Open Threads

Sorry for the lack of real posts this week- just a lot going on and it is getting nice out, so I have been spending a bit more time out and about.

I did spend an hour at AAA today getting some titles and license plate stuff taken care of, and it was really weird. It was like being transported back in time to 1982. It was staffed by a bunch of plump and elderly women, and there was only one old IBM computer in the entire joint. I was the only client this side of 70 at the place, and they filled everything out by hand and I even got a hand written receipt, and I can’t remember the last time that happened. There was no music playing, an old fashioned clock on the wall like I have not seen since middle school, and all the old industrial strength furniture that was modern in the 80’s. I guess everyone just goes to the DMV to do this stuff, but I always went to AAA in the past and see no reason why I should change. I have no idea if the AAA is dying off, not that everyone can google maps and there are satellites directions in cars and whatnot, so the triptik is not that valuable anymore, but for some reason I found it oddly comforting that the AAA office was still there, still in the mall where no one else is anymore next to the Super K-Mart, and still doing things just the way they have for the last 40 years.

Alright, off to the couch to test drive that new cop show on NBC- Southland, I think.

*** Update ***

There are a lot of “I’s” in this post. ME ME ME ME ME ME ME.

*** Update #2 ***

Southland looks really promising. They have the guy who played Bull Randell in Band of Brothers in one of the roles- always like him in these kinds of parts. I still have never forgiven NBC for canceling Boomtown.

Open ThreadPost + Comments (80)

I have a feeling one of you wrote this as a joke.

Norfolk, Va.: Massive anti-waste, anti-corruption, anti-government-bloat Tea Parties scheduled for April 15 — tax day. Will The Washington Post cover them?

Note: you trot out an investigative crew every time a race-baiting Al Sharpton feels offended or some smelly ACORN hippies protest a patchouli shortage. Do you feel like a hypocrite for ignoring the Tea Parties?

If it’s serious, I still maintain that we should be happy he’s spending his time tea-bagging and writing crazy questions rather than amassing ammo.

Best WaPo chat question everPost + Comments (123)

Rather than hastily post something else I am wrong about, here is an open thread.

Busy.

Open ThreadPost + Comments (56)

From the Politico’s breathless piece about Pete Hoekstra’s crazy plan to amend the constitution:

Hoekstra last week introduced a bill in the House to amend the U.S. Constitution to permanently “enshrine” in American society an inviolable set of parents’ rights. The bill had 70 co-sponsors, all Republicans, including Minority Whip Eric Cantor and Minority Leader John A. Boehner.

The bill, said Hoekstra, is intended to stem the “slow erosion” of parents’ rights and to circumvent the effects of a United Nations treaty he believes “clearly undermines parental rights in the United States.”

[….]

While a treaty that seeks to protect children may sound innocuous, its opponents, such as Michael Farris, the Christian conservative founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, see in it a dystopian future in which “Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children”;

It’s always, always, always about something like spanking or diapers or torture with these people. Lest we forget, supporting spanking is what put James Dobson on the map

The right to spank shall not be infringedPost + Comments (120)

Via Pandagon, this bit of crazy from Rick Warren:

RW: Actually, I have what, Hugh, I’ve had it for almost 40 years. I call it a warnings file. And every time I watch somebody, and Satan has no temptations that are new. It’s either money, sex or power. It’s lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life, and you have to know the antidotes, and you have to set up the parameters that keep you from even being tempted in those areas, which means for instance, I’m never alone, ever, ever alone with a woman, or even my myself when I’m traveling.

I suppose covering all women from head to toe in Burkha’s Saddleback Chastitywear might be another idea. I guess if this keeps him from breaking down and having an affair, well, ok, but how little impulse control must you have that you can’t be around members of the opposite sex or you might cheat on your wife? And don’t the women have any say in this, or is it just a given that once they get the Rick alone, it is just going to happen?

*** Update ***

Several of you have stated he may do this to avoid the appearance of impropriety, and not just because he has temptations he can not handle. That would make complete sense, considering how important appearances are in his line of work. That isn’t, however, what he seems to be saying, but if it is, I can understand it. This may be a case in which it was much clearer that he was talking about the appearance of impropriety if you heard him speaking rather than just read a transcript of it.

*** Update #2 ***

Commenter AnneLaurie brings it home for us dim bulbs:

I’m amused that nobody seems to have noticed Pastor Warren palming the pea in his shell game. He explicitly mentions three, count ‘em three, varieties of Eternal Sinfulness—and then reassures his audience that he makes sure he can never be busted for Sin Category Two. So while y’all are sniffing around checking his underwear for unauthorized emissions, Pastor Warren’s free to steal with both hands and to enforce his wildest dreams of authoritarianism. Like any good magician, he’s got the audience focused on the cheap, shiny “sex” props to distract them from the “money” and “power” manipulations that are the real prizes (temptations) in the Public Sanctimony magic show!

Got me.

This Is Just WeirdPost + Comments (130)