This is your captain. We are aware the REPLY button is gone. I updated the addon today and it disappeared. I am sure the authors will fix it soon.
Please remain calm. Reach up and grab the oxygen mask that has fallen from the overhead compartment, strap it over your face, and breathe deeply. Everything will be ok.
Also, if you look out the left window, you will see a really big wing.
elisabeth
Ought to see a wing out the right window, too.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
looks like I picked the wrong week to give up sexting.
beltane
Now I am reliving memories of my Mom drinking whiskey sours on the plane ride down to Florida to visit the grandparents. The 70’s were a great decade in certain respects.
gbear
I’m just wondering how much fun Kay is having in Minneapolis. She seems to have disappeared.
SiubhanDuinne
Stay calm? STAY FUCKING CALM!? We don’t need no fucking CALM, we need a fucking REPLY BUTTON!
Oh wait, you said someone was working on that. Uh, never mind.
Mnemosyne
I can only imagine how many e-mails you had to wade through that said, “THE BUTTON IS GONE, JOHN! THE BUTTON IS GONE!”
gnomedad
When’s the beverage cart coming?
Joe Bauers
BLARGH!!! Fire in the disco!
beltane
Do you realize this leaves us defenseless against the trolls? What if Reality Squeak shows up? How will we be able to yell at him without the Reply Button? Where is the flight attendant?
cleek
(we’re all gonna have to reply to JC, instead of each other)
JC sucks and is ruining this site!
jnfr
Forget the oxygen, I’m going with the red wine.
robertdsc-PowerBook
This thread needs more Tunch.
JGabriel
Holy Shit, the REPLY button is gone!
How will I talk to anyone if I can’t REPLY to them? Oh NOEZ! WOEZ is me!
I feel faint and dizzy. I must lie down. Someone bring me my smelling salts, QUICKLY, before I …
(Author falls prone to the floor, unconscious, head bouncing once before settling into a state of almost death-like stillness.)
.
kdaug
Some things are best left to the competent, Cap’n Cole, lest you want your next commission to be the HMS Bounty.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I think I’ll just have some red wine as well. But I was already calm, so it should be pleasant.
gbear
This happened once before
When I came to your door
No Reply.
Mark S.
You’re a fucking idiot.
Not Cole. You all know who I’m talking about.
Cassidy
That was done earlier when the hyperventilating over ABL began (again).
Left Coast Tom
Right. I think this is a plot to sell “I Survived The Balloon Juice Reply Button Outage” t-shirts.
jeffreyw
Thread needs more corned beef sammich.
Xecky Gilchrist
@elisabeth: Ought to see a wing out the right window, too.
Sure enough! But the nuts holding it together don’t look very stable.
(you can simulate “Reply” by, in Firefox, right-clicking “link” just after the comment time, then pasting it into one of these – [a href=”(paste here)”] poster’s name [/a] – replacing the square brackets with angle brackets.)
JGabriel
Mark S.:
Cue 25 people all immediately thinking, “It’s not me, is it?”
.
eastriver
Was that shitty meMeME ABL post taken down on purpose?
For fuck’s sake, can somebody please rip the “I” key out of her keyboard?
joes527
As well…
As well…
It is as if you are … I don’t know … reply-ing to something that had been said earlier.
If we just had some way to reference earlier posts this would all make much more sense.
Xecky Gilchrist
@myself: (can’t edit my last comment – should have said right clicking “link” then pulling down “copy link location.”)
cleek
i had some white wine.
or should i say it had me.
wobblybits
I hope they are giving out more than one measly pack of peanuts. I need more snacks for the in-flight movie and libations.
Valdivia
John you’re the best. Love the way you did the post.
elisabeth
I thought most folks knew that you could skip posts by bloggers you don’t care for.
RossInDetroit
“We want the finest wines available to humanity. And we want them here, and we want them now!”
PurpleGirl
jeffreyw @ 20
The corned beef looks soooooooooooo gooooooooooooood.
Yum.
jwb
@Xecky Gilchrist: That’s fucking work and we’re all too fucking lazy.
Cassidy
Case in point.
jeffreyw
Thread needs moar kittehs
Martin
There sure is a lot of duct tape on that wing, Cole.
Your 1 minute 39 second in-flight movie.
Jewish Steel
First they came for the ‘reply’ button, and I didn’t speak out because there was no ‘reply’ button…
eemom
if you are William Shatner circa 1961 and this is the Twilight Zone, you will also see a very goofy looking monster trying to tamper with the wing.
David Perlman
There’s a reply button?
Martin
Fuckin’ blogs, how do they work?!
jl
Pet pix, Cole, pet pix.
That will keep everyone happy while Reply is on vacation.
Corner Stone
@eastriver #23
You’re going to need to be more specific. That covers multitudes, bitches!
Corner Stone
Cole, I hope you’re enjoying your CNN/EofE realization moment.
licensed to kill time
@RossinDetroit
I am NOT drinking any fucking Merlot!
Violet
The oxygen masks don’t work because Balloon-Juice Airlines outsourced its maintenance a no-name shop in Central America where it can’t be overseen by any US government entity. Government regulations are so intrusive!
Corner Stone
@Martin
Exactly douchebag, exactly.
jl
If I understand Cole’s announcement correctly, he uses a custom add on for the reply, and he can ask the authors to modify it. Izzat right?
If so, s can that Reply button, Instead, lets have
Reject Revile Renounce Renunciate Repudiate Refudiate
and
Nano Quibble
and
Mindlessly Attack with Vicious Intent
and
Non Sequetur Fallacy
and
Ad Hominem Nastiness
buttons.
They will save a lot of time.
If Cole patents them, Balloon Juice will really pay for itself, for reals, since every blog will want, nay, need, them.
Edit: sorry, Hominem. Glad the Edit button is still on the job.
Also Edit: I forgot the Totally Miss the Point Button.
On other hand, I just thought about how often I will be on the receiving end of some of those. So, never mind.
joeyess
Please remember to place a mask on your child before you apply yours.
MikeBoyScout
Clearly something is terribly wrong here, but we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud, so let’s democratically declare war on _________ for loss of the Reply button.
a) Libya (They had to be doing something. Why not this?)
b) Iran (Is it not well known that Reply button sabotage is the next to last step for nuclear weapon manufacturing?)
c) Iraq (Third time’s a charm!)
d) All of the above (Hell, they’re all brown and sit on oil! Reply button Schmeply button. Every reason is a good reason for war!)
joeyess
Hey Cole! What are you serving on this flight? Chicken or chicken?
Awww, fuck it. Just throw some peanuts at ’em and tell ’em to STFU.
Martin
Ooh, I’ve been upgraded.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeI5ke0BENw
burnspbesq
The movies on this airline always suck. Glad I have the entire final season of “Friday Night Lights” on my iPad.
Kristine
I vote to hide one or two masks.
Maybe three.
catclub
JGabriel @ 22
“Cue 25 people all immediately thinking, “It’s not me, is it?” ”
In the St Matthew Passion Bach has them repeat the “Is it I?”
after jesus has said one of them will betray him, 12 times.
Once for each Apostle.
RossInDetroit
The button will return when the CIA discovers they’ve got the wrong Cole.
UncertaintyVicePrincipal
And a couple of BJ regulars yelling at it that it’s never satisfied with ANYthing.
MikeBoyScout
@54 RossInDetroit, I think you might be on to something.
ruemara
I’ve hung around tweaking drunk 19 year old n00b drag babies that were less drama queenie than you lot.
It had to be said. Fucking reply button said piss off and took a break.
PIGL
Since it’s the 70s, we get to smoke cigarettes. And, when we think no one is looking, other things more f[lr]agrant.
I’m fairly certain that in the 50s, they still had spittoons, but that far back I can not personally attest.
PIGL
Since it’s the 70s, we get to smoke cigarettes. And, when we think no one is looking, other things more f[lr]agrant.
I’m fairly certain that in the 50s, they still had spittoons, but that far back I can not personally attest.
Comrade Kevin
eastriver:
There’s a simple solution to your problem.
beltane
People here are NASTY without the reply button. What does this tell us about American society in the 21st century? What does this say about the human condition? What would David Brooks think?
RossInDetroit
I’m old enough to have smoked on a commercial plane and young enough to have gone to a rave. The plane experience was far safer.
MikeJ
There’s no reply at all.
phantomist
Cancel my fucking account Cole!
(Is a lurker allowed say that)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
What does it take to get another drink in this winged shitcan?
MikeJ
Martin @35, I wish let had let Fincher cut the trailer. It looks good in spite of that.
MoeLarryAndJesus
I don’t miss that damn Reply button. I never trusted it. I always suspected it was a Republican mole. There’s a reason why “Reply” and “Republican” start with the same three letters.
RossInDetroit
In ’98 on a flight from London to Dublin I actually bought cigarettes from a cart wheeled down the aisle while the plane was in the air. Didn’t want any but the novelty was irresistible. I thought I’d seen it all, but no.
beltane
Is it just me, or has Daily Kos become intolerable lately? Maybe I’m just getting old.
karen marie
@Beltane: Daily Kos has been intolerable for at least five years.
Ming
There’s no right wing around here! BWAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!
Barb (formerly Gex)
gbear Just for that, I’m going to have to mock up my own reply link.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@beltane:
Lately? It became intolerable years ago. It’s no coincidence that they’ve lost 43% of their readership since August 2009. People don’t need the aggravation.
Dennis SGMM
jeffreyw @ 20
Now I want a corned beef sammich and the closest one worth eating is thirty miles from here.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@beltane: What’s making it intolerable today?
beltane
@Mike Kay
Here’s a post by BooMan that sums up my feelings right now: http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/6/16/20368/8759
His sister site, European Tribune is worthwhile too, if only for the links to European sites that I’d never find on my own.
licensed to kill time
@RossInDetroit
I can remember when you could ask the stewardess for cigarettes and she’d give you a little pack with 3 or 4 in it. For free. Everyone used to light up right after the meal. Which was also free.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@beltane: I posted a companion observation to Booman’s post here.
Redshift
He’d explain that the problem is that wing on the left. If we had two of them on the right, and just called one the left wing, the plane would fly so perfectly.
AAA Bonds
Making your own links puts hair on the genitals
Spaghetti Lee
Re: Plane nostalgia, good. I can’t fuckin’ stand cigarette smoke. It makes me gag.
PIGL
The last time I smoked in a jet airliner was in 19-ought-94, west coast to Heathrow on British Air. There was a determined section of three or four rows at the back of coach where us chainers hung out, drinking as much free booze as they’d let us have, all night long. That was also the closest I ever came (or will probably ever come) to admission to the Eight Miles High Club. It was a comely Irish matron who resisted my advances—past a certain point, that is. I was only 28 then.
I now find it quaintly annoying that they *still* remind us that smoking is prohibited except after landing, and inside designated smoking areas. Which no longer exist. I quit smoking, and it still irks me.
Warren Terra
@Xecky Gilchrist:
I’m just surprised how few smartasses are hand-coding replies in this thread – a bare handful.
Steeplejack
@Xecky Gilchrist:
Testing your kluge . . .
J.W. Hamner
@jeffreyw:
Did you corn that beef yourself!? (Awesome looking sandwich regardless)
AAA Bonds
I remember I always used to smoke a Cuban on the last AAXICO back from Atlantic City. No reply buttons then, you had to longhand your HTML with a Reynolds Rocket.
C.J.
@Warren Terra:
But it’s so hard!
Corner Stone
@Martin #49
Damn. Where were you before?
Mike in NC
“So, Jimmy, do you like gladiator movies?”
jeffreyw
@ J. W. Hamner Nope, but I did boil the piss out of it.
gwangung
Damn, Cassidy. That was precision destruction. No wasted effort. No wasted words.
Salute!
ruemara
beltane
I read that and the huffpo story. What a collection of morons. This is the big plan? This is the progressive leadership? Good lord and butter. WTF ever. If these are the leaders of the fight, all gays, browns and women better prepare to be nothing but chattel in ReaLAMErica come 2013. They’ll be too busy making puppets and delivering petitions to, you know, actually form coalitions, develop organization tactics, register some fucking voters and teach people how to affect their congresspeople. The thing is, I doubt we need these stars of the microcosm. they don’t really provide good information, just opinions. Those opinions are so darned toxic though. Whatever, there’s an election coming up, these people will be in the dust real soon.
Steeplejack
@Xecky Gilchrist:
Here is a code snippet for people to copy:
@<a href="#comment-2634427" rel="nofollow">Xecky Gilchrist</a>:
To all: Replace “2634427” with the number of the comment you want to reply to and “Xecky Gilchrist” with the name of the person whose comment it is.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
˙ǝʌıʇɔǝdsɹǝd ƃuoɹʍ ǝɥʇ ɯoɹɟ sıɥʇ ʇɐ ƃuıʞool ǝɹ,noʎ sdɐɥɹǝԀ
.
.
Steeplejack
WTF?! Can a brother get some <angle brackets> up in here?
ETA: Okay, so why didn’t it work in my previous? FYWP.
ruemara
>>Steeplejack
Why would anyone need that? right click, copy link location, link button, close tags.
eemom
@ Warren Terra
I don’t even know how to embed links.
Steeplejack
Okay, let’s see if this works:
ETA: Okay, this works. Replace the comment number with the one you want, “Xecky Gilchrist” with the name of the person whose comment it is.
On second thought, maybe it would be better to just have a drink and wait for the site gnomes to fix it.
Steep +1
Poopyman
I’ve only got my ipad with me,and it NEVER has the reply button in Safari, so I can’t really tell.
And per gbear @4, Kay managed to find me before the keynote addresses started. I was just sitting there zoned out and there she was all of a sudden. But I turned around before Howard Dean started and she was gone.
Calouste
@ kdaug
The captain of the Bounty actually had a pretty good career. He became governor of New South Wales, where he was again desposed in a mutiny, this time by an Army regiment, but even that second little hiccup didn’t prevent him from finishing his career as Vice-Admiral.
askew
That Booman piece on Netroots Nation was excellent particularly this part:
From NN reports, the conference with Jane Hamsher, Dan Choi, and John Aravosis trashing the president was the most attended. It has also resulted in 2 rec list diaries at DK trashing OFA and Obama. And the talking points from the netroots spills over onto MSNBC making the netroots as detrimental to Democrats as Fox.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Okay, this also works if you insert the whole “Copy Link Location” snippet:
ETA: Well, my work here is done. Off to make a massive drink and get back to night-shift decompression mode.
Violet
@ askew:
Exactly. It doesn’t help much at all.
Also, Rush Limbaugh loves to read diaries/posts from places like GOS when he finds one that is crapping all over the President or the Dems. “See! Even his supporters don’t like him!”
Martin
Oh, usually I’m just accused of spouting conventional wisdom or some lame shit like that. I don’t think anyone’s dropped douchebag on me before – or at least not in quite a long time.
Roger Moore
@Comrade Kevin:
Yes, there is. It’s called FOADIAF.
Sly
All that’s missing is Otter from Animal House standing up and shouting, “I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.”
Warren Terra
@Poopyman:
It’s possible the iPad is different, but (when it existed) I used the “Reply” function in Safari on my iPod Touch all the time. The trick is that you have to tap the “link” button – and then the “Reply” button appears.
Of course, you’d be hard pressed to test this method just at the moment.
CaseyL
Hey! I can see Russia from the window!
… where the hell are we, anyway?
Roger Moore
@eemom:
That’s very simple.
1) Copy the address you want to link onto the clipboard
2) Highlight the text you want to turn into the link
3) Push the link putton
4) Paste the address into the popup box. Press OK.
5) Voila! You have now embedded a link.
If that’s too much effort, you just type
<a href="address">link text</a>
eemom
That is some fucked up shit.
I hope Kay is able to find a few sane people there to keep her company.
4jkb4ia
This must be related to the Pirates being two games over .500, an indication of a great disturbance in the space-time continuum. And that was too irresistible for John not to know it was coming.
eemom
testing
Suffern ACE
Perhaps the saddest thing I read today was Kay writing in that that panel was better attended than the one regarding Wisconsin. And then Towleroad’s report on what that panel was about. I wonder if it’s too late to form a “Gays Against Shitty People Posing as Their Leaders” group to march in Pride next week.
Constance
ABL is the best. She and Tunch are the reason I follow this blog.
eemom
kewl!! Thanks Roger!!
(yes, I’m a retard. Or a ‘tard, as my sister puts it.)
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
Well, I don’t have anything to say, you’ve done the best you could. You really have, the best you could. You can’t expect to win em all. But, I want to tell you something I’ve kept to myself through these years. I was in the war myself, medical corps. I was on late duty one night when they brought in a badly wounded pilot from one of the raids. He could barely talk. He looked at me and said, “The odds were against us up there, but we went in anyway, I’m glad the Captain made the right decision.” The pilot’s name was George Zip.
George Zip said that?
The last thing he said to me, “Doc,” he said, “some time when the crew is up against it, and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to get out there and give it all they got and win just one for the Zipper. I don’t know where I’ll be then, Doc,” he said, “but I won’t smell too good, that’s for sure.”
Excuse me doc, I got a plane to land.
Cassidy
Skinny, hipster jeans tears them right back out. And listening to Best Coast makes your testicles shrink.
ktward
Holy moly– 116 comments? Seriously? There really is a lack of oxygen on this flight.
MikeJ
Ok, I found the problem with reply. The CSS is looking for the yarr block (the reply popup) to be a child of a block element called comment. There’s no comment element.
Did a alternating colour for comments thing get installed today? Right where I’d expect to see something like div id=”comment” there are alternating li’s with class ” ” or class “alt”.
Anyway, the css can’t make the reply block visible because it’s looking for the child of a non-existent parent.
Calming Influence
I’m sorry, did you really say
Nicole
Totally off-topic, but I had to share before I go back to work- I just visited a horse-racing site I often read, and there’s a thread up about Animal Kingdom, the Kentucky Derby winner, exiting the Belmont Stakes with a slight injury, likely due to reckless riding on the part of another jockey. Long story, but the thread turned into an argument about whether 2005 Preakness/Belmont winner Afleet Alex’s career-ending injury happened as a result of a near-fall in the Preakness or due to his very heavy exercise regimen. One commenter insisted it was due to the exercise saying, “Well, when you buy a used car, aren’t you concerned about the mileage?”
The fuck?
Did I mention lots of the people on that board are raging conservatives? I’m not saying there’s a connection, but- okay, I’m saying exactly that.
Omnes Omnibus
There are comments to which I would like to reply, but there is no button let me do that.
Calming Influence
EffYouWP
Steeplejack
@eemom:
Okay, that link worked. Congrats! Now just replace “testing” with something actually descriptive.
Roger Moore
@eemom:
Nah, you’re not a ‘tard. You were just ignorant, a condition that can be cured by education. A real ‘tard wouldn’t be able to make the linky work even with step by step directions.
Steeplejack
@4jkb4ia:
Well, there was a full moon and a complete lunar eclipse yesterday. Makes you think.
Calming Influence
I mean really – it’s not random, is it? WP has some fucking schizophrenia-base comment formatting algorithm, aimed at maximum irritation?
Cassidy
The reply button was redacted by Palin’s staff.
eemom
it’s something I found on memeorandum about the latest slimery of John Edwards. I was trying to summon lil Timmeh to show up and lecture me about my obsession.
eemom
goddamn, that’s cool.
Calming Influence
Palin’s staff is a pile of Einsteins compared to the fuckers that inflicted the world with WordPress.
Cassidy
Same one’s that made Powerpoint.
Villago Delenda Est
If only the feds were as interested in Goldman Sachs as they are in John Edwards, I’d be thrilled.
Or, perhaps, they are, but you’ll never get the minions of The Mouse to report on it.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Booman, aka “The Primary Barack Obama Apologist,” is ever-vigilant at Keeping It Real. For example – “There’s a line between principled advocacy for the issues you care about and being a careerist champion of the most powerful politician in the United States and the Commander in Chief of the most awesomest murderingest most top sekretist military in the world.”
.
.
eemom
Unk, Booman is actually a very nice man who lives in a cabin with his wife and their adorable 18 month old baby.
What are you, IRL? Inquiring minds wish to know.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
This discussion about NN makes me think the blogosphere needs to look inward and reaccess their goals.
When the netroots began 9 years ago, it was billed as the progressive moment’s new media arm, new voice, and the new brain trust.
The new media part has worked well, but it still doesn’t have the reach or power of television.
The voice part isn’t working out, because the blogosphere is so splintered and various factions are constantly engaged in internecine arguments.
The brain trust part is a complete failure. And this is the most important element. There’s absolutely no strategic nor tactical strategy. Every move is reactive. Every move is done on an ad hoc basis. No play book. No preset response to arising events.
Weinergate is a great example. Blogs love Weiner and they didn’t want him to resign for multiple reasons. So what did they do? Nothing. Did they tell Pelosi to back him? No. Did they press media organizations, including MSNBC, to back off? No. Did they organize demonstrations in DC and NYC to support Weiner? No. The offered absoultely no strategic or tactical response.
It’s one thing if the netroots were young or small or even lacking knowledge and experience. But neither of this is true. They have talent, resources, they’re in their 10th year of operation, and with a large following.
If they don’t develop and employ comprehensive and cohesive strategies on policy and politics, then they’ll just be a news aggregate, with opinion, and a place to post post cat photos, and vent.
Steeplejack
@eemom:
That worked perfectly. I am not, however, getting out of the boat for that story. Just the picture at the top is creepy and depressing. To think that I used to admire him. I wanted him to be Obama’s attorney general.
Lolis
Oh Captain, my Captain …
Yutsano
@Steeplejack:
The mangoes man, think of the mangoes!
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@Suffern ACE: The NN organizers should have made it a mandatory twin bill. To gain admission to the obama bashing entrée, you have to stay for the meat and potatoes on the Wisconsin recall.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Please remain calm.
The COUCHES!!! Where’s the FUCKING COUCHES??!! How can I properly (and fashionably!) collapse while fainting without a couch to land on?!
eemom
@Steeplejack
yeah, that pic is pretty brutal. As one who was TOTALLY take in by the pond scum, it virtually screams, well, “You ‘tard.”
eemom
btw, has anyone thought to inquire whether John Cole actually holds a valid license to pilot this aircraft?
Yutsano
@eemom: What are you, a Communist or something? The Righteous Invisible Hand sez John Cole don’t need no gubmint agency to tell him if he can fly a plane or not! FEEL TEH FREEDUMB!!
Steeplejack
@eemom:
I think it was previously determined (by Yglesias et al.) that blog pilot is one of those libertarian occupations, like barbering, that
doesn’tshouldn’t require a license. But it’s cool. If we crash, Cole will be out of business, so the invisible hand will have done its job. We won’t be around to see it, admittedly, but that’s what we call in software an “implementation detail.”Comrade Kevin
@eemom: I sure as hell didn’t attend that circle jerk. There was a stupid stunt in it, too, where Dan Choi had had his Sinead O’Connor moment, tearing up an Obama picture or an Obama 2012 picture.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
Dude, your reply link-fu is not cutting it. Cut and paste this:
LINK LOCATION = what you get when you right-click on a comment’s link and then “copy link location.”
Sly
@Mike Kay
It has. At least partially.
Quite a few sites wanted to transition from being a media arm and brain trust into an actual constituency of the party (GOS, I think, led the vanguard in this effort). This all started a few years ago when there were NN conferences like “How do we make Democrats accountable?” Now everything is about accountability, and this seems to me to be the preeminent question of the blogosphere.
The problem is the blogosphere does not want to face reality. It isn’t a geographically contiguous bloc of voters with a common political identity. That’s a constituency. A constituency is something along the lines of “union households in Pennsylvania,” “urban middle-class Hispanic professionals in Dallas,” or “suburban evangelicals in Tuscaloosa.” Not “a random collection of geographically disparate leftists on an internet discussion forum.”
And why should any working politician care what the NN collective thinks? Are they all residents of a particular state or district? No. Can they mobilize voters within that working politician’s district or state? No. Can they raise money? Yes, but not much compared to the opposition or the big donors within the party.
But because raising money is the only avenue to accountability, that’s what the blogosphere does. The practical result is that it ends up throwing money to blowhards who mug for the camera (you know… Real Progressive Heroes) instead of passing legislation, because those blowhards aren’t going to get money from the big institutional donors. The big institutional donors know better.
Thus the blogosphere has become a shitty, decentralized, and easily manipulated PAC.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: Weird…that’s what I did. I might just have to sit that out until the linkage is no longer fuxxored.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
Here’s what actually shows up in your “reply” link to my message:
You just need to
clean uperase the hexadecimal shmutz at the end.Comrade Kevin
@Sly: The big speeches, which most people focus on, are, basically, useless. I was rather underwhelmed by Howard Dean (a bunch of nothing) and Russ Feingold (thundering about cutting off corporate donations he accepted himself).
There was an interesting discussion I attended today about action to try to overturn the Citizens United decision. I think they were overestimating their chances, but at least they were focusing on some actual action that would improve things, and not bashing Barack Obama.
Sly
@Comrade Kevin
I’m not generally for or against Dean. In a lot of ways we’re on the same page with respect to properly analyzing and prioritizing problems facing the party. But from a practical perspective, looking at his priorities as governor, his 2004 campaign, and his tenure as the chairman of the party, one can not escape the conclusion that he’s one of the most cleverly disguised moderate Democrats of the past decade. His progressive cred arose entirely from his war opposition.
Feingold, I think, made the mistake of trying to speak too much to a disparate national constituency in order to get money at the expense of maximizing institutional relationships within his state. The kinds of relationships that end up getting you votes. His current actions w/r/t Wisconsin and Walker might possibly be moving away from that, wishful thinking aside.
This is what Kucinich, the perennial progressive champion, will never do. Last time I checked he raised more money from out of his district (and out of his home state) than any other member of Congress. The short-term benefit was that he could outspend any Republican challenger by something like five to one. The long-term drawback is that he has very little cachet within Ohio and might lose his seat due to redistricting.
Honestly, I’d prefer to leave that kind of myopia to the GOP. And that’s the big problem with progressives now: myopia. Too many people thinking that they can take their ball and go home when they neither have a ball nor a home where they can take it if they did. This is not ideal behavior of a people who are faced with a political opposition that wants them dead.
Martin
The big design challenge for all the mobile devices is that without a cursor, ‘hover’ doesn’t do anything, and that’s when the Reply link usually appears. Hover is damn handy, but if you want iPad/smartphones to work you need to design without it.
joel hanes, sp4
mock up my own reply link
Usenet a.r.s tell
Hi Barb. Long time no restimulation.
yours in joking and degrading …
Ripley
Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Minneapolis with all that stuff!
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@Sly:
Ugh. That’s a passive, lazy, unproductive, and also counterproductive. What they should be doing is coming up with an agenda and then a marketing strategy so they can sell it to moderates and low information types, all the while building a coalition and earning media attention.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@Comrade Kevin: What’s he whinning about? Obama repealed DADT. Obama stopped defending DOMA. DOMA will be overturned with a couple of more justices. OTOH, the republican candidates actually want to bring DADT back. And Romney actually wants to amend the US constitution to ban same sex marriage.
Sly
@Mike Kay
Such a course of action eschews the fits of impotent rage that help activists attain a kind of reckless and self-indulgent catharsis that the human psyche often demands. So it is, of course, immediately disqualified.
alwhite
Is this like at work? If so I will call you every 5 minutes asking you how much longer until it is fixed because I am sure that will make you fix it faster. If that doesn’t work I will get successively higher levels of management involved because there is no problem that will not succumb to a bunch of VPs asking “what happened” and “what are you doing about it”
alwhite
@SLY
A lot of Dean’s credibility came from the fact that he was willing to fight! He always effectively pushed back against the BS and he implemented the 50 state strategy while head of DNC. That won seats for Dems in places they had never been competitive in and forced the Rs to spend money in places that had not had to.
TK-421
At the sports blog I hang out at, our “submit” button is labelled “Fart Battalion.” Why? Because shut up, that’s why.
I’m not saying, I’m just saying…
Sly
@alwhite
You mean Howard Dean helped elect all those moderate and conservative Democrats that progressives yell about all the time, and criticize for not being real Democrats like Howard Dean?
alwhite
@Sly
Some, yes but he also helped elect some good liberal Democrats too by not giving the Rs as much breathing room. First we elect Democrats then we can start working on better Democrats.
Ben Cisco
But WHY is the reply button gone?
stuckinred
It’s a malfunction at the junction.
Bobby Thomson
A really big left wing? You sound as crazy as Shatner.
ChrisNYC
@ Sly
I think it’s a bit more sinister than that, at least on the part of the putative leaders of the blogosphere. I think they realize that they don’t wield actual power.
They seem to be grappling with that by trying to give both electeds and just regular lefties the impression that they do have power. I think that’s what the showy, ceaseless and increasingly schizophrenic bitching is about. Any bad result is deemed the result of shadowy “corporate”/DLC maneouvering, e.g. “‘the base’ didn’t turn out in 2010”, any good result is deemed the product of the “pressure” that they say they put on Obama, e.g., Choi and Aravosis got DADT repeal passed. Constant outrage is a central part of the strategy.
WereBear
So a conference sponsored and promoted by DKos winds up like… DKos. Whocoodanode!
Seriously though, I think we have to start somewhere.
boss bitch
@Sly:
No. Those were all Rahm’s fault. Don’t ask me how but every time I bring up this fact I’m told that Rahm was the reason we have the conservative Democrats. Even heard it from Maxine Waters a couple of years ago.
arguingwithsignposts
@ChrisNYC – as soon as the Professional Left can get a Tahrir Square sized event going, I’ll start listening to them again. They had nothing to do with Madison or the protests in Ohio. It was folks like kay and the union locals who did the heavy lifting in those cases.
They couldn’t even keep their golden boy Russ Feingold in office or keep all these insane GOP governors from wrecking half the country.
If ever the truism about typing angrily on the Internetz was true..
boss bitch
Regarding Dan Choi and the OFA flyer incident. I think it was staged.
This is the transcript from Think Progress
NICK TSCHIDA (Obama volunteer): I can’t say I’m for marriage equality, but as a bisexual man, I would take a bullet for both of you.
CHOI: You say you’re not for marriage equality?
TSCHIDA: I can’t, no as a….
[RIPPING SOUND]
CHOI: Did you not understand? Here! I believe that I’m an equal citizen.
TSCHIDA: I understand that, but Obama hasn’t gone officially on record for it…
CHOI: Then, don’t tell me that I’m a bad person, go tell him that he should believe in my full equality and then report back.
TSCHIDA: Civil unions?
a bisexual against gay marriage at NN? an OFA member at NN handing Lt. Dan Choi an OFA flyer? Its not impossible, but to have all of this in a neat little scene where Choi can rip up a flyer that represents Obama? GTFOH!!
arguingwithsignposts
@ boss bitch – i can’t say i can fault obama here. He’s never supported full equal marriage for lgbt’s. Said so every time he was asked the question on the campaign trail. I think he’s wrong (or at least we need to untangle the religious and legal aspects of coupling two individuals), but if people voted for him on that false premise, then they’re stupid.
Davis X. Machina
Fixed.
This is a Weiner thread, right?
Cris (without an H)
@MikeJ is right, and it turns out that the only change from 3.1. to 3.1.3 is the thing that broke the button for you. From the @reply changelog:
It’s a bad update, at least as far as your site goes. It depends on a classname that your site isn’t using. Just roll back to 3.1. Or do it manually:
/wp-content/plugins/reply-to/at-reply.php, line 34
change
.comment:hover .yarr { visibility:visible }
to
li:hover .yarr { visibility:visible }
Cris (without an H)
oh fuck, I broke the site
Albert Mond
At this angle I cannot be sure if it is a wing or just Tunch. :/