 09:30 PM Israel time”.

    That’s the Joe we know and love!

  157. 157.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I swear I remember a time when Cacti was a normal commenter.

    @Tony Jay:

    You can even be an obsessive, one-note blowhard

    I feel seen.

  159. 159.

    lamh47

    Since the media cared so much about polls with Biden…how about this one?

    @KevinCate

    NEW REUTERS/IPSOS POLL:
    @KamalaHarris
    42% Donald Trump 38% RFK Jr. 8% (MoE +/-3%)

    Head to head: Harris 44% Trump 42% Date: 7/22 and 7/23 Sample: 1,018 RVs

  160. 160.

    Quiltingfool

    Posted this earlier on the morning thread (400 comments, yikes)

    Suzanne (hey there!)  said something about primaries should be the same day, nationwide.  Pros and cons to that, but in Missouri, at least until 2020, our primary is in August, many months behind other states.

    I didn’t know the Mo Legislature changed primaries, because now the parties decide the presidential primary date, the state no longer is involved.  So the Democratic primary was March 23.  I didn’t vote because I’m not plugged in to Missouri Democrats (except for Show-Me Progress, hi, Michael!) and missed the date and where to vote.

    Only 18,000 or so Missourians voted in the Democratic Primary.  And, it was a closed primary.  Population of Missouri is about 6 million.

    Missouri Republicans held a caucus.   Guess who got 100%.

    I get folks being very upset that their primary vote didn’t count, and that’s as much as I’m going to say about that.  But when you have to search around to find out where and when you can vote?  That’s bullshit.  We need standards, people!  Changing stuff so that only the most politically plugged in folks know what’s going on is ridiculous.

    Oh, and I think caucuses are bullshit, too.

    Hopefully I got my info straight, if not, I don’t mind being corrected!

  162. 162.

    Tony Jay

     

    @WaterGirl:

    To be honest I cadged most of it from the membership pledge over at Mammy Toot Toot’s Evening Salon For Myopic Boys, but I don’t think she’d mind, gawd bless her pitch-black soul.

  163. 163.

    Kay

    #New @Reuters Poll

    🔵 Harris 44% (+2)
    🔴 Trump 42%

    Sorry. I only post it because the MAGAs here in NW OH were telling me she is going to “collapse” – I don’t say anything because there’s no point but also because I didn’t know if she was or not.

  164. 164.

    Ken

    @bbleh: how long before the Oxford or AH dictionaries pick up “unpie” as a transitive verb?

    It’s only truly accepted when it’s a Wordle in the NYT.

    No, wait, sorry, it’s presidential candidates that have to appear in the NYT.

  166. 166.

    Ohio Mom

    @ArchTeryx: I never knew your dxes before. Crohn’s was never on my radar until I made friends with another autism mom who has it. She’s gone through some tough times, lately it’s been quiet. But there is always a sense that it could get worse again. Anyway, I have an appreciation for what a rotten condition it is, you have my sympathies.

    As for being “locked up”, in the 1960’s, Ohio Dad was sent to a “special school.” Fortunately he was able to come home on the weekends and was declared “cured” by seventh grade. Being very, very smart gave him something to leverage, I suspect that’s also probably true for you.

    Nowadays teachers (at least Ohio Son’s teachers) cite research that being included in the general ed (“regular”) classroom results in more successful adult lives for neurodiverse children. So somethings do progress and improve.

    There is also a robust disability/neurodiversity rights movement these days, and that is also on our side.

    I guess the Democrats pulling together has given me a burst of optimism.

  167. 167.

    Bugboy

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: yeah well I didn’t stick around much after that, and I really felt like I was being told I stepped out of line by being a man and saying what I said, and so I took my lumps.  Like, “it’s alright for the sisters to rally, but Bugboy joining in ain’t a good look, mmmkay?”  I have a GD stupid handle anyway but it was one given to me by a fondly remembered helicopter pilot I flew with for 5 years, so I’m keeping it.

  169. 169.

    M31

    now I’m reading that Netanyahu is stopping off at Mar-A-Lago

    he and Trump can sit around and bitch about how they got played by Joe Biden

  170. 170.

    Citizen Dave

    Seems appropriate to note these simple rules: (can find on youtube/audio clip):

    Willie Nelson has three rules. 1- don’t be an asshole 2- don’t be an asshole 3- don’t be a fucking asshole.

  172. 172.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Frankensteinbeck: Gaza really broke him–he was justifiably upset about Israel’s behavior and the US’s support of Israel, and it just turned into “all y’all SUCK”.

  178. 178.

    Phein64

    @Ohio Mom: Second cousin twice-removed is correct for our kinship system (Eskimo).  (I studied kinship mathematics in grad school, and look for any opportunity to use that.)   The easiest way to calculate is to start with the basic unit of kinship:  A line of length 1 that goes from a parent to a child.   If you can trace your relationship to another person by going up one line and then down one line, that is your sibling.  (If you can do that through both parents, it’s a full sibling.)  If you have to go up two lines and down two, that is your cousin. (If you can trace cousinship through more than two people at the apex, you’ll be voting for JD Vance.)  Up two, down one:  Aunt/uncle. Three up, three down, second cousin.  Etc.  The shortest set of lines defines the relationship, additional lines define removal, so:  Four up, two down:  First cousin twice removed.

  179. 179.

    Kay

    @Other MJS:

    Yang? Yeah. You know how people are. They knew Biden was unpopular so they were going to stay out, but Harris might really soar, so it’s not a bad bet. They don’t know her ceiling.

  180. 180.

    grubert

    As someone who used to mix it up here under a different pseudonym ( eemom was one I had real fights with )

    I present the word of the day: perseverate.

    Don’t do it.. I used to. Too often.

    Now I try not to.

  181. 181.

    CaseyL

    @Bugboy: 

    And all you had to do was read it, not read and analyze it!

    But… as an avid lifelong scifi reader, I tried many times in my 20s to read the original Dune book. At no point was I able to make it through the first 50 pages.

    Then in college (this is a long, long time ago) I took a “Science Fiction as Literature” course, and Dune was one of the assigned texts. I sighed and expected stultifying boredom.

    That is not what I got.

    The discussion around Dune was fascinating, and lively, and complex, and I have remembered much of it even four+ decades later. Motifs and structures and literary tricks that I didn’t even know existed, much less how to look for, really illuminated the book for me.

    (The whole course was like that. It was a great way to meaningfully read both “classic” scifi and, at the time, current scifi, and get bunch more out of it than the mere story arc.)

    So, what I’m saying is, you might possibly find a real Literature Course to be more fun than you could possibly have expected. And maybe even make Moby Dick readable. Maybe.

  183. 183.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @rikyrah:

    Is Ezra Klein right to constantly opine on the Democratic Party, a party he fundamentally doesn’t understand because he doesn’t see Black voters, the base of the Democratic Party?

    That can be said about a lot of the Loyal-Dems-But crowd.

  184. 184.

    ArchTeryx

    @eclare: That’s why I panicked about Project 2025, and all this talk of concentrating undesirables, setting up detention camps, mass deportations, eliminating SSI and SSDI, eliminating veterans benefits… that day that lives in infamy is where the masks all came off, and they told us what they really were. Would-be mass murderers. And at the time, what I got was a whole lot of argument about whether letting someone die by malign neglect and witholding of medical treatment was actually murder. More sealioning, and sealioning in the service of mass murder. It made me sick.

  185. 185.

    Starfish

    @Citizen Alan: I am reporting this comment because as someone who grew up in Mississippi, I am legally required to know that “My mother is a fish.”

  186. 186.

    Matt McIrvin

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: Amanda Marcotte’s insistent and passionate feminism challenged a lot of ideas I had about things, though I already considered myself a feminist. She could be something of a bomb-thrower.

    Some of her “voice of Generation X” posts felt a little off to me but it’s probably just because I’m closer to the old end of GenX than she is. I didn’t have the feeling she did that Kurt Cobain’s suicide was the moment everything went wrong and hope went out of the world.

    She made a bad bet going all in for John Edwards in 2004. These things happen.

  187. 187.

    Joy in FL

    @M31: Oh, thank you for the Ring Lardner quote in comment #41.

    I am laughing out loud.

    “Are you lost daddy I arsked tenderly.
    Shut up he explained.”

  191. 191.

    Ken

    @Bugboy: Then I tried to read Moby Dick all the way through.  It’s taken me 45 years, but I’ve still not gotten to the whale.

    As I’ve described it to friends, “The movies do the first four and last three chapters. The one hundred twenty eight chapters in between are a whaling manual.”

  192. 192.

    Harrison Wesley

    Would anybody find it constructive to discuss what their plans are for working in the coming election?  It might be a bit of a break from how we got here/why we got here/etc. For example, I’m signed up to work the Dem information table outside the Supervisor of Elections’ office for a couple of shifts during the early voting period; I’m also signed up to train as a Dem poll watcher in my precinct for the actual election.  How and why I decided to do that is irrelevant, no?

  195. 195.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Bugboy: I try occasionally to read the stuff I didn’t read when I was supposed to in high school (also freshman American Lit in college).

    I actually enjoyed Hawthorne and read the assignments back then.

    Finally read The Grest Gatsby maybe 5 years ago. It was fine but I don’t understand the high praise it gets.

    I’ve tried Dickens several times. I enjoy it for awhile, but then I get bogged down by about chapter 443 out of 10000.

  196. 196.

    WereBear

    @CaseyL: Anyone who is not a lit major should find a good abridgement for getting into Moby Dick. Then it’s a ripping-yarn seafaring experience.

    The beauty of the language and the interlocking structures can wait.

    There was no such thing as a jump cut, back in early movies. It startled the audience and they didn’t know how to interpret it.

    Now, it is so common we have them in our books.

  198. 198.

    Chris Johnson

    @ArchTeryx: I did. I also crushed on her terribly hard, and didn’t take it well when she (at a subsequent con) got real cuddly with the man who’s now her husband. We fell out ‘cos I was an edgelord, and made up, and she’s the one who saw me in brony fandom thinking I was an Applejack type and said ‘no no, you’re clearly Rarity’ which clicked with me. We don’t hang out but I think the world of Babsiwuff, still think she’s all kinds of adorable and awesome, plus she is one hell of a toon artist :)

    It’s not impossible that you’ve met me at a con. I’ve gone by Jinx, and suited as MaggieKitten. It was some time ago now. I’ve got plans to go to MFM, for what that’s worth.

  199. 199.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WaterGirl: Ah–I tend to avoid reading all the comments in Adam’s Ukraine posts, because they would just get really grim and bloodthirsty sometimes.

  202. 202.

    Bugboy

    @CaseyL: Oh you are going to laugh, I read Dune as a teenager and it didn’t do anything for me.  And I have always been a voracious SF reader.  Then, *counts on fingers and toes and fingernails and toenails, runs out* I mean, some years later, I was laid up in bed for a week or 2 from a bad back.  Somehow the entire series through the son’s book was there at my bedside, and wow, what a journey that was!

  203. 203.

    Citizen Alan

    @Starfish: In my defense, I was traumatized in 11th grade when my English teacher spent two weeks covering “The Bear.”

  206. 206.

    Suzanne

    @WaterGirl:

    Passive-aggressiveness is annoying as hell.

    Is it in the comment policy?

    Should it be?

    It’s up to y’all. I hate it and I don’t think it’s right. But, in general and speaking only for myself, I’d lean toward a fairly light moderating hand.

    But….. if the goal is to reduce dickish behavior…..

  207. 207.

    Starfish

    @Quiltingfool: Yes, the primary process is set up to disenfranchise a whole lot of people, and this is why I was annoyed by the “I have been disenfranchised because my primary vote did not count.”

    The primaries (or caucuses) are for plugged in party people, and you know when you have young children and the caucus is a multiple hour thing scheduled after their bedtime, I spent a particular election involving Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton laughing at my husband and another friend who were in a line trying to get into their caucus location while I put a kid to bed because I had been disenfranchised by my state political party.

  208. 208.

    Ken

    @Josie: I’d really like to be a fly on the wall for that conversation [Trump and Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago]”

    Maybe you can buy a transcript from the Chinese. Or the Russians. Or any of six dozen other nations, including the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, that undoubtedly have bugged that place.

    (Also, “Trump and Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago” should not be confused with “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”.)

  210. 210.

    CaseyL

    @Harrison Wesley: ​

    My state is all vote-by-mail. I *might* do some canvasing – I loved the old-fashioned kind where you start with a printed list of voters on a clipboard and go door to door talking to people and making notes, and then hand in the printed list with all your notations at the end of the day. Now it’s all done on a phone app, which I frankly loathe.

    So far I’ve signed up for a bunch of postcarding. Sent a few batches out last week for a School Board election in Florida, and just got my Swing State Postcard package a couple days ago.

    Not sure what else I might do. It’s hard for me to do outreach, because Low Info Voters drive me batshit. How can you not be paying attention, nimrod?? How can you not fucking know?? – is not, surprisingly, a way to win friends and influence people.

  211. 211.

    ArchTeryx

    @Ohio Mom: Crohn’s, Gastritis, heavily on the autistic spectrum and all the associated diagnoses, and on top of all that, severe allergies. I was born a mess, and the Crohn’s wasn’t diagnosed until I was in my *30s*. Even with a period of remission, that’s a long time to suffer and not understand why. And because of my physical disabilities, my mother was convinced if she let them take me away from her and lock me away in an institution, that my death was inevitable. I tend to agree. It was pure malign neglect at the time.

    Now add the junk insurance, pre-ACA, I had in grad school, which blocked me from getting the biological treatments I needed for Crohn’s. My variety is both particular severe and degenerate. But I got the surgery and got enough treatment to keep me alive until I could get better insurance.

    At the time, though, Medicaid was paying for ALL my Crohn’s treatment, including my Remicade. These were the treatments that kept me alive. If I was stripped of access to medical care, my slow, agonizing death was inevitable.

    Things are better now, but I’ve still had to fight a lifetime of bigotry in the job market for the MENTAL (and to some extent the physical) disabilities.

  212. 212.

    Bugboy

    @Ken: RE: Whaling Manual.  OMFG that is perfect.   Quite educational if one wants to learn what the 1800’s OPEC looks like?

  213. 213.

    Princess

    @rikyrah: Forcing Netanyahu to meet the families of the hostages? Perfect. I hope they yell at him for a full hour. Dark Brandon strikes again.

  215. 215.

    WaterGirl

    @Suzanne:

    Is it annoying as hell?  YES

    Is it in the comment policy?  NO

    Should it be?  NO

    Annoying people are everywhere.  The goal is to eliminate personal attacks.

  216. 216.

    OId Man Shadow

    @lamh47: Within the margin of error. I’m glad that the Freakout doesn’t seem to have done lasting damage.

    Long way to go before we cross the finish line.

  217. 217.

    eclare

    @ArchTeryx:

    Yep.  And Crohn’s is tough.  A friend of mine developed it in middle school and had a horrible time with side effects of the medication.  She eventually died in her early 30’s, not from Crohn’s, but from an infection picked up while she was hospitalized.

    You have my sympathy.

  218. 218.

    CliosFanBoy

    Thank you.  And their banning will cut back on the amount of pie I see as well.

  219. 219.

    Suzanne

    @rikyrah:

    Is Ezra Klein right to constantly opine on the Democratic Party, a party he fundamentally doesn’t understand because he doesn’t see Black voters, the base of the Democratic Party? 

    Why is it about if is he right or wrong to do so? If his analysis isn’t worth shit, we can just disregard, or mock it mercilessly.

  220. 220.

    rikyrah

     

    Sons of Killmonger & Disciple of Dark Brandon (@2Strong2Silence) posted at 8:00 AM on Tue, Jul 23, 2024:

    The media & GOP are shaken for two very important reasons:

    1. There will be no Hillarying of Kamala Harris. We won’t allow it & neither will Joe Biden.

    2. They are about to meet millions of us uppity ones that don’t need their opinions. https://t.co/uHhfjlGyiU

    (https://x.com/2Strong2Silence/status/1815733789177401478?t=2VXiqYX8eYncZQxwDGeKlg&s=03)

  222. 222.

    Bugboy

    @Matt McIrvin: “Kurt Cobain’s suicide was the moment everything went wrong and hope went out of the world.”

    You have GOT to be kidding me.  As my good friend from my HS garage band said to me the other day:  “We’re the old people now”…

  223. 223.

    john b

    I must have missed the particular comment in question.  I note that one frequently referenced in comments a few threads ago is no longer there, so perhaps it has gone to the spam pile.  But as noted, there’s no place for personal nastiness.  I mean, if you’re at a party and start making comments like that to someone, you’d better be planning on leaving immediately afterward, right?  So.

    Absolutely agreed here. And can we agree to not immediately question someone’s loyalties when they don’t agree with your (or the predominant) opinion?

  224. 224.

    Tony Jay

    @rikyrah:

      Breaking: the President of the US Biden has invited the families of hostages to the meeting with Netanyahu scheduled for Thursday at 09:30 PM Israel time

    On every Major, Minor, Municipal and Mini golf-course around the world, players, fans and passing drunk Scotsmen all stop as one and begin to clap in appreciation of Game knowing the fuck out of Game.

    Well done, you well-seasoned old fellow.

  225. 225.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Matt McIrvin: ​
     

    Agreed on her ability to make people think hard about what they thought they knew in that area. I have taken her thoughts on abortion rights forward and to this day wish I’d clipped some of her material on that.

    Edwards 2004: Heh heh, I’d totally forgotten about that…says someone who still uses his Edwards coffee mug swag to hold pens and pencils on his desk. ;)

  226. 226.

    Jeffg166

    I have taken to blocking everyone on Disqus who has a private account. On some of the sites I visit only about a third of the comments now show up.

    I never thought the comments on this site were that bad. Then I don’t read them all.

  227. 227.

    Starfish

    @rikyrah: So the big names are endorsing her in days after most endorsements came in to keep the endorsement news cycle going, and they are not terrible people? It’s like there was a plan.

  228. 228.

    KatKapCC

    @Starfish:

    I spent a particular election involving Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton laughing at my husband and another friend

    OK, at first I thought you meant Bernie and Hillary were laughing at your husband and friend.

  229. 229.

    Subsole

    @WereBear:

    Hey now. Cooper wasn’t all bad.

    Without Cooper, we never would have gotten to read Mr. Clemens’ absolute and comprehensive disassembly of his prose.

  230. 230.

    columbusqueen

    I’d like to apologize to anyone I got too personal with. It’s been a very difficult month on several levels, & it will take a while for the wounds to heal. I’m sorry.

  231. 231.

    Paul in KY

    @CaseyL: The one I’ve never made it thru is ‘Dhalgren’. One day I’ll have to wiki it just to see what the hell it’s supposed to be about…

  234. 234.

    Fair Economist

    A good rule of thumb is to criticize actions, not commenters.

    We are all on the same side even if there have been some differences on tactics. And, right now, our prospects look pretty good.  Seems like there should be a way to get along.

  236. 236.

    Scout211

    Schumer and Jeffries endorse Harris. CNN

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination for president during a news conference in Washington on Tuesday.

  238. 238.

    Jeffg166

    @Harrison Wesley: I intend to irritate the hell out of my 89 year old closet trump supporter neighbor by calling him on his BS about the Democrats. He listens to rightwing radio all the time. I laugh when I tell him the truth he has nowhere to go.

  240. 240.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Bugboy: Everyone knows that the space shuttle Challenger exploding was the moment when everything went wrong and hope went out of the world! As I, who am 9 years older than Amanda Marcotte and a much bigger nerd, insist was an absolute and universal experience.

  241. 241.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    It is disappointing to see how this place has devolved. Back in the day, we treated each other with respect. You think this presidential contest is bad? We did Obama v Hillary, The Deathmatch. And we hugged and cried it all out respectfully. And yes, there was love too.

  242. 242.

    Eunicecycle

    @CaseyL: I remember going to a doctor’s office in November 2012 with my “I voted” sticker on my coat and the receptionist said, “Oh is that today?” Grrr I felt like asking what rock she lived under but that wouldn’t have been good voter outreach.

  244. 244.

    am

    @WaterGirl: I deleted my comment. I don’t think what I said was needed then or now. I will just note it’s extremely easy for content moderation to become a topic of discussion and a distraction, and I err strongly toward discretion when things are running hot.

  245. 245.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Now I’m curious about the reasoning behind the order of the various endorsements that have been coming in over the past 48 hours or so. (This assumes that it was organized, and not just random people announcing their support whenever they could connect to their messaging tools.)

    Well, okay, Biden had to endorse first, for obvious reasons, to make it clear that Harris was now The One.

    Then it seemed like every politician being touted by the Mass Media as a potential challenger to Harris was endorsing within minutes of being floated as the Alternative.

    Pelosi came later, as did Schumer and Jeffries – was the time it took for Harris to collect the delegate pledges a factor? Were they deliberately cultivating the impression that they’re following the will of the grass roots, rather than pushing their desired outcome?

    As for Obama, I get the sense he is waiting for The Right Moment.

    I reiterate my speculation that what’s gone down in the last 48 hours is the execution of a contingency plan that’s been in place for about two years, a variation of one of their emergency succession plans. Biden and Harris would have been idiots not to have a number of those, or to keep them updated, and the past 48 hours have proven pretty conclusively that neither Biden nor Harris is an idiot.

  248. 248.

    Matt McIrvin

    @ArchTeryx: It was basically a one-word post, which might have been ignorable in itself but it was the culmination of a long, long pattern.

  249. 249.

    Starfish

    @KatKapCC: I should get someone to edit my comments before I make them, but I would probably hire someone who changes all my comments to “Blech.”

  250. 250.

    Mel

    @Ohio Mom: That’s wonderful!!! Congratulations to the new Mom and to you. You’re so right – family doesn’t have to be close genetically or even genetic at all to be family. Love is what matters, and it sounds like this little one will be loved beyond measure!

  251. 251.

    eclare

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I was a senior in high school and had just walked into the library to meet a teacher.  The library had tv’s.  I will never forget it.

  252. 252.

    WereBear

    @Subsole:

    3. They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often been overlooked in the Deerslayer tale.

  253. 253.

    Soprano2

    @raven: I think it’s a buildup of everything he did in the past. I had unpied everyone, but I pied him again today after seeing his response to geg6. He has no business being a commenter here ever again IMHO.

  256. 256.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: “Contingency plan” sounds about right. I seriously doubt that they were all lying for months about Biden staying in the race, but the speed with which everything came together suggests that this was not spur of the moment. More “here’s what we do IF Biden has to drop out during the reelection campaign”, whether that’s because he dies or has a stroke, or simply loses the Mandate of Heaven because of the age issue.

  257. 257.

    Kay

    WG you should do a link to Harris in Wisconsin. It looks like it’s going to be good. They had to get a bigger venue yesterday due to demand. Thanks.

  258. 258.

    Starfish

    @zhena gogolia: It was so bad.

    A lot of commenters have had a terrible time lately, and someone who was really into the Biden candidacy talked about the way she was having a really hard time. The response was a word or two of completely pointless cruelty.

  259. 259.

    Ohio Mom

    @ArchTeryx: Yup, Medicaid is the best. Whenever I hear someone go on about “Medicare for All,” I think, What you don’t know could fill a book. You want MedicAID for All.

    Glad to hear you are getting the medical care you need, and yes, the job market is tough for the neurodiverse no matter how talented they may be. There is a lot of bullying the different in the work world. It was wonderful when Ohio Dad retired and left that behind.

  260. 260.

    Quiltingfool

    @Ohio Mom: You are right!  Grandbaby is your second cousin twice removed!

    I had to think about your situation.  You have to think about the original line, i.e. grandparents.   First cousins have the same grandparents, 2nd cousins the same great grandparents and so on.  The “removed” part has to do with, say, your grandparent is the cousin’s great-grandparent, so, 1st cousin once-removed.  You count the “grands”.   Genetically you are “removed” somewhat from the original bloodline.

    Fun fact in my maternal bloodline – my grandpa and grandma had an ancestor in common; the ancestor in question was alive during the Revolutionary War (and supposedly fought in the Roebuck Regiment in Virginia, but who the hell knows).  Lotta “greats” in there, lol!

  262. 262.

    Math Guy

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: I think you are spot-on with your speculation. It would not surprise me to learn that Pelosi (and Schumer) have been working the phones for weeks to get everything in place for the moment when Joe made the decision to withdraw from the race. Democrats are for better organized and competent at governance than people give them credit for.

  263. 263.

    Harrison Wesley

    @eclare: Right after the Apollo 1 disaster, my high school English teacher’s classroom assignment was for us to write our thoughts and feelings about what had happened.  He gave the guy sitting next to me an F for submitting “capsule, capsule/burning bright/flaming astronauts/in the night.”  Original, but somewhat on the sociopathic side.

  264. 264.

    Jay

    @Starfish:

    sometimes I read a comment, and think to myself, “what a f’in psycho”,………………..

     

     

     

     

    but I hit post anyway.

  266. 266.

    Spc

    @Jess: I’ve heard that from younger relatives as well – absolutely would have voted for him no matter what but didn’t like the options. That suggested to me that there many gettable young votes that might not show up – perhaps lower than the normal less-tha-iideal turnout for young adults. Unfortunately, some people need to feel a little enthusiasm to do the right thing.

  267. 267.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Starfish: Honestly, I’d been having a difficult time keeping it together. You all didn’t see the worst of it, but my spouse was seriously concerned about me. Most of the liberals I know were firmly in the dump-Biden camp, and I wasn’t sure they were wrong on the merits, but I had also been convinced by discussion here and elsewhere that the movement itself was pushing us into the abyss. What do you do if you think that a mere expression of a possibly legitimate factual concern could have apocalyptic consequences? Did I have to pretend everything was all right? Was this even possible?

    It was kind of a double bind in which there was no right course of action or even a right opinion to have, and everything seemed a slippery slope to fascism, autogenocide, civil war, whatever. And you all know I have a tendency to catastrophize and also take political guilt upon myself for things I didn’t really have anything to do with other than expressing opinions. So even hearing people talk about politics in a neutral way pushed me to this very dark place.

    I think, though, that I can accept the possibility of losing to Trump as long as I can be enthusiastic about the fight and genuine about my attitudes, and that just got a lot easier.

  269. 269.

    Aimai

    @lamh47: hey Lamh! I remember you! That must have been a great call with Kamala. I, too, feel energized and want to get back in the battle!

  270. 270.

    Eyeroller

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: ​ It’s all opinion at this point, but based on what I’ve read and concluded, this frenzy was all pretty much entirely based on polling, the coordination with Biden was nonexistent, and Biden pulled off the coalescence around Harris pretty much himself. Remember that Biden has said that people have underestimated him his whole career. I think we are underestimating Biden and overestimating the others. He made one last great move.

  273. 273.

    Lochnessmom

    @eclare: yeah, I only have one long-term pied, because I found myself just getting angry over and over again. But the last week I think I had about 20, just for self-care so I didn’t start spiraling. Probably time to clean the filter out since nearly everybody seems a bit calmer.

  275. 275.

    Nora

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: ​
     

    With respect to Dickens, I suggest The Friendly Dickens: being a good-natured guide to the art and adventures of the man who invented Scrooge by Norrie Epstein, which is a fun and very readable discussion of Dickens’ works and which I found a good way to get into his books (Bleak House, one of my favorite books, I got into through that portal).

  276. 276.

    Spanish Moss

    Jeez, I take a break from obsessively refreshing my screen and I miss all of the excitement…

  282. 282.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin:

    What do you do if you think that a mere expression of a possibly legitimate factual concern could have apocalyptic consequences? Did I have to pretend everything was all right? Was this even possible? 

    I think you did the right thing: take a break. It’s fine. Take care of yourself.

    The things that got nasty were the assertions of racism, or of being some sort of Russian stooge or bot. Staggering amounts of bad faith.

  284. 284.

    PAM Dirac

    @Ohio Mom: Your father’s first cousin is the child of your father’s sibling, hence they share a set of grandparents. You and the new bundle of joy share a set of great grandparents, so you two are second cousins. A child of yours would be second cousin to the new one and a grandchild of yours would be second cousin twice removed.

  286. 286.

    October Light

    Now is not the time to be a dick on Balloon Juice.

    This begs the question, When exactly was it okay to be a dick on Balloon Juice?

  288. 288.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: I’d been mostly out for days but I took a teeny peek at the site on Sunday, shortly after Biden’s announcement. NOPE. I noped right out of there.

    Elsewhere on social media, I started seeing these curious “all in for Kamala” posts appearing toward the end of the day, but I wasn’t sure that was really where things were going. Once it was clear that the US political scene had re-coalesced around a whole different narrative, it seemed safer to poke my nose in.

  289. 289.

    PAM Dirac

    @PAM Dirac: The edit timed out. I was trying to say I read the comment too fast. You and the child’s parent share a set of great-grandparents and so you are second cousins. The new one is one generation removed from your second cousin and so is your second cousin once removed. I do a lot of genealogy, but it alway takes me a number of iterations before I get relationships right, especially if I don’t read the post carefully.

     

    ETA: Oh I give up. I can’t read straight. Your father’s first cousin’s daughter is the new grandmother, not the first cousin. Second cousin. Or something. I’ll have another glass of wine and it will all make sense. Kinda of.

  290. 290.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ohio Mom: ​
     

    On another note, my father’s first cousin’s daughter just became a grandmother. It sounds distant but I am very good friends with the new grandmother.

    I tried figuring out my relationship to this new being — second cousin twice removed is my best guess but mostly I’m flumoxxed. Will be mailing a box of board books as a Welcome to The Planet gift this afternoon.

    I think you’ve got it correct.

    AIUI:

    1) nth cousin:
    siblings share a parent
    first cousins share a grandparent
    second cousins share a great-grandparent
    third cousins share a great-great-grandparent
    etc.

    2) removed: if you’re not in the same generation in your family, the degree of removal is however many generations one of you is above or below the other in the family tree.

    So your father’s first cousin shared a grandparent, who is the great-grandparent of you and your father’s first cousin’s daughter. You and she are second cousins, since you share a great-grandparent. Her children are your second cousins once removed, and her new granddaughter is your second cousin twice removed.

  292. 292.

    lowtechcyclist

    @ArchTeryx: ​
     

    I’m just worried that I did something offensive somewhere, considering how I got sealioned.

    Maybe you should stop characterizing a disagreement as being sealioned?

    People get to poke holes in your arguments, you know.

  293. 293.

    Matt McIrvin

    @ArchTeryx: I pie a lot of people who I think are basically fine and even right but whose stuff I just can’t take right now. Some people just came *out* of the filter, since the heat level came down (you were never in it).

  294. 294.

    xephyr

    It shouldn’t need to be pointed out that democrats who engage in good faith and respectful disagreement with other democrats are not “trolls” or “dicks”. We all want to send TFG back under his rock where he belongs.

  296. 296.

    lamh47

    @OId Man Shadow: Oh…100%.  The point being though, that if it was polls that lead to the bullying of Biden by media, and members of his own party…then these polls with a more positive numbers should dictate the changes in the coverage of Kamala…

    Just as before Joe decided not to continue, using polls this far ahead of the game as a decision maker is ridiculous, IMHO.  And that makes me angrier about the whole situation STILL!

  297. 297.

    Omnes Omnibus

    When I told everyone to fuck themselves with a rusty farm implement last night in Cole’s thread, was that going too far?

  298. 298.

    Lochnessmom

    @lowtechcyclist: chill, dude. It was enough that your comment made me uncomfortable and that takes a lot.

    If someone feels an existential threat, that is a legit feeling, whether you think it is warranted or not. Don’t mock people’s genuine feelings just because you don’t find them expressed in a way that is pleasing for you.

    I have never found you to be  jerk. I think we are all just hypersensitive at the moment.

  300. 300.

    Kay

    NEW: @KamalaHarris‘ major Wall Street fundraisers are planning a private Zoom call to discuss ways they can bolster her over $100 million war chest as she runs for president.The call is being organized by the likes of Blair Effron,Ray McGuire and Brad Karp

  302. 302.

    Starfish

    @Matt McIrvin: I was not enthusiastic about Biden’s second term. That does not mean that I am a Trumper, that I was under George Clooney’s spell, or whatever other thing that everyone wanted to use to imply that those who disagreed with the enthusiastic Trump supporters were just stupid.

    I prefer Harris as a candidate, but I am also deeply cynical that everyone would not pull their most racist and sexist nonsense to undermine her. The most enthusiastic people who wanted to dump Biden for Harris were the various white men. The sun has shone on them, and most of them are not going to be harmed greatly under a Trump presidency.

    I waffled. I waffled a lot.

    But I was really excited when my mom went from “I am not voting for either of these candidates” to “I am voting for Harris.”

    I am deeply concerned about the mental health and wellbeing of a lot of people here because in the run up to the Bush presidency that was settled in the courts, someone I knew from the internet committed suicide. They were really concerned about what would happen under a Bush presidency. And in my “I use dark humor to cope” way, I was very much “Man, i am glad he did not live to see this” when the tie and all that followed went down.

    Random people from the internet who knew me and the person who died came and talked to me and walked with me, and I appreciated them all so much.

  303. 303.

    lowtechcyclist

    @ArchTeryx: ​
     

    Also why I avoid mentioning the sealion by name; it avoids drama. Easier to just pie him and move on.

    Continuing to call someone names isn’t ‘moving on’ whether you’ve pied them or not. But it’s especially immature to continue to call them names once they can no longer bother you. It’s not just your arguments that are full of holes.

  304. 304.

    Shalimar

    @raven: I assume that is part of what led to this.  Cacti had a long history.  It wasn’t new.  You are among the most valued members of this community.  He was not.

  305. 305.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Lochnessmom: ​
     

    If someone feels an existential threat, that is a legit feeling, whether you think it is warranted or not. Don’t mock people’s genuine feelings just because you don’t find them expressed in a way that is pleasing for you.

    He stated his feelings as facts, over and over and over again. I just got tired of it. He never said, “I fear that this is what will happen to me,” he said “this is what will happen to me.” It’s one thing to respect people’s feelings, but they don’t get to use their feelings to run roughshod over reason. He doesn’t get to say, “if A, then B” and have it stand as truth just because he feels it’s so. And about the fifth or sixth time he posted the same thing, I got tired of it.

  307. 307.

    WaterGirl

    @Suzanne:

    Personal attacks on commenters are a violation of the comment policy.

    Whether they are delivered in a passive aggressive way, in a foreign language, by a link to an insulting photo, via pig-latin, etc.

    If the CONTENT is an attack, it doesn’t matter how it’s delivered, passive-aggressive or not.  Not because they are passive-aggressive, but because of the content.

  309. 309.

    Lochnessmom

    @lowtechcyclist:  I understand, I am just saying that sometimes thing feel like they are going to literally kill you, and when you are caught up in that feeling it is hard to be factual.  I suffer from sometimes crippling PTSD. Mostly I can handle it with the mantra “it won’t kill me, it won’t eat me” until I can stop the panic.  Sometimes, under stress, fear is magnified and causes us to legit panic.  I myself was having suicidal ideation in the last week because of the infighting and uncertainty. Luckily 12 years of weekly cognitive behavioral therapy has given me tools to mostly handle it.

    Tl, Dr: be gentle with people who are in distress.  Even when it is frustrating.

  310. 310.

    db11

    @lowtechcyclist: You were being a massive dick and unnecessarily cruel to my eyes.

    And what concern is it of yours anyway? They were expressing their fears for their personal safety in the case of Trump’s re-election. For you to completely discount them — at length and repeatedly — was way out of line.

    DBAD

  311. 311.

    sab

    @WaterGirl: My step daughter had a mother who died, and adoptive mother ( bitch)  who rejected her after all the various aunts and uncles did also.

    She wants me to claim being her mother. I love her a lot but I only met her as an adult.  I think loving stepmother is a lot and enough.  And I have huge admiration for her mother who died so young and tried so hard to be a good mother before MS took her down.

  312. 312.

    tam1MI

    @Bugboy:

    As a biologist I always wondered how literature majors got by.  Seems like such an easy job to read a bunch of books.

    Then I tried to read Moby Dick all the way through.

    Thanks for giving me the first laugh I have had in days!

  314. 314.

    WaterGirl

    @sab: You’ve got some stray characters at the end of your email address, and it is throwing you into moderation.

    Please fix that and post again.

    Also, you have stray characters as a URL, please delete those, too.

  316. 316.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Ahem.

    Let me tell you a tale.

    About fifteen years ago, I was moving from a rental apartment in Athens to one that was about to become my own home. Part of the process involved dismantling a split air conditioning unit in the old place and moving it to the new place. With a lot of things on my mind, I forgot to tell the building superintendent that there would be an A/C tech coming the next morning to deal with the air conditioner.

    The next morning, I went down to the lobby to see the A/C tech in a screaming match with the building superintendent. Each was mad at the other, each was standing their ground, and when I tried to intervene and apologize for my gaffe, each of them shouted at me to tell the other one to be more polite.

    I don’t remember how long it took me to get across that I didn’t give a tinker’s damn who was right and who was wrong, I just wanted my problem solved, to wit: getting the A/C unit out of the damned apartment. They just kept at it, with neither of them willing to let things go even when I offered a third party – myself – to blame.

    There’s a lot of that going around in a lot of places, including here: people so dead-set on winning the argument that they lose sight of solving the underlying problem.

    There’s a place for that sort of incessant hammering argument. How’d Charles Stross put it? Ah, yes: “…welded inside a steel safe, buried under a ton of concrete at the bottom of a coal mine guarded by the SAS and a couple of armored divisions, and switched off…”

    (Okay, he was talking about secure computers, but the turn of phrase was better than anything I could come up with.)

  317. 317.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @WaterGirl: you’d make a good grade school teacher and I’m not trying to offend any of the commenters when I say that. You manage the multitasking and being polite about stuff really well. Also, since now is not the time to be a dick, is there a time when it’s okay to be a dick 😀?

  319. 319.

    SomeRandomGuy

    @Lochnessmom:

    First, I did want to mention something about raw feelings, and fighting. To me (who has to keep track of this shit really carefully), that screams “emotional exhaustion”. It might also be physical exhaustion.

    What do you do to feel better? Beats me. (No, not *that* unless we negotiate successfully.) I mean, I might sing along to Liz Phair or the Ramones Spider-Man theme (“Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can…), but, I’ve been called weird before. Do fun stuff. Forget politics for just 72 hours (or do something fun or motivating and political for those 72). Whatever. Manage your emotional energy, because when you’re dry, things get bad.

    Now, regarding feelings, you’re right, but… well, genuine feelings are a trap. I often say “feelings are real, but not reality”. If you (generic you) don’t understand that, it’s harder to move through the world. Someone does something that makes you angry, you can forget that *you* got angry and maybe you shouldn’t have. Or maybe you should have, but expressed yourself better. Or, maybe your anger and actions perfectly matched the situation. (Hey, I can’t read your mind, especially the “generic you”)

    The point is, *(generic)you* got angry, and *you* can affect that. Once you *know* you can do that, well… I can’t tell you how, because I’m not you. You have to find your own set of controls, but, a lot of people have developed tools. Anger might not be your weakness – maybe pain, or despair is, and you want to learn tools to handle those better.

    Because sometimes – certainly not always – we all have negative visceral reactions to something, for no good reason, and they affect us. Wanna hear one of mine? (If so, read the next part out loud.)

    I had this massive freakout the first time I (in grad school) walked in on my female roomie’s unflushed… uh, toilet. I don’t have a good sense of smell, but, miraculously, that day, it was a *stench* for me. I grew up with a sister, so I knew women pooped, and all, but it still took me a day or two to be able to see her without a bit of a shudder.

    I got over it. It was easy, because I knew that part.

    I may have made this point too often already, but if so, maybe I’m already pied, and you aren’t noticing it :-).

  322. 322.

    YetAnotherLurkingJackal

    Loud Sustained Applause.   Longtime intermittent lurker since the late GWB years, and poked my head in to find John Cole’s open thread and some excellent comments in it, which made me reflect a bit about my own anger and the need to channel it into something non-destructive.

    A couple of short, needlessly cruel and stupid posts in the LFG thread had me reaching for the Pie filter.

    Just wanted to delurk to thank Watergirl for this post, and John and the rest of you just for being here.

    Be Excellent to Each Other.  (please).

  323. 323.

    Torrey

    @lamh47: ​
      Yay! Always found your perspectives interesting and informative, and am delighted to see you back here.

  324. 324.

    Lochnessmom

    @SomeRandomGuy:  ah, you have said nothing to even remotely upset me. I believe you have classed yourself as neurodivergent, and likely along the lines of my stepson. The world is full of anxiety and uncertainty, which can make lots of things have sharp edges, edges that other people don’t perceive or worse denigrate you for perceiving them. That’s on them, not you.

    Have you done any cognitive behavioral therapy? Sometimes that can be a good way for us to argue ourselves out of thoughts and feelings that aren’t serving us well.

    Just remember: you are seen and cared for by at least a few here. Don’t let others make you feel like that is not enough. Your voice is valuable BECAUSE it is different.  Hopefully you see this even though I expect this thread is pining for the fjords.

  325. 325.

    eemom

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    no way would I have touched this place with an eleventy foot pole during that shit. I’m older and on blood pressure meds. Maybe even wiser.

    Anyway, nobody answered my question. :(

  326. 326.

    lowtechcyclist

    @db11: ​
     

    And what concern is it of yours anyway? They were expressing their fears for their personal safety in the case of Trump’s re-election. For you to completely discount them — at length and repeatedly — was way out of line.

    I will give a person with a disability the respect of treating their arguments as I would those of an abled person.

    I will respect feelings. If the statement had been, “If A happens, then I fear that B will follow” I would not have had the least issue with it. But he doubled and tripled and quadrupled down on “If A then B.”

    Also, since this won’t go away, I’m gonna say this: ArchTeryx was basically demanding a perverse pride of place, that his potential plight, and that of those similarly situated, would overshadow that of all the others that the Trumpists might come after. Those with disabilities would be the first ones in the camps, and they wouldn’t just be deported, they’d be tortured and killed – IOW, treated worst of any victimized group. It wasn’t just “we’ll be rounded up along with the immigrants and the gay and trans persons and so forth,” it was an insistence that his group’s potential plight overshadowed everyone else’s. There’s a big moral difference between “what might happen to us needs to be taken seriously” and “it needs to be taken more seriously than what might happen to anyone else, because I said so.”

    I’ve seen that game played before. There was more than the occasional round of “my group’s victimization is worse than your group’s victimization” going around in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but it more or less went away. I can’t say I missed it.

  327. 327.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Bugboy: ​
     

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: As a biologist I always wondered how literature majors got by. Seems like such an easy job to read a bunch of books.

    Then I tried to read Moby Dick all the way through. It’s taken me 45 years, but I’ve still not gotten to the whale.

    Coincidentally, I tried to start reading Moby Dick just the other day. I gave up just a few pages in because the prose was so dense. I’m not a big Hemingway fan, but give me Hemingway any day over Melville.

    It isn’t all writers from this period that are like that. I’ve read Dickens and Austen and Dostoevsky, but Melville? Forget that dude. Reading him was like trying to walk through a neck-deep mudslide.

  328. 328.

    lowtechcyclist

    @eemom:

    I haven’t seen what Cacti said, I’d already had him pied.  But KatKapCC gives a concise summary at comment #45 of the interaction that got him banned.

  329. 329.

    Ruckus

    @Ohio Mom:

    Congrats!

    A grand mom twice removed?

    Someone that will buy birthday gifts for them?

    A human that welcomes them to earth?

    And once again just because it’s so awesome – Congrats.

  331. 331.

    Ruckus

    @bbleh:

    I think Joe wanted to be part of making it better, as he has been all along. But as someone not all that younger than him I see the issues of not moving on. He’s been a great president, far better than some I’ve seen. But it’s a tough job to see the youths of the country become adults and have their say for their futures. At some point the old farts have to let go. And 80+ and he is still going strong? Yes he is. I live in a federal program senior’s apartment complex, 55+ and so I see a lot of other old farts every day. For most of us it is, well let’s be honest, a waiting game. We are retired and possibly have great grand kids or even farther down the food chain.

    My rambling point is that it is a new generation’s turn at the controls.

  333. 333.

    Ruckus

    @bbleh:

    you’d better be planning on leaving immediately afterward, right?

    Or being carried out….

    Maybe it’s parties that I’ve been to but some people have zero tolerance and others don’t seem to care at all. As it is humanity some tolerance is required, but acting like no one else has a say about disgusting action or words usually gets one the boot, often right in the butt.

  335. 335.

    Ruckus

    @lamh47:

    Well WELCOME HOME!

    I’ve missed you. You are and have been one of my favorites. k

    I see you’ve aged a bit since whenever.

  337. 337.

    Ruckus

    @raven:

    We’ve discussed this in the past that I also served during Vietnam but got sent in a completely different direction. And I use the VA for my healthcare and see a lot of people around my age but that group is getting smaller although the VA continues to be busy and I see a lot of people that could be my kids and even grand kids these days. I was lucky and knew/know that everyday.

  339. 339.

    Ruckus

    @Lyrebird:

    My experience in the Navy was that some people talk tough all the time. But for most of them it’s all talk. When push comes to shove they do squat – nothing at all. I’ve seen when Jonny milk toast would get pissed off it was very real, not just a scam to make everyone else feel the need to be less, to be quiet and let them have their way. And most of the time everyone knew it was BS. A real leader doesn’t need to BS anyone.

  340. 340.

    Ruckus

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Hemingway is very good but the style takes some getting used to. It’s more the long road than the freeway. Read it, think about it and you will very likely enjoy it. Speed read it and it seems overly long and while not tiresome, you just can’t enjoy it and 3 other things at the same time.

  341. 341.

    brantl

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:  I heard Hemingway once described as pregnant in its simplicity. I just found him dull. All that plain as dishwater prose was supposed to by highly and artistically “suggestive”. To me, that means the artistry is in my mind, not his.

  342. 342.

    brantl

    Watergirl: Why not build the abuse reporting (as optional) into the pie filter? One-stop shopping?

  343. 343.

    SomeRandomGuy

    @Ruckus: Funny you should mention that. Hemmingway is where I first learned that my reading can go offline, when I tried to devour a couple hundred pages overnight.

    It’s very weird to find yourself barely able to stay conscious, and having to force your eyes to look at the words, and your brain to glean their meaning. If it happens when you’re young enough, you have no way of knowing it’s weird or something you should mention to parents.

    Anyway: it sounds like you see his style as especially dangerous to my mindset at the time I tried treading him, because I was trying to plow through, to catch up.

  344. 344.

    Old Man Yelling at Clouds

    I’m  a long, long time lurker. I’ve been around for a long, long year… No, that’s Mick Jaggar. I started reading Balloon Juice when Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish mentioned it. I’m delurking to say that while I think Biden is a superb president and didn’t want him to drop out, I’m in full agreement. Now is not the time. A good time might be when Biden’s book comes out. Meanwhile, I support current VP and future president Harris.

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