Christ. I have nothing to say. I’m babbling on twitter, there is a band camp in town that decided they need to march around the god damned town in the dark so they can drive my dogs insane, and I’m just so disgusted with everything I can’t even rant coherently. I feel like I should apologize to people like Kay who actually write coherent, topical, useful posts.
Reader Interactions
297Comments
Comments are closed.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Hang in there big fella, 24 days till football.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
We need a little more sputtering rage on this blog, John.
Better we vent here than take it out on loved ones, right?
Baud
What you really need is more threads on the weekend. The lack of activity is forcing me to spend time with my family.
robertdsc-PowerBook
You could always show Tunch, Lily, and Rosie pix and videos.
schrodinger's cat
What we need is more and better Tunch photos.
ETA: Or better still live action TunchCam.
Wilson Heath
It’s just for that sort of occasion that I keep a chainsaw and hockey mask handy. You never know when you’ll need them.
Comrade Mary
Can you give Tunch FPP privileges? I bet he has a few stories to tell.
C.J.
@Baud:
It’s making me go outside. I’m fair skinned, I burn easily!
Tithonia
Band camp is kids having fun. At least they’re learning music and not breaking into cars. Lighten up, Mr Cole!
Comrade Mary
(See? At least three of us think the solution involves MOAR TUNCH!)
General Stuck
The comment sections of your blog are just about certifiable, so if I was you, I’d stay on twitter rather than wade into the snake pit.
lamh34
Have you started drinking yet? your funnier and more mellow when you drink. Forget about your liver, who needs it anyway. Ain’t it one of those vestigial organs or is that your appendix.
Anyway drink up?
me
Could be worse. You could live in London.
Ripley
Serenity now. Apocalypse later.
Too Many Jimpersons (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
So, since this is an open thread, here’s something I’m wondering about… We have a 14 year old dog. She’s a brittany spaniel, so she’s a goofball. She’s in good health. You’d think she was 14 months old. But since last fall, she’s been drinking water obsessively and then she pisses on the floor. I’ve had to take her water away at bedtime so I don’t wake up to puddles all over the house, but then she began climbing into the bathtub to like the spout, so now I have to shut the bathroom door to keep her out. For a little while when this began last fall, she would climb into the bathtub and chew on the soap.
We took her to the vet, and they sent us to a specialist. They kept her for 2 days and did all kinds of tests, and nothing showed up. They doctor told us that his best guess was that it was psychogenic. And looking back, we found that this all began about the time that we had a miscarrige, so I guess maybe that makes sense. Dogs are highly plugged into what we’re going through. So, anyway, now that this has been going on for the better part of a year, I’m getting tired of her pissing all over the place; by keeping her water intake down somewhat it’s less making puddles than dribbling while she sleeps, so I have to wash her and her bedding every few days.
Has anybody ever seen anything like this? Does anybody have any thoughts? As I said, she’s in great shape aside from being neurotically driven to drink water and then dribble all over the place.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
It’s so hot here in Dallas that when they start evening practice I hope they do it at night.
lamh34
speaking of drinking, I have an uncle who used to drink beer with every meal and heck sometimes at lunch, I can honestly say I rarely saw him without a beer can in his hand.
So his wife badgered him and got him to quit cold-turkey. I kid ya not, almost 1 month to the day, he was diagnosed with ulcers. He was convinced that the lack of drinking led to the ulcers.
He went back to his beer a day diet, and left the wife, and is much happier for it…
so drink up
jeffreyw
Pork Lo Mein
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@lamh34: You want some stories about friends of mine that drank themselves to death?
lamh34
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): it has been awfully hot here. Are we still on my long-streak of >100 degree days here in DFW? Last I heard we were already at day 27!
Funny since I assumed the rain would begin to pour after Guv Goodhair’s prayer-fest…hmm.
chopper
this one time at band camp we annoyed an ex-republican blogger.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@jeffreyw: Good lookin chop chop!
Steeplejack (phone)
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
Hell, preseason starts Thursday, if you’re really jonesin’.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: How is Homer kitteh? What has he been up to?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Steeplejack (phone): I’m more of a college fan but I’ll take it. Got my Georgia season tix in the mail today!
Odie Hugh Manatee
You need a good hobby to distract you from shit when it flies. I have several and I indulge in them regularly. They’re a good distraction and allow you to focus your efforts on something that actually accomplishes something.
Unlike political bickering, which can quickly get very frustrating to read constantly.
jane from hell
awesome, I can’t seem to watch the Daily Show, maybe I can get twitter. Is he issuing arm-wrestling challenges yet?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Fuckin A! I fooled around under the truck yesterday just tightening bolts!
eta’
Speaking of, I’ve got a fairly new saginaw 3 speed with a hurst floorshifter and I’m starting to get some grinding when I go into 3rd. If I take it easy and push the shifter to the right it doesn’t do it. Synchro’s. clutch or whatcha think?
lamh34
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): No thanks. I am well aware of alcohol related deaths.
A family friend was a big-time drinker. He didn’t die directly from the drinking i guess, but he was riding his bike to work and was hit by a car. I believe that he was the cause which led to the accident and he didn’t survive from his injury.
CaseyL
Join the club.
Although. I have noticed a strange thing.
If I go online and check my favorite blogs – if I check the news – the world is falling apart, burning as it falls, and we are all doomed.
But in RL, I go to work, and all my coworkers are there. We do our jobs, we have lunch together, and go home at the end of the day. Weekends, we go out – to dinner, to the mountains, to a movie. The buses are filled with other people going to work, going home, going out: having a life, having fun. Kids ride their bikes around town. People take their dogs to the dog park.
There is a strange sense of disconnect.
I know the world is falling apart because that’s all anyone talks about on-line and on TV.
But if I didn’t live on the computer, didn’t read newspapers or watch the news, I would not know chaos was about to overtake us all.
I’m not very sure what’s real, is what I’m saying.
jl
GOP seems to be doubling down on cuts to Medicare as one of their top priorities. In fact, their only priority, other than and right behind, no new tax revenue at all for any reason.
That is bizarre. I guess they think they can pull another big con on the voters.
But how? Graham and now Cantor saying we must slash Medicare to save it.
Maybe they figure they have crazied and bullied the population into a kind of electoral Stockholm syndrome by now, and they can be threatened and scared into anything.
As in, “The country’s broke, so you get leeches, lying on the cement floor of our new voucherized privatized market magic health care system. You don’t like our offer, you can wish for leeches later, after everything is gone. Make my day, suckers.” That is the message I get from their antics.
It does seem like Obama is blessed by having crazy enemies.
jane from hell
HA “I’m picking out some cilantro, for you. Not an ordinary cilantro will do…..”
(#whoneedsnetflix)
Shinobi
Think progress tweets, the london eye is burning: http://twitpic.com/6374u9
Jenny
Tina Brown endorses Romney.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/post-partisan/Images/bachmann-newsweek.jpg?uuid=VE0dPMHKEeCezm5RfD3YxQ
MikeJ
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
My girlfriend complains about the grease and the concrete floor. The back of the truck will give you a lot more room too.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@lamh34: k, sorry about your friend.
askew
@Too Many Jimpersons (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
Are you sure it isn’t diabetes? We had an older dog that had similar problems and it turned out that she had diabetes. We started insulin shots and the excessive thirst and urinating stopped.
Shinobi
My comment is in moderation…
jeffreyw
@schrodinger’s cat: Homer’s fine. He did pitch a fit when Mrs J brought home a new kitteh for a trial run. We discounted his objections but the new kitteh had a major beef with the dogs so he had to go back.
Samara Morgan
been there. done that.
just a suggestion….kick that highverbal firebagging-obama-concerntroll de Bore off the front page and things will will get bettah.
:)
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@MikeJ: ding
Samara Morgan
@Too Many Jimpersons (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): PROIN
moe99
I am repeating myself, I know but this is SO worth it.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Samara Morgan: You know anything about saginaw 3 speeds?
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: Homer doesn’t want competition I guess, any new photos?
Comrade Mary
You know your problem? You keep it all in.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jenny: No shit. THOSE EYES . . . AAAAARGH!!
Ron
Saw that Rick Santelli doubled down on the crazy. He said if it weren’t for the Tea Partiers we’d be at a BBB rating.
WaterGirl
Cole, if your air conditioning is still out, that may be while you feel like you can’t put two thoughts together. When mine was out I could barely think straight.
jeffreyw
@schrodinger’s cat: Latest one here.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@WaterGirl: This dude is a Gulf War Vet, you think he’s understand heat related issues.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Ron:
Yep…and all the people that fucked up our economy get to scold us on how horrible and awful we are and how we all ruined the country while they were just trying to save the country from us.
And the media winds on, ‘pox on both houses’ at best, ‘pox on you goddamn liberals’ at worst.
trollhattan
@ John Cole
The only thing that would make this band scenario better is if it were mariachi marching around town all night.
Ole!
In the meantime, there’s your good friend ethanol in his many guises. Salute!
J. Michael Neal
@Samara Morgan:
Every time you post.
Litlebritdifrnt
@me:
It isn’t fucking funny. Sorry you think it is. People are jumping from burning buildings. I suppose it would be just hunk dory if the Brits mocked the people jumping from the World Trade Center buildings during 911. Go fuck yourself.
gnomedad
@pourmecoffee:
trollhattan
@Jenny:
Isn’t that pic a beaut? Crazy eyes are crazy. Or is it crazy Ayes?
fhtagn
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen
TaMara (BHF)
@Too Many Jimpersons (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): If they have ruled out diabetes and any other health concerns, I’d go to Rescue Remedy, I learned about it from an elephant rescue group and can tell you that it really helps. I use it when we transition rescues to our family or the animals are having emotional issues. Really cuts down on behavior problems. You can just add it to the puppy’s water.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: Cute! What are the hunting, I wonder. Spiders?
WaterGirl
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Circular argument… since he’s that hot, how can his brain work enough to see the reason why? :-)
Though I do wonder how anyone could make it in the gulf war if you can’t handle heat. (which I can’t)
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@schrodinger’s cat: meecces
lamh34
Um wait, did that Hagee dude at Perry’s Church-fest really compare Guv Goodhair to Abraham Lincoln?????
Really! Really! Really! (In my best, SNL Seth Meyers Weekend Update voice). Hmm, other than being tall and white, what exactly makes Perry comparable to Lincoln???
These people are ridiculou
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@WaterGirl: You adjust
jeffreyw
@schrodinger’s cat: As Mrs J explained, “Eek! A mouse”!
Gozer
Came across this earlier today: http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/08/06/mississippi.hate.crime/index.html
I seem to remember something a while back about how younger people in MS are more conservative than their parents and that a large percentage of young Mississippians don’t agree with interracial relationships.
But this is just sickening.
EDIT: I’ve been doing mil/house renovation stuff most of the day so I don’t know if this has been posted before.
Matt Mangels
This is a question I asked DougJ in an email and am re-posting here: my grandfather, a staunch New Deal Democrat and liberal, voted for Barry Goldwater in ’64 because he (rightly) feared Johnson was going to escalate the war in Vietnam. Would this retroactively qualify him as a “manic progressive”?
I’m not trying to be snarky or anything, just genuinely curious.
WaterGirl
@Too Many Jimpersons (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): If it’s been a year, I would take her back in to be tested.
If she still comes out with a good bill of health this time aruond, then I would second what TaMara said. Rescue remedy is really great.
They make one for pets (doesn’t have alcohol) but it does have preservatives, so I still give my guys the Rescue remedy for humans. It really helps if they are in pain, or nervous, etc. Let us know how she does! She sounds like a doll, but I know the whole peeing thing can get to you, even if it’s the most wonderful dog in the world.
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): I imagine you do!
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Mystery Quote –
I’m stumped.
.
.
Suffern ACE
What exactly do investors pay attention to? Didn’t they notice that something was peculiar about banks 3 years ago?
katherine
@Too Many Jimpersons (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): My dog had Cushing’s disease which caused her to drink excessively and have accidents, especially when she was sleeping. There is medication, Proin, that can help with the incontinence.
Chris
@Matt Mangels:
I don’t know, but I think he’s crazy if he thought Goldwater wasn’t going to escalate. The guy made militant confrontation with communism the center of his platform. Heck, you probably would’ve had the Laos and Cambodia bombings as early as 1965.
Jenny
@lamh34:
They both had “beards”.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: I’m not sure Homer approves of his feelings being dismissed like that, but the way your guys pal around together, I can see why a major beef with the dogs would be a non-starter.
He was so beautiful though, and it looked like he had an attitude. In a good way.
Munira
@CaseyL: I know what you mean about the disconnect. I envy my friends who don’t follow the news. I didn’t myself for many years. In fact for six years I lived on a commune and didn’t read a newspaper or magazine, watch tv or listen to the radio the whole time. Watergate happened during that time and I missed it. I had no idea what was going on and was probably better off for it. Now I just have to turn off the computer, go out to my garden or walk in the forest and I immediately forget all about the impending doom. Is it real?
geg6
I feel ya, Cole. Politics suck and I’m just glad that I’m so busy at work that I haven’t had time to pay a lot of attention to the pundits, news, or horse race.
However, in the bipartisan spirit that Obama champions, I’d like to acknowledge my wingnut governor for a rare moment of good feeling across the aisle. Corbett, given the chance to name the adorable baby seal at the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium, named her Sophie, after Sophie Masloff, two-term mayor of Pittsburgh and Democratic Party stalwart and local legend. Any good Yinzer knows the old WDVE skit with Sophie bungie jumping from the Smithfield Street Bridge. Corbett’s a Burgh native and knows everyone loves Sophie. Apparently, even that asshole Corbett.
Irving
@CaseyL: Not hard, really. Take a good look at what you just said… you and your friend doing the thing that bring order and joy to your world, while the doom-sayers talk about rage.
Happiness is a verb. Rage is noun. Only only of these things provide a course of action.
Go pet Tunch, John. Enjoy the music outside, awful as it is, because when’s the next time you’ll hear something like that on a summer night?
There’a time for voting, and canvassing, and calling, and writing passionate letters. Things look bad. Maybe worse than they ever have been.
But right now, in this space and time, the only way we can make this world better to take a moment, love one another, and hope that somehow we can re-start the hard work of convincing others that asking for help from your neighbors, and giving it without fear is the only way to run a country (or a family, or a neighborhood, or a life).
Relax. Breathe. It’s a Midsummer night. Breathe, and fight when action matters.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
More than likely synchro but I would make sure that the shifter is properly aligned, lubricated and adjusted. The cessation of grinding when pressing the shifter one way or another could indicate problems there. It could also be that you are slowing the engagement a bit, allowing the worn syncro to align.
Easy (and cheap!) stuff first, which would be the shifter and linkages. Also make sure that your clutch is properly adjusted as that can cause final gear engagement issues at speed.
I just finished putting the motorcycle back together. Pulling the head to replace a seeping gasket became a valve job when the son did not understand what happens when you turn the cams on a cylinder head with an interference valve arrangement. Four bent valves…lol! Luckily I had a spare low-mileage head on hand that I hit for parts. One full valve job later and it’s back on the road, running better than ever.
Without any leaks! Hobbies are fun, eh? Good luck with the tranny (and hope it’s the shifter)!
Mark S.
Idiots want to know: Does The Michele Bachmann Newsweek Cover Make Her ‘Look Crazy’? Trick question: Michelle Bachmann is crazy. Unless they photoshop her eyes, there isn’t any way to not make her look crazy.
It’s going to be a bumpy ride for Michele and her gay husband. The rest of the country is soon going to learn what we losers at Balloon Juice have known for years: Bachmann is ten times nuttier than your average Republican nutter. I’m getting excited!
lamh34
@Jenny:
I see what you did there!!!
Lolis
@Jenny:
Ha. I don’t see how that photo will sell magazines. So there is that. But if Perry jumps in, Bachmann was toast anyway.
Mark S.
@Jenny:
Nice!
ETA: I didn’t realize you linked that back at 33. I’m slow today.
lamh34
Is it weird that when I read this headline I literally screamed out “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LEAVE BABY ALONE!!!!!”
Kenny Ortega set to direct ‘Dirty Dancing’ remake
WaterGirl
@katherine: @Too Many Jimpersons (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): It can be hard to diagnose cushings. My sister’s dog had it, and they kept blowing my sister off and blowing her off, until she insisted, and then took the dog to another vet, and finally the dog was diagnosed with cushings.
Does your dog also pant a lot? Have any skin issues? You now know everything I know abut cushings.
Edited to change some of the pronouns so you would be able to tell when I was talking about my sister, and when I was talking about the dogs.
Mark S.
Tunch is filling in for Cole on twitter.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat: I think it was a mouse. WAS.
different church-lady
[sob…] You used to babble at us!
SiubhanDuinne
@TaMara (BHF): Huge fan of Rescue Remedy here. For people and other creatures.
Amir Khalid
@fhtagn:
Du hast recht.
schrodinger's cat
@SiubhanDuinne: oh noes poor mousie.
Samara Morgan
oh yay!
fthagens back.
ramadan mubarak, fthagn!
srsly Cole, shrive yourself.
Kain rolled you like a cheap drunk, and firebagger freddie is gettin’ torched in the comments.
Shrive yourself man.
confession is good for the soul.
@Amir Khalid: hey, brother. i thought you were gunna get back to me on that Quran thing.
did you fall asleep?
Ira-Ny
Asian markets taking beating.
Ira-Ny
Asian markets taking beating.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Love to eat them mousies.
Mousies what I love to eat.
Bite they tiny heads off,
Nibble on they tiny feet.
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
Wovon redest du?
Dee Loralei
@Too Many Jimpersons (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): Sounds like diabetes.
I have a 2 and 1/2 yr old Golden named Maggie who is agoraphobic, and it started a few months ago. Totally vexing. And some days I am at the end of my rope trying to get her to go outside with me so she can do her business.
I love Brittanies, my mom’s favorite dog was named Boomer and he was a sweetheart. We all still miss him 5 years later.
Jeffery has a passel of them from what I remember.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: okfine.
@Amir Khalid:
i really shouldnt have to explain this to a fellow muslim.
shariah law is quranic exegesis, right? the message of the Noble Quran made into law. if something is outlawed in the Generous Quran it is outlawed in shariah, in islamic jurisprudence.
The Quran outlaws the proselytization of the poor and ignorant. freedom of speech legalizes the proselytization of everyone, including the poor and ignorant.
is that so hard to understand for a muslim?
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: okfine.
@Amir Khalid:
i really shouldnt have to explain this to a fellow muslim.
shariah law is quranic exegesis, right? the message of the Noble Quran made into law. if something is outlawed in the Generous Quran it is outlawed in shariah, in islamic jurisprudence.
The Quran outlaws the proselytization of the poor and ignorant. freedom of speech legalizes the proselytization of everyone, including the poor and ignorant.
is that so hard to understand for a muslim?
MikeBoyScout
Well John,
if it is any consolation,
Warren Buffett, who knows a thing or two about good blog posts, said, “If there were a quadruple-A rating, I’d give John Cole and Balloon Juice that.” I, and most of the world’s politically obsessed, agree.
J. Michael Neal
@Ira-Ny: US futures not looking much better. Down about 3% since the close.
Heliopause
Could you double Freddie’s salary? He’s writing the most interesting posts right now.
Amir Khalid
@Mark S.:
Just wait for it: Michele Bachmann is going to complain that Newsweek didn’t Photoshop the cover picture to make her look sane.
MikeJ
@lamh34: You should listen to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me‘s Peter Sagal tell his story of writing Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights on This American Life. He didn’t start out to write a Dirty Dancing movie, but they bought his script and made it one.
marcopolo
So in order to get more info on what is happening in London I just read this article. And the thing that sticks out to me is how all these government officials who are now in these emergency meetings to figure out what to do had to return from vacation in countries other than Britain to make the meeting. Is this just the August in Europe is vacation month? Or is it just the elites in Britain tend to be off having fun when everything goes to hell?
Just wondering.
lamh34
@MikeJ:
It does not surprise me that the studios are responsible for the crap-fest that was Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights.
I should sue to get the hour and a half I wasted on that piece of crap!
Comrade Kevin
@SiubhanDuinne: Kliban?
Samara Morgan
@Heliopause:
you’re a LoOG sockpuppet, right?
de Bore just got his ass handed to him.
or did you forget the sarc tag?
SiubhanDuinne
@Comrade Kevin: Yup
TooManyJens
One of us! One of us!
Elie
@jeffreyw:
Yum! thanks
Trader Joe’s just started carrying Mozzarella du Buffalo — imported from Italy. To DIE for on a caprese salad — ripe tomato with discs of mozarrella seasonend with basil shreds, oregano, salt, pepper and the finest virgin olive oil drizzeled over all of it… Oh my oh my… the best!
Martin
Tomorrow doesn’t look like a happy market day. I wonder at what point the GOP is going to put country before party? Not holding my breath.
jwb
@Matt Mangels: If that one issue was that important to him and he honestly believed that Goldwater was likely to be sufficiently better on that issue to make up for everything else, then no he was not being the equivalent of a manic-progressive. Our brand of manic progressive today does not typically make such arguments, however.
Steeplejack
@Comrade Kevin:
I thought it was Mason Williams (of “Classical Gas” fame). He had a whole set of those little songs. “Look at them moose-goosers, goosin’ them moose” was another one.
ETA: Okay, found the original Kliban cartoon on the Google.
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
Heavens to Betsy, girl. That thread is, like, two days old. Have you added me to your stalk list now?
Look: as far as I’m concerned, people should be free to profess as they believe. If they have doubts about their faith they should be free to investigate other options, including hearing out evangelists from other faiths — and yes, convert from Islam if that’s where their new convictions lead them. Because there can be no compulsion of belief, is that not so? No faith is happy with its apostates; but any faith that claims a right to evangelize to others, as Islam does, must also grant other faiths a right to evangelize to its own flock.
And that’s my final word on the subject, no matter how much it shocks you.
Samara Morgan
hey, Cole, your grand experiment in
reaching across the aislereacharounds is an Epic Fail.dig Hbin
El Cid
@Chris:
The US was bombing Cambodia in 1965. These weren’t yet the B-52’s raining a half-million tons all over rural Cambodia.
However, hundreds of targets were bombed for tactically-claimed purposes, though in at least 80 of them the USAF said they had no idea what they had bombed, and no success was apparently ever claimed that this targeted bombing affected or even successfully targeted major Vietnamese forces crossing the Cambodian border.
About 200 tons of bombs were dropped in a few thousand sorties through 1968. It’s not known how many were killed, but several hundreds to a few thousand have variously been claimed. No word on how many were attending wedding parties at the time of bombing.
(Targets, tonnage, and strike data are known in great detail thanks to USAF bombing data and maps released by the Clinton administration, partly to assist mine and bomb clearance programs.)
What changed under Nixon (and sage current wise-man and potential economic consultant Henry Kissinger) was that he turned it from this sort of constant but somewhat limited bombing of a neutral country into a pre-genocidal carpet bombing slaughter of hundreds of thousands of rural Cambodians.
In addition, our destruction of Cambodian agriculture and helped launch an astoundingly intense famine, allowing us all to thank Nixon and the other tough guy hawks for handing Cambodia to the formerly marginal lunatic Khmer Rouge.
(Though we only remember the mass slaughters and deaths of Cambodians after the Khmer Rouge took over, which is correct, since anything else might make Kissinger a less frequent guest on talk shows.)
schrodinger's cat
@lamh34: I love the original Dirty Dancing, I had a major crush on Patrick Swayze when I was a teen!
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: i just want ypu to ANSWER THE QUESTION.
run away, maftoon.
/spit
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack: Nope. Kliban.
Linda Featheringill
The Asian markets do look scary.
FlipYrWhig
@Heliopause:
“I have an excellent way to save the Democratic party. It involves convincing more people to vote for it by making them like Democratic stuff more than they do now. And, no, despite how it sounds, it totally isn’t tautological.”
I can haz Freddie’s raize plz!
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid:
where does Islam claim that?
my faith does not claim that.
I’m a sufi. we are forbidden to proselytize, and muslims can’t proselytize xians or jews anyways, because we all believe in the same Allah.
you are full of shit.
you arent a muslim.
anyways….we arent talking about evangelizing, were are talking about PROSELYTIZING.
eemom
zoned out on Vicodins after carpal tunnel surgery today. Love the whole world.
: ) : ) : ) : ) : )
Martin
Interesting. Not sure about the validity of this author, but adweek is usually not a terribly hinkey source.
Martin
@eemom:
Get better eemom. We love you too.
Chris
@El Cid:
Did not know any of that, thanks.
Amusingly, the ones who finally took on the Khmer Rouge were the same North Vietnamese we were angry at for having beat us. We were less than hostile towards them back when they were actually, y’know, in charge of things, if memory serves.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: runaway, little maftoon.
Amir Khalid
@eemom:
Take care. Get better soon. And be careful what you say until the Vicodin wears off. ;-)
Jon H
Remember the Wyly brothers from Texas, the billionaire ratfuckers who gave lots of money to GOP-supporting ratfucking ad campaigns?
One of them just crashed his Porsche and died.
Neutron Flux
@Samara Morgan: This is where it goes bad for you every time. You should just let it go. Amir is not your enemy, but you are going to make him one.
Amir Khalid
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
I seem to have provoked some from the ever-charming m_c. Will that do?
Martin
@Neutron Flux:
Stalker’s gotta stalk.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
This was from a FPer at DK:
It just about killed me considering what they have been screaming for Obama to do the past few weeks. Watch what happens if I change one word:
This is not meant to be a I hate GOS entry. Heck, we’ve got Freddie here to do the same thing. I just couldn’t help but notice the…I don’t know what the right word is.
Jon H
@Steeplejack:
Speaking of cat-oriented cartoon humorists, the guy behind the “101 Uses For A Dead Cat” book recently died.
Bago
So, this one time in blog camp…
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: Congratulations. This is easily one of the most offensive comments you have ever posted on this blog. Top five with a bullet. You won’t understand why, but that is par for the course. Cheers.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): OK, that’s annoying. I wanted to edit my comment, it says I can edit my comment, cause I have three minutes left, but it won’t let me edit my comment.
Suffern ACE
@Linda Featheringill: It’s odd because I am actually not scared. I feel more like it’s 2003 and Enron and other frauds are tanking the market big time and I feel like buying. Although its 2011 now and I ain’t got no money to buy anything :-(
2008 was scary. I’m glad they recently revised the figures downward to record how scary it was. It looked as if everything was just going to stop, and not just financial markets, and indeed everything was stopping. Now, Tweety can go on and on about the need for a plan and David Frum can suddenly turn into a Krugman acolyte because their investments are tanking and I just feel like laughing at them. That might make me a nihilist, an amoral fucker, but I don’t care if they are waving their hands around shouting murder. Because they haven’t been their shouting when it matters, why should I care about their sudden interest in the economy?
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Get well soon.
Neutron Flux
@Martin: True. But really, when she is not doing this kind of shit, her comments are interesting.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Samara Morgan: You know Samara, it ain’t your blog, get over it. If Freddie, or you, can’t take it, I’m pretty sure there are other blogs for you to hang at. I didn’t care for what Freddie had to say, but if he’s going to be an ass about it, then he needs to take the kicking that’s going to ensue.
Suffern ACE
@Bago:
I kissed a girl virtually, but you don’t know her. We still write, but she’s from Canada. I tell everyone she’s my girlfriend. So shut up about my lack of a date to blog prom.
General Stuck
@eemom:
That’s like far out
Davis X. Machina
@Ron:
Was he surrounded by water-carrying brooms?
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
I think you’re running into the same problem that we Catholics run into quite often: converts who are convinced that they totally understand Catholicism better than those of us who were actually raised in the religion.
Converts are always more fanatical and less flexible than those of us who were actually raised in the church from birth (aka “cradle Catholics”).
Amir Khalid
@Jon H:
As I recall, someone published a reply: 101 Uses for A Dead Simon Bond. Time to look for a copy of that book.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Hell, I see it with Democrats.
gbear
@trollhattan:
Better yet, a mariachi band serenading a beluga whale.
El Cid
@Chris: It was at that time that the US began concentrating on condemning the Vietnamese occupation, and indirectly supporting and defending the Khmer Rouge. You know, the enemy of my enemy is my genocidalist.
I have no idea why people would see the revealing of this type of foreign policy activity as controversial, the province of conspiracy theorists, etc. It’s not like anyone 500 years from now looking back would find it surprising. This is what goes on in foreign policy by major powers, and it all depends on hiding stuff from us and lying about it, in concert with a well-disciplined news media business.
PeakVT
Anybody who is long in the Korean market is probably hating life right now.
Martin
@Neutron Flux:
Ever talk to an unmedicated schizophrenic? That too is interesting.
Linda Featheringill
@Suffern ACE:
I find the world-wide tanking of stock markets a bit surreal. It’s much too much to be because the US got downgraded. Besides, US paper is reportedly selling like hotcakes, with quite low interest rates.
I know Europe has problems but that isn’t anything new. Of course, I don’t know a lot about that. Maybe folks are afraid that Germany won’t want to carry Greece and Italy and . . . .
Asia has been quiet lately, with no new crises. Right?
So what’s up?
Samara Morgan
@Neutron Flux: he is my enemy.
hes a maftoon.
do you know what that means?
its like a house negro for blacks, a gunga for browns.
Islamic law is the Quran made into law.
its incredibly offensive that he can’t or won’t admit that.
hes just lying about Islam.
its not a “difference of opinion.”
and he knows hes lying.
Omnes Omnibus
@El Cid: Some Florentine dude with a long name wrote about this kind of thing about 500 years ago.
Mnemosyne
@gbear:
I can’t figure out if the whale is digging the music or is merely fascinated by the strange actions of the puny humans, but either way it’s awesome.
Shinobi
@marcopolo: Yes, yes it is. And they get to take like, the whole month off, the bastards. I hate US vacation policies. Maybe they should mandate at least 4 weeks of paid vacation for all employees so we don’t riot.
ruemara
@Jon H:
I’m starting to wonder if there’s some sort of cosmic comeuppance happening. There’s been a number of key smackdowns in these past few days. Including this guy’s death.
Linda Featheringill
@gbear:
I saw the video of the Mariachi band serenading a whale. Loved it!
I wonder if Yo Yo Ma could be talked into giving a short performance for the whales? I would bet he’d enjoy it.
Bostondreams
@katherine:
I would have guessed that Cushing’s disease involved your dog putting on a fascist style uniform, blowing up planets for the lulz and sentencing poor little princesses to die.
jwb
@PeakVT: Shaping up for another financial blood bath tomorrow. I hear speculation that the hedge funds are getting hammered and are getting margin calls and that added to the volatility today.
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne: LOL
i was a catholic. my family is soooo catholic that they have an Infant of Prague under a glass bell in the foyer.
i became an atheist in middle school and reverted to Islam while studying arabic.
beltane
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): It’s OK to have a few I Hate GOS entries. That site has gone to utter sh*t these past few months. It is almost embarrassing.
Mark S.
Bachmann–Matako ’12
The Mayans were right. Let’s just get this shit over with.
Omnes Omnibus
@Shinobi: This is also why one should not go to Paris in August. Half of the shit is closed and the people who are there and working are not pleased about it.
Amir Khalid
I am not a psychiatrist. But as I understand, they have something to say about those who see enemies that aren’t really there.
Mnemosyne
@Samara Morgan:
You sound like the fundie Christians who try to convert me because Catholics aren’t “real” Christians.
eemom
thanks y’all. I am like so zen right now, I could face off twenty-three fuckheads and a side order of corner stone. Or something.
Samara Morgan
@jwb: Bank of America tanking.
London calling erm…burning.
Mnemosyne
@Samara Morgan:
So therefore that makes you immune to religious fanaticism? Sounds more like it made you more prone to it.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: You do realize you aren’t supposed to take all the vike at once, right?
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: lol.
just answer the question, maftoon.
is shariah the message of the Quran made into law?
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne: im a muslim.
Amir is not, apparently, if he doesnt understand the concept of islamic jurisprudence.
so what? aint your fight.
and….i WAS raised catholic. catholicism is shit.
:)
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: The dude has more than patiently answered your questions of a number of threads. If you are incapable accepting his answers, the problem is yours. Stop stalking him. You are being even more of an ass than usual.
Linda Featheringill
I find the fundies and their we’re-the-only-true-children-of-god nonsense so embarrassing.
With time, I have left the religion of my youth but I still respect parts of it. I was a fundamentalist but not this TV-preacher-got-will-make-you-rich kind of fundamentalism. What I have carried with me through my life is two principles:
1. You’re not always responsible for what happens to you but you are responsible for how you react and respond.
2. On judgment day, “so-and-so made me do thus and so” won’t be a valid excuse.
But what passes for Christianity among many people today is just dreadful. I am frequently ashamed of them.
handy
@Mnemosyne:
You meet fundie Christians who insist on talking in self-congratulatory poseur babble?
beltane
The news out of London is horrifying. When I see these images of civil society shattering, I can’t help but think how the glibertarians would be no match against a mob of poor teenagers.
Martin
@Linda Featheringill:
Read the S&P statement. They didn’t downgrade our bonds so much as they downgraded our Congress.
The US has always been the last best hope for stabilizing the global economy. Now we’ve got a Congress that goes out of its way to jeopardize the safest investment in the world for political gain. Might be safe to say that the Tea Party has destroyed the confidence that anyone will be willing to act to save the global economy.
In that context, the 18 month guarantee before the next debt ceiling fight looks like a much safer bet than the 2 month guarantee before the next government budget shutdown fight, especially given that the GOP has now come out admitting that they feel empowered to hold everything and anything hostage for ransom – and who knows if that’ll be the global economy.
Linda Featheringill
@handy:
Oh, yes. [you didn’t ask me but they are definitely out there]
Mnemosyne
@Samara Morgan:
Yep, you sound exactly like the Catholic converts who sneer at me for being a “cafeteria Catholic” while they support the death penalty and the Iraq War.
I fear your understanding of Islam is not nearly as deep and broad as you seem to think, dear. Once you start denouncing your co-religionists as “not real (Muslims/Christians/Jews/Hindus/whatever),” you’ve started down the fanatic’s path.
ETA: Also, too, there are cultural differences between Islam in the Middle East and Islam in Asian countries like Maylasia. But you just can’t wrap your head around that concept, can you?
Linda Featheringill
@Martin:
I thought there was a deal on the budget written into the debt ceiling bill.
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne: no i don’t.
Amir is lying right here.
BECAUSE THE QURAN FORBIDS IT ASSCLOWN.
Shariah is based on the Quran. If the Quran forbids it, shariah forbids it.
If Amir is a muslim im Bristol Palin.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Started?! Started down the fanatic’s path?
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
Now you’re attacking Mnemosyne’s religious faith. That’s a truly hateful thing to say. And in the holy month of Ramadan too. Tsk, tsk.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Totally off-topic, but this is an open thread… Anybody seen the photo of Bachmann on Newsweek? She looks more freakish than usual; I daresay any fence-sitters as to Michelle’s stability will be firmly pushed towards the side of “She’s a whackadoodle-doo!”
Mnemosyne
@handy:
I live in Los Angeles — does that answer your question? Our homeless people insist on talking like that, too, though somewhat more coherently than m_c does..
Chris
@beltane:
That may explain their manic obsession with soldiers, spies, cops and other government men with uniforms and guns. If they’re planning to fuck over the poor and working classes completely, they need someone to keep the herd in line, preferably with as few restraints as possible.
And yes, it’s occurred to me more than once that those pricks would never measure up to their inner-city counterparts. Yet another reason why their chest-thumping about their rugged individualism is pathetically out of place.
trollhattan
@gbear:
Holy crap that’s demented. He/she certainly seemed to enjoy it, hope there are some tasty squid nachos to go with the entertainment.
Ole!
Omnes Omnibus
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.): Link?
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
I’m afraid M-C is a very, very confused person, who apparently delights in hearing of women dying in fires under the reproachful gaze of Wahabbist barbarians.
Martin
@jwb: Watch the money market fund volume. That’s what nearly nuked us in 2008 – funds started breaking the buck, and they couldn’t sell equity fast enough to meet withdrawals.
From what I’ve seen, most of the added volume today came from banks doing exactly that. If there’s a run on money markets, the Fed is going to have to come out and backstop them again. That’s bad shit.
Mnemosyne
@Samara Morgan:
Your interpretation of the Quran forbids it. Amir clearly comes from a different religious tradition in Islam and interprets it differently. But your narrow mind just can’t handle the idea that there can be multiple interpretations of a single text, so you have to insist that Amir is not a real Muslim because otherwise it introduces that tiny, niggling doubt into your mind that maybe you’re the one not interpreting it correctly.
At least now we understand why you’re constantly whining about glibertarians — just can’t take the competition from your fellow religious fanatics, can you?
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne: all muslims read the Quran.
@Omnes Omnibus: no he has not.
he runs away.
@Omnes Omnibus: more offensive than this?
sic semper all missionaries.
Amir Khalid
Guardian liveblog reports that Piers Morgan has put in his 140 characters worth on the riots in England. At least one other person on Twitter is not impressed.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@eemom:
Finally, eemom admits she wants to get a room with Jane Hamsher rather than enviously hiss at her every night. Too bad President Obama is so anti-drug.
.
.
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne: Amir is not an islamic scholar.
he doesnt get to interpret.
it would be like some random catholic chick deciding to consecrate the host.
Violet
@Martin:
From zerohedge Twitter:
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: You are an Islamic scholar?
handy
@Amir Khalid:
Piers Morgan is real piece of nine, isn’t he?
Samara Morgan
@Villago Delenda Est: i just think panty-sniffing jesushumpers should mind their own business.
because it doesnt work anyways.
America just spent 4.4 trillion borrowed dollahs and 10 years trying.
do you think severe scoldings from blog commenters are going to make a dent?
trollhattan
Also, too, Swedish-American awesomeness.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/science/09monitor.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: nope, and neither is Amir.
im not interpreting.. shariah forbids proselytizing the poor and ignorant.
its in the Quran.
Omnes Omnibus
Aha, m_c has simply decided to go with offensiveness as her method for getting attention this evening. I apologize to everyone for getting sucked in.
suzanne
@Samara Morgan: I totally hate it when trust-find revolutionary WASPs “adopt” the religious/cultural practices of the “exotic other” in a shallow and deeply colonialist attempt to align themselves with the socio-political outgroup, don’t you?
Social justice fail.
Mnemosyne
@Samara Morgan:
Now I know you weren’t actually raised a Catholic if you can’t tell the difference between bread and a book.
Villago Delenda Est
@Samara Morgan:
Panty-sniffing jesushumpers have more in commmon with Wahabbists than they have with anyone else.
If you had a brain, you’d realize that, and stop defending them.
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne:
there can’t be, not in quranic exegesis, not in shariah, except by trained islamic scholars.
its different than xianity.
handy
@Mnemosyne:
Wait, that’s not a fair comparison. The homeless people you are referring to are often so because of psychological conditions which impair their reasoning and–
Oh, okay. I see what you did.
Martin
@Linda Featheringill:
No. There deal was only to change the baseline, not the budget. It’s a bit of a confusing point. Basically, the baseline is you and your spouse agreeing to how much to spend each month as a long-term guideline. The budget is what you actually authorize to spend on a month-to-month (or whatever) basis. Then there’s what you actually spend. Those should all match, but don’t always.
For instance, the CBO baseline for 2011 said that we’d have a deficit of $1.5T (the OMB baseline is different). The 2011 budget calls for a deficit of $1.68T, quite a bit more. The projected actual budget for 2011 looks to run the deficit in at $1.39T, quite a bit less.
So the deal is to reduce the baseline by a certain amount. Budgets are baseline based – which means we take the baseline as the budget, make the changes we agreed upon, and negotiate from there. So, let’s say the deal was for a $50B reduction to spending for 2012. The CBO baseline is $3.708T in spending, so the budget for 2012 would start at $3.658T and everyone starts negotiating. Spending for 2011 is $3.82T, but it may come in as low as $3.65T. If it does, the 2012 budget might start with MORE spending than this year.
It’s kind of a nutty system, and you have to pay VERY close attention to the exact terms politicians are using. I’m positive that Obama and the Dems are fucking over the tea party simply by using language that these rockheads don’t yet understand and are too careless to actually follow. Of course, the same seems to hold for many on the vocal left.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
Pretty much in the same sense that some correspondence school certificate holder is a theologian, I’d venture.
Samara Morgan
@Villago Delenda Est: /sigh
its not your bidness, VDE. America cannot police the world, and missionary democracy cannot penetrate majority muslim nations.
Fail.
game ovah.
find something else ….like something LOCAL ….to obsess about.
Mnemosyne
@Samara Morgan:
And every trained Islamic scholar, everywhere, at every time and in every country, interprets the Koran in the exact same way? Then why bother having people study it at all anymore if they all come to the exact same conclusion every time? Why is there more than one sect of Islam if every scholar interprets the Koran the exact same way as you claim?
Martin
@Violet: Good to see. What I read appears to have been from early in the day, so maybe it was just a bit of early action.
Linda Featheringill
@Martin:
Oh. Thanks.
suzanne
@Mnemosyne:
Because SHUT UP, THAT’S WHY.
God. This intolerant, idiotic, incoherent piece of shit is no longer even amusing enough to point and laugh at. She reminds me of all those white kids who became infatuated with Asian motifs in high school and thought they were all deep and revolutionary for throwing the I Ching with coins bought at fucking Hot Topic. Or like those jackasses who go to Burning Man.
No one of Importance
@eemom: hope you recover fully and the surgery is a complete success
Anne Laurie
@Too Many Jimpersons (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): If the vets are sure it’s not diabetes, make sure they’ve tested for Cushings, which (as Watergirl says) can be tricky to figure out.
Once those have been excluded, then — against all averages — “Samara”/m_c may be right: Proin. Older spayed female dogs frequently run into the same bladder-leakage issues as older post-menopausal women, for exactly the same reasons. Unless something’s changed in the past year, Proin is still the first line of defense; if that doesn’t work for your girl, estrogen supplements should do the trick, and at 14 the worry they might cause mammary tumors down the road is somewhat less significant.
Meanwhile, you’ll be doing everybody in the household a favor by putting a waterproof pad in the old girl’s favorite sleeping spot, and topping it with a nice soft washable pad or pillow you can swap out fresh every morning. Leaving puddles in the house — being a “bad girl”, even if you’d never dream of saying that to her — is stressful for a old, well-brought-up dog. If she can’t control her bladder, especially at night, it will make her much happier once she understands that she, like the humans, can pee indoors as long as she uses her ‘toilet’ place. This is easiest, of course, if she’s already sleeping on a hard-surface floor, in the kitchen or bathroom (you’d be surprised how many older dogs voluntarily make that choice). But even if she’s used to sleeping in the people bed, well — a rubber-backed bath rug next to the bed is easy to swap out every morning, and for a “reactive” dog, sometimes just having that emergency spot available makes them a lot less anxious & therefore (somewhat) less liable to lose control.
Samara Morgan
@suzanne: lol
i reverted during a college course in arabic.
i think arabic is a gateway drug for Islam.
do you know what Sufis believe, and why we don’t proselytize? we believe everyone is what they should be, what they are capable of being. Atheists should be atheists, xians should be xians, jews should be jews, buddhists should be buddhists.
all paths are the One Path, anyways.
If the Real intended you to be something else, it would appear in your path.
Islam appeared in my path.
ya-haqq!
now i think Amir was born muslim, but he thinks Islam should be reformed to be more “westernized”.
al-Islam is a process. it doesnt need reformed.
Yutsano
@suzanne: I seriously less than three you. :)
@Mnemosyne: She’s a kool kidz Muslim. Her faith is only as deep as the attention it gets her. Hell she can barely stand a challenge to that faith, and she makes factual errors constantly. Shorter me: not. worth. your. time.
Life okay in the House of Mouse?
jwb
@Violet: ZH twitter feed is funny, but the commenters on the site itself are insane.
Samara Morgan
@suzanne: shorter suzanne– get off my lawn!
Burning Man is fun.
did reproducing turn you instantly old?
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne: islam is a consensus religion.
this is the current consensus, in shariah.
note, we are not discussing free will or whether Allah has hands. Amir and i were only discussing A SINGLE POINT OF SHARIAH.
The injunction against proselytization.
GregB
The Western world, it is exploding…violence flaring bullets loading…
suzanne
@Samara Morgan:
I’ve been old and cynical and curmudgeonly since time immemorial. That’s why I like Cole so much.
Burning Man is a repulsive display of cultural privilege. Do you understand why it’s offensive for members of the dominant culture to pick and choose cultural markers of “the other” at whim as if you were shopping for accessories at the mall?
Of course you don’t. Because you’re not really a minority, no matter how much you want to be one. And you want to be one for the shallowest of reasons: basically because you want to piss other people off.
Seriously. You’re a fucking snore.
Yes.
Although for someone who professes not to proselytize, you’re as annoying as the Mormons who (used to) knock on my door.
Samara Morgan
@Yutsano:
cite please. name one. give linkage.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: Define compulsion, exploit, poverty, and ignorance.
suzanne
@Yutsano: Awww! Hugz ;)
I feel like baking you some cookies.
kdaug
@TaMara (BHF):
Had an Australian Shepherd who used to freak out at lightning. Used Rescue Remedy – it works.
Now look at the ingredients. Mostly alcohol – highball for animals.
Heh.
Cain
@Shinobi:
Jeezus, did you see who tweeted that? Holy moley, that is one attractive woman and her friends too. :-) It doesn’t help that she has pics of her in her underwear. I mean really.. no wonder the damn London eye is burning
#Iamveryamused
Samara Morgan
@suzanne: i do not proselytize. i do not want to convert anyone. i want you to be whatever you are, because that is all you can be in this slice of spacetime.
being a sufi is like being a jew…its an exclusive club, and its hard.
Cain
@Shinobi:
So is mine.. by the way, that tweet link had a very wonderfully scantily cad woman in it.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
Busy, but that’s not bad. I had a bad couple of weeks at work that had my bosses Very Concerned, but this is what happens when you think you can handle your ADHD-related work issues on your own. Now I have a nice educational consultant helping me actually get organized (as opposed to the semi-organization I could do by myself that would melt down given too much pressure). And the mouse’s health insurance is good enough that I’m getting partial reimbursement even though she’s out of network — woot!
Chris
@Samara Morgan:
As ordered.
Samara Morgan
@suzanne:
no one does that. its acculturation and tribology. its cultures exchanging memetic material though rubbing. :)
this has the feel of the foxhunting thread.
Mnemosyne
@Samara Morgan:
Still not understanding why there are different sects in Islam, then, since you claim that Sufis, Shi’a, Sunni, Wahhabists, etc. all interpret the Koran the exact same way. Shouldn’t you guys all be joining hands and singing this song instead of you running around accusing your fellow Muslims of not being “real” Muslims?
Samara Morgan
@Chris: i was wrong about the Turkish government, not about the tenents of Islam.
Yut said factual errors about Islam.
try again.
El Cid
All of you have the wrong faith. You’re heretics and blasphemers. I am correct in my beliefs. As such, I see no cause to indicate to you people what they would be.
Chris
@Samara Morgan:
No, she just said you made factual errors constantly. And you’ll forgive me for pointing this out, but a person who spent half a thread pontificating with absolute certainty about something that a simple google-search could have disproven doesn’t have much to contribute to, well, anything.
Omnes Omnibus
@El Cid: I beleive Churchill once said that all wise men are of one faith. When asked what faith that was he stated that wise men never tell.
Cain
@Samara Morgan:
Islam does proselytize. It makes Hindus mad since Hindus don’t proselytize. There is in fact no way to become a Hindu unless you’re born that way. But Christians and Muslims do it and they do it to each other all the time.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
Why, do you mean that m_c’s assertions about sharia law being derived solely from the Koran can be easily refuted by Wikipedia?
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.
El Cid
@Omnes Omnibus: Exactly. However, Churchill was still wrong, because he still didn’t have the one true faith which I have. So I am obviously wiser.
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne: no i did not.
sects and schools have different trained islamic scholars that can interpret and they can argue points of islamic jurisprudence.
But Amir and I were discussing a single point of shariah, the injuction against proselytization. The relevent part of shariah is Article 10.
that is relevent to all muslims.
like saying the shahada and the five pillars.
Constance
@Samara Morgan:
This will seem unkind but but I came in very late to this open thread and I’m tired and cranky. If someone else already caught this I apologize. You were a Catholic, then an atheist, and then you did not (why can’t we underline?) revert to Islam. You may have converted but you did not revert. Look the words up in the dictionary.
Chris
Oy. Forwarding this from an older (and mostly dead) thread:
Thought it was worth reposting.
Jenny
@Martin:
Who would be doing the withdrawing and why?
Mnemosyne
@Samara Morgan:
Ah, yes, the legendary foxhunting thread, where you insisted that the peasants were thrilled that their overlords would trample their crops every year in pursuit of a non-game animal and anyone who thought they were disgruntled about it just didn’t understand.
Good times, good times.
Cain
@Samara Morgan:
I believe we have a new name for Samara.. we will call her Bristol!
hello Bristol!
cain
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne: the sunnah is also derived from the Quran. The Prophet received the uncreated, revealed Quran.
@Cain: like i said, muslims cant proselytize xians. we all believe in the same Allah.
arguingwithsignposts
Every fucking time the toker shows up, she makes it all about her.
MikeJ
@Shinobi: Wow, somebody took a shaky picture at night making the lights blur and it gets reported as a fire?
Too many gullible people out there.
Cain
@Amir Khalid:
Clearly, Amir she fasting has addled her brain. I fear Allah has not given her enough strength to handle not eating for most the day and she seems to have lost most of her intelligence. I pray that Allah will grant her forgiveness and strength tomorrow to be able to post to this blog in a more reasonable and intelligent manner.
Mnemosyne
@Samara Morgan:
And that part has absolutely no jurisprudence behind it? No history of interpretation? Every sect of Islam has interpreted it the exact same way since Muhammed’s time?
At one point, transubstantiation was an integral belief of Christianity. Then the Europeans fought wars over it. Interpretations change, and different sides end up choosing different interpretations.
Samara Morgan
@Constance: revert is correct. Muslims do not believe in original sin….we believe man is born sinless, but forgetful.
so all children are born muslim.
then they are supposed to follow their parents faith until they are old enough to choose for themselves.
Mnemosyne
@arguingwithsignposts:
At least it’s slightly more interesting than having to listen to her whine about ED Kain for the bajillionth time.
suzanne
@Samara Morgan:
Wrong. Many people do that. The exotization of the Other has been documented in art for centuries. Paul Gauguin took his fat, hairy, French ass to Tahiti because he thought those “simple” people were “pure” and “close to nature”. Westerners have been popping woodies for centuries over the idea of the harem. Stinky white Rastafarians are so numerous as to be a cliche.
Members of dominant cultures have been selectively adopting marks of foreign cultures, mostly because their own way of life somehow doesn’t seem as interesting or has repressions of its own. But, quite frankly, it’s pretty fucking disgusting to pick and choose which culture you want to try on as if it’s a fucking pair of designer sunglasses and you’re trying to decide which logo to prominently-yet-tastefully display to convey without a word those inscrutable elements of your personality you think are SO unique, but are really just the fucking same as everyone else. If you knew anything about social justice, you’d know that. That’s a religion with centuries of history behind it, and you’re adopting it like a logo.
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne: that has been consistant.
Cain
@Samara Morgan:
haha.. you’re a sufi? Can’t stop laughing!
Samara Morgan
@suzanne: again, i didnt choose….i was chosen.
Constance
@Samara Morgan:
I just remembered why I loathe religion and why I’m an atheist. Goodnight.
suzanne
@Samara Morgan:
Gotta love that Bachmann-esque religious zeal.
Mnemosyne
@Samara Morgan:
Transubstantiation was consistent for 1500 years before the Reformation. Now it’s a marker of specific Christian sects (like Catholicism).
But I’m sure you’re right, each and every Muslim in every sect in the entire world has the exact same interpretation of Article 10 that you do. After all, if they didn’t, then your interpretation might be wrong, and that’s unpossible.
Cain
@Constance:
Humans can turn any thing resembling religion or “non-relgion” or “anti-religion” into something that you want to stab yourself with a sharpened spoon.
Self righteousness is a part of the human condition.. it’s the equivalent of a gorilla thumping it’s chest in the night.
FormerSwingVoter
Okay, so it’s an Open Thread, so I’m gonna skip all the comments and ramble for a sec.
The depth of what’s going on in the UK somehow didn’t really strike me until tonight. London is burning.
I just…
This isn’t just some shit about politics and the economy and whatever the fuck we bitch about here all the time. Something big and horrible is happening, and the world is burning as a result. The entire world-wide economy is collapsing, the futures market is making tomorrow look worse, and London is on fire. Literal fire.
The absolute worst-case scenario from 2008 has resurfaced, and it is just as bad as we feared.
I have no idea what’s going to happen. I’m always wrong anyway, so I suppose there’s no real difference, but I’m still scared by it.
I feel like we’re all fucked, and we’re going to find out just how hard tomorrow.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne:
The child is never wrong. It’s true. Just ask her.
Caz
And yet you still managed to get over 250 comments on a post that contains absolutely nothing of substance, lol.
And the Cole Irrelevant Post Streak goes and goes, where it stops, nobody knows!
Valdivia
@eemom:
feel better soon. Hope the loving feeling helps you through the after surgery.
Yutsano
@eemom: Vicodin barely works on me. Percocet, though, will stone me out of my gourd. I went to work like that once. WHHEEE!!
Mnemosyne
@eemom:
Vicodin works okay for me, until I start vomiting uncontrollably 48 hours after I start taking it.
Not fun to find out you’re prone to this side effect at 5 am while you’re still on crutches from knee surgery.
Comrade Kevin
Anyone else read the Tales of the City books, and remember the story line about it?
And Another Thing…
@jeffreyw: OMG – that pork lo mein looks to die for !!!
fraught
Cole just keeps fading away like the Cheshire cat. Less and less until there will be nothing but a cocktail glass and a floating vacuum hose to remind us of when he was here. Oh, for the days of the “finger” photos and the cries of “you guys suck.”
dead existentialist
@Samara Morgan: Daddy issues?
Bago
@suzanne: Burning Man is an aspirational sign of cultural privilege. It’s not simply people crafting goods for greater societal influence, through the anonymous vector of money. Granted, it is easy to make a courtesan argument of influence in the burner economy, but how is that different from a post Citizens United influencescape? In essence it is the attachment of reputation to transfers of influence.
Naturally the self selecting nature of the population, those that can afford the ticket skew observations, but isn’t it a good thing to have a mostly self reliant society that is ecologically conscious, competent, and able to take care of itself while building 80 foot domes filled with art and lasers and general awesomeness ?
Oh, did I mention it takes them two weeks to build a city of 50 thousand people in a desert with an airport, and leave no trace?
That could be a useful skill in some places.
Bago
@FormerSwingVoter: Yeah. We got online and realized how hard we were being screwed. It was way easier to control people when you could buy off your informatics gatekeepers with a sinecure of a few hundred grand. Now that news doesn’t need paid journalists, the shit just got real.
Martin
@Jenny:
Anyone worried that the market was going to plummet. Money markets hold a HUGE amount of money, and they’re popular investments with people nearing retirement because they are effectively guaranteed to not lose value. Worst case, they liquidate assets and pay out dollar for dollar what was put in. That assumes you can liquidate fast enough.
After Lehman fell in 2008, quite a few money markets became exposed to exactly that problem – they couldn’t sell assets fast enough to guarantee that dollar for dollar payout. It’s called ‘breaking the buck’ and it just isn’t supposed to happen with money markets. One word spread that money markets may not be safe, investors started to withdraw – fast. Hundreds of billions per hour at the peak on Sept 18. All of that selling of assets drove the market down, which triggered more selling of assets. It took the govt promising to guarantee money market investments, like they do with the FDIC to get it to stop, and the markets instantly rallied on that news.
We’ve got a similar situation here, though rather less crisis-like. We’ve got a long, sustained decline in the market and a legitimate fear of what will come next. Investors panicing do all kinds of unpredictable shit, and usually the bad stuff only happens due to a panic. The money markets in 2008 would have been fine if investors didn’t panic, but they did. Who knows what will happen tomorrow.
Villago Delenda Est
The thing is Sufis are routinely persecuted in the Islamic Republic of Iran. As are Bahai.
Because they’re not “really” Muslim, according to the Shia Imams.
Funny, that.
Bago
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, neither are the Mormons.
asiangrrlMN
@suzanne: I so want you right now. Be my mistress?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Thanks!
Johannes
@eemom: Speedy and full recovery, eemom.
Johannes
@Comrade Kevin: I remember it well. And the allusion is apt, as the plot point in question was a result, dare I say it, of a M-C approach to the text.
burnspbesq
@Samara Morgan:
If sharia is incompatible with freedom of speech, then sharia must evolve or give way. It’s the 21st Century. Abridgment of fundamental human rights is not on.
suzanne
@asiangrrlMN:
Um, YES, DUH!
Samara Morgan
@burnspbesq: but that is not what just happened. the vessel of American hegemony just wrecked on the reef of Islam because of this.
what i keep trying to explain is that Article 10 in shariah CAN’T evolve in islamic jusrisprudence, because defense against proselytization is still in mutawatir, still sending.
Islam evolved AFTER xianity, and its different.
Muslims believe that the RIGHT to be FREE from proselytization is a human right.
If western powers stopped trying to push/impliment/standup/implant/install westernstyle democracies in majority muslim states, then shariah could evolve, islamic thought could come out of defense mode, and islamic scholars could rewrite the law– but in this frame of spacetime, that is impossible.
and to return to where i started, that is why America just spent 4.4 trillion dollars and 10 years for nothing.
lojasmo
@Too Many Jimpersons (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
Didn’t read through the entire thread, but your dog has likely developed diabetis insipidis (?Sp)
Samara Morgan
LOL!
wikileaks WikiLeaks
BREAKING NEWS: Libya recognizes UK rioters as official government of the UK (satire)
Too Many Jimpersons (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Thank you all for your thoughts. They did a whole slew of tests on her last December, not long after the trouble began, and they found no diabetes or Cushings. She had a yearly blood test a few months ago, and she was still normal. She’s already on proin, so I guess I’ll ask about Rescue Relief next. Thanks again.
Samara Morgan
@suzanne: id be careful about that if i were you.
she was already morzers spanky nurse and she and yut have a thing.
beware of cyberstds.
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne:
they do right NOW. because that is the consensus.
and if you dont believe me, look at the empirical data.
10 years, 4.4 trillion dollars, and 7k dead soldiers later, A-stan is still 99% muslim, Iraq is still 97% muslim.
Iraq has shariah in the constitution of a representative government– they vote.
A-stan will have shariah in its constitution, and the talibs will be part of whatever gov we leave behind.
What is your explanation?
Mnemosyne
@Samara Morgan:
That it has more to do with geographic location and oil than with Islam. When countries like Bangladesh and Indonesia, which have (literally) 3 or 4 times more Muslims than dinky little countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, start adopting sharia law, then you might have a point. But right now, all you’re doing is pointing to a tiny handful of countries in one specific part of the world and insisting that they alone represent all of Islam.
Which, not incidentally, is why you keep insisting that Amir is not a “real” Muslim — he’s in Malaysia, not the Middle East, so in your mind he doesn’t count even though the vast majority of the world’s Muslims are in Asia, not the Middle East.
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne: no, hes a maftoon, a muslim charmed by western culture.
you dont get the Generous Quran, mnem.
it is uncreated and revealed, not authored, and outside time and space.
thus “there shall be no compulsion in religion” can only be interpreted in this frame (or “chest”) of spacetime as resistance to proselytization.
if westerners wanna be able to prosletize/spread/install/implant/promote their version of democracy, they need to stop trying to push western culture in majority islamic nations.
kay
Oh, John, you don’t have to apologize for anything.
This is actually very funny:
Who else swears at a marching band? Marching bands are by definition exempt from being sworn at.
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne: yet Indonesia has anti-blasphemy laws.
Jinxtigr
@eemom: boom de yada :)
Jinxtigr
@Chris:
Can’t repost that too much. Isn’t this exactly what has been happening to the left for HOW many years?
And yet that doesn’t make the solution ‘riot and destroy everything’.
What it does, is shine a big light on the problem: right-wing media capture. IF there is a marketplace of ideas, it’s completely distorted, and nine teabaggers ranting ‘lower all taxes!’ or praying for rain in Texas will get filmed from low angles so you can’t see how many there are, while leftwing rallies get ‘disappeared’ in media terms.
This rioting is not a fix to larger problems, it’s an end-run around the media blackout and that’s all it can ever be- and at a very steep price, potentially. It’s walking right into rightwing frame-jobs.
The only reason this happens is that all other recourse is lost. To make this not happen, empower peaceful engagement in society by the left, the poor, those chavs etc.
It’s encouraging that from what I hear the UK does not wish to go all 9/11 about it: maybe with the Murdoch scandals it’s becoming clear that it’s a set-up.
We need to dial back the rightwing authoritarianism, because the thing is, cops are always outnumbered. Always. They exist only because there’s a bargain where they’re given authority in the expectation that they’ll do things most people consider reasonable. When you put them to work enforcing the stability of a right-wing Randian hellhole, they end up acting in ways most people won’t consider reasonable.
The Republican governors facing recall might consider this: getting recalled is far from the worst thing that could happen to them. Getting everything they wish for is an express ticket to burning London, right here in the USA. All the people you can’t see on television can still make petrol bombs, and you can’t kill them all off quietly before anything happens.
The Tea Party freshmen in the House- same deal. The best thing that could happen to them is shame and failure. The worst- is conquest and total victory. They are flat out poking the tiger with a stick rather than feeding it with kibble and staying out of its way. What do they think is going to happen?
asiangrrlMN
@suzanne: Woooooooot! Woooooot! ::Does a happy jig::
Samara Morgan
@Jinxtigr:
yes. policing a population is a special kind of warfare.