Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

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

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

The world has changed, and neither one recognizes it.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

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

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Petty moves from a petty man.

When I was faster i was always behind.

The willow is too close to the house.

The revolution will be supervised.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

The lights are all blinking red.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

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Open Thread: Wouldn’t It Be Nice

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James Fallows sums up the better angels of my nature:

I agree with my colleagues Coates, Sullivan, Green, Ambinder, plus most of the civilized world, in finding this episode nauseating. Silver lining: the possibility that for the Breitbart/Fox attack machine this could be the long-awaited “Have you no sense of decency?” moment. I disagree with my colleague Clive Crook that it’s hard to tell whether the people who first aired and harped on the deceptive video (Breitbart/Fox), or the officials who responded in belief it was true (ie, Ag Secretary Vilsack), are the more culpable. As Marc Ambinder pointed out, it’s easy: Vilsack’s now-revoked decision to fire Sherrod “was a good faith [though rash] mistake based on the bad faith of others.”

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Comparing Joe ‘Simple J. Malarkey‘ McCarthy and Andrew ‘Danegeld’ Breitbart really highights our modern ‘First As Tragedy, Then As Farce’ culture, doesn’t it?

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Open Thread

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The contractor finally arrived to fix the giant hole where our concrete stairs used to be before the water company tore it up to fix the sewer leak/subsidence problem, but only my duplex neighbor knows whether the contractor is supposed to fix the sidewalk as well as the stairs and my neighbor is in Central America. Our puppy is frantic because he can’t reach my lawn because of the concrete work and my wife, who stayed home for a week to take care of the new puppy, is frantic because the puppy is pooping on the floor. I haven’t had meaningful sleep in four days (five? can’t remember) and my experiments have stopped working.

I do not want to know about your day. Yell at each other about Rahm or something.

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Co-Signed

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Josh Marshall:

Forty-eight hours ago the story was another bad apple found on Obama’s cart. By yesterday morning it was another black eye for Obama and Tom Vilsack for rushing to dump a blameless woman on no good evidence and cravenly or cowardly or pusillanimously running for cover because Breitbart, Roger Ailes and whatever other gods of The Crazy said boo! For progressives mad at their president, at some level, that’s understandable. They have no relationship with and expect only the worst from the Breitbarts and Fox Newses of the world. But with Obama they expect more. And it’s personal.

Still, you just have to back up from that and realize that as disappointing as Tom Vilsack’s first crack at this was, the idea that he or Obama is the bad guy in this story is not only preposterous but verging on obscene. It’s like the NYPD as the bad guy in the Son of Sam saga because they didn’t catch David Berkowitz fast enough. Or perhaps that the real moral of the story is that the woman with the stalker should have been more focused on personal data security. Not for some time has something so captured the essential corruption of a big chunk of what passes as ‘right wing media’ (not all, by any means, but a sizable chunk along the Breitbart/Fox/Hannity continuum) and the corruption of the mainstream media itself as this episode.

Can a brother get an AMEN?

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Meanwhile, In Nerd Valley

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Since I can only concentrate on one thing at a time, like everyone else who Loves America™ and whose vote really counts, I wasn’t able to post a couple of links that I found interesting while Shirleygate was going on. Now that we have begun our long national process of healing, perhaps a few of you may be ready to divert your attention from the tedium of race relations to the fascinating world of technology.

First, the FCC did another cool thing that pisses off the major wireless carriers. They approved a giant “wholesale” wireless network using the 4G LTE (that’s fourth generation, long-term evolution, the new faster communication standard that all US carriers will probably use). What’s given Verizon and AT&T butthurt is the FCC’s ruling that the #1 and #2 wireless carriers in the US can’t use it without FCC approval.

A “wholesale” network is one that sells bandwidth to everyone. The existence of a nationwide, wholesale network could spawn a bunch of non-traditional competitors (like retailers) who lease and resell bandwidth on the network. It also lessens the capital costs of also-rans like Sprint and T-Mobile, who will be able to use the wholesale network in places where they haven’t built towers. (Currently those companies use Verizon and AT&T’s networks, respectively, for roaming.)

Those of you looking for an update on the next generation of nuclear reactors will find one by atomicrod guest posting on the Oil Drum. He examines a few of the new, smaller designs, some of which feature complete passive cooling (no pumps to fail). They are designed to replace existing coal-fired plants.

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Find the girl, Mr. Gittes

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I find this story fascinating in a Chinatown/Citizen Kane kind of way: a senile Sumner Redstone (head of Viacom and CBS) called reporter Peter Lauria and left a rambling voice message about trying to figure out who was bad-mouthing Redstone’s girl-band project the “Electric Barbarellas”. The reporter goes public with the call — along with a subsequent interview of Redstone — and is trashed by CNBC “journalist” Dennis Kneale for doing so. (It goes without saying that Kneale is a toady and an embarrassment to his so-called profession.)

What I really like is the content of Redstone’s voicemail message:

“You may be reluctant, but we have to have [for the lawsuit] the name of the person who gave you that story,” Redstone says in the voicemail, the “we” being himself and Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman. “We’re not going to kill him. We just want to talk to him. We’re not going to fire him. We just want to talk to him.” (As Frank Biondi, Mel Karmazin, Tom Freston, and even Tom Cruise can attest, Redstone is famous for such tolerance about opposing viewpoints, and would surely never fire someone just on a whim.)

Redstone went on to say: “You will be thoroughly protected. We’re not going to hurt this guy. We just want to sit him down and find out why he did what he did. You will not in any way be revealed. You will be well-rewarded and well-protected.”

There’s something about the story that is perfect: crazy old billionaire falls in love with an all-girl band, launches scorched-earth campaign to find the person who has been bad-mouthing said band, then has his minions in the media trash the reporter who writes about the campaign. It’s a timeless American story of greed, cowardice, lust, and lunacy.

And the good guy in the story is named Peter Lauria! You can’t make this stuff up.

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A Cranky Open Thread

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Haven’t had one of these in at least a day or two, but I’m kinda cranky. I think it is the heat- I should have waited until tomorrow morning to cut my grass.

This did make me a touch happier, though.

*** Update ***

BTW- I have been out of the stereo market for so long, I no longer have the first clue what constitutes high-end speakers any more. Anyone an audiophile? I have some NHT’s I like, but the center speaker died and I am thinking about buying a whole new system and putting the other two up on ebay. One of these days.

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