Some days I honestly think the current Republican party is little more than a long running Second City comedy sketch:
Protesters who attended Saturday’s Tea Party rally in Washington found a new reason to be upset: Apparently they are unhappy with the level of service provided by the subway system.
Rep. Kevin Brady called for a government investigation into whether the government-run subway system adequately prepared for this weekend’s rally to protest government spending and government services.
Seriously.
The Texas Republican on Wednesday released a letter he sent to Washington’s Metro system complaining that the taxpayer-funded subway system was unable to properly transport protesters to the rally to protest government spending and expansion.
The WaPo has more:
Rep. Kevin Brady ( R ) said an 80-year-old woman and her 60-year-old daughter were forced to walk and pay for a cab because the subway system was so crowded. He said he heard many complaints from people who traveled long distances to attend the event, which served to challenge some of President Obama’s signature policies.
Oh. My. God. They had to take a cab? The horror of it all. No doubt those two kids were carrying signs that said “Keep government out of my Medicare!”
While it seems like blogging is easier with the wingnuts going so crazy, it actually is harder than you would think. What can I possibly say that would be clever or funny enough to top these stories?
*** Update ***
It gets even better:
Back in July HR3288, a Transportation and HUD appropriations bill, came up for a vote. It included $150 million for emergency maintenance funding for the DC Metro.
The only appropriate response to people like this is open, mocking laughter.
I concur. More here.
General Winfield Stuck
So close to Peak Wingnut, yet so far away.
**This was obviously an Obama plot to annoy Real AMericans. Next Obama will confiscate all the Sharpies and squelch free wanking. Oh, I meant speech.
SenyorDave
I guess the Republicans can threaten to meddle in Washington’s affairs if they don’t comply. You know, like get involved whether gay marriage is to be allowed, or whether they can make their own gun laws.
Oh wait, they already do.
Jim
John, you just don’t understand real people and what makes them tick. As opposed to David Brooks:
corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTkyMmE0NGVmOTRiMTAzOTUyMDkzMTE1OGU1NzcyMjY=
“Talk vs. Action [Jim Manzi]
David Brooks is unequalled as an observer of middle-class American social mores.”
c u n d gulag
You’re right. How do you parody something like this?
They should have marched to DC barefoot. If it was good enough for Stonewall Jacksons troops to run around the Shenendoah Valley that way, fighting Union forces, then it should have been good enough for them.
Rommie
Really, it’s to the point that some clever Liberal-types could come out against (insert horrible practice here, like SF Kittens) and get the other side on record in support of it, just because they have to take the opposite position on EVERYTHING the damn LIE-berals hold.
Savage Henry
This is just the next stage of the “2 million people on the Capital mall” bullshit. See, the fact that the metro was so crowded proves that there were that many people at the rally.
Now the wingnuttosphere can say “well if there were only 70,000 people there, why we the subways so crowded?”
Transparent bullshit to the outside world but cold, clearheaded logic inside the bubble.
Morbo
My bet: it wasn’t all that crowded. These people simply have a concept of personal space that’s basically the equivalent of “fuck off if you’re within 5 feet of me.” As a friend of mine used to say, they wear a very large sombrero. I think someone should send these folks on a trip to Shanghai (quite a good subway system by the way) or Tokyo to let them get a good look at what a crowded subway system really looks like.
Bobbo
Yeah I agree that this is pretty ridiculous. I live in the area and was on the Metro that day, and yes it was slow, but that’s not atypical. I think the complaints were probably centered around the fact that the lines were slow due to scheduled track maintenance that day, and how dare they schedule track maintenance on a day when eight-and-a-half million god-fearing patriots are trying to overthrow the com’nist muslin’ in the white house.
Willy Wonka
Dear Teabaggers:
You lose!
You get nothing!
Good day sir(s and madams)!
Left Coast Tom
Setting aside the question of highway taxes, I thought taking a cab was the “free market” approach to “mass transportation”, and that the metro was one of those evil gummint intrusions they were supposed to be…teabagging against.
BerkeleyMom
Gee I guess having to take a cab when you go to a rally on the mall is way more despicable than getting sick and having your insurance cancelled. Or wanting to retire and finding your pension fund has disappeared.
Bootlegger
Careful JC, you’re going to make Beck’s List when the Teabagger Revolution happens. They are very sensitive these days for some reason. The question is are they a dying animal that will wander off and die quietly or one backed into a corner, frothing at the mouth and ready to take anyone and everyone out with them?
KCinDC
They didn’t want to take a private cab run by fine example of American capitalism but would have preferred a public option for transportation?
Fixed.
Comrade Mary
This is obviously meant to reinforce the story that there were mega-oodles of people at the rally, of course. I think some blogs have already pointed as as part of the evidence that only tens of thousands were there was that the traffic was pretty typical for a September Saturday. Thus, Operation Sardine Subway has started.
But given that there seemed to be room on some subway cars for technical thugs to stretch out and trash talk upstanding white people later on that day, we have a bit of a conflict here between at least two self-pitying means. They obviously need more central planning.
MattF
So, does this mean that next time they are going to protest by staying home? OK by me. I can just see the posting titles on winger blogs now– “Tens of Millions don’t protest at the Mall”.
Tom65
…and then they drove home on federally-funded roads, or flew from federally-funded airports (guided by federally-funded air traffic controllers).
Tokyokie
Morbo, There’s nothing quite like getting on a Yamanote Line train and having the platform guards shove more people on board.
ericblair
Ya see, the Super Magic Free Market was supposed to wave its little wand and make an old KFC box and a bunch of sewer rats into a coach and horses to whisk them out to their Motel 8 in Leesburg. OK, so they got a cabbie who probably yakked on his cellphone all the way while charging them an arm and a leg. But don’t worry, if there weren’t a bunch of nasty regulations the cabbie had to follow he’d have charged said wingers a lot more and the wingers would feel a lot better, I guess.
OK, the jokes just write themselves with these people, but it really takes them a couple of hours to go from rugged individulist to angry whiner at city council meetings? Really?
Bootlegger
@Morbo: Or regional trains in Europe on a sunny day. Damn thing was packed like a cattle car and still people pushed in. I got over my whole “sombrero” thing real fast.
Comrade Mary
(That is, “self-pitying memes”, not means. Or mimes, although I’d love to see a cage match between mimes and teabaggers.)
Plus, Savage Henry made my main point first.
Nutella
Heh.
They had to walk and take a cab? They had to use personal effort and the private/capitalist market?
I would bet serious money that these same people all indignant that public transportation wasn’t helping them out in the way they wanted ALWAYS vote against any public dollars going to public transportation.
Sloth
Now the wingnuttosphere can say “well if there were only 70,000 people there, why we the subways so crowded?”
Yeah, well, a ballgame at Fenway park is less than 40K. It pretty well jams up the subways (and, IIRC, the T runs special trains during home games.)
We usually park in Cambridge and walk over, but we must be a bunch of DFH’s (and it’s a really nice walk.)
General Winfield Stuck
They shoulda never drawn a mustache on Nancy Pelosi. That’s akin to tugging on Superman’s Cape and no good can come of it.
ericblair
@Morbo: These people simply have a concept of personal space that’s basically the equivalent of “fuck off if you’re within 5 feet of me.”
I think there’s a lot to this. Look at the pictures of the rallies themselves: okay, they had room to stretch out because, well, there really weren’t that many people, but they did stand a lot farther away from each other than a more usual Mall crowd would. Think about what kind of people in your experience have need a lot of personal space around them to stay calm, and there you go.
Jerry 101
Rep. Brady is, clearly, an anti-American, closet librul.
Everyone knows that real Americans do not take public transportation, like the subway. It’s socialist.
I think it’s time to call a duck a duck, and refer to Rep. Brady as “Rep. Kevin Brady (S-Texas)”
Or, to be more precise, IslamoCommunoSocialfacist Kevin Brady.
No self respecting conservative would be caught dead on a subway. If Kevin Brady were a real American, he would have taken a 25foot Hummer stretch limo, as would the old lady and her kid (one stretch for each of them).
Only socialist/facist libruls take the subway.
Alan
This is an attempt to explain why the Metro ridership figures didn’t reflect the huge increase anticipated from 2 million protesters–everyone had taken cabs.
The Grand Panjandrum
I thought the public option was anathema to the teabaggers.
It might be easier if you just turn this place into a news aggregator for most of the wingnut stuff. (The material does write itself.) As long as you have a daily Tunch & Lily cam post or two most of us would be happy. Heck throw in an open thread for something like the 80’s-one-hit-wonder-cheesey-video-throwdown and I’m in hog heaven.
Jerry 101
@Savage Henry:
The problem, Mr. Henry, is that these wingnuts have never seen a subway. Thus, if there are not any open seats, the subway MUST be overcrowded. Stand on the subway? I think not.
Sarcastro
… an 80-year-old woman and her 60-year-old daughter were forced to walk and pay for a cab because the subway system was so crowded.
So? They have real jobs right? It’s not like they were unemployed Liberal agitators or something.
Evil Bender
Not that it really matters, since these idiots don’t even know what they’re protesting, but <a href=”http://www.wmata.com/rail/disruption_reports/viewReportArchive.cfm?Archive_Date=92008″the numbers suggest that the Metro wasn’t really crowded.
Who knows what full-on freakout we’d have if they’d had the event on a weekday?
dmsilev
How much do you want to bet that Rep Brady has a long and consistent record of voting against mass transit funding?
-dms
The Grand Panjandrum
@General Winfield Stuck: You don’t pull the mask off the Lone Ranger. Either way when the teabaggers all get together you know they all call Big Beck boss.
Evil Bender
Alan, you beat me to the punch!
Odds that there were also complaints that the Reflecting Pool wasn’t as reflective as in the movies? Probably the same odds that someone spat at Lincoln’s memorial during the event.
joes527
Don’t think of it as walking.
Think of is as Galt’s Rapid Transit System.
anonevent
Maybe BJ can become the Wingerpedia: All things winger documented because you could no longer parody in real time.
Sloth
This is an attempt to explain why the Metro ridership figures didn’t reflect the huge increase anticipated from 2 million protesters—everyone had taken cabs.
Busted. No way to argue with those numbers.
Yeah, sure. Half a million people drove in or took cabs.
Right.
West of the Cascades
Does the head of Metro have the courage to send this idiot congressman a one-line answer that “no additional capacity was added on Saturday because Metro assumed, from the nature of the protest, that those attending would not be using taxpayer-funded infrastructure (such as subways, buses and public roads) as a matter of principle”?
General Winfield Stuck
Coulda used the Clown Cars they rode in on.
Comrade Darkness
@joes527: Nice. I was going to point out that “rapid” was maybe a stretch, but then it occurred to me that even riding a bike would require that you knew how to build a bike, and had a workshop and access to raw materials. So yeah: as rapid as it gets.
Anton Sirius
The inevitable punch line is that there was an appropriations bill in July that provided $150 million in maintenance funding to the DC Metro, that Brady naturally voted against.
Sigh.
Xanthippas
Just something else to whine about. These people were persecuted when they owned all three branches of government, so you can only imagine how they feel now. Well actually…they’ll tell you, repeatedly, endlessly, over and over again.
Barbara
Since these people weren’t in town for Inauguration Day, when we really had a few million people and just about every road was closed, they have no clue how crowded the Metro can get.
My hubby and I decided that the better way was simply to walk from one of the bridges in Virginia. It was also more fun.
jibeaux
@Jim:
I wonder if Manzi chatted with Brooks over the Applebee’s salad bar…
Evinfuilt
My Irony meter just broke, I think it shot itself rather than try and keep up with the Republicans.
DanF
Real patriots would have gone Galt and paid D.C. area tea-baggers under-the-table to give them rides to the protest! Damn communists! These whiners must be purged from the party!
Crashman06
@Anton Sirius: My head just ‘asploded. I know I shouldn’t be surprised by this crap, but I am.
Bootlegger
@West of the Cascades: I’ll settle for video of the subway showing us just how “crowded” it really was.
Ash Can
The comments on that WSJ blog piece made my whole morning. They’re on par with the best of BJ’s own smart-assery. You can’t beat starting the day with a few good LOLs!
JenJen
Check out this rather infuriating paragraph from the new Time Magazine cover story on Glenn Beck:
time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1924348,00.html
Gotta love it when Time Magazine gives Glenn a hand by adding legitimacy to 12ther Teabagger Mythology! And since DC Fire/EMS is the source of the 60,000-75,000 count, I guess Fire Departments now have a liberal bias, as well.
Thanks, Time Magazine! No, go f yourself, would you?
Shell
On the front page of today’s Star Ledger. “Thorn in Acorn’s side honed his skills at Rutgers.”
Ah, one more thing for New Jersey to be proud of.
Well, at least we can still claim Jon Stewart.
jwb
@Savage Henry: Problem with that logic is that if there had even been anywhere near a million, getting a cab would have also been impossible.
KXB
When I stilled lived in DC, my brother and his wife visited one year. When we were going into the Metro station, I told them it can get crowded on summer weekends with the tourist traffic. My sister in-law, who worked in Mumbai for awhile, said, “This is nothing.” and started air-bumping with her elbows to show what she was ready to do.
But seriously, this is too screwed up.
Ash Can
@Evinfuilt: Actually, if I were an Onion editor, I’d be sitting on the floor under my desk this morning, taking slugs of Old Skullpopper whiskey out of a brown paper bag.
slag
I hate to say it, but for once, I agree with the teabaggers. We definitely need to improve the public transportation systems in this country, and if the teabaggers want to direct their efforts accordingly, they’ve got a friend in me.
I’m here for you, teabaggers! I feel your pain.
horatius
Dayumm rednecks trying to steal your livelihood. Will we all still stick around if all you have are videos of Lily and Tunch?
This is serious business Mr. Cole.
General Winfield Stuck
@slag:
Well, you just gave birth to a new lame winger meme. “Get the government out of my public transportation”
MikeJ
I’m just glad I wasn’t standing in line behind them at the farecard machines.
slippy
@Anton Sirius:
Uh . . . can someone please print out that vote, attach it to a stick, and in full view of several cameras repeatedly jam it with tremendous force into Representative Brady’s stupid, cowlike face?? Please????
Michael D.
@Willy Wonka:
Actually, with so many Republican men in the Capitol, it probably was a “good day” for D.C. Madams!
de stijl
Taggart Transcontinental could have whisked those folks to the rally productively, efficiently, and also turned a healthy profit. If only the leeches and the parasites would allow it.
Daddy-O
The DC Subway system–yet another example of a public option.
As usual…these idiots got nothin’. Not a damn thing. If they EVER actually have a true, useful point to make, I’ll be the FIRST to let them know it.
General Winfield Stuck
OT
More news from the Harried White man front.
The Grand Panjandrum
John I think I finally made the connection with all of this stupidity. Your link yesterday to the Jesus Money post should be invoked as part of the standard reply to teabagging wingnut bitching about any “public option” they vote to not fully fund. How many Jesus Monetary Units would it take to get that subway system up to the standards required for teabaggers?
Napoleon
@General Winfield Stuck:
Her first mistake was going to a Craker Barrel. What did she think she would find there?
Steeplejack
Hell, the Metro is crowded after a Nationals game, and they are the worst team in baseball.
And, even when extra trains are added, there’s still only the same amount of track, so, yes, ZOMG, things take a little longer.
[. . .] an 80-year-old woman and her 60-year-old daughter
were forced</strike chose to walk and pay for a cab because the subway system was so crowded.Fix’d.
EdTheRed
I took Metro from Shaw/Howard to RFK that afternoon as the Teabagging was winding down and ‘baggers were heading back whence they came (including to RFK to get back on their buses). Including my transfer at L’Enfant, it was less crowded than a typical rush hour. Seriously. Like, a LOT less crowded. Bunch of crybabies with no sense of irony, the lot of ’em.
gwangung
With…um….non-white people, I take it?
The Grand Panjandrum
@General Winfield Stuck: But … but .. but … what @Napoleon said.
Gozer
Shit. When I’d ride the Metro home at evening rush hour the car would be so crowded that I had to rest anything I was reading on the backpack of the person in front of me. You get used to being breathed on, coughed on, accidentally hit with luggage or strollers.
All part of the ride. And lets not even talk about a sports event. I moved away from DC a few months after the inaugural. THAT was sheer madness right there.
But this seems to be a problem with baghole types. A persistent lack of self-awareness and/or identification of “the other”. It reminds me of back in 04 when the RNC was in NYC and reading on Matt Yglesias’ place about how some attendees made remarks along the lines of “don’t these New Yorkers know about 9/11!?”
They really don’t see themselves.
Speedy
“said an 80-year-old woman and her 60-year-old daughter were forced to walk and pay for a cab because the subway system was so crowded. ”
They had to actually waddle to catch a cab? Were their govermnent subsidised Jazzy scooters in the shop or something?
Comrade Darkness
Someone from here must have posted this over at the WSJ:
Egan Foote wrote:
Know who else didn’t have access to the DC Metro? Hitler. Just something to ponder.
I bow to whomever that was.
Stefan
Rep. Kevin Brady ( R ) said an 80-year-old woman and her 60-year-old daughter were forced to walk and pay for a cab because the subway system was so crowded.
The public option didn’t work so they had to turn to a entrepreneurial private service provider. So what’s their problem? Isn’t this the way they think it should be?
Mnemosyne
This just reinforces the conclusion I’ve come to about conservatives and libertarians: they’re leeches. They think that everyone else should pay for the services that they want.
I have yet to find a single one of them who recognizes that their fanatical obsession with tax-cutting and lower taxes is why the potholes in their street aren’t being repaired or the fire station in their neighborhood is being shut down. Nope — they just always assumed that someone else was going to pay for that stuff, and now they’re indignant that no one paid up on their behalf.
Once again, Republican projection at its finest: if you don’t want to pay your share to live in a civil society, repeatedly accuse your opponents of not paying their share.
joes527
@gwangung:
Technical thugs from what I hear.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@General Winfield Stuck:
This is getting so ridiculous that I wonder how many ratfuckers and spoof-trolls there are in the teabag movement and at what point are they going to be like the far-left groups in the Cointelpro era who had more FBI informants than actual leftists showing up for their meetings.
Just Some Fuckhead
The problem with the Washington subway system is too much government control. The fix is simple: cut taxes and deregulate something.
Allan
I called Rep. Brady’s office and laughed at the clown who answered. I said, really? An investigation into crowding on the DC subway? This is worth spending time and money on?
He replied, the representative isn’t calling for an investigation, he just wants an explanation.
I laughed, Brady voted against additional funds for the DC subways. There’s your explanation. Your boss is insane, please tell him I said so.
He chuckled. I sure will, he replied.
I got the feeling that wasn’t news to the staffer.
DougL
Back on April 15, a friend of mine mused, “Is it bad form to take public transit to a tax protest?” We chuckled. Who knew?
jibeaux
From the WSJ comments, “they were probably trying to go down the up escalator”, that was pretty good.
I expect there was also a fair bit of “what! That derned thing just ate my ticket doohickitimy! Good grief, now it’s over there on the other side of that thing. How in tarnation am I supposed to get over there? I came here for the subway, not an IQ test, dern it.”
I can do that ’cause I’m southern.
mcd410x
While we’re all chuckling, all 1 million Glenn Beck watchers are calling their local newspapers and television stations to make them cover their b.s. … and it’s working.
It’s time to start fighting this crap.
Bender
Let’s get the normal “John’s whole post is based on lies” thing out of the way first:
Lie!
OK, now that that’s out of the way…
@Alan:
Ball Juicers: Look at the chart! Metro ridership was only up 140K on Saturday compared to last Saturday!
Ball Juicers: There were only 30K people at the march!
Memo to Ball Juicers: Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself.
slag
@General Winfield Stuck: I’m sure they’ve got the signs already made: “Get the GUVERMENT out of my BUSNESS!11!”.
Personally, though, I think the real problem they had was trying to get some space on the bus along side all those Promise Keepers from 1997.
Noonan
Keep your government hands off my public transportation system!
Cat Lady
I hope it was the Tea Tard (TM) who told Max Blumenthal in his video that she wants the government out of “all of her life” when he asked her about Social Security. That would be teh awesome.
tc125231
@KCinDC: David Brooks is unequalled as an apparently sincere apologist for completely execrable practices of the wealthy and powerful, who are, by the way, the source of his most of his income.
He also does a fair job of repeatedly mis-representing scientific research for the benefit of said interests.
A real American entreprenuer!
(gag)
slag
@Bender: You do realize there were two other big events on the mall that day? Or does your place in the center of the universe not make room for others to exist?
Trinity
I wish like hell that these people would just go Galt already.
Sweet Jeebus.
gwangung
@slag: You do know non-white people count as 3/5ths of a white person in their universe, you know…
jibeaux
@Bender:
You’re aware that a) this thread doesn’t say anything about 30K people and that b) it’s, ya know, a group effort? If this blog is hitting itself, then Malkin and Beck talking about Park Service estimates of 1.7 million taken from reports of the INAUGURATION is what, let’s see, maybe ritual hari-kiri followed by stumbling into a car, driving it off a cliff and having it explode. That’s not really enough, though, I always did have a limited imagination, but maybe someone else can improve on it.
r€nato
Why didn’t those teabaggers, instead of taking a taxi, call the WAAAAAAAAAAAAHMUBLANCE?
r€nato
fucking whiners. They should have been there on Inauguration Day. It was PACKED. I had to wait in line nearly an hour to get on the Metro.
I sure fucking didn’t whine about that to my congressman.
Please, please, please… get all these teabaggers to move to South Carolina and Texas. Then Obama can use his black Jesus kung-fu to get Mexico to trade us Baja California for both.
Comrade Darkness
@Bender: AND… at least half those extra riders were there for the NCNW Black Family Reunion Celebration. You know all that discussion of the white tents in the pictures. Guess whose tents those were? So, your point was about the count was what again?
Mnemosyne
@Bender:
You’d almost think that something had happened the previous Saturday, like maybe a long holiday weekend that a lot of people go out of town for, that would mean the trains would have lower ridership than usual.
Nah, that couldn’t possibly be it. After all, what are the odds that Bender would completely forget about a three-day weekend?
slag
@gwangung: Damn! Stymied by mathematics. Will I never learn?
Legalize
“A spokesman for Brady says that “there weren’t enough cars and there weren’t enough trains.” Brady tweeted as much from the Saturday march. “METRO did not prepare for Tea Party March! More stories. People couldn’t get on, missed start of march. *I will demand answers from Metro,” he wrote on Twitter.*”
Read much, Bender?
Gozer
@r€nato:
Only if Tijuana can stay wonderfully sleazy.
some guy
This doesn’t cause cognitive dissonance in conservatives because one of their central tenets has always been that government should be able to everything it currently does 100% better with 50% less funding.
See, all we need to do is cut out all the “bureaucracy” and “wasteful spending” and then we can expand services while also cutting taxes, no problem.
If that doesn’t work then simply “privatize” (ie, subsidize private companies to run) the service, because the free market can do everything inherently more efficiently than government.
And if that still doesn’t work, blame the poor, lazy liberal/minority leeches for the failure.
Xanthippas
Had this happened months after the election of Bush, liberal bloggers would have been extolling this as evidence of the uppity-ness of whites upon the election of one of their own.
No?
some guy
Yay broken blockquote tagging.
Legalize
Can you imagine the winger whining if they were ever forced to attend a Yankees game in the Bronx and had to ride with the unwashed masses uptown to the Stadium. They might have to STAND (I know, the 4 line doesn’t have Lazy Boy style recliners!) right next to a black person or even worse, an immigrant! If Dan Riehl was there he’d totally have to think about kicking some technical thug ass and then blogging about it later.
Corner Stone
@Morbo:
I agree. Every time I go to NYC it throws me off for the first couple hours, just walking down the street.
parksideq
If the ‘baggers think that’s bad, they should try travelling from the Bronx to Grand Central via the 4 train after a Yankees game. Double points if they dare to ride it after a loss to the Red Sox.
Then again, the wingnuts will probably start boycotting America’s game soon, seeing that most of the stadiums (including New Yankee Stadium) are built with major gov’mint subsidies (a practice I personally am not fond of, btw).
Cyrus
@MikeJ:
Or standing still on the left side of the escalator.
bayville
Putting on my Reason/Libertarian hat, I am supposed to feel sorry for two old whiners who traveled to D.C. to protest Big Government – who probably have been sucking off the teat of Social Security and Medicare for years – because they couldn’t wait for a seat on the Metro and instead had to take a cab (and likely one with a Pakistani driving)?
Fu#k ’em.
How long before Riehl, the Redstaters and Moe Lane start frontpaging this atrocity?
some guy
Worth noting, also, that this formula can be applied ad infinitum– unless, of course, we’re talking about “defense” spending!
Gozer
This is also about people not from cities seeing cities – especially DC – as big urban theme parks. The monorail ride broke down.
Had to post this from Atrios’ place.
Legalize
I wonder what the fanny-pack / Crocs count was on 9/12 in D.C. Had to be in the billions right?
jibeaux
@Legalize:
Yes, the point and the irony of the post missed him by light years, and yes, Brady did call for an explanation/investigation/answer to his demands, but let’s start with the baby steps. Bender did call the WSJ a liar, and that’s a start.
GregB
You’d think the Million Mullet Marchers would be leery of anyone who is helping to get them onto trains.
Besides, isn’t it kind of fascist to want the trains to run on time?
-G
jibeaux
@Legalize:
I would not want to be in the position of needing to find an eagle sweatshirt still on the racks right now, I know that much.
JenJen
For a point of reference, in terms of transit on heavy crowd days in Washington, DC, here are some of my own photos from Inauguration Day this year:
Arriving from MARC Train, Union Station, around 8:00 am
Another Union Station photo, around 8:00 am
This one isn’t transit-related, but just to give you an idea of the crowd crush on the streets that day…. waiting on C Street to get into the Blue ticketed area
And finally, the crowd outside Union Station, around 4:30 pm, trying to get into the terminal to catch their trains home.
So color me a little skeptical that the ‘baggers (especially the ones that believe 1.5-2 million attended on 9/12) experienced anything close to what Inaugural-goers did.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ash Can: I live across the street from their offices, but I have not seen anyone on a ledge threatening to jump … yet.
slag
@some guy:
Agreed. But the reason wingers have this ridiculous attitude is that they don’t actually value public services. Until they do. And that alone explains why they don’t have a problem with defense spending. Because they value it.
Liberals, on the other hand, tend to value both public services and defense but think defense spending is far out of proportion to what it needs to be (given its comparability with other countries). And our attitude compels wingers to believe we don’t value defense at all. Because that’s how they think. Rarely do you see liberals running around saying, “Get the GUVERMENT out of my MILITARY!”. Cuz that’s stupid.
gbear
@gwangung:
They’re not doing that anymore. They’ve conceded that non-white people count as a whole person.
They’ve moved on to using a 5/3 factor when counting white people, which is probably accurate if you consider the actual weight of the protestors.
wasabi gasp
Surely they’d prefer the accommodations of the NYC transit system on Sept. 12, 2001.
Bill E Pilgrim
You have to remember that their pied piper Glenn Beck went on a big rant about how inadequate US health care was when he had an operation, not long before he started going on rants about how it’s the bestest in the world and who would ever dare criticize it.
Their ranting and outrage is entirely mercenary, his certainly is in any case. One day it’s railing against the government for existing, the next for being underfunded.
There’s no logic to be found, the only response to them is: You lost. We won. Get used to it.
jibeaux
@some guy:
That’s a very good summary. And anudda thing that bugs me, they always talk about the DMV as a stand-in for all things government. (Personally, I’ve been there enough to have had good, bad, and okay experiences, so I don’t think it stands for much of anything.) But you’ll notice they never set up a hypothetical like, “well you go over to Time Warner Cable and then go to the children’s desk at your local library and see who you get better customer service from, buddy boy!” I just don’t see any consistency in quality customer service across government and non-government areas. Some places are just run a lot better than other places, and it doesn’t have much relationship to where your funding comes from.
jibeaux
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Was that his ass surgery? Was his ass surgery inadequate or something? Cause he still seems pretty assy to me.
Sarah T
“The Food Here Is Terrible and the Portions Are Too Small” -HAHAHAHA ! That was my Grandma’s favorite joke, and it immediately came to mind when I read about this latest Teabagger gem. Great minds, etc. etc…
reverter
@Napoleon: What would we find at a Craker Barrel? a craker? is that sort of like a quaker? Crikey!
Bill E Pilgrim
@jibeaux:
Yep. It clearly was to make him into a bigger asshole, but the point is that he did a video about how hideous it was “to receive health care in the United States” and they don’t care about working stiffs” and etc. Watch it and weep with laughter:
thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-13-2009/glenn-beck-s-operation
Legalize
If health care was run like the DMV or the post office:
I’d get the help I needed at an affordable price with the minor inconvenience of having to wait in line for a little bit during my lunch break. Granted, there are likely to be black folks at each location.
Yeah, what a drag.
maya
So, did they tip the cabbie? I’ll bet not since that would encourage tax cheating.
slag
@maya: Tax cheating is only wrong when done by poor people. As is everything else.
some guy
I’ve never had an exceptionally poor experience dealing with the DMV (DOT here in WI), certainly no worse than dealing with any fast food restaurant. Then again, I don’t expect someone barely making minimum wage to bend over backwards to kiss my ass. As long as they make some good faith attempt to do their job I’m satisfied.
Mary
@Cyrus:
I’m surprised that there was no bloodshed, quite frankly. Had this been a weekday, it would have gotten ugly.
r€nato
Perhaps those teabaggers were upset because they could not find a “Whites Only” Metro car.
Paul B
In keeping with the tenets of objectivism and the attitude of modern conservatism, I think the entire federal workforce should withhold its productivity until taxes are raised.
gwangung
I’d get it done, 11 pm at night, while sitting around in my underwear.
r€nato
I also keep hearing from wingnuts how they don’t want their health care run like the DMV or the Post Office.
Well, I live in Arizona, a state not exactly known for lavishing money on state government. The DMV (or is it MVD here?) offices run just fine. Every time I go there, it is well-organized and the employees are friendly and knowledgable and considering the number of people they have to deal with, I think they do an efficient job of handling it.
The post office runs just fine where I am too. I don’t know what wingnuts are talking about…. I guess they only like government spending when it is involved with keeping the poor down and killing furriners.
Alan
@Bender:
It looks like enough to fill a college football stadium. No where near a million, much less 2.
Cain
@Bobbo:
I do think it is kind of dumb to schedule track maintenance on a day you’re getting 60K people (or whatever the real number was) you could probably have found a better time. On the other hand, if this was revenge… then I approve. :-)
cain
FlipYrWhig
an 80-year-old woman and her 60-year-old daughter were forced to walk and pay for a cab
So who’s doing the forcing, exactly? Were they frog-marched by ACORN, SEIU, and assorted Obamanist thugs?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Legalize: Plus I think having to get a learner’s permit to use health care might not be such a bad idea. Or even tests.
Question One:
Buckets of hot grease followed by a pail of vodka is:
A) a torture method we should outlaw
B) an environmental hazard
C) lunch
parksideq
@Legalize: Damn, you beat me.
Side note: Go Yanks! Also.
James K. Polk, Esq.
This isn’t Yemeni, it’s Sulawesi. And the cup’s shaking – I don’t want my coffee shaking!
Stefan
I do think it is kind of dumb to schedule track maintenance on a day you’re getting 60K people (or whatever the real number was) you could probably have found a better time.
When? The work week?
harlana pepper
and so I am not astounded to learn 8 million Americans seriously consider suicide each year
Legalize
Bill E, I’ve always said that when I seize power by bloodless coup, there will be tests. Lots and lots and lots of tests to get licenses to do almost anything in public. Specifically going to the movies. But, you’re right; let’s get health care done first.
gopher2b
I wanted to use a technical thugs joke but I got here too late. :(
gwangung
Speaking of which….
Just Some Fuckhead
@Legalize:
You need to be careful around them. Apparently they bruise easily.
Demo Woman
@r€nato: Did you hear that Rush thinks we should go back to segregated buses? I agree cuz I sure don’t want to sit next to his fat ass. I’ll decide what constitutes a segregated bus.
Comrade Darkness
@harlana pepper: And the NRA would like to insure that each and every one of them owns a gun.
Something to think about next time you see them running a promotion for new members.
Bobbo
@Cain
They also shut down the Reagan Airport Metro stop for track maintenance over Labor Day weekend, resulting in a gigantic pain in the ass during one of the busiest travel days of the year. It’s hardly any kind of revenge, just their M.O.
BFR
I do think it is kind of dumb to schedule track maintenance on a day you’re getting 60K people (or whatever the real number was) you could probably have found a better time.
It’s DC so isn’t there always some event going on? I’d assume there isn’t a “good” day – just that some days are less bad than others.
jl
@Jim:
Serious question: who is this Jim Manzi at NRO?
Is the same Jim Manzi as the IT executive?
Whoever he is, how did he end up writing for National Review?
From responses to posts of his on, for example, the Daily Dish, he seems to be respected for some kind of penetrating insight, deep knowledge of economics and business, and down-cold quantitative skillz with the numbers? Why? (His recent attack on efforts to reduce carbon emissions seemed pretty superficial to me, with elementary mistakes in risk analysis).
lou
The thing worth noting is if Brady has complaints, he should turn to the organizers. It’s the organizers who are supposed to communicate with Metro and if they believe their crowds will clog Metro, well, they’re supposed to shell out the extra $$ to make it worth Metro’s while to add trains and cars.
Thus, libertarian anti-government types are obviously incompetent. But after 8 years of Bush, that’s no surprise.
jibeaux
@Legalize:
Can the first question be designed to determine whether they intend to take young children to the 9:30 showings of R rated movies? Because I really don’t want to sit next to six year olds asking their moms to explain vibrators any more.
jl
@lou: But, there are no organizers, it is spontaneous grassroots efforts of ordinary people, who are mad as hell and not going to take in anymore! Right?
Bill E Pilgrim
What would be even funnier is if some of them took a private car service but it dropped them halfway there because of a “pre-existing condition” like being obese.
Comrade Darkness
@jl: What a funny thought. That Dick Armey after 18 years in congress wouldn’t have a clue how DC works.
What, doesn’t everyone just call their limo when they want to go somewhere?
Demo Woman
This morning I spoke with a friend who is concerned that the media by highlighting racism it will cause it to grow. Since she is black, and we live in the south, she thought that rather than subtle racism that you might see down here, it would become overt. I pointed out that the Cracker Barrel incident was pretty overt and that happened before the news media started reporting on it. I also thought that Beck and Limbaugh should be called on their racist comments by the MSM. I’m not black so I can’t really judge what she is thinking but I thought that I would ask you.
JK
John,
Thanks for the title of this post which references a joke that Woody Allen tells in the great opening scene of Annie Hall.
ihop
le requin est sauté.
last night on his radio show i heard micheal ‘savage’ weiner say that jimmy carter is to blame for the rise of radical islam.
this morning i hear of the complaints of teabaggers about the lack of a viable public (transportation) option and the fickleness of the private solutions..
it’s not funny anymore. my jaw can’t drop any lower, my head can’t spin any faster.
it’s as if we are all daffy duck in ‘duck amuck’. it just keeps getting weirder.
JenJen
Any chance my comment #113 could get sprung from Moderation Jail? :-(
jl
Talkingpointsmemo has a funny post up, worrying about the growth of the culture of dependency among the teabaggers. Why are they whining about their use of alternative market solutions?
Also. Repeating my Serious Question: who is this Jim Manzi at the NRO? I cannot find a bio, but I can find an e-mail link to the guy. I do not want to e-mail him, whoever he is. Who is he?
jibeaux
@gwangung:
Oh, man, that is the saddest, funniest thing I have ever heard since the This American Life episode about the phone company.
My most recent experience with them involved being on hold and transferred around for over two hours when the internet (but not cable) went out. No one could figure out the problem and then, finally, it was determined that my internet was cut because in typing in my account number for payment, evidently I got a number wrong and the payment was rejected. So apparently the M.O. for such a thing is not to notify the customer that there’s a payment problem, but rather to cut off half of the services the customer is paying for, leave the other half alone to encourage the thought that it must be a technical problem, and notify no one in any U.S. or India-based office that there was a billing problem. For added fun, charge a returned check fee.
Contrast local library: took a short poll regarding how the library could better meet my needs and got all overdue fines waived very cheerfully by the helpful librarian.
dmsilev
@jibeaux: When _Watchmen_ came out, there were quite a few parents who brought their young kids to see it, because it was a superhero movie and those are intrinsically kid-friendly, right?
You’d think that the R rating would have been a clue that this was a Bad Idea, but judging by the aggrieved letters to the newspaper, apparently not.
-dms
kay
I just skimmed the post because I can’t stand their incessant whining, but the title is very funny.
They went on vacation and took a cab, and that merits some kind of draconian federal governmental intervention by a member of the US House of Representatives? Is that the gist of this thing?
Alan
Mike Taibbi has a new post up wondering if Obama will heed Paul Volcker’s warnings about our to big to fail “banks.”
r€nato
@dmsilev:
Watchmen was not a movie fit for adults, let alone children.
I fucking hated that film. I wanted so badly to like it, too.
Bootlegger
@gwangung: See, stuff like that wouldn’t happen if Time Warner didn’t have so many government regulations, and stuff. It’s not that businesses with monopolies can ignore the demands of their customers, it’s the government interfering with the Free Market that causes Time Warner to ignore you.
Josh
@Bender:
I’m sorry, Bender.
Your comment about the DC Metro ridership being up by 140,000 doesn’t pass muster if you want us to assume that’s all due to the Teabaggers.
How many other public events were going on that day?
Perhaps this Saturday was just busier.
I’d like some proof that this 140,000 number is indicative of the number of people that were at the “protest” (read: hate-fest).
Otherwise, you’re just making ad hominems, which makes you look rather silly.
Bootlegger
@jibeaux: I know what you mean, I have a hard enough time explaining it to my 8-year old at home.
Bootlegger
@Josh: Also don’t forget that the number represents the number of “riders” as measured by 1-way rides. So at the very least you have to divide by 2 (assuming people went home rather than staying in DC after dark, gasp!). That means 70,000, a number that sounds oddly familiar….
freelancer
@jibeaux:
I think at some point, we’ll get beyond the Jim Crow argument, but I absolutely want a 10 question history test to be required to vote. Oklahoma’s electoral votes are rendered null and void from here on out. You are awarded no points, and may God have mercy on your souls.
trueslant.com/jeffhoard/2009/09/17/understatement-oklahoma-students-fail/
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@r€nato:
Santa Claus never sends back a reply to all the letters they keep sending to the North Pole asking for RPGs and a flamethrower for Xmas, and demanding to know why he stiffed them last year. Thus the Post Office is broken.
Personally, I blame global warming. It is getting harder every year to deliver their letters when the elfin workshop is now on a floating ice floe surrounding by water and starving polar bears.
Alan
@Josh: If you go by that ridership number, 140K increase. I think you have to divide it in half for each direction ridden.
Vishnuverhere
Sign seen at teabagger rally: Will be outraged for food.
jibeaux
@freelancer:
Oh my word. Not one out of a thousand got more than 7 of those right. You were in the top .6% of your class if you got 7 out of 10.
I am weeping.
Ash Can
@Bootlegger:
@Alan:
140k divided by 2. Of course.
OK, that’s it. I’m convinced Bender’s a spoof. I started wondering when I saw “Evil Bender” posting cogent thoughts on another thread. And that handle always did seem fishy to me.
Sometimes I think about what it would be like to post horsecrap under a different handle just to stir the pot once in a while, but I’ll never do it. I can’t speak Wingnutese fluently enough to pull it off.
freelancer
@jibeaux:
The largest percentile for “Who was the First President of the United States?” aside from IDK, was ABRAHAM LINCOLN @ 24%.
We’re not gonna make it.
youtube.com/watch?v=0koYTc1opds
at least, Oklahoma isn’t.
satby
@Legalize:
satby
add me to the hordes who miss edit.
The Saff
I’m in DC right now and have had no trouble whatsoever getting around on the Metro. It’s fast, efficient, and economical. I wish we had this kind of public transport where I Iive.
joes527
@freelancer: There was quite a bit of disagreement after the fact about everyone’s roles in writing the declaration of independence. Yes, Jefferson did the actual writing, but to listen to Adams, that was just because he had the best penmanship. So, yeah, I can totally see folks being confused by that question.
But What Ocean is off the east coast? How did they manage to find 390 students who couldn’t work that one out?
And the first president????? 77% fail. Do you laugh or cry at that?
Cyrus
@freelancer, jibeaux: In fairness, I wonder (a) what the numbers are like in other states, and (b) if any of the kids gave the wrong answer, just to fuck with the test-givers in revenge for wasting their time. I don’t know how test-designers would compensate for that, but I hope they at least think about it.
freelancer
@joes527:
You know, at some point today I was going to post about how, with Boehner and Cantor being a little recalcitrant about Bachmann’s antics, how their base is old and stupid. They communicate through AM radio and inkstained newspaper whereas the newer generation is more predisposed to immediate correction of any bullshit via the net. We know about snopes. We are more prone to critical thought with unfounded claims. They will be buried if they keep pandering to ancient and decrepit worldviews.
nevermind.
Ash Can
@freelancer:
@jibeaux:
Holy. Motherfucking. Shit.
I had seen the “First President” headline earlier, but now I see that the real story is in the actual article. My eyes went crossed when I saw how many students had given even-numbered answers for the number of justices on the Supreme Court, and it just got worse from there.
Apparently, “I don’t know” is an enormously popular school subject in Oklahoma. What in God’s name is going to become of these kids?
…On second thought, don’t answer that. It’s too early in the day to start drinking heavily.
AkaDad
Isn’t using the term “hate-fest” and ad hominem, or am I silly thinking that?
Midnight Marauder
@joes527:
But What Ocean is off the east coast? How did they manage to find 390 students who couldn’t work that one out?
I imagine that would be like hitting water while sitting in a canoe in a place like Oklahoma.
asiangrrlMN
Bwahahahahahaha! I have been laughing at this story all morning (well, when I wasn’t taking a nap, that is).
This whole bullshit is just priceless and beautiful. Your comments have had me cracking up as well.
I agree with Atrios, though, that a lot of this has to do with people’s idea of personal space. Being from the Midwest, I have a very wide personal space area. When I did a semester in Asia and when I travel to the coasts, I get over that pretty damn quickly. Then again, I am the one who frightens other people because of my tats and my hard stare. Heh. Love it.
freelancer
@Ash Can:
FSM knows every single one of them is being raised to hate “the welfare state” and treat it like as much of an enemy as them furrin’ trrrsts.
jurassicpork
“That’s troubling, troubling not just in the sense that Beck could get even one person to spend perfectly good money to go to our nation’s Capitol to protest our President for GWB (Not George W. Bush but Governing While Black). It’s even more troubling that a maniac such as Skousen, a man who’d been rightfully thrown out into the cold by even his fellow right wing extremists would pick up an acolyte who is already enjoying more critical and commercial success than he ever did, that Beck’s plagiarized racist views are merging closer and closer to the political mainstream now represented by Joe Wilson.” – The Ignoble Experiment.
freelancer
damn, meant to add
“Irony, she dead.”
jibeaux
@joes527:
I think you’re being really charitable in your interpretation of why that question was confusing, but, sure, six kids could’ve answered it wrong because of that.
There really isn’t nearly enough civics/Constitution taught in high school. There was a quiz going around facebook thusly: Should Christianity be designated the official religion of the United States? (3 out of 4 choices were yes). There are also people who believe that providing universal health care and taxation are unconstitutional. I’m guessing there is significant overlap among the people who believe such things.
asiangrrlMN
@freelancer: Whew! I got all the questions right so I get to stay!
*Does a happy dance.
Josh
@Ash Can:
Bender is most likely a spoof, and I know this because of my vast knowledge of Futurama.
Bender, a robotic character, has a doppelganger named Flexo. Fry, the main character, notices that Flexo has a goatee, and as an homage to the episode of Star Trek entitled “Mirror, Mirror”, assumed that Flexo was the “Evil Bender.”
However, it turns out that Bender is the “Evil Bender” because, well, he’s evil. Flexo was actually the benevolent robot. In fact, in the episode of Futurama entitled, “Leela’s Homeworld,” Bender sings, “I love stealin’! I love takin’ things!”
The only reason I responded to him was because I thought he might give me a funny response.
Leelee for Obama
@jibeaux: The overlap is exacerbated by home-schooling.
Ash Can
@jibeaux: I recall having to study state and federal government, and pass an exam on those subjects, as a requirement for graduating high school here in Illinois. I can only assume that Oklahoma doesn’t have this requirement. (Or, at the very least, it’s not taught there until later in senior year, and not at all before that.)
Josh
@AkaDad:
That comment was troll food.
asiangrrlMN
@jibeaux: Facebook is also overwhelmingly to the right as evidenced by all the anti-Obama crap floating around there. In addition, on a poll asking if “under God” should be removed from The Pledge, and only 14% (or so) when I voted said yes. I read some of the comments and the “This is a Judeo-Christian nation” “We need to get back to God’s law” bullshit was being vomited all over the place, and in capital letters. I left a post saying that “under God” was added in the fifties; we have this thing called separation of church and state; I respect their right to believe in fairy tales so they should respect my right not to believe in fairy tales (I didn’t say fairy tales, of course); if they are advocating that we become a Christian nation, then they want a theocracy–which is what we decry in other countries.
There were five other responses immediately after, but I didn’t read them because I don’t need to be told I’m the devil yet again.
EEH
@asiangrrlMN:
Calouste
@freelancer:
Well, that question was commiemuslimfascistlieberally biased, because it obviously didn’t provide the right answer: Ronald Reagan.
Ash Can
@Josh: And then there’s the fact that “bender” is yet another slang term for homosexual. Yep. Spoof.
@asiangrrlMN: But you are the devil, aren’t you? :D
Shawn in ShowMe
None of those questions mean anything in the corporate-controlled entertainment Matrix that dominate millions of households, not just the ones in Oklahoma. Here’s all they need to know to be a citizen in that world:
1) Who is Nick Cannon married to?
2) Who sings “I Kissed a Girl”?
3) Name two judges on American Idol.
4) What does LOL stand for?
5) What school does Harry Potter attend?
Calouste
@EEH:
Been there, done that. I lived in London for some years and if you can squeeze yourself into the next train/tube that comes along the platform, it’s not considered busy.
Most weekday mornings are busy, and crucial lines are running trains every 3-5 minutes.
Also, days when no stations were closed temporarily due a bomb alert were good days.
Origuy
One Million Strong Against Our SOCI ALIST Fire Departments
A friend of mine on Facebook was listed as a member of this. I had a brief moment where I thought it might be for real, but she couldn’t be a wingnut. It’s one of the better spoof sites I’ve seen in a while:
“What are the Government redtrucks really spraying on our elderly citizen’s home?”
“What happens to babies left at fire departments? Raised to be ACORN prostitutes! (Confirmed)”
Mike in NC
According to the GOP, the proper usage of fire departments is presented in the novel (and film) “Fahrenheit 451”. Pity those poor old white women having to ride in a DC cab, probably driven by some dusky Third World heathen wearing a turban. They might have picked up some exotic disease.
JK
@asiangrrlMN:
Phew. AsiangrrlMN. Wonderful to see you back where you belong.
Honest to God, ya had me worried with your line – “I have very wide personal..”
I thought you were heading towards Larry Craig territory.
Great to see you haven’t lost anything on your fastball.
Welcome back.
jibeaux
@asiangrrlMN:
Well, FB polls are almost uniformly idiotic and are never funny like they should be. I’ve tried to write some things but they don’t seem to go viral.
At least the constitutionality of “under God” is debatable. You could not, if you tried, invent a hypothetical that would be more clearly in violation of the constitution than establishing an official religion, which these morans would (maybe) know if they had ever read the words “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”
lou
Well, there was the Black Family Reunion. And people coming to town for the Nation’s Triathlon on Sunday…
Andy K
@Josh:
There was the National Council of Negro Women’s 24th Annual Black Family Reunion Celebration on the west end of the Mall. Ran Saturday and Sunday, and usually pulls in 1/2 a million over the two days.
Tony J
@Ash Can:
And it’s important to applaud Bender for going that extra mile to stay in character by waiting a good hour or two after the last post in a thread he’s just been slaughtered on to post his own devastatingly brilliant response That’s so well-observed it’s virtually method-trolling.
asiangrrlMN
@Ash Can: Well, yes, but the world doesn’t need to know that I’m the devil…yet!
@JK: Oh, I’ve been here all week–just during the day. I’ve been dedicating myself to being off the grid at night for the last few days. I will do the same tonight and maybe tomorrow. In addition to recharging my batteries, it seems that my nightly absence spurs Cole into posting more animal pics, the bastard.
Wide stance? Why, yes I do, thank you very much!
P.S. Check out the race gangs thread to see how I’m rounding up my Asian posse!
asiangrrlMN
@EEH: Oh, I know. My own wide personal…space is about eleven jillionty feet, but I quickly adapt in places where people are stacked on top of each other. I’m going to Taiwan this winter to visit relatives, and I know I will have to make the adjustment fast, and then some.
@jibeaux: No kidding. Same with the quizzes. I am going to write some sometime and see what I can do to make ’em go viral.
Bubblegum Tate
@Tony J:
Awesome
andrewtna
Isn’t the metro required by the Constitution to offer weekday service hours on weekends when Teabaggers want to use it?
IndieTarheel
@jibeaux:
Toonces went Galt? Say it isn’t so!
Comrade Darkness
@joes527: I’m fond of the trickier question: If you go west to east through the Panama Canal, which ocean will you end up in?
Answer: The Pacific. (Really, pull out a map and look…)
Alex Milstein
So the people rallying agains government spending really wanted MORE government spending…as long as the money was spent on them.
It is scary that they don’t see their own contradictory behavior.
I read a quote yesterday of one wingnut again putting forward the fear that ‘Obama wants to take away our guns.’ Of course, he is one of the crowd that has brought its guns to Obama rallies and townhalls, without the slightest reproach from the Secret Service.
Soon they will all be buried under a pile of straw men.
Tony J
@Bubblegum Tate:
You see, that’s where BOB goes wrong. Whoever it is I’m looking at you DougJ) writing his spoof comes up with some absolute crackers, but it’s impossible to suspend that disbelief when he gets lazy.
Makewi, now there’s a troll who really does understand the art of being offensive. It’s 100%-pure slimy-assed, ‘I’m so very right that I don’t even need to address a single thing you say to feel this superior’ wingnutism cracked out of a sealed glass labelled 2002 every time he spews. That’s why he gets so many responses, his shtick picks at a scab that’s still raw.
But Bender, he gets the whole ‘I’m gonna sit here and wait until they’ve all gone, then I’m gonna show ’em who knows what’s what’ chickenhawk thing down perfectly. It’s like someone lived in Dan Rhiel’s closet for a year just to perfect a mannerism.
gnomedad
@GregB:
There ya go. If the trains had run on time it would have proved Obama is a fascist. They had the bases covered.
tc125231
@freelancer: Along with Mr. Kurtz.
Common Sense
I took the subway from Silver Springs during the inaugaration. I had to get there at 5AM and it took over 4 hours to get to the mall. These fucktards have no clue. None.
hypusine
“No more Big Government spending!! And where’s the damned Metro?!”
“I just spilled my water! Hey, why am I all wet?!” (h/t Tom Tomorrow)
Mr. Cause? Meet Mr. Effect.
Comrade Darkness
@Cyrus: there are some clever things you can do for rewards that still stay within HSR. For example if they “pass” you give them a choice of candy bars; if they fail, they have to take the candy bar offered. People will do some heavily lifting just for choice (everyone has to get a reward, finish or not). But, yes, without reading a methods section motivation is a huge unknown.