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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

This blog will pay for itself.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Let’s finish the job.

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1

Anniversary Week

You are here: Home / Archives for Balloon Juice / Anniversary Week

This Party Is Over, But the Next One Is Just Beginning

by WaterGirl|  January 8, 20225:28 pm| 239 Comments

This post is in: Anniversary Week, Balloon Juice

After this post, the (anniversary) Party is Over, unless Betty Cracker or someone else sneaks in an anniversary post before midnight!

Here’s an awesome video of Lily and Rosie and Guesley!

So nice to see everyone in their prime!

I want to give another shout-out to Steeplejack for all the time he spent and energy he expended helping to find the classic posts.

show full post on front page

John Cole Registers as a Democrat
Tunch’s Cat Tower (did not get the reception Cole hoped for!)
RedKitten Play-by-Play of the Birth
SamKitten

In this last anniversary post, can we talk about favorite comments over the years?

Commenters we miss and why?  (If we build it, they will come?)

And in the spirit of “make new friends, but keep the old”, if you have a favorite commenter or a front-pager who’s still here that you really appreciate, feel free to chime in with that too and tell us why.

And a few more classic posts for your reading pleasure.

Steve
First Meeting with Steve
Say Hello to Steve
Steve Gets ‘Tutored’

Rosie
Rosie!
Doggie Drama Update
Rosie’s Adoption is Official
Rosie Is One of the Pack

Thurston
Ginger, Thurston and Lovey!

There are so many more of Thurston and the whole crew that i will just link to all of them in a comment below.

This marvelous poem by Subaru Diane came in just under the wire!  (details in the comments below)

BALLOON JUICE TURNS TWENTY
by Subaru Diane

Balloon Juice is really as good as it gets
(Come for the politics, stay for the pets)

Sometimes it’s cheerful and sometimes it’s rude
(Come for the animals, stay for the food)

It’s for excellent jackals — plus assholes and dicks
(Come for the recipes, stay for the flicks)

It’s for interests, hobbies, and fun of all sorts
(Come for the movie nights, stay for the sports)

It is run by a fellow who doesn’t wear pants
(Come for the football and stay for the plants)

It’s for brilliant professors and every-day loons
(Come for the gardens and stay for the tunes)

We argue the redistribution of wealth
(Come for the music and stay for the health)

So many smart people! So many good deeds,
So many great outcomes we planted as seeds.
This place fits as comfortably as an old glove,
So come to Balloon Juice and stay for the love.

This Party Is Over, But the Next One Is Just BeginningPost + Comments (239)

20th Anniversary Ramblings

by Tom Levenson|  January 8, 20223:28 pm| 68 Comments

This post is in: Anniversary Week, Open Threads

20 years of Balloon Juice!

I wasn’t aware of the blog when it opened its doors. That was back in the day when blogs were something I didn’t think would stick (so much of what I think/write is worth what you pay for it).

Also, frankly, I didn’t have a lot of bandwidth to argue with Red State milbloggers for some time after this farrago got underway, caught up as I was in my unhealthy obsession with she whose gastritis wrecked her calculator. But I got to reading it somehow, especially after Tim F. started co-blogging.

Then I started my own blog, the much shorter lived Inverse Square Blog (still like that name). Tim was an early reader and was kind enough to link from the massive media operation that was this place to my tiny spot. By then, I’d become a several-times-a-day Balloon Juice reader; this, and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ place at the Atlantic were my blog-homes.

And then Tim was kind enough to pitch my brand of logorrhea to John, (four thousand words in four posts on a McArdle buffoonery and such like) and the rest, as they say, is history. Maybe tragic, maybe farce, but some fraction of 20 yers nonetheless.  My first post, of course, introduced Tikka. He’s still with us, to my infinite gratitude, and as you may recall, he now has company. So let’s get the essential part of this post out of the way:


20th Anniversary Ramblings 1

My mood last year:

20th Anniversary Ramblings

Now:

20th Anniversary Ramblings 2

So, a couple of things: Tim is as fine a human in person as he is a sardonic wit and un-bullshit-able thinker in print. I thank him for making the connection here.

John, as has been amply demonstrated over the decades (sic!), has his picture in the dictionary next to the word “mensch.” In addition to all the qualities laid bare in his posts (sometimes literally, as we all know) he’s an awesome blogpost to his front page colleagues: he lets us hang ourselves, and then clean up our own messes. No opinion-slinger could ask for more.

And as for me? I’ve been more absent than present the last few years, for a bunch of reasons. No need to go into all of them. They’re the ones that we all feel, I think: sheer frustration at the political predicament; rage/despair at the endless return of the same on the right; pandemic distraction and loss of focus/productivity/etc. On the personal side, there’s been some health stuff (all either resolved scares or well managed, thankfully), but more decisively, my hopes and plans for my work seem to be ramping up as I reach a point in which my career is much closer to its end than its beginning. I’ve had trouble keeping up my daily schedule on the current book, and the proposal for the next one needs a push, and that’s where the spare writing minutes have tended to go.

That said, I am going to try–no promises–to be at least a little more of a contributor here than I have been. I don’t think I have a ton to offer on politics these days; the front pagers who are making the place hum get there faster and better than I could at the top of my game. So my hope is to add some shorter posts on events that offer an oblique way into politics/society/culture. And I want to do a bit more of what I first came here to do, get some science stories into our discussions, both the science-cool! variety and the stories in which the scientific elements give some insight into the time and place in which they take place.

20th Anniversary Ramblings 3

And to start keeping that promise, here’s a gloss on one such tale that straddles both of those themes.

For more than a year, Victoria Gray’s life had been transformed. Gone were the sudden attacks of horrible pain that had tortured her all her life. Gone was the devastating fatigue that had left her helpless to care for herself or her kids. Gone were the nightmarish nights in the emergency room getting blood transfusions and powerful pain medication.

But one big question remained: Would the experimental treatment she got to genetically modify her blood cells keep working, and leave her free from the complications of sickle cell disease that had plagued her since she was a baby?

The backstory:  Gray is one of the first group to be treated with a protocol in which her physicians harvest cells from the bone marrow, modify them using the CRISPR gene-editing technology to produce a form of hemoglobin that could compensate for the defective version that lies at the heart of the disorder, infuse them back into the patient’s body, all in the hope that this feat of genetic engineering will, in effect, reverse the pathology of sickle cell disorder.  Two years ago she underwent the procedure, which is absolutely no walk in the park. (The link immediately above takes you to the first NPR story on Gray’s medical journey. Basically, the procedure takes one down much of the same road a bone marrow transplant requires, which is high on the No Fun scale.)

So how’s it going? Damn well:

“I’m doing great,” Gray, now 36, said during a recent interview from her home in Forest, Miss. with NPR, which has had exclusive access to chronicle her experience for more than two years.

“I haven’t any problems with sickle cell at all. I did get a cold about a week ago,” she says with a nervous chuckle.

Victoria’s so traumatized by a life of sickle cell that just getting a cold still terrifies her. A simple cold had been one of many things that could trigger a terrible attack of the painful symptoms of the disease.

“This is major for me and my family,” she says. “Two years without me being in the hospital? Wow. We just can’t believe it. But we’re so grateful.”

She’s doing so well for so long that she’s officially no longer in the landmark study she volunteered for.

I can’t emphasize enough how wonderful this is. This is still very much an experimental procedure, and it didn’t work for everyone in the trial. But this is what makes the idea of science so thrilling: it is simply the best way we have ever invented for making sense of the material world, to the point that it becomes possible to transform human experience–suffering–for untold numbers of our fellow creatures.  Science is so cool!

And science is always political, social, an expression of a given moment’s sense of what matters.  This story of an utterly practical application of molecular engineering is itself the outcome of decades of work that began as purely curiosity-driven basic research. Science is a cultural enterprise, and a social one.  In the immediate aftermath World War II, the US made a national commitment to funding basic science by, inter alia, establishing the National Science Foundation and other federal research efforts. Individual states, led by my natal California vastly expanded public higher education, creating an extraordinary research infrastructure.

That commitment has been eroding for some time now, and at the federal level, not just under GOP administrations. But in the last decade, at least, and really much longer,  anti-science stances have become part of the Republican catechism.  Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s invaluable Merchants of Doubt traces the roots of this assault on human ingenuity to the McCarthy era, in effect, when attempts to turn the link between smoking and cancer into meaningful public health measures could be framed as an attack on capitalism…a trope that is still playing out in the climate change crisis and, as part of the motivation, opposition to public health measures to help in the pandemic.

My point: as Republicans continue to hold any power, future accomplishments that could help so many remain at risk. Nature doesn’t just roll over and reveal its intricate workings. It takes sustained hard work and the acceptance of the possibility of failure to get to the point where it becomes possible to take some fundamental new understanding and turn it into something that we can use. If you look at GOP stewardship of universities in Florida, Louisiana and elsewhere, do you have any faith that American science will thrive if the party reclaims national power. I don’t.

So, to keep this post well on the under vs. War and Peace, I’ll stop here, with this TL:DR thought: I feel blessed and privileged to live in an age where the drive to understand the mechanisms of life down to the atom-by-atom construction of the stuff of which we’re made has led to the kind of relief of suffering that a functional reversal of sickle cell would offer.  A big part of why I’m a science writer is for the thrill such stories still evoke for me.

And I want to hold this story up as an example of what’s at stake in political contests seemingly far removed from questions like how to manipulate the shape of a hemoglobin molecule.

Happy 20th, everyone. To many more jackal-infused decades.

Image: William Blake, Newton, 1804-5

20th Anniversary RamblingsPost + Comments (68)

An Anniversary: Twenty — Well, Almost Thirteen — Years On

by Anne Laurie|  January 8, 202210:46 am| 65 Comments

This post is in: Anniversary Week, Balloon Juice, Midnight Confessions

I got through all of last year… and I’m here!

Cole invited me to become a front-pager back in May 2009; it took a few weeks to get me started, because even then I was old enough not to be very tech-savvy, or to have much hope of ever becoming so. He was patient, partially because he’d already asked two other prolific commentors to become his site’s first Vagina-American front pagers, and been separately told neither had the time for such foolishness a commitment.

My first post was a book recc for Castle Freeman‘s All That I Have. I referenced Terry Pratchett and Donald Westlake, because I figured at least some of the Jackaltariat knew (and approved) those gentlemen.

Somewhere along the way, I figured out that I could produce a brilliant, witty, heavily-researched post every week… two, in a good week. Or I could (sometimes also) churn out a steady stream of aggregations and open threads, twice or three or four times a day. Since there were always other front-pagers to step up with the B,W,H-R posts (points to anyone who recognizes the light literary reference!)… well, I’m looking forward to my 15,000th post, which should fall somewhere around the end of March, pandemic reading and Murphy the Trickster God willing.

An Anniversary: Twenty — Well, Almost Thirteen — Years OnPost + Comments (65)

Jesus christ I’m old

by Tim F|  January 7, 202211:05 am| 192 Comments

This post is in: Anniversary Week, Balloon Juice, Open Threads

A bit over sixteen years ago a popular right-wing milblogger said a few mildly critical things about the war in Iraq. As you could guess his comments section blew sixteen gaskets, but they gave him a little slack since he was a big name in the right-o-sphere and a founding editor at RedState. He could have taken the hint and dialed it down a notch, but of course being a typical ‘eers fan he told his whole readership and his web-ring of friends and colleagues to shove it up their tail pipe. Then he brought on a raving liberal co-blogger to piss them off all over again.

And like that I went from writing not great diaries at Daily Kos to being the #2 guy on a pretty popular Republican blog. What’s it like to be a socialist writing for people who mostly thought I was Hitler’s grandkid? My second post (after “hi”) wasn’t exactly a fig leaf. Honestly, we all got along fine. It turns out John cultivates an interesting group of readers worth engaging even back then.

Believe me, interesting readers wasn’t something you took for granted. I’m old enough to remember the free-thinking ideals that chat rooms like the Atlantic used to cultivate, but even in 2005 that was mostly seen as quaint and outdated, especially in right-blogs. A place like RedState or or Gateway or Powerline saw (see) themselves more as propaganda amplifiers. Management took a toddlerish pride in deleting anything in the comments that stepped on the day’s message. Of course doing that empowers the true-believingest, knee-jerkingest commenters, and like that every blog became Parler. Honestly I don’t even know what the commenters got out of that, aside from some animalistic thrill in seeing who can me-too the loudest.

I want to emphasize this point because even as a right-wing blogger John stood out for having this old-timey faith that readers can defend their own ideas without management’s help. Liberals like me could drop in, say our piece, and win or lose an argument with the local crowd (I did both). True believers screamed bloody murder of course, but as far as I could tell he thought those guys were insecure and boring anyway. It takes a lot of confidence to run a joint where anyone can say anything that doesn’t cross the red line (racism/sexism/abuse, then as now), and it takes serious balls to listen to those arguments and publicly change your mind.

Since I joined pretty early on, I got to see that slow growing horror when converts from the dark side start to realize that they’re rooting for a party who’d lose a game of horse to the Washington Generals. It is tough to leave the side that’s backed by media megacorps and bottomless funding for comms training, and join people who mean well but bring a banana split to the OK Corral. It was honestly an incredible moment when we discovered the one-secret-trick that powers a surprising amount of the right’s success (call your Reps!), and then it was dispiriting again when the hack got patched by electing a couple swing votes from WV and AZ who sincerely don’t care what constituents think. The lord giveth and taketh away.

The one lasting thing I still feel great about is inviting on a couple of frighteningly smart writers in David and Tom who’ve made this place one of the better informed spots on the internet. These guys are sincerely amazing.

Anhow, I know you all have one really important question.

Jesus christ I'm old

He’s doing ok! Dogs the size of Max don’t chase balls much at twelve years old, but he plays a mean game of tug. Max has a good appetite and most things still work the way they should, except that his hips have gotten pretty weak. So these days the neighborhood knows Max as that big Doberman who still politely checks everyone for treats but he moves just a hair faster than the tectonic plate that Pittsburgh sits on. When the weather allows he still holds down our little patch of lawn grass for as long as the sun shines on it.

Jesus christ I'm old 1

We love him, and he patiently puts up with us.

***Update***

As long as I’m getting sentimental about my big goofball dog, this four sentence open thread might be my favorite thing I’ve ever written.

Jesus christ I’m oldPost + Comments (192)

Classics III

by WaterGirl|  January 6, 20227:41 pm| 88 Comments

This post is in: Anniversary Week, Balloon Juice, Open Threads

Beautiful girl! Artwork by Avalune.

Well, here’s your next installment of classics.

All Internet Traditions
I’m Probably Going to Hell for This

The PayPal Ordeal
PayPal Is Pissing Me Off
The Helpful People at PayPal
PayPal Is the Worst Company In the World
Day 76 of PayPal’s Reign of Error
A Human at PayPal At Last!

show full post on front page

Gravatar Sunday (Chaos Reigns)
Oh My God, Gravatars
Okay, Now You Can Comment
Open Thread (Part 3)
The Gravatars Are Gone

The Story of Walter
I Found a Dog
Walter Gets a Name
Walter’s New Home
Walter Loves His Kids & More
RIP, Walter

Big Wings for a Big Cat
You Guys are the Best
Almost $12,000
Insane
I’m Off To Bed

I just read The Legend of Shitmas and can’t stop laughing.

I hope the Gravatar posts are as fun as they were the first time around.  That was a Sunday never to be forgotten.  We all woke up just like any other day, only a new site was rolled out and it included gravatars for everyone, that was a wild ride while it lasted.  Which wasn’t all that long because they were gone by nightfall. I wonder if it’s as funny when you can’t see the gravatars?

Jimmm, Ruckus and Mary G, I looked yours up as requested earlier, so if you comment in this thread I will add them.

I’ll look up first posts for another 7 BJ peeps, first come, first served!

Open thread.

Classics IIIPost + Comments (88)

More Classics

by WaterGirl|  January 5, 20227:00 pm| 190 Comments

This post is in: Anniversary Week, Balloon Juice, Open Threads

Painting of Steve by Avalune!

What a handsome boy!

I let you know on Sunday that we would  be rolling out links to some of the classic posts over the course of the week.

We’ll be naked mopping, losing the mustard, skull-fucking kittens, dining on tire rims and anthrax, faxing credenzas, reaching peak wing nut… Oh wait, that last one didn’t turn out as expected.

Well, here’s the next installment.

Tire Rims and Anthrax
Skull-fucking A Kitten
Faxing Credenzas / The Helicopters Are Laughing
Faxing Credenzas Explained

Peak Wingnut
Peak Wingnut by John Cole
Peak Cole by Tim F.

The Subaru Saga
Another Day In Paradise
Still In The Field
Please Get My Fucking Subaru Out of the Field

And I’ll look up first posts for another 10 BJ peeps, first come, first served!

Open thread.

 

More ClassicsPost + Comments (190)

The Classics

by WaterGirl|  January 4, 202210:15 am| 149 Comments

This post is in: Anniversary Week, Balloon Juice, Open Threads

I let you know on Sunday that we would  be rolling out links to some of the classic posts over the course of the week.

We’ll be naked mopping, losing the mustard, skull-fucking kittens, dining on tire rims and anthrax, faxing credenzas, reaching peak wing nut… Oh wait, that last one didn’t turn out as expected.

Well, here’s the first batch.

Naked Mopping
Falling with Lily
No, the Other Shoulder
The Lost Mustard
The Legend of Shitmas

Also in honor of Anniversary Week , if you are one of the people who would like to know when your first comment was and what you had to say, this is your first opportunity to be able to find out.  I can search on the back end, assuming you know the email address you used when you first started commenting.  Or if you have a distinctive nym, and you can tell me what that was.

In honor of Anniversary Week, I am willing to look up the first 10 people today that chime in to ask for that.  You’ll have another opportunity in a “Come Here Often?” or “How Did You Get Here?” post.

Oh, and courtesy of Steeplejack’s research, here is the story of Lily.

I Think This Is the One
Dog Planning
Strange Woman in my Bed
The Day in Lily
Rails to Trails
Morning Lily

Open thread.

The ClassicsPost + Comments (149)

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