@Soonergrunt: I hadn’t either. For 45 years I’ve had a connection because of serving in the NG unit from Providence in Vietnam. It was really a great time at the reunion. The best story I heard was one of the guys saying in his deepest New England accent,”The first time we went out the gate I stood up in the jeep and yelled “DON’T SHOOT, WE’RE THE NATIONAL GAAAADDDDDHHHH”!
6.
Todd
Waiting for a Cole morning post so I can bitch about the new site design and fonts.
Just because. Besides, it’s a lot more fun than piling on to an already extant bitchfest.
7.
raven
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: The Whaling Museum in New Bedford was great! I stopped at the USS Mass at Fall River too.
Funny how things work out. I’ve spent more time airborne in two-seater aircraft than I have on the East Coast. Of all the places I’ve been, I just haven’t managed to get there for more than a handful of days.
Don’t know if this reached the emmessem. On Saturday, 49 were killed and 100 were wounded by twin car bombings in the Turkish border (With Syria) town of Reyhanli. Turkey accused left-wing groups with ties to the Syrian secret police of carrying out the bombings.
I’m still hoping that the U.S. will be able to restrain itself from attempting to influence the outcome of Syria’s civil (With Sunni vs Shia overtones) war.
I believe there’s some sort of cliche type thing about winning the internets. Not sure I’ve ever seen someone earn that this early on a Monday.
14.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Has anyone, on the political TeeVee where it counts, made the connection that maybe one of the big lessons in BENGAHZI! is that intervention in volatile political situations in foreign countries we don’t understand very well* can be dangerous? I wonder if there are any other recent events in our history that might confirm this lesson? Think… think.. think…
*John McCain said the Syrian rebels “clearly” share our values. Even at this late date I’m astounded when Republicans say incredibly stupid things and the MSM nod and move on to asking about Impeachment. See also, Boehner saying closing tax loopholes is “stealing” from the American people.
so did we already have a thread this weekend or did I miss it where we talked about how the Village is saying Obama is now like Nixon, and saying it earnestly?
16.
Poopyman
@Highway Rob: It took me about 90 seconds before it sunk in. I need more coffee.
(Had headed down the dead-end “Omar Serif” road.)
17.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Valdivia: Because Watergate was all about the activity of mid-level bureaucrats in Cincinatti who were immediately told to stop what they were doing by a high-level bureaucrat in DC? ‘kay.
18.
Face
Was this blog over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
19.
Poopyman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m pretty sure one of the reasons for “Benghazi!” is that they’re throwing chaff to prevent anyone from making that connection. It’d put a serious dent in the Republican foreign policy plank if the public suddenly figured that out.
I think I read this story from Agatha Christy one time!
This community is more like a Steven King novel written by Ken Kesey. Or maybe Hunter S. Thompson.
21.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Poopyman: Meanwhile, Dennis Kucinich realizes that his maximum earning potential is as a useful idiot for Fox News, with emphasis on the second part
Kucinich argued the Obama Administration initially said it was a protest because of what he called “the failure of the Benghazi policy” as well as the upcoming election last November.
The incoherence of the longer quote surprises even me, who always thought of DK as a slightly embarrassing ally even while I agreed with much of what he said
I know, it’s utterly ridiculously but I do see all the media circling around the IRS thing as the biggest scandal ever that could bring down Obama (see NYT, WP this am) and also Joe Klein this weekend saying he will get impeached and calling him Nixon. I just have no words.
23.
Randy P
@Schlemizel: But he followed the pair to Pawtucket
The man and the girl and the bucket
And he said to the man
He was welcome to Nan
But as for the bucket, Paw tuck it.
Although I don’t watch political TV, I remain confident that no reporter will ever ask McCain the nature of our shared values with the non-trivial number of Islamic fundamentalists in the Syrian opposition.
The U.S. seems to have never learned the ancient axiom “Measure twice, cut once.”
25.
Cassidy
The assholery of some of the people this weekend was disgusting, but it did help me update my pie filter. Some people are deserving of some very shitty things happenning to them.
The pair followed Paw to Manhasset
Where he still kept the cash as an asset;
Then Nan and the man
Took the money and ran,
And as for the bucket, Manhasset.
27.
Eric U.
pie filter is getting fairly full nowadays. For the longest time, I only had the obvious 2 in there
@Valdivia:
#22
The economy is coming along and the deficit is the lowest it’s been since 2008. The GOP needs something to go on about.
If Obama did a cover up on Bengazi, the GOP thinks, then Bush doesn’t look so bad. The problem is that there was no cover up.
@Eric U.: Yeah, some people you just accept as assholes and life goes on, but they really amped the douchebaggery up this weekend.
34.
red dog
The GOP should learn that its time to lick their wounds and not their chops. Our dogs know when. Maybe we should just sic em on….
35.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
What’s the deal with the Trojans commercial where the couple appears to be making love inside a parachute? My kid says “That’s just what straight couples do, Auntie.” Why did I not know this?
Unsurprising how the use of chemical weapons stopped being a part of the discourse – let alone a red line – when it became apparent that some of the Syrian rebels were using them.
The word salads for which Palin was so justly criticized are becoming de rigueur. From Kucinich’ statement it’s obvious that the administration has failed to develop an individual policy for every last village in Libya. Shame on us.
39.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Valdivia: Joe Klein had a great piece on Benghazi that (almost) got to one of the key aspects of the whole back and forth about “which words were used”: A local militia looking for international cred as bad-asses by claiming “affiliation” with something called “al Qaeda”. He didn’t go quite so far as to point out that John McCain are effectively acting as PR agents for al-Qaedism, but to me that’s the real scandal here.
Then Joe Klein posted that incredibly stupid, lazy-ass piece pretty much saying Obama is using the IRS against his enemies, just like Nixon. As with his socialism, Obama’s not a very good Nixon, since none of his “enemies” got refused the tax-exempt status they were seeking. And again, the real story, a politically tone-deaf response to Citizens’ United by a group of regional bureaucrats, gets buried.
@NotMax: I’m not sure what’s going on. Is this the redesign? Some things have obviously changed, but this looks nothing like the switchover that happened for a few hours a couple of nights ago. That version looked very different.
I do see all the media circling around the IRS thing as the biggest scandal ever that could bring down Obama (see NYT, WP this am) and also Joe Klein this weekend saying he will get impeached and calling him Nixon. I just have no words.
All I know is what I’ve read on the front page regarding the redesign.
From that limited base of info, my understanding is that what we saw the other night is representative of the intended new layout, but not yet in a rollout-ready form.
46.
NotMax
@Redshirt
All I know is what I’ve read on the front page regarding the redesign.
From that limited base of info, my understanding is that what we saw the other night is representative of the intended new layout, but not yet in a rollout-ready form.
47.
Tonal Crow
And in today’s installment of “Banning guns won’t reduce violence because people’ll just use hubcaps instead”:
A 12-year-old Camden boy is recovering after being hubcapped in the face by his 11-year-old friend Friday morning, in what police believe was an accident.
Camden County Police Department Metro Division Chief Scott Thomson said the elementary school students were apparently examining a 1982 Volare hubcap inside a unit at the Crestbury Apartments complex when it exploded, striking the 12-year-old in the head.
“It appears that it was more of a curiosity and they were examining it and it went off,” Thomson added.
While an investigation continues, Thomson said it doesn’t appear the 11-year-old intended to beat his friend’s face to a pulp with the hubcap. The chief declined comment on who owned the hubcap or how the 11-year-old had access to it.
…
The 12-year-old is expected to survive, according to the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office and spokesman Jason Laughlin said no charges have been filed.
Police recovered the hubcap Friday morning after canvassing the apartment complex looking in shrubs and Dumpsters. Neighbors at the secluded complex in the city’s Morgan Village neighborhood were horrified by the incident, saying the two boys are close friends and often played football together.
…
While some around the complex questioned how the child could have gotten his hands on a hubcap, the man spoke of how easily accessible weapons can be….
48.
Tonal Crow
Nope, using the proper spelling of “sockialism” still causes WP to silently deep-six my message. This has been going on for what? Ever since this blog was created?
It works for some people. Socialism works for me. Maybe it’s browser-specific.
ETA: But, yes, it should be much higher on the list of blog fixes than candy-ass changes to headline fonts, etc.
ETFA: Maybe try deleting your Balloon Juice cookies and letting them be refreshed?
51.
Tonal Crow
@Steeplejack: I tried deleting my cookies, but it still doesn’t work. I’m using Firefox, and I’ve disabled third-party cookies for privacy reasons. Perhaps that’s it? Or maybe it’s a deeper (and even a sockialist) plot, and WP has marked me as a suspected spammer in its server-side database.
But it’s still a bug that WP doesn’t issue an error message that I’ve used a forbidden word, and give me a chance to fix it. It’s sockialism all the way down.
raven
I went to Rhode Island.
Soonergrunt
@raven: Then you’re (at least) one up on me, Brother. I’ve never been.
Poopyman
So now AL has gone missing too?
One by one ….
Higgs Boson's Mate
@raven:
There once was a man from Nantucket…
raven
@Soonergrunt: I hadn’t either. For 45 years I’ve had a connection because of serving in the NG unit from Providence in Vietnam. It was really a great time at the reunion. The best story I heard was one of the guys saying in his deepest New England accent,”The first time we went out the gate I stood up in the jeep and yelled “DON’T SHOOT, WE’RE THE NATIONAL GAAAADDDDDHHHH”!
Todd
Waiting for a Cole morning post so I can bitch about the new site design and fonts.
Just because. Besides, it’s a lot more fun than piling on to an already extant bitchfest.
raven
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: The Whaling Museum in New Bedford was great! I stopped at the USS Mass at Fall River too.
Schlemizel
@Poopyman:
I think I read this story from Agatha Christy one time!
Schlemizel
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Who kept all his cash in a bucket
His daughter named Nan
Ran off with a man
and as for the money Nan tuk (took) it
Had to learn that one when the kids asked about a ‘man from Nantucket joke on TV’
Higgs Boson's Mate
@raven:
Funny how things work out. I’ve spent more time airborne in two-seater aircraft than I have on the East Coast. Of all the places I’ve been, I just haven’t managed to get there for more than a handful of days.
SiubhanDuinne
@Todd:
“The serif is a ni-[CLANG!]!!”
Higgs Boson's Mate
Don’t know if this reached the emmessem. On Saturday, 49 were killed and 100 were wounded by twin car bombings in the Turkish border (With Syria) town of Reyhanli. Turkey accused left-wing groups with ties to the Syrian secret police of carrying out the bombings.
LINK to the estimable Juan Cole with details.
I’m still hoping that the U.S. will be able to restrain itself from attempting to influence the outcome of Syria’s civil (With Sunni vs Shia overtones) war.
Highway Rob
@SiubhanDuinne:
I believe there’s some sort of cliche type thing about winning the internets. Not sure I’ve ever seen someone earn that this early on a Monday.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Has anyone, on the political TeeVee where it counts, made the connection that maybe one of the big lessons in BENGAHZI! is that intervention in volatile political situations in foreign countries we don’t understand very well* can be dangerous? I wonder if there are any other recent events in our history that might confirm this lesson? Think… think.. think…
*John McCain said the Syrian rebels “clearly” share our values. Even at this late date I’m astounded when Republicans say incredibly stupid things and the MSM nod and move on to asking about Impeachment. See also, Boehner saying closing tax loopholes is “stealing” from the American people.
Valdivia
so did we already have a thread this weekend or did I miss it where we talked about how the Village is saying Obama is now like Nixon, and saying it earnestly?
Poopyman
@Highway Rob: It took me about 90 seconds before it sunk in. I need more coffee.
(Had headed down the dead-end “Omar Serif” road.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Valdivia: Because Watergate was all about the activity of mid-level bureaucrats in Cincinatti who were immediately told to stop what they were doing by a high-level bureaucrat in DC? ‘kay.
Face
Was this blog over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
Poopyman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m pretty sure one of the reasons for “Benghazi!” is that they’re throwing chaff to prevent anyone from making that connection. It’d put a serious dent in the Republican foreign policy plank if the public suddenly figured that out.
Poopyman
@Schlemizel:
This community is more like a Steven King novel written by Ken Kesey. Or maybe Hunter S. Thompson.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Poopyman: Meanwhile, Dennis Kucinich realizes that his maximum earning potential is as a useful idiot for Fox News, with emphasis on the second part
The incoherence of the longer quote surprises even me, who always thought of DK as a slightly embarrassing ally even while I agreed with much of what he said
Valdivia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I know, it’s utterly ridiculously but I do see all the media circling around the IRS thing as the biggest scandal ever that could bring down Obama (see NYT, WP this am) and also Joe Klein this weekend saying he will get impeached and calling him Nixon. I just have no words.
Randy P
@Schlemizel: But he followed the pair to Pawtucket
The man and the girl and the bucket
And he said to the man
He was welcome to Nan
But as for the bucket, Paw tuck it.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Although I don’t watch political TV, I remain confident that no reporter will ever ask McCain the nature of our shared values with the non-trivial number of Islamic fundamentalists in the Syrian opposition.
The U.S. seems to have never learned the ancient axiom “Measure twice, cut once.”
Cassidy
The assholery of some of the people this weekend was disgusting, but it did help me update my pie filter. Some people are deserving of some very shitty things happenning to them.
Schlemizel
@Randy P:
The pair followed Paw to Manhasset
Where he still kept the cash as an asset;
Then Nan and the man
Took the money and ran,
And as for the bucket, Manhasset.
Eric U.
pie filter is getting fairly full nowadays. For the longest time, I only had the obvious 2 in there
Schlemizel
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Maybe not but we have the “mark with chalk, cut with an ax part” of it down real good
Maude
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
#24 Values like using chemical weapons?
@Valdivia:
#22
The economy is coming along and the deficit is the lowest it’s been since 2008. The GOP needs something to go on about.
If Obama did a cover up on Bengazi, the GOP thinks, then Bush doesn’t look so bad. The problem is that there was no cover up.
Valdivia
@Maude:
they now have the IRS thing which is what the media are truly going with. Just take a gander today at the NYT.
Violet
Are the FPers all yelling at us in all caps with the post titles, or is that some feature-not-a-bug of the new site design? Can’t decide.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne:
“The serif …” That is funny.
Well done, Ms. Duinne.
Cassidy
@Eric U.: Yeah, some people you just accept as assholes and life goes on, but they really amped the douchebaggery up this weekend.
red dog
The GOP should learn that its time to lick their wounds and not their chops. Our dogs know when. Maybe we should just sic em on….
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
What’s the deal with the Trojans commercial where the couple appears to be making love inside a parachute? My kid says “That’s just what straight couples do, Auntie.” Why did I not know this?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Maude:
Unsurprising how the use of chemical weapons stopped being a part of the discourse – let alone a red line – when it became apparent that some of the Syrian rebels were using them.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Why would you think Kucinich would be any different than Dick Morris?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The word salads for which Palin was so justly criticized are becoming de rigueur. From Kucinich’ statement it’s obvious that the administration has failed to develop an individual policy for every last village in Libya. Shame on us.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Valdivia: Joe Klein had a great piece on Benghazi that (almost) got to one of the key aspects of the whole back and forth about “which words were used”: A local militia looking for international cred as bad-asses by claiming “affiliation” with something called “al Qaeda”. He didn’t go quite so far as to point out that John McCain are effectively acting as PR agents for al-Qaedism, but to me that’s the real scandal here.
Then Joe Klein posted that incredibly stupid, lazy-ass piece pretty much saying Obama is using the IRS against his enemies, just like Nixon. As with his socialism, Obama’s not a very good Nixon, since none of his “enemies” got refused the tax-exempt status they were seeking. And again, the real story, a politically tone-deaf response to Citizens’ United by a group of regional bureaucrats, gets buried.
cleek
if this is the new layout, many thanks to the BJ team for not changing the comment-specific HTML enough to break the pie filter!
or, maybe the rest is yet to come…
Dead Ernest
@SiubhanDuinne: I admire what you did there.
NotMax
@cleek
Original post announcing the redesign mentioned plans to return to a 3-column layout, so there’s at least that still to anticipate.
Redshirt
@NotMax: I’m not sure what’s going on. Is this the redesign? Some things have obviously changed, but this looks nothing like the switchover that happened for a few hours a couple of nights ago. That version looked very different.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@Valdivia:
They want their war in Syria, then on to Iran.
And Obama won’t give it to them.
So… he has to go.
NotMax
@Redshirt
All I know is what I’ve read on the front page regarding the redesign.
From that limited base of info, my understanding is that what we saw the other night is representative of the intended new layout, but not yet in a rollout-ready form.
NotMax
@Redshirt
All I know is what I’ve read on the front page regarding the redesign.
From that limited base of info, my understanding is that what we saw the other night is representative of the intended new layout, but not yet in a rollout-ready form.
Tonal Crow
And in today’s installment of “Banning guns won’t reduce violence because people’ll just use hubcaps instead”:
http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20130511/NEWS01/305110030/Camden-shooting-12-year-old-boy-likely-an-accident
A 12-year-old Camden boy is recovering after being hubcapped in the face by his 11-year-old friend Friday morning, in what police believe was an accident.
Camden County Police Department Metro Division Chief Scott Thomson said the elementary school students were apparently examining a 1982 Volare hubcap inside a unit at the Crestbury Apartments complex when it exploded, striking the 12-year-old in the head.
“It appears that it was more of a curiosity and they were examining it and it went off,” Thomson added.
While an investigation continues, Thomson said it doesn’t appear the 11-year-old intended to beat his friend’s face to a pulp with the hubcap. The chief declined comment on who owned the hubcap or how the 11-year-old had access to it.
…
The 12-year-old is expected to survive, according to the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office and spokesman Jason Laughlin said no charges have been filed.
Police recovered the hubcap Friday morning after canvassing the apartment complex looking in shrubs and Dumpsters. Neighbors at the secluded complex in the city’s Morgan Village neighborhood were horrified by the incident, saying the two boys are close friends and often played football together.
…
While some around the complex questioned how the child could have gotten his hands on a hubcap, the man spoke of how easily accessible weapons can be….
Tonal Crow
Nope, using the proper spelling of “sockialism” still causes WP to silently deep-six my message. This has been going on for what? Ever since this blog was created?
cleek
@Tonal Crow:
and it’s trivially easy to fix.
Steeplejack
@Tonal Crow, @cleek:
It works for some people. Socialism works for me. Maybe it’s browser-specific.
ETA: But, yes, it should be much higher on the list of blog fixes than candy-ass changes to headline fonts, etc.
ETFA: Maybe try deleting your Balloon Juice cookies and letting them be refreshed?
Tonal Crow
@Steeplejack: I tried deleting my cookies, but it still doesn’t work. I’m using Firefox, and I’ve disabled third-party cookies for privacy reasons. Perhaps that’s it? Or maybe it’s a deeper (and even a sockialist) plot, and WP has marked me as a suspected spammer in its server-side database.
But it’s still a bug that WP doesn’t issue an error message that I’ve used a forbidden word, and give me a chance to fix it. It’s sockialism all the way down.
cleek
@Steeplejack:
lemme try…
hmm. ok. so there’s something else going on.
i retract my previous statement!
Tonal Crow
Alright, time to try a new name, a la Y*ts*n*. How about “Tonal (visible) Crow”.
Tonal (visible) Crow
Doesn’t work.