First, for the love of everything holy, someone help Edroso find a job.
Second, Erik Loomis was robbed, and had all his computer equipment and research for his upcoming novels BOOKS YOU DAMNED PEDANTS stolen.
Third, my fraternity boys are running their annual Homecoming raffle. We need to raise money to pay for insurance and mandated travel to National’s conferences, and these kids quite simply don’t have the money. The days of fraternities being nothing but blue bloods are gone (thank goodness), but it means that finances are much more important. If you would like to purchase a chance to win some Omaha steaks, please click here. I’ll be eternally grateful (until next year’s Homecoming), and you might win some steaks, and I’ll post a group photo of the guys thanking you all.
satby
I’m in for a couple John. Good luck to the guys.
debit
I never win anything, but what the hell. In for two tickets.
SiubhanDuinne
Now that I’m retired I don’t have quite the discretionary spending money I had previously, but I’ll send your guys something. And as I promised last year, if by any remote chance I end up winning, I will donate the Omaha steaks back to the fraternity on the condition that they donate them to a local food bank or shelter.
Jamey
What the fuck? Roy Edroso is easily one of a handful of the greatest writers I’ve had the pleasure to read. Tell me where I can pay to read him and I am there. Jeez, and fucktards like Douthat just sit there while the fish jump into the boat …
Roy looking for work–and not vice-versa–is YET another way the left has failed its own.
Warren Terra
Scholarly tomes, not novels, I believe.
Nitpicking aside, good of you to post these.
Mike J
@Jamey: Time for Reverb Motherfuckers.
Baud
OT: Via Reddit, CNN is awesome.
burnspbesq
Sorry to hear about Loomis losing all that stuff, but after that insanity last week about the Conferederate flag, he is even more on my shit list than before.
Edroso should reach out to Boggioni to see about getting on at Raw Story.
Actually not surprised to hear that the Voice is under financial stress. Is its circulation higher than The Nation? I thought it was the shizz when I was in high school (in my high school you had to read the Voice and Ramparts in order to have any rebel cred), but shortly after I realized the reading Cockburn and Christgau was bad for my blood pressure.
Yes, Ramparts. I am that old.
beltane
@Baud: Did you know that CNN is like the ISIS of stupid reporting?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: Oh dear.
burnspbesq
@beltane:
They are working hand in hand. ISIS wants to take you back to the eleventh century, and CNN wants to make you so stupid that you won’t realize it’s happening.
burnspbesq
ETA re Loomis: no offsite backup? Seriously?
Baud
@beltane:
It’s like they’ve decided there was a market niche in providing a news-like substance to people who weren’t smart enough to watch Fox.
burnspbesq
CNN:news::Cool Whip:whipped cream.
Billy K.
Obama Steaks?
Suffern ACE
@Baud: Lol. I know ISIS and Ebola are high on everyone’s mind as “things to worry about” because of nonstop reporting. But seriously, I think the public is perfectly cabable of keeping the two straight. This isn’t like locating Bengazzi in Labia or Lebanon.
Joel
@burnspbesq: what’s your dispute on the confederate flag? It’s a legacy of disgrace.
Baud
@Suffern ACE:
I’ve always had difficulty with that.
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: I have long been an Edroso fan.
Warren Terra
@Joel: this is the thread.
Botsplainer
@burnspbesq:
That’s nothing. In April, after I’d kicked over my desktop for the third time in as many months, both hard drives shit the bed. Our IT contractor built a new box, and as he’s restoring says “why didn’t you tell me about these backup fail emails?” I said “I did, 18 months ago. You were short with me and told me that you get the emails and it was just some kind of a fault and everything was OK.” He was sheepish.
I lost 18 months of material on contracted, paid backup. Tax returns and billings were the worst loss, but some scans were painful too.. He gave me the new computer and says I have a forever freebie running forward on backup, still inadequate, but it’s a start.
Mike J
@Warren Terra: He said the state of California (which wasn’t even in the rebellion) shouldn’t sell the flag of treason. He didn’t say that private entities should be stopped. What’s the problem?
PurpleGirl
@burnspbesq: I believe that The Voice is now a freebie paper ( and has been for two decades at least) and depends completely on advertising.
Baud
@Mike J:
He said that in the comments.
burnspbesq
@Joel:
Yes, it’s a legacy of disgrace, but displaying it is Constitutionally protected expressive conduct, and Loomis appears to think that the First Amendment only protects speech that he agrees with. He cited the example of the German ban on displaying the Nazi flag as a great thing, and described the First Amendment as (this may not be an exact quote, but it will be close) “a hurdle to be surmounted.”
John Cole +0
@Joel: He wanted to ban it, which is stupid. Throwing out the 1st Amendment, or, more actually, since it would never pass Constitutional muster, passing a law directly in violation of the 1st amendment and then spending shitloads of money defending that idiotic law in court is really fucking stupid.
I’m ok with a state banning it in state run facilities, but trying to ban free speech, no matter how offensive one may deem it, is stupid. And doing it in such obvious flagrant violation of the 1st Amendment is doubly so.
khead
I hit multiple sites with my morning coffee: Here, LG&M, Roy, and Booman. I enjoy all of them.
If I were you, John, I wouldn’t go outside this week since the weather is supposed to suck. You just might get hit by lightning.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Best renewal notice I ever saw was from Krassner: a postcard saying “Renew your subscription to Reason, or we’ll tell the FBI you did.”
Omnes Omnibus
@John Cole +0:
That is pretty much where I stand on the issue. The one difference is that I would permit its display as a part of an educational program – in a museum diorama, for example.
SiubhanDuinne
Duh, The Realist of course. Sorry. Way to make a good line fall flat, SD.
We actually did subscribe. And laughed like a drain at the renewal postcard.
Remember Krassner’s “One Nation Under God” cartoon?
khead
Also, our latest KITTEH addition was fixed today. Pretty amazed at the advances since the last time I had a little dude fixed 20+ years ago. A snip, a cone, and he’s good to go.
Edit – And drugs too. Not sure if he needs them though. If I was still living in southern WV I’d sell the leftovers on the street.
burnspbesq
@Botsplainer:
My biggest fear is losing my music library. It’s on three different hard drives in two different locations, and I have all the CDs and vinyl, but it’s way too big to store in the cloud (3 terabytes and growing every month). Even Amazon Glacier would cost a bucket o’ bucks. And an increasing proportion of it is downloads for which I have no physical media.
beltane
@khead: Painkillers? I wouldn’t use them unless he appears to be experiencing a lot of discomfort. Recovery from a surgical procedure does not necessarily involve pain for humans or animals.
Howard Beale IV
@burnspbesq: HGST has your back.
khead
@beltane:
Yeah. Bupranex. He’s had one dose. Pretty sure he will not need anymore after tonight.
Mnemosyne
@khead:
When Charlotte was spayed, I took pity on her and took the Cone of Shame off early because at one point she rolled over on her back and was pushing on it with all four paws simultaneously to try and get it off. Once it was off, she curled up in my lap and took a really, really long nap.
Yatsuno
I am shocked, SHOCKED at this!
Mike J
@Baud: Ugh. You’re right.
Major Major Major Major
Happy to field data storage questions for people by the way. It’s my specialty and I’m feeling happy tonight.
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major: How much wood could a woodchuck store if a woodchuck could store wood?
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: in the cloud or in a hole?
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: The Green Bay version of that joke a few years ago was: How much wood could Woodson chuck if Woodson would chuck wood? Answer: All of it.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: this is without question the best riff on that tongue twister.
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2013/04/12
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: That made my evening.
khead
@Mnemosyne:
Little dude JUST jumped off my bed. We’ve been expecting him to crash at any moment for a while not. He’s WAY more active than we expected. He also hates the cone, of course.
Tenar Darell
Scenic photos? The Big Picture posted these great ones of the Eiffel Tower glass floor remodel. Between An American in Paris the other day, and these, now I feel like booking a trip right now. (one of my sometime agains…)
burnspbesq
@Howard Beale IV:
Interesting. When they start showing up in Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 bus-powered enclosures, I will be all over that. Thanks for the heads-up.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tenar Darell: In other Paris related news, I changed my FB background pic earlier this evening to a shot I took of the Eiffel Tower from the top of Notre Dame.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: I aim to please.
burnspbesq
@Yatsuno:
Holy fainting couch, Batman!
Suffern ACE
Probably old news here, but I didn’t check in much this weekend. Booman is starting to post again on his blog, which is good news today.
Suffern ACE
Seachickens win. The team who’s name is already an insult so why bother looses. Why can’t they both lose?
RobertDSC-iPhone 4
@burnspbesq: Couldn’t you load up a recent metal Mac Pro (not the new black cylinder) with 1TB SSDs and save it all there? A couple of PCI-E SATA III cards and some wiring and you could fill the optical bays, too.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: Because Russell Wilson is really, really good at what he does. And the refs sucked.
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus: Jesus does he give me heart attacks. But dat play…
Howard Beale IV
@burnspbesq: Right now EMC, HP and IBM are sucking down production of 10 TB units. 6 TB singleton external’s are now off the shelf at Amazon.
burnspbesq
@RobertDSC-iPhone 4:
I’d really like one more instance in a location that’s likely to be unaffected by the sort of earthquake that might get both my house and my office.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: I have to admit that I was hoping for a Racist Nicknames’ win. Well, let’s rephrase, I was hoping for a Seattle loss.
Major Major Major Major
@burnspbesq: West Virginia is popular.
Suffern ACE
So I got the 45 minute lecture of evertying I need to do to avoid Ebola from my nurse/partner. Bascially change my life. Its easy to read the CDC website on the matter, but a pain in the ass to go over it with someone who knows your actual habits. The most difficult thing would be to avoid rubbing my eyes.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: I don’t have a link to it, but a few years ago I saw an analysis that showed that Milwaukee was the city least likely to be hit by some kind of natural disaster (tornado, hurricane, earthquake, major flooding, etc.) of any of the 50 largest cities in the US.
ETA: Just for the record, snow is not a natural disaster.
Suffern ACE
@Omnes Omnibus: It would be a great place to store nuclear waste.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: The Brewers’ play was pretty radioactive for the last part of the season
Tenar Darell
@Omnes Omnibus: That must look nice. Is it somewhere I can link, like flickr?
I have a great picture (not digitized) of one of the gargoyles from climbing up one of the towers of Notre Dame. This guy I think. But while I was looking for it, I found an article about Paris Evolving Under the Gaze of Notre Dame’s Gargoyles which added a big dose of déjà vu, because I knew when I took that picture that I was not the first.
burnspbesq
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m ex-IRS, so I know why they chose Martinsburg back in the day. Close enough to DC so that going out there wouldn’t burn the whole day, far enough away that it wouldn’t be lost in the event of “nook’lar combat, toe-to-toe with the Rooskies.”
By the time I was working for the IRS, most of the crap in Martinsburg was so old that the manufacturers had burned through their repair-parts inventory and wouldn’t make more at any price. The IRS had its own little manufacturing operation.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: Is this a link to the basic results you’re thinking of?
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sez you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tenar Darell: I believe that guy is a grotesque since he had no water spout. He is also my favorite. This is my photo.
@scav: It might well be. It is from around the right time.
Yatsuno
@burnspbesq: I figured Byrd had something to do with it. Or some other powerful Senator. It’s honestly the only way I can explain Fresno.
Suffern ACE
If Newsmax is correct and it will take 30 years to defeat ISIS, can we call it an unfunded mandate?
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno:
No one can explain Fresno.
scav
@burnspbesq: They seem to have ignored drought too, although that has certainly cropped up recently for
Milwaukee (county at least it appears). Bad more for farming, which might be why they tended to ignore it for their urban ranking (might be less arguable decision for certain sun-belt locations). Always a question of definitions. What’s important does rather depend upon what you’re protecting. Heat and cold rack up the deaths even when not spectacular, but would pose slightly different problems for computers.
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
If you’re coming from the south, Fresno is the gateway to Yosemite. Reason enough for its existence IMO.
Suffern ACE
Silly Dodgers are toying with the red birds. I hope. I do not want another Cardinals World Series.
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: Milwaukee, the city, is vastly different than the non-city portions of Milwaukee County. Note that Scott Walker was elected as Milwaukee County executive while his two time opponent, Tom Barrett is the quite popular mayor of the city.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: Is it your position then that Fresno is purgatory? A place through which many must pass to get to paradise?
@scav: Drought in a city on one of the Great Lakes is less of a problem than it is elsewhere.
burnspbesq
And there’s this:
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
Something like that, albeit much closer to Hades than to Paradise.
Roger Moore
@Yatsuno:
I take it, then, that you’re ruling out supernatural explanations.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq:
Golly.
Tenar Darell
@Omnes Omnibus: You are right, it’s a grotesque, and one of Viollet-le-Duc’s non-medieval replacements too. I had forgotten that le stryge was sculpted in the 19th century.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, Milwaukee would get a low ranking on that if they had included it as one of the disasters they were measuring. The study excluded drought as a disaster — my point was more that a case could be made to include it in the overall rankings. There’s generally a bias in these studies to go for the “flashy” and rapid onset disasters, and omit the slow, more usual problems. Basically the airline crashes get counted, but not accumulated car crashes. Milwaukee’s exact ranking wasn’t my point, I’m off playing in basic methodology, sorry.
Tenar Darell
@Omnes Omnibus: Forgot to say… good picture.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tenar Darell: Thanks.
ETA: It is hard to fuck up that shot. It is like taking pictures in Bruges; you drop your camera there and and you still manage to take a good picture.
@scav:
Have fun playing with your trains.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: choo choo!
RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac)
@burnspbesq:
You could build an earthquake-resistant shed in the yard and store the Mac Pro out there.
I’ve done similar setups with SATA I drives and old G4 Macs, so I think the theoretical setup would be fine. But I also did it with baling wire and bubble gum. I imagine your budget would be much larger, especially for something so important.
Roger Moore
@RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac):
Or get a fire safe and keep the backups in there. A serious fire safe should withstand just about anything an earthquake can throw its way.
JCJ
@Omnes Omnibus:
This article? http://www.jsonline.com/business/79107797.html
Omnes Omnibus
@JCJ: I am still trying to engineer a move from Madison to Milwaukee. I know it sounds weird to some, but Madison is a nice town while Milwaukee is a city.
RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac)
@Roger Moore:
He needs to be able to access the drives to store the new music that gets acquired. That means a server of some kind.
JCJ
@Omnes Omnibus:
I can see that. I like Madison, but I prefer MKE. My wife is from Bangkok so for her MKE is small. If you move to Brookfield you might double the number of liberals here!
Omnes Omnibus
@JCJ: If I move there, I am going to the east side – Third Ward if I can afford it. Walking distance to some of my favorite Wisconsin bars and restaurant? Who could say no?
JCJ
I agree. If I worked in MKE I would live on the east side. Working in Waukesha, Oconomowoc and Mukwonago make a commute from the Third Ward quite unappealing.
Omnes Omnibus
@JCJ: Makes sense. If I can engineer the move, I would be working downtown.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Mike J:
There is some unseemly imagery in that song.
tybee
@RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac):
nah, just a link. fibre, preferably.
Jamey
Y’know what would make BJ even BJetter? Frequent point-and-laugh postings from Roy “Alicublog” Edroso.
/matchmaker
Seanly
That stinks about Edroso loosing his gig at Village Voice.
gocart mozart
John Cole, do you happen to know anyone who runs a blog that could use a witty writer who has experience skewering right wingers?
Sondra
@Jamey:
I wrote to the publisher of the Village Voice asking for him to be published there again. Don’t know if it will help, but if we all do it, it might get their attention.