Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Giving up is unforgivable.

Second rate reporter says what?

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

“Alexa, change the president.”

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

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Fantasy Football

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A message from the Commish:

Yes, downsizing is even hitting fantasy football! In this case it’s a good thing.

I was surprised (and pleased) at the response to this idea. I never thought we’d get 20 teams, let alone 30 or 40. Please bear with your Commish as I take a step back and reset some things to deal with the numbers.

Assuming Yahoo lets me, I’m going to reduce the size of this league to 14 teams. That will make sure talent isn’t spread too thin – so everybody is able to field a starting QB once bye weeks kick in, for example. When I reduce the league, I believe Yahoo will bounce 6 teams…..probably the last 6 to sign up but who knows, maybe they’ll go alphabetically. If you get bounced, it’s not personal! Just go right over here and sign up for our new BJFL- ‘Murrican Conference:
http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/bjfl_realmurricanconf

If there are any issues with the url the League ID is 621589.
The password is alsotoo.

The draft for the Murrican Conference will be Wednesday 10am PDT/ 1pm EDT. Maybe that works better for some of you – feel free to join over there. If you create a new team in the Murrican conference please delete your team here!

There may be more conferences created depending on interest. Each conference will play according to the same rules, and at the end of the year the conference winners will meet in a BJFL Super Bowl!

Thanks for your patience as I sort out these details! I was really surprised by the response and am scrambling a little now.

Enjoy!

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Open Thread

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Continuing my self-imposed media blackout this weekend, and apparently my desktop computer has decided to help me. I have no idea what has happened, but I shut down my computer for two days, fired it back up this morning, and it now no longer connects to the internet. My laptop works with the wireless, but my desktop no longer works. Any ideas what I can do with my Windows 7 machine for it to recognize my modem?

*** Update ***

Fixed it. For some reason, I had two networks running. I disabled the local adapter and voila, back in business. No idea what I did, but things work.

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Early Morning Open Thread: School of Eeyore

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There was some discussion, earlier this month, of this blog’s “identity”, which led to a new tagline. As one of the underbloggers, I can only speak for myself, and I prefer to discuss my philosophy: I am a committed and lifelong adherent to the School of Eeyore.

Eeyore, as is true of all great philosophers, is generally misunderstood, his life lessons cheapened as much by idiot popularizers as by his natural opponents (many of them the same people, of course). The Grey Donkey of Wisdom is commonly dismissed as a gloomy sad-sack whose unwillingness to get with the Happy Program is a risible failure of imagination. But if we return to the root literature, it’s clear that Eeyore is a clear-eyed Cynic of the purest, one who understands that in “rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and fame… As reasoning creatures, people could gain happiness by rigorous training… the world belonged equally to everyone, and that suffering was caused by false judgments of what was valuable and by the worthless customs and conventions which surrounded society.”

We Eeyorites do not expect the world to be molded exactly to our wishes, but we assume that we can learn to be happy in the world as it is. Eeyore’s friends don’t remember his birthday without prompting — so he reminds them. They end up, as imperfect beings in an imperfect world, giving him rather less glamorous presents than originally intended: an empty pot that used to hold honey, and a red rubber rag that used to be a balloon. He enjoys these humble gifts anyway, rather to the astonishment of his fellows.

It is the mission of Eeyore, and his inspiration to his followers, to find a way to be happy with the poor gifts the world gives us. Even when the gift is only a priceless morsel of snark.

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Open Thread: Saturday Night Pets

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From commentor Bill D (wmd):

Here’s a picture of RC (Rodent Control) Gizmo. He’s a year older now, still likes to sleep on the seat of my motorcycle, but alas the economy will take it away as soon as I find a buyer for the bike.

***********
Let me state for the record that I’m glad Beck’s “I Have A Scam” gathering was a giant snoozefest.

Also, that the burgers from the Blue Ox in Lynn are every bit as good as their reputation.

And finally, this gets my vote for headline of the week:

When John McCain Comes Riding on His Flying Unicorn to Save America,
David Broder Will Have a Bag of Carrots for the Unicorn

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Open Thread

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For those of you who were shut out of the first league, good news from the commisioner:

Wow, Balloon Juice does like football! I didn’t expect the fantasy league to fill up at all, but it did so in about an hour.

For those left out in the autumn rain, a second league has been formed: the BJFL ‘Murrican Conference – just like the old AFL. The conferences will play by the same rules and their individual champions will meet at the end of the NFL season in a Balloon Juice Super Bowl!

Sign up here:
http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1/621589

Or go to Yahoo > Fantasy Sports and look for league 621589. The password is alsotoo.

Please indicate your B-J nickname in either your team name, or your Yahoo nick – so we know who you are! More conferences are possible if this one fills too.

Get to it.

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